So… let’s talk about red potatoes.  I saw this recipe online where the person took the potatoes and grilled them on the grill while cooking their meat.  I wanted to try this, but put my own take on it.  They turned out great {cooked a little too long, but still wonderful} but I love potatoes no matter how they are served.  I took some petite red potatoes and halved them then boiled them for just a few minutes.  I wanted to make sure they weren’t going to be too hard when they came off the grill.  After letting them boil for just a few minutes, I drained them and added a little butter and salt.  I then made an envelope out of tin-foil and put all the potatoes in there with a branch of rosemary and some sliced garlic pieces.  They went on the grill with the quail for about 15-20 minutes and where GREAT.

As for the chicken.  Check out my earlier post about the “Thrifty Chicken in a Bath” … that was my first experience with a brine.  I basically followed the recipe but replaced tarragon with rosemary.  I also threw in the rind from one whole orange and then added the juice I squeezed out of the orange as well.  Everything else – the same.  I’m not sure if it is really the reason, but the chicken had a great crust this time and I’m wondering if the citrus had anything to do with it.  Anyhow – it was great too.  Really juicy.

This weekend is a little slow.  Perhaps a cooking experiment is in order.  Night ya’ll.

I was walking up and down the aisles at Harris Teeter wondering what I would make for dinner …  {Sometimes I think that’s the best way to find dinner} … and I came across an end-cap filled with frosting.  A new kind of frosting that looks like it is in a chocolate syrup bottle that you heat up in the microwave and pour over your cake.  No longer do you have to wait for the cake to cool completely … gone are the days of ripping off the top layer of cake or having crumbles stuck in your frosting… wahoooo!  Here is my beautiful work of deliciousness.

{Amen}

And here is the bottle of yummy goodness.

Thank you Duncan Hines for making my cake so delicious!  Ya’ll have fun with this one… I’m going to go heat the leftover frosting and find some strawberries! Night!

Let me start by saying, my photos are random at best.  I was talking, cooking, drinking, etc… I snapped pics when a good photo-op hit me in the face!  Secondly, if you have a “beer batter” that you like to use on fish … use that.  Otherwise you can follow the directions below for batter.  We had a box of beer batter that we like to use.  And we use MGD as the liquid.  Makes it authentic!!!

To make the beer batter:  In a large bowl, combine 1 cup all purpose flour, 2 tablespoons cornstarch, 1 teaspoon baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Blend 1 egg and 1 cup beer {Miller Genuine Draft is the best!} then quickly stir into the flower mixture.  Don’t worry about a few lumps. {Remember: You can bypass this whole step if you have a batter you like to use that comes out of a box}

To make the most wonderful white sauce you have ever tasted … follow these directions: In a medium bowl, mix together 1/2 cup plain yogurt and 1/2 cup mayonnaise.  Gradually stir in fresh lime juice until consistency is slightly runny.  Season with 1 teaspoon minced capers {which I hate, but you can’t taste them in this sauce}, 1 jalapeno pepper minced, 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano, 1/2 teaspoon cumin, 1/2 teaspoon dill weed and 1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper. {Delish – I’m going to have to find another use for this sauce. It really was great!}

Now, to get to the fish. We used about 1 pound of Cod fillets, fresh from the butcher.  I’m sure you could use some frozen Cod, thawed.  We cut them up into long narrow strips.  You could also do small chunks if you wanted.  Heat oil or your deep fryer to approx 375 degrees.  Dip the fish into the beer batter and fry until crisp and golden brown.  Drain the grease from the fish on paper towels.

{This is where I should have a lovely picture of a pile of fried fish!}

In the meantime, you want to heat up some corn tortillas in a fry pan.  They taste so nice after they have been heated up and fried a bit with some oil in the pan.  When you’re ready to serve … place friend fish in the tortillas, top with shredded cabbage and some cheese then top with the white sauce. {Mmmm. I’m thinking this should be served for dinner again tomorrow.} It looks something like this – served with black beans.

Don’t hate. It was a paper plate kinda night. I’m telling you though – - Fish Tacos – - Amazing!  And, I’d love to hear about it when you make them.  I hope they bring all kinds of chats to your dinner table!  Night Ya’ll!

How in the world did I learn all these lessons in one day?  Well, it’s quite easy.  I was watching food network last night and got inspired to chop a backbone out of a whole chicken because the B*#!& made it look so darn easy.   Simple as that.  {Really, she was teaching me how to use a brine on a chicken and pan-roast it until it’s quite delish and juicy!} I highly recommend this recipe to you all.  It was really easy, made me feel like I was really “cookin” and tasted quite delicious when it was finished… And, if you have all the spare ingredients {tarragon, white wine, onions, etc..} then it may really cost you under $10.00 for dinner! {And that my friends would be a huge success!}

Let’s start with the ingredients. You will need:

1 – 3 to 4 pound chicken

1/2 cup of kosher salt

1/2 cup of brown sugar

4 cups hot water

1 small onion, chopped (big pieces are fine)

1 tablespoon of whole peppercorns

2 sprigs of fresh tarragon, chopped (big pieces are fine)

2 cloves of garlic, smashed (I love garlic and used 4-5 cloves)

4 cups ice water

1/2 cup white wine

3 tablespoons of olive oil

First, you want to create the brine.  To do that, take the hot water and add the sugar and salt and stir until dissolved.  Once it is dissolved, add the onion, garlic, tarragon, peppercorns, and white wine.  Give it a quick whisk.  Add the ice water.  You do not want the mixture to be hot at all when you add the chicken.  Set this aside.

While that is cooling off … it’s time to clean up our chicken.  You’re going to want to clean it off, take the nasty stuff out of the inside and then lay it flat on a cutting board breast side down.  Take a good pair of kitchen scissors and cut down both sides of the backbone detaching it from the chicken.

