June Recipe-Club Recipe

This month's recipe was Buttermilk Grilled Chicken. I used the recipe as a base, but changed up a lot of it. I caramelized the shallots and left out the sugar, instead of just chopping the shallots and adding sugar to the buttermilk. I added a pinch of cayenne, and I added the buttermilk to the pan to really infuse it with the shallot flavor. This caused the buttermilk to sort of break, but I figured it didn't matter since it would just be a marinade.

I used two chicken breasts, one with skin and bones, one skinless and boneless, to see which worked best. I marinated them all day in the fridge, then put them onto a hot grill pan on the stove. I only put it them on long enough to get the grill marks on both sides before putting them in a pan and into my table-top oven to finish cooking. I had heard feedback from others about them getting too blackened on the outside before finishing, and didn't want that to happen.
This was the end result. The one on the top is the one with skin, the bottom, skinless. I found that the skin didn't really stay that crispy and I ended up taking it off, so I would say go for skinless in the future. By doing it in the oven this way, it saves all the moisture you can see on the bottom of the pan. I poured this over the chicken and it was so moist and flavorful. This was a really easy and delicious recipe. I have buttermilk and a shallot left over and I might try doing a fried chicken version of this. Since so many recipes call for buttermilk anyway. Hopefully it'll work out all right.

June Round-up

I tried a few things this month that worked and didn't work. This one was a fail, but it was an inspiration for a win, so that balances it out. I tried a tuna noodle casserole from a low-sodium, heart-healthy cookbook and it was gross. Don't do it, it's just not good. But, the sauce I made for it I thought would work, if tweaked, for chicken divan. Chicken divan is one of my favorite recipes but it relies heavily on mayonnaise and canned cream of chicken soup, which is a dairy no-no for me. It's really hard to find recipes that replicate that creaminess but don't have cream in them. This one was for a thickened milk sauce. I tried it with rice milk for the tuna casserole and found it a bit too sweet, so I tried dairy milk, acidophilus kind, for the chicken casserole.
This was the result. The sauce was delicious. Milk thickened with cornstarch as opposed to a traditional bechamel. I added cheddar cheese to the sauce, since cheese is an important element to chicken divan, as well as a bit of curry powder and lemon juice, other essentials to a good sauce. I was very pleased with the results. I'd been nervous that the lemon juice might make the milk sauce curdle, but I added it at the very end and it did just fine.
I used fresh broccoli instead of frozen, which I am not a fan of. Frozen broccoli has very little flavor or texture, it's basically pointless, in my humble opinion. However, I should have steamed the broccoli instead of assuming it would cook enough in the oven. It didn't. But the flavor of the entire dish was what I wanted, and it was dairy friendly and at least slightly healthier since there's no mayonnaise in it. I used reduced fat cheese also since it doesn't matter too much when melted into a sauce like this. And I used one chicken breast for the entire dish. I will definitely do this one again.

I have a table-top oven that we got last year to try out in hot weather. Boy is it ever a life-saver! It doesn't heat up the apartment and I can bake and roast things year round now. This will be getting a lot of use. It already has.
My sister and I went to the Edmonds farmers market last Saturday where I found these little treasures. They just look like potatoes in this shot, but they're actually the size of marbles. They are adorable and delicious! I steamed them, then fried them up in a bit of butter so they got a bit crispy on the outside, but were mealy in the middle. I wish I could go to farmers markets all the time, but I doubt I could afford it. So, I'll have to satisfy myself by going once in a while.

May Cooking Club Recipe

The cooking club recipe for the month was from the Food Network, and it was Ina Garten's "Scalloped Tomatoes". I was a bit nervous, because I don't normally eat cooked tomatoes except in tomato sauce. I wasn't sure I'd like it or not. I ended up altering a lot of the recipe, but it still turned out really really wonderfully. I was surprised at how much I loved it. The original calls for you to chop up the tomatoes and sort of fry them in oil for a bit, but I decided to grill them since the rest of the dinner I was making would be grilled as well. This added a lot of flavor and depth to them, and I really recommend it this way. I chopped them up after they'd cooked on the grill and had softened up a bit. I added the bread to the grill too but it didn't toast up as well as I'd hoped. I chopped it up and added some of it to the tomatoes and left some for the topping.
The recipe called for rosemary as seasoning and as I'm not a huge rosemary fan, I used oregano instead. Everything went into the pan and I topped it with the rest of the breadcrumbs and some rice cheese Parmesan before baking it off and cooking the rest of my dinner.
I served it on top of grilled polenta rounds, and it had a flavoring similar to spaghetti sauce, but with a different, more solid texture. It was really good. I would make this one again for sure.

