The Chicken in my Pot

 

I know, I know...where the hell have I been the last month and a half??  It'd be a lie to say I was out being Superwoman or even so swamped with every day life that I didn't have a chance to post.  What really caused my absence was my inability to take photographs either a) because I was cooking dinner at midnight, or b) because I have some seriously bad juju when it comes to actually photographing my foodstuffs during daylight hours.  I know I've lamented this last point more times than I can count, but dammit man, I could have robotic arms perched on a stable surface and STILL manage to have all the pictures turn out blurry.  It's like I have Parkinson's, but only in my arms.  I swear, I'm buying a tripod as soon as I have an extra $20 burning a hole in my pocket.

About the dinner at midnight thing, my sleep cycle is soooo distorted at the moment that I truly am sleeping during the daytime like I worked 3rd shift somewhere.  And while I have had one or two night time pictures turn out acceptable, 99% don't.  Coupled with the shaking-like-a-leaf-in-a-hurricane arms I have, none of the pictures that I did attempt turned out.  I can't even imagine if I were doing this before the digital camera age.

So.Much.Wasted.Film.  

Needless to say, I have been cooking, and I have been cooking well.  From the best ribs I've ever made to bundt cakes that melt in your mouth, it has been gastronomic bliss.  There were a couple of missteps (like the Millionaire's Shortbread that would have been divine had I followed my instincts and not baked the shortbread for as long a time as the recipe called for) and fumbles, but overall, good times with food here.

One of the things in the "absolutely completely shot it out of the park" category was the humble chicken soup you see pictured above.  I think the kids said "omg mom, this the best chicken soup ever" every time they took a bite.  It was inspired by a recipe Karina and I found at Beyond Kimchee.  It looked so good and sounded even better that we adapted it for what we had on hand.  Thankfully I wrote down what I did so that I'll be able to make it again.

Best Chicken Soup

12-16 cups stock

1 whole 3 1/2 pound chicken

1 cup thinly sliced carrots (about two medium)

2 cups shredded cabbage

3-4 cups frozen corn 

1 16 ounce package frozen chopped collard greens

1 medium onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 tablespoons olive oil

kosher salt, to taste

Place chicken in an 8 quart stock pot and cover with stock until just submerged.  Cover loosely with a lid and simmer chicken over medium heat for approximately 1 hour.  You want your bird tender, but not disintegrated.  Remove whole, cooked chicken to a bowl and place in the refrigerator until cool enough to handle.  Strain the stock into a clean pot and bring to a low boil.  Add in carrots, cabbage, corn and collard greens.  While vegetables are heating and getting al dente, heat the olive oil in a small sauce pan.  Saute the onion and garlic until translucent and softened.  Stir into the soup.  Remove the meat from the cooled chicken and shred with your fingers into bite sized pieces.  Add chicken to the soup and heat through.  Taste for seasoning and add if needed.  I was very fortunate and only needed 1 tablespoon of kosher salt for the entire pot.  I used homemade stock that had been lightly seasoned when it was made, so that may have made a difference, not to mention the fact that the chicken itself was cooked in the stock, adding even more flavor to an already flavorful base.

Serve with crusty bread while hot off the stove.

The Drunken (Pork) Master

Sometimes you see things and think to yourself "huh, I'd have changed x, y or z".  That's kind of what happened to bring about this really, really, tasty pork stew that Karina and I had last week.  I was listening to Food Network (which I freely admit is evil, but some days there just isn't anything good on the gazillion other channels and those are the days you need background noise, but not just background-background noise, you need something with a bit of substance, and you know you can't pop The Hunt for Red October or the Star Trek reboot movie in the DVD player again else your child will revolt and you'll wake up bald or covered in honey or some other heinous thing....but I digress) and Ina Garten was making Beef Burgandy, a dish I love long time (I shall post mine some time in the future).  As she went on about what to do I thought to myself "self, you don't have beef in the freezer, but you do have those tasty pork chops that you won't actually make as pork chops" because I wouldn't have, trust me.  Even though they came from Jaworski's and their meat is always amazing.  Just not a fan of pork chops in a pork chop preparation.  

