More Valentine Love
Chicken Noodle Soup. Jewish Penicillin. Actual medicine.
Researchers have actually confirmed what Grandma already knew - Chicken soup helps when we have a cold.
They found that chicken soup and many of its ingredients helped stop the movement of neutrophils -- white blood cells that eat up bacteria and cellular debris and which are released in great numbers by viral infections like colds.
Neutrophil activity can stimulate the release of mucous, which may be the cause of the coughs and stuffy nose caused by upper respiratory infections such as colds.
"All the ingredients were found to be inhibitory, including the boiled extract of chicken alone," they wrote.
Rennard said vitamins and other agents in the ingredients could, plausibly, have biological action.
So Victor made me Chicken Soup.
We had the stock made, so it was just a matter of pulling it all together... carrots, celery, onions, chicken, and noodles, noodles, noodles. Simple. basic. Nutritious and delicious.
And just because we always need it, I made a loaf of Beer Bread.
Made with Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA.
Caribbean Chicken
I had planned to do a Chinese New Year dinner tonight in anticipation of the Lunar New Year on Sunday. Alas, a power outage, downed wires, closed freeways, 30 minutes just to get out of the parking lot at work, and another 15 minutes to travel the two miles home did not really leave me in a mood to be creative. Surly?!? MOI?!? You bet.
Fortunately, my ill-temper left quickly. We went out and removed a huge branch that had broken off from a tree in the front. Well... we got it out of the street, at least. It's going to take a bit more to "remove" it completely. Just not today.
Feeling slightly better - but still not overly creative - I went for the easy route; Caribbean Chicken.
The chicken was already in the fridge, the inspiration for the Caribbean bent was Sarah's Sea Salt. Savory Salt with Caribbean Spices. It was a gift from a friend and just sitting on the counter waiting to be used.
Opening the tin, the first thing I smelled were the scents of the Caribbean; nutmeg, allspice, pepper... I wanted to really liberally rub it on the chicken and had to remind myself that the first ingredient was S-A-L-T. It's really good. Really flavorful. And Really Salt. I used it sparingly.
I browned the chicken and then added a splash of Wegman's Caribbean sauce. (I picked it up because it's one of the only sauces I could find that wasn't loaded with high fructose corn syrup. The sauce itself is "okay". It mixed well with Sarah salt.)
I then popped the chicken in the oven to finish. Rice and broccoli finished the plate.
The Olympics are starting soon. I think a baked brie wedge with caramalized figs is going to be just the thing for the Opening Ceremonies.
Oh. And maybe another 8" of snow on Monday!
Life is good!
Chicken Pot Pie
Knowing for the past couple of days that the next storm of the century is imminent, I decided to plan. A little.
Disaster Planning is something I've been doing for years. And years. Fireman's son, for one, but then there was Uncle Sam's Yacht Club... how to feed 5000 sailors at General Quarters. Or all those hotels where we had to deal with fires, evacuations, storms, and power loss... How to feed a thousand hotel guests with no electricity. Or all the years in health care. Feeding patients and staff - and the general public - in case of earthquake or other disaster - natural or man-made.
Fortunately, there were only a few times in my career where we actually had to implement a disaster plan - and never for long. I was lucky. But like the Boy Scout I once was, I was always prepared.
The common thread in every plan was having supplies immediately accessible. I couldn't rely on getting a food delivery 24 hours after an earthquake. I needed to have food and supplies on-premise, menus and recipes available, and an action plan to prepare it all based on a hundred different variables; no electricity, no running water, gas but no electricity, water but no gas... you get the picture.
And that's something that's always in the back of my mind. In order for disaster planning to work, it really needs to be second nature. You just do it. We have a propane cooktop, so we can cook even if the electricity goes out. And if the electricity does go out? Uh... It's snowing outside. It's cold. Snow and a couple of ice chests will keep the perishables safe. We're set.
One thing we always have in the house is food. Real food. Ingredients. Flour, sugar, yeast, powdered milk. Coffee. Canned goods. A well-stocked freezer with vacuum-packed everything. (I love our FoodSaver!) Not to mention our legendary Spice Cabinet. For us, the foundation is there. We don't have to run to the grocery store and panic-buy our French Toast fixin's (milk, bread, and eggs). We already have them.
I had a hankerin' for a chicken pot pie tonight but knew it would take too long to make it from scratch after getting home from work today, so I cooked the chicken last night after dinner. Today, all I had to do was make the crust and filling and bake.
