MADE: Stuffed Chicken with Wine Sauce

This recipe begins (as all good recipes do) with a simple instruction: cook a pound of bacon.

Okay, okay fine. Maybe that's not what you do on Friday afternoon. You and I are different people.

Ingredients
2-3 strips bacon
1/2 large yellow onion, diced
2 oz Cremini mushrooms, coarsely chopped
2 tsp salt
2 tsp brown sugar
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/4 cup red wine
2 chicken breasts
2 oz soft goat cheese

Place bacon in a large frying pan and cook over medium-high heat until just crisp. Remove and set aside on a paper towel, to siphon off the grease. Keep two tablespoons (or so) of the bacon grease in the frying pan. Turn the heat down to medium and add the onion and mushrooms to the pan. Add the salt, sugar, and a dash of pepper, and stir to fully coat. Then smooth out the onion-mushroom mixture evenly in the pan, and leave to caramelize. Don't stir the vegetables often, but when you notice them beginning to brown in the pan--just before they're starting to stick and burn--toss in a few tablespoons of water and stir vigorously for a few seconds, before spreading the mixture out evenly again. Do this a few times to deglaze the mixture and speed up the caramelizing process. The whole deal should take about 15 minutes or so, or until the onions have gone from white, to clear, to a caramel-y brown. While the vegetables are caramelizing, chop the strips of bacon into small, 1/4" sized pieces.

Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees F.

As the caramelization process comes to a close, melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. When butter is melted, whisk in flour, until a thin paste forms. Continue whisking for about two minutes, then stir in the chicken broth (I used a bouillon cube dissolved in warm water) and wine. Keep stirring until mixture thickens--about five minutes. Give the mixture a dash of pepper if you're into pepper. (I am.) Once the sauce has begun to thicken, stir in the mushroom and onion mixture. (It might be beneficial to switch from a whisk to a wooden spoon as your implement-of-attack, here.) Stir for another minute or so, then remove from heat.

Butterfly (i.e. slice slightly open to create a bigger, flatter surface) two chicken breasts. To one side of each butterfly seam, pipe a line/glob of goat cheese, then sprinkle each with half of the diced bacon. Then, roll the edges of the chicken breast around this filling and place, seam-down, into an appropriately-sized baking dish. Pour the sauce over the chicken breasts and place in the oven, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Then, (if at any point in the cooking process you've tasted the sauce, this will not need saying, but,) DEVOUR.

MADE: Chicken Pot Pie

Not Chicken. Raw chicken is just not photogenic.

Something I'm proud of: I made it through college without once buying Ramen.

That is not to say that I didn't sink to some pretty low food-MacGyvering in times of dire financial straits. Did I attend meetings of clubs I didn't care about because there was free Thai food at said meetings? Possibly. Did I steal spinach and cereal from the dining hall in plastic bags and tupperware? Of course. Did I ever convince myself that saltines and peanut butter constituted a sandwich, and thus a meal? It's better not to remember that time.

Through the majority of those rapscallion years, I dated a vegetarian,* cooked with a vegetarian, and thus effectively became a vegetarian when not at restaurants. I developed plenty of opinions about vegetarian cooking and eating during that time (For instance--making a "vegetarian" version of something does not mean "replacing the meat with EVERY VEGETABLE KNOWN TO MAN." To the misguided folks who do this--you are the reason that veg-haters hate. Not cool.) One thing that's fact, rather than opinion, though, is that buying meat is expensive, making vegetarianism a lifestyle of convenience for perpetually-poor college students.

When I went home for the summer, then, I was used to cooking vegetarian dishes. This would have been fine, except for a certain punk kid brother of mine. We'll call him Luke. I'm pretty sure he's a hipster Tyrannosaurus with a GPS implanted in his brain. If an entrée doesn't have meat in it, he sends it back. Or just complains a lot. As the summer wore on, I quickly grew tired of his pre-teen snark, and endeavored to make more food WITH MEAT IN IT. This chicken pot pie--perfect for feeding a ton of people, particularly if one of them is a secret T-Rex--was one of the recipes that sprang from Luke's demands, and one of the best. I cobbled it together from a variety of recipes and was pretty pleased with the result. It's a pretty flexible recipe, and the mix of spices and veggies is quite open to interpretation. A more traditional pie might have peas, corn, and green beans in it, while an even meatier version (that I might cook up in the near future?) would obviously contain bacon.

Pastry Crust
8 tbsp butter, chilled
3/4 cup flour, plus some for dusting and flouring surfaces
1/4 cup ice water

Cut butter into flour with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Turn the mixture onto a working surface and mix in the water a little bit at a time, until the dough just clings together--this might not use all of the water.
"Turn" the dough by kneading/rolling it flat (about 3/4 inch thick), folding it in thirds, and kneading/rolling it flat again. The first couple of "turns" will be more like "flops," as the dough gets itself cohering. Do about nine turns in all, then let dough rest for a half hour, in the fridge if you'd like. (This is a good time to do some work on the filling.)

Filling in a Skillet
1 tbsp butter
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 red pepper, diced
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp Raspberry Pepper Jelly (optional, but delicious! You could also use a hot pepper or chili powder for a little extra zing.)
Splash of white wine (just how big of a splash is up to you...)

