Finger-lickin' Roast Chicken

I used to think that a Roast Chicken was a Roast Chicken was a Roast Chicken, but then I realized that no on made Roast Chicken quite like Mama fixed it, and then I tried to replicate the tastes myself (why I didn't just ASK her, I'll never understand, although I'd prefer her recipe for Chicken and Rice Casserole...hint, hint) and then I did a little Google action and saw just HOW MANY* variations there are so I picked one at random and made it when Matt's brother came to visit.

I selected this result, and here is the paraphrasing:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Take 1 five and a half pound free range chicken, remove the giblets, rinse with cool water and pat dry.

In a small bowl, combine 1/4 pound of softened butter with one half handful each of fresh thyme, oregano and parsley, chopped fine, and just mash them all together in there. (Might as well use your hands, because that's how this stuff gets to the chicken, anyway! It's quite a messy and fun operation!)



Rub the herbed butter under the skin, and all over the outside of the chicken. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and stuff the cavity with a halved orange, a half a clove of garlic and a halved onion. Place the bird in the baking dish breast side up and add one whole onion to the bottom of the dish. Arrange six slices of onion across the breast of the chicken, and roast for 25 minutes.

Remove the bacon, baste the chicken with the drippings, and roast another 25 minutes, until the skin is brown and a thermometer in the leg reads 165.

Remove to a platter and let stand ten minutes, to let the juices settle.

This is when I scraped the drippings into a saucepan (my baking dish is glass, so I couldn't put it on a stovetop burner) over medium heat, added 2 tablespoons of flour, and stirred in 1 1/2 cups of chicken broth. Once the flour was all dissolved, I put in the 1/4 cup of dry sherry, and dashed in some salt and pepper.

Matt carved the chicken, while I rescued the orange halves from the cavity and squeezed them over the pieces of chicken on the serving plate.




The flavors of orange and thyme were particularly interesting together, in a very good way, while the buttered outside made for a crispy skin with a VERY juicy meat. This is definitely something I'll be making again!!




*I didn't actually see each and every one of them, but that particular Google return was quite extensive.

The Black Bean Chili of Bliss

So, I can't remember where I found it (typical) but I bought (secondhand, duh) a copy of this book called "Sacramental Magic in a Small-Town Cafe", mostly because the subtitle was "Recipes and Stories from Brother Juniper's Cafe", and if there is anything I love more than recipes, it is a story that goes with it, and even more than a story, I do love me a monk. Then I go and buy Brother Juniper's Bread Book, and then a few MORE cookbooks at a Friends of the Library book sale*, and then Matt sighs and shakes his head and encourages me to log in some hours at The Job.

So, anyway, apparently Brother Juniper was not a REAL person running this cafe; it "is dedicated to the spirit of a famous Franciscan monk (ed note: hoo-rah! monk!) named Brother Juniper...The original Brother Juniper is chronicled in the legends (ed note: !) of St. Francis of Assisi. He was St Francis' favorite monk because he was simple, humble and generous..." (Prologue, "Sacramental Magic in a Small-Town Cafe") Very cool.

One of the chapters was titled "The Zen of Black Bean Chili", and I followed the recipe and made some awesome black bean chili, but, as with any new recipe, I didn't feel very Zen about it until everyone** had tasted and pronounced it good.


And here it is!

Black Bean Chili, from Brother Juniper's Cafe.

#Wash and check over 4 cups of raw dried black beans, and put them to soak in 10 cups of water at room temperature for at least four hours, but preferably overnight.
Drain beans, and discard water.

#In a heavy stockpot*, bring the beans and12 cups of water to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally until the beans begin to soften, about 1 ½ hours.
Cooking time depends on the size of the beans, so keep any eye on ’em while you do your prep work!

#Dice 2 medium onions, mince or press 8 large cloves of garlic, and dice enough chilies to make 2 cups. (Mild, medium or hot is up to you.) Dice 1 ¾ pounds of tomatoes (or take the 28 oz can shortcut, WITH juice), and pour or prepare** a cup of beef (or vegetable!) stock. (They actually recommend 1 tablespoon beef stew base, but I couldn't find any Better Than Bouillon, which is the same thing, so I improvised using the cartons of stock they sell at Trader Joe's. It came out a tiny bit soupier than I would normally like, but what can you do?)

#Toast 1 tablespoon whole cumin seeds in a dry frying pan over medium heat, stirring constantly until they begin to crackle and pop, about 1 minute. Remove the seeds from the pan, pour in 2 tablespoons of olive oil and turn the heat to High.

#Once then oil is hot, add the onion, garlic and chilies, and sauté until onion is translucent, about 3 minutes. Stir in the cumin seeds and immediately remove from heat. Cover the pan, so that everything can steam together.

#When the beans are soft, stir in the onion mixture and add the tomatoes and 1 teaspoon of fresh ground pepper. Stir in 1 tablespoon salt, the stock, and 4 tablespoons of soy sauce.

#Simmer until liquid is reduced, and the chili has a consistency between soup and gravy. Add more soy sauce if necessary; those bean really soak up the saltiness!

