Finally Cooking Again...

I'm 37 weeks pregnant now, but had a burst of energy yesterday. Between mowing the lawn, weeding, and going grocery shopping, I also decided that I wanted a delicious home-cooked meal. I opened up Sarah Foster's Casual Cooking to see what inspired me, and was instantly drawn to "Skewered Thai Chicken Thighs with Spicy Peanut Sauce" (page 150.)

I don't cook with thighs very often, and they're a little difficult -- the fat isn't as easy to cut off the thigh as it is off the breast. I did my best and left them to soak in a delicious Thai marinade in my fridge for several hours. I had to alternate just one ingredient -- I didn't have tamarind sauce, but I found a jar of spicy Thai curry paste at the back of my pantry and tossed that in instead.

Meanwhile, I put together the "Spicy Peanut Dipping Sauce." It need's to be said that I adore peanut sauce. I'll order chicken satay at a Thai restaurant just for the little bowl of peanut sauce and the delicious cucumber salad they often pair it with. I could tell from all the delicious ingredients going into this one, like ginger and honey and soy sauce, that this was going to be a winner.

And of course I didn't take any after pictures. We slapped the chicken on the grill, made it all delicious, and dipped it generously in peanut sauce. I was a happy camper. Next time I'll use chicken breasts, just because I'm more comfortable with them, but I'd be happy for there to be a next time.

I served the chicken with Sarah Foster's "Classic Cucumber Salad" (p. 212), which was nice and light and delicious. We have plenty of leftovers since our guests don't like cilantro, which was chopped in there along with vinegar, olive oil, and lime juice. So, more for us.

And finally, since all dinners should be served with dessert, I made Sarah Foster's "Fluffy Dark Chocolate Mousse" (p. 225). And it was the first time I've gotten to use my double-boiler, so that's fun.

I over-beat my egg whites, which made this mousse a little grainy, but the flavor was good. I'd make it again but be a little bit more careful about my timing.

So, there we go. Four recipes out of Sarah Foster's book. Hopefully this energy will continue for the next few weeks.

Angelo Pellegrini's Braised Chicken with Wild Mushrooms (p. 422)

Here's another recipe that actually called for rabbit -- I made the call to switch out to chicken instead. 

The first steps are reminiscent of making shake and bake, which growing up we called Chicken Amelia, because my sister Amelia loved it and could make it on her own from a pretty young age.  This one is made up of just flour, salt, and pepper, and the chicken pieces are doused in it.

Cook in olive oil until the chicken pieces are thoroughly browned.

Remove the chicken and cook up some delicious diced bacon in the pan. This smells amazing, obviously, but it smells even better after adding some herbs and veggies; celery, parsley, thyme, rosemary, and a dried red chili.

Cook for several minutes but don't allow the celery to brown.

Add the chicken pieces back in, as well as dried mushrooms that had been soaked in hot water, then removed from the water and chopped up. Stir in the drained liquid from the mushrooms, tomato puree, some wine, chicken stock, as well as a little flour to thicken up the sauce. Actually, the recipe called for arrowroot, but I couldn't find it at the grocery store, and I was completely fine with a substitute. 

Then cook, covered, for about an hour.

This is pretty much amazing. The chicken falls apart and is completely tender because of the long period of braising, and the flavor is spot on, with a little bit of heat from the chili, and a delicious thick sauce of bacon, celery, and mushrooms. I would eat this again and again.

bacon -- $2.99 (Plenty left for a Father's Day breakfast tomorrow!)

chicken -- $8.11

celery -- $2.99 (I just used one stalk)

wine -- $6.99 (this was for one of those 4 packs of tiny wine bottles. I didn't even use half of one, and I'll have Matt finish it up when he gets home, but I just hate the idea of opening an entire bottle of wine and not being able to drink it.)

