Wing and a Prayer: Lemon Ginger Wings

Three months ago, things were looking pretty rosy: the kitchen remodeling business was on a consistent upswing, and I was able to ditch the nightmarish, weekend gig.  It was so nice to be able to work one job. The free-time even made me a little lazy – I haven’t posted a single recipe since.

Cut to present-day: Congress is acting like a bunch of babies, S&P has downgraded the U.S. credit rating, and the phone isn’t ringing quite a much as it was. So what do I do? I start cooking, of course. (What can I say? It’s one thing to have free time; it’s another thing to not have enough to do.)

I actually played with this recipe over the summer, and Don has been harping at me to get it up on the site ever since (he really just wants me to make it again). He’s a hot wings freak. I’m not a big fan of the hot sauce based kind, but I enjoy these because they have a more complex flavor.

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Bleu-Lite Special: Chicken Cordon Bleu Roulade

Free at last! Free at last! I have been banished from the Land of the Eternal Bluelight. That’s right; I have FINALLY been able to punt my weekend gig! (I never knew that freedom could be so satisfying)

What I thought was going to be a 5 or 6 month stopgap measure turned into 2 ½ years of multiple nights per week. Talk about exhausting – this is the first week in that amount of time that I get to work under 60 hours. One thing the experience has taught me – I really enjoy being my own boss. There is no way I could work in corporate America – common sense is something I value too much and (evidently) large corporations don’t value at all. Enough said.

I celebrated my first evening of freedom by hitting happy hour on the waterfront. Honestly, to empty your head of the nightmares of discount retail, there’s nothing like a nice glass of Malbec at your favorite restaurant as you watch the water traffic. Ahhh, peace and serenity…

Of course, I also had to play a little in the kitchen as part of my ongoing festivities. And since I’ve now ditched my second job, I still have to keep an eye on the grocery budget – so Inexpensive Eating must go on. I’ve saved this recipe for just this occasion – the play on words was just too childishly easy to pass up.

Chicken cordon bleu is one of my all-time favorite dishes. It just seems so decadent to shove a ham & cheese sandwich in the middle of chicken doesn’t it? (People love shoving ham & cheese in a variety of things – can you imagine the guy who came up with a Monte Cristo?) But we’ve also been trying to eat a little healthier lately, so I wanted to lighten it up a little. And I was still celebrating; I thought a little unnecessary fanciness was in order too. The result was this little ham & cheese roll-up.

I pounded the chicken out pretty thin between two sheets of plastic wrap (the poor dog always runs and hides when I start beating the countertop with a frying pan). It’s a little satisfying to release all of that aggression too (maybe I should have made this before I ditched the part-time gig). Once I added the ham, cheese, and other things, I rolled it up tight and secured them with toothpicks. I then proceeded to sear them off right away, but I think 20 or 30 minutes in the fridge would have helped them hold their shape a little better.

You could easily run these through a breading station before you throw them in the pan, but in an attempt to be virtuous, I skipped it. Instead, I made a pan sauce at the end that was mostly butter. (What can I say? Virtue is in the eye of the beholder.) It was still definitely decadent enough to celebrate with.

So make this dish and hold your own little celebration on my behalf. And remember – never take a job that requires you to utter the phrase, “Attention Kmart shoppers…”

Recipe: Chicken Cordon Bleu Roulade

Half Coq’ed: Chicken and Mushrooms in Red Wine

I, like most foodies, speak of Julia Child only in hushed, reverent tones. I would venture to guess that most American food bloggers would list her as one of the culinary influences in their lives. (Do you think it’s mere coincidence that her initials are also J.C.?) Let’s face it, the woman is an icon. And I certainly appreciate her dedication to gastronomy – she was a consummate researcher. But be honest (and I swear, I’m whispering as I say this) – a couple of the recipes are a little overblown, don’t you think?

I have made her Coq au Vin recipe from start to finish a couple of times. It is absolutely out of this world! It also dirties almost every cooking vessel I own, takes hours, and completely tries my patience (seriously – blanching bacon and peeling pearl onions are some of the most tedious things I’ve ever done).