#Serve with a dollop of creme fraiche or sour cream, garnish with freshly chopped cilantro and a spoonful of red or green salsa!

(Serve bowls of crème fraiche/sour cream and salsa on the side, so people more or less adventurous than you can make adjustments!)


*This usually goes without saying, but I’m just saying: avoid aluminum, because you will be using tomatoes, and that’s a nasty reaction!

**I use the jars of Better Than Bouillon chicken, Beef or Vegetable paste to make my stocks. They last a LOT longer than anything I can make from scratch, unless I freeze it, and when I freeze things like stock I usually forget about it until we’re out of ice, and grab THAT ice cube tray, and I say, “Oh, right, this stuff…” So I don’t even bother, anymore!



Bon Appetit!



*Ten cents each, y'all. I am not even joking!

**I made it at Anna B.'s house for her, her mom and her brother.

I should retitle this The Hypocrite Chef

So much for getting back on the healthy-eating bandwagon*.

Two nights ago, instead of making cous-cous and a goat cheese salad, I let Matt talk me into ordering a pizza and watching back-to-back Law and Order (via Netflix Watch Instantly program, which is swiftly defeating the purpose of not having a television0.

I think I'm resigned to the fact that we're in hibernation, but that doesn't mean pizza and TV for the rest of the winter. We'll just be a lot less adventurous in the culinary department. For example, today I am making this. AGAIN.


*I did make the tahini sauce, but it came out weird, mostly because I tried to "liven it up" with garlic and parsley, and it ended up tasting...garlicky and parsley-y, and not at all in a good way. :(

OMG, you guys, don't wake me up!

I am siting down to a year's worth of Gourmet and Cooking Light, EACH, with a pencil and notebook and a HUGE stack of post-its.

I'll be awhile.

(Thanks to Mrs. Branch for the donation!!)

Post-Holiday Meltdown

We've spent the past week eschewing vegetables and grains in favor of Mom's Christmas Treats (you would, too!!!), including, but not limited to, fudge, chocolate chip meringues, peanut-butter bon-bons, kielbasa, cheese - and also cabbage - pierogi (best eaten cold, with your fingers, on Christmas morning while your myriad nieces and nephews disappear in a blizzard of wrapping paper and flying bows), lasagna (which had spinach in it, so that was unavoidable!!), pork roast with cherry coulis, and Rum Cake! All this sandwiched between two days on the road, to AND from, filled with In-n-Out, Pringles (for some reason, I only ever eat these when we travel by car. Any other time, I can't stand the sight of them!), fast-food breakfast sandwiches (Matt, not me. Sometimes I don't even let him eat them in car, I hate them so much!), and a chicken-fried steak that for some God-awful reason sounded like a good idea at the time (see above re: bizarre road-trip munchies). Throughout the car trips, though, I was taking great comfort in V-8's promise of "3 servings of vegetables per bottle!" and pounding them almost continuously.

Even so, we feel a little, how you say, BLOATED, so I'm back in action, trawling Teh Interwebs for some clean-you-out raw-food recipes.

This is good, (I've made it before; it's kind of a more crunchy hummous) and I could even serve it as an appetizer tonight, when Sarah and Matt and Baby Rebekah bring Grandma and Grandpa Harvey for dinner.

This sounds kinda summery, but we DO live in California. Compared to the snowy, blowy weather we encountered over Christmas in Colorado, it's positively tropical, here!

And who doesn't like falafel? (I wish I had a dehydrator.)

We'll see how all of this goes...

(This post has been hastily written out of guilt for the long absence, goaded in part by a new link from the ladies at Barefoot in the Kitchen, which made me realize just how long it's been since I've tended to my OWN virtual kitchen!)

Perfect with Sparkling Wine

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Originally uploaded by gaffentine

Cumin Shortbreads
2 cups (280 grams) all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon (2 grams) salt
1 tsp cumin seeds, crushed in mortar
1 tsp ground cumin
1 cup (2 sticks) (226 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup (60 grams) powdered (confectioners or icing) sugar
1 teaspoon (4 grams) Pure Vanilla Extract

Shortbreads: In a separate bowl whisk the flour with the cumin seeds, ground cumin and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), cream the butter until smooth (about 1 minute). Add the sugar and beat until smooth (about 2 minutes). Beat in the vanilla extract. Gently stir in the flour mixture just until incorporated. Flatten the dough into a disk shape, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill the dough for at least an hour.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) with the rack in the middle of the oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
On a lightly floured surface roll out the dough to 1/4 inch (.5 cm) thick. Cut into rounds or whatever shapes you wish using lightly floured cookie cutter. Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheet and place in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes. This will firm up the dough so the cookies will maintain their shape when baked. Bake for 8 - 10 minutes, or until cookies are lightly brown. Cool on rack.
Shortbread will keep in an airtight container for about a week or frozen for several months.
Makes about 20 shortbread cookies.

busy, busy

busy, busy
Originally uploaded by gaffentine