8:43 AM Offensively Good Broiled Chicken

Last night I was on a mission to satisfy my craving for brown and wild rice with some veggies and chicken.  I didn't have a specific recipe, but I had a basic taste profile in mind. I had purchased everything but the chicken already at a regular grocery store, but since I have pledged to eat as much of my meat and dairy as possible locally produced I stopped by Green Grocer on my way home from work for the chicken.  I was originally planning on using chicken pieces and sauteing the whole dish, but Green Grocer only has whole chickens right now.  They are expecting their chicken suppliers to offer divided chicken meat at some point, but they are not sure when.  Even though I was not looking to cut up a whole chicken myself, after speaking with a very helpful lady who works at Green Grocer about my planned dinner, I decided to go ahead and just get a small whole fryer chicken.

And I sure am glad I changed my mind!  In our discussion about what I was planning for the chicken, the Green Grocer clerk mentioned Julia Child's Broiled Butterflied Chicken recipe and how that would be perfect for what I wanted.  She was Right!  That local grass fed little chicken was obscenely good broiled!  And I didn't even use good butter.  I used Earth Balance margarine because I still have a half a tub left of that to use up.  Also, it cooked surprisingly fast.

The broiled chicken was so moist and flavorful.  My only quibble is that I should have left it in for another 5 minutes.  I'm not very good at gauging whether chicken is cooked through or not and somehow I still don't own a meat thermometer.  Since I once got really sick from under cooked chicken I have a long track record of overcompensating for that and over cooking.  This being the first time to try this broiling method, I'm surprised that I almost got it right without a thermometer.  I was just a hair off.  My chicken was perfect on top, flavorful and juicy, but the bottom was just a tad under cooked.  I probably would have caught that had I used a meat thermometer to check the temperature.

This is what my beautiful chicken dinner looked like once it was completely finished.

I still have some tweaking to do for the veggies to be perfect.  It's missing a spice, probably more worchestershire, or an addition of soy and fresh garlic.  But as a whole this recipe is absolutely a keeper!  It's a healthy meal in under an hour.  And not too bad on the wallet either considering I used local grass fed chicken.  That fryer was around 2 lbs and just under $10.  I'm just cooking for me, so I can eat on this meal for 4-5 days.  Veggies are cheap and I cheated on the rice and used par boiled, which was still pretty cheap.  I normally wouldn't use par boiled, but I didn't have time to make rice ahead at all this weekend and my time is Very limited for cooking after work.

Ingredients:

1 medium yellow squash

1 medium zuchinni

1/2 package sliced mushrooms

1/2 bag fresh green beans

1 2 lb fryer chicken

3 Tbs butter (divided)

3 Tbs olive oil (divided)

1 Tbs worchestershire sauce

2 cups cooked wild rice

2 cups cooked brown rice

poultry seasoning

salt

pepper

Pre-heat broiler and butterfly chicken.  If chicken is wet from washing, pat dry.  If chicken was refrigerated, let it sit out to room temp (from comments on this broiler method, this helps the chicken cook more evenly).

Rub chicken with the 2/3 of the butter and then season with poultry seasoning, salt and pepper.  Follow instructions for Broiled Butterflied Chicken.  If the chicken is lean and there isn't much fat to baste with, drizzle a little bit of olive oil on the skin about halfway through the cooking process and turn the chicken over to smear the olive oil and juices back onto the skin.

About halfway through the chicken broiling, put the veggies in the skillet and saute to desired doneness.  Add in cooked rice and stir until rice is warmed.

Once chicken is done, place on top of veggies and rice and let sit.  Drizzle the juice from the chicken pan over the whole dish.  Serve after chicken has had time to rest.

6:15 PM This is how we Christmas

Christmas Eve is a big foodie deal in my family.  Thanksgiving is more of a formal food affair and we do have long back and forths over what food we're going to fight for to keep in the repertoire.  On Christmas Eve though, we experiment.  I can't remember exactly when we decided to do appetizers for the Christmas Eve gathering, but what I do remember is Mom being tired of cooking two large meals right after the other.  I think I was still in Junior High, or maybe I had just entered High School, but for me that translated into "more cheese balls and cookies!"  So naturally I was all for it.

These days our family gathering is much smaller than it used to be due to other parts of the family doing their own thing for the holiday.  But we still gather at one of the family homes to eat together and open presents.  Below is our Christmas table with all of our dishes.  Though apparently we were missing Mom's truffles.  For shame!

