Boring Chicken No More

We have noticed in our household, lately, that our kids appear to be passing the picky-phase.  Or maybe they are growing and just really hungry.  We delight in watching them eat everything from asparagus to brussel sprouts to kale chips.  Our youngest has even become pretty adventurous at the Indian restaurant.  The two things that I can think of that our kids absolutely refuse to eat, strangely, are mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese. 
This chicken dish is a current family favorite.  I grew up with a variation of this that came from some sort of magazine about time-saving skillet meals.  It is actually one of the few things from my childhood that I make somewhat frequently.  I don't use a recipe anymore, but I thought it was worth writing down and passing on because it is such a family favorite.  No need for chicken nuggets in our house.  One time I made this, my 5-year-old probably ate half of the chicken all by himself.  That evening my husband was late getting home and he didn't get any chicken.  We were hungry.  Oops.
Lemon Caper Chicken
1-1/2 lb boneless chicken breasts cut into 1" pieces
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp poultry seasoning
4 tbls butter
1 cup chicken broth
1-2 tsp minced garlic (depending on preference)
Juice of one lemon
3 Tbls capers
In a paper bag, place the flour, salt and poultry seasoning, shake to combine.  Add chicken pieces, close bag and shake to coat evenly.
In a large skillet, melt half of the butter on medium heat.  When butter is melted and slightly bubbling, add chicken.  Cook about 5 minutes per side until chicken is cooked through and browned.  Add the second half of the flour when chicken is flipped over so that both sides get a little bit crispy.  It's okay to supplement with a little olive oil if you need more liquid in the pan.
When the chicken is cooked through, pour broth over, maintaining medium heat.  While broth thickens and bubbles, add garlic and lemon juice, simmering for a couple of minutes until sauce is a bit translucent.  Add capers and voila! it's ready to go.

It's a pretty versatile chicken dish with a bit of a mediteranean taste to it - it would be great paired with anything Greek.  I usually serve this over plain rice with some kind of roasted vegetable.  We are quite the rice-lovers in our house and when I recently reorganized my pantry with a couple new shipments of tupperware, I discovered we keep about seven kinds of rice on hand at any time.  Tonight we used short-grain-brown, one of my favorites.  I also made roasted asparagus to go with it.  It was a dinner that made my pregnant-tummy happy.

Boning a Duck

This post really has nothing to do with boning a duck.  Sorry.  I'll explain, though, so stick with me.
Tonight, I roasted a whole chicken.  Let me start by saying that unlike my husband who is totally into picking meat off of bones and thinks we should be more in-touch with what we eat (meat-wise), I prefer my meat nicely cleaned, skinned, boned and void of anything that might make it look like it came from a living animal.  I have a weak stomach about that kind of thing.  However, every once in a while at the grocery store, I will browse the meat section and realize just how much cheaper it is to buy whole chickens.  I will then sigh and talk myself into actually dealing with a whole chicken.
Let me describe this process for you.  I cut open the chicken bag and heft out the poor, sad bird.  I then shake the opening over the sink to get rid of whatever disgusting things might fall out of it - no, I will not touch the heart, liver, kidneys, neck, whatever else the butcher thinks I might want to eat.  If I am feeling charitable, I will shake them into a bowl and keep them for my husband who delights in them (EEK!  YUCK!  GAG!).  Tonight was such a night.  Fast-forward to me dealing with sauteing chicken organs.  I stuck some olive oil in a pan, on the back burner, tossed them in, threw as many spices on them as I thought might be tolerable, and then from as great a distance as possible, flipped them over with tongs, trying hard not to look closely.
Anyway, back to roasting my chicken.  Tonight, after I cut away all the loose skin, I decided to rub it with pesto, salt and pepper.  I discovered Costco sells fresh pesto in large containers and since it is something I always keep on hand, I eagerly grabbed one last time I was there (it's by the cheese, hummus, etc.).  Here are a few key things I have learned about roasting a moist, flavorful chicken:
1) Don't stuff it with stuffing.  I stuff chickens with chopped whole onions (usually two of them stuffed in there) and a few cloves of garlic.  This way, the onion has nothing to do but give off its moisture to the bird, as opposed to bread which would soak up the bird's moisture leaving it dry.  The onion and garlic would also add to the flavoring of the stock, although I do not make gravy.
2) When seasoning the bird, loosen up that breast-skin and get the spices (or pesto in my case) right under the skin onto the meat.  It makes the breast meat a lot more flavorful.
3) Put more seasoning on it than you think it needs - poultry always needs more.
4) If you're going to roast a chicken to freeze the meat to use later, freeze the meat in broth, it helps it retain some of its flavor and moisture.
Here is my before and after shots:

When my son saw the finished product, he asked why it was dirty.  Haha.  So, not the most attractive looking roasted chicken, perhaps, but it was so moist and tender I might be able to stand to eat it one more night.  I served it with creamy polenta and kale sauteed with an onion, white wine and a dollup of pesto (it was GOOD! more about kale in another post).
I never bother with sewing or tying anything, I just put it in a small enough pan that those legs can't spread out too far.  Truly roasting a chicken is one of the easiest things one can ever do.  It requires about 5 minutes of prep and about an hour and a half of cooking time.  If you've never done it, you should try it at least once.
As for the title of the post, whenever I consider roasting a chicken and how grossed out I am by it, I am reminded of the movie Julia & Julie.  Julie was so terrified of boning a duck that she saved it for the very end of her cooking journey through Mastering the Art of French Cooking (a cookbook which I own, incidentally, but have never cracked).  I have no aspirations to bone a duck, so dealing with gross, raw chickens are as close as I am going to get.

Buying Spices

Around Christmastime, I bought an Indian cookbook. I love Indian food so I was curious about cooking it at home. When I gave the cookbook a good look, I realized there were a lot of spices that I would have to acquire before I could make any of it, and spices sometimes take awhile to find. It is now September and I have just gotten around to buying all the requisite spices.
I am not a coupon-person, although I do my best to shop sales and be as thrifty as I can with as little effort as I can muster. My best tip for saving money at the grocery store is to buy spices in bulk. Not all grocery stores carry them, but usually the fancier ones do, or those that have organic food sections. Buying spices in bulk saves an unbelievable amount of money. For example, a packaged bottle of cumin might cost $5 or more, but buying the same amount in bulk and reusing an old bottle costs approximately $.30. I'm not joking. Try it out and see. Never buy spices pre-packaged...with the exception of one, which I will get to in a minute.
I have used a lot of cumin and cinnamon and even the occasional coriander, but I had never used cardamom. The common seasoning in many Indian dishes is called Garam Masala. It is a blend of the spices to the left. It is made by roasting all of the ingredients in a pan and then grinding them all together. So, before I could even make dinner, I had to make this. I acquired a spice (well, coffee really) grinder. By the time I got to dinner, it probably would have been cheaper to just go to India Bistro and have someone else make it. There is the final result.
My three-year-old thought it was quite aromatic. He kept telling me his boogers smelled spicy (gotta love that age).
Back to the spices. I was curious about cardamom because I noticed it was unbelievably expensive. I did some research and learned that cardamom is the second most expensive spice in the world. The only spice more expensive is saffron - also used in Indian cuisine. I'm not sure what makes cardamom so expensive, but saffron comes from crocuses that must be hand-picked. It takes about 500 crocuses to make 1 oz. (!!!) of saffron. Saffron cannot be bought bulk (for obvious reasons), but instead comes in tiny vials - the one to the right contains one gram and it cost $13. I am hoping it lasts forever. I wanted to be authentic.
If you are wondering what the third most expensive spice in the world is, it is vanilla, which is harvested from the only edible orchid, although it is much, MUCH cheaper by comparison. Saffron is used in Indian rice dishes, mostly. It is soaked in milk and then added to the rice and cooked, as shown to the left.
In the end, I found cooking Indian food to be a little more of an intense effort than I usually make for dinner. I think in future, I will save it for times when my husband is home to occupy the boys. It was a nice change, though.
OH! And my other spice-related tip is this (quite simple): When baking or cooking (but not necessarily on the table - that is up to taste), use kosher salt. An actual chef told me that - you should never use table salt in cooking and baking. There is actually a marked taste difference, I think, and for whatever reason, kosher salt has far less sodium in it than plain table salt. I also only use fresh ground pepper. Since most of the time I am cooking fairly simple meals, I only season with salt and pepper so using good quality salt and pepper makes a huge difference.