I don't really have a recipe for the Pot Pie. It's just something I make. But our friend Ann sent her recipe off to us and it's a pretty close approximation to what I did tonight. I added unpeeled, cubed potatoes and some celery and omitted the bell pepper. The broth was from the chicken I cooked last night, but canned or from a carton would work, too.
The crust is pure simplicity in a food processor.
Pie Dough
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 1 cup cold butter
- pinch salt
- 1/2 cup cold water
Add flour and salt to bowl of processor. Cut butter into chunks and pulse until crumbly. Add water and pulse about a dozen times.
At this point, the dough is pretty much all crumbs. Gather it up and press it into two disks - one larger for the bottom crust and one smaller for the top.
Roll out on floured board.
And here is Ann's recipe. It's pretty classic.
Nursie’s Pot Pie
Nursie said she originally got this from a pie crust box.
- 1/3 c butter
- 1/3 c flour
- 1 very small chopped onion (or to taste)
- 1/2 c chopped green pepper, leave this out if you want to
- 1 1/2 c broth, chicken for chicken pie, beef for beef pie, and I use veggie broth for pork pie
- 1/3 cup milk
- 2 c frozen mixed veggies
Cook the onion and green pepper in the butter for a bit, whisk in the flour and add the liquids, cook until thickened. I season with salt, pepper, herbes de Provence, but you can use what ever sounds good. A little celery seed isn’t a bad addition, and with beef I use garlic and mushrooms instead of the green pepper. Add 2-3 cups chopped leftover roast whatever and the vegetables. Mix well and dump into the pie crust.
Bake in a two crust pie at 425 for 30-40 minutes and enjoy.
No shit, this is delicious. You can use whatever veggies you have around including leftovers. It is a great end of the week and I don’t want to cook sorta dish. But it is good enough for company! Anyone want to come to dinner?
I made enough for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow.
I think tomorrow night's snowbound dinner is going to be Clam Chowder in Bread Bowls. Depends on whether I can make a small enough bread bowl.
Bring on the snow.
I'm prepared.
Instant Asian - Sorta
Of all the foods in all the world, Chinese is the one I am least comfortable cooking.
I can get my fingers around a lot of different cuisines, but Chinese has always alluded me. Possibly (or probably) because it's the one type of food I virtually always ate out. I remember my first experience with Chinese Food was in the mid-50s at a restaurant in San Francisco called Kwan's. It was on Geary Blvd around Arguello. My parents would take us there when there were only the three kids. Mike would eat a hamburger, Judy wouldn't eat anything, and I ate anything put in front of me.
Over the ensuing 50+ years, I've really never had to cook Chinese. When I worked at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge, we had The Empress Room where I could gorge on gourmet Chinese offerings. At home, I could pick up the phone and have Andy's Excellent Chow Mein delivered to the door. And now I'm in the Philadelphia suburbs where nothing is convenient and the best Chinese food is just not dim sum from Yank Sing - or Andy's Excellent Chow Mein. I'm spoiled.
So... I attempt a Chinese meal now and again, but let's face it - it just ain't San Francisco. I'm very spoiled.
Enter Frozen Food.
I don't buy a lot of frozen entrees. In fact, I really don't buy any. But I will pick up frozen Asian foods from time to time. I have my standards and I have my exceptions. Love the Assi store in North Wales.
Tonight, a doctored up bag of Chinese Chicken worked. I added sauteed peppers, diced papayas (thawed, with the juice), and lots of Sambal Oelek. It was a spicy and sweet dinner in a mere 20 minutes.
I do have a couple of Chinese cook books - and lord knows I have the spices and sauces necessary to do the job. One of these days I'm just going to have to get serious.
Pseudo Risotto and Fresh-Baked Bread
I couldn't get dinner on the table fast enough, tonight. And I tell ya - I have found my new favorite bread. It's unbelievable.
The crust is crunchy, crusty, chewy, rich, dark, with a powerful flavor. The crumb is soft, chewy, spongy. And it all hints of sourdough. That yeasty smell of my youth. Seriously, it''s my new favorite bread.
The Pseudo Risotto was a chicken and rice casserole baked in the oven. I actually hadn't thought risotto until plating it up. Pseudo. Definitely not the real thing. But good. Wintertime comfort food - even if it's 60° outside.
I boiled down last nights chicken carcass and pulled off all the meat. I then thickened the broth using the chicken fat from the pot mixed with flour. (I wasn't about to skim off all that flavor just to add fat to thicken it.)
I saved some of the chicken for sandwiches and the rest went into bowl with cooked rice and frozen mixed vegetables. I stirred in the gravy, put it all in a casserole (actually, I split it into two casseroles - one went in the freezer) and into a 350° oven for an hour.
