mother-in-law salad

i'm sure lots of people would love to make a salad of their mother-in-law, but i happen to be blessed with TWO mothers-in-law who are both positively delightful. this is a salad my husband's mother threw together when we arrived at her home in tampa two weeks ago. i recreated it at home when i realized i could over-pay for a small quantity of queso fresco at trader joe's.

ingredients:

• 1-2 heads of lettuce
• 1 diced avocado
• 3 seeded, diced plum tomatoes
• 1 diced cucumber
• 8 ounces diced queso fresco, basket cheese or, if you must, fresh mozzarella
• 1/4 red onion, jullienned
• grilled chicken (about 3 ounces per diner)
• sliced olives
• olive oil
• the juice & zest of one lemon

prep:

• grill, dice juice, zest & tear as needed

actual cooking:

• combine

oh, it is soooooo goooooooooood. i can't even tell you.

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mama guest blogs: from the red recipe binder files

(also known as: blogger bail-out. because my mother hates to see me be lazy on the interweb.)

The Red Recipe Binder

My mother (Clare’s Mimi) says that I “couldn’t find the kitchen” before I got married, which is true. I lived at home. My grandmother did all the cooking. My only kitchen chore was drying dishes once in a while.

So when I got married and moved out of state I had to learn to cook or face a lifetime of what my new husband had eaten in his starving-student days. Fortunately, his cousin Beth gave me The Joy of Cooking, as shower gift. I read it like a novel, all 900+ pages. And I decided that maybe the Tuna, Noodle and Mushroom Casserole on p. 215 (subtitled “An excellent emergency dish”) was something I could tackle.

That’s where it all started. We didn’t have no stinkin interweb back then. We had home delivery of the daily and Sunday paper, and Mimi has always favored magazine subscriptions as gifts. So every month I would read Redbook and McCall’s and Good Housekeeping and cut out the recipes I wanted to try. And every Thursday I’d read the Food Section of the paper so I could cut out those recipes, too.

I scotch-taped each recipe onto a page of looseleaf paper and filed the pages in a 3-ring binder with sections for each of the chapters in Joy, starting with Beverages and moving on to Hors d’Oeuvre, Salads/Soups, Vegetables, Fish, Meat, Poultry, Breads and Coffee Cakes, Pies and Pastries, Cookies, and so on. I left out Canapes and Tea Sandwiches, Game, and Canning, Salting, Smoking and Drying.

The scotch tape is all dried out now, and a lot of the pages are ripped on the edge where the 3-hole-punch used to be. Paging through the tattered remnants of my homemade cookbook, it’s easy to see what foods fascinated and frustrated me in the 70s. There are a dozen different pie crust recipes, lots of fancy dinner party dishes like Coquilles Saint Jacques (which I am absolutely certain I have never cooked). There are five carrot cake recipes, including the definitive version from the first “new” Philadelphia restaurant, Steve Poses’ Commissary. The Frog-Commissary Cookbook http://www.amazon.com/Frog-Commissary-Cookbook-Steven-Poses/dp/0940159732 didn’t come out until a few years later, but somebody at work had the Commissary calendar (1979?). It was a pinup page-per-month calendar, with a hand-lettered recipe for each month. Porn for office girls.

If a recipe turned out especially well, I drew stars on the clipping. Like this one, which I’ve been making ever since.

Chicken and Sausage

Ingredients

1 broiler-fryer chicken, cut up (now I use skinless, boneless thighs)

½ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

1 tablespoon salad oil

¾ lb sweet or hot Italian sausages, cut in 2-inch pieces

1 can (28 oz) whole tomatoes, drained, reserving ½ cup liquid

½ cup dry red wine

1 cup sliced onions

2 medium green peppers, sliced

1 tsp basil, crushed (now I use fresh or fresh-frozen)

Pinch sugar

1 ½ cups sliced fresh button mushrooms (this was before we knew about portabellas)

1/3 c. flour

3 tablespoons water

Prep

Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Slice everything up and have it ready.