Bounty of the Northwest

My husband and I watched Food, Inc. last weekend and I have been disturbed about meat, in particular, ever since. I know a lot of people who are afraid to watch it. I thought it was worthwhile, even though now I am completely upset with the food industry in the United States. It is absolutely insane that because of lobbying in Washington, DC by food producers (think Tyson, etc.), there are things about our food that we are not even allowed to know.
Anyway, I could rant forever about this, but that's not really the point of my post. One of the suggestions in the movie is to buy as much food locally-grown as possible. This suggestion made dinner tonight taste even better - a meal made of all local ingredients: fresh-caught wild sockeye salmon, potatoes from our CSA (grown north of Seattle) and zucchini grown in my grandparents' garden. I love simple meals, and I love that I didn't have to feel weird about anything I ate tonight. The best part was that my three-year-old LOVED the fish and kept asking for more and more. I think he ate about 1/3 of a pound of salmon. This is unheard of.
While I was preparing dinner and thinking that I might blog about it, I thought I would discuss salmon in particular, since any good native-northwesterner should absolutely know about good salmon (and be a critic too). When my husband and I were on a cruise in Alaska a few years back, we learned a five-fingered trick to naming the five types of Salmon that live in this region. As far as good-eating goes, Sockeye and Chinook (also known as King) salmon are the tastiest ones to go for. There are a few other things to look for when buying salmon.
1) Is it fresh-caught WILD? Wild as opposed to farm-grown is a huge difference. One thing we learned in Food, Inc. is that fish-farmers are teaching fish to eat corn. Eew! Gross! Wild-caught fish is also more sustainable (if you're into that sort of thing).
2) Buy Pacific salmon not Atlantic salmon. Perhaps if you are on the east coast, Atlantic salmon is okay, but over here in the northwest it is inferior. In fact, if you look at a package in the store, you will most likely see the words "color added." Umm. No thanks.
3) Speaking of color, and this is probably the biggest deal when it comes to salmon, choose the deepest red-colored salmon you can find. It is the most tender and has the best flavor. It should look something like this when raw:As far as cooking salmon goes, it is very easy. My favorite preparation is to bake it with a little butter, salt and pepper on top, then top that with lemon slices and slivered almonds. Tonight, however, I had no almonds and no lemon (see HERE for why), so I had to improvise with pine nuts and a little garlic salt. I baked this piece in a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes and it came out perfectly. It cooks very well on a baking stone, should you have one. Salmon can be eaten raw, so you can cook it to your own level of comfort. I tend to like well-cooked, flaky fish. This was done but still moist and a little soft. Exactly done. It can also be cooked on a barbecue, but place it on aluminum foil or water-soaked wood planks and not directly on the grill - it is too delicate and will fall apart.
...and now for my last tip of the evening. I very much feel like I should like yams/sweet potatoes, but try as I might, I do not. They are very healthy, though, and I am trying very hard to not give my children my prejudices. So, from time to time, I try to work them into a meal. My favorite method (and really the only one I can stand) is to mix them into mashed potatoes. I almost prefer mashed potatoes this way now amazingly enough. Here's how I make them:

Yammy Mashed Potatoes
1 large garnet yam
3 medium-to-large white or yukon gold potatoes
1/4 cup butter (in chunks to melt faster)
1/2 cup sour cream

Peel and cube potatoes and yam, boil (together) until soft. Drain water. Add butter and sour cream, mash to desired consistency. Voila. That's it. If you want to fancy them up a little, you can toss in about 1/4 cup parmesan cheese when you add the butter. Another way to increase flavor is to boil a head of garlic (peel all the cloves and toss them in with the potatoes), then leave them in there and mash into the potatoes.

