Tag Archives: chicken

Feb 18

Haricots vertigo

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Well, I DVRed Wednesday night’s episode of “Nadia G.’s Bitchin’ Kitchen,” one of my favorites, and didn’t get around to watching it until this morning.

Meanwhile, I had a value package of chicken thighs. It was still pretty much frozen when I bought it the other day, so I just went ahead and threw it in the freezer when I got home. I moved it to the fridge Thursday, but that meant that once it thawed, I couldn’t refreeze it, so I needed to figure a way of using most of the thighs at the same time.

Then, this morning, Nadia G. had a recipe for a white chicken lasagna. It sounded good – but I mostly used it as a jumping-off point. Nadia simmered her chicken for two hours with Italian flat-leaf parsley, creating both the chicken and a broth. I used my pressure cooker and did the same thing in 10 minutes (once the cooker got up to pressure). Nadia also made fresh pasta; I went for dry. Not only was it more convenient, but by using a no-boil lasagna method (adding extra liquid and covering the casserole with foil until the end of the cooking time, when you uncover it just long enough to let the top brown) I had the chance to use a lot more of that deeeelicious homemade broth I’d just created. Nadia just added a little bit of the broth, for flavoring; since I was using it to hydrate the noodles, I needed to add a lot, which would give the dish a lot more chicken flavor.

Nadia’s recipe is pretty much just chicken and cheese. I didn’t realize when I went shopping just how much mozzarella the recipe called for, and I only brought back half that amount.  Anyway, I had already decided the recipe needed something else. I thought about getting some mushrooms while at the store but didn’t. Then, when I got home, I thought about the can of green beans I had sitting in the cupboard.

Green beans?!

I imagined the flavors in my head and it seemed like a match. I was afraid that the green beans wouldn’t be a good textural match and would squish out from between the noodles when the lasagna was served, and so I toyed with throwing them into the food processor and chopping them. But I decided to just let them go as is.

I picked up an envelope of chicken gravy mix at the store and used some of my broth to make it, to give the dish a little more body. I added garlic and Italian seasoning.

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It came out pretty well – not quite the creamy consistency of regular lasagna, and it did fall apart a little bit when I tried to serve it, but it tastes delicious.

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Jul 10

Yogurt ranch chicken

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For Sunday dinner today, I came home with a tub of Greek yogurt and a packet of ranch salad dressing mix. I made ranch dip by combining the two. I then took a little of the ranch drip  and slathered it on two chicken thighs from the fridge, then dipping them in breadcrumbs and baking them in the oven. They turned out pretty well.

The only trouble is that I munched out on Triscuits and the remaining ranch dip while I was waiting for them to bake, and I wasn’t that hungry by the time they were ready.

May 28

Pullet surprise

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I’ve posted here before about beer can chicken, which I make in the oven rather than on the grill. You use the same wire rack and a can of beer (or soda or whatever), and set the whole thing in a baking dish, into which you pour a little of the beer.

A few weeks ago, I found a pan at Walmart designed for cooking a chicken vertically in an oven. It looks like a round cake pan with a big cone sticking up out of the middle. The chicken goes down over the cone the way it would normally go down over the beer can, and if you like you can put veggies in the pan to cook in the chicken drippings.

It actually works pretty well, and I’m using it for the second time tonight. I thought the whole point of beer can chicken was that you were steaming the inside of the chicken, and this design doesn’t do that exactly, but I think the cone probably conducts some heat and has the same effect.

May 24

Attention deficit chicken

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… so called because I thought about the recipe when I should have been paying attention in church this morning. This was sort of improvised, and I’m guessing at some of the quantities because I did not take notes.

1 onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
1/4 to 1/2 cup diced carrots (I diced up little carrot sticks; I’m guessing it was about two whole carrots’ worth.)
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
1 large can tomato paste
1 1/2 cups white wine (I used the salt-laced cooking wine they sell in the grocery. I know, everyone tells you not to do that. So sue me.)
2 T Italian seasoning
Black pepper
Salt (if you didn’t use the salted cooking wine)
4 chicken thighs

Combine onion, carrots, pepper, garlic, tomato paste, wine and italian seasoning in slow cooker. Rest chicken thighs on top and season with salt and pepper.

Turn slow cooker on high for 15 minutes, then cut down to low and cook four hours. Do not open during cooking time.

Remove chicken and check for doneness; use immersion blender (“stick” blender) to puree sauce to desired consistency. Return chicken to sauce to keep warm.

Serve over pasta with parmesan cheese.

Mar 16

Thanks to Centron

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MST3K Shorts

While looking for another video tape today, I found my old VHS copy of “Mystery Science Theater 3000: Shorts,” the first volume of short subjects from MST3K. Although the show’s meat and potatoes was making fun of full-length movies, sometimes they’d have time to work in a short subject, usually an educational film from the 1940s or 1950s — and the humor that Joel (or Mike) and the ‘bots use during these shorts was often darker than the full-length features. I love a scene in “The Home Economics Story” when the young female protagonist is wondering what college will be like. Joel or one of the ‘bots interjects, “….will I smoke thin black cigarettes and reject the triune God?” For some reason, that line always makes me laugh.

In addition to “The Home Economics Story,” the collection includes “A Date With Your Family,” “Junior Rodeo Daredevils,” “Chicken Of Tomorrow” and “Why Study Industrial Arts?”

“A Date With Your Family” is about how children should be polite to their parents at dinner. (“Emotions are for ethnic people,” interjects Crow T. Robot.)