Grilled Peanut Chicken

Menu: Grilled Peanut Chicken; Tropical Rice Salad; Stir-Fried Green Beans

Lessons learned:

1. When buying chicken thighs, multiply the number of people you'll be serving by how many pounds of meat you think each of them might want to eat.  Then, add at least another half pound to that.
2. Plain macadamia nuts = "why do people get excited about these?"  Macadamia nuts in tropical rice salad = very exciting!
3. Brown rice was MADE for this salad.

For a few minutes, last night was a little disappointing.  John invited a couple from his department over for dinner last night at the last minute, so I changed my dinner plans in order to make something special.  Not a big deal; went out shopping for that.  After I got home and started cooking the rice, John got a call saying something came up and our guests wouldn't be able to come over after all.  So if I still cooked as planned, we were going to have a whole bunch of food.  I was kind of bummed about that, until I thought, wait, why would I be bummed about that?

The main question was, were we really going to go ahead and grill all 2.5 pounds of chicken I'd bought, or should I freeze half of it?  We decided just to go for it... whatever we didn't eat would keep for lunch the next day.

Let me back up.  We haven't made this in a while because of my no-meat-in-dinner experiment, but before that, grilled chicken thighs was one of our very favorite meals.  My mom used to make this amazing chicken when I was a kid, and I didn't realize that the reason it was so delicious was mainly because it was all dark thigh meat!  All she would do was make a recipe of Good Seasons Italian dressing, dump it in a bag with some chicken thighs, and bake.  SO good.  Most chicken recipes I see call for white meat -- I suppose because it's healthier -- so for a while, that's all I bought.  But forget that.  Thigh meat is more delicious and less expensive.  Once that light bulb went off, I've never gone back.

Anyway, I don't ever really make the same marinade twice; I always just start with sort of a general theme or inspiration, see what I have on hand that seems to fit with that, and throw everything in a bowl haphazardly.  Definitely no measurements.  Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.  Last night, though... um, yeah, you might say it worked.  You might say it totally rocked that chicken, and you would be correct.  You might also say it's a good thing that nobody else came over wanting any chicken after all, and that would be correct as well.

When I stopped cooking with meat, I wasn't really sure where or how long the experiment would go; I mainly wanted to see if it was possible, and I wanted to adjust the extent to which we (I) crave meat.  I'd say on both scores, it's been more successful than I anticipated, with the exception being that we eat bacon probably once every couple of weeks.  But two things happened yesterday that made me come to a decision about how far to take this.

First, I got a rare chance to go to the library by myself, where I naturally made my way to the cookbook section.  I discovered that the vegetarian cookbooks are relegated to the "health food" section, and are mostly filled with recipes that my family and I are just never going to be excited about eating.  I know that the library's selection isn't necessarily representative of everything that's out there, but it made me a little sad to realize that so many of the wonderful recipes in the majority of other cookbooks were no longer conducive to my diet.

Second, it's been a long time since I've seen my kids so focused on a meal.  As soon as they heard we were having chicken -- I mentioned it while I was cooking -- neither of them could stop talking about it and asking for it.  Chicken has always been one of the few things Sophie actually eats consistently, so cutting that out was a significant sacrifice (although we have mostly made up for it with Quorn).  After she ate all of her chicken, she came over to our plates to get more.  Ben, who is normally up and down during dinner, just sat there very quietly for several minutes on end, just eating and enjoying.  Now, I don't think the kids are deprived.  If I wanted to keep meat completely out of our dinners, they would be fine, as they have been since the beginning.  But seeing them eat like that just made me so happy.

So I think that sometime soon, I'm going to designate just one day a week where I make meat for dinner.  Maybe Saturday or Sunday, and it can be a special meal.  That way I can still try out delicious-sounding recipes for carnivores from time to time, and I think it would make my family a lot more excited about dinner -- always a good thing.  And to balance, I might also (more discreetly) designate one night a week as vegan.

