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Chicken Fricassee???

March 14, 2022

My family isn’t at all French. We’re probably 75% Cornish and 25% Norwegian. The meal I most requested from my grandmother, a truly wonderful southern cook, was Chicken Fricassee though. Or that’s what she called the bone in chicken in gravy, cooked in a bag if memory served, over rice that she whipped up to my constant demands. I’ve chased whatever that was for my entire adult life, though I don’t frankly remember very much about it except how satisfied it made me feel. It was hearty, and savory, and like any good southern girl “smothered” is my favorite adjective. This is my version.

6 bone in, skin on chicken thighs patted dry w/ paper towel
2 tbs bacon fat
2 leeks, quartered/rinsed/sliced
16 oz button mushrooms, quartered
1 tbs dijon mustard
2 lemons, juiced
4 cups chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tbs cornstarch in 2 tbs water slurry
1/3 cup chopped tarragon

Set a straight sided sauté pan on a medium heat. Liberally season the chicken thighs on all side. Add bacon fat to pan and allow to render. Then place the thighs, skin side down in the fat. Brown them on all sides until a deep mahogany color forms. Also great… encourage that brown-ness on the bottom of the pan. That’s the flavor.

Remove browned thighs to a plate and add the diced/cleaned leeks. Soften the leeks, then add the mushrooms until they’re also browned. Sometimes I need to lid the pan w/ the leeks and sometimes not. Just don’t let them burn. Drizzle in a little more bacon fat or butter if necessary to keep it all from sticking. Squeeze in the lemon juice to deglaze, then add the stock and mustard. Let that come to a boil and reduce slightly. Add S&P, and cream. Add the starch/water slurry and stir until uniformly thick.

Add the browned chicken back to the pan with the skin side up. The darkly colored tops should sit proud of the liquid. Put the lid on and cook on low, just barely a simmer, for 20 minutes. Remove the lid and cook another 5 or 10 minutes. Sprinkle with tarragon.

Serve over rice or egg noodles.

Tags:bacon fat, chicken, Food, grandmother, recipe, southern cooking, Texas
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Chicken and Black Pepper Dumplings

September 20, 2020

When I eat my feelings it’s usually a riff on something my mother and grandmother made back in the day. Chicken and dumplings are a staple of my childhood. In their world chicken and dumplings were just a poached chicken and Bisquick dumplings. Adding veg and tarting up a biscuit dough is somewhat treasonous. As always when I make something I’m particularly proud of, my kids wanted none of it. Whatever. One of them is addicted to boxed mac and cheese and the other frequently chews on painters tape. Not arbiters of all that is tasty.

We ate the C&D before I took a picture. So here are the comfort food rejectors on their first day of pandemic school.

Soup:
1 large white onion, peeled and diced
4 large garlic cloves, sliced
2 tbs rendered bacon fat
4 carrots, peeled and sliced into coins
1 heart of celery w/ leaves, sliced
salt and pepper to taste
¼ tsp poultry seasoning
8 cups chicken stock
1 pound shredded chicken
¼ cup sour cream
1 tbs Dijon mustard

Dumplings:
¼ cup butter, melted
2 cups all purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 egg, beaten
black pepper, fresh ground
1 cup butter milk

Sauté onion in bacon fat. Add the garlic and cook until soft. Stir in carrots and celery, then add seasonings and stock. Cook until the carrots are soft, about 20 minutes. Stir in chicken, sour cream, and mustard. Reduce to a simmer.

Melt butter in a microwave proof bowl. Add all dumpling ingredients and mix to form a stiff dough. Drop dumplings off of a spoon into simmering soup, but be careful not to boil them or they’ll fall apart. Partially cover, and cook just simmering for about 20 minutes.

Delight. Utter delight. Even given that my kids were all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ because their mission is to fully reject the only food culture I can give them.

Tags:comfort food, cooking, Food, kids
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Anti- Cream of Chemical Shit Storm King Ranch Chicken

July 1, 2020

For those days when <waves hand> all of this is just too much to bear, but you’d still rather not ingest cream-o-chemical soup.

For the sauce:
1 tbs bacon fat
1 large sweet onion, diced
1 large green bell pepper, diced
4-6 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp celery seeds
2 tbs butter
3 tbs flour
2 cans low sodium chicken stock
1 15oz can stewed tomatoes w/ chiles
1/2 cup sour cream
salt and pepper to taste. (Maybe some ground cumin too. MOAR cumin!)