It was very risotto-like. Smooth, creamy, and just the right comfort-food feel.
But the star of tonight's dinner really was the bread.
Yum.
Sunday Chicken Dinner
This meal is Ann's fault. She went on and on about how wonderful a roast chicken is; how many meals one can get from it, how many different meals one can create from it. I had no choice. I had to roast one.
I'm glad I did.
Roasting a chicken really isn't difficult, but I think too many people make it too complicated. If you have a good chicken, you don't need to do a lot. If you don't have a good chicken, no matter what you do won't work.
I started off with a good chicken.
Victor made roasted garlic butter last week and we still have plenty in the fridge. I rubbed a bit under the skin, liberally salted and then added a healthy dose of homemade lemon pepper to the top. Into the pan it went with about a cyup of white wine.
400° for an hour. (Internal temperature of 165°.)
Perfection.
Crisp skin with moist, tender, succulent meat. The garlic butter really came through without overpowering anything.
A simple pan gravy with rice and peas finished off the plate. And there was still plenty of homemade bread to sop up the gravy.
I'm thinking maybe a pot pie tomorrow. Double-crust, of course. Maybe homemade whole wheat bread. It's supposed to be another cold and wet day. The perfect excuse for staying indoors!
Andouille and Beans
Andouille, chicken, beans, peppers, tomatoes... A pot of simmering wonderfulness in a mere 20 minutes!
I knew tonight was going to be a bean-and-andouille-something, but I wasn't sure exactly what it was going to be until I finished cooking it. That's the way of it, sometimes. Tim's Create-A-Meal. It works. So did the andouille.
The beauty of andouille sausage is it doesn't need a lot of additional herbs and spices to make a dish flavorful. If you're using a good andouille, the sausage itself packs enough of a flavorful punch to carry a dish.
Of course, that doesn't mean you can't add to your hearts content, it just means you don't necessarily have to. I was almost restrained tonight. I didn't add any additional herbs, but I did add some additional flavor.
I had fried up a bunch of long Italian hot peppers on Monday and Victor had roasted a bunch of garlic. If it's in the 'fridge, it's fair game, Both came to dinner, tonight!
This was a throw-together recipe that I'll never really make exactly, again. It's a good base, though, for playing with and making your own.
Chicken, Andouille, and Beans
- 1 chicken breast, diced
- 2 andouille links, diced
- 1 can diced tomatoes
- 2 cans pink beans, drained and rinsed
- 2 roasted red peppers, diced
- 6 fried Italian peppers, diced
- 4 cloves roasted garlic
- several shots Tabasco
- salt and pepper, to taste
Brown chicken and andouille in a bit of olive oil. Add tomatoes, beans, and remaining ingredients. Bring to boil and then simmer.
Check for seasonings and add additional Tabasco, and salt and pepper, as desired.
This is great as-is, or serve it up as you would red beans and rice - atop cooked white rice.
We had it with the rye bread I made the other day. In case you're wondering, it freezes great!
Tomorrow is going to be a bit of an Italian feast. Victor is going to make sauce and I'm going to make a Pane Siciliano - bread made with semolina flour.
Can't wait!
Blood Orange Chicken
I picked up a bag of blood oranges yesterday without a clear idea of what I wanted them for. They looked good, the price was right. I bought 'em.
They called to me all night and this morning I decided a blood orange chicken was just what we needed for dinner. And I was right!
Blood Orange Chicken
- 2 chicken breasts
- 3 blood oranges
- 2 pieces candied ginger, minced
- 3/4 cup sherry
- 3/4 cup chicken broth
- salt and pepper, to taste
- crushed ginger snaps
With veg peeler, peel thin strips of peel from 1 orange. Slice in thin strips. Set aside. Juice two oranges and separate the third into segments. Set aside.
Flour chicken breasts and brown in hot olive oil. Remove chicken and add sherry to pan. Reduce by about half.
Add juice and reduce by a third. Add chicken broth and bring to boil.
Add minced candied ginger and the orange peel strips, and then add chicken breasts back into pan.
Place pan in hot oven and bake about 30 minutes.
When chicken is done, remove from oven, Plate chicken. Add blood orange segments to pan and thicken pan juices with a bit of cornstarch mixed with cold water.
Spoon sauce over chicken and top with crushed ginger snaps.
I made whole grain black rice and :::drum roll, please::: canned creamed corn.
Yes, you read that correctly. Canned creamed corn. I was at the grocery store on Monday and saw it on sale for 39¢ a can. I bought two. I honestly can't remember the last time I had canned creamed corn. It's been a really long time. And it didn't disappoint. There's three kernels of macerated corn in a sauce of sugar and modified food starch. Not exactly high on the nutrition list, but what the hell. I need to fall off my soap box every now and again.