Now it’s confession time (Don doesn’t even know this one): I had avoided eating coq au vin since I was a child. If I saw it on a menu, I wouldn’t consider ordering it. I couldn’t believe someone would want to eat that concoction. Want to know why? Because I had no idea what I was talking about.

I guess I’d never seen an episode of The French Chef where she made the dish. I had never seen the name written down. The only thing I was able to pick up was that it was a chicken dish. Also, I don’t speak French. When someone says, “Coq au Vin,” it sounds exactly like “Cocoa Van. “ Putting together the little tidbits that I had gleaned, I couldn’t understand how anyone would want to eat chocolate covered chicken (that I assumed was somehow prepared in a moving car)! I won’t tell you how old I was, but you can not imagine how stupid I felt when I found out the truth (and never let on to anyone that I was so off-base.)

This is all by way of telling you about the dinner party I threw this weekend. My friend, Catherine, is great - a southern belle, through and through. She has this phenomenal home that looks like a French chalet from the outside. Inside, it’s decorated with wonderful French Provencal influences. The kitchen is a complete masterpiece (shameless self-promotion, since I’m the one who designed it). She is a Master Gardener, and has this weakness for all things chocolate. When I say that she’s a serious chocoholic, I’m not kidding. She once brought back cocoa hulls from Hershey, PA to use as mulch around her garden.

So when we decided to have an intimate birthday dinner for Catherine, what else could I make but French chocolate chicken? (OK, I’ve obviously figured it out by now, but this is still what I call it in my head). There was no way I was tackling the Julia Child method - I wanted to simplify it and make it a little less expensive to prepare. I got it all down to a single pot and about an hour’s worth of active cooking time. If you can taste the difference, more power to you – I certainly can’t.

I gave up on cooking with expensive wine long ago, but I still avoid anything labeled ‘cooking wine’ (yuk). I keep a $4 bottle of white wine on the fridge door that I cook with, and I picked up a $5 bottle of Zinfandel to make this dish this weekend. Honestly, you cook the bejeezus out of the wine for this dish, so I just can’t see spending $15 or $20 for something that isn’t recognizable in the end anyway. If you want to, have at it. I also dirtied only one pot for the whole meal, and skipped the stinking pearl onions.

The payoff was completely worth it. Catherine loved the meal, and I found a Chocolate Orange Cappuccino Cake from my buddy, Megan, over at Foodalution that is over the top stupendous! It doesn’t exactly fit into the category if Inexpensive Eating, but you have to splurge once in a while, right?

So I was able to cut out half the steps, ¾ of the pans, and about an hour’s worth of work. Not bad for going off half coq’ed.

Recipe: Chicken and Mushrooms in Red Wine

All Choked Up: Chicken with Tomatoes and Artichokes

I was supposed to be taking the night off. Don was at work, and I had the house to myself for the evening (which certainly is not a common occurrence). I had considered diving head first into a bag of chips for dinner, but then I got the dreaded phone call: Don needed me to bring him something to eat because he wasn’t going to get the chance to get away for a break.

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Recipe: Chicken with Tomatoes and Artichokes

A Quick ‘Between Jobs’ Dinner: Tomato, Asparagus, and Pesto Salad with Chicken

I hate working two jobs. OK, let me correct that before the gods of irony get involved and have a field day: I hate the fact that I need to work two jobs.

Three nights a week I have to run from the office, back to the house, scarf down dinner, and head out to job number two. I just can’t hit the drive-thru and be on my way, like normal people. Why? 1) If I ate fast food three nights a week, I’d be as big as a house; and 2) spending money to eat fast food defeats the purpose of working two jobs (I mean, if I’m going to pay for dinner, then I want to appreciate the food, not the plastic cup full of soda). The solution is to come up with some quick and easy recipes to keep in my back pocket. That’s where this one comes into play.

