Cheever Sauce

Cooking comes pretty natural to me. Am I coming off too arrogant? I should pat myself on the back a couple more times and submit my blog to the James Beard Foundationwith a statement like that. But what I mean by that is, cooking just makes sense to me. I get it. Chess? No. Cooking? Yes. So it came as a surprise to me that while I was surfing other food blogs for recipe ideas, a pretty basic Italian dish…sort of stumped me. I can’t put a finger on exactly what was so confusing to me about the idea of a rollatini, it seamed simple enough, but I nevertheless felt uncomfortable with the idea of rolling up some ingredients, in a breaded additional ingredient, topped with some more ingredients, and then baking it. Would this even work? Even the name of it -rollatini - sounded so foreign and uncertain to me. #foodbloggerproblems

 I guess because I never ate rollatinis growing up, and wasn’t familiar with the dish, (I’m guessing I spent my whole life scanning over it at Italian restaurants, in between the veal parmesean and pasta bolognese) I was sort of stumped out of pure jealousy. As a huge fan of stacking, why hadn’t I ever thought to roll up my ingredients and bake them all together? It’s genius. All of the sudden everywhere I looked I found a rollatini On menus, my interns leftover lunch, even a friend posted it to her food blog (Jewtalian - check her out!). So I decided it was time to buckle down and make some rollatini. With a protein craving paving the way, I decided to go the chicken route.

Apparently, you can roll anything inside a chicken. Chicken rollatini with zucchini and mozaarella, chicken rollatini Alfredo, Chicken rollatini with asparagus and pancetta…the sky’s the limits with this poultry, and while the options are endless, I decided to go basic. I found this recipe on Skinny Taste and boy does that Gina know how to lighten up a dish without sacrificing flavor. The whole process was extremely easy and painless and the end result was a perfect winter dish. The best part is that you’re getting all your flavors in one bite, and everything comes together in a simple and elegant way. I can’t wait to try a different version next time I cook it - and now that I am no longer a rollatini virgin, it’s time to get down and dirty - eggplant I’m looking at you.

Read on for the recipe adapted from Skinny Taste!

This weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to cook a fabulous feast with the one and only Maria Taylor. This really just consisted of me sitting at her kitchen table with my computer, typing out her instructions as she cooked - but hey, I stirred the pot for a little so I feel like it’s ok for me to post the meal here. 

The morning this meal was made, I woke up at my friend’s house on Lake Waramaug and felt ambitious enough to tackle an early morning run with my friend Pat. What started off as an easy breezy 3 mile run turned into:

Me: “Oh my goodness, this is just like the most perfect morning, and it is SOOOO beautiful out here. Pat - I feel like we might just need to run the whole lake.”

Pat: “Yeah sure, I could do that.”

Me: (Sudden intense moment of panic and regret where I realize Pat just completed a triathlon and the last time I ran the 8 mile lake run was my senior year in high school…barely.) “…Ok let’s do it!”

Needless to say, 2 more miles in, Pat left me in the dust and I was left to fend for myself for another 5 grueling miles. For some, this is an excellent time to for self-reflections and soul searching. For me, this was an excellent time for me to figure out what I wanted for dinner. While I ran (slash walked - who are we kidding?) around probably the most beautiful lake in CT, all I could think of was one thing: PASTA. The lake inspired me to run (pun intended!) with the idea of a shellfish based dish (and yes I know clams and mussels don’t come from lakes), so afterwards, I let Maria know what was to be the dish of the night. 

To Make Marinara Sauce: 
I have never made a homemade tomato sauce in my life. It always just seemed silly with all the rows and rows of tomato sauce jars at the supermarket. I decided it was time to learn and I thought who better to teach me then an Italian mother. A chef from the South of Italy taught Maria that you NEVER make marinara sauce without your hands because you will completely bruise and take all of the flavor out of the tomato if you use knife or blender. So…