Roasted Chicken

This picture is not doing this bird justice.  This was one fabulous, succulent chicken!

Victor outdid himself tonight.  The dressing was unbelievably good - a sausage and bread dressing using an artisan walnut and raisin bread, cauliflower with bacon, a moist, wonderful, flavorful chicken...  great little challah rolls, and a wonderful homemade cranberry chutney that our dear friend Martha made.

It was a feast.

Roasted chicken is one of the finest foods imaginable.  And I don't care what the folks at any of those national poultry places say - a free range organic chicken is light years apart from those foul factory fowl.  This bird rocked.

Thursday, I'm going to take the rest of the bird and make chicken paninis.  With more of Martha's cranberry chutney, of course.

My stomach is smiling.....


Sweet Potato Bean Soup

The calendar says soup - and the thermometer is finally catching up.  It ain't freezing, but it's cold enough for a big bowl (or two) of soup.

Victor had mentioned bean soup the other day, and I had a couple of sweet potatoes that needed using up, so I merged concepts and came up with a sweet potato bean soup!  This was an easy one.  I'm always picking up a couple of cans of beans at the grocery store, and when I opened the cabinet today, I noticed I had enough to open a restaurant. The creative juices started flowing...

Sweet Potato Bean Soup

  • 1 onion, diced
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
  • 2 qts chicken broth
  • 1 can diced tomatoes
  • 2 cans pink beans
  • 2 cans pinto beans
  • 1 can black beans
  • 4oz pancetta
  • 2 tsp herbs d'provence
  • salt and pepper
  • sour cream for topping

Saute the onion and garlic in a bit of olive oil.  Add the broth and the sweet potatoes.  Cook until very soft.

Puree potatoes and onion with an immersion blender.

Add tomatoes, beans, (I added three cans undrained and 2 cans drained) and seasoning.  Bring to a boil.

Taste for salt and pepper, and add as necessary.

Ladle into bowls and top with sour cream.

Victor made excellent garlic toast to go with it.

Yum.


Beef Wellington and Christmas Pudding

 

One of the fun things about working in a (relatively small) grocery store is seeing all of the food come in every morning.  The cheeses, the breads, the meats... all of it gets my creative gastronomic juices flowing.  As I'm stocking the different products, any number of fantastic dishes and menus are formulated.

Most of it is fantasy - I don't follow through with most of the extravagant things my over-active mind comes up with - but every now and again something clicks and sticks.  Tonight's dinner is a perfect case in point.

I was stocking the fresh meat yesterday when I spied two absolutely perfect filet mignons.  That in itself is not unusual - our steaks are pretty good. What was unusual is that I immediately grabbed them and put them aside for myself.  My immediate thought was individual beef wellingtons.  I haven't had or made beef wellington since I made it for Linda and David almost one year ago to the day!  That dish was Julia Child's classic.  This one was a bit of Julia and a bit of Tim.

Beef Wellington

  • 8oz mushrooms
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 2 shallots
  • 2 slices cooked bacon
  • 1/4 cup brandy
  • 1/2 cup red wine.

Finely dice the mushrooms, shallots, and bacon.  (I used my trusty food processor.)  Saute the mushrooms and shallot in butter until dry.  Add the brandy and cook until dry.  Add the red wine and - you guessed it - cook until dry.  Add a sprinkling of salt and pepper.  Set aside in refrigerator to chill.

Salt and pepper filets and place them in a HOT skillet and sear both sides.  Seconds, only.  Into the refrigerator to chill.  You want everything cold when you put it together.

I used half of a puff pastry sheet per filet, rolling it a bit thinner to be able to wrap completely around the steak.

In the center of the pastry, I spread half of the duxelle and then topped that with some duck liver pate our friends Nancy and Leigh-Ann gave to us a while back.  (Our kitchen cabinets are a fascinating story unto themselves...)

I wrapped the steaks and placed them on a parchment-lined sheet pan and brushed them with a bit of egg yolk and water.  Into the 'fridge to chill.

Then I started the:

Duchesse Potatoes

  • 1 large russet potato
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 1 egg yolk
  • salt and pepper

Peel and boil the potato in salted water until done.  Drain.  Add a tbsp of butter and a sprinkling of salt and pepper.  Mash really good.  (I used a hand mixer.)  Add the egg yolk and whip it all together.

Place in pastry bag with a big star tip.  Pipe mounds onto a parchment-lined pan.

The Sauce

Julia Child starts her sauce from the marinade.  I didn't marinate the steaks, so I took the basic ingredients and boiled them all together:

  • splash olive oil
  • 2 shallots
  • 1 carrot, chopped
  • 1 celery stalk, chopped
  • pinch thyme
  • pinch sage
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 3 allspice berries
  • 6 peppercorns
  • pinch salt and pepper
  • 1 cup dry vermouth
  • 1/3 cup brandy
  • 2 cups red wine
  • 2 cups beef broth

I reduced it all to half, and then strained through a very fine strainer.  Back into a clean pot and then thickened with about 2 tbsp softened butter blended with 2 tbsp flour and whisked into the pot.