For the casserole:
1 sauce recipe as above
1 lb shredded chicken
1 lb sliced crimini mushrooms, sautéd in bacon fat
3.8 oz can of ripe olives, sliced
1 cup jack cheese, shredded
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
20 corn tortillas, sliced in half

I generally sauté the mushrooms in bacon fat in a straight sided skillet and set them aside. Then in that pan, add some more bacon fat (Sorry… we’re not here for health today we’re here for the calming of existential dread) and soften your onions and bell pepper in that. Add the crushed garlic and stir through till soft. Then add all of the seasonings except the salt and pepper. Fry them until the kitchen smells like you might survive after all. Add the butter to melt, then add the flour and mix until it all forms a paste. Let that brown a little. Add the chicken stock and (well strained) tomatoes. Simmer until it thickens then turn off the heat and add the sour cream. Taste for salt and pepper. Decide it’s not quite right and add some ground cumin. Then maybe a little more cumin. This is the sauce! You did this to avoid cream of chemical shit storm in a can and it’s worth it.

Dump a little sauce in the bottom of a casserole dish (Mine was glass and 13×9). Then cover the sauce w/ tortilla halves. Layer on more sauce, some chicken, olives, mushrooms. Then more tortillas, then sauce, then chicken/olives/mushrooms, finish this layer with the jack cheese. MORE tortillas but instead of sauce go straight to chicken/olives/mushrooms. Then the rest of the sauce spread evenly over the top. Try to have a little more than 1/3 of the sauce left for this step. Sharp cheddar cheese on the now very saucy top. Cover with foil.

I generally make casseroles either the day before or at lunch time and refrigerate, then bang them in a 400 F oven covered for 45 minutes and uncovered until bubbly. About 15 minutes. This is a good time to go take a statin and some blood pressure meds. Check that your jeans are sufficiently stretchy.

Let it stand on the counter for a while so that it sets and you avoid pizza mouth blisters. Eat it. Keep eating until you either burst or stop feeling all of the feelings you don’t want to be feeling.

At least it’s no preservatives… right?

Tags:emotional eating, existential crisis, Food, health issues, recipe
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Chicken Plov

February 26, 2018

I based this on a beautiful chickpea plov recipe from 101cookbooks.com. This was a bit more quickly thrown together, but worked very well. I used white basmatti rice instead of brown since it cooks more quickly.

1 cup white onions, chopped
2 tbs olive oil
2 chicken breasts, diced
salt, pepper, paprika, chili flakes
1/3 cup black olives, diced
1/3 cup dill, chopped
1/4 chives, chopped
2 cups basmatti rice
1 tsp saffron threads
2 tsp kosher salt
2.5 cups chicken stock

Saute onions in olive oil at the highest heat level. Add chicken seasoned with salt, pepper, paprika, and chili flakes. Just brown. Turn off heat. Add chopped spices and olives in layers but do not mix with the chicken and onion mixture. Pour rice over the herb layer, still without mixing. Bloom saffron in chicken stock and add salt to the liquid. Pour over rice. The liquid should just cover the rice, if it doesn’t add water. Lock lid in place.

Select “rice.” On my Duo 6 quart, this brings up an un-adjustable 12 minute cycle. After the rice cycle is up, allow a natural pressure release of 10 minutes. If liquid still remains, do a quick 2 minutes on manual, with a quick release to follow. Serve with yogurt, if desired.

Tags:chicken, cooing, f, Food, instant pot, plov, pressure cooker, rice, saffron
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Mixed Berry Muffins

September 4, 2017

muffin

My daughters have come to expect a batch of muffins just about every week to serve as their school day breakfast. Occasionally instead of muffins I’m asked for stones (scones) but this week I had a bunch of strawberries and dewberries left over and needed to use them up. So in a muffin they went. I had hoped the muffins would be a cheery pinkish purple color and the batter was just so. I added the jam partially for color’s sake and partially because my berries weren’t terribly sweet. They baked out to a fairly uniform white shade though so if you’re inclined and not averse a drop or two of pink food coloring wouldn’t go wrong.

These turned out ridiculously tender and buttery with a nice thin crust to the tops. I set two of them out under a pie safe and the rest go in a gallon baggie in the freezer to be doled out from Monday to Friday.

Makes 15 muffins.

