1920s, Valentines Day, and Chicken Marsala

well, Valentine's Day is over and all its related festivities. I never thought it would snow in February much less on any special occasion. On Thursday I pitied myself and how I just didn't feel like cooking. Well, the wintry weather took care of that. What could be better than being huddled up indoors with your favorite people, cooking and drinking and listening to records? I mentioned the St. Valentines Day Massacre party Andrew and I were attending with our friends Katie and Jeremy - it was a blast and no one broke the 1920s/gangster dress code.
for our Valentines date we saw a double-feature at The Nickelodeon: An Education and A Single Man. An Education was less intense than I expected, but better overall. I thought it was much more conclusive than I thought it would be in the end, and I loved so many of its characters. My favorite character was Miss Stubbs for her stubbornness, solid advice and wisdom, decisiveness on what was right and fearlessness to say it, but her grace and love that she gave to Jenny when she finally came back around. A Single Man is a lot harder to talk about and you will just have to go see it. It was sad, a little window into an unknown world for me, and I liked the color saturation/desaturation effects they played with. It was a little slow overall but I think that was part of what helps a conventional crowd eventually identify with an unconventional character.

so, I know I have been rambling on about non-food related things so I will cut to the chase! Chicken Marsala was on the menu for Valentines Day, and it turned out delicious with a few glitches (like, all the sauce stuck to the chicken in the pan and so all that was left in the skillet was oil to pour over. We were looking for more of a gravy to add to our pasta and chicken after serving). I used Tyler Florence's recipe with my own modifications (mainly for cost purposes):

4 boneless/skinless breasts, sliced lengthwise to make thin
All-purpose flour for coating
S/P
1/4 c. EVOO
8 oz. portabella mushrooms, stemmed and sliced
1/2 c. dry marsala wine
1/2 c. chicken stock
2 T unsalted butter
fresh parsley

Prepare the chicken and a large skillet with 1/4 c. EVOO on medium-high heat. In a dish, mix flour, sea salt and freshly ground pepper, stirring with a fork to mix well. Coat all sides of each chicken cutlet in flour and pan-fry in skillet for 5 minutes on each side, until done. Set aside and keep warm. Start pasta water to boil.

In the skillet, saute mushrooms until moisture has left and they are browned. Deglaze pan with 1/2 c. marsala wine and simmer ~2 minutes to cook out alcohol. Add 1/2 c. chicken stock, letting simmer for a few more minutes to reduce. Add the butter and stir in well, adding cooked fried chicken to coat in sauce. Add parsley - serve onto plates over bowtie pasta, putting lots of mushrooms on each plate!

We made green beans (great job Andrew) to go with our marsala. yum yum.

pizza, Guinness & snow!

my joy was returned to me yesterday about 4:30. it started SNOWING! snowing! in Columbia! and then, the unthinkable happened - it KEPT snowing. and then I watched the snow start sticking to trees! and then to cars! and then to city pavement! there is something so sweet about watching snow fall through a window. you can only imagine what it might feel like, taste like, how cold it might be, and you get to be just above the ground and see it in action. it's the perfect bird's eye view. but then you do all of those things you imagined, touch it taste it play in it, and it is everything you wanted it to be and you can't even express it.

so I opted to delay playing or traveling for awhile to huddle up in my cozy little apartment. I flipped through recipe books and landed on homemade pizza to make - Austin and Megan went off to a movie, Andrew was working, Lydia and Carley are gone for the weekend - the perfect occasion for solitude, scavenging for toppings and looking out a snowy window while rolling out dough.

about 8:00 I realized I did not, in fact, have all of the ingredients I needed. I was missing a crucial ingredient for pizza, beer. that's right, I decided to go to the grocery store. about 4 inches of snow had already accumulated on my car - after 10 minutes of improvising I finally got my car cleared off and headed for the grocery (let me just say, I love Stick Shifts), picked up some Guinness, PBR and chocolate (duh), and headed back home to be welcomed by my friends, finish off the pizza process, and settle in to a cozy, warm, cold, playful, wet, exhilarating, rare night in the snow.
and then this morning i (accidentally) rose at 6:45, went outside to take pictures with my Canon (coming soon), and made buttermilk biscuits with maple syrup!

Tonight I am looking forward to a St. Valentines Massacre party with some friends - attire is 1920s/gangster. I am going for a cross between these 1920s beauties:













well that has absolutely nothing to do with food, so adieu.