Chicken with Goat Cheese and Artichoke Hearts

Yay, I get to post my own recipe now! I guess technically I stole it from Bonefish Grill, but I don't remember them putting capers or chives in their dish... =) Let's see if I can remember what I did this time, and hopefully I can go back and figure out some specific measurements at some point.

Cut chicken breast into bite-sized pieces. Melt butter in skillet or pan along with chopped chives and parsley and cook chicken. Deglaze pan with milk or cream, add capers and artichoke hearts and reduce. Top with goat cheese medallions or crumbles.

I confess...I haven't tested the last bit yet, with the cheese. I'll have a verdict after lunch tomorrow. I can see where with the sauce it'd be too much creamy stuff, but I'm hoping if I use it sparingly it'll fly. When I added milk and cream, I also put in some flour because it looked like it was going to be really thin. It was probably quite unnecessary, because I just had to add like another cup of milk to make it liquidy again. I have a hunch that heating and reducing would have worked just fine. I'll make this again at some point and refine. Ooh exciting, I'm a real chef!

I plan to serve this tomorrow with broccoli and fruit salad (made with pineapple, red grapes, blueberries, and strawberries and maybe some wheat thins on the side. I'm meeting John for lunch with this, so I put some extra time into it. As in, I actually planned what I was going to make (colors and everything) before even going to the store. Amazing! I think I'll take the rest of that cucumber soup along as well, it needs to get eaten, and I want to spread the word about it. That recipe will be along very soon, promise.

Engine-Revving Baked Chicken Wings

1 cup hot sauce
1 tsp garlic salt
24 chicken drummettes
2 tbsp butter or margarine
1 cup Bisquick baking mix
3/4 tsp onion salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
Blue cheese dressing

Stir together hot sauce and garlic salt until blended. Pour over drummettes; cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours but no longer than 24 hours.

Heat oven to 450 degrees F. Melt butter in 15-1/2" x 10-1/2" x 1" pan in oven. Stir together Bisquick mix, onion salt and peppers. Remove chicken from sauce; discard sauce. Coat chicken with Bisquick mixture. Place in single layer in pan.

Bake 25 minutes; turn and bake an additional 20 to 25 minutes or until chicken is golden brown and juice is no longer pink when centers of pieces are cut. Serve with chunky blue cheese dressing and celery sticks.

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I also cooked some potatoes to go along, using cumin and cayenne with a sweet potato, a red potato, and a russet potato. I burn-fried half in a skillet and cooked the rest in our little toaster oven. I never quite managed to make them crispy; I guess you have to deep fry them for that. I cut them into all sorts of fun shapes that mostly fell apart when I cooked them, but there were some hearts and stars and flowers that looked more like H's and even some little potato smilies!

The wings I used were rather large, so it came out more like spicy southern-baked chicken, which was very tasty. My parents were doing the 'kids crowding the kitchen' thing and they couldn't keep their fingers out of the pan once I pulled it out of the oven. =) Guess smell is the best advertising, and they'd been smelling the hot sauce since at least 6.30 this morning. Boy, that'll wake you up.

This isn't the only recipe I'll try for buffalo chicken, but it was a decent one I found at about.com last night that didn't involve deep-frying. Definitely good; I'll get some smaller drummettes next time and try another recipe.

I've been wrapping up their little tupperware bentos (have I done my lock&lock pitch yet?) using colorful bandanas as furoshiki and doing the basic wrap with the extra corner folded in. I used to do the four-tie wrap, but it never comes out looking quite as neat or seems to cover the entire top. Plus, with the basic wrap you can tie the ends again (like in the watermelon wrap) to make a little handle. Kawaii! So I'm going to dig around downstairs or go to Walmart and buy some pretty fabrics to do the same with. I'd like to make some insulated bags so I can keep things hot inside them, but I need to do a little research first.

