Twelve Days with a Grateful Heart: DSLRs and Chicken with Mushroom Sauce

Here's another ugly meal that not even natural lighting and a DSLR could fix.  However, this one is crazy tasty.


2-3 strips bacon

2-3 T olive oil

1 lb chicken (I used boneless skinless breasts since I'm lazy, but chicken thighs would work equally well)

1/4 medium yellow onion, diced

8 oz cremini or button mushrooms, wiped and sliced

2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1/3ish c chicken stock
1/2 c sour cream
1/2 c cream or evaporated milk
salt+pepper, to taste

In a pan, heat olive oil, season chicken with salt+pepper, and pan fry until cooked through and golden.  Slice the cooked chicken.  In a separate pan, render bacon until crisp.  Set aside the bacon and crumble.  Leave at least a couple Tbs of bacon grease in the pan, which might mean not removing any of the rendered fat.  Saute the onions with a pinch of salt until at least translucent.  I usually try to caramelize them a bit.  Add in mushrooms and season with salt+pepper.  You may need to add a bit of oil if you've used most of the bacon grease for the onions.  Saute the mushrooms until they've released their liquid and start to brown a bit.  Stir in the garlic until fragrant.  Add in the chicken stock and stir to pick up any browned bits of mushroom and onion and let the chicken stock reduce a bit.  Turn down the heat and stir in the sour cream and cream until combined.  Don't let this boil because things will separate.  Add in the crumbled bacon and chicken. Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Serve over rice or egg noodles.

I guess conventional wisdom says that I should use the pan that cooked the chicken to make the sauce, but I wanted a fast dinner, so I cooked the chicken simultaneously with the sauce.  After the chicken was out, I remembered that I wanted to make asparagus, so the chicken-y goodness didn't all go to waste.  I added a bit of stock to the pan to stir up the browned bits, added in my asparagus and cooked them until tender-crisp.

So  yes, I am thankful for my DSLR because with a little bit of natural light, I'm able to take foods that weren't actually that tasty and make them look delicious.  Similarly, they elevate ugly dishes to things that maybe look palatable.  While this dish is pretty gnarly, it's actually really tasty.

zucchini fritter with way too much onion (way more pretty)

chicken and mushroom dinner, with the chicken-y asparagus (way more tasty)

candidate!

They liked my proposal! Yay! I'm officially a doctoral candidate now, so to celebrate, here's a recipe for the best roasted chicken ever.

1 2 1/2-3ish lb brined* whole chicken

extra virgin olive oil

kosher salt+pepper

bread

2-3 ribs celery, chopped into 1 in pieces

inner celery leaves

3 carrots, chopped into 1 in pieces

1 smediumish yellow onion, cut in eighths

1 small lemon, quartered

optional: fresh herbs (sage, thyme, rosemary do well)

1 stick butter, melted

Heat oven to 375. In a small roasting pan or a 13x9 in cake pan (guess which one I used... yeah, that'd be the cake pan because our roasting pan is stupidly large) place the chopped celery, most of the chopped carrots save a few pieces, 6 pieces of the onion, and then chunks of bread on top of the vegetables. I used hoagie rolls, cut in half lengthwise and then cut into 2x2x1 pieces.

Rub olive oil over the outside of the chicken and season with salt and pepper.

In the cavity of the chicken place lemons, celery leaves, a couple pieces of carrots, a couple pieces of onion and herbs if you want. If there's not enough room in the cavity for all the vegetables, just toss them in the roasting pan.

Set the chicken atop the vegetables and place in the oven for ~30-35 minutes, basting with butter every 10 minutes and then using the drippings once they're available.

Increase the oven temperature to 450 and place a probe thermometer in the breast.

Once the breast reaches 170 F, remove the chicken from the oven, tip the accumulated juices out of the cavity and take out the stuffed vegetables and let it rest for at least 20 minutes.

In the roasting pan, take out the bread and either toss it or eat it with the chicken. The bread will be toasty on one side, buttery, and full of pan dripping goodness. It might be the best part. om nom nom.

Remove vegetables from the pan as well and set aside for stock. You can use the drippings as the base for gravy, if you're into that sort of thing. :)

Once the chicken is carved and eaten (save the bones!), place the carcass+bones and reserved veggies into a stockpot, cover with water, and turn on overnight. In the middle of the night, when you're in the fridge for leftover chicken, move the lid of the crockpot to allow it to vent and enjoy your tasty midnight snack.