Total Cost of Angelo Pellegrini's Braised Chicken with Wild Mushrooms: $21.08

($5.27 per serving)

Braised Chicken Garnished with Green Olives and Onions (p. 421)

So, this was actually supposed to be braised rabbit, which is why I've held off on cooking it for so long. After lots of going back and forth, Matt (and the cookbook itself) convinced me that it was okay for me to substitute chicken for the rabbit because a) rabbit is hard to find and b) rabbit is super extra expensive. Fresh Market sells it, but only frozen, and it's $30 - $40 for one whole rabbit. I have three rabbit recipes, so that starts adding up to be way too costly.

So, braised chicken. Delicious braised chicken.

The only lengthy part of this recipe is that the chicken needs to marinate for several hours. I started mine yesterday morning in a marinade of sherry (the recipe called for dry white wine, but now that I'm with child, cooking sherry is about the only similar thing I had around the house, and it feels crazy to buy wine and then not be able to drink it), olive oil, minced parsley, salt, dried thyme, a bay leaf, and a combination of herbs that came from my CSA last week. I tossed this in a tupperware in the fridge until closer to dinner time.

When you're ready to start preparing the actual dinner, brown tiny onions in olive oil, and then set them aside.

Using the same oil, brown the chicken pieces (removed from the marinade and patted dry) on both sides until they are nicely colored. Add some flour to the top of the pieces and continue cooking, distributing and browning the flour.

Put the onions back in the pan, as well as the rest of the marinade and some extra liquid (I used water, you could use wine) and bring to a boil.  The recipe says to cover and simmer for about an hour, until the meat is falling off the bone, but since I used boneless chicken that was clearly cooked by that point, I just let mine simmer until the sauce was getting thick, and then removed the chicken and onions.

To make the sauce, strain the remaining liquid to get rid of the marinade aromatics and put the leftover sauce back into a pan. Heat until thickened and then add green olives briefly, just to warm them.

Pour the sauce over the chicken and onions, and serve!

We both really enjoyed this. The chicken was tender and extremely flavorful from the marinade, and we mopped up all the sauces with bread.

chicken -- $3.87

onions -- $3.99 (about half the bag is left)

olives -- $2.50

Total Cost of Braised Chicken Garnished with Green Olives and Onions: $10.36

($2.60 per serving)

Paella (p. 238)

I love paella -- to me, it's a pretty perfect dish. Luckily, this recipe kept me believing that, and this will definitely be added to the list of recipes to make again some day.

Paella is pretty time consuming (this took me about an hour and 45 minutes) but, I think, worth the time.

Start your pre-soaked white beans at a low simmer and cook them until they're done. Start this at the very beginning because it takes a while for them to cook, and you can work on preparing everything else during that time.

You can use a variety of different meats for paella. I used chicken legs, chicken thighs,  pork spare ribs, and shrimp, browning each (or in the case of the shrimp, pinkening) in olive oil and then setting aside.

In the same olive oil, sauté chopped onion until soft, and then add chopped tomatoes. Cook this down into a sauce. Add green beans and the white beans with their cooking water. Stir in a healthy does of paprika and cook until everything has become thick.

Now all the meats (except the shrimp) go back into the pan, and this is where things get tricky. You really need a super huge pan to make paella. Even after cutting the recipe in half, my 12 inch sauté pan was really too small, as evidenced by upcoming pictures.

Pour simmering chicken stock into the pan and add lots of coarse sea salt and rosemary. Pour the rice in around the meat, so that it is fully immersed in the stock. Cook until the rice is completely done (I took mine off the heat a few minutes too early because I was worried that everything was going to overflow the pan.) Add the reserved shrimp, set aside for a few minutes, and serve.

Despite the rice being a tad bit crunchy, this was super delicious. Changes I'd make next time would be cutting down the quantities even more, and using cut pieces of meat instead of meat on the bone -- I think that would make it easier to cook and eat.

pork ribs -- $4.58

chicken stock -- $3.49

shrimp -- $4.16

chicken -- $4.69

onions -- $.65

green beans -- $.56

Total Cost of Paella: $18.13

($3.02 per serving)

Roasted Chicken with a Middle Eastern Stuffing (p. 406) and Spinach with Onions and Black Olives (p. 309)

It's been over a week since I've last posted -- the holidays make for a busy time! I've done very little cooking over that week, but I did make a big Christmas dinner for me, Matt, and my dad. I wanted to do something semi-traditional, so a roasted chicken seemed the perfect thing.