Mom is the sweets queen.  She always brings her traditional Christmas cookies and gingerbread men plus whatever other cookies or truffles she feels like throwing together.  It's not Christmas without those Christmas tree and candy cane sugar cookies.  I remember sitting around our kitchen table as a girl decorating those.  the trees have much less of those silver beebee looking candies on them now that I'm not decorating anymore.  I think our dental plans are thankful for that.

Mom also always brings the beef.  Our thinly sliced Burgandy Beef favorite was a tad overcooked this year, but it was still just as good as always.  I'm one of those people who prefers my beef on the medium to medium rare side.  I don't care what Mom said about the dish being overcooked.  I still took a baggy home with me to eat for the rest of this week.  Also seen here is the horseradish sauce that is to accompany the beef as well as my sister's shrimp dip and some cheezy things and bacon wrapped sausage appetizers.

Here we have the Mushroom plate.  

First up is my Mom's stuffed mushroom recipe and her rye bread snacks, which also have a small amount of mushroom in them.  Both of these items have been on the Christmas menu since we started doing this appetizer style meal years ago.  They're one of those items that we all insist on reprising every year.  This year I was supposed to make the stuffed mushrooms, but Mom's recipe ended up being put together by my Brother-in-Law since the makings of that recipe were one of several which were left at my house accidentally.  He did a great job with them considering we realized I got the wrong kind of Parmesan.  The greener of the stuffed mushrooms are Walnut and Spinach Pesto Stuffed Mushrooms from Foods for Long Life.  That recipe was a new one for me.  I've always wanted to add in a raw vegan option for us to try out.  I finally made it this year.  Except, I didn't have time to dehydrate the mushrooms, so they ended up getting lightly baked anyways.  They were a hit in any case, but I sure would like to try them out as they were made to be eaten sometime.  The little white bread appetizers are my sister's mushroom canapés.  If I remember correctly there's mushroom, mayo, and fried onions mixed together on that bread.  

On this next plate we have the Pumpkin Pie Wontons from food.com and Pear & Brie Tart from Beantown Prepster.

Those Pumpkin Pie Wontons were also made by my Brother-in-Law as yet another pre-prepped dish forgotten at my place, but it as it turned out, his were better than mine!  I actually made the Pear & Brie Tart, which was just Divine!  That recipe was a first for me and I was a little nervous about how it was going to work since I've never really worked with phyllo dough much, but it was very easy to put together and it tasted wonderful!  If you click on the link, there is mention of Philly Cream Cheese for the herbed cheese.  I used Boursin cheese because I never saw any such garlic herb Philly Cream Cheese.  But Boursin cheese is made like Neufchatel, which is fancy cream cheese, so it's the same thing.

I had one other item that didn't make it out to the table setting this year.  My Sweet Potato version of Perfect Parsnips from the Good Mood Food Blog.  These were another example of a pre-prepped food that was left at home, so we hurridly tried to replace them.  Unfortunately, I didn't put enough oil on them during the baking process, so they were too flour-ey.  Then after I added the oil, the cheese started over cooking, so the potatoes didn't ever crisp up.  But they tasted ok mushy, so we all snacked on them as we were cooking everything else.  By the time we were ready to put the last food on the table there wasn't even enough of the potatoes to put out.

For Christmas gifts, the adults in the family draw names for gift giving.  But we go all out for the kids.  Since my niece is the only girl child in the family, I've been making her fun costumes or purses or accessories every year for a while now.  I really enjoy it.  This year she asked for Renaissance Faire garb so she can be in costume for Scarborough Faire.  Her little brother also asked for garb as well, but he's still little enough that I think he forgot and would really rather have toys when it comes down to it.  I still made him garb.

Here they are in their new Rennie fashions:

I made my niece's dress from my tried and true Tudor Tailor patterning book.  This is actually the pattern I've used for most of my own garb.  It's simple and easy and can be worn under more embellished looks or alone.  I made it a little big so she has room to grow.  It laces on the sides and in the back and the shoulder straps are  loosely stitched so they can be adjusted as well.  The skirt is a separate piece for mixing and matching as well as full adjustment.