Melt butter in a medium skillet. Add diced onion and garlic and cook for about two minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the peppers and reduce heat, simmering for ten minutes, still stirring occasionally. Sprinkle in salt and pepper to taste, and add any spicy goodness during the simmering. Add boiled chicken (see below) and splash in white wine, stirring briskly until the wine is mostly cooked in. Set aside until pot pie assembly.

Filling in a Pot
3 medium potatoes, diced
1/2 head cauliflower, cored and chopped
1/2 cup baby carrots, diced
1 small tart apple, cored and diced
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Toss chicken chunks into the boiling water for about five minutes, until whitish rather than pinkish. Leaving water boiling, scoop out chicken and deposit in skillet. Drop in vegetable and apple chunks and boil for 10 minutes, or until slightly softened. Scoop out veggie and apple chunks into the pot pie container--a deep stoneware bowl works best, but a general casserole dish works too. Add the skillet mixture once it's tender and delicious, and mix well, adding additional salt and pepper to taste. A sprinkle of cumin or sage wouldn't go amiss here, either.

Filling in a Saucepan
3 tbsp butter
1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cup milk
2 1/2 cup chicken stock, water, or the reserved water from the boiling pot
Pepper and a sprinkle of nutmeg

Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Once butter is thoroughly melted, add flour and whisk briskly for about two minutes. The mixture should be thick and goopy--a little like cookie dough. Add the milk a little at a time, whisking until smooth after each addition. After all the milk has been added, cook for three minutes, stirring occasionally with particular attention to the sides and corners of the saucepan. Add the chicken stock one cup at a time, stirring until smooth after each addition. Cook for an additional 3 minutes, then remove from heat.

Final Assembly

Heat oven to 425 degrees F.
If you haven't already, combine skillet mixture (onions, peppers, and chicken) with pot mixture (veggies and apples) in a large casserole dish or oven-proof stoneware bowl. Pour the saucepan of gravy over the vegetable mixture and mix everything together. This is a good time to do a taste-test, making sure that no last-minute spice additions are needed.
The dough's had its little rest, so bring it back out and turn it a few more times. Then, roll it out to a little larger than the circumference of the pot pie bowl. Lay the dough over the filling, pressing around the edges of the bowl to seal. Cut a few knife slits in the top of the crust for ventilation. If you'd like, brush an egg wash over the top of the crust to get a nice golden brown crispness--I mixed my egg with a splash of water, a twist of sea salt, and the tiniest smidge of chili powder.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, until crust is just golden and filling begins to bubble around the edges. (If your pie is particularly full, you might want to put a baking sheet underneath the dish to catch bubble-over.)
Then DEVOUR, particularly if you are a carnivorous Cretaceous predator disguised as a blonde miscreant sibling.

Bubbled over. Still delicious.

*Just in case you were worried, I'm still dating him. He's less of a Real Vegetarian now, though. More of a Vegetarian of Convenience.

MADE: Cranberry Chicken Bake

Cranberry Chicken Bake, lifted from Cooks.com

3 whole chicken breasts, halved
1/2 c. chopped onion
1 tbsp. oil
1 c. ketchup
1/2 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp. grated orange peel
1 1/2 c. fresh or frozen cranberries

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease 3 quart baking dish. Place chicken breast halves in greased dish. Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes.
Meanwhile, in medium skillet over medium heat, cook and stir onion in hot oil until crisp tender. Add ketchup, brown sugar and orange peel. Blend until brown sugar id dissolved. Stir in cranberries. Spoon over partially baked chicken breasts. Bake an additional 20 minutes or until chicken is tender. Serves 6.

So clearly I'm going to throw out the ketchup in this recipe. Adding: more sugar, a smashed tomato, possibly a chili? Possibly a dash of salsa (my go-to substitute for the hated ketchup)? Possibly an apple?
We'll only know once I make it...
Edit: Threw out the ketchup, of course.
Turns out, this is both BEAUTIFUL and delicious. I wished I had been cooking for someone besides myself last night, so I could have subtly encouraged them to comment on my ability to prepare a gorgeous meal. Next time...
Here's an approximation of the recipe I ended up making.

2 whole chicken breasts
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 tbsp. oil (1/2 tbsp. vegetable oil, 1/2 tbsp. olive oil)
2 small tomatoes, diced
1/2 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp. mandarin orange peel zest
1 c. fresh cranberries

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Place chicken breasts in greased baking dish and bake for 20 minutes.

While chicken cooks, heat oil (and a little bit of butter?) in a skillet. Add onions and cook about one minute, until just starting to soften. Add tomatoes and simmer about two minutes more, stirring. Add brown sugar and orange zest, and leave to simmer for five minutes, stirring occasionally. Finally, add cranberries and simmer 1-2 minutes, or until cranberries start to get a little mushy, but don't lose their shape.

Pull out chicken, cover with cranberry mixture, and return to oven for another 25-30 minutes.

I think this would be great with a side of asparagus or mashed potatoes. As it was, I had it with a side of the mandarin orange that I used for the zest, which worked fine. I figured that tossing together anything else just for myself would verge on the excessive...