On  Christmas Eve my dad and I hit up the Fresh Market in Asheville to get all the necessities. The recipe calls for a 5 pound chicken but all the was left was 3.5 pounds, so I had to make do. I think the guy who helped me was just filling in at the counter, because the chicken was wrapped ridiculously.

Also, when I unwrapped it, the giblets were nowhere to be found. No giblets? What's up with that? They were supposed to be cooked down to become part of the stuffing, but I had to skip that step.

I rubbed down the bird with a mixture of garlic, salt, olive oil, and lemon juice and let it marinate in the fridge for a few hours.

While the bird was getting itself all juicy and flavorful in the fridge, I made the stuffing -- sauteed onions, toasted pine nuts, ground beef, pepper, cooked rice, currants, cinnamon, cumin, and saffron sounded like it would make for a pretty amazing combination. I filled the bird up and cooked her for about an hour and a half altogether, adjusting the oven temperature and basting as needed.

The chicken was amazingly moist and delicious.

We all really enjoyed it, especially the crispy skin that the marinade had coated. I was kind of bummed about the stuffing, though. It was good, but with all that stuff in it I had thought it was going to be the best part of the meal. Maybe it was the lack of the giblets?

With this, I prepared a simple spinach side. Just steam down the spinach until it is super tender and then chop it up. In a skillet, sauté sliced scallions in olive oil until soft and then stir in chopped olives and add the spinach back in.

Add black pepper and red wine vinegar, keep over the heat until the vinegar has mostly cooked away, and then serve.

Matt and my dad were kind of dreading this because neither loves cooked spinach, but this dish was surprisingly good -- I think olives can make pretty much anything delicious. This was actually the first part of the meal to disappear.

All in all, a very successful Christmas dinner.

chicken -- $6.59

lemon -- $.89

onion -- $1.20

ground beef -- $2.59

currants -- $2.75 (only used 2 tablespoons of a bulk container)

saffron -- $7.40 (used a large pinch, still plenty leftover)

Total Cost of Roasted Chicken with a Middle Eastern Stuffing: $21.42

($4.28 per serving)

spinach -- $2.50

scallions -- $.88

olives -- $3.30

Total Cost of Spinach with Onions and Black Olives: $6.68

($1.33 per serving)

Brick Chicken (p. 416) and Gratin of Mushrooms and Potatoes (p. 325)

Brick Chicken, or Pollo al Mattone is just chicken in a simple marinade cooked under a heated brick. I let my chicken breasts sit in a marinade of olive oil, salt and pepper, red pepper flakes, dried thyme, and chopped rosemary and parsley for about an hour.

The recipe is normally made on the grill under a cooking brick or tile. I have neither, so I used the alternate recipe of heating two heavy skillets in a very hot oven and then cooking the chicken on the stovetop, crushed between the two pans.

Unfortunately, I stuck with the cooking time that was recommended for grilled chicken, and it was entirely too long for the stovetop version. My chicken was very dry and tough, though smelled lovely and looked quite pretty.

I would make this again, but keep a very careful eye on the cooking time throughout.

With this, I served a Gratin of Mushrooms and Potatoes, which is a pretty simple recipe involving both dried and fresh mushrooms.

Soak the dried mushrooms in very hot water until soft.

Meanwhile. sauté the fresh onions (sliced) in olive oil.

Assemble the gratin starting with very thinly sliced potatoes in the bottom of an oiled dish.

Pour in the water that the dried mushrooms were soaked in (strained of any sediment from the mushrooms) and layer in the two types of mushroom.

Add sliced tomato on top.

Cook for about 25 minutes, until the potatoes are cooked, top with cheese, and continue cooking for about 10 minutes.