Mixed Berry Muffins
2 cups white flour
3/4 cup white sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp kosher salt
2/3 cup butter, melted
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 2/3 cup fresh mixed berries, chopped
2 tbs blackberry (dewberry) or strawberry jam

Preheat oven to 425. Dice berries and combine with jam. Add all other ingredients and stir, just to combine. Portion out into lined muffin tins. Bake for 18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Tags:baking, berries, berry, breakfast, cooking, muffins
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Saltine Toffee

April 29, 2017

Southern cooking relies on ingredients that are a.) Cheap, b.) tasty, and c.) generally pretty terrible for your body. Saltine Toffee historically meets all of those criteria. It’s often a Christmas cookie treat, but it’s one of my go to treats to send along on trips and as a gift.

Start by lining a sheet pan with saltine crackers. I line with foil for the mess and a sheet of parchment paper to stop the candy from sticking to the foil. Who wants to eat little bits of foil? (Foil sounds like f-oh-l when I say it, if that helps.)

In a heavy bottomed sauce pan, bring butter and brown sugar to a boil. Stir to keep the sugar from burning for 3 minutes.

Pour the boiled sugar mixture over the crackers (it will plop, more than stream) and spread evenly.

Bake in the oven at 425 for 5 minutes until the sugar mixture is hot and bubbling, then remove and immediately sprinkle with chocolate chips. I’m a stickler for fair trade chocolate because imho, child slavery tastes bad. Cover with foil and let sit for 5 minutes until the chocolate has melted, then spread the chocolate out across the toffee crackers. I top it with pecans, because Central Texas, but it’s good as is or even with crushed peppermint.

Refrigerate until cool, peel the candy from the lined pan and break into bite sized pieces.

Saltine Toffee:
Soda crackers, about 50
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup salted butter
2 cups fair trade semi sweet chocolate chips
3/4 pecans

Preheat oven to 425. Cover a lined baking sheet with soda crackers, leaving as little gap as possible. Place butter and brown sugar in a heavy sauce pan and bring to a boil for 3 minutes. Pour boiling sugar mixture over crackers and place the sheet pan in the oven. Bake for 5 minutes or until bubbling. Remove from heat and immediately cover with chocolate chips. Cover and allow to sit for 5 minutes. Spread melted chocolate chips with a rubber spatula and then top with pecans if desired. Place the sheet pan in the refrigerator for 15 or 20 minutes until cool. Break into serving pieces. Best fresh while the crackers are still crisp, but can be stored in an air tight container.

Tags:candy, chocolate, dessert, southern cooking, toffee
Posted in Food, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Not Quite Buckeye Balls

November 15, 2013

I don’t normally talk in such definitive terms but: We’ve all been making Buckeye Balls incorrectly for the entirety of man kind. It’s true. The correct recipe follows.

1 (6.5oz) container of PB2 with chocolate
1/2 of the same container filled w/ powdered sugar
2 tbs virgin coconut oil
6 tbs dark spiced rum
3 tbs coconut coffee creamer
chocolate bark, melted

In the bowl of an electric mixer using the paddle attachment, lightly mix PB2 and powdered sugar. Mix in the coconut oil and blend for about a minute until it’s even distributed through the bowl. Add in the rum, 1 tbs at a time, until the batter has a sufficient rum taste but doesn’t knock you over. Then add the coconut creamer until the mixture just comes together. You might not use all of the creamer. It should look like this:

Roll the dough into balls worth one or two bites. Refrigerate them for half an hour. Melt chocolate bark by the directions provided (Or make your own using your favorite chocolate and a scoop or two of shortening. I was lazy today.) Cool until you can just touch the chocolate enough to work with. Swirl each dough ball into the chocolate bark, and then set on a lined cookie sheet.

Refrigerate until set, then serve. Then thank me. Often. I’m freezing them and sending them to Costa Rica, because I want to be that far away from their magnetic wonderfulness.

Tags:Buckeye balls, candy, chocolate, Christmas, Christmas candy, holiday, PB2, peanut butter, recipe, rum
Posted in Food, travel, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

7 Year Sweet Rolls

July 21, 2013

For whatever reason, last night I was struck with a poweful urge to make cinnamon rolls. I had no yeast, but managed to find some at the neighbor’s house. I had no cinnamon either so I used a random assortment of spices in our rental house. I also didn’t have any pecans, only an enormous Costco tub of mixed nuts, so I chopped some up and used them. The resulting batch is enormous so I split it into two pie pans and an additional small pan. 1 pan was for us this morning, the others are being ferried to other homes for cooking and eating.

