Showing posts with label chicken. Show all posts

So Jeremy and I were talking about how Mike needs to take his French Toast recipe and turn it into a Boston Cream Pie French Toast. Jeremy linked to a recipe that looked damn good on this blog. I looked over the site and found a recipe that would work with some stuff I had in my house and made this.
http://cakebatterandbowl.com/creamy-lemon-summer-squash-pasta.html
Though I did make some modifications and I'm posting my recipe here.

1 lbs whole wheat penne pasta
2 large yellow squashes, chopped
2 large zucchinis, chopped
1 package stir fry chicken
1 red onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup chicken stock
Juice and zest of 2 limes
6 oz greek yogurt
1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
salt
pepper
olive oil

Cook the penne pasta like you know what you are doing.
Saute the squash and zucchini in olive oil and put aside until later.
In the same pan, saute the onions and in the last minute, add the garlic. Put these aside with the squash.
Cook up the chicken with a little more olive oil until brown.
About this time the pasta should be done. Drain it, and in the pot it was cooked in, add the chicken stock, yogurt, lime and basil. The original recipe said to add the cheese which I did and it just ended up get all clumpy and sticking to the spoon rather then getting creamy. I recommend adding the cheese at the very end to get good coverage. Instead you'll need to get the sauce creamy another way. You could make a roux and add that, or add the squash and zucchini and get some of the starch from them to help cream up the sauce.
Either way, mix the veggies and chicken and pasta all back together. Mix it up real good, and sprinkle on the cup of parmesan while stirring. I idea is to get the parmesean to stick on each piece of food rather then sticking to itself in one, maybe delicious, clump.

I added some more parmesan to my bowl to serve but it wouldn't have been necessary if the parmesan was creamy to start with.

I really enjoyed this pasta dish. I've had dishes similar with the veggies and cheese and creamy bits. But the addition of the lemon juice, or lime juice in my case, and the yogurt is really nice. It helped to bring out the saltiness of it all.

This is mostly just the random stir fry dish I learned from my mom but I did things a little different. For one I used a bunch of fresh veggies, though it ended up not making too much of a difference. And two, I used a premade stir fry package from the store. It did come out a bit better then the typical soy sauce and garlic salt that is the typical seasoning of my mom's stir fry, but the biggest difference is that the packaged seasoning had corn starch in it which turned into a bit more or a light gravy and helped the veggies and rice stick together.

1 package stir fry seasoning
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup water
1 Tbsp sugar
1 onion sliced
1 carrot sliced
1 corn
1 green bell pepper
Handful of mushrooms, sliced
1 head broccoli
1 lbs chicken, cubed
1 cup rice
2 cups water
1 Tbsp salt
oil

I always start with the rice just to give it enough time to cook up. Put the rice, water, and salt in a medium to small pot, boil, turn down to low, and put the top on for 20 -30 minutes.

Follow the directions on the stir fry packaging (for me it was mixing the seasoning, water, soy sauce, and sugar and let it sit until the meat was done.
Fry up the chicken with some hot oil until cooked. Add all the chopped veggies and add the seasoning mixture. Stir it up a bit, and but on a top to let the veggies steam to tenderness. Stir again before serving to coat all pieces with the gravy. Serve.

If you thought adding blue food coloring was cheap, how about tweaking the tint on the picture of the food?

Here, for your gall bladders delight, are my greasy contribute to the Blue Party; Blue cheese batter dipped Cordon Blue.
(also in the picture is a deep fried cornbread. Because what else are you gonna do with a ton of batter and hot oil but fry things)


Chicken breasts cut into small strips
Bacon
Veggie oil

Batter:
1 cup all purpose flower
1 cup ice cold water
1 handful of ice cubes
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 Tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese.