Chicken With Red Grapes and Mushrooms

in a thyme cream sauce

2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
1 cup red wine
1 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp dried thyme
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 cup seedless red grapes, rinsed and dried

Melt butter with oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. When hot, add chicken breasts. Brown 3 to 5 minutes on both sides until golden. Add mushrooms, and saute for 2 to 3 minutes, or until soft. Deglaze pan with wine, making sure to loosen any brown bits from bottom of pan. Simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in cream. Add salt, pepper, and thyme. Reduce heat to low, and cover. Simmer for 5 to 7 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove cover. Reduce cream for 3 minutes, until thickened. Add red grapes, and heat through.

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This is a fantastic dish! I made this for dinner last week and my parents and I nearly died of deliciousness. Even the cold leftovers tasted great. I ended up having to add more grapes because we had way too many they were gone with dinner. This was also a good vocab recipe; I learned what 'deglaze' and 'reduce' meant. =)

I was hoping to find some angel hair pasta to serve this over, but all we had was whole wheat spaghetti. It wasn't bad. At allrecipes.com they suggest bowtie pasta or wide egg noodles. Personally, I think everything worth eating can be eaten with rice, but I try to cater to the Italian in everyone as well. ^^ They also suggest using white wine rather than red and adding garlic, which both also sound wonderful.

Honey Orange Glaze

2 tbsp orange juice
1 cup honey
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Mix and baste preferred meat while baking.

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The recipe uses ham, and that's what I used, but I just grabbed some already sliced from our freezer and oh dear, now it's been so long that I don't remember what I put with it. Must have been carrots...and maybe broccoli too? This is why I should take pictures before I let myself get lazy and wait a week before updating. But whatever I made, it got thumbs up from both parents. =)

Avocado, Tomato, and Corn Salad

makes four servings

1/2 avocado, chopped
1 cup cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 cup fresh, frozen, or low-sodium corn
1 lime, juiced

Combine and toss. Wow, that was easy.

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The original recipe (from who knows where, my mom sent it to me) didn't say to halve the tomatoes, but I went ahead and did it. After poking around a bit, there's a recipe on foodnetwork.com that does say to do that, and has a fancy dressing with cilantro and olive oil and stuff. Really, the lime juice was just fine. They also added red onion. Meh. I put this in our lunchboxes with some leftover lime chicken my mom made and the vegetable remains from the cow bento. Might've been some flatbread too. Yum!

Mom's Best Butter Cookies

(courtesy of Angela's mother, one of my adopted moms)

1 1/2 cups butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
4 cups flour

Icing:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp milk (whole or half'n'half)
2 tsp light corn syrup

Preheat oven to 400°. Cream butter and sugar. Add egg, milk, vanilla, and almond extract. Beat well. Gradually add flour, mixing to make dough smooth. Roll on flour-sprinkled board, cut into fun shapes. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 8 to 14 minutes. Do not chill this dough. For icing, mix milk and sugar first and then add corn syrup. Add corn syrup to thin as needed. Color with paste-type food coloring if possible. Send by multiple dozens to college kids.

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These cookies came to me in a blissful dream during the Easter season (i.e., after Lent) from a rather large suitcase sent by the angel that is Angela's mother. I begged her to consider me part of the family and thus share her recipe with me. She did gladly, and I think most of Salem is better for it. =)

One tip I learned from Brookes (and forgot about until I tried to make a double batch of this stuff and nearly killed my mixer) is that when you're mixing butter, even if it's softened, it really helps to cut it and feed it to the mixer in little pats rather than throwing the whole thing in. Also, don't ever make a double batch of this unless you don't plan on icing them. It just gets to be so much work. After hours of mixing, rolling, baking, and icing, my shoulder was so sore. Plus the whole corn syrup thickening thing gets to be a real annoyance if you're already tired of the cookies.

This dough comes out really really soft, as in, I don't know how you would ever roll and cut it. My grandmother was helping me make cookies this particular Tuesday, and between the two of us we probably added another cup of flour. We also cut them rather thick, which was alright because there were still like a thousand of them. We must have baked six or seven sheets. The icing, on the other hand, was really stiff. Be nice to yourself. Add lots of corn syrup or you will go crazy trying to spread it. It will dry out, I promise. I used regular food colors with no adverse effects. It was so thick that I don't think it would have really mattered what I used. And I have no idea why you're not supposed to chill the dough. I didn't try it.

