Chicken with Peppers
Underneath that seemingly-innocent cheese and sauce are peppers. Hot peppers from our yard just screaming to be eaten.
I've said a dozen - or more - times how great these peppers have been and every time we use them for something the love affair starts all over again.
Victor started off with a fairly traditional breaded chicken breast - fried to set the crumbs and then baked in the oven about 20 minutes.
he then topped them as one would a basic chicken parmesan - but then things took a twist. Before adding the cheese, he added a slew of fried peppers and then covered them all with cheese. Back into the oven to melt the cheese.
Brilliant.
It took dinner to the next level and beyond.
It's just a matter of taking the ordinary and adding a twist. Tonight peppers. Another time chopped olives from the olive bar. Or pesto. Or sliced hard-cooked eggs.
Imagination.
Arroz con Pollo
Look what you can do with one cup of rice and two chicken breasts!
I feel like I've been in a bit of a cooking rut, lately, so I started looking through the bazillion pictures of food I've taken since starting this 8+ years ago. I have them nicely set up by year - folders for blog post pictures and folders for all the things that didn't make the cut. I usually take two or three pictures of a dish and then choose the best one. The others go into the archive folder because you just never know when you're going to need a high-resolution picture of a plate of tortellini... I'm a digital pack rat.
I saw a picture for a rice dish from several years ago and it got me thinking of an arroz con pollo. Rice with chicken. It's scary how my mind associates things, sometimes...
One-pot rice dishes are great. With a few tweaks of herbs and spices, they can take on just about any ethnicity. I leaned towards Spain, tonight.
Arroz con Pollo
- 2 bone-in chicken breasts
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 1 bell pepper, chopped
- 4 oz mushrooms, sliced
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 teaspoons paprika
- 1 cup long-grain rice
- 1 (14-oz) can diced tomatoes in juice
- 2 cups chicken broth
- big pinch saffron threads
- 1 cup peas
- 12 large stuuffed green olives
- S&P to taste
Brown chicken in large skillet. Remove chicken and set aside.
Add onion, bell pepper, and mushrooms. Cook, stirring, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, paprika, and rice, then cook, stirring, 1 minute. Add broth and tomatoes with juice, and saffron. Bring to a boil
Nestle chicken in rice and cover.
Reduce heat and cook until chicken is cooked through, rice is tender, and most of liquid is absorbed, about 25 minutes. Stir once or twice to prevent rice from sticking on the bottom and to let it cook more evenly.
Stir in peas, olives, and salt and pepper to taste, and cook another 5 or so minutes.
It's probably not the most authentic recipe out there, but it did the trick, tonight. Nonna even asked for more rice - something she rarely does. Of course, she didn't want the olives or mushrooms, but that left more for us.
I didn't use any hot peppers or add any heat which was a nice change of pace. And I'm sure it would be really good with bone-in chicken thighs...
Time to look through more pictures. We have another dinner coming up, tomorrow. And another after that...
Washing Chicken
The other day, NPR came out with a story entitled Julia Child Was Wrong: Don't Wash Your Raw Chicken, Folks.
I have to say that the story irritated the hell out of me. Not because it maligned Julia Child - who knew a bit about cooking - but because of the whole tone of the article. The basic premise of the story was if you wash your chicken, you're going to contaminate yourself and the surrounding area - up to three feet away, some studies suggest - and it then states that salmonella and Campylobacter together are estimated to cause nearly 1.9 million cases of foodborne illness in the U.S. each year. They don't say how many of these cases are actually caused by someone rinsing their chicken, however. It's just a big number to make you think what they have to say is important.
After the Big Number, they offer a cute little video cartoon that shows chicken-slime-infested water splashing all over the kitchen. I wish I had that much water pressure in my house.
So since they threw out the almost 1.9 million number, let's look at some other numbers...
8 BILLION chickens are sold in the US each year. If every one of those nearly 1.9 million cases of foodborne illness were caused by washing your chicken, it would be a fairly insignificant 0.02375%. Since they are not, the number drops even more.