This was pretty good, but nothing ground breaking. Really, I probably just liked it because of the amount of cheese on top.

All in all, not the best meal, especially before I head out of state for the rest of the week. Poor Matt will be stuck home alone with the kitty eating who knows what out of the pantry.

chicken breasts -- $4.14

Total Cost of Brick Chicken: $4.14

($2.07 per serving)

dried mushrooms -- $6.99 (half left)

fresh mushrooms -- $1.56

tomato -- $1.82

potato -- $.70

Total Cost of Gratin of Mushrooms and Potatoes: $11.07
($2.77 per serving)

Sant'Ambrogio Yellow Pepper Soup (p. 128) with Crostini di Fegatini (p. 70)

It's fall and thus time for soups. I love soups, though my favorites are generally the cream-based kind that don't seem to exist in the Mediterranean (or at least not in my cookbook.)

Sant'Ambrogio Yellow Pepper Soup (also called Passato di Peperoni Gialli) is pretty simple to make, and other than the time that the peppers spend softening its actually a pretty quick recipe. Plus, it has red onion in it, which I adore.

Very gently sauté said red onion (chopped) in olive oil until it is just beginning to turn translucent. When this happens add in the chopped yellow peppers and chopped potato, both in large chunks.

Pour in simmering vegetable broth and ad salt and pepper and a dried chili. Leave these simmering, covered, for about an hour until the veggies are nice and soft.

Remove the chili and process the soup through a food mill until it is a soup-like consistency, then just re-heat on the pan.

I wanted to serve something a little bit hearty with the soup, so it was finally the time to use the chicken livers that had been sitting in my freezer for a month. I had a lot of trouble tracking down chicken livers -- the dude at Fresh Market laughed at me when I asked and Harris Teeter didn't know what I was talking about. But the Asian Market? Golden. And cheap! So those babies have been lying in wait for me to make Crostini di Fegatini, which I finally did.

Chicken livers are a little gross to touch, but also kind of beautiful -- all glossy and reddish. Just pick over them and cut off any spots that don't look good (the recipe said this, but my livers looked beautiful) and rinse them out in a colander.

Separately, saute minced onion (regular white onion this time, unfortunately) garlic, and parsley until very soft and then shove the vegetables aside and add in the livers (patted dry at this point.)

Cook over medium heat, chopping the livers up with a spoon as you go. When the livers have lost their pinkness, add in sherry and a little bit of water and continue cooking until all the liquid has been absorbed.

Once the livers are thoroughly cooked, stir in capers, more parsley, and lemon juice and mix well. Then top crusty bread with the fegatini and serve.

This meal was lovely! The soup was a really nice consistency and both sweet and savory. I added a little more salt and pepper and then really enjoyed it. The leftovers were yummy, too. The crostini were also delicious -- the livers tasted pretty much like pate and were delicious. Someone in my house categorically refused to eat any chicken livers, but that just meant more for me.

potato -- $.83

red onion -- $1.75 (half left)

yellow peppers -- $5.44

vegetable broth -- $1.98

Total Cost of Sant'Ambrogio Yellow Pepper Soup: $10.00 (for about 3 servings)

bread -- $3.99 (I used Fresh Market's ciabatta, and it was delish.)

lemon -- $.89 (half left)

chicken livers -- $1.90 (for way more than I needed)

Total Cost of Crostini di Fegatini: $6.78

Quick and Easy Arroz con Pollo (p. 242)

Basically, this is chicken with rice, and its sort of like a Latin American paella.

This recipe calls for a whole chicken cut into pieces but I decided to take the easy way out and buy boneless pieces to use instead. I purchased a combination of breasts and thighs and salted and peppered them on both sides.

Heat olive oil in a skillet and add the chicken pieces, browning them thoroughly and removing each piece to a plate as they are done.

While the chicken cooks, warm chicken stock and keep it at a low simmer.