These cookies are amazing. Make them often, paint them pretty colors, and give them to lots of people. They will get smiles for their appearance and taste- a big hit all around! (They're also fun to play with, if you've been noticing the pictures...)

so much food...

>_< I've fallen behind again...so much food to eat! You'd think that during summer I'd be able to sit down at my computer every day and post something here, but I guess Buffy really takes up more time than I realize. So here I go catching up for the week.

Lots of food and random ingredients sitting around my house. Not only am I buying whatever I need (or might need) for my recipes, my parents are bringing food home whenever they take a fancy. I gotta face it, I'll never get the fridge empty. Ever. =)

Think I'll break these entries up. Got cookies, lime salad, honey orange ham, thyme chicken, and mmmm butter. All were big hits and I have a bunch more that I'm waiting to try out.

Moo bento

Ok guys. Prepare to be amazed.

Because I'm freaking proud of this one.



In case anyone was still wondering...THIS is a bento. Lots of food groups, lots of color, and hopefully cute enough that kids (or parents) will eat their vegetables. =)

Rice underneath as usual, the grass is made from cucumber and zucchini (is that what a julienne is?) with a tomato and carrot flower, orange pepper sun, leftover lime chicken clouds in a (colored) egg white sky and the rather large centerpiece, an egg cow. I mixed in some soy sauce and sesame oil before frying it, and it is delish!

My parents both like putting their bentos in obvious places till they get to lunchtime...I can't wait to hear what people have to say about this. =D

a week's worth

Oi, I haven't updated in almost a week! Somehow my 'not full' schedule still manages to keep me busy. Actually most of last week was leftovers thrown together in creative and not-so-creative ways. I'm trying to use up what's in our fridge and freezer, but that gets hard every time I go shopping and buy more fresh stuff. It's just so much nicer to use vegetables that haven't been frozen. Guess I'm picky.

Especially when I go pull a bag out of the freezer labeled 'really yummy chicken broth' and find out that it also has vegetables in it, most of which are mushy beyond recognition. =p But luckily we do have enough of it to reconstitute a whole chicken, so I threw it all in a pot and added some new vegetables...and eggs...I can't even remember what all I put in it. But hey, throw it all in a tupperware bowl, toss some goldfish on top (plastic wrap in between to prevent soggy expanding goldfish), and it's pretty yummy.

Next day's lunch was slightly more coherent. Salmon teriyaki is a delicious standby when you're out of ideas. I marinated the salmon overnight (using store-bought teriyaki sauce, but it actually wasn't that bad) and wrapped it up alongside snow peas and carrot slices over a bed of Koshihikari (=Kroger brand, more or less) sushi rice. Now, I've read that you need to let the rice cool before putting it in a container to carry around till lunch to keep it from getting soggy. I didn't think of that until after I put it in piping hot (thinking I'd wrap it up and it would stay hot till lunch) but it turned out ok. It wasn't the least bit warm when I finally ate it (not insulated enough I guess), but the rice was beautiful and sticky. Just perfect I think. I knew there was a reason I love short grain rice. This 'bento' got a thumbs up from both parents. I think I'll be doing a lot with salmon this summer.

Finally, for today I made more chicken salad. This batch is colorful! I used red, orange, yellow, and green peppers, red and green apples, celery, and purple grapes. Every color of the rainbow except blue. I toyed with the idea of using blueberries, but maybe I'll save that for a fruitier version. Strawberries, oranges, yellow & green apples, blueberries and grapes? That sounds amazing. Damn, that'd make a sweet fruit salad by itself. With bananas for yellow. But anyway, this week's chix salad is nice and crunchy, and very tasty on dark wheat bread.

I have a few recipes and combo ideas that I'm gonna try later this week. At some point I'll hit Capt. Paul's Seafood when it's actually open and see if I can convince them to sell me fish heads. =D More stories to come!

Orange bento

I've been dying to make color-themed lunches. Because I'm a hippie (at least a wannabe). Last night I was thinking of what was in the fridge that I could fix up without too much hassle, and I remembered that I had a cantaloupe and some ginormous oranges to use. So the color of the day is orange (which of course includes yellow and red for aesthetics and my sanity).

