Holiday Hens

Merry Christmas! I enjoy the winter holidays even though I'm not the least bit religious. As my boss A puts it, "The version I celebrate involves only a red fat man, and has nothing to do with religion". I don't bother to correct him that the original Saint Nicholas was a Greek Bishop.

On the menu for tonight:

Mushroom Corn Chowder

Cumin and Paprika Roasted Potatoes

Cornish Game Hen with Garlic and Rosemary Butter

Spiced Pumpkin Pie

I was a little nervous about the hen--I've never cooked a whole bird before, and I think such things always garner a little apprehensiveness the first time around. It all turned out alright, though, and the hen was savory and juicy.

Mushroom Corn Chowder
 
4 cups assorted mushroom, sliced
2 cups frozen corn kernels
4 cups chicken stock
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 cup heavy cream
3 tbsp butter
1 tbsp fresh thyme
salt
pepper

~Put the butter, onions, garlic, mushrooms, and potatoes in a large pot and saute over medium-high heat until the onions turn translucent.
~Add the chicken stock and thyme and bring pot to a simmer. Cook until potatoes are tender.
~Add heavy cream, and simmer uncovered to thicken, then add corn and cook until heated through. Salt and pepper to taste, and serve steaming hot with crusty baguette.


Cumin and Paprika Roasted Potatoes

4 medium red potatoes, cut into 1" pieces
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp sea salt

~Whisk olive oil, cumin, paprika, and sea salt in a mixing bowl. Toss potatoes in the dressing to coat evenly.
~Heat oven to 450˚F. Spread potatoes on a baking tray in a single layer and roast until the edges are brown and crispy, about 30 minutes.

Cornish Game Hen with Garlic Herb Butter

2 Cornish game hens
3 tbsp salted butter, softened
3 sprigs fresh rosemary
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1 clove garlic, minced
1 lemon, cut into wedges
1/8 cup white wine
1/8 cup chicken broth
1 tbsp olive oil
sea salt
pepper

~Strip one sprig of rosemary of leaves and chop finely. In a small bowl mix the butter, chopped rosemary, thyme, and garlic.
~Rub hens with the butter mixture; make sure to rub butter under the skin as well.
~Place a lemon wedge and sprig of rosemary in each chicken, and season lightly with salt and pepper.
~Heat oven to 450˚F. Place the hens breast-up in a baking dish and roast for 20 minutes.
~Whisk together the white wine, chicken broth, and olive oil, and drizzle over the hens. Reduce heat to 350˚F, and roast until the meat thermometer reads 165 degrees when stuck in the thigh, about 25 minutes, basting every 10 minutes with pan juices.
~Drain any drippings and reserve for gravy or dipping; tent foil over the hens and let them rest for 15 minutes before serving.

Spiced Pumpkin Pie

Crust
1 1/4 cups flour
1 stick cold unsalted butter, cubed
1/2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg, beaten
ice water

Filling
1 15oz can of pumpkin puree
3 large eggs and 2 egg yolks
1 cup evaporated milk
2/3 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of maple syrup
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 ground cloves
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 tsp salt

~For the crust, whisk together flour, sugar and salt until well mixed.
~With a pastry blender, cut in the cold butter until the butter pieces are the size of small peas.
~Drizzle 1/4 cup of ice water over the butter and flour mixture; use a silicone spatula to press the dough into a ball. If needed, add more ice water a tablespoon at a time until the dough comes together.
~Knead the pie crust gently until the dough becomes smooth; try not to knead in the lumps of butter--this is what will make a flaky crust!
~Roll out the dough about 1/8" thick on a floured surface and drape to fit into pie plate; trim the excess crust to 1/2" beyond the edge of pie plate and fold excess under itself. Make a fluted edge with your fingers, or use a fork to press a pattern into the edge.
~Refrigerate pie plate for about 15 minutes until the dough is firm.
~Line pie plate with a sheet of parchment paper and fill with weights (glass marbles, dried beans, uncooked rice, or pie weights) and blind bake the crust for 15 minutes at 425˚F; take plate from the oven, gently remove paper and weights. Brush crust with beaten egg and return pie plate to oven, reducing temperature to 375˚F, and bake for another 5 minutes until the crust is golden.

