buttermilk baked chicken with carrot cumin slaw

Another simple and yummy chicken supper. I took chicken thighs and drumsticks and dipped them in cultured buttermilk mixed with salt, pepper, and some Tabasco...then dredged them in breadcrumbs mixed with Parmesan and a dried Herbs de Provence mixture. I put the chicken on an oiled baking sheet and cooked at 425 for about 40 minutes, until nicely golden and crispy.

The slaw is made of one quarter of a head of cabbage and 3 shredded carrots, and one medium bunch of parsley, chopped. It's dressed very simply with olive oil, the juice of one lime, a little bit of salt, and 1/2 tsp of ground cumin. I was kind of if iffy about the slaw while I was making it, but I really liked it a lot and I'll definitely make it again. The chicken was great. The skin was nicely crispy, and the buttermilk keeps the meat moist while it's in the oven.

chicken parmigiana

Very simple and so yummy! I took boneless chicken breasts, split them horizontally to make cutlets, dipped them in a beaten egg and dredged them in some bread crumbs mixed with Parmesan cheese. I pan-fried them in some olive oil in my cast iron pan, then put them on paper towels to drain. For the sauce, I used two 28-oz cans of diced tomatoes, a chopped onion, a chopped green pepper, and several cloves of chopped garlic. I sauteed it all for 10 min or so, then spread it in the bottom of a shallow baking dish, put the pieces of chicken on top, topped it with slices of mozzarella cheese, and stuck it under the broiler. While that was broiling, I cooked some linguine and drained it. When the cheese on the chicken was melted and brown, I took it out of the oven and scooped sauce and chicken onto the pasta. Ta-da! NOM!

greek-ish pizza

I've been hankering for some more eggplant since the batch I did on the grill a couple weeks ago. I found a description in a cooking magazine for a "quickest dinner ever" idea that amounted to eggplant slices, olives and goat cheese on a pre-cooked pizza crust. I'm not a fan of pre-cooked crusts...they always come out rubbery and cardboard-tasting, but the idea of the pizza sounded awesome so I figured I'd try it.

I used a really gorgeous eggplant I got at the farmer's market on Sunday. It was perfect...deep purple, and so shiny I could see my reflection in it when I picked it up. The blurb that I originally read didn't mention anything about salting the eggplant and letting it drain, but I've learned that lesson the hard way, so I did it anyway. I only let it sit about 20 minutes, but it was enough. I pressed out my pizza crust onto two oiled pans and brushed them with olive oil. I rinsed and dried the eggplant, cut the slices up and distributed them onto the crusts along with some kalamata olives and quartered cherry tomatoes. I cut up a small log of goat cheese into chunks and spread them over the top of the pizzas, then topped them both with some judicious sprinkles of dried oregano. They went into a 450 degree oven for about 18 minutes, and this was the result:



It was SO. GOOD. Seriously. I'd happily eat this 3 times a week. Next time I'll cut the eggplant a little thinner, but otherwise I wouldn't change a thing. My husband, however, commented that while it tasted nice it "lacked a certain je ne sais...MEAT!" I wonder if a little seasoned ground lamb cooked up and sprinkled on top would go well with the Greek vibe and fill the meat void for him. Hmmm.

steak quesadillas - a tale of leftovers

There was a piece of chuck steak in the fridge that needed to be used up, as well as some tortillas. My friend Amy had been talking about quesadillas earlier in the day, so I had them on the mind. I got my cast iron pan ripping hot, salted and peppered both sides of the steak, and tossed it in the pan for 3 minutes per side (yes, I like it pretty much raw...still tasting of cow and all that). The steak then came out to rest on a plate while I chopped up some leftover green bell pepper and used a vegetable peeler to make paper-thin slices of the beautiful purple radishes I got at the farmer's market. I re-oiled the cast iron pan and put in a tortilla, a handful of sharp cheddar (another leftover!), some green pepper, some radish, and a few thin slices of the now-rested steak. I folded the tortilla over on top of the filling, pressed it down a little, and voila...toasty crisp outside with a combination of crispness and softness inside. Cut in half and served with a dollop of sour cream and a nice big pile of additional paper-thin radish for some heat (the ones cooked in the quesadillas mellow and turn sweet and nutty...no heat left to them). Yay for leftovers!

crock-pot pulled pork, and what to do with it

Mmm, pork! I love it, any which way it's prepared. This is one of my favorites - BBQ-flavored, loaded with onions and garlic, smothered in sticky sauce. It doesn't necessarily look pretty but the smell while it's cooking will drive you nuts, and it tastes like...like...well hell, it tastes like BBQ pork...what's better than that?!