Today's bento consists of cantaloupe and orange fruit salad alongside rice with barely-cooked carrots, Wisconsin cheese, and eggs drizzled with honey orange sauce and accented with tomato flowers. Oh, and a layer of goldfish sandwiched between the lid and some plastic wrap for a snack.

The fruit salad is really just fresh fruit; I did try mixing it with mint and vanilla, but I don't really care for the cantaloupe that way. The orange however...to die for! Anyway, so I just cut them up nice and small and nestled them into a little bowl made of half an orange rind.

The carrots are barely-cooked because I decided I wanted to glaze them at the last minute, and didn't have time to do much except boil them for five minutes. I think that was just enough though. I made a hasty omelet last night and cut some little hearts out of it and dumped honey orange sauce on everything.

I didn't look up a recipe for that because my 7.30 deadline was fast approaching, and decided that mixing honey and orange juice tasted just fine. About.com tells me I should have used much less honey and simmered it for a while rather than sticking it into the microwave for 15 seconds, and Betty Crocker suggests cooking brown sugar, butter, and a little salt and grated orange peel and then simmering the carrots in that. I'll have to give both of those a try and see what else turns up.

Don't know what to say about the little grape tomatoes except that they were hastily made and I need a better set of knives. I'm going to walk into a kitchen store one of these days and pick someone's brain about them, since I currently know next to nothing. Maybe I should search for some little shape-cutters for carrots and stuff too. I can make shapes by hand, but they're never as good, and I tend to run out of creative ideas after stars and flowers.

Overall this was a fun bento. I'll have to do it again, maybe once for each color. Although that could get tricky for colors like blue and purple. How about black and white? Would that even be appetizing? I could make it checkered, like the bathroom set my mom crocheted when she moved out...LOL.

Herbs

All I know about herbs I learn by smell. When I'm cooking something, I go through our spice cabinet and smell everything, dumping in what seems like appropriate amounts of whatever smells good. I guess that's kind of how I cook as a whole...just keep going till it smells done.

While visiting the farmer's market today to buy veggies, honey, and herbs, I was told that marjoram is great with chicken and would be delicious in chicken salad. I have no idea what it tastes like; the dried stuff in our cabinet smells like tea. I'll try adding that next time and see what comes out.

I convinced my dad to run down to the store and get some Southern Comfort because my mom keeps talking about mint juleps and I decided I wanted to try this mystery drink. Making it was easy enough, just crush some mint in water, add crushed ice, and dump in a shot or two of SoCo. I haven't really acquired a taste for that yet, so I didn't drink much. But hey. I can say I've had one now.

P.S. I really want some egg molds. There are some on ebay, but the sellers require PayPal, which I haven't quite figured out yet. It's such a cute idea though! I tried it a little with chocolate molds, but they were a bit large. Got the idea though- it's fun! I've been reading through bento websites, including cookingcute.com for cute ideas like that. Hopefully I'll get to try some of them before too long!

Evelyn's Meatloaf and Sweet Potato Fries

makes 6-8 servings

From Mennonite Recipes from the Shenandoah Valley:
Meat loaf:
1 1/2 lbs. ground beef or 1 lb. ground beef and 1/2 lb. fresh bulk sausage
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. dried sage
1/4 tsp. poultry seasoning
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. dry onion, or 1/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 tsp. celery salt
3 slices bread, torn into small pieces
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/3 cup milk
1 egg

Topping:
1 tbsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup ketchup
3/4 tbsp. prepared mustard

Mix together all meat loaf ingredients. Shape into a loaf and place in a 5x9 baking dish. Mix together topping ingredients. Spread over loaf. Bake at 350° for 1 hour.


From CountryLiving.com:

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 large (about 1 1/2 pounds) sweet potatoes

In a small bowl, combine cumin, salt, and pepper. Set aside. Preheat oven to 400°. Peel potatoes, cut each in half lengthwise, and cut each half into 6 wedges. In a large bowl, combine the cut potatoes, oil, and spice mixture. Toss until potatoes are evenly coated. On a baking sheet, arrange potatoes in a single layer and place on the middle shelf of the oven. Bake until edges are crisp and potatoes are cooked through -- about 30 minutes. Serve immediately.

