Light as a cucumber, Stiff as a salad

Because I'm waking up long before the break of dawn to watch THE ROYAL WEDDING (cue Cannon in D), I figured I should stick with a light dinner, not like there's any correlation between the guaranteed sleep deprivation I'm sure to experience and the amount of food consumption but hey, I'm no scientist, I do what I want!

With the past two heavy meals far back, passed out and gasping for air on the track that no doubt is the trajectory of my chefitude-ness, I stuck with an old faithful dish, which requires no recipe.  Da Da Daaaaa...the salad!  I mixed romaine lettuce, kale (more on that in a moment), cut up radishes and mushrooms, green olives, banana peppers--to keep it interesting--and a sprinkling of chopped walnuts.  Topped with some classic Italian dressing, it was perfect!

Have you ever noticed that every now and then, at the most random place ever, you find a food staple that's amazing?  This happened to me a while back, when I was eating a salad at Edwardo's in Wheeling.  Not the classiest of joints but it's decent.  However, I could bathe in their house dressing.  It is curiously good.  Like, you're just a pizza parlor yet you have this amazing secret, kind of good.  I refuse to buy it though, since I fear that if I indulge, it'll lose it's luster.  Kind of like how I listened to Pink's 'Raise Your Glass' so many times that when I hear it now, I want to chop my ears off so the pain will stop.  Although sometimes, I have the opposite reaction, beautifully interpreted here.

Anyway, to go with my light(ish) dinner, I was feeling the whole "water with lemon" thing now that I'm off my pop kick--thank you Lent!  At the risk of sounding dangerously like a health nut quack, there is something to be said for an ice cold glass of water.  It's the lemon that's making it look yellow, I swear!!

With that, I've never understood the "compliment" of telling someone they're like a tall drink of water.  I get it--hot day, need cold water--I'm from Arizona, I know a thing or two about the value of agua--but really?  Interesting fact--if you UrbanDictionary.com it (yeah, I made it a verb) one of the tags is "David Boreanaz".  The vampires are everywhere...but Angel, you were different!

Jetting back to the salad for a second, I had an interesting observation while grocery shopping these past several days--American food packaging is really off the charts.  Do I really need this much kale?  THERE IS NO SMALLER BAG.  THIS IS THE ONLY SIZE YOU CAN BUY. My attempt to demonstrate how large this bag is may have fallen short--you be the judge.

That's a lot of salads to add that too, given that it wouldn't be the main leafy green (too tough) although I found an interesting recipe for a type of kale chip to replace a potato chip (those crazy vegans!  God love 'em) but I burnt the crap out of it in the toaster oven--did I buy industrial?--so I only got to taste one and the rest weren't salvageable.  But the one was good!  I'll have to play around with the temperature and time settings.  And at least I got rid of some of the kale even if it did go straight from the bag, to the oven, to my trash can.

I followed the salad and kale chip (singular) with some cut up cucumber mixed in a spicy chipotle flavored oil blend that my mom loaned me, which was FANTASTIC.  I'd been missing my hot sauce staple lately.

Lastly, thanks to my Irish buds, I found that one of the ways to eat soda bread is to top it with melted cheese so I did exactly that while watching one of my new favorite shows "Happy Endings" on NBC.  Yum, yum, yum...delicioso!

And that's all folks so I bid everyone an "hasta luego" since I'm turning in for the night...but I'll be up shortly and the world will have a new princess!  I should learn how to make a crumpet to go with my tea.  Here's hoping Kate brings hats back in fashion.

Wait, the Oven is Off?

Day 2 of "Cook Because You Can!" greeted me with a nice wake up call this morning at 4:30 a.m., which was a perfect time for some hot cereal!  I tried the Trader Joe's version of Cream of Wheat...enriched farina Hot Wheat Cereal.  In case you curious Georges out there are wondering what "enriched farina" is, I looked it up for all of us.  Basically, a hot, wheat cereal, which begs the question, isn't it redundant to put the name of your product as "Enriched Farina Hot Wheat Cereal"?  Why not just "Hot Wheat Cereal"?  The "enriched farina" part doesn't really do much for me.  But I guess people do order "Stuffed Chile Rellenos" so I shouldn't be too surprised.  I sprinkled a little cinnamon sugar onto it and it was mighty tasty in the wee hours of the morn.

