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: Grilled Cheese Grilled Cheese

Sometimes, the internet does something so beautiful, so incandescent, that one has to stop, drop everything, and take part in the splendor.

This is one of those things.

Watch this video. Make this grilled cheese sandwich. Don't think. Don't stop to ask questions like "Why?" or "What have I done to deserve such majesty?" Just do it.

I have just made myself one of these sandwiches.
I am eating it now.
The angels are weeping rainbow tears of joy.

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: Spinach, Mushroom, and Bacon Quiche

"Why all the cheese?" "It's quiche night, OBVIOUSLY."

One of my New Year's Resolutions was going to be "Eat less food whose primary ingredients are butter and cream." Then I got my Christmas present from Boss Tweed--a copy of Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table, and my New Year's Resolution crumbled before the New Year had even begun. It's an AMAZING cookbook, and almost every page contains a recipe as mouthwatering as it is undaunting. And full of cream and butter.
I fully intend to cook most of the items in this cookbook--perhaps when the Boss herself comes to visit me in March! (Be prepared for a slew of posts and jealousy, because it will be a cookingstravaganza for sure!) I started, though, with a quiche, more because I wanted to make a quiche than because I wanted to use the cookbook. But I figured that my new French cookbook would be a good place to start.

Greenspan's original recipe calls for a tart crust. It turns out that one has to refrigerate a tart crust for several hours, and I certainly didn't have time for that (I'm not known for planning ahead when it comes to cooking), so I fudged it a little bit, and perhaps ruined the tart in the process? The taste and texture came out just fine, though, so I'm inclined to think that the three-hour chill period is a scam.
Also, Greenspan's original recipe called for 1/4 cup cheese. I assumed that to be a printer's error, and used an entire cup of cheese. This is probably why my "cook for myself" philosophy has not been a weight-loss solution, but rather the opposite.

Spinach, Mushroom, and Bacon Quiche


Tart Crust
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
6 tbsp butter, cold or frozen, cut into 1/2 tbsp chunks
1 large egg
1 tsp ice water

Quiche Filling
6 oz spinach leaves
4 slices bacon
1/2 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
8 white mushrooms, diced
Salt and pepper, to taste
3 large eggs
2/3 cup cream
1 cup shredded cheese (I used equal parts swiss, gruyere, and mozzarella)

To make tart crust:

Whisk together flour and salt. Cut in butter with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal. Beat together egg and water, and drizzle over the dry mixture, tossing with a fork until evenly moistened, and then mixing together by hand. Form dough into a ball, kneading until smooth, and then pat into a flattened disk. Refrigerate this for three hours (supposedly--I only refrigerated it for one, and things turned out fine).
Once you've refrigerated the disk of dough, bring it out and roll it out. Greenspan recommends rolling it between two sheets of plastic wrap, which worked pretty well and made flipping it into the pie pan pretty simple. Roll the dough into a circle big enough to cover a 9" pie pan--about 12" in diameter--and then turn the dough into a greased pie pan. Make sure there are no cracks in the crust, because it will probably shrink, and your filling will wind up leaking out if there are cracks. Puncture the dough lightly in several places with a fork, cover with foil, and refrigerate again for another hour or so. (This is a good time to make the quiche filling.)
Heat the oven to 400 F.
Bake the crust for 20 minutes with the foil insert, then remove the foil and bake for 3 to 5 minutes more. Remove partially baked crust from oven and let cool before adding filling.

To make filling:

Spinach first--rinse spinach leaves and then toss into a skillet while still wet. Cook over medium heat until the spinach is wilted but still bright green, about five minutes. Remove from heat and put spinach onto a napkin-covered plate to soak up the excess liquid. Then, when the spinach is cool enough, transfer it to a cutting board and chop it well.
Bacon next--put the slices of bacon onto a skillet over medium-high heat and fry until crispy. Remove from pan to a paper towel-covered plate. Drain off all but one tablespoon of the bacon grease from the skillet. When bacon is cool enough, chop well.
Now all the rest--put the onion and garlic into the bacon-greased skillet and sauté for two minutes over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms and sauté for two minutes more, adding a tablespoon of water if the vegetables begin to brown.
Mix together chopped spinach, chopped bacon, onions and mushrooms, and season with salt and pepper. When partially-baked crust is cooled sufficiently, spread the filling mixture evenly throughout the bottom of the crust.

In a medium bowl, beat the eggs and the cream together. Pour over the filling so that it fills in all the cracks. Sprinkle cheese evenly over the top of the quiche.
Place quiche pan onto a baking sheet (to save your oven in case of bubbling over) and carefully put into the middle of the oven. Bake quiche for 30 to 40 minutes (still at 400 F), or until the filling has become puffy, even in the middle. Remove, let cool, and then DEVOUR.

MADE: Scones!

I figured that since I'd finally put up the Apple Cheddar Scones--I'm still shocked about that glaring omission, by the dubs--that I'd fess up to my deeper love of scones in any variety. For a while in undergrad, my House raised money for charity by selling coffee and baked goods in the morning. I frequently volunteered to help sell the goodies, which entailed getting up at six thirty and dragging myself down to the lobby of my dorm. As I stumbled down the last few steps, I'd invariably be greeted by the dueling aromas of coffee and scones, and by the preternaturally happy visage of my dear friend Klara, the magnificent baker of said scones.