~To make the filling, whisk evaporated milk, eggs, and yolks together in mixing bowl.
~In a pot, mix together pumpkin puree, salt, sugar, maple syrup, and spices and warm up over the stove on medium heat. Whisk in milk and eggs mixture until smooth, and pour in warm pie crust.
~Bake filled pie at 400˚F for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 300˚F and bake for 20 to 30 minutes or until the edges are set.
~Remove pie from the oven and let cool at room temperature; residual heat will finish cooking the filling, so don't put it in the refrigerator.
~Serve with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream!


I hope you enjoyed my Christmas Dinner...till next year!

In Which We Eat Salad

Okay, so I'll be honest, I'm not really much of a salad-y person. I know that salads are healthy (if you use a darker leafy vegetable like kale or spinach instead of just iceberg lettuce, and hold back on the creamy dressings. I do my homework) and I'm supposed to be trying to eat healthily. But while I have nothing against salads, exactly, I'm much more of a meat-and-potatoes person. I would pick a burger (rare, please!) over a nice green salad any day. But recently, I have been making a lot of salads. First there was the tomato-avocado salad from last week (the chicken salad does not count, as in my opinion it is not a "real" salad). And this past weekend, on my camping trip with The Boyfriend, I encountered a salad that I just did not want to stop eating. Here it is--



Isn't it pretty? I didn't make it, but here are the ingredients, as far as I can tell:

chickpeas
kidney beans
corn
yellow, orange, and red bell peppers
and...cilantro? I think.

At first, I only took some because of the bright colors. Then I went back for a second serving. And a third. There would have been a fourth, except The Boyfriend was starting to get annoyed because I'd told him we could leave the campsite to go elsewhere after I finished eating. Oh well. I'm going to the grocery store on Thursday (?) and I fully intend on getting the ingredients so I can recreate it.

When I got home from camping, I discovered that a few of my mother's friends had dropped by for a visit, bringing with them many offerings. Delicious offerings. Chief among them, KFC (which I promptly devoured), a cake, a HUGE carton of organic baby spinach, several packets of instant ramen, and...a rotisserie chicken. The last of the chicken was made into dinner tonight, and I'm making stock with the remains as we speak...meanwhile, here are last week's efforts.

This is essence of chicken.

My second time making stock, I've chosen not to put the skins in the stock pot...because my first chicken-stock attempt turned out great, but after refrigeration there was about half a centimeter of fat floating at the top that had to be skimmed off. So while I stripped the chicken, I fed the fatty skin to my dog.


MONDAY DINNER



Salad. I had difficulty giving this a name, because all of the ingredients have equal attention in this bowl. Cucumber-Tomato-Carrot-Kielbasa salad. Nothing fancy, just a quartered Japanese cucumber, the rest of the grape tomatoes from last week, halved, two carrots cut into coins, and about a third of quartered kielbasa. Tossed with balsamic vinaigrette. Yummy.

Next on the menu last night was soup. Yesterday, I learned something extremely important. And that thing was, rotting asparagus is really gross. I'd bought a bunch of nice, tender asparagus spears when I was at the grocery store last Wednesday, meaning to cook them right away, sauteed with some beef. But of course nothing ever goes according to plan, and that bundle of asparagus was forgotten in the back of the fridge until yesterday. When I pulled it out, the middle few spears were disgustingly slimy. I was both revolted and saddened. I love asparagus, screw whatever it does to my urine. Still, I tried to salvage as much as I could, discarding the slimy bits and carefully sorting through the spears. In the end I managed to save most of it, and with my surviving asparagus, I made this:



Spinach-Asparagus Soup

2 lb of asparagus
1 bunch of baby spinach
1 medium onion, diced
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 cups chicken stock
2 tbsp butter
salt and pepper to taste

~Break the woody ends off the asparagus and chop the rest into 1/2 inch pieces. Set aside.
~Melt 1 tbsp butter in a pot and add the diced onion. Saute until translucent.
~Add the rest of the butter and the asparagus. Season with salt and pepper to taste and cook until the asparagus is bright green.
~Add the chicken stock and simmer, covered, until the asparagus is tender.
~Force the baby spinach leaves into the pot, and stir them into the broth so they wilt.
~Puree the soup in 2 batches in a blender until smooth.
~Return the soup to the pot on low heat and stir in the heavy cream.
~Adjust seasonings and serve.


