Stella McCartney's Two Tone Pump (courtesy of Bergdorf's)
CHICKEN PARM (NO CARB OPTIONAL)
DIFFICULTY LEVEL: OY VAY!
*
This recipe is so good; you will be praised after dinner. Literally. Your man will be reciting the Haggadah. You will be a trophy wife in no time. Seriously, though, this is one of my staples. Every woman should know how to make an absolutely scrumptious PARMESAN! **
• Chicken cutlets• Italian Breadcrumbs (optional)
• 1 can or jar of Marinara sauce (NO chunks)
• 1 bag of shredded Pizza Cheese (aka Mozzarella)
Dip your cutlets into breadcrumbs. No need for egg. With no breading, coat the chicken in garlic powder and dried basil. Put cutlets in a pyrex dish in your oven at 375 for 20 mintues. Bake through (this means no pink chicken!) Take out of oven, while you add your Marinara and top with a hearty helping of cheese. Pop it back in the oven until the cheese browns. Take out of oven. Breathe Deep. Serve.
How to Plate: Chicken Parmesan looks best on top of a small pile of pasta (or salad if you are eating light!)
Parve: To make this dish a kosher delicacy, THINK AGAIN. Just kidding. You can always replace the chicken with eggplant. For Eggplant Parmesan—pre-bake the sliced eggplant in the oven with dashes of salt for about 15 minutes. Follow rest of recipe.
TURKEY CHILI
DIFFICULTY LEVEL: OY!
On a cold winter ski day in
Although not very experienced, I was able to keep up (for the most part) with my pro-level ski friends.
On the last run of the day, after a few beers, I decided to take another route.
Unfortunately, the path I chose was a double black diamond with MOGULS.
After a rough ride down, and a long day on the slopes, I make this to warm our bellies:
**
- Garlic, minced, 1 tablespoon
- 1lb ground turkey
- Chili powder
- 1 can of black and / or white beans, drained (I use one of each)
- Picante sauce (glass jar), mild or spicy
- 1 can of stewed tomatoes (with liquid)
- 1 medium onion
- Blue corn tortilla chips for dippin!
Chop and cook the onions and garlic in pan with a bit of olive oil. Let them soften and add turkey and cook through (break it up in little pieces... not patties.) Add (5-7) dashes of chili powder to meat and onions as it cooks.
In a big pot, add: Picante, 1 can of stewed tomatoes with juice, beans (drained) and cooked turkey/onions/garlic mixture. Mix all together and add 4 tablespoons of chili powder... or more to taste! Put top on pot and keep at medium-low heat, stir every 5 minutes for 20 minutes. Let pot sit on low or off... keep stirring and enjoy!
How to Plate: Spoon into bowl. Add a dollop of sour cream or guacamole and insert one tortilla chip to stand upright in center of bowl.
Trief: Add cheese or sour cream! Goy it up!
MY GLOSSARY OF YIDDISH TERMS
A Gezunt Dir in Pupik: May you have good health and prosper
Alta Cocker: An old geezer
Bubbala / Bubbe: Grandma, a loved one
Chicken Cutlet: Something yummy and delicious
Chutzpah: Nerve
Drek!: Shit!
Ess gezunterhait: Eat in good health
Geferlekh: Awful
Geshmak: Delicious, savory, yummy
Getting “Nicole Richie” on You: Becoming slightly anorexic
Goy / Goyim / Goyisha: A non-Jew, something very WASPy
Keppie / Keppalah: Forehead
Khozzerye: Junk food
Klutz: Mess-maker, clumsy
Kosher Chicken Stock: Something usually very salty
Kvell and Plotz: Be proud and explode
Kvetch: Complain, whine
Macher: Big shot, boss, ambitious person
Mazel Tov: Congratulations
Meeskite Nafka / Nafka: Ugly Whore, a real slut
Mensh: A do-gooder, humanitarian
Meshuggeneh: A crazy person
Mirkennen lecken di finger: Finger lickin’ good!
Mishpucha: Family
Mitzvah: A good deed
Neshoma: Soul
Nosh: To snack, a snack
Oy Gevalt!: Holy shit!
Oy vez mear!: Woe is me!
