15-Minute Meals

If you’re hungry and don’t have a whole lot of time on your hands, this makes a great mini-meal that is ready in 15 minutes. However, this recipe will only work if you have decent paprika with real flavor to it.

Paprika Chicken
Serves 1

1 clove garlic
3/4 tablespoon Hungarian paprika
1 1/4 tablespoons olive oil
1/3 skinless boneless chicken breast (1 chicken tender cut)

Rub chicken with a small amount of paprika; set aside. Heat olive oil in a small skillet to medium heat. Slice the garlic clove into thin (1/8 inch or thinner) slices. Add garlic and paprika to oil; cook, stirring constantly, for 30 seconds. Add chicken and cook for 7-8 minutes (or until chicken is cooked through), rotating the meat midway through. If the garlic begins to overcook, place garlic slices on top of chicken to cool.

Serve chicken and sauce with a side of fresh spinach.

A Russian Mood

You know, a double dose of Tchaikovsky in two weeks easily puts me in the mood for borscht. I found this delicious recipe only a few months ago, and already I've made it three times. This soup is perfect with some hearty dark bread.

Beet and Cabbage Borscht

Save the beet tops for a quick side dish: just sauté them with garlic and olive oil, sprinkle with lemon, salt and pepper, and serve.
Makes 4-6 servings

3 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 pound russet potatoes, peeled, chopped
2 1/2 cups chopped green cabbage (about 1/4 of small head)
1 large onion, chopped
8 cups (or more) canned vegetable broth
6 2-inch-diameter beets, peeled, chopped
1 cup drained canned chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
8 ounces sour cream
Chopped fresh dill
Lemon wedges

Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add potatoes, cabbage and onion and sauté until cabbage softens, about 5 minutes. Add 8 cups broth, beets and tomatoes. Bring soup to boil. Reduce heat and simmer until vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes.

Working in small batches, puree 4 cups of soup in blender; return to remaining soup in pot. If desired, add more broth by 1/2 cupfuls to thin soup. Add lemon juice; season with salt and pepper.

Ladle soup into bowls. Stir dill into sour cream; garnish soup with sour cream mixture. Serve, passing lemon wedges separately.

The Demigods of Opera

This season at the Lyric Opera of Chicago has taught me many things, one of which is that leading men need not be portly, hairy primos. Friday's performance at the Lyric featured the dreamy, talented Dmitri Hvorostovsky in the main role of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, a role that he has rightly claimed as his own for the time being.

My goodness, what a way to end the 2007-2008 season. Every role was spectacular, an opulent feast of rich music and tones. Dina Kuznetsova put in a spectacular performance as Tatyana, and ably displayed the emotional evolution of the character. But Hvorostovsky stole the show with his glacial portrayal of Onegin. It was heartwrenching to see this character, so controlled and haughty for two acts, to suddenly find himself in the grips of a sincere passion for the one woman that he cannot have. HIs voice was so expressive that little acting was necessary, though his skills there were excellent. He has such a luxurious baritone voice - it was so tempting to close my eyes during his arias, which seemed to translate the Russian lyrics through tone alone. Though I did not have much sympathy for the character, I was deeply moved to see Hvorostovsky, previously poised and chillingly calm, throw himself at the feet of Tatyana, grasp her hands, beg her to love him again. It was beautiful beyond description.

Oh, to think that I have to wait until September for the next season to begin!

Peep Decision '08

The entries are in, and the Chicago Tribune now calls upon the masses to determine the winner of the Peeps Diorama Contest. The top 10 are pretty impressive. Cast your votes now!

Dev, you need to check out the first few of the non-placing entries; there's one there that only you could appreciate.

Meatballs

If you’re like me, and I know I am, mixed-up, indistinguishable foods always inspire suspicion when made by hands other than your own. Casseroles, goulashes, any manner of loaf – you never can tell what has been ground into tiny pieces and added to those things. Hence my natural aversion to meatballs, which always look suspicious when served at restaurants.

A couple years ago, back when I was still living at home and getting three free squares a day (man, those were the days), Mom made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. I absolutely loved them, and the memory lingered so strongly in my mind that during my last Murder Mystery Party, it struck me that Mom’s delicious meatballs would be just the thing to serve to people pretending to be gun-wielding Italian mobsters from the 1920s.

I’ve now made this recipe three times in the past few months. They’re easy to make, easy to serve, and, best of all, they’re baked on a broiling sheet to they don’t come out cooked in their own grease. I highly recommend them for a nice, comforting meal with the ones you love (and with murdering gangsters in pinstriped suits).

Beef Meatballs
Source: Cooking Light
Yields: 30 meatballs (6 servings)

1 1/2 pounds ground round
1/4 cup (1 ounce) finely shredded fresh Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup dry breadcrumbs
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1 teaspoon dry mustard
3/4 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
2 garlic cloves, crushed
Cooking spray

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Combine all ingredients except cooking spray in a bowl; stir well. Shape mixture into 30 (1 1/2-inch) meatballs. Place on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or until done.

My New Best Friend

Both yesterday and today, the Advertising department here at PHC (check out our new website) has been roaming the hallways with video cameras, microphones, and greenscreens, creating our big promotional video for the NASCC show in Nashville. The NASCC is the biggest show in our industry, and we’re throwing a grand dinner for over 300 of our best clients at the end of the show (which will, rumor has it, include a surprise concert appearance by a well-known personality). The video will be shown at the dinner as a “thank you” to our clients for keeping us in business.

A few days ago, the head of Advertising approached me about appearing in the video. While my academic credentials may not seem like much to my engineering counterparts, they seem to imbue me with a variety of talents to be exploited by the other departments. Lately, it appears that my Masters degree gives me the power to speak any Western language, alive or dead, and thus I was asked to prepare a small paragraph thanking our customers, translate it into French, and speak it in front of a greenscreen. I begged to shorten the message, and then began to work on it.

During the weekend, I cast about for assistance, but found none. I did my best to translate the words, but since I’ve never spoken more than about ten words in French up until this point in my life, I couldn’t be sure of their accuracy and my pronunciation. Thankfully, about 15 minutes before I had to perform for the camera today, I stumbled across this site, which seemed to translate my words more accurately than I could myself. And the best part about this site is the translator’s link to another site that produces life-like audio readings of your translation. A very cool website pairing, in my mind, and one that I will probably be using frequently in the future. Click here to hear what I finally said on the video (although I actually pronounced the company name correctly).

Peeps Show

Ahh, Peeps. Sugar-coated, mushy, fluffy Peeps. Nothing so truly conveys the feelings of Easter like a misshapen colored blob of marshmallow.

In the spirit of Easter, the Chicago Tribune is holding a Peeps Show contest, in which readers can send in photos of a homemade Peeps diorama. The diorama can be from a favorite book, movie, historical event, or slice of popular culture, but it must contain at least one Peep. The winner receives $101 (and a few boxes of Peeps, I'm guessing).

The CT got the idea from the Washington Post, which held its own Peeps Show last Easter. Please, please check out the top 22 dioramas - sacchrine-sweet hilarity.