American Twist on an Italian Classic

I l-o-v-e Pasta Carbonara. It's one of my most favorite Italian dishes. While leafing through my collection of Cook's Country magazines, I found an interesting recipe for a Carbonara Casserole. Hm...could be interesting. It was awesome! The whole dish is cooked in the same skillet, so there's less dishes for David. Delicious dinner + less washing up = happy husband. :-D

Here it is when pan comes out of the broiler.

And this is my bowl, I kind of mixed it all up so the crumb topping was all through out.

A couple new recipes

Here's a couple of new recipes that I tried this week.

First is Crunchy Buttermilk Baked Chicken by Cook's Country.

This one was very easy. Take chicken, we chose tenders, brine in buttermilk, sour cream, ranch seasoning and salt. Then take toasted homemade breadcrumbs (in my case Ritz Cracker crumbs) and combine with remaining Ranch seasoning. Toss the chicken and bake. The result: tangy, tender chicken.

Next I tried a recipe from their 30-Minute Supper Magazine: Potato Crusted Halibut.

I didn't use Halibut because I realized on our recent trip to the UK I really like Haddock. True the title of the magazine, it only takes 30 minutes. You whip up a sort of tartar sauce using mayo (olive oil mayo in my case), dijon mustard, capers, chives and S&P. Spread a tablespoon of that over the top of each piece of fish, then press in grated potato pieces. You brown the fish in a pan and then finish off in the oven. (for me the hard part was getting the pressed potato coated fish in the pan and have it come out looking pretty...not so much) The leftover mayo sauce is great to serve on the side. The crispy potato topping is like hash browns, then combined with the tangy sauce underneath...tasty! And hey...it got me to eat a fish dinner.