Made empanadas the other day
Made empanadas the other day
I made bacon bourbon barbecue chicken:
Take about 2 pounds of your favorite boneless, skinless chicken and cut into chunks.
Put 6 slices of bacon in your food processor with garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, smoked paprika, brown sugar, salt, and pepper. Purée until disgustingly smooth and pasty.
Dump chicken and bacon smush into a bowl and smear around until you have as much of the paste stuck to the chicken as you can get. It won't be much.
Put chicken chunks on skewers and try to smear more bacon stuff on top. Put skewers on medium high grill, bacon-heavy side down. Smear remaining bacon stuff on upper side of skewers as soon as you have them all on the grille. Watch your fingers.
Take a cup of your favorite barbecue sauce and 1/4 cup of your favorite bourbon. Combine and split in half.
After about 5-6 minutes, flip skewers. Brush seared side with half the sauce and let cook until the other side is done, another 5-6 minutes.
Serve with the reserved sauce for dipping.
Kvass
I made grilled chicken with pasta and alfredo sauce tonight.
Here is what I do:
Marinate the chicken breasts in olive oil, finely chopped fresh basil, garlic and black pepper for a few hours.
Grill 'em. Use leftover olive oil marinade to baste. Cook until you can bite into them without gagging. For me, that's a traditional "done" for chicken. For my wife, that's a bit tough, dry and burned on the edges.
Make pasta. I don't care what kind.
Now, the sauce. For this, it's all about temperature control and going slowly.
In a NON-stick pan (just in case you mess it up and burn it, trust me on this) take 2 sticks of butter and melt on medium heat. You're going to be on medium heat or a touch lower the whole time.
Add garlic and simmer until it softens. I use 1.5 tablespoons of fresh finely chopped garlic. Not garlic powder. If garlic powder is all you have, go to the store to get fresh garlic. In a pinch, you can use pre-chopped garlic you find in the produce section, but use two tablespoons. Unless you don't like garlic (we love it) then use less of it. It's your sauce, and I don't know what you like.
Add 2 quarts of heavy cream. Pour it slowly at first, you don't want your garlic butter to spatter all over.
Add some fresh basil, chopped fine
Add some black OR white pepper, about maybe 1/4 teaspoon
Heat until it's bubbling, stirring often.
This is the critial part:
Slllooooooowly in 1 pound of grated Parmesan cheese while stirring rapidly. Add the cheese at a rate where the cheese is disappearing into the sauce as it's being added. You do not want clumps, you want it smooooth. If you get clumps, it might stick to the pan and burn. That is absolutely sub optimal.
Oh, and when I say Parmesan cheese, I am not talking about the stuff in a can, get actual cheese- the stuff that's pre-grated in a bag is fine, but you can go as strong as you like. The harder the parm, the finer you have to grate it, though. You can also use 8 ounces of Parm and 8 ounces of a four or five Italian cheese blend, but always use at least 8 ounces of Parm. I like using a stronger Parm than the kids like, so I'll put the four cheese blend in with the parm to mellow the flavor a bit. I often get three bags of cheese, just in case the moisture content is a bit off and I have to add more choose to thicken it up.
Stir it more, making sure to scrape the bottom of the pan with your spoon, and keep stirring until it's bubbling again. This will take a little while. Don't turn up the heat! Just keep stirring until it's hot and the cheese is completely incorporated.
Combine chicken, pasta and sauce as per your current level of hunger.
That hits the spot. Yeah, I typed this as I was eating. Everybody is all over everybody else's nerves right now, and we silently elected to retreat to our respective corners and avoid any tween vs. adult drama. Or tween vs. teen drama. Or adult vs. adult drama. You get the idea.
Reheating it is tricky (low and slow on the cook top, never microwave). We like to take any leftover sauce straight out of the fridge and smear it on fresh, hot garlic bread the next day.
Eggs Benedict with pork and heirloom tomatoes for brunch.
Vietnamese pork over rice noodles and fresh veggie noodles.
In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :
Apple picking time, time for some Apple pie
In reply to frenchyd :
In reply to frenchyd :
would make some great applesauce as well! Nice harvest.
In reply to cdowd (Forum Supporter) :
My wife is a diabetic and applesauce is one thing left on her dietary list. Hers is fantastic. It's the right combination of Apple varieties at the correct stage of ripeness.
Don't worry, her rejects become Apple pie with a crust to die for.
but Apple harvest time the pot is boiling for Apple sauce and I'm peeling in the Apple peeler when not running apples through the sauce machine. But I'm not working as hard as my wife does.
made frog legs and yoohoo tonight for dinner. Made sciracha mayo, but the batter didn't need it.
Was going to make a sandwich for dinner... then I saw this thread... thanks guys... LOL
Went through inventory and a cabbage head was needing to be used and two mangos that were PERFECT.... wanted something light yet spicy so I made this:
Some kind of spicy curry cabbage/mango/chicken indian type dish...
Sweated the cabbage just a bit with red onions, added in curry, garlic, cayenne, and salt and sweated some more, then added in some chicken stock, canned chicken and finely chopped cilantro to complete the sweat. When about done added in the mango pieces, moved it out of the pan and into the cast iron pot to let it set for just a bit.
Saw a blurb about making your own hummus and decided it was simple enough to try. Can of chickpeas, few tablespoons of sesame tahini and extra virgin olive oil, bit of lemon juice, salt, pepper and some minced fresh garlic. Blend until smooth. Reserve some of the liquid from the canned chickpeas-- I had to add a good few tablespoons back until it got loose enough to turn over in the blender.
I'm enjoying it. My oldest, who will eat anything, is enjoying it. Surprise! Even my picky little guy tells me he likes garlic and is eating it. Win!
My wife, alas, I know will not eat it. In fact, I'll hear about how I stink of garlic.
Ah, the price we pay.
Anytime I get three out of four happy with something I made is a win.
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