In the morning, remove from the crockpot, strain and refrigerate. Take off the layer of fat at the top and save it to roast vegetables in.

*To brine

1/2 c uniodized table salt (or 3/4 c kosher salt)

1/2 c brown sugar

1 quart hot water

2 1/2 c cold water

1 cup ice

In a sauce pan, mix hot water with the salt and sugar. Stir to dissolve. If you're impatient place the pan over low heat until all is dissolved. Add in cold water and ice. Pour this into a gallon sized ziplock bag and slide in the chicken. Put in the fridge for at least a 30 minutes and up to ~2 hours. If it's less, it's not so effective and if it's more, the chicken is too salty. Remove the chicken from the brine, rinse under cold water and pat dry with paper towels.

Potato Chip Chicken

I should really start taking pictures again, but I'm currently using a film camera, which makes me all hipster and shit as well as completely broke. You see, it costs EIGHT BUCKS to develop ONE ROLL. Hence, my picture taking has been limited. Anywho.

Dinner tonight was awesome, although now I'm regretting eating like 3/4 of a bag of brussels sprouts. It turns out that they're really tasty. In addition to the brussels sprouts bonanza, we had potato chip chicken in an effort to do something different. The idea for potato chip chicken came from tortilla chip chicken that I saw on a Martha Stewart Kingdom show on Create. We had salt and pepper chips on hand, so I took a handful, crushed them in a plastic bag with a jar of honey (this isn't a required implement).

Potato Chip Chicken (Makes 4 servings, unless you're married to Colby in which case it makes 2. 1 piece for you and 3 for him.)

2 chicken breasts cut in half
salt+pepper
flour for dreging
1 egg + 1ish Tbs water beaten
crushed potato chips

Preheat the oven to 375. Season chicken on all sides with salt and pepper. Dredge in the flour making sure to shake off the excess. Dip in the egg wash and then coat in the potato chips. Place in the oven for 25ish minutes or until the inside is 175-180 F.

It sounds kind of crazy, but it was really good. We buy frozen chicken breasts because we're poor. I discovered that the chicken being completetly thawed is super important if you want the chips to stay crispy on the outside. This is also somewhat healthier way to get a "fried" flavor into your chicken without actually almost setting your house on fire. :)

The reason why I wanted to do something *different* was because we're trying to menu plan and not eat out or go to a grocery store for *at least* a week, but Kyle's coming for a couple days at the end of the week, so we'll see if I can actually stick it out. And posted below is our menu for the week (which is mostly for my sake).


Monday: Potato Chip Chicken and Roasted Brussels Sprouts
Tuesday: Chicken Salad (w/greek yogurt, NOT mayo), roasted corn
Wednesday: baked Chicken Parmasean with pasta
Thursday: Umami burgers and corn
Friday: Chicken Tortellini Soup

NaBloPoMo Day Three: Continuous Cooking

I find it amazingly difficult to complete an assignment, from start to finish, in one brutal sitting. Take, for instance, this gasbags homework. It's not that hard and it's almost completely from our notes, but instead I'm playing with garbanzo beans and updating my blog. Fortunately, I have a lot to write in the next week, so I'm using this as an excuse to get me started on the very mechanics of writing things, such that I am better able to talk about my experiences in the world of astronomy. The one downside is that I've been told that my personal statement reads like a cookbook, so I'm not quite sure that the food blogging is helping. ;)

The aforementioned farmers' market veggies sat sadly in my refrigerator, feeling abandoned yesterday. Instead of making the stir-fry I had planned, we went to Chuy's instead, and I had lackluster flautas and watery salsa. I felt that I had to make amends to my delicious veggies and so for dinner last night, I made chicken and veggies, cooked in parchment paper with roasted garlic mashed potatoes. The mashed potatoes will be making an appearance at Thanksgiving, so I wanted to practice a bit. I'm still working on perfecting the recipe, so more details to come on that later when I've decided that it's good enough.

Chicken in parchment
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, halved into two congruent pieces
2 tbs olive oil
2 tbs butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbs basil
1 tsp tarragon
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
broccoli florets, cut into small, uniform pieces
1 green pepper, cut into small slices
s+p
2 20in sheets of parchment paper, folded in half and then reopened

preheat the oven to 400. mix the olive oil, basil, tarragon, garlic, red pepper flakes and veggies. season chicken breast w/s+p. Set down 1/4 of the vegetable+herb mix on the fold of the parchment + 1/2 tbs of butter. place the chicken breast down on top of that and then place another 1/4 of the veggies and another 1/2 tbs of butter. Seal up the parchment paper to make a sac, much like making an empanada... out of paper that is infused with silicone... repeat. Place the two chicken sacs on a baking sheet and bake for 35+/-5m until it's done. Nom nom away.