All these veggies pair nicely with pesto on their own, so I thought I might as well toss them all together. Same goes for the chicken. I seasoned the chicken breasts with just simple salt and pepper, instead of doing anything that would compete with the pesto.

In an effort to add a little body to the sauce (which is really just pesto), I cook the orzo as I would a grain – a 2:1 ratio of liquid to orzo (when it's finished cooking, it looks like a pot of rice). That way I can use all the starchy goodness that comes from the pasta when it cooks to give the sauce a little more heft. Cooking it in chicken stock just imparts that much more flavor. The only thing the recipe lacks is some crusty bread to go with it (which I happened to have on hand).

I know this is short, but that’s all the time I have – it’s a two-job day.

Recipe: Tomato, Asparagus, and Pesto Salad with Chicken

Balsamic Rosemary BBQ Chicken & Grilled Corn with Pesto Butter

This is one of my latest attempts to ‘class-up’ BBQ chicken. Now there’s nothing wrong with BBQ chicken in its everyday state – thick and spicy with a tomato-based sauce. You know, the kind that takes 3 napkins to eat. The problem is that is has a markedly casual connotation – visions of poolside eating while still in your bathing suits. I’m looking for something that feels like it could be eaten indoors, at the table with a knife and fork.

Because this sauce cooks for so long, I didn’t use the good balsamic for the recipe. I save 10-year stuff for use in its straight-out-of-the-bottle form. The balsamic I use for this is the 3-year / $3 per bottle stuff. Besides, the additional flavor components in the sauce are bold in their own right, so it would mask the deep, rich flavor a more expensive balsamic has. Additionally, I used dried rosemary instead of fresh. Make no mistake, I’d much rather use fresh herbs, but it’s one of the financial compromises I’ve had to make. If fresh herbs are in your budget, then use them. But remember that you want to use about 3 times the amount of fresh herbs as you would use dried, so bump the measurement up to 1 tablespoon of chopped, fresh rosemary – instead of 1 teaspoon of dried.

The sauce is thinner than the tomato-based, and has a mouth-feel closer to a glaze than a traditional BBQ sauce. On the other hand, the flavor is a little more adult and gives the illusion that it could be eaten in the dining room, instead of finger food in your bathing suit.

Since I already had the grill fired up, I thought I’d throw some corn on the grill at the same time. There’s nothing like sweet corn with a little char on it. I grew up in Indiana, which is basically the corn capital. Unfortunately, as a child I never had corn that was anything but boiled – and usually overcooked (I can remember corn being on the stove in a big pot of water for 30+ minutes). This is quick and easy – it takes about the same amount of time as the chicken – and infinitely tastier. The sugars get the chance to caramelize and pair with the smoky depth of flavor that comes from cooking over an open flame.

I mentioned in another post that a friend had given me a bunch of basil that I turned into unbelievable pesto. Basil is a wonderful flavor to pair with corn, so I finished up my grilling with a little compound butter to spread over the top. Delicious. I know that serving corn on the cob goes against the concept of a more upscale BBQ, so you could always cut off the corn and place it in a serving bowl before adding the pesto butter.

I hope you enjoy Balsamic Roesmary BBQ Chicken and Grilled Corn with Pesto Butter.

Just as an aside: I’ve developed my own corn husking tricks to remove all of the silks, but I know that there are many others out there. If you’ve got a foolproof one, I’d like to hear about it.

Picnic at Home with Chicken and Chimichurri

It was one of those weeks that made you want to hide from the world. And once the weekend rolled around, that’s exactly what we did. We unplugged the phone, locked the door and cocooned for two whole days.

Since Don and I were determined not to interact with the anyone, we decided to have a picnic at home instead of venturing out into the cruel world. Besides, it’s a lot easier to make good food when you don’t have to schlep it out to the beach.

For some reason, when I think of picnics, I think of bold flavors. And if it’s a picnic, then there has to be both chicken and potato salad involved (isn’t that some sort of picnic law or something?). So our indoor picnic consisted of chicken with chimichurri sauce and roasted potato salad, complete with roasted garlic for good measure.