Bring on the Pesto

More food. Hope that's okay. At least it's dinner this time.
There are a few things I always keep on hand in the kitchen besides the usual flour, sugar, rice, etc. I always keep Trader Joe's chicken sausages in the freezer in varying varieties. I always seem to have a package of tortellini or raviolis. I also buy a little tub of pesto at the grocery store pretty much every time I go (you really can't make it from scratch for the $3 it costs to buy it). These ingredients, combined with fresh sauteed veggies tend to become my last-minute quick-fix dinner. It's one of my favorites and I make it every couple of weeks. It takes less than 30 minutes including all the chopping.
I have been making a variation of this since I discovered how easy it is to saute vegetables back in high school, I just recently discovered how much a little pesto improves the meal. By the way, my non-stick saute pan of choice is Analon professional. I have 4 sizes. They are very heavy and even after 6 years, mine are hardly flaking at all. Plastic spatulas and hand-washing only.
Here you go, my one-bowl dinner (and the toddler-variation that I now inevitably must make to accompany it):



Danielle's Italian Pesto Pasta One-Bowl Dinner
1 medium onion (yellow or white) diced
2-3 cloves garlic minced
2 chicken sausage links sliced, casings removed (chicken sausage because it is lean and won't add extra saturated fat to the meal thus causing it to congeal a bit...eww...)
1 head broccoli cut into approximately 1 inch pieces
1 zucchini sliced and then cut into half-moons
10-12 white mushrooms sliced
2-3 roma tomatoes diced
1 tub store-bought pesto (in the refrigerated pasta/sauce section)
9oz tortellini of your choice (fresh or frozen, either work fine)

Saute onion in about 2 Tablespoons of olive oil until almost tender. Add garlic, saute one more minute. Add chicken sausage and saute until warmed through (a couple minutes). Add broccoli and zucchini, saute a couple more minutes. Then add mushrooms, saute a couple more minutes. Add tomatoes and saute until broccoli is tender (yes, a couple more minutes). Add cooked tortellini and pesto. Stir until all ingredients are well coated. Top with fresh shredded parmesan (is there any other kind?) and serve. Makes about 4 servings.
The sausage can be left, out for the veggie-only people out there, and it still tastes great!

The trick with sauteing veggies is to keep them at a steady heat (somewhere around medium), to add the ingredients by the length of time it takes them to cook (so not necessarily all at once) and to not move the food in the pan very much (as in, do not obsessively stir). If you stir it too much, the veggies turn out mushy. The idea is to cook things thoroughly but fast. The trick to tortellini and ravioli is to only boil them until they begin to float. Drain and rinse in cold water to stop them from cooking further.

...and now, the toddler variation. My nearly-three-year-old is a fairly picky eater. For a long time we felt like we were beating our heads against a wall trying to get him to eat anything green. Then, through having him help me prepare dinner and watching him sample everything I was cutting up fearlessly, I realized that he does not like cooked vegetables and he does not like his food mixed up. In fact, he is much more comfortable with very straight-forward meals of ingredients that do not touch. I found these fabulous plates with separate compartments at Target and it has made all the difference. Now when I make things like the above, I start by pulling out one of his plates and adding the vegetables to his plate while I am cutting them. Since he likes his broccoli cooked, I remove it before adding the pesto - same with the sausage and tortellini. Since making this effort, we have noticed a huge difference in his attitude towards dinner. He now willingly eats most vegetables and often asks for seconds. Tonight he ate everything except the tortellinis and since they are the least-healthy ingredient, I was quite satisfied. I was exactly like this as a child (freaked out at the thought of casserole and didn't like my foods to touch) so I *understand* my son and am therefore willing to humor his neurosis.