The result? Good, if you like asparagus. My brother finished his bowl, although I get the impression he didn't think much of it. My mother and I both had two servings. My sister refused to try any. Oh well. She is 3 years old and a terribly picky eater.


TUESDAY DINNER



I'm not sure what to call this either. It's the rotisserie chicken meat I stripped off the chicken carcass, stir-fried with onions and garlic and then cooked in tomato sauce until the sauce either evaporated into thin air or was sucked into the chicken. Either way, it was delicious. Albeit a bit salty. Oops.

This is my bastardized version of Tammy Donroe's Indian Cauliflower, in which I basically omitted things and screwed up the remainder. Just to go her blog for the recipe, and do a better job of following it than me.

One more dish--Potato salad. This time I decided to deviate from my standard recipe and try a different approach, the idea for which I got from Tammy (again). I also added a super secret ingredient to it. Can you guess what it is?

That's riiiiiight. I couldn't resist. I don't understand why I never thought of it before. In any case, the bacon would be overwhelmed by the other ingredients in my original potato salad. But for this one, it's just right.

Potato Salad v2
Inspired by Tammy Donroe's Potato Salad for the People.

8 medium red-skinned potatoes
5 strips of bacon
1/2 cup mayonnaise
salt and pepper to taste

~Boil the potatoes whole and unpeeled. When they're soft enough to easily stab with a fork, drain and let them cool.
~Mash half the potatoes well, like mashed potatoes.
~With the other half, mash them gently so they break into chunks. I got too into the whole "being Chris Kimball" thing and accidentally mashed them too well, so they're more like super-chunky mashed potatoes than potato salad. Ah well.
~Microwave the bacon on a folded paper towel for 4 minutes or until crispy.
~Break the bacon up into little chips and add them to the potatoes.
~Add the mayonnaise and mix it all up carefully.
~Salt and pepper it to your liking and serve it up in giant scoops.

Back Home: Chocolate and Chicken

So I've been back in P-town for 3 days now. And have spent the 72 hours in transcendent bliss. No essays to write, no tests to study for, no projects to pull consecutive all-nighters to complete. It was a revelation. Even though I did have that nightmare about a project that I just couldn't complete because it wasn't coming out right.

But with all this relaxing, I'm beginning to grow slightly worried that I will eventually become fat and lazy. So I started cooking. Tuesday I made cookies. Yesterday I made lunch. Today I made dinner. And currently, I am boiling a whole chicken carcass to make stock for tomorrow's dinner. If anything, at least the "lazy" part won't apply.

The cookies were Chocolate Crinkle Cookies, which I grabbed from Elissa's blog 17 and Baking, which in turn she grabbed from Allrecipes. Where to begin with these cookies...? Well, first it should be noted that I picked this particular recipe because I had all the recipes on hand already. No need to go to the grocery store (not that I would have minded, I love going to the grocery store). Or so I thought. Turns out my dad chucked my can of baking powder, because it was getting old. And we were out of vanilla extract, because I had used the last of it in a cheesecake I made during spring break. And we were out of confectioner's sugar...just because.

Well, fine. I forged ahead pigheadedly anyway, I subbing baking soda for baking powder (1/4 tsp of baking soda per tsp of baking powder), forgoing the vanilla extract (everyone knows chocolate is king), and rolled my balls of cookie dough in sugar, cinnamon powder, and cinnamon sugar instead (at least no one will get a mustache when they eat them). And the results...

Awesome! Despite the substitutions and omissions. Although I have to say that they aren't quite as crinkle-y as Elissa's, which I'm guessing is the result of a combination of the baking soda, the 10-minute baking time, and the giant scoops of dough I formed (the recipe is supposed to make 7 dozen, but my batch only provided 3). Also, they're so soft and densely chocolatey and fudgy, they taste more like a brownie masquerading as a cookie. Not that I'm complaining. Clockwise from the top: cinnamon powder, cinnamon sugar, and granulated sugar. I think my favorite is the cinnamon powdered ones.


Moving on...Wednesday lunch was pan-seared tilapia. Heat up a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan, and when it's hot put down the filets (if it doesn't sizzle, you did it wrong). Sprinkle salt and pepper over the filets. When one side is golden brown (lift it up carefully to check because whitefish breaks easily...as I discovered, when I broke mine) flip it over with a spatula. Grab a lemon and roll it on the counter to break open the segments before cutting it open, and squeeze it over the filets and into the pan. Sprinkle a little more salt and pepper, as well as any kind of herb of spice you like (I used oregano). When the other side is golden and the fish flakes when you poke it with a fork, it's done!