May Wrap-Up

So, May has turned out to be one heck of a stressful month, but I did manage to cook/bake quite a bit. I expect it'll start slowing down a bit as the temperature heats up with summer time just around the corner. I made a Pasta Fritatta, and it turned out pretty good. It's an egg dish, sort of like a quiche, but no crust. You can make it pretty much any way you like, but this had cheese, ham, and cooked whole grain spaghetti in it. I was able to freeze the leftovers so it'll last a while.
This is my version of meatloaf. I make it with ground chicken instead of beef. And I use a lot of veggies. In fact it's probably a 2:1:1 proportion of veggies to starchy filler to meat. I used whole oats and whole flax seed as the filler/binder, and for veggies I added: chopped mushrooms, shredded zucchini, onion, and green bell pepper. I used yellow mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and Heinz 57 sauce as the flavorings, and also Egg Beaters instead of an egg. It turned out really flavorful and delicious, and the leftovers also freeze and thaw well. It was a great way to actually eat healthy food while eating something as traditionally unhealthy as meatloaf.
This was a pretty simple roast made with Yukon gold potatoes and chicken legs and mostly oregano for flavoring. I threw in the green beans for the last part of roasting so it was all done in one pan. Easy and delicious.

Other things made but don't have pictures of include molasses cookies made with safflower oil instead of shortening, and peanut butter cookies with flax meal used for some of the flour. The molasses cookies I need to continue experimenting with to get the oil to flour proportions right. Baking really is a science, so you have to get it just right. I've been experimenting with new oils and flax this month because I'm trying to get my health under control, and that's a big part of it. It's hit or miss at this point, but you have to do that to see what works and what doesn't. I'm enjoying it so far...

Fun with Baking

We had extra plain yogurt on-hand and I felt like baking. These turned out to be really easy, cute, and pretty tasty. It was a simple job of twisting the ends into a big "S", but it looks really fancy.
And chocolate stout cupcakes. My Disney messageboard started up a recipe of the month club. The first recipe was these cupcakes. The first time I tried them, I forgot the sugar. Two cups of sugar is a pretty major thing to forget! The second time I tried, I remembered it. I did however mix up the amount for the baking soda and the salt. Fortunately I was able to dig out the extra baking soda and I hadn't added the salt yet. I'm not much of a baker I think...
I don't do icing, and I wanted to do powdered sugar on the top, but it can be boring. I loved the idea of doing a stencil, which one of the people on my messageboard suggested. Since it was a Disney board, I had to go with Mickey. I actually printed one off the internet but it was too big, so I just cut one out of a post-it note. It fit perfectly, though it might not be perfectly shaped.
I shared some with my parents and grandparents and they all raved about them. I thought they were pretty good. I tried one the next day(today) and I thought they were even better. It's definitely better thoroughly cooled off. I'd say they were pretty easy to make, though I wish I'd only had to do it once instead of twice!!

Crockpot Meals

Mile high tortilla casserole. It started out a mile high, but it cooked down quite a bit. I used foil to lift it out, but it was really hot.
As you can see, it sort of collapsed on me. It tasted ok. Definitely not worth the time and effort it took to make it, but fun at least, to make it.
And my semi-annual spaghetti sauce. I used ground chicken this time. Chopped mushrooms, black olives, onions, garlic, and a zucchini as well as a can of chopped tomatoes. Red wine, two jars of spaghetti sauce, pepper, and Italian seasoning. It's just that simple. And rather tasty too. It ended up making about 19-20 servings for me, which I put in containers in my freezer. I really do end up doing this about twice a year. That's how long it lasts me. Definitely cost effective.

The Fried Post

Every once in a while, I like to fry stuff. But frying stuff takes a lot of work. So I don't do it that often. This time it was fried chicken and onion rings. Here's a tip: when you're about to try food, double check that you actually have enough oil. I didn't and had to get creative. I ended up using the majority of the oil for the onion rings, and pan frying the chicken just to get it brown, then finishing it in the oven. It turned out really good. It was supposed to be a KFC knock-off, but it didn't taste like it. It was good though. MSG free. Chemical free. And that is always delicious.
Hidden Mickey onion rings. They were beer-battered. Pretty tasty actually. Kinda messy though.
The end result of the chicken. Nice and brown, very crispy. Double battered, that's the key to good fried chicken. I feel I still have a long way to go, but I'm getting there.