So I was aiming for a tempura type batter here. The recipe for that is the same as above just without the spices and blue cheese. I also originally planned on making a blue cheese dipping sauce, but the blue cheese I got was really crumbly, almost a powder. Instead I mixed it into the dry portion of the batter. The flavor came through in the end, so that was good.
The rest was really easy. I had the small cuts of chicken that I sat on one end of a piece of bacon that was laid out. I rolled it up, stuck a toothpick in it, then cut the extra length of bacon off to be used in the next bit of chicken. I ended up getting about 4 little rolls out of each strip of bacon.
I then dipped it into the batter, and dropped it into a pot of hot veggie oil for about 3 minutes. The end product wasn't really what I would call fine dining. In fact, I only ate about three at 6pm, and wasn't hungry again for the rest of the night. Normally, when deep frying, the layer of batter creates a barrier to the oil as you well know, but when inside of the batter is bacon, that barrier doesn't really matter. It just traps the bacon grease in. Also, I could only taste the blue cheese and bacon, and not much else.

Finally, here is a non-tinted picture of the goods.

I wasn't planning on posting this dinner when I first started cooking it, but when it was almost done, it looked to good, and once eaten, tasted too good not to post. I had a bunch of vegetables from the farmers market that I needed to use and figured that a salad was the best use of those veggies. This is what I came up with.

Romain lettuce, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
Carrot, chopped into disks.
Fire roasted corn
Fire roasted green bell pepper, sliced
2 chicken tenders
1 chipotle pepper
Black pepper
Salt
Cesar salad dressing
Parrano cheese, grated
Lemon juice

I found some of the cheapest per pound chicken was the frozen chicken tenders. While I would prefer fresh chicken, I can't really afford it and these aren't too bad. After defrosting these, I chopped up a single chipotle pepper and rubbed it onto the chicken with some salt and black pepper. I cooked these on a cask iron skillet that I had, though grilling them would have been preferred.

I recently am a big fan of roasting fresh corn over my gas range. I first rub some butter onto the husked corn, then slowly rotate the corn over the flame making sure there is just a tiny bit of black all over. While doing these the butter melts, starts to dip and ignites making the corn flame broiled, all the while some kernels are popping and cracking. I roasted a green bell pepper as well. I used a fork as a spit and to turn it.

All of these was tossed together and covered with some cesar salad dressing and some amazing freshly grated Parrano cheese, and lemon juice. I ended up making and eating two plates.

So I made a salsa. And it turned out great. I then used it to make things. Here is one of those things.

The salsa was really easy. Mostly I had some ingredients that I wanted to use up.

2 Corn, roasted and shaved
1 can black beans Black Beans, rinsed
1 pint Pico de Gallo
1 Chipotle pepper, chopped fine

I roasted the corn again, like I've done before; husk, rub with a pad of butter, hold and slowly rotate over open flame burner.
I then mixed it up with a thing of Pico de Gallo salsa. I though about making it all from scratch but that would have cost a considerable amount. I added the rinsed black beans, and a single chipotle pepper that I diced up real fine.

For the rest of this meal, I pan fried some chicken tenders with salt, pepper, and cumin, and added some Colby cheese. So simple and delicious.

Alright, I decided to take Stew up on his challenge (and finally get around to posting something again) and make a nice stew.

The recipe I used was originally intended for pork, but we had a bunch of chicken around so here we are.

The fry bread is even more straight-forward than that is.

3-4 cups of flour
3 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
1 cup water1/2 cup milk

First, as always, combine all the dry ingredients and then add in the wet ones. Give it a light knead.. The dough should be relatively soft but dry enough to be handled. Add a little extra flour if you need to. Then just portion it out however you want, flatten it into discs, and fry it about a quarter of an inch of preheated oil until both sides are golden.

Alright, I think it is about time for some crazy Vittles and Mangia posting time. To start us off, I'm challenging all y'all in making either a soup or stew and posting it. It's the Soup Stew Challenge. So come on, lets see what you got. Soups are easy to make, or at least some are. Put your veggies and meats together and try to beat this stew that I just made last night.

I made this not really having a plan ahead of time. I just started chopping and ended up making really too much. The largest pot in my house was filled to within a half inch of the rim.

Here are my ingredients.