Focus-group surveys, conducted by New Mexico State University as part of a research project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, suggest as many as 90 percent of people rinse their raw birds.
Ninety Percent.
That's a lot of chicken being rinsed and not a lot of illness. It's right up there with spraying fecal matter all over your toothbrush when you flush the toilet.
Because there may be some truth in something doesn't automatically make it an issue or a calamity.
My Main Gripe
My main gripe with the article wasn't that they were against rinsing chickens - something that 90% of people do - but that they didn't offer a better way to do it; that they didn't explain the problem is actually rinsing a chicken under a torrent of water, splashing water and potential contamination all over hell and creation - and not the act of rinsing, itself.
Supermarket chicken - where most of us buy it - is sealed in plastic that has to be cut away or otherwise opened, somehow. Since I keep a clean sink, the sink is the best place for me to open that package. I can contain the mess in a place with a drain. Chicken goes from package to pan or dish to marinate or season and cook. I'm not dragging dripping chicken all over the kitchen - it is always contained by sink, plate, pan, or board. A pretty simple concept.
The only chickens I ever rinse are whole birds. I usually rinse them not because of my fear of germs and bacteria, but because I want to get rid of whatever package juices that have accumulated. I want to start with as fresh a bird as possible. I don't have the luxury of having a butcher nearby where I can buy my chickens fresh - and dry - the day I want to cook one.
I rinse under slow-running water, place the bird on a wood cutting board, and dry inside and out with paper towels. And then I wash the cutting board and the sink.
Yes, I use wood cutting boards. And we have a butcher block island in the kitchen.
People are scared enough of food and cooking without giving them yet another reason to open a box instead of cooking something relatively healthy. If the goal is to cut down on foodborne illness, education is what is needed, not asinine video graphics and scare tactics.
It's really all about keeping things clean and using a bit of common sense.
And not being afraid.
Another Beer Can Chicken
It is 73° outside. It's August 19th. In the Philadelphia suburbs. The average temperature is usually around 85° for this time of year. Hot and humid. It's very strange... But 73° is better than 85° - no matter what the reason. I have never liked the heat and humidity and I doubt I ever will.
I'm enjoying the cooler weather respite - it's supposed to head back to 90° by Wednesday - and it put me in the mood to do another beer can chicken! This may just be no-brainer simplicity at its finest. A chicken sitting on a beer on a grill. Done. It really does come out good. Moist, succulent chicken with a crispy skin that Victor loves. In most instances I'm not a skin-eater, so Victor and Cybil get to fight over it.
Non-GMO corn-on-the-cob boiled with salt, rolled in butter. Nothing fancy. The corn has been pretty good, so far. And Phoebe's Baked Beans. The only baked beans I make. I went a bit overboard with the chipotles. Nonna didn't eat hers - too hot. But I thought they were perfect.
The potatoes are another go-to-no-brainer. I thin-slice a potato on my mandoline, add a pat of butter to a small skillet, and then layer the slices around the pan. I drizzle a bit more butter over the top, sprinkle with salt and pepper, cover with a lid, and fry on low for about 30 minutes. The bottom gets nice and crunchy and the rest of the potatoes get buttery and creamy.
Yummers.
Tomorrow I am making pizza. I found a recipe in La Cucina Italiana magazine for a slow-rise pizza dough that looks pretty good. It uses Italian "00" flour - which I just happened to have. The dough is made and in the 'fridge for it's first overnight rise.
Yummers, again.
Feed A Cold...
The Dreaded Summer Cold.
It really is one of the worst (non-life-threatening) illnesses out there. Ya feel like crud, there's nothing you can take to make you actually feel better, you lose your sense of taste and smell... It is just no fun.
Mine has been lingering in the peripheral of life - just enough to feel headachy and out of sorts. It's hit Victor Full-Tilt-Boogie. Imagine hacking and coughing and mountains of Kleenex and you get the picture. I merely feel meh - he feels really rotten.