Anyway, I thought of the pork chops and then I thought "I bet they'd taste good as a stew braised in white wine and tossed over hot buttered egg noodles".  And you know what, they tasted even better.

And please forgive the photography.  I like to use natural light for pictures, but for some reason have yet to find optimal placement of my freezer (which I use for placing things on) to capture the light.  In addition I really need to invest in a tripod.  Also, I should probably read more about how to take good photographs.  I took about 15 shots of the finished dish and this was the best of them.  I should have checked them out before saying it was done and digging in to the stew.  Live and learn.

Pork Stew
marinade:
1 1/2 cups white wine (whatever makes you happy)
2 cloves garlic, peeled and just smacked with the back of a knife
1 tablespoon grey sea salt
1 1/2 tablespoons dried rosemary
2 small bay leaves
2 pounds lean pork, cubed

prep:
1/2 pound button mushrooms, quartered
1 large onion, large dice
2 tablespoons bacon drippings (or oil)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
3 cups stock
1 cup white wine
grey sea salt to taste

binder:
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 to 3 tablespoons flour

Combine all the marinade ingredients together in a gallon sized plastic bag, close it and then massage everything together.  Stick the bag in the fridge and let sit over night.

Next day take the pork out of the fridge and let it set at room temperature for about half an hour.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Heat a large pot over medium high heat and add the bacon drippings.  When the drippings are spitting hot, add in the pork cubes, roughly drained (grab them with tongs and shake them off), in small batches to sear.  Remove the seared meat to a large casserole dish and continue until all the meat is browned.  Add the olive oil to the pan, reduce the heat to medium and toss in the chopped onion.  Sprinkle with a little sea salt and saute until translucent.  Remove onion to the casserole and add the butter to the pot.  When melted and hot toss in the quartered mushrooms and saute until just barely browned.  Remove mushrooms to the casserole.  Pour wine into the pot to deglaze, then add stock and bring mixture to a boil.  Taste for salt and add if needed.  Combine the melted butter and flour to make a cold rue.  Add to the boiling mixture and allow to thicken.  Taste for seasoning again and adjust if needed.  Pour over meat and vegetables in casserole dish, stir to combine, cover with foil and pop it into the oven for about an hour to an hour and a half.  When finished, remove from oven and serve over egg noodles.

One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato Four

For whatever reason Mother Nature has, the weather here in Northern Indiana has been weird, even for us.  Last week it was cold to the point where we had several frost warnings and I ended up having to turn on the heater so we didn't sit around with chattering teeth.  And I don't know why I thought of it outside of "it's really effin' cold", but I kept dreaming about baked potato soup.  I've never made it before and I'm here to tell you I still haven't made it.  What you see above is a cream of potato soup and oh my god, was it delicious.  

Not sure why I didn't end up with a baked potato soup, but that's ok.  I'll be keeping this recipe on hand for a very long time.


Cream of Potato Soup
1/2 pound bacon, diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, coarsely minced
4 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
3 1/2 cups stock (whatever you have on hand, I used homemade meat stock)
3 to 4 cups mashed cooked potatoes
1 cup heavy cream
2 1/2 cups shredded white cheddar cheese
1 bay leaf
salt
pepper

Brown the bacon in a large stock pot over medium heat.  Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.  Add the olive oil to the pot with the rendered bacon drippings and bring to heat.  Add in diced onions, minced garlic and diced potatoes.  Saute the vegetables for about 20 minutes, or until potatoes are almost done.  Add in the stock and bay leaf.  When the soup has come to heat, check for salt and add in if needed, to taste.  Bring to a boil and add in the mashed cooked potatoes.  Bring back to a boil, taste for salt and add if needed.  Turn heat down to low, stir in heavy cream and then the shredded cheese.  When cheese has melted, taste for salt and add, if necessary, with cracked black pepper to taste.  Stir in reserved bacon pieces.  Serve with baked potato skins or sour cream or both or whatever your heart desires.