1 onion
2 potatoes
1 large zucchini
4 cloves garlic
1 green bell pepper
2 ear corn, fire roasted
1 whole chicken
3 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
1 inch cube fresh ginger
1 Tablespoon Pho paste
1 Tablespoon cumin
1 Tablespoon black pepper
salt
water
cilantro
1 lemon, juiced and zested
oil or butter

I had all these ingredients at home before starting except the chicken. I ran out to the store, grabbed the chicken and was ready. I wanted to give the chicken a little more flavor, so I put it on a baking sheet, greased up the skin with oil, and rubbed on a healthy dose of kosher salt. I put this in the oven at 400 degree. My aim was to get the skin all crispy and golden before tossing into the soup. While the chicken baked, I prepared all the veggies. With the corn, I have a gas burner and so I was able to slowly turn the corn over the flame and get it nice and roasted. I chopped everything up, and sauteed them in a couple tablespoons of butter with some salt to help them along. All in all this took about 30 minutes. The chicken was just about done so I pulled it out and let it cool. I added enough water to make it soupy, rather than stewy. I added the seasoning as the soup heated up. I didn't add any more salt because I knew the chicken would be pretty salty. If you need more salt, you can always add it right before it is served. Once the chicken cooled, I sliced off the breasts and chopped them into cubes. I removed the wings and drumsticks and put them in the soup, bone in. I would have added the thighs and the rest of the meat but the soup pot was too full, so I just put them back in the oven to finish cooking and then pulled it and put it in tupperware.

The soup stayed on the heat for another 30 minutes. Right before serving, I juiced a lemon and added the zest. I also chopped some cilantro and put that in my own bowl. Cilantro looses a lot of it's flavor when it cooks so it is best to put it on right before eating.

So yeah, that's my soup contribution to The Soup Stew Challenge. I don't expect people to try to replicate this exactly. And there isn't really a way to taste all the soups and judge them to see who's is best. There will be no contest. This is just a challenge. Make some soup or stew. Ring the Bell.

I tried my hand at a new dish, and though I made some major changes to the original recipe, it turned out really good. And yes, I know I am a king at plate presentations.

6 chicken drumsticks
1 large onion
2 potatoes
3 carrots
(1 red and 1 green bell pepper, but only if you have room in your pot, which I did not)
1 and 1/2 cups basmati or long grain rice
3 cups water
14 oz can diced or chopped or whatever Tomatoes
3 Tbsp Canola oil (or really any type of cooking oil is fine)
chopped Cilantro
1 jar Patak's Biryani curry paste. (the most difficult but most essential ingredient)


You will want to use the largest pot you have a top for, or cut the portions down. I started by chopping up all the veggies into similar size pieces. I put the oil in the pot and tossed in all the veggies and the chicken drumsticks setting the burner on high. I let these cook for a bit while stirring it down. I also added some salt to help it cook down. After about 10 mins, I added the can of tomatoes, rice, water and the whole jar or Biryani paste. I mixed that up and turned the heat down to medium. I put the top on and and let it do it's thing. I still opened it and stirred it every once and a while, once every 5-10 minutes so the rice on the bottom didn't burn. Once it all got real hot and bubbly, I turned down the heat. Essentially it is like making a jambalaya. It seems pretty wet at first but the rice ends up absorbing it all and it thickens up. This all cooked for about 30-45 more minutes. Now at this point it was probably done, but I had to go do some other stuff. To keep it hot and just to make sure the chicken was cooked all the way through, I turned on the oven, let it heat up, then turned it off and put the pot, with the top on into the oven. I left it here for about an hour and a half. When I took it out it was really hot still. Actually after it sat out for another hour, the rice was still steaming when I dug through it with the spoon. Who'da thunk rice with all it's starch held onto heat all that well. The final step is to add some chopped cilantro to the top.

So I don't really know if the last 2 hours of being in the warm oven did much, but it turned out really good. The rice was nice and sticky, the veggies were all soft, and the chicken was tender and moist. I would probably do things different next time however. I would decrease the portion size, by a lot. I might increase the veggie ratio to get more of that flavor, specifically on the onion. And finally, the chicken, while having perfect texture didn't really have a lot of flavor. I might try grilling it up first, or maybe marinating it in plain yogurt and tandoori paste.

