Some Good Ol' Chicken

I got a beautiful Dutch oven for Christmas from my mom. I have been dreaming about lovely things to make in it. Today, I made its inaugural meal, and it didn't disappoint. I was inspired by "lemon rosemary chicken" by http://franziskasfood.wordpress.com, but I made it my own. It's easy and very tasty, but you have to have an hour to spare, because that's how long it took to cook in my oven. 

Here's what I used:
10 very small red potatoes (you could easily cut large ones in half)
1 lemon, halved
4 small shallots, peeled
dried rosemary, to taste. I probably used about 2 Tbsp.
tsp. chili powder
1/2 Tbsp honey
1 cup white wine
4 fresh chicken thighs, bone-in, with skin
kosher salt
fresh ground pepper
4 Tbsp. olive oil
juice of one lemon

Preheat your oven to 400 and after washing the dirt off the potatoes, put them in a pot and cover them with water. Set the burner to high heat and once the water is boiling, let them simmer for about 9 minutes. You don't want them really soft- you're just cooking them enough so they won't be hard after roasting.

If you have time to do this earlier, then marinate the chicken longer. I, however, had like, 10 minutes and it was fine. Combine olive oil, honey, chili powder, some salt and cracked pepper, and lemon juice and marinate the chicken thighs.

When you've drained the potatoes, place them on the bottom of the roasting tin (or in this case, the Dutch oven. I'll bet a roasting tin would make everything nice and crispy, but the oven worked well too!). Stick the lemon halves and shallots in with them, too. Add 1/2 of the rosemary. Pour the wine over the potatoes, and add some salt and cracked pepper.

Arrange the chicken thighs, skin-side up, on top of the potatoes. Cover with any residual marinade. Add the last of the rosemary. Cook for one hour in a Dutch oven (maybe 45 minutes in a roasting pan). Make sure the juice runs clear when you pierce the chicken.

Remove the skin from the chicken (healthier!) and serve with the potatoes, cut open. Spoon a little of the juice from the bottom of the pan onto the chicken and potatoes.

I found this recipe to be easy and very good. It was pretty healthy, too, as long as I didn't gobble up too much of the wine/oil juice. The original recipe called for thickening the juice with milk and cornstarch, but I felt I'd rather spend the calories elsewhere. There was an almost buttery taste, yet no butter was used. The wine flavor cooks out, of course, and the lemon/rosemary/shallots were not overpowering. Plus, it made my house smell amazing. Are there any other rosemary fans out there?!

This served Mike and me, with some potatoes left over that I couldn't eat. You could easily have added more potatoes and more thighs to fit in the Dutch oven and serve more people.  

Try this out soon! You won't be disappointed! Next time I might use my roasting pan!

xoxo, A

Recipe Wednesday: No-Fuss, No-Fail Meal

Last Thursday on date night, I made a no-full meal that did not, and I believe could not, fail.  I had bought a Perdue chicken (the best in my opinion) for 99 cents a pound (hooray!), and a big ten pound bag of russet potatoes.  So here's what I did with those things, plus some spices and oil:


I slow-cooked the chicken for 9 hours.  It was so moist and succulent, it literally fell apart off the bone.  "You made good meat," Hband said.  And I had chicken broth left over.


I roasted the potatoes.  Simple, but they were so good I actually got a compliment from Hband.  Plus, he literally licked his plate clean.  Best compliment ever.  But I am ashamed to say we ate almost ALL the potatoes.  We're gluttons.


Here's what you need:

• a chicken that will fit in your slow cooker
• olive oil
• cracked pepper
• kosher salt or sea salt
• 6 medium russet potatoes
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
• crushed and dried basil leaves
• onion salt
• garlic powder

Take the giblets out of your chicken and rinse it.  Rub it down with olive oil and cracked pepper, salt, and garlic powder.  Place it in your slow cooker.  Cook on low for 8 hours (mine warmed for another hour until I got home from work).  DONE.


Preheat oven to 400.  Wash potatoes and cut into about one inch cubes.  Place in a bowl and fill halfway with water.  Cook in microwave for about ten minutes (you want them to be firm still, not soft and boiled).  Drain well.  Pour about 1/4 cup of olive oil in a roasting pan or casserole pan.  Toss your potatoes in and cover with pepper, salt, onion powder, basil, and crushed garlic, to taste.  Roast in the oven for about an hour, but be sure to toss them around halfway through.  You want them to brown evenly.  Be sure they're not burning.  You should have shriveling, crunchy browned potato chunks when they're done.