Cooking

In large skillet, heat oil. Add chicken and cook until well browned on all sides, about 5 minutes. Remove chicken and set aside. Prick sausages with a fork and brown in the same skillet. Remove and pour off excess drippings. Add chicken and sausages back to the skillet. Add tomatoes, wine, onions, green peppers, basil and sugar and cook for a few minutes, stirring up browned bits from the bottom. Return chicken and sausages to the pan. Add mushrooms and stir until well combined. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 35 to 40 minutes, until chicken is tender. Push chicken and sausages to one side of the skillet. Combine flour and water until smooth; stir in ¼ cup of pan juices. Add to the skillet and cook until sauce bubbles and thickens slightly, about 5 minutes. Stir to mix everything together. Better the second day.

braised mediterranean chicken with tomatoes, zucchini & polenta

happy blogiversary!



with this dinner i accomplished some long-ignored goals:

• i made a dish found in one of the three cooking magazines i subscribe to (everyday food)
• i used beer in food (bud american ale-- which isn't TOO too bad)
• i cooked something from scratch that i normally buy (polenta)
• i used a recipe that involved careful timing & "meanwhile"-ing
• i actually used some of the fresh herbs i grew from seeds (oregano)
• i got this gorgeous creature to come over for dinner, after a mere 17 months absence:

ingredients:

• 1 tbs olive oil
• package of boneless, skinless chicken thighs (5 from TJ's)
• sea salt & fresh ground pepper
• 1 tsp crushed garlic (or 2 cloves, chopped)
• 1 pint grape tomatoes, halved width-wise
• 1 tbs fresh oregano, chopped
• 1/2 cup beer (or dry white wine)
• 3/4 cup chicken broth
• 3 small zucchini, quartered lengthwise and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
• 3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
• 4 1/2 cups water

prep:

• chop oregano (& garlic)
• cut veggie to size
• measure beer, broth, water & cornmeal (do it)
• season chicken with salt pepper

actual cooking:

• heat olive oil in a heavy pot
• put water on to boil in a saucepan with 1 1/2tsp salt & 1/4 tsp pepper
• cook chicken in olive oil about 6-8 minutes, until browned on all sides
• transfer chicken to a plate
• add garlic, tomatoes & oregano to olive oil
• cook about 30 seconds until fragrant
• add beer to tomatoes
• slowly, whisking all the while, add cornmeal to water
• reduce heat on polenta to medium-low; whisk often
• add chicken broth to tomatoes
• return chicken to the pot
• bring to a boil, reduce to simmer, cover & cook 15 minutes
• add zucchini
• season with salt & pepper
• cover and simmer 10-15 minutes until chicken is cooked through
• serve chicken and veggies over polenta

lunch break: chicken salad salad

(or: why i'm willing to spend three and a half dollars on chicken in a can)

(or: we don't need no stinkin' grapes and walnuts)

(sorry, mom.)

in an effort to eat wonderful lunches that i totally love, like bill and his turkey & asiago sandwich, i'm trying new things which-- let's be honest-- has never been a strength of mine.

i actually DO love this lunch something serious and it's insanely easy.

ingredients:

• two or three stalks of celery, chopped fine
• 1 can of trader joe's canned chicken (packed in water)
• a blob of mayo (er 1/4 cup?)
• sea salt and fresh ground pepper
• a bag of spring mix

prep:

• drain & flake chicken (it's already pretty flaky, just jab at it with a fork some)
• chop celery

actual cooking (okay, "actual" is relative, here):

• combine celery, salt & pepper, chicken & mayo
• divide into 2 or 3 small containers (one cupish)

in the morning:

• toss some spring mix in an old take-out container (i like one from the olive garden-- a constant reminder that awful meals can come in nice containers) or something
• grab a contain of chicken salad

at lunchtime:

• dump chicken salad on spring mix
• do the happy chair dance at your desk

recession challenge: dinner for two all week from one chicken

ingredients:

• one whole chicken (i paid ~$9)
• 1 bag frozen veggie blend (i paid ~$2 for tj's organic foursome)
• 3 potatoes (i paid ~$1.15 for huge ones)
• 1 stick butter (negligible, i guess it cost me ~$0.75)
• 1.5 cups flour (negligible)
• splash of milk or cream (whatever you have)
• mirepoix (i paid ~$3, or you could chop up your own onions, carrots & celery)
• 1 pound egg noodles (i paid ~$1)
• vodka (or ice-cold water... you see where this is going right?)
• sea salt & fresh ground pepper

(see, i paid about $20, give or take, for the ingredients to feed us dinner for a week. recession-friendly! we also spend about $20 a week on produce and $15 on lunch-foods.)

prep:

• chill 1/2 the butter and the vodka/water

actual cooking (meal 1):

• roast the chicken, seasoned with s&p and rubbed with butter for 20 minutes per pound at 350*
• cube & boil 2 potatoes, skin on, until softish
• drain potatoes
• add 2-3 tablespoons butter & milk to potatoes, mash
• season to taste with salt & pepper
• nuke 1/3-1/2 the frozen veggies

actual cooking (meal 2):

• heat chicken drippings & 1/2 cup flour on medium heat, whisk until smooth, add hot water to desire thickness
• pick carcass of usable meat, set aside
• use carcass to make broth
• use chilled butter, 1 cup flour and chilled vodka/water to make pie crust
• nuke 1 potato, chill & cube
• combine gravy, frozen veggies, cubed potato, 1/3-1/2 the chicken pieces in a lightly greased casserole
• cover with crust, pierce & bake at 375* until golden brown

actual cooking (meal 3):

• use mirepoix, broth, noodles, remaining chicken & remaining veggies to make soup

meal 1 is a one-shot deal. meal 2 we haven't eaten yet, but we expect it to last 2 or 3 dinners. meal 3 should also last 2 or 3 dinners. of course, this is all dependant on how much you eat. it's not magic, ya know.

editied to add:

with the addition of a very hungry j to our meal 2 dinner, it lasted one night, and i would have known that if i hadn't blogged this meal right before we had the idea to invite him. but... since i hadn't added the rest of the frozen veggies to the soup (because i hadn't thought of it yet) and we had an onion, rice & eggs laying around the house, i managed to squeeze another pantry meal out with some yum veggie fried rice, with frozen egg rolls (also a stock pantry item in my home... don't judge).

chicken noo-noos

this recipe was developed for j, who says that chicken noodle soup is "THE DEVIL" and has some choice things to say about chicken broth in particular, i believe.

ingredients:

• 1-4 chicken breasts, depending on how into meat you are
• 2 quarts chicken broth
• mirepoix
• 1 pound egg noodles, medium or wide, but not small (and, seriously, you can't just throw pasta in there and call them noodles. NOODLES are not PASTA.)
• sea salt & ground pepper
• 1/8 cup cold water
• 1/8 cup cornstarch (or flour, i think flour might work)

prep:

• boil the chicken in broth until past done
• chill until cool to the touch
• (chop up a large onion, a couple carrots and some celery if you didn't buy your prechopped mirepoix from trader joe's)
• shred chicken with fingers or forks

actual cooking:

• lightly saute mirepoix in the bottom of your soup pot
• add broth and bring to a boil
• add chicken & noodles (yup, all of them)
• boil as long as the noodle package says to (8 minutes, i think?)
• season to taste
• mix together cold water & cornstarch (this part is key-- it won't work if you just dump them both in the pot! and make sure it's not lumpy... nobody wants a lump of cornstarch.)
• add water/starch to boiling soup and stir
• boil for at least 2 minutes or until soup reaches desired thickness

this will be even thicker the next day-- more like a casserole than a stew. in fact, i won't blame you if you want to bake it with some breadcrumbs or crushed chips on top. yum.