Klara was (and still is) a marvel and an inspiration. At six thirty on a Tuesday morning, she could reach levels of  happiness than some people don't achieve in their entire lives. And she was constantly spreading that happiness to others--through laughter, through volunteer work, through dancing and singing, and--probably most importantly--through scones.

Now, whenever I make or eat a scone, I can't help but think of Klara and get a tiny bit infected by her sunniness all over again.

Klara's Scones
2 1/4 cups flour
Pinch o' salt
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
6 tbsp cold butter, cut into cubes
1 cup cream
Fillers--these can be berries, baked apples, chocolate chips, or even chunks of caramel candies (that was such a good morning!)

Preheat oven to 425 F.
Combine dry ingredients and whisk together. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in cream, kneading together by hand. Add in filler ingredients and knead into a ball, then roll out the ball onto a floured surface and press down to create a circle of dough about a half inch thick. Cut the dough circle into wedges and place onto a greased baking sheet, about 1" apart. Sprinkle with sugar, if desired.
Bake for about 15 minutes, or until just hard and slightly golden.
"Consume and be Merry!"--Klara

For my roommate's birthday, I made these with blackberries as a breakfast surprise. It went over well, if I do say so myself.

The picture is the scones in progress, obviously. The finished products themselves were devoured before photographic evidence could be obtained.

CURRENT OBSESSION: Apple Cheddar Scones

Woah woah WOAH Woah woah. Upon looking through my old posts to spruce them up with pictures--now that I FINALLY have all the relevant bits of gadgetry necessary to create, transfer, convert, and upload photographic evidence of my foodery--I have discovered that I NEVER MANAGED TO PUT UP THE APPLE CHEDDAR SCONE RECIPE.

Major. Fail.

If you've so much as brushed past my internet presence in the past three months you've probably heard me rave about these scones. If you've been in my actual presence, it's quite possible that I've baked them for you. (Really, it's less generosity and more a realization of the overwhelming guilt that ensues when one consumes an entire batch of scones in one sitting. Not that that's ever happened...)

The amazing Smitten Kitchen introduced me to them, of course, and I made my own little tweaks. SK calls them "October on a parchment-lined baking sheet," but I've been making them since waay past October, and I've never lined my baking sheets with parchment. Both choices have turned out pretty okay for me.*

Apple Cheddar Scones (Will Haunt You Forever)
2 firm apples (I used Galas most of the time, but that's just because they were around), cored, peeled, and chopped into small chunks
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup white sugar
2 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbsp butter, chilled and cut into 1/2 tbsp cubes
1/2 cup sharp cheddar, shredded
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 375 F.
Core and peel the apples, then chop them into smallish chunks. The original recipe called for them to be in 1/16ths, but those chunks seemed huge, and just had to be chopped down later. (Also, the smallish chunks cook faster. Bonus when you're really hungry for some sconey goodness.) Spread apple chunks evenly on a baking sheet and bake at the center of the oven for about 15 minutes, until dry to the touch and just beginning to turn goldeny brown. Remove from oven and cool completely, leaving oven on--if you're going to make the scones right away, that is. Turn it off otherwise. Sheesh.

Baked Apple Chunks--Health food, right?

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
With a pastry blender, cut in the cubes of chilled butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Beat in cream and one egg until just combined. Mix in the shredded cheese as well.

Chop up the apple chunks a bit more until you'd feel comfortable encountering them in a scone, then mix the chunks in as well. You should have a delightful, sticky mess on your hands, just forming a ball. Toss that onto a floured surface and flatten slightly, until you've formed a circle about 1" thick and 8" in diameter. Slice the circle into six wedges--or eight, if you're feeling generous. Place dough wedges onto greased baking sheets, leaving about 2" between them for spreading.
For an egg wash (which is optional, but quite tasty), beat together the remaining egg and a pinch of salt. Spread the mixture over the top of each scone. Sprinkle each washed scone with sugar. Or, if it's Christmas Eve morning, sprinkle them with sugar and Christmas sprinkles! Bake for about 30 minutes, until the scones are nice and golden. Then DEVOUR. Also share. You might as well get as many people to understand the addiction as possible...

If you are keeping them to yourself, though, freezing several of the dough wedges is a good idea--the scones are really best when eaten immediately, and it's great to have scones ready-for-baking in the freezer on a bleary morning...

*In case you're wondering, though, ovens get really angry at you if you try to substitute wax paper for parchment. It wasn't for this recipe--don't worry--but every mention of parchment paper in cooking makes me flash back to that experience. Eeesch, the smell...

MADE: Guinness Shepherd's Pie

I currently live in a city that is rainy and grey for most of the winter months. When I come home from a day that never got sunny, I just can't bear the thought of anything less than a blanket-like dinner in which to wrap myself (figuratively--don't worry) and forget the grim exterior conditions.