To make pulled pork, I use my crock-pot. I know it's not technically barbecue as such, and I don't claim that it tastes quite the same as real smoked pork shoulder (excuse me, I'm drooling at the thought), but it's super easy and nearly entirely hands-off. I use pork tenderloin because it's leaner, but you can just as easily do this with pretty much any type of pork roast. Boneless is easier to shred later on, but bone-in will give you a little more porky porkness. Oink!

I threw 2 tenderloins in the crockpot, then pretty finely chopped one large yellow onion and threw that on top. Next came 6 cloves of garlic, chopped. I took half a bottle of prepared barbecue sauce and slowly whisked in 1 12oz bottle of Long Trail Double-Bag beer. I like the Double Bag because it has a bitterness to it that cuts through the sweet of the barbecue sauce nicely. To the sauce / beer mixture, I added 3 TBSP of brown sugar, 3 TBSP cider vinegar, and a dash of cayenne pepper. I whisked that till it was combined, then dumped over the meat, onions and garlic, and shook the crock a little to coat everything. The lid went on, I put it on high for 4 hours (though you can put it on low and leave it for as long as 8-10 hours with absolutely no problem...in fact it will likely taste better if you leave it that long), and I walked away.

Four hours later, I opened it up and pulled out the chunks of pork. It was falling apart every which way, and that's perfect. I shredded the meat with two forks and put it aside in a bowl. I wanted as much of the onion and garlic out of the sauce as possible, so I placed a mesh strainer over a pot and dumped the sauce through it. All the strained out onions and garlic went directly back into the shredded meat, while the pot of sauce was set on medium-high to reduce down for about 10-15 minutes (and for the love of all that's holy, make sure you use a big enough pot because if that stuff boils over you're going to have the mess to end all messes. Just sayin'!).

Once the sauce was to my liking, I took it off the heat and added a few ladles of it into the shredded meat and onion mixture. I mixed thoroughly, and kept adding more sauce, a little at a time, till I got the consistency I was looking for (shown in picture above, of course).

I decided as I was finishing the pork that I wanted to make tacos with it. I laid out some tortillas, smeared them with a little sour cream, plonked a few spoon fulls of the pork onto them, then added strips of green pepper, some roughly chopped cherry tomatoes, and a sprinkle of extra sharp cheddar. It could have used some chopped avocado, but I didn't have any.




I served these with nice cold bottled of Double-Bag. YUM!

another turkey burger variation

One of the things I love most about cooking is being able to open the fridge, pull out some seemingly useless bits of stuff, and make something tasty out of them. Burgers are endlessly versatile, and thus work very well for for me on those use-up-the-random-bits nights.

Tonight I had ground turkey, some mushrooms, onions and a little bit of chopped fresh parsley that I wanted to use up. I sliced up the mushrooms and half of the onion and tossed them into a pan with some olive oil. While those cooked down, I grated the rest of the onion and mixed it into the ground turkey along with the chopped parsley and a dash of cayenne pepper. By the time my onion and mushroom was done cooking down, I had the burgers made. I scooped out the onions and mushrooms, added a little more oil, and put the patties into the hot pan to cook. When they were done, I topped them with a slice of cheese and the hot onions and mushrooms.

The broccoli was just stir-fried with a few cloves of garlic, and the oven fries were my standard Yukon Gold wedges tossed with sea salt, olive oil and some dried chives.

The only thing I'd do differently next time would be to use Swiss cheese instead of American...other than that, I thought they came out great.

barbecue venison sausage pizza

Once upon a time (last night), I had a brick of frozen venison sausage, and a craving for pizza. This was the result:



Yep. Venison sausage. My dad and all my uncles are hunters, so I grew up eating venison and I love it. This batch came from a family friend and is pretty mild. It takes almost no time to cook because it has very little fat added to it.

For the pizza, I cheated and used packaged crust mix (I know, it's really no less work than just making my own, but I didn't feel like it). I used barbecue sauce instead of pizza sauce, extra-sharp cheddar cheese, vidalia onion and baby portabella mushrooms. It came out pretty good, though I think next time I might try blue cheese rather than cheddar.


Yummmmmmm!