So it's pizza you bastards want, is it? Fine, I'll play ball. Mike probably wins as crust goes, I just used one of those cheapo pre-mixed bags. I topped that with a pizza sauce from scratch: 6 oz tomato paste, 6 oz water, parmesan, minced garlic, fresh basil, oregano, marjoram, salt, red pepper flake, black pepper, and sugar. Then it got colby and cheddar cheese, caramelized onions, bacon, spinach, a whole heapin helpin of fresh roasted chicken, a little more parmesan, and green onion. It was good. It would have been great, but the crust kinda sucked.

All made with the same pizza dough as last time.

Kielbasa and egg:

Grilled pizza with garlic, olive oil, basil, tomato, a little remaining chicken and some cheese:

Grilled chicken and bell peppers on a barbecue sauce base:

The remaining grilled chicken and kielbasa with a traditional tomato pizza sauce and mozzarella:


Group shot:

Left to fend for myself for dinner tonight and for whatever reason I decided I felt like pizza, even though it was already after 6pm when I found out.Chicken, bacon, and garlic pizza. Pretty good. Here's a couple more shots to give you the full experience.


Update: There have been some complaints that I didn't actually post the instructions for making this. I didn't because I am lazy, and since I'm still lazy I'll just direct you to where I got the dough recipe here. Follow this, top as you want, cook as it instructs, and then there's pizza.

I got the Escovitch Fish and Festival which is pictured above. Before going in I knew this is what I wanted to get to compare it to Jeremy's Island party fish escovitch. The fish was talapia and the festival in the name referred to the sweet bread stick sitting on the cabbage and carrots. Right above that in the picture you can see a small bowl that contained the escovitch sauce. This was quite a few degrees hotter than Jeremy's sauce. It didn't have bell peppers, only onions, habenero and whole all spice berries. I actually preferred Jeremy's escovitch over this one, which isn't to say this one was bad. The talapia was just a lot thinner so you didn't get that good full bite feeling from it, and the fish itself wasn't as full bodied as the red snapper. In Jeremy's, he had enough veggies to eat with the fish, while this, the onions on top only added a slight seasoning to each bite of fish. But enough about the comparisons. Now we talk about the other good stuff here.

My dad and I both got a mango mint lemonade that was really tasty. There were quite a few chunks of mint and mango pulp but the flavor was awesome.

My mom got the Jerk Chicken off the Grill. It was maybe my favorite thing I tasted. The chicken had a mango chutney stuffed into the crevices of the breast and on top that was killer. My dad got the Jerk Shrimp off the Grill that I didn't get to try because he ate it fairly quickly. I did try his corn on the cob that came with it. It tasted like are really nice fresh grilled corn but had another layer that tasted like it had been marinating in coconut milk before being cooked up.

My sister and Tarrin both got the Brown Stew Chicken which was pretty good. The serving size on this dish was much larger. It was filled out with basmati rice and red beans which I finished off both of their plates when they couldn't eat any more. It was seriously good, especially when it mixed into the Brown chicken sauce. The chicken was really soft and fell apart, and the stew sauce was dark and tasted like a beef stew that had been cooked down to a much richer gravy. Super good.

So yeah we didn't get any desserts but on the way home we stopped at the Churro Station and got like 6 churros filled with a variety of sweet stuff and since they were closing for the night, they tossed in like 4 extra regular churros for free. So I guess this is also a Churro Station review.

More chicken? Never did a chicken in a crockpot. Honestly even while doing it I was thinking do people do this? Is this okay? Am I gonna get my door smashed in ala neighborhood drug bust? The answer of course was yes. But the offending officers were very polite. Not to my door but to me. This is basically what I did.

Then I put all that into the crockpot, with the halves from the lemon I juiced, and half a white onion scattered about. Set it on medium, let it go for about 6 hours. Took it out, carved the thing, ate it with a baked potato. BOOM!

