Bourbon Baked Chicken and Parsnips

This is very similar to my lavender and brandy chicken (and everyone else's baked chicken) so it's not particularly groundbreaking, but it's good stuff. 

Now for drinking, I don't like whiskey or bourbon, or really any dark liquor that much, except for spiced rum. I've never acquired the taste, and that's probably for the best. But in small amounts, I think the nutty spicy flavor of these liquors go really well in meat dishes. 

Not everyone is into parsnips. Even though they look like big white carrots, they taste very, very different. Once you stop expecting them to taste as sweet as carrots though, you'll probably like them, especially if you like other root vegetables. In this recipe, I didn't bother writing it in the ingredients, but I added a few leftover baby carrot sticks I had in the fridge too.

Ingredients:

-4 large chicken thighs for two people, or 4 leg quarters for four people
-2 tablespoons melted butter, or good olive oil, or one of each.
-A heaping teaspoon each of thyme, rosemary and marjoram, salt, and pepper. Double these amounts if you're using chicken leg quarters instead of thighs. Now I happened to have these herbs growing still out back, so if you have fresh, use them, and you can just kind of throw as many sprigs as you want in the bottom of the pan before you put everything in, without actually pulling the leaves off and chopping them up.
-2 to 4 parsnips, sliced in half and chopped into even-ish 3 inch pieces (however many pieces you can squeeze into the baking pan with the chicken)
-About 2-3 ounces of good Kentucky Bourbon (you can just get one of those cute little bottles from the convenience store if you don't have any at home)

Coat the chicken and parsnip chunks with the butter or oil, then sprinkle all over with the spices. Bake in a pan in a 425 degree oven for 30 minutes, until you see some browning on the tops of the chicken thighs. 

After 30 minutes, sprinkle the bourbon over the top of everything, then put it back in the oven on 350 for another 20-30 minutes. I do 30 minutes because when you're cooking dark meat only, you don't have to worry about the chicken drying out, it will just fall off the bone easier and the parsnips will be nice and soft. For leg quarters, add an extra 15 minutes.

Serve with cranberry sauce, or lingonberry  preserves (if you have an Ikea near you, you can get some there.) It's extra special if you have more bourbon to throw some of it in the cranberry sauce when you're cooking it.

Pork Tenderloin with Peach Sauce and Sesame Arugula Salad

Can you tell we got a lot of peaches from our neighbors this year?

Ingredients for two or three people:

One pork tenderloin, somewhere between one and two-ish pounds 

For marinade:
2 tablespoons orange juice
1 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons Montreal Steak Seasoning (if you don't have this, just use some granulated garlic, coarse salt and cracked pepper)
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon olive oil

Put the pork tenderloin in a dish or  plastic bag, rub the ingredients above all over it and set it in the fridge either overnight or at least for a few hours.

When you're ready to cook it, preheat the oven to 425 degrees, shake off the excess marinade from the meat and put it on a foil-lined baking sheet with an extra slosh of olive oil and a sprinkling of dried thyme over the top. Cook for about 20 minutes, or until the meat thermometer says 165 degrees. I REALLY recommend using a meat thermometer. Overcooked pork SUCKS!

For the Peach Sauce:

1/2 cup of peach jam, OR a big fresh over-ripe peach, peeled and chopped up, plus a tablespoon or two of sugar. 
1/2 cup good brandy
1 jalapeno, chopped finely, and/or 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon butter

Heat the butter in a small pan and add the chopped jalapeno. Let it cook over medium heat for a few minutes, then add the peach jam and brandy and cook it down, until about half of the brandy looks like it's gone. 

Spoon a small amount over the slices of the pork tenderloin and serve with salad. If you want a starchy side dish, I would do rice.

For the salad:

One bag of arugula leaves
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
a big handful of crunchy Chinese salad noodles (optional, but use slightly less dressing if you don't use these)

2 tablespoons of orange juice
zest of half an orange
2 tablespoons of olive or peanut oil 
2 heaping tablespoons of honey
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of rice vinegar
 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger 
1 mashed up garlic clove

Mix all of the dressing ingredients together and let it sit in the fridge while the pork is cooking. When the pork is ready, dress the salad and toss it all up, but take out the garlic clove first.

Fall is here! Beef and Golden Beet Stew with Gnocchi

Don't worry about exact measurements here, to be honest I didn't actually measure out the chopped vegetables or meat, so you can play around with those amounts and it won't really matter, but I would err on the side of too much on the vegetables rather than too little. When they are chopped finely like this, they melt into the stew and become a thick comforting gravy, perfect for a chilly fall Sunday evening.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 to 2 pounds beef stew meat, cubed (chuck roast is good)
1/2 bottle red wine
water 
5 small golden beets
1/3 cup flour for dusting on the meat.
1/2 cup chopped red onion
1/2 cup finely chopped  fennel bulb
1/2 cup finely chopped carrot
1/2 cup finely chopped celery
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 heaping tablespoon herbs de Provence
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons pepper
2 bay leaves
1 package of gnocchi, or make your own homemade recipe

In your stew pot, heat up two of the tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat, then brown up the stew meat chunks that you've already dusted with flour.  This will take a few minutes, and hopefully you'll get lots of good brown stuff stuck to the bottom of the pan. When the meat is browned on most sides, dump it out on a plate and use about a cup of the wine to de-glaze the pan for one minute, still on medium-high heat, using a wooden spoon to scrape up all the crusty brown bits on the bottom.