Patriotic Dinner Parties

Or not.

I love dinner parties. I decided, at mostly the last minute, to throw a dinner party for the 4th of July. It's not normally one of those holidays that I celebrate, but I mostly didn't have anything better to do and I hadn't had a dinner party at the apartment yet, so I was itching to host one again. My friend Chris is in from EL to visit us and so between the two of us, we put together quite a feast. Yay food.

It began with the impulse buying of a baguette to match with the tiniest bit of brie I had left from a previous impulse shopping trip. I kind of forgot about it, so it was good and crusty and so I cut it up into cubes and made croutons.

The Impetus:

most of a baguette, cubed
1/2 c EVOO
1/3 c grated parm cheese
2 tbs dried parsley flakes
2 cloves garlic, finely minced

mix the EVOO, cheese, parsley, garlic. toss the bread cubes in EVOO mixture. bake in an oven at 350 for awhile and turn half way. (I'd check after 5 minutes)

Austin is home to the world's largest urban population of bats. They mostly reside under the Congress St. bridge, so we went to watch one night. It was okay, but the real highlight was a trip to Six Flags over Whole Foods (which is apparently the flagship Whole Foods store for the brand.) which was just down the road. I sort of impulse shopped my way through, getting amazing tomatoes and some mozzarella. This led directly to bruschetta.

The Impulse

1 large salmonella-free tomato, seeded and diced
1/3 c finely chopped basil
3-4 tbs olive oil
1/4 tsp salt
1 clove garlic, pan-toasted, minced
1/3 c fresh mozzarella diced

toast the garlic with the skin on in a pan until it softens and the flavor mellows. mince. combine everything and toss it. let it sit for awhile so the flavors all combine.

The initial dinner party was at Kyle's and was mostly devoted to deep fried foods. Whilst completely delicious, it was, alas, quickly approaching one of the Seven Deadly Sins. To repent, we planned a "healthy" party themed "Atonement"; I suppose this was it:

The Penance

2 chicken breasts
some amount of italian-like dressing

marinate the chicken for like a day. pan sear.

lemon-shallot vinaigrette
(combine everything below, shake){
3/4 c extra virgin olive oil
3 tbs lemon juice
1 shallot, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp dried thyme
2 tbs Dijon mustard
}

some amount of spring greens
impetus croutons
Parmesan cheese

toss everything. eat.

In the day leading up to the party, I was browsing the good old inter-mo-tron and The Minimalist put out a list of 101 quick'n'inspired picnic dishes. This, of course, meant that there was more food blog reading to transpire, so after salivating over tastespotting for awhile, I found a pasta-salad recipe that included items that my guests wouldn't eat (broccoli) and I couldn't afford (pine nuts)... so that sort of morphed into a cous-cous dish with items that my guests would eat (asparagus) and I could purchase without signing away the rights to my first born child (pumpkin seed). This mostly involved some amount of asparagus being pan fried with garlic, shallots, and olive oil until it was just barely tender, toasting the pumpkin seeds and then adding all of that to plain cous cous (that I must admit was made from one of those instant box things.) We also oven roasted corn from Whole Foods because I have yet to see it in any capacity at the farmer's market.

The event concluded with dessert, which chris made, which was mostly the following:

1 bag frozen berry fruits
1/2 c water
2 tbs sugar, more to taste
splash lime juice

boil h2o, berries, sugar in a pot and let it thicken. taste. when it's like oh-holy-crap too sweet, add in a bit of lime juice and then when you add too much, add in a bit of sugar and let it thicken still. Serve over some cake like thing (I used my corn bread recipe) with home made whipped cream.

1 c heavy cream
2 tbs sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

mix until soft peaks form.

nom. nom. nom.

Arrivals

It's extremely possible to drive from Michigan to Texas in one day; however, it's extremely unpleasant to do so. Colby and I left Stockbridge, MI at 5:00 AM on Friday morning and arrived in New Boston, TX at 10:00 PM, a mere eighteen hours on the road later. (No, that's not a miscalculation: Texas is on central time.) We got up bright and early the next day to finish the trip. I got to drive from Dallas to Austin, which was only slightly terrifying. I only thought we were going to die about 10% of the time, though, so that's a plus.