Back to last night's divine chicken: unfortunately, as I said, I don't measure, but I'm going to attempt to reproduce what I did for the sauce here, because I'd like to be able to do it again next time.  If you make this, I strongly suggest that you read the amounts below as mere guidelines, and just put in what feels right to you.  Also, my husband is the grillmaster at our house and his technique is similarly ad-hoc, so keep that in mind.

The rice salad was really wonderful, too; I will address that in the next post.

Grilled Peanut Chicken

2.5 pounds chicken thighs (I used to spend a lot of time trimming the fat off, but now I don't bother... most of it melts off on the grill anyway, and you can always cut off whatever you want when you're eating)

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon powdered ginger
2 tablespoons orange juice

Put the chicken thighs in a large marinating bag.  Mix up the remaining ingredients in a bowl and pour it over the chicken in the bag, mixing it in evenly to coat all of the chicken.  Let it sit for about an hour.

Preheat the (gas) grill on high.  When it's ready, add the chicken and let it sear.  My husband does a lot of flipping unless I give him explicit instructions not to; some people say to flip only once, but his method seems to work for him.  He did lower the heat after a few minutes, and kept the meat covered when he wasn't flipping it.  The thickest pieces were on the grill for about 15 minutes, with the thinner ones coming off a couple of minutes before that.

Tropical Sushi

Menu: Sushi with Shrimp and Coconut-Fried Plantains; Edamame; Sliced Pears

Lessons learned:

1. Tropical sushi is scrumptious!
2. ... but next time I will cut the plantains into eighths, not fourths.
3. Also, next time I need to make another nori sheet spread with rice.  Apparently Ben really likes to eat the rice that way, rather than loose.  I suppose that's reasonable.

Tuesday was sushi night, and I decided to change up my normal roll.  I think *certain* diners in my house might be getting a little tired of my old standby, the spicy tuna and avocado (even though they would never, ever go so far as to say so).  I'm a pretty conventional girl when it comes to sushi -- aside from the whole raw fish thing, which some of my favorite people see as decidedly unconventional, to put it nicely.  But one year for Christmas, someone gave me a little book of sushi recipes, so I checked that out to see if I could find some inspiration.  When I came across a sushi roll made with shrimp and plantain, I recalled the coconut-fried plantains I made several weeks ago and figured I'd try to actually put them in the roll.

When I went shopping the day before, I bought the ripest plantain I could find, which still wasn't all that ripe -- not nearly black, as Emily suggested last time.  I put it in a paper bag as soon as I got home and hoped for the best.  When I took it out to cut it up, I was relieved to discover that it was ripe enough to be a significant improvement over my last attempt.  I cut the plantain lengthwise into quarters, coated them in flour, then an egg/milk mixture, and finally the coconut.  Here they are frying in my pan:

Let me take just a moment to apologize for the photography in this post.  I'm not all that good to begin with, the lighting in my kitchen is terrible for pictures, and my camera doesn't seem equipped to remedy either of these setbacks.  Regardless, these tasted very good.  I know they could be even better if I could get a hold of a riper plantain (or plan far enough in advance to buy one in time for it to ripen completely in my kitchen).  But these worked quite well for that night.

In the same pan over high heat, I fried up 1/2 pound of large shrimp with nothing but some oil and a little salt.  Then I cut each of the shrimp in half crosswise so they would lay better in the roll.  (You can find my recipe/technique for sushi here.)  I rolled and cut the pieces, then mixed up a little mayo with lime juice, zest, and just a teeny tiny bit of chile sauce.  Here's (a disappointing photo of) what I ended up with:

And wow, I LOVED them!  Yum.  The only thing I would change for next time -- besides getting an even riper plantain-- is that the plantain sticks were too thick; they kind of took over the roll.  So next time I'll cut them in half one more time to have eight of them.  I also think the tropical flavor of these could be rounded out with a little pineapple.  Months ago, I accidentally bought crushed pineapple instead of chunks, so I just stuck it in my freezer to pull out if I ever make a smoothie or something (I never make smoothies).  But I think spreading a thin layer of that into these rolls could be fantastic.  I'll try it out and update below if it works!