So we started the week with a thin-broth Chicken Soup. There are a score of studies out there that show the medicinal properties of chicken soup. It really is Jewish penicillin. It hasn't seemed to cure anything this time around, though, but I'm going to make another batch tonight.
I also made some Beer Bread because it's easy and can be on the table in an hour. The recipe is totally no-brainer and can be played with to your liking.
I used Guinness in this batch because it's what I had in the 'fridge.
Since man - or Nonna - cannot live by soup alone, I stayed with the chicken theme, but added a twist - pureed carrots and peach-pepper jam. Capsasin is also a miracle food. We had the carrot puree at my sister's house in Portland a few weeks back - under her famous crab cakes.
I grilled the chicken and topped it with the Peach-Pepper Jam.
For the carrot puree, I cooked carrots until they were really soft, and then blended them with salt, pepper, butter, and a bit of maple syrup. I saved a bit of the cooking water and used it to get the right consistency.I used my immersion blender but a regular blender will work just fine.
One of my favorite Lundgerg rice blends on the side...
Feeling the need for Comfort Food, I next made a beef pot pie with biscuit topping. And I used canned biscuits. Yes, it's true. I was sick. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
And while they weren't horrible, there really is a reason why I make my own. Homemade really are better. The big secret to making a biscuit top is to make sure the filling is REALLY hot before putting the biscuits on and placing everything into the oven. If the filling is cold, the biscuit will burn before the bottom cooks. Ask me how I know.
I made a pretty basic beef stew - another item I really don't have a recipe for - put too much into the casserole, and it bubbled over everything. I did place it on a sheetpan in the oven, so I spared us the billowing clouds of smoke I'm famous for.
Still looking for Comfort Food, I next went for Tortellini with sauce made from fresh tomatoes out of our garden.
Victor made the sauce. It's pretty much just throwing tomatoes in a skillet with some onion, garlic, red wine, some grated cheese, salt, pepper, and fresh herbs from the garden. Hit it with an immersion blender.
One of the bigger mistakes a lot of people do is try and replicate jarred sauces or flavors from packaged foods. Food manufactures are chemists who manipulate foods, ingredients, enhancers - you name it - to trick the brain into thinking it's good. Even All-Natural-Organic foods can contain ingredients like carrageenan that create an otherwise unnatural creaminess. It's like the biscuits I used. The ingredient list was a mile long - and they're "all-natural."
Real food tastes like real food. It's okay if your sauce doesn't taste like Ragu. in fact, it's better if it doesn't!
In the meantime, I'm off to make another pot of soup.
Huli Huli Chicken
One of the more fun things about going to Cost Plus is finding obscure and/or off the wall food items. We spent a lot of time at Cost Plus when we lived out west and I really miss the convenience of having a store in the neighborhood.
We did a fun shopping trip when we were in Oregon and after getting home and receiving a few emails - and online coupons - I decided to do a bit of online shopping.
One of the first things I saw was Huli Huli Sauce. For the uninitiated, Huli Huli sauce is a Hawai'ian staple. It's a teriyaki-type sauce with a Hawai'ian flair. It's been around forever and Huli Huli Chicken stands are everywhere on Oahu. And they're relatively inexpensive.
I think the first time I had Huli Huli Chicken was when 2 of my sisters lived in Hawai'i back in the mid-70s. Another sister and I flew over to visit them for a couple of weeks and we didn't have a lot of money - it was definitely pre-credit card days. I know we flew over on a DC-10 and I have a vague recollection of taking mushrooms right before we took off. Kids today will never know the joys of walking right into an airport and getting on a plane without standing in long lines, taking off shoes, submitting everything for x-ray, and having their nether-regions photographed. It was so civilized. And drinks were only a buck and there was a huge smoking section. Smoking and drinking were important when you took mushrooms on an airplane to Hawai'i. Ah... sweet youth...
But I digress...
The word huli means "turn" in Hawai'ian, which is what the cook does with the chicken on the charcoal grill that is traditionally used.