Since then, we've acquired an apartment (okay, we sort of had that one in the bag), a couch, television (like the last CRT TV available in all of Texas), washer/dryer set, a rice cooker, and a new-found independence that's really frickin' weird. I'd describe it if I could, but it's almost straight from that pool scene in Garden State (when your home is not really your home), but different. I guess this is the beginning of the terrible ordeal known as "growing up".

The kitchen in my new apartment isn't by any means spectacular, but it's a major upgrade from my old apartment. I've finally got counter space. It's amazing how much simpler everything becomes when there is room to work. The inaugural meal was stir-fry with rice noodles and after that we've been good about trying to cook every day and whatnot.

The other night, Kyle came over and we had mustard chicken with pasta dish, which went as such:

marinate chicken (aka let it thaw in the fridge) in spicy brown mustard+olive oil+honey+lemon juice mixture with some salt and pepper. It should probably be 2:1:1:1, but that's mostly a guess on my part. Pan fry. Eat. The pasta sauce was just a roux with cheese+sauteed mushrooms, garlic, s+p which was poured over 1/2 lb of penne with some steamed broccoli. Yay for fake attempts at being healthy!

Today, we're going to the farmer's market in Triangle Park and later on, I'm making dinner. I'm thinking risotto with tomatoes, spinach, and yellow squash, with fresh corn. Yay summer!

Graduate applications are a pain

So in the past month, I've made risotto, chicken, some sort of dip, cheese straws, holiday cookies, milk chocolate (by accident), more bread, cream biscuits with cheese, roast lemon chicken, green beans, and mashed potatoes. Also a couple drop biscuits here and there. I've also been working on my application to grad school and that's kind of awful... so more updates once those are done.

Also

http://loltonbrown.blogspot.com

Home cooked goodness

So if Kyle and I end up at the same grad school, we're going to room together and it's going to be amazing because we're going to come up with incredible culinary creations. We made a home-cooked meal the other day and it was amazing. I discovered how easy it is to fake like an adult and Kyle discovered that chicken doesn't have to be completely bland. Yay for instant mashed potatoes and meat rubs!

chicken
random meat rub
olive oil

2 tbs flour
2 tbs butter
2 c milk
broccoli
mushrooms
more butter
garlic salt
cheese (in this case, we used mild cheddar... shredded sharp cheddar seems better)

water
mashed potato mix

We made the chicken by covering it in some voodoo rub and then just putting it in the pan with a tiny bit of olive oil (just enough so that it wouldn't burn) and then cooking it until we didn't die. The broccoli with mushroom-cheese sauce bit was slightly harder, but still a learning experience. Boil the broccoli until it turns bright green, sautee mushrooms in butter and garlic salt (since they seemed so sad and plain) until they darken a bit, and then make the cheese sauce, but probably not in that order. I'm the queen of run-on sentences. Melt 2tbs of butter and then add flour whilst mixing vigorously. Add in warm milk and keep stirring until it thickens. Add in cheese. Preferably enough. Also, you probably want to halve the amount of sauce that we made because it was too much and the sauce ends up being too bland because there's just too much roux-like substance. Pour this over drained broccoli and tasty mushrooms. Finally, the hardest bit (at least for Kyle) the instant mashed potatoes: boil water, ADD TO DRY POTATO MIX, stir.

It all came out lovely and homecooked-like. It was kind of exciting. Also, we made cookies and those came out slightly too well done, but still okay. Someone needs to calibrate their oven. *ahem*. I think that I want to experiment with making my own rubs because it was a little voodoo. It was also delicious, so it's some sort of balance between being in control and not. It's probably also a waste of time, especially from now til November 3rd.

dun dun dun.

Stir-Fry, part doo

So I had a busy week such that I have frozen chicken sitting in my refrigerator and a bunch of stuff that I had to throw out. Sadness. However, I did, indeed find some time to cook in Austin. I like cooking in other people's kitchens because they're not all cramped as hell. So yeah, I got to take over Kyle's kitchen for a night and we made yummy stir fry.

a bunch of carrots
a handful of mushrooms
a lot of broccoli
half a red bell pepper

chicken
dry seasoning stuff
olive oil
random stir fry sauce

Cut things, season chicken, dump in pan with olive oil, cook for a bit, add sauce, dump in veggies, add more sauce, cook until a) the chicken won't kill you and b) the veggies are no longer raw.