I wish I could say the rest of my family loved these as much as I did.  John liked them ok, but after a few of them he was picking out the plantains; he said they were too thick.  He also doesn't love the texture of coconut, so if I'm feeling generous next time I might grind up my coconut into powder before coating the plantains with it.  The kids wouldn't try them, which is unfortunate because I really think it would be up their alley.  Ben ate rice on nori and pears, and Sophie ate pears.  At this point, if it's more than nothing, I call it success.

The other drawback here is that the quick preparation of sushi was a huge bonus for me.  When I have to actually cook the components of the roll, that advantage goes away.  But these were so good that I think it's definitely worth the extra time.

Penne alla Vodka FAIL

Menu: Penne alla Vodka; Peas with Champagne Vinaigrette

Lessons learned:

1. Time for a new penne alla vodka recipe.  Now accepting submissions.
2. I hate angel hair.

I made penne alla vodka for the first time four or five years ago, and it was divine.  It was so good that I took a chance and tripled it (quadrupled it? I can't remember) for my husband's extended Italian family.  That time, it was perfect.  BUT more often than not since then, something goes wrong.  I don't understand this because I do almost the same thing every time, and any adjustments are to try to fix what went wrong the last time.  Once, the sauce still tasted quite alcoholic, so the next time I turned up the heat and the sauce had a burned flavor.  But still I persisted, believing that somehow I could get the delicious pasta sauce I managed those first few times.

My past few attempts have resulted in a singular, persistent problem: the milk separates when I stir in the tomato paste and liquor.  I know this is a common problem when you mix milk with acidic ingredients.  I've tried keeping the heat extremely low, switching the order in which I combine the tomatoes and milk, adding things slowly... it doesn't matter.  Every time, the sauce curdles and looks disgusting, even if the flavor is ok.

To make matters worse, I didn't have any penne.  My choices were angel hair or conchigliette (fat elbows).  I have no idea when or why I purchased angel hair, but I have to hope that I won't be doing it again because I really hate it.  It's hard to handle and doesn't hold any sauce well that I know of.  I also don't know why I chose to make it last night... maybe I had some vague notion of saving the conchigliette for Emily's Homemade Mac 'N Cheese.  Anyway, mistake.  The picture looks ok, but the actual eating experience was not what I was going for.

So I think it's just time to say goodbye to this recipe.  It produced a few very satisfying meals, but I'm sure I can find another one that can measure up, and more reliably.  Here are my requirements: it has to be simple.  I'm not dirtying up my blender to make this dish.  No whole tomatoes; what I loved about the recipe I'm saying goodbye to was the smooth sauce.  And no jarred tomato sauce, either -- that's cheating.

I'm on the lookout.

Corn Fritters

Menu: Thai-Style Corn Fritters; Hash Browns; Asparagus with Mustard Dressing

Lessons learned:

1. Unless I want to eat the entire bushel of asparagus myself, I shouldn't bother buying it.
2. Hash browns may not be the most sophisticated thing to do with potatoes, but when Sophie will actually eat some of them, not much else matters to me.

This post is a couple of days late because yesterday I got hit with a 24-hour bug (yes, sick AGAIN) and felt nauseous even thinking about food.  John made his specialty again, and by that time I was feeling well enough to have some.  Fantastic.

The night before was my last planned dinner before my next shopping trip, and those can always be a little dicey since I may not have always saved everything I needed for it.  In this case I had a different problem: there were some potatoes on the verge in my refrigerator.  A few days before I had thrown them in there hoping to keep them going for a few more days, but I figured I'd probably reached the limit and it was now or never.  So although I think these corn fritters would have been matched better by a cool tropical rice salad, my kids got to eat some plain ol' hash browns (and ketchup of course) for once.