Because I had planned on making a baked potato soup, I baked 5 large potatoes and had scraped them out to make baked potato skins to go with the soup.  I used the scraped out insides to thicken my soup, but you can boil and mash up some potatoes to do this instead or even use leftover mashed potatoes.

chili, chilly, chilli, Chile

 

Many moons ago I had a cooking site on livejournal.  It was a good site and I enjoyed posting to it.  Over the years I lost touch with the people there and stopped posting, partly because I lost interest in social networking sites but mostly because my personal life became complicated as hell and I stopped doing a lot of things in general.

Since I'm going through a bit of a dry spell with my cooking at the moment I thought I'd go back to that site and re-post some of the recipes here.  The first one up is my Cincinnati Chili.  It's really easy to make and tastes like a dream.  

Cincinnati-ish Chili

4 cups water
3 - 8 ounce cans tomato sauce
1 - 14 1/2 ounce can stewed tomatoes
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 large onions, chopped
3 teaspoons garlic, minced
3 bay leaves
3 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne
2 pounds beef, finely ground
salt

Stir all ingredients, except ground beef and salt, in a large pot and bring to a simmer over medium heat.  Add ground beef and stir with a wooden spoon to break up.  Turn heat to medium-high and boil until ground beef is cooked thoroughly.  Lower heat to medium and simmer for 2 to 3 hours, stirring occasionally.  Add salt to taste.  Serve with the traditional accompaniments of spaghetti, kidney beans, onions and huge mounds shredded cheddar cheese.  Oyster crackers could be served on the side and if you're feeling really non-traditional you could dollop on some sour cream, because it's yummy....really, really, yummy. 

Make sure the ground beef is as finely ground as possible.  You can get it this way from a good butcher.  When you put it into the liquid mixture while it is raw and break it up with a spoon, it should almost homogenize.  I know, sounds weird, but it makes for a very smooth chili.  Also note that this chili is thin, not thick, like a marinara sauce.  If you can hold out I would suggest putting the whole pot into the refrigerator and eating it the next day.  As with most stews and soups, it truly is better after sitting for a good 24 hours. 

Serving suggestions:
2-Way:  chili served over spaghetti
3-Way:  chili served over spaghetti topped with copious amounts of shredded sharp cheddar
4-Way:  chili served over spaghetti topped with chopped onions and then copious amounts of sharp cheddar cheese
5-Way:  chili served over spaghetti topped with kidney beans, chopped onions and copious amounts of sharp cheddar cheese

I Control the Spice, I Control the Universe

 

The other night I was feeling like having beef.  And not the ground kind.  I wanted a slab of meat that would make a t-rex weep with joy.  Unfortunately, all my beef was frozen solid.  So I did what any self-respecting carnivore would do; grabbed a 3 pound chuck roast in it's solid state, doused it with some stuff in a baking pan, tin-foiled it to death and threw it in the oven.  Several hours later I had spicy beefy......spicy beef you would run over your grandmother to get to, trust me.  Not that I advocate running over grandmas, that's Santa's job.

Spicy Beef

3 pound chuck roast

7 ounce can chipotles in adobo sauce

8 ounce can tomato sauce

1 1/2 large onions, sliced

1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce

12 ounce bottle dark beer

kosher salt

freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Place frozen roast in a 9 x 13 deep baking pan.  Salt and pepper to taste on both sides.  Place sliced onions all around the roast.  Drizzle the meat and onions with the tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce and beer.  Toss a little more salt over the top of the roast since you washed it away with the beer.  Now add the chipotles.  If you're very brave and love very hot-spicy, add the entire can in addition to the adobo.  If you're not so brave or just prefer to keep your taste buds intact, add as many of the peppers as you wish along with a bit of the adobo.  Cover the whole pan tightly with tin foil and shove it into the oven.  After an hour, turn heat down to between 325 and 350.  Cook for two more hours.  Allow beef to cool a bit, shred it up and set aside.  Skim the excess fat off the pan sauce, pass the sauce through a strainer and pour over shredded beef.  Serve over pasta or rice, in a sandwich or tortilla, or maybe just stand there and eat pieces out of the serving bowl.  Oh, and it's also divine with a dollop of sour cream to cool some of the heat.