Turn down the heat to a low simmer, and put the meat back in the pot, along with a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of pepper and the dried herbs.

While the meat gets started simmering in that cup of wine, you can chop up the onion, celery, carrots and fennel, and then saute them in a separate frying  pan with the other two tablespoons of olive oil, on high heat. Add the other teaspoon of salt and pepper to these veggies and stir them around occasionally. 

After about five minutes of cooking, when you see some brown edges on the veggies, add some of the wine, a few splashes at a time, so that it evaporates as it goes and get absorbed into the veggies, use about a half cup of wine total for this part. 


Turn off the heat when all of the liquid is absorbed and the veggies look soft and yummy. Doing this separate step, instead of just throwing the raw vegetables in, is the difference between. "Mmm, good stew." and "Wow, this is so good!"

 
With the beets, just use a paring knife to kind of "give them a shave," just scrape the outsides to clean them up a bit, don't peel them like a potato.  

Just before adding the water and bay leaves

Quarter them and add them to the stew, along with the chopped veggies that you just cooked, and the bay leaves. 

Add enough warm water to cover the ingredients, then cover the stew and simmer on very low (just a few slow bubbles) for one hour. After  one hour, tilt the lid so it's partially open, and cook for another hour.

After the two hours, dump in your dried gnocchi packet and stir, then turn heat up to a brisk simmer and cook for about three minutes or until gnocchi is done. 

If you are making homemade gnocchi or paleo sweet potato gnocchi, just follow the recipe cooking instructions and serve the stew over them instead of mixing them in to cook.

I recommend a Tempranillo or red Zinfandel wine with this.

My Best Beef Ribs and Yukon Gold Potato Salad

Beef rib, potato salad and peach-pepper preserves

Does this really need an intro?

Ingredients:

7-10 beef ribs
1 bottle of cheap white wine
1/3 cup black-strap molasses
1 tablespoon salt 
1 tablespoon Montreal steak seasoning OR a clove of garlic and a tablespoon of cracked peppercorns. 
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon ground allspice
2 bay leaves
enough water to cover the ribs in the pot

For glazing:
One bottle of Your Favorite Barbeque Sauce
1/4 cup peach jam preserves
1/4 cup pepper jelly

Cut your rack of beef ribs into one or two-rib portions. Place in a big pot with the wine, molasses and spices, then fill with warm water until the ribs are just covered. Put the heat on high, then as soon as it starts bubbling, turn the heat down to low and simmer for at least one hour, but no more than two.

After you put the ribs on to simmer, you can make the potato salad. 

Ingredients:
24 ounces of small yukon gold potatoes, or honey gold baby potatoes (good potatoes are very important)
1/4 cup Best Foods, Hellman's or home made mayonaisse 
1/4 cup of sweet yellow onion, chopped very fine
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Malabar black pepper
1 teaspoon dried dill
1 teaspoon of plain prepared mustard
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
zest of half a lemon
juice of half a lemon

Boil the potatoes for 15-20 minutes, or just until you can stick a butter knife through one of them. Set a timer, it really sucks when you overcook them, you'll end up with mashed potatoes. 

After you drain off the water, cut the potatoes, holding them with a paper towel so you don't burn your hands. If you have the baby potatoes, just cut them in half, if they are bigger, cut them in quarters (duh). 

While they are still warm, toss the potatoes in a bowl with the olive oil, chopped onion, salt, pepper, and granulated garlic. Leave them out on the counter to cool to room temperature. 

Once the potatoes are no longer warm add the mayo, mustard, dill, and lemon juice and zest, mix well, taste for salt. Refrigerate until you are ready to serve. Sometimes I sprinkle it with chopped chives or fresh dill on top so it looks pretty.

Back to the ribs-

When the ribs are done simmering (covered or uncovered, either way is fine), remove them from the liquid and put them either out on the barbeque on medium low for about ten minutes to crisp up, or stick them under your broiler in the oven for ten minutes to crisp up, either way is fine. 

Glaze them with your favorite sauce (I like Rufus Teague) mixed with the peach jam and pepper jelly. (I had my own peach-jalapeno jam, so unless you live in my house you won't have that.) Put the ribs back on the grill for a few miutes to heat the sauce and make it sticky, then they're ready to serve. 

Don't put the ribs with sauce under the broiler though, if you are using the oven instead of the grill, just turn it down to 400 degrees for the post-sauce cooking.