Then you will submerge your chicken in the brine.  I read somewhere if your chicken starts to float, you can add a ziplock back full of ice.  Mine wasn’t really floating, but I thought it would be fun and ‘safe’ to do that step too.

This goes in the fridge for an hour.  This is what I did while I was waiting for my chicken to finish it’s bath …..

After you chicken is done bathing … it’s time to fire up the pan and preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  You want to get your pan nice and hot and then add the 3 tablespoons of olive oil.  Before you lay the chicken in the pan you want to lay it breast side up on a cutting board and break the breast bone so the chicken lays as flat as possible.  You will also want to blot the chicken off with a paper towel to absorb as much moisture as you can.  Then you want to find a really heavy pot/pan, a cast iron pan or a brick covered in tin foil to pay onto of the chicken … The idea here is that you are going to get the maximum surface area pressed down in your hot pan in order to make the skin as crispy as possible.  Place the chicken breast side down in the pan for 8-10 minutes on med/high heat.  Here is my ghetto “press” …

And here is what my chicken looked like when I flipped it over after 10 minutes:

Once you get a good crust … place the chicken (breast side up) in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until the temperature reaches 160 degrees.  Make sure you let the chicken rest for about 10 minutes before you cut into it … I could hardly wait that long.  I served mine with red potatoes and sauteed zucchini and onions.  Everything turned out delicious.  I will say that I was surprised that you could not taste the ‘brine’ as much as I thought you’d be able to.  It smelled so strong with the tarragon and the onion and garlic that I thought for sure the seasoning would be overpowering but it wasn’t in the slightest.  Very mild actually.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy the recipe and try it out for yourself … I’m sure it was a good laugh for those of you who know me to picture the visual of me chopping up a chicken… but it was worth it – and fun to boot!  Night ya’ll!

Anyhow. Tonight I made Garlic and Rosemary Lamb Chops, Red Potatoes and Asparagus. It was pure deliciousness. And even better was the fact that usually I put them in the broiler, but the foodie bf grilled them for me … yum! Basically, i cut up a few twigs of rosemary and a few pieces of garlic, salt and pepper and then poured in some olive oil. I put it all in a ziplock bag and let them marinate as long as I could wait. Here’s a look at said “marination” ….

I know it looks a little disgusting, but trust me it’s amazing.  So … I let this sit for a while {really only about 45 minutes, but that’s as long as I could wait … and even that was torture for a girl who had only had a piece of leftover pizza all day} and then made some red potatoes – boiled – while they were draining, I coated the bottom of the pot with butter and salt and then threw the potatoes back in to soak up the goodness!  I also made steamed asparagus but instead of pouring out the little bit of extra water… I boiled some butter {I guess it’s called emulsifying} and poured it over them. {yummy, but not diet food}

Here’s the meat:

And here’s the finished product …. If you need better instructions, just ask! Enjoy ya’ll

You will need: 6TBSP of butter {yes}, 1 pound of top sirloin or tenderloin cut into thin strips about an inch long, 1/3 cup of chopped shallots {this seemed like a lot, I didn’t use that much and just kinda eyeballed it}, 1/2 pound of cremini mushrooms sliced {yuck, yuck but I did it anyways. I couldn’t stand to measure them so I just chopped up half a container and called it a day}, 1/8 tsp of nutmeg, 1/2 tsp of dry tarragon and 1 cup of sour cream at room temperature. {By the way … I LOVE SOUR CREAM!}

It’s actually quite simple.  You’re going to want to do all your chopping first … get your water boiling for the egg noodles. {Oh, did I mention those already? Well, you’ll want to serve this with egg noodles, potatoes or rice.} Next heat up a pan with three tbsp of butter.  The idea is to brown the meat on both sides quickly as to not dry out the middle. Make sure to salt and pepper it well while it’s doing its thing … Once you’ve browned the pieces on each side for a few minutes, put the meat in a bowl and set aside. 

Looks yummy doesn’t it?!  After you set aside the meat, add the extra 3 tbsp’s of butter and bring the heat down a bit.  Saute the shallots for a few minutes until tender and then take them off the heat and add them to the meat.  Do the same thing with the mushrooms.  I’m assuming that they wanted me to do these two steps separate like I just described to you … but I got a little over zealous when I was chopping and added the shallots and mushrooms to the same bowl and there was no way that I was going to sit there and pick them out … so everything got sautéed together and it turned out just fine. 

Notice something missing in the picture above? …. Mushrooms perhaps?  Yes, I spent “a few” minutes chopping mushrooms that I hate because I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt, until the foodie bf came along and threw half of them down the garbage disposal. Yeah, he doesn’t care for them either.  So, the moral of the story is that Beef Stroganoff can be made with little to no mushrooms and still taste wonderful!  Next comes the good part, the sour cream.  You’re going to want to add a cup of sour cream to the mushrooms {or the mushrooms AND shallots if you combine them like me} being careful not to bring it to a boil … apparently sour cream can curdle.  {Add salt and pepper at this point if you’d like}

Lastly, you’re going to return the meat to the pan and cook for just a bit longer to bring the meat back up to temperature from sitting patiently in that bowl.  A little note: When I browned the beef I got a lot of moisture that came out of the mean and so I had a good bit of liquid in my meat bowl. In hindsight, I added a bit to much of it to the sour cream and made it a little bit too runny for my liking.  Next time I will drain the meat, saving a bit of the liquid in case the sauce is too thick and I can add a bit in at a time.  But, that’s cooking for you … a learning process.

So there you have it my friends.  The dinner that was born from waiting on the rain to pass in the parking lot of the grocery store at 8:30pm on a Friday night.  I’m sure there are other people out there like me… it may just take me a while to find them!! {ha} Enjoy Y’all …