I served these with broccoli, and it was a feast.  This could easily feed four, with some leftovers.


I was inspired by this and this.


Go, and do likewise.


xoxo, A

Recipe Wednesday: Shredded Buffalo Chicken!

Wednesdays shall be henceforth known as Recipe Wednesday.  Even though my darling dearest wanted to be cute and suggested "Wecipe Wednesday." I may have laughed just a little/almost choked on my carrots.

Before I started dating Hband (that's husband, by the way, just in case anyone was confused), the thought of hot sauce made my stomach churn.  The smell alone was disgusting.  My dad liked it on his enchiladas, and all I remembered was that pungent smell and the crusty, rusty ring it collected around the cap.  Gross.

I also didn't care for wings.  In fact, I'm not even sure I started thinking about them until I was in college and heard my brother talking about meeting up with friends at Buffalo Wild Wings.

But then I moved to Florida, and either it's something here in Florida, or wings are having a moment, because suddenly, every guy I knew was crazy about wings, especially buffalo wings.  I couldn't have cared less about them.  I didn't like eating chicken off the bone, and they smelled funny.

And then I started dating my now husband, who ordered hot buffalo wings every single time we did the happy hour 1/2 price apps at the Applebees with the group.  He loved them so much.  I can picture him now: The plate arrives, he stoops down and inhales deeply, then gives a little twitch at that pungent smell, and dives in.  Soon there is sauce all over his face and hands, and the smell will linger for hours.

I mean, he really loves those things.  So I thought the least I could do was try them.  I did.  And I LIKED them.  Yeah, I really liked them.  "What's in this sauce?" I asked. 

"Hot sauce and margarine, I think." 

"...What?! Hot sauce? Gross!"

But it wasn't gross, it tasted delicious.  I am now therefore a buffalo sauce fan... but not so much wing fan.  What, I just still don't like eating meat off the bone!  What are we, Vikings with turkey legs?!  We've developed silverware, people!

In an effort to incorporate buffalo sauce into our dinners but without bones, I found this recipe on Pinterest and tried it out when we were dating.  It was an instant success, and probably one of the easiest meals I've ever made, ever.  Plus it fed us for days.

(source)

Shredded Buffalo Chicken in the Crock Pot:

I found this recipe here, but I've tweaked it just a bit.

Needed:

• one package of frozen chicken breasts (I use 2.5 lbs because that's what I can find and it fits in a smaller crock pot)
• one packet of dry Ranch dressing mix
• one bottle (I used about 3/4ths of a bottle) of buffalo sauce (I've used Ken's)

Directions:

• Dump the whole bag of frozen chicken into your crock pot. 
• Cover with sauce.  I've found 3/4ths a bottle gives it the right kick for me.  Hband likes more, so I put extra on his sandwich at the end.
• Dump the packet of dry Ranch mix on top.
• Turn the crock pot on low and cook for 7 hours.
• Take the chicken out after 7 hours and use two forks to shred into pieces.  This should be easy after 7 hours-- it should come apart by itself.
• Separate fat particles and throw those away.  What's great is those easily come off now that they've been slow-cooked.
• Put the shredded chicken back into the crock pot full of buffalo sauce/chicken juice and cook on low for another hour.
• After that hour, your chicken is done!  Use however you'd like.  Here are some of my favorites:

Sandwich:

Put the chicken on a hoagie roll of some kind.  I add pepper jack cheese and a little Ranch dressing.  Some might like blue cheese or blue cheese dressing.  Use your imagination!  This is usually the first way I use the chicken after cooking.

Pizza:

Make or buy some pizza dough (Publix has some mighty good pizza dough)and mix some Ranch dressing and buffalo sauce together.  Apply a thin layer of that mixture for sauce, then add chicken.  Top with pepper jack cheese.  This was a little too strong for me, but had good flavor. 

Pockets:

Use crescent rolls as dough pockets.  Apply Ranch dressing to the dough, then top with chicken and some pepper jack cheese.  Roll or pinch up so the sides close, then bake!  These were yummy!

Potatoes:

Bake up some potatoes (you can even do this in the crock pot for hours!), then top with chicken and pepper jack cheese, and maybe Ranch, too, or sour cream.

These obviously all have similar flavors, but that's the point: those flavors are delicious!  Instead of getting burnt out on buffalo, try freezing the leftovers (I did and it worked great!) and using one buffalo meal a week.  We had enough chicken for three full meals with leftovers of each.

Happy buffaloing!

xoxo, A