Sitting in the relative silence with only the birds chirping, enjoying my breakfast, it got me thinking of dinner (I can imagine this will eventually turn into a problem of gluttony).  Since I have so much chicken (...a whole one!) left over, and my mind already was fully parked and napping at the cinnamon rest stop on Taste Bud Highway, I snatched up my "Chicken: A Collection of over 100 Essential Recipes" book and got to looking.  In trying to find a link for it (can't), I got extremely sidetracked by this book, to which I've decided I must own immediately.

"Chicken: A Collection of over 100 Essential Recipes" is one of those books that's always placed in the Barnes & Noble entry way, on sale for $3.99, that most people would breeze right past.  Not I!  How can you turn down a book that's JUST CHICKEN recipes?  I mean, aside from the vegans and vegetarians, how much chicken does the average person consume?  A lot, right?  You could go 100 days without eating the same variation of chicken!  Why this book is in the bargain bin is beyond me.  But then again, I'm a book hunter of all sorts.  This might explain why I also fell victim to purchase "Cupcakes", "Smoothies" (looking forward to trying that one!), and "Cookies".  

Tabbing over to the "Hearty Dishes" chapter, I was immediately drawn to "Roast Cinnamon Squab Chickens with Lentils" on page 110.  I had to cheat and look up squab and thought, "...but this is a CHICKEN book?"  I decided to go with the biggest piece of chicken I had left and moved it to thaw in the fridge while at work.  The good news about this go around?  I only had to buy 3 items in the grocery store instead of practically the entire meal!

I started the recipe with a wonderful sauce to brush over the chicken before roasting (note: I don't have a brush so I spooned over the chicken instead--must pick up during next Target run) that was 3 tablespoons of maple syrup, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, and a tablespoon of vegetable oil.  The chicken was nestled in a roasting dish (does the average person own this??  I used a bread pan) with onions "tucked around the bird".

While that was roasting, I put the coriander and cumin seeds into a pan "until they start to give off an aroma".  Kind of wondered what the point of this step was but I thought I'd just get on with it.  

After that, I was instructed to "tip [the spices] into a mortar and finely crush with a pestle."  There are two words in that sentence that I have no clue what they're about.  I replaced "mortar" with "bowl" and "pestle" with "hand and spoon".

That worked quite well for what I thought it was asking me to do (turns out I wasn't too far off!)  

After that, I blended together my spices and crushed garlic (crushed using the same method above) in some olive oil.

And then added the canned lentils (which felt like cheating).  I should say that at this point, not having much knowledge of what certain spices taste like, I had no clue whether this was going to be sweet or salty.  Turns out it's sweet!  Or maybe I should have guessed that from the maple syrup and cinnamon glaze I "brushed" over the chicken.  Foresight, anyone? 

Right about this time, I had so many timers starting and going off that I must have inadvertently hit the "Off" button thinking I was stopping a timer, but really, you guessed it, turned off the oven.  How did I find this out?  After my chicken timer went off at the end of the 35 minute roast and it looked exactly like it did when I put it in.  Whoops!  There goes another 30 minutes before I can start eating--and I had timed everything else just perfectly!

Once the chicken was finally done, I poured the lentil concoction on the base of the plate and put the cinnamon chicken on top with some of the roasted onions and ta da!

I paired this meal with some peas with black pepper and white wine.  Oh you fancy huh?  

All in all, it was a large piece of chicken that, unfortunately, wasn't that good.  I'm not sure if it was the recipe or the way I prepared it.  Maybe I should have taken the skin off before I put the glaze on to roast?   Maybe left the chicken in a little longer...like 5 more minutes?  Maybe I'm not a fan of sweet glazes?  Maybe I was too distracted watching my DVR'd "The Voice"? (Blake Shelton I love you!)  I'm not too sure.  At this point, I don't think I'd be making the chicken part again any time soon.

But let me tell you...the lentils. were. fan-freaking-tastic!  I would definitely make that again and can't wait to heat up the leftovers for tomorrow's dinner.

You live and you learn right?  Can't say I went hungry tonight.

I'd like a chicken...a whole one

Greetings everyone!  At the risk of horribly copying what I just today found out was sort of the plot to "Julie and Julia" (never seen it, I plead innocence!), I'm starting a food blog to document my foray into the culinary world in the hopes of, at the end (whenever that may be) I find myself an accomplished hash slinger in the kitchen.