Being the non-traditionalist that I am, I mixed the pineapple juice from the can of pineapple rings, along with some sambal oelek for added heat and marinated chicken breasts in it for about an hour. I drained the chicken and grilled it on my non-charcoal gas grill.
I boiled the marinade and then thickened it with a bit of cornstarch. It's not really recommended to use marinades for sauces because there's always the possibility of catching something, but I boiled it for a long time before thickening it. I like walking on the wild side.
The chicken came out really moist. I served it over a really good Lundberg rice blend. I really like Lundberg rices - whole grain, environmentally conscious, and just flat-out good. Grilled pineapple rings finished the plate. It was spicy-good.
I think a Huli Huli stir-fry may be in our future...
I'll pass on the mushrooms...
Stuffed Chicken and Lentils
I picked up a yellow and a green zucchini the other day just because they looked really good. Unfortunately, zucchini is not Victor's favorite vegetable. It's not that he dislikes it, it's more that he just thinks there are better options out there. So I decided to turn them into something a bit more fun than zucchini coins.
I've made a lentil dish with fennel a few times so I thought I'd do something along those lines - sauteed diced vegetables mixed into cooked lentils. It came out pretty good - if I do say so, m'self! And bein' that both Victor and Nonna ate everything up, I'd say they agreed!
Lentils and Squash
- 1 cup dried lentils
- 1 green zucchini, diced
- 1 yellow zucchini, diced
- 1 carrot, diced
- 1/2 cup onion, chopped
- 1 cup plum tomatoes, diced
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 3 cups broth
- fresh herbs
- salt and pepper, to taste
Cook lentils in broth until done - about 20 minutes, or so. Set aside.
Dice vegetables in a fairly uniform size. Starting with onions and carrots, saute in a bit of olive oil until they begin to soften. Add garlic and then zucchinis and tomatoes. Cook until zucchini softens and tomatoes begin to break down.
Mince fresh herbs - basil, oregano, parsley, thyme - whatever you have on hand - and stir into pot. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper, to taste.
This is one of those dishes that can take any number of variations. Any vegetables will work.
Sitting atop the lentils tonight was a stuffed chicken breast.
I had about a cup of chicken left from the beer can chicken the other night so I minced it with a bit of gorgonzola, a bit of havarti, one long hot pepper, and a bit of S&P.
I pounded some thin-sliced chicken breasts and placed them in a muffin tin. I added the stuffing, folded over the tops, and placed them in a 350° oven for 30 minutes. I topped them with a bit of mango and chipotle sauce I picked up at Cost Plus when we were in Oregon.
I really miss Cost Plus. We used to shop there regularly when we lived in San Francisco - the original store at the wharf was way cool back in the day - and a lot of our furniture came from there. They closed the store closest to us in Wilmington, DE and I'll be damned if I'm driving 150 miles to Maryland just to spend money. I'll get my fix when I'm on the west coast.
In the meantime, I have a few jars of the sauce in the cupboard - along with a few other goodies that found their way into the suitcase...
More meals to come.
Beer Can Chicken
I did it! I finally made a Beer Can Chicken!
And I'm glad I did!
I'm not sure why it took me so long to make one of these. Might be the fact that we never have cans of beer in the house. Ever. In fact, I had to drink a can of seltzer and then fill the can from a bottle of beer. Bottles we generally have.
I used a bottle of Downtown Brown from Lost Coast Brewery in Eureka, CA. We were just up the road from them last week... I always keep a few beers on hand for beer bread or other cooking - or the occasional beer-drinking guest.
I rubbed it thoroughly with some of the Kansas City rub we're still working our way through. I love having all of this stuff right on hand. I preheated the gas grill, placed the chicken on the can, turned off the middle burners, turned down the end burners, and let it go for about 2 hours. Crispy, crispy skin and succulent meat. I had a vertical roaster for the longest time and used to prop a chicken up on it now and again, but I haven't seen it for 25 or so years... The concept is kinda the same. Almost. The vertical roaster doesn't get that slightly-beery taste.