More chicken? Yeah, yeah I guess so. So this one was all off the cuff. Turned out purdy darn good, so I'm posting it. I figure this should make up for using the Tyler Florence recipe.
I can't give you exact measurements for anything but here were the basic ingredients:
-4 chicken breasts
-turkey ham
-basil
-garlic
-parmesan
-1 can tomato sauce
-onion powder
-white cooking wine
-oregano
-salt
-pepper
-olive oil
-milk

I started off by seasoning the chicken breasts and then searing them in a skillet with some olive oil. Took the breasts, sliced them open, stuffed them with pieces of the ham, and a mixture of basil, garlic, parmesan, oregano, and onion powder. I also covered them on the outsides with the same filling. Then I popped them in the oven at 350. Hit the hot pan with the seared chicken bits with some white wine, popped in the tomato sauce, and some milk. Brought it to a boil, reduced it, started to stir in parmesan, basil, garlic, and a little bit of onion powder. I let that simmer basically the whole time the chicken cooked. Amber made some mashed potatoes. I pulled the chicken out when it was about 150 internally, let it rest for 10 minutes and it rose to about 165 when it was done. It ended up being cooked perfectly. Super moist, super tender. It was good, especially for being completely on the fly.

Alrighty. Jerk chicken people, that's the name of the game. Can't claim authorship of this recipe though, that would go to our good man Tyler Florence, though we did alter the method a bit. Here's the goods:

-Marinade:

• 2 teaspoons allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 onion
• 8 cloves garlic or 1 whole head
• 1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger, sliced
• 3 scallions, sliced
• 3 limes, juiced
• Splash low-sodium soy sauce
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 6 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves picked
• 1 Scotch bonnet pepper, halved, plus more to taste
• 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 whole free-range chicken (about 5 pounds), cut into 10 pieces
• Limes, for garnish
• Parsley, for garnish
• Smoking chips, soaked in water for 15 minutes

Begin by making the jerk marinade. Combine all the marinade ingredients in a blender and process until you have a smooth puree. Add chicken pieces into a large resealable plastic bag and pour in the marinade. Put the bag into a baking dish and let marinate in the refrigerator overnight. Preheat grill to high. Prepare a table-top smoker or take a roasting tray, line it with foil and add some soaked wood chips to the bottom. Place a wire rack over the top, upside down, and lay chicken pieces over the chips on the rack. Cover with foil and grill over high heat. Smoke for 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Transfer the chicken pieces to a baking sheet and drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil. Bake in the oven "low and slow" until chicken is tender, about 1 hour. Remove the chicken from the baking sheet to a serving platter and garnish with limes and parsley before serving.-

Now, we used a deep pizza pan, and placed our woodchips in that, then we took the circular rack from my grill and put the chicken on that. Wrapped it all up in foil super tight, and then skipped the grilling and went straight for some mean steaming. It turned out super juicy, and tender, and fragrant! Boy did this stuff smell strongly. I think we all agreed that it smelled, and tasted like Chino Bandido's jerk chicken, which, if you've never had the pleasure, is something you should try.

Now, for the kapow (the other stuff pictured), we followed Mr. Florence one more time for these bitchin' plantain dumplings.

• -3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for seasoning
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold and cut into cubes
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 ripe plantain, peeled and cut into coins
• Vegetable oil, for frying

Add the flour, salt and baking powder to a food processor and pulse to combine. Toss in the cold butter cubes and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs. Add milk, a little bit at a time until it is completely worked into the dough. Once it comes together into a nice consistent ball and pulls away from the sides of the food processor, divide the dough into about 12 little balls. Push a slice of plantain into the middle of each ball and pinch the dough around the plantain so it is completely covered by the dough. Press each ball flat into a little cake, cover with a damp kitchen towel and allow to rest for 20 to 30 minutes before frying. Set a large nonstick skillet over medium heat and add 1/4 cup of vegetable oil. Prick the dumplings all over with a fork. Working in batches, pan-fry dumplings until golden and slightly puffy, about 3 to 5 minutes per side. Season with salt and serve warm.-

Basically, think of a biscuit. Got it? Okay, now think of stuffing a banana in that biscuit. There you have it. That's what these taste like. They're weird, but good. This was all accompanied by some nice coconut rice that Stew whipped up. Basically, as I understand it, it was just 2 cups of rice cooked in coconut milk, cut with a little water to have enough moisture. I bet ya Stew will tell ya it needs more coconut. I'm inclined to agree with him, but it was pretty good nonetheless.