It was actually really tasty and way better than the stir fry I tried to make before. I think I'm getting over my fascination with balsamic vinegar... except for the "on salads" bit. Oh, and bread. Yay bread. I think this stir-fry sauce was what made it good, but it was a store brand (HEB) to a store that is located nowhere near Michigan. But it tasted a lot like the ginger-soy vinaigrette at Omi, which is, perhaps, the best salad dressing I've ever had.

Mustard Chicken

Okay, so I haven't posted in awhile. I haven't really cooked anything in awhile and I cooked this a couple weeks ago. It's been pretty bad. I've been eating out a lot lately (oh god, my waistline!) and I've been making a lot of pasta and salad.

I did find time, however, to try breaded, pan-fried chicken. It didn't work out perfectly, and I feel that the next time it should be baked... if there is a next time. My usual grocery store was out of basil and chicken breasts the last time I went. How do you run out of chicken breasts? And basil? All forms of fresh basil. Lame.

Anywho, so the instructions are as follows.

2 chicken breasts
1/2 c bread crumbs
4 Tbs whole grain mustard
2 Tbs honey
olive oil

1. Combine 1/2 c bread crumbs and 2 tbs-ish of the mustard. In a separate bowl combine the rest of the mustard with the honey and mix well.
2. Cover the chicken in the honey sauce and then dredge (is that *actually* the word I'm looking for?) the chicken in the bread crumb mixture
3. Put it in a pan and cook it until it can't kill you.

It ended up taking a lot more olive oil than I had hoped, which is why I think baking it is the answer. Also, I had Italian bread crumbs on hand... which maybe wasn't the answer.

So lesson learned... more baking, no oil, and PLAIN bread crumbs.

Also, I need to figure out some dishes to make for November.. gah...

Balsamic Chicken Stir Fry

This one didn't work at all. It sounded good in theory... chicken+balsamic vinegar+garlic+fresh basil, but most unfortunately it never came together.

chicken
glug of olive oil
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup chicken stock
2 tablespoons sugar
1 clove garlic, crushed
several basil leaves
mushrooms
broccoli
zucchini

Create a marinade with the vinegar, chicken stock, sugar, garlic, and basil. Let the chicken sit for 20 minutes. Pour the marinade into a small saucepan and let it reduce and then cook the chicken in a separate pan with the olive oil. Add the reduced sauce and veggies+fungi. Cook until you will no longer die of food poisoning. Serve over rice

So I suspect that what didn't work was a combination of me being a subpar cook and the fact that my ingredients weren't the *best*. I didn't have chicken stock, so I ended up using soup mix instead. Oops. I should get on getting a box of actual chicken stock. I also think that my love of balsamic vinegar extends only to the salad world. I foisted the meal upon one of my friends who thought it was fine and, "tasted like stir-fry."

I was all excited about getting the basil and zucchini. The MSU Organic Farm club was having a sale outside of the Aud today and I picked up a nice zucchini and some nice basil for two dollars. I was all happy about it. The basil will probably become part of something pasta like tomorrow, as I have it and I have no more meat. Sadness. I'm trying the curry again soon. I have Thai basil, garlic, and I'm going to get actual chicken stock next time, damnit.

Thai Green Curry Chicken

So I was introduced to the sweet sweet nectar that is Thai food this summer in Honolulu. The absolute favorite was definitely Thai-style curry. The first dish I cooked when I got back to my apartment was green curry with chicken. It came out too bland to justify the amount of spiciness, but I know what adjustments I want to make to it the next time.

1.5 Tbsp green curry paste
14 oz. Lite coconut milk
3 pieces of boneless Tyson chicken (really small pieces) cubed
1.5 Tbsp fish sauce
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1/3 c. chicken "stock"
1 small golden potato sliced thin-ish (about .75 cm)
1/4 green pepper, thinly sliced
1/4 serrano pepper, very thinly sliced

Add curry paste and coconut milk to pan and combine on medium heat for five minutes. Add diced chicken, as well as everything else. Cook until the chicken is done enough such that it won't kill you immediately after ingestion... or even shortly thereafter.

So the next time, I'm adding fresh garlic and basil. I'm also decreasing the curry paste by about 0.5 tbsp and ditching the serrano pepper because I'm fairly certain the one I was using wasn't ripe at all. Oh well. I'm also (hopefully) going to watch the next one more closely and not let it get to a boil. To top it all off, I won't burn the rice the next time and I'll get real chicken stock, as opposed to making broth stolen from the Mrs. Grass' noodle soup packet.