Parshoin: A hero
Parve / Parave: Kosher
Pork Chop: Something not Parve
Petseleh: Little penis
Schlepping: Drag around
Schmaltz / Schmaltzy: Chicken fat, sentimental, corny, glitzy
Schmuck: A dick, the family jewels
Seafood: Another non-Parve food group
Shiksa: A non-Jew, a Goy female
Shmatte: A rag, a piece of shit
Shmooze: To yap until the cows come home
Shpilkes kishka: Impatient belly
Shtup: To have sex with, make love to
Tchotchke: A shmatte, an adornment
Treif / Treife/ Trayfe: food that is not Kosher, refer to “Seafood”
Tukhes lecher: Butt kisser, brown-noser
Yenta: A loud mouth, a Jewish woman
Zaftig: Plump, juicy, appealing
CHEF'S NOTES
There are a few things I wanted to go over before you start screaming “Oy Gevalt!” and throw your laptop across the kitchen.
COOKING VS. BAKING
I am a cook, not a baker.
Cooking doesn’t really require exact measurements. This is why all of my recipes are “a dash of” this and “a bit of” that. Go with your instincts, be creative. I love pepper in my food and you may love salt – taste your dish as you go and remember—you can always add garlic, but you can’t take it out!
If you don’t get it 100 percent right the first time you make it—there is always next time. Let cooking be an adventure!
PARVE VS. TREIF
Throughout my blog, each recipe will have options in making the dish kosher or non-kosher. My father is strictly parve, while my mom secretly loves bacon cheeseburgers. I guess it’s not a secret anymore.
There is no right or wrong, it’s just how you eat.
ADAM
I mention him often because he is the reason I wrote this. I really didn’t know how to cook much before meeting him. Whether it’s because I love him greatly (or just to stop his kvetching about spending money on sushi every night), I had to figure out a way to keep us home for dinner.
This really meant I had to put on the apron and get to work.
KOSHER AND ORGANIC MEATS
Almost all the meats I refer to are kosher. The reason I stopped buying regular non-kosher chicken is because of all the added hormones in the meat to make the chickens grow larger. Kosher meats are hormone-free and often cost less than “organic” brands. If you can spend the extra dough, go for the schmaltzy stuff!
Don’t be fooled—I still made Chicken Parmesan with my kosher chicken last night.
COOKING CHICKEN
How do you know when the chicken is done? Good question.
My friends who don’t know how to cook ask me this all the time. Here are the rules of thumb for cooking salmonella-free meat: When baking chicken with a marinade-- as the sauce begins to bubble and burn around your cutlets, this is a sure-fire sign the chicken is cooked.
If you are cooking your chicken in a pan, as a beginner, it is always best to pound your chicken. Put your raw cutlets in a plastic bag and pound them with a hammer or empty bottle of wine (now you have an excuse to drink that bottle of red!) to thin the meat.
When you cook meat like this, it takes less time to cook through and there is less room for error. And if you still aren’t sure, feel free to cut one piece in half as you cook to check it out yourself. Make sure you always wash your hands after touching raw meat!
WHAT TO KEEP ON HAND – THE VERY BASICS
I am not a fan of clutter, but there are some things I ALWAYS keep in the kitchen for a quick meal I can drum up!
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper (duh)
Minced Garlic
Dried Basil
Nutmeg and Cinnamon
Ketchup—delicious with fries and also helps fight cancer.
Lemons—they have higher vitamin C than oranges, and are great in everything from tea and diet soda to marinades and dressings.
Frozen spinach, squash, peas and corn—easy and simple sides for any meal.
A GUIDE TO PLATING
As a proper Jewish Princess, I have spent much time in upscale restaurants. There is something about 4 star dining that can make MAC N CHEESE become couture.
The answer is plating. And with plating, less is always more. Get some nice rectangular crisp white plates and follow these rules:
Stack your items. Start with the veggies on the bottom and protein on top. Layer the dish in the center of the plate. Dribble some sauce all over! Salads can be messy. It's not very easy to make them look schmaltzy. If you put less on the plate, it will always look more exquisite.
Plating requires portion control—which means you will eat less… and ultimately look even more fabulous! Be creative and have fun with it.
YIDDISH TERMINOLOGY
I use a lot of Yiddish. Especially when I cook, often yelling “Drek!” All of the terms I use will be located in a glossary I will post shortly.
**Here is my first glossary entry—
COOKING VS. BAKING
I am a cook, not a baker.