Ring da bell, mon!

Here are some pretty good slow cooked chicken tacos I made last night.

3 chicken breasts
1 can diced tomatoes
1 small can tomato paste
1 chopped jalapeno
1 can chopped Serrano peppers
1 tsp cumin
1 Tbsp brown sugar

corn tortillas
chopped lettuce
chopped onions
chopped cilantro
salsa

refried beans
cheese

I put the chicken into a pot that was just big enough for them each to have their own spot. I poured in the canned tomatoes and peppers and the sugar and cumin. It came most of the way up the side of the chicken breasts. I put a lid on this and heated it on low for 3 hours. I had just enough heat for it so be right on the verge of boiling the whole time. You will know they are done when they fall apart really easily. I pulled them out of the sauce they cooked in, ripped it all up, and then put them in a bowl with whatever was still chunky from the sauce. I then poured some of the sauce onto the chicken just to the point where it coated everything and added a little moisture.

I then heated the corn tortillas on a cast iron skillet for about 10 seconds on each side. After the meat, I topped it with lettuce, onions, cilantro and salsa. There was a side of beans with cheese as you can see in the picture.

I made this once before, back around the superbowl time. I took notes on how made it (as I was making it earlier this evening). So here's how I made it.

• I preheated the oven to 425 degrees
• Placed the tater tots in a cake pan(still frozen)
• Once the oven was finished preheating, I placed the tater tots in the oven
• While waiting for them to finish heating up I did the following:

1. I heated up the chicken in the microwave.(I don't know exactly how much time. I just used the frozen food setting.)
2. I grated some cheese.(doesn't matter what kind, but I used a combination of colby & pepperjack)
3. And I made up a buffalo sauce for it.(All I did was mix some buffalo chicken wing sauce with ranch dressing. Just go until you've got an amount you're satisfied with, and a spice level you're content with, as well.)

• It shouldn't take more than 20 minutes for the tater tots to well-heated
• Once they're done, I did the following:

1. Poured the sauce over the top of the tots & mixed until they soaked up the sauce.
2. Put cheese over the top, and then let it sit in the oven(while it still had warmth to it) until it was nice and melted.
3. After that, spread the chicken on over the top.

And with all that..........................it's done!!! Should look something like this:

Alright, so I had a bit of a stomach bug yesterday, and felt well and truly awful. I couldn't eat anything. To fix it, I thought I'd take the age old home remedy of a platter of heavy deep fried food, what you see here: Chicken nuggets, popcorn shrimp, onion rings, and french fries, all made from scratch. And what a colorful presentation it made!

-4 chicken breasts, cut into nuggety chunks.
-1 pound of shrimp, precooked, deveined, and deshelled.
-1 yellow onion, cut into rings.
-5 russet potatoes, cut into fries.
-1 can bread crumbs.
-7 eggs.
-flour, garlic powder, salt, black pepper.
-peanut oil.

Combined the bread crumbs with the other dry ingredients, saved the flour, which was in a bowl by itself. Stirred the eggs to make an eggwash. Then, more or less, you roll what you want fried in the flour, then the eggwash, then the breadcrumb mix, and into the fryer with the peanut oil. I had it at 375 degrees Farenheit. After each item was done, I'd hit it with a bit of salt, and the shrimp I squeezed lemon juice onto. We ate all this with three sauces: honey mustard, cocktail sauce, and buffalo ranch. Shaun made the buffalo ranch, Mike made the other two. Over all it was pretty good.
Can't tell you how well the cure is going to work on my delicate guts, but you know, all those old wives tales are pretty hit and miss. Ring the porcelain bell!