It really did come out good. Even Nonna cleaned her plate. I'll be doing this, again.
And speaking of again, I made Mac and Cheese to go with it.
I made a lot. It's one of those things I just can't make a small batch of, no matter how hard I try. It's okay, though, because it makes good leftovers...
This was a three-cheese batch with jack, cheddar, and havarti. No peas. No ham. But I topped it with crushed potato chips instead of bread crumbs.
It is simplicity itself to make. Make a medium white sauce (flour, butter, milk) and then add a few splashes of Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco cause, and a splash of soy sauce. Stir in garlic powder, salt & pepper. Add some grated cheese - your choice - and you're on your way. Add cooked elbow macaroni, top with buttered crumbs, and place in the oven for about 30 minutes at 350°.
Really simple.
Chicken Cacciatore
It was a year ago that we were getting ready for our first trek to Italy. 15 glorious days in Rome, Florence, and Venice. 15 days of the most fabulous food, sights, and people. And the purchase of hand-made-and-hand-painted-just-for-us dinnerware. It's rainy and gloomy outside, so it was the perfect excuse to break out the Italian dishes.
Not that we need an excuse, mind you... We have a lot of different china and dinnerware and we use it all all of the time, but there really is something special about this stuff. It perks me up right away every time I look at it.
I decided I needed something vaguely Italian to go into it, tonight, so I went with a clean-out-the-refrigerator Chicken Cacciatore. Day Five of fresh produce is starting to push a few things. Time to make use of it. And a dish like cacciatore can handle any number of additions.
I started with onions, garlic, and two bone-in chicken breasts. When the chicken was browned and the onions wilted, I added about a cup of red wine to start things off. Then, sliced bell pepper, green beans, a sliced fennel bulb, and about 6 tomatoes I sliced up. And then about a cup of chicken broth.
I let it all simmer and stew for about an hour. I added some S&P, Greek oregano, basil, and a pinch of marjoram, and let it continue to simmer... I pulled the chicken out and let it cool so I could easily get it off the bone.
Cooked pasta in the bowl and chunked chicken on top. Sauce on top of that, and grated cheese on top of that.
It may be raining outside, but it's a sunny day in Florence, in here.
Buckwheat Crepes with Chicken and Horseradish Sauce
Methinks it was a big ooooops that I re-discovered the Frog Commissary cookbook. I'm hooked!
I love cookbooks that use real food and don't rely on canned, boxed, or otherwise-packaged foods. It's a throwback to when I was cooking professionally and really experienced the foods we produced. I'm in gastronomic love.
My first foray into the book starts with buckwheat crepes. I just happened to have buckwheat flour in the pantry, so it seemed like a natural place to begin.
Crepes are an extremely easy thing to make. We have a great crepe pan, but a non-stick skillet would work in a pinch.
The Frog recipe calls for smoked chicken. That was one thing I didn't have, so I made it with diced chicken breast. Smoked would have taken it to another level, I'm sure, but it was pretty spectacular without it.
Buckwheat Crepes with Chicken and Horseradish Sauce
adapted from the Frog Commissary Cookbook
Crêpes
- ¾ cup milk
- ¾ cup water
- 1 egg
- 1 egg yolk
- ¼ cup melted butter
- 2/3 cup white flour
- 1/3 cup buckwheat flour
- ½ tsp salt
Filling
- 2 cups diced cooked chicken breast (original recipe calls for smoked chicken breast!)
- 2 cups coarsely chopped broccoli, blanched
- 6 tbsp butter
- 2/3 cup fine chopped onions
- 6 tbsp flour
- 2 cups chicken stock
- 2 tablespoons drained horseradish
- ½ tsp pepper
- ¼ - ½ tsp salt
Horseradish Cream Sauce
- 2 tbsp minced shallots
- 1 cup dry white wine
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 1/3 cup drained horseradish
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp pepper
- 4 tbsp butter at room temperature
Crêpes
Combine the milk, water, eggs and butter. Blend the flours and salt in a bowl and whisk in the wet ingredients until smooth. Brush a 6” crepe pan lightly with butter and heat it until very hot. Pour about 1 ounce of the batter into the pan and quickly swirl to cover the bottom. Cook until the bottom is set,and top is dry. Repeat until you have at least 12 Crêpes.
