Friday Night Menu, Comfort food

Oven Fried Chicken, Mashed Cream Cheese Potatoes, Sausage Pecan Stuffing, Cranberry Golden Raisin Chutney and Steamed Green Beans
I have recently organized all recipes I wanted to try from Martha Stewart magazines and I made this whole menu from 3 different issues. The oven chicken is from the August 2008 issue, It's a great recipe I made it one other time for the neighbors and the one problem was that the breast meat was dry, so this time I made only legs and thighs and it was fantastic! You marinate the chicken in eggs, Tabasco, garlic and an onion. Then it's coated in wondra flour, yellow cornmeal, salt, paprika and cayenne pepper then baked for a total of 50-60 minutes, brushing with olive oil towards the end, you would never know it's not deep fried.

Mashed cream cheese potatoes are yummy too, from November 2008. Normally I would never beat potatoes in the Kitchen Aid, but as long as you do it quickly, they turn out creamy and not gummy at all (which can happen if you mix it too much you will develop the gluten), you just beat in the cream cheese and butter at room temperature, milk and cream (heated) salt and pepper.

Sausage pecan stuffing, also from November 2008, was a winner. We will definitely make this one for the next Thanksgiving meal. I am not normally a mushroom person but I have been eating cremini mushrooms lately and they are pretty good. This recipe has hot Italian sausage in it and we don't mind the spice but some people might like to use half sweet and half hot for a happy medium.

Cranberry golden raisin chutney from the same November 2008 is also good, I couldn't find fresh cranberries at the store, not even the frozen ones so I just added a couple handfuls of dried cranberries and since they are already sweetened I just added a couple Tbsp of sugar instead of the 1/2 Cup the recipe called for. There is also an apple cut up in this recipe which helps with the sweetness. With all the changes it was really good.

The steamed green beans are just steamed until perfection and a drizzle of olive oil salt and pepper to finish them off.

Chocolate Bunt Cake with White Chocolate Whipped Cream and Fresh Blackberry Sauce
This bunt cake is in the December 2008 magazine and every time I flipped through the pages and saw that cake it made my mouth water so I finally made it. Instead of the chocolate glaze that the recipe has, I decided to just dust it with confectioners sugar. I had just gotten some blackberries for a great price so I wanted to use them somehow. I was looking at Food Network's site and I came across one of Bobby Flay's recipes (of course, he loves his blackberries), and it was blackberry-white chocolate fool with toasted hazelnuts. I broke it down and just did the blackberries macerated in sugar and cassis (I used chambord), then you mash up half of the berries and strain them. I was also intrigued by the white chocolate whipped cream part, I don't think I ever did that before, really good, it has the texture of whipped cream but the flavor of white chocolate. The combination was quite sinful, I must say.