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I found out that if you cut thinner fries, you only bake them like 20 minutes. I baked a batch and also pan-fried some, and most of them were burnt. Still tasty though. I'm also finding out that while this cooking every day thing is a lot of fun, it's really easy to just eat alllll the time. I think I've eaten like six meals today, not to mention all the snacks while making them! At least when I was at school I didn't have time to eat this much...

Chicken Salad part 2

Mom says the bag of m&ms has to go. Being a good daughter, that means I must eat them. Summer diets are silly anyway.

Turns out the gazpacho was really good with chicken and flatbread. Also I realized today that the fruit salad is best eaten the day it's made, or the grapes start turning red and the strawberries get soggy. I think I can handle that.

Lunch tomorrow is chicken salad with pecans walnuts, celery, red and green apples, and fried egg yolks. It's very colorful. I'm trying to think of what else is yellow that I could add...I don't think I want corn in my chicken salad, maybe summer squash or I wonder how plantains would taste?? It should be something crunchy I think. Yellow apples, perhaps. Red grapes and green and/or yellow apples. Drew suggests baked corn tortilla strips (sprinkle with oil and bake at 300° until crispy - I got some tortillas to try this with sometime soon. And glazed nasturtiums. o.O Any other ideas welcome.

I have a rather large amount of this salad, so (also per Drew's suggestion) after sandwiches tomorrow, I'll try it out over a fruity mix, with some combination of grapes, cantaloupe, strawberries, and maybe I'll go get a pineapple. I wonder if I should mix in some kind of herb with it...what would be good with chicken, mayo, and fruit? Elise.com says tarragon (along with cranberries). I'm tempted to add some mint just for kicks.

Garden Gazpacho

Makes 4 servings

2 lbs large ripe tomatoes, seeded, and diced
1/2 orange bell pepper, diced
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
2 tbs red wine vinegar
2 tbs mild çayenne pepper sauce
1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
1/2 tsp coarse salt
1 c vegetable juice
3/4 c fresh corn kernels
2 green onions, chopped
2 tbs thinly sliced fresh basil

Put half the tomatoes, peppers, and cucumber as well as all of the vinegar, pepper sauce, oil, garlic, and salt in a blender. Purée until smooth and transfer to a large glass bowl or container. Stir in the remaining tomatoes, peppers, cucumber, vegetable juice, corn, and green onions. Cover and refrigerate until the flavors are blended, at least four hours. Continue to check flavors periodically as soup chills. Ladle the soup into chilled bowls and sprinkle with basil.

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This recipe is actually a Glad advertisement in issue 43 of Everyday Food that I picked up in the South Bend airport. It's not too hard to make, evidenced by the fact that I managed to make it without having a clue how to dice tomatoes or use the food processor or anything. I hard boiled some eggs to go with it (it's for lunch tomorrow) and managed to crack most of them. *sigh* On the daily cooking scale, today might be about a 5. But at least lunch will be tasty if nothing else.

P.S. This is the beginning of my make-my-parents-lunch-every-day phase, as it is summer. This means I'll be updating a lot more and hopefully learning something in the process. My parents are my test-tasters, so I'm hoping they can give me some feedback such as MAKE IT AGAIN PLEASE or ....maybe let's have that other thing again. =)

Broccoli Salad

(tasted, not tested)

broccoli florets
sunflower seeds
raisins
bacon bits
mayo sauce

I'm not sure yet what's in the mayo sauce. (I'm starting to think I should devote my summer to sauces, so I have an easier time figuring out what's in all this stuff!) It's on the sweet side, but it's definitely got some mayo in it, or a really interesting cream of some kind. I also feel like I'm missing an ingredient...I ate this like three hours ago, although admittedly my brain's been a bit fuzzy since then. Maybe ND Food Services will put it in my boxed midnight lunch for tomorrow. Instructions for this are mix and add whatever you want. Sound familiar? I'm thinking a cheesy sauce would be really good too...maybe provolone? Or a ranch/bleu cheese. I'll experiment.