The wellington went into a 425° oven for 30 minutes.  After 10 minutes, I put in the potatoes.  Simple math: The potatoes cooked for 20 minutes.

wellington-2

It was downright delicious!

And we have a Traditional English Christmas Pudding for dessert!

pudding

This was absolutely delicious!  An English couple who shops at the store brought this in for me!  We've chatted about puddings and fruitcakes and the like for quite a while and they brought this in, handmade by a ladies group in Kent, England!

I steamed it and then served it with a sauce made of butter, powdered sugar, heavy cream, brandy, and an egg yolk.

It was heavenly!

THANK YOU!


Panorama, Parmesan and Panini

Friday night saw us in Old City Philadelphia to meet friends for dinner.  We had a fantastic dinner at Ristorante Panorama on Front Street.  They bill themselves as "... contemporary, authentic Italian with influence that leans toward the Northern Italian region and features homemade pastas, authentic veal dishes, and fresh seafood specialties." They came through!

Alas, I forgot the camera, and trying to explain all of the food we ate would be nigh on impossible at this point.  We had five different appetizers, five different entrees, five different desserts, and walked out with stomachs smiling.  It was a great time.  Here's the menu!

chicken-parmesan

Still in an Italian mode, Victor made dinner while I was at work, yesterday.  Chicken parmesan and ravioli.  We still have those huge chicken breasts I picked up at the farmer's market, so he sliced them thin, pounded and breaded, fied, and finished off with sauce and cheese.

Two more of the cutlets went to today's lunch!

pannini

Santa brought us a Panini Press/Grill/Griddle for Christmas and I broke it in for lunch today!  Breaded chicken breasts, cranberry sauce, bacon, herbed chevre, and vidalia onion relish on thick slices of raisin walnut bread brushed with garlic butter.  Can we say "gastronomic heaven" boys and girls?!?

Dayum, it was good!

Tonight I'm going all out with a really fun dinner - individual beef wellington's!

The diet's start January 6th.


Merry Christmas

xmas-4

Merry Christmas to one and all!  We're in North Jersey having fun with the family...  Perfect weather, tons of food, lots of presents, and lots of fun and good cheer.


Sweet and Savory

We were watching mindless Christmas Food stuff on the Food Channel the other day and Paula Deen had this guy on who made these potatoes that sounded intriguing...  He boiled 'em, flouerd 'em, and baked 'em.  As I said - intriguing.

Chicken with a spicy cranberry and mango sauce was the main event...  I floured the chicken with a combination of chipotle powder, garlic, flour, salt and pepper.  Fried in a bit of olive oil...

Sauce was leftover cranberry sauce with mango chunks and chili paste (sambal olek.)

The potatoes...

I was kinda looking for a different potato recipe for a brunch in a week or so with some friends.  I thought I'd try it out.

Hasselback  Roasted Potatoes

  • 2 pounds potatoes, medium sized (your choice of type)
  • Salt
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/3 cup canola, vegetable or grapeseed oil
  • 1/4 cup very finely parsley leaves

Peel the potatoes and rinse to remove any traces of dirt. Cut into the potatoes into uniform pieces. (This will help in cooking time if they are all similar.) Take a sharp knife and beginning on 1 end, cut about 2/3 through the potato. Repeat the same incision from 1 end of the potato to the other, spacing the cuts uniformly. (The idea is to create the look of a fan, which is why you don't cut all the way through the potato.)

Place the potatoes in a large saucepan and cover with water. Add a pinch of salt and cook until just tender. (Do not overcook. The potatoes should remain a little hard, as they will continue to cook during roasting.)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Drain the potatoes and place them on absorbent toweling to remove excess water. Mix the flour and salt and pepper, to taste, in a bowl and carefully toss with the already blanched potatoes. Place the floured potatoes onto a baking sheet and drizzle with oil. Bake until golden brown, approximately 30 to 40 minutes.

To finish, scoop the potatoes with a slotted spoon onto absorbent paper toweling and to drain any excess oil. Transfer to a serving dish and garnish with the parsley.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Okay...  the potatoes weren't that great.  They were okay, but...

I suppose they have some potential, but I'm not going to fool with them for my brunch.  I have plenty of potato ideas - I was just looking for something new...


The End

This is it - the last cookie pictures of 2008! This is the tray for work tomorrow...  It's my 8th Christmas there...  8 Cookie trays...  Yum!

xmas-work-1


Almost over for another year...

The kitchen is officially a mess.

