Coffee Brined Chicken

I spent the day recovering from three straight days of 4 hours or more of volleyball.  I also spent the day taking my mandatory online traffic school course.  All in all, it felt like a sick day without the nausea.  I had thrown some frozen chicken pieces in a coffee brine yesterday.  The end result was a smokey, roasty, almost caramel flavor in a very moist chicken--a winner of a recipe.

http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/coffee-brined-chicken-drumsticks-10000001875773/

The recipe says to use chicken legs, but I used a half of a chicken cut into pieces and the white meat turned out great.  I had some left over arugula and chard from my last CSA box and made a quick salad with a dressing of balsamic and truffle oil.  I find that truffle oil makes any salad delicious.  Usually it's pretty expensive, but Fresh and Easy has a bottle for 6 bucks.  A steal! Now I know it doesn't use real truffle extract.  Instead, it creates the aroma using a chemical compound.   However, for salad dressing it does the trick at a fraction of the price.

Tomorrow, I will set out a plate of fruit, assorted cheeses, and vegetables.  If I have the time, i want to also make some homemade chevre.  I love an occasional night of cheese for dinner.  Decadent, but delicious!

Miso and Soba noodle soup

We gorged ourselves this weekend.  First we went to the famous Donut Man shop in Glendora.

http://www.thedonutmanca.com/

This place is famous for their fresh strawberry stuffed glazed donuts, and rightly so.  Hubs, who is a known donut connoisseur, proclaimed them to be some of the best he has ever had.  If you are ever in Glendora (and why would you be??) by all means, get yourself one!

We had some pretty mediocre barbecued ribs with my folks at a whitewashed, suburban bbq joint.  Then we went to the San Gabriel Valley for dumplings

Oh my goodness.  I love me some dumplings!  Now the SGV is a mainly chinese and vietnamese neighborhood just east of downtown LA, but I am always shocked at how many people in the Los Angeles area never go there.  Perhaps they are intimidated by the unknown restaurants and lack of English.  Maybe they worry about the famous LA traffic. Whatever.  They are the ones missing out.  The food is always delicious and so very cheap.  That's two things i adore.  Delicious! Cheap!  Seriously folks.  Find an ethnic neighborhood in your city and try a restaurant where you are the only one who doesn't speak the language.  Point to whatever everyone else is eating.  Chances are you are going to have a fantastic meal.  I guarantee it will at least be an adventure.

I decided to make a healthy soup for dinner.  I heated up a pot of water, threw in a few cloves of crushed garlic, a half cup of white miso, a package of tofu i had diced up, some shredded chard and crumbled geem.   (Roasted and seasoned seaweed sheets).  I poured that over a fistful of soba noodles my newly gluten free sister had given me from her pantry.  Paired with a baked japanese sweet potato (drier and pale yellow in comparison to it's American cousin) and it made for a yummy, filling and healthy dinner.  perfect for this rainy monday night!

My Favorite Salad

I spent the day waiting for the handyman.  I own a rental property and have some guys in their early 20's renting it.  These dudes are clueless.  They've called me for ants, they ask to be late with the rent because they are "changing banks", they call me to complain about the neighbor's construction noise during weekday business hours. Hey hipsters, get an effin job and you won't have to hear the noise!  On Tuesday they called to say that their doorknob fell off. Fair enough.  The handy man came by and found that one of the pins in the original craftsman door had broken.  So he found an approximate replacement, took it home to mill it down and then brought it back the next day.  He also installed a strike plate in the frame because the original one was missing.  I get a call early this morning from the tenants telling me that the door won't lock.  So I called the handyman again and waited around until he could get to the rental.  Turns out the door locked--it was just one of those things where you had to juggle it a little.  I don't know about you, but I have lived in a ton of old houses and there is always some sort of jiggling that has to happen: door lock, toilet handle, window pane.  It's a fact of living in a crafstman.  So a wasted day.

Luckily, I had leftover baked chicken from last night, left over homemade mayo from the spanish tortilla, some bread dough in the fridge, and some fixins for my favorite salad.  I cut up the chicken with apples, pumpkin seeds and the mayo.  A little celery salt and pepper, throw the mix on the bread and presto, a delicious chicken sandwich.  And now for my favorite salad:

Throw a bunch of arugula in a bowl, cut up some watermelon into bite sized pieces, dress it with a little truffle oil and balsamic vinegar and toss.  Shave parmesean over it and you've got a fabulous side dish.  It's so easy.    Although I doubt my tenants could handle it...

Roast Chicken

So I had this gorgeous all natural organic chicken and decided to roast it simply to highlight the flavor.  I found a recipe adapted from cook's country. Basically you poke holes all over the chicken, mix together 2 tsp of salt with 2 tsp cornstarch and cover the chicken with it.  Roast it wing up at 475 for 15 minutes, then turn it so the other wing is up.  Roast another 15 minutes.  Then turn it breast side up and roast for 20 more minutes.  The juice and fat that leaks out from the holes mixes with the cornstarch to make a crusty, crispy skin.  In theory it is a brilliant idea.  i have a couple of issues however.

1.  I apparently cannot keep track of time.  For the last twenty minute roast, I went out to water my tomatoes.  I came back in and the timer had gone off and it was a wee bit smokey in the kitchen.  Ok, a lot smokey.  Where the hell are the hot firemen?  BTW, the hottest firemen in the world are located at the Echo Park fire department.  I seriously was 2 inches from walking into a light post because I was staring in awe as I passed them just hanging out and looking super hot.

