This week, the Roediger House is playing host to a friend and education colleague from Roanoke, music teacher and fellow CRISS trainer Jeremy Craft. Jeremy is one of those great easy-going guests who can jump in to help when I need it and who works away at the kitchen table on schoolwork when I'm deep in dinner prep. He also doesn't mind an experimental meal, which is how I came to pursue this evening's invented dish.
When I lived in Raleigh, I'd say that my favorite restaurant was The Rathskellar, located on Hillsborough Street across from North Carolina State University. The five-cheese grilled cheese was an awesome lighter/lunch meal, but I particularly loved their creamy basil chicken and especially their Mojack City (chicken, angel hair pasta, and a delicious green chile and feta sauce). They also had fantastic nightly specials. This place was special enough for out of town guests but also perfect even for regular old week-night meals with co-workers or my roommate at the time, Jay Brown.
I miss that place--it's been closed a long time, I understand. I have made a reasonable approximation of the creamy basil chicken, and my own attempts at adult grilled cheese sandwiches are not particularly shabby. But I have yet to attempt to replicate the Mojack City chicken over angel hair.
Until tonight. Don't get too excited, though: it was a failed effort that still resulted in a tasty meal.
Rarely do I attempt an almost-completely-made-up dish...I'm too much of a recipe-follower to experiment all that much. I am likely to try this again sometime, but first I'd like to consult with Jay and with at least one of those former teaching colleagues who ate there regularly with me, Mary Jones. (Mary loved the lemon tahini dressing that the Rathskeller made in-house.)
After my less-than-impressive take on my sister Allison's butterhorn rolls earlier this week, I was in the mood to try some other dinner roll recipe. Using some random recipe card that came in the mail (part of a solicitation to subscribe to The Baking School), I produced the following:
Flavor wasn't bad, but these had the problem of being sort of on the dry side, which is the problem I had with the butterhorn rolls. I've got a pile of dinner roll recipes to sort through and sample, though, so this is not the end of the story.
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