And it can’t be a picnic without dessert, can it? (OK, who am I kidding? It’s a rare dinner at our house without dessert.) I had made ice cream earlier in the week, and since ice cream is definitely picnic food, I made caramelized pineapple with ice cream for dessert. (It’s fruit, so that made it a healthy dessert, right? I mean, that fact cancels out the sugar and ice cream, doesn’t it?)

So maybe a picnic on the beach might have had more atmosphere, and the dog might have enjoyed a trip to the park – but (at least for this weekend) an agoraphobic picnic was just what the doctor ordered.

Taking Stock; Chicken Stock 101

There are several culinary compromises that I’ve had to make because of the economy. I’ve had to eliminate eating out at nice restaurants. Rack of lamb and artisan cheeses are just a couple of the things I can’t wait to reintroduce to my gastronomic life. But there’s one thing I started doing to economize that I will continue long into the future: making my own chicken stock.

I was spending about $10 every week to get 3 quarts of prepackaged stock at the grocery store (what can I say? I use a lot of stock). I finally had to break down and see if making my own would be any cheaper. It is. And it’s infinitely better too. I’ve even got to the point that I take the restaurant approach – using scraps for the bulk of my stock ingredients. I can make 6 or 8 quarts of stock at a time and use about $2 worth of ingredients to do it. It’s the best $2 I can spend on eating.

All I have to do is make a couple of strategic decisions during the month and I usually have all the makings of a good stock waiting for me in the freezer. The main strategy is to make a roasted chicken at least once a month – the carcass then goes on ice and is ready to make stock when I am. You could also buy a 2-3 pound package of chicken legs when they’re on sale. I prefer to roast them first, but you could use raw chicken. With raw chicken, it seems to make a lighter, more gelatinized chicken stock. It’s not bad, just different. I like the dark color and flavor you get from roasting the chicken first.

Additionally, I keep a ‘Stock Sack’ in the freezer. It’s just a gallon-size zip top freezer bag that I use to hold the vegetable cast-offs for my new, secret weapon. Onion and carrot peels, celery tops, parsley stems, and over ripe tomatoes use to go down the disposal. Now I squeeze every last ounce of goodness out of them before they get discarded. Additionally, I add anything else that I think would add to the flavor of my stock: fennel tops, mushroom stems, scallion ends and wilted salad greens all go into the Stock Sack for future use. Some of the things I intentionally skip are: anything overly starchy (like potato skins), bitter (like cucumber peels), or that don’t seem like they would blend with (or overpower) the stock (like asparagus, broccoli or squash).

Once I see what’s in my Stock Sack, I augment the deficiencies with fresh vegetables to come close to my basic chicken stock recipe.

You will also notice that I don’t put any salt into my stock. That’s because I consider stock to be an ingredient, not a finished dish. Since I’m going to cook with the stock later, I prefer to add salt to the dish I’m preparing with the stock. I’ve got much better control over salt content that way.

It really only takes about 30 minutes of active work to make a batch of stock that then lasts for a few weeks (or longer, if you don’t use as much stock as I do). I’ll put the stock pot on early Saturday morning, go about my business, and take it off the heat about lunchtime. I also tried putting it on to simmer as I went to bed one night, thinking it would be ready for me when I woke up. But it turns out that I am much too paranoid about burning the house down to get any sleep when I do that, so I wouldn’t recommend it.

Like I said, I use a lot of stock – to make rice and pasta dishes, for sauces, to poach fish, for quick soups, and a host of other things. It’s the easiest trick for better cooking that anyone could ever come up with.

Think about it: I was paying $3.50 for a quart of stock at the grocery store, and I can make up to 8 quarts for about $2. That’s a savings of over $25 for a batch of stock that tastes better than the stuff I can buy anyway. Why the heck did I wait so long to start doing this?! Now if I could only find a way to make gasoline at home as cheaply…