"I need a hobby!" exclaimed Angela whilst preparing for yet another Sunday night TV marathon.  "Something worthwhile!  Something fun!  Something I can do by myself!  Something that might be good for...man trappin'!"  With that, I dragged my not so weary legs 20 feet into the kitchen and pulled out one of my over 40 cookbooks and/or cooking magazines.  I decided to start with this delightful selection since another pastime of mine is relating anything and everything I can to something literary--hello Emerson.

What I like about this cook book, aside from the fact that it's smartly written by Roald Dahl's granddaughter, is that it's broken up by seasons.  As I lazily flipped through the pages, I began my usual habit of looking for the recipes containing ingredients I currently have in my fridge or pantry.  If you know anything about my fridge or pantry, this can be quite the challenge.  Memories of living off tuna and Cheerios in college just came flooding back.  Side note: Tuna, straight from the can mixed with a little black pepper and doused in Frank's Hot Sauce makes for some surprisingly good eatin'--but then again, that might just be the 20 year old in me talking.

Anyway, back to the task at hand.  After reconciling with myself that I'd have to make a trip to the store after work and checking Weather.com (have I mentioned I love adverse weather?) only to discover that the following day was to be a gloomy, rainy day, I decided to go with a stew.  Yes, a stew.  To be specific the "Chicken Stew with Green Olives" on page 188.

I'm normally not a soup type person (I'm sure there's a difference between soup and stew) but I thought the weather called for it and I'm up for trying anything once.  Alright, I was also swayed by the scrumptious picture they had attached to the subsequent page.  Additionally, I was drawn to the main ingredient, "1 chicken, cut up by your butcher" partly because it made me laugh that she assumed I have a butcher, but also because it would force me to talk to the butcher.  I have this irrational fear of looking stupid to the grocery store butcher by asking such asinine questions like, "What is THAT?" or "All I'm familiar with is turkey and chicken...what else is good?" or "What does a pound of thinly sliced turkey really equate to?"  I also have a fear of looking stupid in the grocery store in general, which is why I'll spend a vast amount of time going up and down every single aisle before I would EVER ask someone where something was.

I also thought stew sounded like a good pairing for what started this whole meal plan, which was Irish soda bread.  Stew and Soda.  Sounds like a match made in heaven.  One of my other kitchen goals along with learning what crazy kinds of meats are out there in the vast world of "foreign food", is to bake a "national bread" from every country I can think of.  Thankfully, this gem takes a lot of the potential guess work out of it.  Yes, I own "The Bread and Bread Machine Bible" too.  Come on, who doesn't love bread?!

So, after finalizing my dinner for the next night and dutifully writing down what I needed to get at the store the next day, I went onto the computer to look up what was and/or where to find "fennel" (in the produce aisle and it's a bulb--who knew?  well, probably lots of people), "cream of tartar" (in the spice aisle and it's white), and what "sweat the garlic" meant.  I'll now try and work that into every sentence possible since the connotations I dream up are quite amusing.

Flash forward to the next evening and behold my prepping station!  See, I wasn't joking about the cook books!

"Alright," I thought, "Let's get this started!"  Step 1: In a large pan, add 3 tablespoons of oil and sweat the garlic and fennel for a few minutes.  Damn!  Forgot the garlic.  At this point, there's no way I'm going back to the store; it was already 7 p.m.!

All in all, excluding that small hiccup, the recipe was really easy to follow and I was only slightly leery of the "whole chicken cut up by the butcher" that I purchased.  Although I did a slight cop out on that because I found a prepackaged (by the butcher though!!) cut up chicken so my phobia lives another day.

Here's the end result, which I must say while lacking garlic, was delicious!  I added some white wine (okay, the recipe called for it--I'm not that creative, fly by the seat of my pants type of cook....yet) and I think that gave it a unique slightly, SLIGHTLY tart taste.

And there you have it, folks!  One tasty, perfect-for-a-spring-rainy-day stew.  Light yet substantial and now I have some great leftovers for lunch tomorrow...and maybe dinner some other night (the only bad thing with cooking for one person but hey! I've got a cook book for that too!).

The soda bread, which I wasn't too worried about, turned out warm and yummy.  Paired with some English breakfast tea (I know, I'm a little off on the time frame) with some honey, it was the perfect ending to the day (and I'm sure tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day...again with the portions!)