Every month, our Dgroup takes a break from all the serious spiritual talks and goes out to unwind and have fun. And for our first Dgroup activity, we did cooking!

For our viand, we cooked Chicken Ole. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

4 boneless chicken breasts; pounded thinly

salt and pepper to taste

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (seasoned with salt, pepper, and 3 tablespoons of chopped fresh basil leaves)

4 extra large eggs, beaten with 2 tablespoons water

2 cups dry breadcrumbs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup olive oil

1 1/2 cups tomato sauce

3/4 to 1 cup quick-melt cheese

chopped fresh basil leaves for garnish

chopped fresh parsley leaves for garnish

And then you just toss everything in, LOL. Sorry, I don't really know the specifics of this dish but it was sooo delicious. Props to the trio who made this!


We also made carbonara. But it wasn't the usual carbonara with cream and spaghetti noodles. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 pound linguine or spaghetti
6 strips bacon, diced
4 egg yolks
1 cup grated Parmesan
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (available at home)
1/4 teaspoon black pepper (available at home)
1/2 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped (available at home)


How to make it
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cook the pasta according to the package directions.
Meanwhile, fry the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat. Transfer to a paper towel and reserve the drippings.
In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Still whisking constantly, add 2 tablespoons of the drippings. Working quickly, add the drained pasta and Parmesan to the yolk mixture and toss to combine. Add the salt, pepper, parsley, and bacon. Serve immediately.
Tip: Use pancetta instead of bacon when you want to splurge or increase the flavor.


(http://www.grouprecipes.com/5979/pasta-carbonara.html)

Since I'm a pasta-lover, I volunteered to cook it. But the thing weird about that recipe was that the sauce was made from egg yoke and bacon drippings instead of the usual cream sauce. Anyway, we cooked too many pasta and the 'sauce' was not enough so, yeah, it turned out a bit of a disaster. But no worries. It was still edible and nobody complained of food poisoning or LBM the next day. Anyway, here's a snapshot of our 'masterpiece' - if one would call it a masterpiece :P:


And of course, desert! Racs worked on that one. She made amazing fruit salad!