Cooking doesn’t really require exact measurements. This is why all of my recipes are “a dash of” this and “a bit of” that. Go with your instincts, be creative. I love pepper in my food and you may love salt – taste your dish as you go and remember—you can always add garlic, but you can’t take it out!
If you don’t get it 100 percent right the first time you make it—there is always next time. Let cooking be an adventure!
PARVE VS. TREIF
Throughout my blog, each recipe will have options in making the dish kosher or non-kosher. My father is strictly parve, while my mom secretly loves bacon cheeseburgers. I guess it’s not a secret anymore.
There is no right or wrong, it’s just how you eat.
ADAM
I mention him often because he is the reason I wrote this. I really didn’t know how to cook much before meeting him. Whether it’s because I love him greatly (or just to stop his kvetching about spending money on sushi every night), I had to figure out a way to keep us home for dinner.
This really meant I had to put on the apron and get to work.
KOSHER AND ORGANIC MEATS
Almost all the meats I refer to are kosher. The reason I stopped buying regular non-kosher chicken is because of all the added hormones in the meat to make the chickens grow larger. Kosher meats are hormone-free and often cost less than “organic” brands. If you can spend the extra dough, go for the schmaltzy stuff!
Don’t be fooled—I still made Chicken Parmesan with my kosher chicken last night.
COOKING CHICKEN
How do you know when the chicken is done? Good question.
My friends who don’t know how to cook ask me this all the time. Here are the rules of thumb for cooking salmonella-free meat: When baking chicken with a marinade-- as the sauce begins to bubble and burn around your cutlets, this is a sure-fire sign the chicken is cooked.
If you are cooking your chicken in a pan, as a beginner, it is always best to pound your chicken. Put your raw cutlets in a plastic bag and pound them with a hammer or empty bottle of wine (now you have an excuse to drink that bottle of red!) to thin the meat.
When you cook meat like this, it takes less time to cook through and there is less room for error. And if you still aren’t sure, feel free to cut one piece in half as you cook to check it out yourself. Make sure you always wash your hands after touching raw meat!
WHAT TO KEEP ON HAND – THE VERY BASICS
I am not a fan of clutter, but there are some things I ALWAYS keep in the kitchen for a quick meal I can drum up!
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper (duh)
Minced Garlic
Dried Basil
Nutmeg and Cinnamon
Ketchup—delicious with fries and also helps fight cancer.
Lemons—they have higher vitamin C than oranges, and are great in everything from tea and diet soda to marinades and dressings.
Frozen spinach, squash, peas and corn—easy and simple sides for any meal.
A GUIDE TO PLATING
As a proper Jewish Princess, I have spent much time in upscale restaurants. There is something about 4 star dining that can make MAC N CHEESE become couture.
The answer is plating. And with plating, less is always more. Get some nice rectangular crisp white plates and follow these rules:
Stack your items. Start with the veggies on the bottom and protein on top. Layer the dish in the center of the plate. Dribble some sauce all over! Salads can be messy. It's not very easy to make them look schmaltzy. If you put less on the plate, it will always look more exquisite.
Plating requires portion control—which means you will eat less… and ultimately look even more fabulous! Be creative and have fun with it.
YIDDISH TERMINOLOGY
I use a lot of Yiddish. Especially when I cook, often yelling “Drek!” All of the terms I use will be located in a glossary I will post shortly.
**Here is my first glossary entry—
Drek!: Shit!
WHAT IS COOKING IN HEELS???
After months of bachelorette parties, bridal showers, and weddings—I realized that most of my Material Girl girlfriends were becoming… domesticated.
We didn't grow up learning how to cook. Or do the dishes.
After a childhood filled with many nights at Chinese, Sushi, Thai and Pizza—I left for college knowing only how to make grilled cheese and reservations.
Being glamorous and fabulous in the kitchen seems like a real contradiction. Who wants to spend hours cooking the perfect meal?
Personally, I would rather go shoe shopping.
COOKING IN HEELS TV (and Blog!) is a collection of both delicious and easy-to-make dishes I have created and learned over the years, using my yenta wit and 4-star dining taste buds.
Whether you're a single working girl in the city, browsing J-Date, getting married, or are moving in with your boyfriend (tall, dark, handsome), my recipes are structured for the "I've never turned on the oven" beginners, the "I'm not really sure if I'm doing this right" cooks and the "I can do that" meshuggeneh know-it- alls.
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