How I Ate Down My Fridge

The pretty much empty fridge . . . want a beer? or some jam? a different condiment perhaps?


I made it to the end of the week. As I said, I don't really beebop over to the grocery store all that often but, just like Mother Hubbard, my cupboards are bare right now! I'm am off on a major food run to restock this joint. I don't think that I ever would have made it through the week though if I didn't have plenty of eggs, milk, and cheese around. The meat that I had in the freezer helped too. I also think that it must have been easier for me because I'm cooking for one (or two when Dudley's around) and it just means that I'm less likely to run out of something unexpectedly. I have a feeling that it'd be so much harder if I had a household full of people!


I made lasagna one night and that used up the rest of my ricotta cheese that was hanging around from the super-awesome pancakes (as well as some mozzarella cheese and spinach). For my last foray into cooking down the kitchen, I made chicken marsala. I had some crimini mushrooms hanging around, just desperate to be used. I put some of them in the sauce for the lasagna but that still left me with about half of them. I was trying to ponder recipes that call for mushrooms and I came up with quiche, risotto, and chicken marsala. Now, I like mushrooms but I certainly don't love them so I decided that chicken marsala was the way to go. Besides, I'd gotten a bottle of Marsala wine a while in anticipation of making this meal . . . and I still hadn't made it . . . it was just time. Problem: 6 crimini mushrooms do not chicken marsala make. No matter, I just added some onions. I served the chicken over egg papperadele from Trader Joes and I thought it was absolutely fantastic. The true test: Dudley, the chicken-hater extraordinaire raved about it. I'm pretty sure he wished I'd used some form of red meat rather than chicken but he loved it nonetheless. I'm also confident that my chicken marsala is supremely not authentic. For one thing, I'm nearly positive that I added too much tomato paste and bacon. I was overwhelemed with the spirit of using up things at that point, what can I say? For another, as I mentioned before, my sauce was comprised of equal parts onions and mushrooms. Lastly, I didn't have a shallot. Maybe this isn't such a big deal but I love shallots and I think that it would have been even better had I been able to use them. However, there will definitely be a next time because I loved this dinner.


Note: I actually had this post ready to go with the recipe included and then I read Mary's (the Food Libriarian) post about Cook's Illustrated and their bajiggity-ness about their recipes. I like the magazine but I think that the cookbook offers more bang for the buck. Anyway, this recipe comes from Cook's Illustrated's The New Best Recipe if you're interested in making it. Or, you can google "Cook's Illustrated's Chicken Marsala" and get the recipe from people who have asked for permission to print it exactly as is (I fiddled with the recipe, apparently a big no-no in CI land so I can't do that). Or, you can just email me and I will gladly send you the recipe.