2.  The skin was EXCELLENT.  However, the meat was plain.  It was also a smidge dry but I am sure it is because I lost track of time.  I wouldn't totally discard this method, but next time i will season the meat under the skin.  I like studding the chicken with garlic or placing slices of lemon or some herbs between the skin and meat.  Combining these methods I think will make a really succulent bird.

I tossed it with a kale and chard salad gleaned from my neighbors yard.  Only a few more days available to me!  I chiffonaded the leaves, thinly sliced half an apple, threw in a handful of pumpkin seeds and tossed it with some flax oil and olive oil.  Then i added a few tablespoons of a finely grated pecorino and bread crumb mix.  My sister sent me home with a big bowl of this, as she has decided to go gluten free.  More food for me!

Now I have all this left over chicken grease and I have to figure out how to utilize it.  The dog is staring at me and willing me to put it in her bowl, but I have learned to resist her cute little face.  she did get a scrap of crispy skin, though.  And she approves.

Michael Ruhlman's Biscuits--DAYUM!!!!

Holy crap people.  I spent a good part of my early twenties perfecting my biscuits.  Every time I make them people tell me they are the best they have ever had.  (Blush)  So I am loathe to try a new biscuit recipe, but I couldn't resist this one.

http://ruhlman.com/2013/02/biscuit-recipe-and-ratio/

HOLY. CRAP.  Those are some tasty goddamn biscuits!  I went over with Hubs to my best friend's house to watch Game of Thrones last night.  BTW GoT fanes, have you seen this hysterical website?

http://www.happyplace.com/22775/game-of-thrones-facebook-recap-season-3-episode-1

Best friend is a pescatarian who will occasionally eat chicken breast, however I usually just cook a vegetarian meal for her, just to be safe.  I went to my old standby, Spanish tortilla ( referred to in a previous post).  I also made biscuits, because I had just read "Ratio" by Michael Ruhlman.  The croissant technique intrigued me and I find that it is best not to make biscuits for only two people unless I want to be forklifted out of the house.

I wish i had taken a picture, but suffice it to say they we very flaky.  And the flavor, although the recipe is spartan, is full and complex.  We ate them as a base to strawberry shortcake.  By the time the credits rolled, there was only the sound of spoons scraping bowls.  Long live the Starks! Long live Michael Ruhlman!

Mussels Mariniere

I bought some mussels at Costco.  10 bucks for three pounds!  I have a mussels and chorizo recipe that is really good, but I wanted to do a traditional French preparation.  I am using this recipe

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/mussels-mariniere-2/


I went over to my neighbors place to get some parsley.  They rented it out and it will be occupied as of April 15, so i only have a few more times to raid her garden box.  i can't wait til my tomatoes and peppers come in so i can just use my own yard.  I also cooked a loaf of bread using the ubiquitous no-knead recipe.  I swapped out 2/3 of the regular flour for the Bob's Red mill gluten free flour mix.  We've been trying to lower the amount of gluten hubby takes in, testing to see if he has a gluten intolerance.  I've tried using a totally gluten free flour mix, but it sucks.  Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.  But I find this is a nice compromise.  It's a hearty loaf with a crisp crust and chewy crumb.  I also used the whey from a batch of mozzarella I made.  (Delicious, btw.  but messy without a microwave)  A large bunch of asparagus finishes out the meal.

I am glad I got such a big batch of mussels because about a quarter of them were broken or open wide, which is supposed to be a bad sign.  If I threw out the ones that were a tiny bit open, I would have ended up with half the batch.  let's hope for no food poisoning!

Peaches and cream cake

I love the Strawberry Dream Cake from Cook's Country

http://www.food.com/recipe/strawberry-dream-cake-cooks-country-487116

I made it for my bridal shower last year, thanksgiving, my friend's birthday, a house warming party.  Really, this has been my go to cake for the past 12 months.  It made sense for me to make it for my karaoke birthday party on Saturday.  However, March Madness is in full effect (my Hoosiers!  My beloved Hoosiers! Damn you Syracuse!)  and I was trying to both make my cake and watch a game.  I burnt the strawberries I was trying to defrost on the stove.  (No microwave in the house.  i have a long standing aversion to to them and the counter space they take up)  In order to avoid having to go out to the ghetto Von's by my house, i searched the freezer for an alternative.  There, in the frosty tundra underneath a forgotten bag of coconut and a few icy sticks of lard, there was a single bag of frozen peaches.  My friend's mom had a heavily laden branch pruned from her peach tree last year.  She gave me two huge bags of ripe and unripened fruit.  I made green peach chutney, green peach pickles, peach pie and peach jam.  I also blanched, peeled and froze a few quart sized bags of fruit that were at their peak ripeness.  This was my last one.  what better use than for my birthday cake!

I replaced the strawberries with peaches in the recipe.  I used 4 egg whites and 2 whole eggs.  In retrospect, i think i would have done 3 egg whites and 2 whole eggs.  The cake was delicious, but the crumb was a little more open than I prefer in a white cake.  I suspect the extra egg white contributed to that.  But otherwise the cake was a huge success.  Once peach season comes around again, i'll give it another go.