It's just one of those guilty pleasures.
We also had more of the rye bread. It lasted three days - not bad for a fresh loaf of bread.
We'll have real vegetables tomorrow.
Chicken Stirfry and Burnt Rice
Oh, how quickly the mighty fall...
Two days of gloating about how fabulous our last two dinners were and karma caught up to me. Tonight, I burnt the rice. Burnt. Black-on-the-bottom-of-the-pot burnt. Chisel-and-soak burnt.
Burnt.
It was really good mahogany rice, too. Whole grain, not cheap, really nutritious, takes 45 minutes to cook. I put it on the stove, put the flame up to high to bring it to a boil, walked out of the kitchen for a moment - and forgot all about it. Victor walked into the kitchen 20 minutes later and the pot was boiled dry. And burnt.
Fortunately, it was a good, heavy pot and with a bit of scraping and soaking, it's good as new.
So... not wanting to wait another 45 minutes for rice to cook - we had white jasmine.
And a simple stirfry. Chicken thighs, onions, mandarin oranges, and broccoli with a jarred orange sauce doctored up with sambal oelek for some heat. I was afraid to try anything more complex.
Stuffed Chicken Breast
I love it when Victor cooks dinner!
I've been chained to the computer migrating forums, recreating databases - things I am pretty much clueless about - and Victor, taking pity upon me, cooked up a great meal! Chicken breasts stuffed with Spanish Blue Cheese, and oven-roasted potatoes, carrots, zucchini, and onions. And garlic.
It was excellent. Lightly breaded with homemade breadcrumbs, oozing cheese, and perfectly-cooked vegetables. My stomach was smiling!
The test site I was working on had gone flawlessly, so I boldly went on to migrate another and then itsy-bitsy little configuration issues kept popping up.
A wonderful dinner prepared by the greatest guy around gave me the strength and fortitude to find and fix the problems.
Everything is now working as it should.
Life is good.
Not Cookies For Dinner
Okay. I've OD'd on cookies and candy - already!
Well... not really. I do have a great capacity for homemade sweets. But I did have to seriously slow down on my tasting. There really is something about the cookies and candy this year - everything tastes extra-special good. But man does not live by cookies and candy alone. Real food has to enter into the equation now and again.
Dinner.
I wanted something quick and easy. Time to clean out the refrigerator.
Chicken thighs, green mole sauce, canned beans, fondue, sour cream, and a really thick corn tortilla that I picked up at Assi. (They also have a bit of a Mexican section.)
It was one of those combinations that just worked. And it wasn't sugar.
Comfort Foods
It's cold outside. I want comfort food!
I've been working away on a dear friends new website, so writing about food has been secondary to getting the website published. But since it's almost ready to go... Here's two days worth of Comfort Food Dinners!
Today was an easy one. I put a big ol' chicken in a pot this morning, filled it with water and turned on the heat. While I was working away, so was the chicken - making a rich broth and fall-apart-tender bird.
I drained and strained the broth and skimmed the fat.
In a new, clean pan (Victor was in the kitchen cleaning up after me!!) I used the fat with some flour to make a roux. Added enough broth to make a medium-thick sauce. I added salt, pepper, garlic, and poultry seasoning and then noticed about a half-cup of heavy cream in the fridge. In that went, too.
Victor cut up celery, carrots, a potato, and we threw in frozen peas. I thought it still needed a bit more stuff, so I cooked up a handful of noodles. It was another clean out the fridge meal.
As that was all simmering, I made a pie crust:
Julia's Food Processor Pie Crust
- 1 3/4 cups flour
- 1 stick (1/4 lb.) butter, cut up
- 3 tbsp. grapeseed oil
- 1 tsp. salt
Blend flour, butter, oil and salt in food processor until crumbly. Add 1/4 cup of cold water and pulse until mixed.
This is super easy, just don't over-mix! I usually wrap in plastic and refrigerated for about 30 minutes.
I made it as a double crust pot pie and have to admit that we both were bad and went back for seconds!
Last night was another clean out the refrigerator dinner - beef vegetable soup.
I browned off some cubed beef and added beef broth.
Into the broth went the odds and ends in the vegetable bin - pea shoots, cauliflower, carrots, green beans, celery, plus a can of beans, a handful of rice, a handful of barley, a handful of small shell pasta, some mushrooms...
I added a bit of salt and pepper and some herbs d'Provence.
I had seconds of it, also!
Hot soups, stews, and casseroles. The only things I like about this weather.....