For inspiration, I figured I'd turn towards cuisine of similarly-climated locales, and shepherd's pie seemed like a no-brainer. If it's good enough to fortify soggy peasants in Ireland, then it can help me soldier on through the Seattle winter. Tossing in a portion of my leftover bottle of Guinness seemed like a logical addition, for similar reasons. (It turned out to be not only logical, but DELICIOUS as well--but I'm putting the cart before the horse. Perhaps several carts before several horses.)

Guinness Shepherd's Pie

Brown Sauce Filling
4 tbsp butter, divided
1/2 small onion, diced
1 tsp salt
1 tsp brown sugar
10 (or so) white mushrooms, chopped coarsely
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup Guinness
1 cup water
Salt and pepper, to taste

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter into a skillet. On medium heat, caramelize the onions--stir in the salt and sugar to bring out the natural sugar of the onions themselves. Stir the onions occasionally, and if they begin to stick to the pan, add about 1/4 cup water and stir vigorously for about 30 seconds. This is called "deglazing," and it's one of my favorite science-cooking processes. (Second only to bechamel, which we'll get to in a minute...) Continue the stir/simmer/deglaze process for about 15 or 20 minutes, until the onions start to become darker brown and smell delicious. Then add the chopped mushrooms and stir, simmering until the mushrooms become a little softer, but not mushy.
Meanwhile, (probably while the onions are caramelizing, actually, since you'll be bored anyway) melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a medium saucepan. Once the butter is just beginning to sizzle, add 1/4 cup flour and whisk or stir rapidly, until thoroughly mixed. Then, quickly add the Guinness and 1 cup water, small bits at a time in alternation, stirring after each addition. (The Guinness will get all bubbly, so you don't want to add in too much at once.) Then, add the onion and mushroom mix to the sauce (which should at this point be delighting your nostrils with the decadent smell of beer and butter) and stir, adding in salt and pepper to taste.
This filling can also be made to include other vegetables (peas and carrots are common), as well as meat. If I'd had it, I probably would have thrown in ground beef or chunks of sausage at the mushroom phase. No such provisions were in my freezer at the time, unfortunately, but I'm sure they'd be delicious for you!

Potato Topping
5 or 6 large potatoes, washed and chopped into large chunks
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp cream
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 tsp nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup grated cheese (I used mozzarella and cheddar.)

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Boil potatoes in saucepan of water for about 15 minutes, or until tender. You should be able to poke a fork into a potato chunk and have it split in two. Drain almost all the water from the potatoes, but feel free to keep a little bit. Mash those spuds up with the butter and cream, adding in the garlic, nutmeg, salt, and pepper until the potatoes have reached (almost) optimum deliciousness.
Grease the bottom of a medium casserole dish. Layer in the Guinness-mushroom mixture, then spoon the potatoes on top in heaps, patting down to form a solid layer over the top. Sprinkle cheese over the whole thing, and toss into the oven for about 30 minutes, or until you're too hungry to wait anymore.
DEVOUR, while drinking the leftover Guinness.

MADE: Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

It's been a rough, rainy week, and while grumpily trudging along yesterday, an idea appeared to me like a warm, shining beacon through the bluster of wind and spit that Seattle calls rain--Peanut Butter Cookies.
As I almost dashed home, the lure of future cookies pulling me onward, I called KPBH for aid: "Can you find a recipe for Peanut Butter Cookies? One that will make thick, chewy, warm, melt-in-your mouth cookies? One that will erase the frustrations of a malfunctioning apartment and fill me with warmth to drive away the wet winter chill?"
He was less than helpful.
"Well, they're all pretty much the same...Oh wait. Here's one without butter..."
I almost had a conniption fit, there on the sidewalk. "Cookies made WITHOUT BUTTER? Do I even KNOW YOU?"
Eventually, I took matters into my own hands, and of course found myself at the (figurative internet) door to Smitten Kitchen. I basically used the recipe here, but didn't I have peanut butter chips (who has peanut butter chips?) and I didn't roll the cookies in sugar at the end of the process (thus making them a health food?).
The result? DELICIOUS. Perfect little chunks of peanut buttery goodness, with a thick shortbready consistency and a delightful softness that lasts at least until the next morning. I'm not sure how long it would take these cookies to get hard and crunchy, but it is less than the amount of time that it took for the batch to get devoured by myself and my roommates.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup peanut butter, room temperature
2/3 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tbsp whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Mix together dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt) in a large bowl and set aside.
In a large bowl, beat together butter and peanut butter until creamed. Add sugars and blend until creamy. Beat in egg, cream, and vanilla. Add in dry mixture a bit at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition. Finally, stir in chocolate chips.
Drop by spoonful onto ungreased cookie sheets, leaving a little room for expansion. Press down with a fork to make that classic "peanut butter cookie" crosshatch. (Does anyone know why that's such a peanut butter cookie tradition? Does it help bring out some otherwise latent peanut butteryness?) Bake for 10 minutes, and do not overbake. The cookies won't be browned, but they'll be done, and they'll be DELICIOUS.
Devour, wriggling your toes as the snuggly warmth of childlike bliss fills your soul.