Pots on the stove with white, dark, and milk chocolates... Cutting boards and powdered sugar everywhere.  Cybil can't stay out of the kitchen.  On the other hand, she's keeping the floor clean for me...

I just started putting cookie trays together.  We have quite a few to do, plus the big tray for work tomorrow...  THIS is the part I like best - getting them out of the house before I eat everything!

xmas-cookies-1

I've already consumed enough to last me through the new year...  Of course, I'll be eating more and more of them as soon as we hit North Jersey on Wednesday.  There's something about Christmas Eve...

xmas-cookies-2

Time to get these finished and then we need to start delivering.....

Merry Christmas, indeed! :)


Covered in Chocolate

 

The weather outside is frightful.  Okay.  Just cold - which to this thin-blooded San Franciscan - is not as enjoyable as a warm ocean breeze.  Oh well.  It gives me an excuse to stay indoors and finish the cookies.

Today is adding the finishing touches...  the chocolate-dipping.  It's the most tedious and the most fun at the same time.  I love making everything look fun and festive - and dipping peppermint patties one-by-one is fun for the first tray.  By tray three I'm always swearing I'm not making them next year.  Of course, I do, because I really like to eat them...

xmas-chocolate-2

Today's cookies started with dark chocolate dipped macadamia nut orange biscotti, milk chocolate dipped walnut butter cookies, dark chocolate covered peppermint patties, and white chocolate dipped lemon coconut cookies.

xmas-chocolate-3

I have one more cookie to bake, and then we can start making the trays to give away.....

Ho Ho Ho! :)


Stollen Still Eludes Me

The taste is fantastic, but it's still not quite right. I'm fighting the recipe or something.  I dunno.

The first batch of dough I made this morning was the same greasy nightmare dough I first made last year.   I knew before finishing it that it was wrong.  Into the garbage it went.  I have a reasonably good idea of what the dough should feel like, but it's not coming together for me.   One of the issues is I'm not used to dealing with adding flour to a liquid that has so much fat in it.  I'm more used to adding the fat after the flour and liquid have come together.  And somewhere along the line, I'm just not hitting that magic moment when everything just comes together.

I know that I added a bit too much flour to this batch, and that had dire consequencse when I did the final roll and form.  The 1/3 fold-over started coming apart while it was going through its final proofing, and it completely came apart in the oven, making a flat bread instead of the taller and narrower bread it's supposed to be.

But it sure does taste good, and in the grand scheme of things, I'd rather have tastes good but doesn't look perfect rather than looks perfect but doesn't taste good.  (Actually, I'd rather have looks and tastes perfect, but I'm not losing any sleep over this... )

xmas-peppermint-patties

I'm also finishing up the Peppermint Patties.   These have to dry before getting dipped in chocolate.  They're the best (and easiest!) Peppermint Patty you'll ever have!


Ravioli, Pork Chops, and Sausage

This morning before heading off to work, I pulled out a pack of 2 pork chops and a pack of 4 Italian sausages from the freezer.  When I called home at lunch, Victor asked what my plans were for them.  My response was "for you to make sauce."  My nefarious plan worked!  He made a GREAT sauce!  Ravioli - also from the freezer, and cheese biscuits he made yesterday finished off the meal - and me.  It was a pretty yummy dinner.

Now to finish the Christmas baking...  Tomorrow is the Stollen...


Frito Chicken

I'm not a huge snack-food person, but every now and again I find myself in the chip aisle of the grocery store and a bag of Frito's makes its way into the shopping cart.  I've been a Frito fan for as long as I can remember.  I did switch allegiance back when the original Dorito's Tortilla Chips hit the market, but they have changed so many times, adding weird flavors that have nothing in common with a good tortilla chip (I'm obviously not their target demographic anymore...) that I haven't bought them in years.

But Fritos.....Gotta love 'em.

Problem is - even that little bag is likely to get stale before I finish it.  And stale chips of any sort suck.  What to do?  Use them to bread chicken!

Tonight's dinner started with me slicing potatoes on the ridged section of my mandolin.  (I use my mandolin all of the time and highly recommend them to everyone!)  Fried in olive oil and garlic with half a red onion, they went into the oven to finish.

For the chicken, I floured it, dipped it in egg, and then dipped in crushed Frito's.  Into a hot skillet it went.  I browned both sides and then it went into the oven to join the potatoes.

The chicken breasts were huge.  I bought them down at the farmer's market a couple of weeks ago and really should have just cut one in half for the two of us.  As it was - we have leftovers!  But I digress...

When the chicken was about 95% done, I spread a couple of tablespoons of Sofrito Sauce on them, covered with cheese, and then placed them back into the hot oven.  And fresh broccoli.

Dinner was great.  Way too much food, but... so what else is new?

Time to go bake some cookies.  Tonight is walnut logs.....