My nephew got a basic Tudor shirt with a collar and basic straight legged pants.  There's going to be a doublet later to fancy it up a bit.  I have all kinds of great fabric to dress him in, but since this was the first thing I made for him, I wanted to make sure I had basics first.  He should be able to grow in that shirt and the pant legs have several inches of hem to give.  Plus if he stays thin he can wear the pants as highwaters and wear cool socks with them.

I hope all of you had a great Christmas and have a Happy and Save New Year!

8:12 PM Pasta with Mushrooms and Lima Beans

Tonight was a new dish made of items I needed to use out of the fridge. My portions are for one and I didn't measure anything, so you'll need to adjust for how many you are feeding.

2 slices of red onion
2 mushrooms, sliced
handful of frozen Lima beans
one clove of garlic, chopped
tablespoon of pesto
1/2 teaspoon of tomato paste
olive oil
salt
pepper
Parmesan cheese
small handful of whole wheat spaghetti

Prepare spaghetti noodles as directed on the package. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in skillet. divide slices of onion into quarters and begin saute. Salt onions to sweat. Once onions are beginning to go clear, add sliced mushrooms. Stir and salt again to sweat. Add Lima beans and saute until mushrooms are carmelized and lima beans are cooked. Add garlic and stir. Cook for about 30 seconds and turn heat off of burner. Garlic will continue to cook, but won't burn.


Once pasta is cooked al dente, drain and place in skillet with saute. Stir until noodles are coated. If skillet has cooled down, bring back up to low until finished stirring noodles.

Transfer noodle and veggies to a plate and add pesto and tomato paste.

Stir until coated. Season with pepper and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.


This dish was extremely satisfying. It was a nice easy comfort meal. I accompanied the dish with Meridian Chardonnay and some green olives. The whole dish can be made Vegan with the omission of Parmesan and subbing a Vegan Pesto.

6:46 PM Same old collard greens, different mushrooms

I've made a couple of variations on this recipe before. Last time I made this recipe, I wasn't exactly happy with the sausage. This time the dish was Fantastic! The addition of shitake mushrooms was the big difference I think.

Ingredients:

Yellow onion
carrots
shitake mushrooms
sausage
collard greens
garlic
olive oil
lemon juice
salt, pepper, tony chacherie's

8:12 PM Sweep the Fridge Experiments

Coming home to a house full of nothing cohesive always presents a problem. But at least I usually have a few tested staples on hand to fill in the blanks of a mystery meal. This time, it was pretty much all mystery. I was out of onions, the potatoes in the cupboard are for boiling, not sauteing, and all of the legumes on hand were dried and not previously soaked, so I couldn't even pull a quick and dirty bean soup out of the air.

But I did have Scallions. And I had those potatoes that Could work sauted. And I had cabbage. And, wait for it, I had...Bacon! One last strip was left. So of to work I went.

Basically, I heated up some olive oil in my skillet, carmelized the potatoes, and added the julienned scallions, chopped bacon, and shredded cabbage and stirred. I also salted and peppered and added some Tony Chacheries. After everything was good and cooked to my specifications, I added in some chopped garlic and a splash of red wine vinegar. The result looked something like this:



Unfortunately, the LCD screen on my camera has been shattered, so I'm sort of handicapped with my photography, but you can sort of see what I produced. I can't say it was a Fabulous meal. It was good, but being that it was thrown together quickly with little options, it definately can use some tweaking. I think it needs Rosemary and maybe white wine vinegar instead of red. And I should add more cabbage and put it in later. It would be better if it was not burned.

I also tried boiling some dried fava beans and lentils. It was Horrible! I added red wine vinegar to that one too and unfortunately, the vinegar killed the whole thing. So I tossed it and settled for chips and salsa as a side.

7:54 PM Garlicky Grilled Beef Tenderloin with Herbs

Recently I made my very first attempt at roasting a tenderloin on the grill. I was Very pleased with how the recipe came out! And even better, it was Easy.

The recipe comes from Food & Wine. The chef providing the recipe is Jeri Ryan.



You can find the whole recipe here

This tenderloin was so luscious. Since it was my first I was worried that I would either over cook it or that people wouldn't like it since roast tenderloin is supposed to be cooked medium rare. To my absolute joy, the guests went crazy over it. Compliment after compliment was given over the recipe. I only wish I could have afforded the whole 4 lb recipe instead of having to scale it down to 1 lb.

If you make this recipe and enjoy it, please go back to the Food & Wine website and give them a review. Recipes this good deserve many acolades!