Eat it while it's hot, because its deliciousness substantially declines when it gets cold.


There's an interesting story about the first item on tonight's dinner menu. I went shopping at Sam's Club with my dad, and during our shopping, tried a sample of their ready-made chicken salad. The employee doling out the samples explained to us how the chicken salad was "made fresh every day with our rotisserie chicken", and went into great detail about how their "chefs" took the chicken off the bone and mixed it with mayonnaise and other spices and seasonings. My family has always liked the rotisserie chicken, and my dad was impressed with the taste of the chicken salad, which, if you've read the post with my cheesecake recipe, you'll know all about. So I ran to the ready-made food counter and picked up a package of chicken salad, turned it over, and read the ingredients list.

If you aren't aware, ingredients are listed in order of predominance, or from most to least. The first ingredient in this chicken salad was mayonnaise. Okay, who am I to lecture on how much fat they put in it? I kept reading. The next ingredient was "chopped soy chicken substitute". It wasn't even real chicken! Taking the chicken off the bone, my ass, I thought. I told my dad I could make a better chicken salad.

Chicken Salad

1/2 storebought rotisserie chicken if you're really into the all-homemade thing, you can obviously roast your own chicken. Alternatively, this is a good way to use up any leftover chicken you happen to have.
2-3 stalks of celery
1 cup mayonnaise NOT MiracleWhip! I hate that stuff.
pepper to taste


~Strip the chicken meat off the bone. Try not to get any fat or skin in it, because it will just taste slimy.
~Using your fingers, pull apart the chicken into pieces about the size of the first knuckle of your thumb. If you have big thumbs...pull them into smaller pieces.
~Dice the celery.
~Dump the chicken pieces and diced celery into a largish bowl.
~Add the mayonnaise. You may need slightly more or less than one cup, depending on how large your chicken was and how much you care about your arteries.
~Mix everything up good.
~Season with pepper. Taste. Mix again.


Unfortunately, my dad left for Shanghai this morning, so he didn't get to taste this chicken salad. I'll just have to make it again sometime.

The rest of dinner...

Olive Oil Toast

baguette
olive oil

~Cut the baguette into diagonal slices.
~Pour enough olive oil into a pan to coat the bottom and fire up the stove. When the oil is hot, drop the slices of baguette into the oil. Try to get the oil to coat the bread, because otherwise it won't brown.
~Fry each side of bread until golden and crispy (about 2-3 minutes each).
~Pull it out and serve immediately


Tomato-Avocado Salad with Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar Dressing

2 Hass avocados
2 cups of grape tomatoes
1/4 cup of olive oil
1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar
1 tsp of oregano
1/2 tsp of salt
pinch of pepper

~Cut the avocados in half and remove the pit.To to this, you can either do it the pansy way, with a spoon, which will inevitably make a mess of the lovely avocado meat... or you can hold the avocado half with the pit in your palm, take a large cleaver (a small knife won't work here, trust me) and swing it recklessly downward. Aim for the pit. If you're lucky, the blade will lodge in it firmly (it may take a few tries to get it in there securely) and you will be able to pull it from the flesh of the avocado by twisting the knife. If not, call the ER.
~Cube the avocados and put them in a serving bowl.
~Cut the grape tomatoes in half and add them to the bowl.
~Put the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, oregano, salt, and pepper into a small bowl and whisk to mix it all together.
~Pour your vinaigrette over the avocados and tomatoes and toss to coat.

*If you're not going to eat your salad right away, squeeze some lemon juice over it to keep the avocado from turning brown =)


Oh yeah, and the chicken stock...well, I tossed the chicken carcass leftover from the chicken salad into a pot with a sprouting onion (with the sprout cut off), some broken celery stalks, and a lot of water, and put it on the stove to simmer. And now the whole house smells like chicken, which is quite nice. Anyone know how long I'm supposed to leave it on for?


I bought some ingredients yesterday, and I'll be tackling a cake next week...wish me luck =3 Also, I am going camping with The Boyfriend this weekend! Delicious Russian camp food, mmmm.