I think I haven’t been struck by an urge to make cinnamon rolls since well before I met Andy, which is like 6.5 years back. So I guess these are 7 year sweet rolls.

Dough
2 cup coconut milk
1 cup maple syrup (grade B is what I have)
2/3 stick of butter
.25 cup half and half
2 pkg yeast
5 cups flour
1 tbs Salt

Place 1 tbs brown sugar in a well oiled 9 inch pie or cake plate.

Melt butter in the coconut milk, then add syrup and cream. Allow the mixture to cool until just warm enough that you can put a finger in and not get burned. Add yeast and let sit until the mixture bubbles.

In a large bowl, mix four cups of flour and about a tablespoon of salt. Make a well in the dry ingredients, and pour in the milk mixture. Mix with a spoon until combined adding another cup of flour as necessary to make a sticky dough. Let the dough rise until doubled in volume, about an hour.

Filling:
1 cup brown sugar
1 tbs cinnamon
1 cup mixed nuts, chopped
1 stick of butter

Mix all ingredients together with a fork.

Spread risen dough on a large, floured work surface. Roll the dough out into a rectangle to about 1/3 inch thick. Sprinkle the filling evenly over the dough, then roll the dough up like a jelly roll. Pinch the seam closed along the long side. Slice in 3/4 inch cross section and place cut side down in prepared pans so that there is some space between the rolls.

Allow to rise over night (8-10 hours) in the refrigerator. In the morning, bake at 350 until golden, about 25 minutes. Turn out onto a plate immediately

Tags:breakfast, recipe, sweet rolls, yeast bread
Posted in Food | 2 Comments »

Banana Nut Muffins

May 12, 2013

Okay. I admit once and for all that I don’t measure anything. Ever. So you’ll have to use your eyeballs when assembling these muffins because they were both the bomb and the diggity. If it looks too wet, add more dry. If it looks too dry, add more wet. We’re grown ups and can handle this, right?

3 horrendously over ripe bananas I’d forgotten on top of the fridge
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce I needed to be rid of
2 sticks unsalted butter, melted (Yes. You read that right.)
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
3/4 cup maple syrup (I really just glugged until Andy shouted “HOLY SHIT!”)
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 cups unbleached flour
1 cup pecans or walnut pieces

Beat the bananas and apple sauce until smooth. Slowly wiz in the melted butter. Add in the rest of the ingredients one at a time except the nuts. Fold those in at the very last minute.

Pour into lined muffin tins, almost filling each cup. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes until just done. Makes about 2 dozen muffins.

Feed them to a baby so hungry, she’s prepared to eat her own foot. Save some for yourself.

Tags:baby, banana nut, cooking, Food, muffins, quick bread, recipe
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Low Carb Banana Bread

July 24, 2011

A completly unrelated photo.

For most of this pregnancy I’ve been trying to keep my carb count and glycemic index low. I figure that with a few pounds left over from Moxie and a strong family history of diabetes, the last thing I need is to go sugar crazy. I am; however, plagued with an abundance of ripe bananas since the world’s cutest toddler will only eat them in exactly the right window of ripeness. I came up with this version of a low carb banana nut bread by starting off here. My version is basically doubled, but with more banana, more leavening, and less sweetener and oil. It wasn’t very flavorful until fully cooled and was very slightly grainy. Otherwise, I give it a thumbs up.

6 ripe bananas, mashed
3/4 cup agave nectar
3/4 cup olive oil
4 eggs
2 tsp kosher salt
1 tbs cinnamon
2 tsp ginger
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
3 1/2 cup chickpea flour
1 cup chopped pecans

Mash very ripe bananas in a bowl using a wooden spoon. Stir in all remaining ingredients. The batter will be pourable. Distributed it into 2 prepared loaf pans. Bake at 350F for approximately 35 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

Roughly figured on fitday.com (assuming 24 servings) I get
Calories: 188
Total carbs: 16g
Total protein: 5g
Total fat: 12 g

In regular banana nut bread
Calories: 216
Total carbs: 30g
Total protein: 3g
Total fat: 10g

Tags:Banana nut bread, Food, low carb, low glycemic index, recipe
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Not The Knowing One