Filling
Have ready the chicken and broccoli. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the onions and sauté over medium heat until transparent. Whisk in the flour and cook 2 minutes. Whisk in the chicken stock, horseradish, pepper and salt. Bring to a boil. Stir and cook 2 to 3 minutes. Chill. Add the chicken and broccoli. Set aside.
Assembly and Horseradish Cream Sauce
Preheat the oven to 325°. Roll each of the 2 Crêpes with about 1/3 cup of the filling. Arrange the Crêpes in a buttered baking pan and cover with foil. Put in the oven for 20-30 minutes or until heated through. While the Crêpes are heating, make the sauce
Combine the shallots and wine in a saucepan and reduce to 5-6 tablespoons. Add the cream, horseradish, salt and pepper and simmer until thickened. Stir in the softened butter in bits and serve at once over Crêpes.
This one took some time to make, but was worth all of it! It could be made in stages and put together at the last minute, as well.
I was just a tad worried about how Nonna would take to it, so when she came into the kitchen, I told her it was canneloni. She really liked it!
I also made their streusel-topped sour cream apple pie. I'm heading into the kitchen for a slice right now!
Happy Birthday, Nonna!
Birthdays are fun. They mean we get to use the good plates! Not that we really need a reason, but you know what I mean. Any ol' reason to celebrate at our house, and having Nonna celebrate birthday #87 is more than a good reason!
Chicken parmesan, pasta, and spinach. Nonna cleaned her plate. It does my Irish heart good to see people eat - especially little old ladies. It's funny how my normal eat-it-or-don't attitude flies right out the window when I'm cooking for her. I'm usually quite snarky about other peoples likes and dislikes, but with Nonna, I really do want her to like it. There's probably something Freudian lurking around, somewhere.
Dinner really took no time at all to do. The pasta sauce came out of the freezer, as did the spinach. The chicken breasts were thin-sliced, dredged in flour, dipped in egg, and dredged in bread crumbs. Homemade bread crumbs from homemade bread. I'm an overachiever. What can I say?
I then fried them in olive oil, topped them with a bit of sauce, topped the sauce with some fresh mozzarella cheese, and popped them into a 350° oven for about 10 minutes.
I did add a bit of garlic powder, salt, and pepper to the flour and a pinch of sage to the bread crumbs, but otherwise didn't season a lot. The sauce is good so I didn't need to cover it up.
No birthday cake, tonight. I am heading in to make a key lime and coconut cake for tomorrow, though.
I'll keep ya posted.
Chicken Marsala and Potato Pancakes
Leftover smashed potatoes are a good thing. Especially when Victor has a plan...
His plan was potato pancakes. I loves me some potato pancakes! They really are the perfect way to use up leftover potatoes. And using up leftover potatoes is the only time I ever think to make them. They probably wouldn't come out as good if I cooked the potatoes and did them on purpose. Some things are just like that.
The potato pancakes are pretty basic - an egg, some flour, herbs and spices, as desired. He took them one step farther tonight, though - he breaded them with breadcrumbs. Brilliant.
The chicken marsala was another quick throw-together.
I sliced two chicken breasts width-wise and then lightly pounded them. I dredged them in flour seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, and a bit of sage.
I sauteed mushrooms and then sauteed the chicken in a bit of olive oil and butter. I added a good splash of marsala and let it cook down. Next went some chicken broth and I let it simmer a bit and then thickened it with a bit of cornstarch.
Frozen chopped spinach finished the plate.
This one had it all. Fork-tender chicken scallops, creamy-crunchy potatoes, and Popeye's favorite vegetable.
And there's more of that yummy cake coming up later...