Cream Tea Cakes

If you're having the girls over for tea, cake is always a good idea, but making a full sized cake sometimes makes people go into a calorie panic and they ask you for "just a tiny piece". Well, it's impossible to cut a truly tiny piece, and even more impossible to get that paper thin travesty from the serving spatula to the plate without it falling apart and looking crappy. 
Tiny cupcakes are of course a fine option, but even though they are trendy, they might seem a little juvenile for certain gatherings. My suggestion is to dispense with the muffin tin liners and use the large six-muffin pan to bake six small cakes, which can then be cut in half or in quarters to make delicate little pieces of cake, just the right size for a lady-like tea party. Butter and flour the inside of each cup, just as you would a cake pan.

Ingredients:

1 2/3 cup flour
1/2 cup soft butter
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup heavy cream
3 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla
a pinch of cinnamon (just a hint, hardly noticeable) 

Mix all of the ingredients together in your mixer on medium speed for two minutes, or by hand for a few minutes longer. Pour batter evenly into the six cups of the pan and bake at 350 degrees for 22-25 minutes, or until just golden brown and cooked. Try not to overcook them. When they are done, pull them out of the oven, wait a few minutes then run a butter knife carefully around the edges of each little cake and remove them from the pan to cool.

For the frosting:

1 1/3 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla 
1 tablespoon cream
3 drops red food coloring
1 drop green food coloring

Mix well until fully blended and creamy, then pipe onto each cake to cover the tops. 
Try not to eat them all yourself.

Gigantes, Greek Baked Beans

If you've got vegans coming 'round for dinner, this is going to be way more substantial and comforting for everyone involved than just throwing together some Pasta Margherita.

To prep the beans for cooking: 
Hopefully you can find these beans dried, gigantes are basically like large dried butter beans or large lima beans, or you can use dried fava beans. Pour your bag of dry beans into a large bowl of water and let them soak overnight, at least 12 hours or more. Simmer them in a large pot of water (not salted) for about 45 minutes. You can taste one after 30 minutes to see if they're done, you want them to be soft enough to bite into easily, but not super mushy like canned beans. When you're done you should have about 2 pounds of soaked, simmered beans. (You can weigh out and use canned or frozen beans if you must, but I wouldn't.)

After you drain the beans, put them in a lasagne sized pan, and then in the pot you used to cook the beans, put in:

2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil. (Yes, all that oil.)
1 large onion, roughly chopped

 Saute on medium heat for five minutes, then add:
 

1/2 small can (about 3 oz.) tomato paste
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 Tablespoon salt
(add a pinch of thyme or rosemary if you want to be different)

Saute for another five minutes.



Pour in 2 1/3 cups of warm water or vegetable stock, then pour this pot of sauce over the beans that are waiting in the pan. Mix it all around a bit. 

Bake in a 350 degree oven for one hour, uncovered.The top bits and the edges should look a little brown and crunchy when they're done.

STOVE TOP: If you don't want to heat up the whole house with the oven, after you saute the onions, just add the tomato and spice, then use equal parts of water to beans, and simmer on the stove for one hour uncovered (this is in addition to the 45 minutes you already cooked them,) up to two hours depending on how soft you want your beans. 

You can eat these hot, with big hunks of baguette, but I like to let them cool off a bit, then put them in the fridge and serve them the next day, they are more buttery and delicious served room temperature.

Here they are cooked on the stove top. No crunchy bits but still yummy!

stove top gigantes

Soft Pretzel Dinner Rolls

Costco has great pretzel rolls, but they come in this huge bag which you are guaranteed to eat in two days and get all fat. Instead, just make eight of them and mitigate the weight gain. I don't know what their recipe is, but mine is kind of awesome.


Ingredients:

For the dough:
1 packet Rapid Rise yeast
1 cup warm milk
1/4 cup melted lard (just do it)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
2 2/3 cups flour (if you're flour isn't as dry as mine was, you might need almost 3 cups, you just want the dough to come away from the sides of the bowl easily and not be too crazy sticky.)

For the tops of the rolls:
1 beaten egg, to brush on, plus a little kosher salt for sprinkling.

For "bath" water:
 5 cups water
1/3 cup baking soda

In a bowl, mix up the yeast, warm milk and sugar, then add the rest of the ingredients making sure that the baking powder is distributed evenly in the flour first. Knead the dough for a bit, you don't need to do it for a long time. Separate the dough into 8 even rolls. Let them rise uncovered on your cutting board for 30 minutes. Meanwhile bring to a boil the water and baking soda in a medium saucepan and preheat the oven to 425 degrees. 

When the  rolls have risen, use a slotted spatula to carefully lower each roll into the boiling baking soda water, one at a time, face down. Let each one go for about 30 seconds, then flip it over and let it boil on the underside for about ten seconds, then move it to a small oiled cookie sheet, putting them all fairly close together. If you don't have non-stick pans, you might want to line the pan with oiled parchment paper. Brush each roll with egg wash and sprinkle lightly with kosher salt.

Bake the rolls for 11 minutes, until they're dark brown like a pretzel.