Stuffed Mushrooms with Brie and a Scallion Gremalata (from P Dub's blog):
Mushrooms (I used baby bellas but white buttons are fine and cheaper), Green Onion (2 bunches), 5 cloves of garlic, handful of flat leaf parsley, salt, 1/4 stick of butter, splash of white wine or sherry (optional).
Take stems out and throw away or save them to make cream of mushroom soup or spaghetti sauce another day. Wash the caps. Heat 1/2 the butter in a skillet. Toss the caps and salt lightly. Let them hang out and cook for about 4 minutes to start the whole cooking process. Place all the caps in a pie plate or baking dish. I made about 20 caps. Place one little square of brie cheese without the rind in the center of each cap. In the same skillet, add the rest of the butter and throw in the garlic, chopped green onion and chopped parsley. Salt lightly. Cook until tender being very careful not the burn the garlic. Don't let it caramelize, just sort of heat it through and let the flavors get to know each other. If you like, add a splash of white wine and let it evaporate. This will help get all the good bits of stuff up from the bottom of the pan and makes the whole thing taste amazing. Spoon it over the mushroom caps that you stuffed with the cheese. Bake at 350 until everything is bubbly and oozy and the mushrooms are tender. Serve on little plates with plenty of the topping and a little bit of liquid. If you want these to be a finger food, then don't top with the liquid and transfer them to a platter after you bake them. Such a fantastic appetizer for the holidays OR for Thursday night. This was my favorite part of the meal.
Mixed Green Salad:
Whatever sort of salad you like, make it. There are no rules to a tossed green salad. A non creamy dressing goes best with this meal because your pasta is very rich and creamy and decadent so keep the dressing on the light side. A balsamic vinaigrette is perfect but so would poppy seed, Italian, Red Wine Vinaigrette etc. The pasta does have peas in it, so technically, a green vegetable isn't necessary. If you leave out the salad, increase the amount of peas in the pasta.
Chicken Spaghetti Carbonera (From Giada on Food Network -This is amazing you guys really):
1 pound of spaghetti (don't use angel hair or thin spaghetti, the cheap old fashioned dried spaghetti noodles are best), 1 rotisserie chicken or 4 cups of shredded chicken meat, 4 slices of thick cut bacon or eight circles of pancetta, 3 or 4 cloves of garlic minced or put through garlic press, 1 cup Parmesan cheese grated (this is not the time to skimp on the quality - get the good stuff. I used my micro plane to grate it super fine), 1 cup frozen peas, 1 teaspoon black pepper, 8 egg yolks, 2 cups whipping cream, 1/2 cup toasted chopped walnuts (do not leave this out), 1 TB lemon zest, 1 TB additional Parmesan cheese grated, 1/4 cup chopped parsley, 1/4 cup fresh basil, salt to taste at the end.
In a very large skillet with sides, add the bacon and the garlic. Cook on medium low, very slowly, cooking the bacon until done but not overly crispy and being careful not the burn the garlic. Pick the meat off a rotisserie chicken until you get about 4 cups of meat. Add the chicken meat and the frozen peas to the cooked bacon in the skillet. Heat it through. In a large pot of salted water at a rolling boil, cook the spaghetti until al dente. Do not overcook the pasta because you will continue to cook it after it boils. In a large mixing bowl, place the egg yolks, cream, cup of cheese, parsley, basil and pepper. Whisk all together. When pasta is done, take out noodles with tongs and place in the skillet with the chicken, bacon and peas. Pour in the egg/cream mixture and heat it slowly while you are tossing the mixture together. The sauce will begin to thicken. Be careful not to boil or simmer or you will end up with scrambled eggs. Taste it for seasoning and add more salt and pepper if needed. The bacon or pancetta will make it salty so it should not need a lot of salt but might need some. Once it starts to thicken, transfer it to a large, shallow pasta bowl. While the noodles were cooking, mix toasted walnuts, lemon zest and TB of Parmesan in a little bowl or Ziploc baggie. Top the hot pasta with the nut/lemon/cheese mixture. This gives it this amazing crunch and touch of acid which is really needed so don't leave this step out. If you don't like walnuts, you could use toasted pine nuts or pecans. Just be sure to toast them! This was Katie, Dad and Mom's favorite part of the meal.
Rosemary Rolls With Sea Salt:
Buy a package of frozen dinner rolls. I used Bridgeford but Rhodes or any other brand is fine. You just need the kind that have to thaw and then rise for three hours. Melt 1/4 stick of butter, cut about 1 or 2 TB of rosemary leaves with scissors and set aside. Crush sea salt until it has the texture and size of kosher salt. If you have a salt grinder, that's fine too.
In an iron skillet or an oven safe skillet about 8 or 10 inches in diameter place 6 rolls. Five around the outside and one in the middle. You can use a pie plate or a baking dish. Just make sure the rolls have plenty of room to rise but that when risen, they will be touching. Liberally butter the dish, place the frozen rolls in the skillet, brush with butter and place in a warm area of the kitchen that doesn't get drafty. Cover with a dish towel. (I heated my oven to 180 degrees, turned it off and placed my skillet inside with a dish towel over it.) Walk away for about 3 to 4 hours. They will rise a lot. Lightly brush the tops with butter being careful not to push to hard or they will fall. Sprinkle with rosemary and sea salt. Let them rise for about another 30 to 40 minutes. Bake at 400 degrees until very golden brown on top. Brush again with butter and serve directly from the skillet on the table. I know these rolls take a bit of planning ahead due to the rising time, but there is no kneading or flour mess and the texture and end product is every bit as good as any homemade baked roll. The flavor is similar to foccacia bread or the bread at macaroni grill but is waaaayyyyy better. This was Jessica and Mike's favorite part of the meal.