Once all the chicken is out of the skillet, add chopped onions, garlic, and red pepper and cook until soft.

Add tomatoes (I used canned this time), paprika, and saffron threads. Pour the simmering stock in as well as the rice and bring the liquid to a simmer again.

Add the chicken pieces back into the pan, cover, and cook for about 20 minutes, until the chicken has cooked all the way. Remove from heat but let sit for about another 10 minutes, until the rice absorbs all the liquid. Top with parsley and serve!

This was delicious! We both really enjoyed the dish. The red peppers give it a sweetness and the rice was really moist and flavorful. I'd make this one again, for sure.

canned tomatoes -- $.53

chicken stock -- $2.39 (about half left)

onion -- $1.28

saffron -- $5.99 (so expensive but so good!)

chicken parts -- $6.02

Total Cost of Quick and Easy Arroz con Pollo: $16.21 

(though you could definitely make this cheaper by leaving out the saffron)

Moroccan Chicken with Preserved Lemons and Olives (p. 412)

Another recipe using preserved lemons!

Take one small chicken (4 pounds was about the smallest I could find, though the recipe really calls for two 2.5 pound birds) and rinse her out with cool water. Give her a nice rub down of salt and lemon juice and stick her in the fridge for at least a half hour. Set aside her packet of giblets and livers for later use.

Now for the sauce part; mix together minced parsley, garlic, cilantro, ground ginger, black pepper, and a chopped preserved lemon. Add in some water.

After the bird has sat for long enough, rinse her out again and give her another rub down, this time with the mixture above. Put her in a heavy duty stock pot and set over low heat.

Add lots and lots of thinly sliced onions and some olive oil and let the bird and giblets simmer for about half an hour. Then add in the livers and paprika, cover, and let cook for another hour to an hour and a half.

When the bird is thoroughly cooked, cut the meat off and arrange it on a platter.

Continue thickening the sauce left in the stock pot by turning up the heat. Remove the livers, chop them up, and return them to the sauce. Add olives and ladle the sauce over the bird.

This was kind of a pain to cook, as is any time you need to deal with the entirety of an animal. We both really liked the flavors of the marinade and I would totally do it again, but only with boneless pieces of chicken.

chicken -- $4.20

lemon -- $.69

olives -- $2.15

Total Cost of Moroccan Chicken with Preserved Lemons and Olives: $7.04

Chicken and Chickpea Soup from Southern Spain (p. 142)

I've been slacking on my cooking -- we've been so busy lately I haven't been home enough nights to cook dinner!

I finally got a chance this week to make some soup, and it was definitely a time intensive recipe.

The recipe calls for a whole chicken, but since I was making a half quantity I used a small cornish game hen instead.

The hen was immersed in chicken stock (both the last of my homemade stock as well as some store-bought to supplement) and some water and simmered for about an hour and a half, until the meat was completely cooked. I removed the hen from the stock and separated the bones and skins from the meat. The chicken is added back into the soup later.

Using the same stock that the hen was cooked in, add dried chickpeas that have been soaked overnight along with garlic and cook for about 20 minutes. Once the chickpeas have begun to soften, stir in chopped carrots, celery, and tomatoes and continue cooking until the chickpeas are soft (about 25 minutes.)

Stir in rice and chili pepper and cook for another 10 minutes, until the rice has been cooked. Add chopped prosciutto and sea salt and spoon the cocido (basically, the soup) over pieces of the cooked chicken set into bowls. 

Garnish the soup with chopped hard boiled eggs and mint leaves.

Even just making half of the recipe, this made a ton of soup, most of which is now in my freezer. Luckily, it's really tasty and a great alternative to a more traditional chicken noodle soup. The egg and mint garnishes add a pop to it, and it makes for a really colorful bowl.

stock -- $2.29

eggs -- $.69 (I only needed one for this)

celery -- $1.99 (just needed one stalk)

prosciutto -- $4.29

cornish game hen -- $3.81

Total Cost of Chicken and Chickpea Soup from Southern Spain: $13.07