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Stuffed Chicken with Mushroom Gravy

By on November 12, 2012 in Food, Recipes

We’re right in the depths of fall, and fall calls for warm, one pot meals. Put the salads away, folks.

You don’t win friends with salad, after all. But you might win some friends with this dish. And you can make it in under an hour, making it a great weekday meal.

Assemble your ingredients. I used Applegate ham and Grafton Lakes 1 year cheddar, but you could use any salty meat and sharp cheese that you like. I also used some basil we had hoarded from over the summer, but you could use pretty much anything you wanted. Be creative.

You want to use about 4 cups of mushrooms. I used portobello, white button and shiitake, because I like chewy mushrooms. Instead of butter, you could use coconut oil or even olive oil, but butter is the best. Especially pastured butter.

If you noticed the booze in the back and are curious about the drink I made, wait until Wednesday. All will be revealed. For now, dust off something warm and strong from your liquor cabinet (or the top of your fridge, or the back of your cabinet) and sip while you prepare your meal.

Here’s the setup. Butterfly the chicken breasts lengthwise, leaving them attached on a long end. Pound them out to 1/4″ thickness. Put in two slices of meat, some cheese, and your herbs. Roll them up and tie with kitchen twine, or poke a lot of toothpicks through the open side. If your rolled chicken looks like a hot mess, don’t worry about it. Just do the best you can. It will be surprisingly forgiving.

Preheat your oven to 450*. Heat up an oven safe pan over medium heat and toss in about a tablespoon of your fat of choice. Brown the chicken on all sides (about 1.30 per side).

In the meantime, mess around with your dog by placing an ice cube on her butt. When the chicken is browned on all sides, put it in the oven. You want to cook the chicken rolls until they’re 165* when stuck with a thermometer. This took me about 15 minutes, because I didn’t go crazy with the browning. Take them out of the pan and set them aside to rest while you prepare the gravy.

The next step involves committing a crime against Julia Child. She really hates it when you crowd mushrooms, because they won’t brown properly. Mushrooms have a pretty high water content and will release some liquid, thus preventing a proper browning. If you want, you can drain the liquid from your pan and brown your mushrooms in turn, giving them room to breathe.

Or, you could do what I did, which was to leave all the juices and cheese that oozed out of the chicken, and dump the mushrooms in. Add an extra tablespoon of butter. For your health. Cook the mushrooms until they’re brown. Add a splash of red wine to taste (about 1/4 cup, on average), season to taste – I added salt, pepper, and fresh thyme – reduce the heat, and let simmer for 10 minutes until it thickens. If you like it really goopy, add some corn starch.

Put some mushroom sauce on your plate, and slice the chicken all fancy. Not bad, huh? Don’t forget to remove the twine and take out the toothpicks. And make another drink before you sit down to dinner. Enjoy.

 

 

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Leftover Basil Chicken

By on June 24, 2012 in Food, Recipes

What do you do when you haven’t finished the veggies from your farm share last week?

You mix them all together and create something tasty, that’s what.

It’s not quite a stir fry, because I don’t have a wok or pan big enough to hold all of these veggies successfully. But I do have a big enameled dutch oven which makes quick work of the veggies. I suppose technically these veggies were steamed and somewhat sauteed. Either way, it’s tasty.

Leftover Veggie Basil Chicken

  • 1.5 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs (or breasts)
  • 1 crown broccoli, chopped, stalk and all
  • 1 handful snap peas, chopped and with the pointy parts cut off
  • 1 summer squash, peeled and cut into half moons
  • 1 zucchini, prepared similarly to the summer squash
  • 1 red onion, diced small
  • 2-3 garlic scapes, chopped
  • 1 small handful purple basil
  • oil for sauteeing (coconut, sesame)

The sauce:

  • 2 T fish sauce
  • 2 T oyster sauce
  • 1 T soy sauce
  • 1 T double black soy sauce (easily found at any Asian grocery)
  • 2 T chili paste (most supermarkets carry sambal oelek, or you can make your own in a mortar and pestle with some oil and garlic)
  • 1 T raw honey or sweetener of choice (optional, but a little sweetness is nice)
  • 2-3 T water, depending on how thin you like your sauce
  • 1.5 T corn starch (also optional, but necessary if you want the sauce thick)

Heat up the oil in your pan. You will need a pretty big pan – you can use a wok or large dutch oven. Fry the chicken in the oil, cut into bite-sized pieces and set aside when fully cooked. Add a little more oil and saute the garlic scapes in the oil until they are browned. Add the onion, and cook until translucent.

Add the broccoli and cook until it has softened and turned a bright green, stirring often. Add the squash and snap peas and cook until they soften a bit, about 6-7 minutes. If your pan has a lid, you can add a little more oil, stir, put the lid on, and leave it for 7-8 minutes until the veggies soften.

Once the veggies are cooked to your liking, add the chicken. To make the sauce, whisk the ingredients together and pour over the chicken and veggies. Add the handful of basil. At this point, I put the lid on the pot, reduced the heat to low and let it simmer for 10 minutes so everything absorbs the flavor. If you’re using a wok or pan, you can either cover it or reduce the heat to low and stir it every few minutes until the sauce is fully absorbed.

You can serve it over rice but it’s great and filling without rice, too.

You can really use any variation of vegetables for dishes like this. This is what I happened to have left over from the farm share we picked up last week (although the purple basil was from this week). These kinds of dishes are great for lunch, freeze well, and make great leftovers. They’re great to prepare on a sunday and eat throughout the week. It’s especially good for people who don’t have good knife skills and need practice – carve some time out on Sunday to cook something like this and practice chopping and dicing different kinds of vegetables. Recipes that appeared daunting will go by much faster if you’ve got good knife skills.

 

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Fried Chicken Is Easy, Promise.

By on May 28, 2012 in Food, Recipes

When people tell me they can’t cook, I think they’re either unnecessarily afraid or lazy. If you can eat, you can cook. Cooking is an active process that requires paying attention, tasting, and patience. It’s not as easy as just simply following a recipe, but it’s not as hard as you think to make simple, tasty food.

 

Easy Fried Chicken

by Katie Vorwald

Ingredients

  • One package of chicken thighs and drumsticks, with bone and skin in.
  • All-purpose flour
  • seasoning of your choice (suggestions: onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, chili powder, cayenne, salt and pepper, packets of soup mix are also delicious)
  • buttermilk
  • oil for frying (canola is cheapest, but peanut is most delicious)

Instructions

Fill a large stock pot with oil about 3.5″ deep. Using a oil/candy thermometer, get the oil up to 335*. While the oil is heating up, combine about 2 cups of flour, salt, pepper, and seasonings in a large zip loc bag. Dip the chicken in the buttermilk, then toss a few pieces in the bag, close, and shake until thoroughly covered. Lay the coated pieces out on a baking sheet. Once all the chicken is finished, let it sit for another 15 minutes until the coating is very tacky.

Once the oil is heated up and the chicken is ready, drop a few pieces in the pot. Cook until the coating is a deep golden brown. If you’re frying a lot of chicken, you can put the fried chicken in the oven at 200* to keep it warm while you finish cooking. Serve hot.

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The spinach in the above dish is made by simply sauteeing spinach in butter until wilted and adding salt, pepper, garlic powder, and crushed dried jalapenos. When you’re cooking spinach, purchase way more than you think you’ll need, because it reduces quite a bit. An entire large container of Olivia’s Organics spinach was only enough for two people.

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