By the way, I pretty much only buy Yukon Gold potatoes.  They have a built-in buttery taste and what I consider to be a very satisfying texture.  I may buy red potatoes if I'm doing a cold salad, just to change it up.  But when I say "potatoes," I'm only talking about one kind.

I discovered these corn fritters in HTCEV when I decided I wasn't cooking with meat anymore and kind of panicking because of how few vegetarian dishes I knew and liked (let alone how few my family would like) at that point.  Can I just say again how thankful I am for this cookbook?  I think I paid $25 for it.  It was too little.

Basically, you bind corn together with egg and flour and fry it up.  The best thing about these is how creative you can get with them, though.  His version is "thai-style" because it has some hot chiles, soy sauce, and is fried in peanut oil, and I used that combination plus some cilantro.  But when the tomatoes and peppers come out in my garden, I like to throw those in, too, and you can leave out the soy sauce, draw from more traditionally Mexican flavors -- maybe even throw in some black beans! and some cheddar! -- and serve them with sour cream.  These are some versatile little doodads, is what I'm saying, especially with a dipping sauce.

A dipping sauce is another thing I was missing this time.  Sigh.  I still am not good with the dipping sauces.  I've got to get on that!

Here is the asparagus that no one but me ate.  John said he had "some."  I think he ate one stalk.  I broiled them in the oven for about 8 minutes, mixed up a champagne citrus vinaigrette I had with some mustard, and drizzled that over the stalks when they came out.  What a waste!

Fortunately, I had my Corona to take my mind off of that.

Corn Fritters, Thai-Style (adapted from Mark Bittman's HTCEV)

 

2 eggs

Salt and fresh ground black pepper

1/2 cup chopped scallion (I grabbed about 1/4 cup chives from my garden)

1 teaspoon minced fresh chile, or hot red pepper flakes to taste

2 cups corn (soon I hope to be able to get the corn right from the cobs)

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

3-4 tablespoons peanut oil

Separate the 2 eggs, letting the whites fall into a small mixing bowl and putting the yolks into a larger bowl.  Add all the remaining ingredients except the oil to the yolks and mix well.  Start heating the oil in a skillet over medium heat -- you don't want the outsides to cook too fast.

Beat the egg whites until they're stiff.  Gently fold them into the corn mixture, just until they are mixed in evenly.  Spoon dollops into the heated pan in the size you prefer and cook until nicely browned on one side, 3-5 minutes, then brown the other side.  These taste best hot, so serve them right away.

This recipe is supposed to contain 4 servings, but that seems awfully stingy.  For four adults, I'd increase by 50%, especially if this is intended to be more than just a side.  However, I think they could make good appetizers, too.

Lamb with Cherries and Citrus Cous Cous

I wanted to do a pseudo Passover meal this week and since we were having some friends over Monday night it felt like a great thing to participate in together. Grant and I have seperately and individually joined in more official seder meals in the past but as an intro to our girls about what will hopefully become a yearly tradition for our family this is what we ate:

Lessons Learned:
- Orange Cous Cous is MUCH better than plain.
- I CAN cook yummy lamb! (contrary to my last two attempts which were dry dry dry)
- Grape juice is better in a wine glass.

Official Menu: Lamb boiled down in onions, orange juice and cherries, citrus cous cous, green beans, sparkling grape juice, matzoh, honey



Zola looking super psyched about having her own wine glass:


Lamb With Cherries And Couscous
(I googled 'Lamb recipe' and found this one here)

Ingredients
8 ounces whole onion or 7 ounces chopped onion (1 2/3 cups)
1 teaspoon olive oil
8 ounces assorted wild or plain white mushrooms
8 ounces boneless leg of lamb
Fresh or frozen ginger to yield 1 tablespoon coarsely grated
1 lemon
1 large orange
1 cup whole wheat couscous
1/3 cup dried cherries
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
Freshly ground pepper to taste

Preparation
1.Chop whole onion.
2.Heat large nonstick pan until very hot. Reduce heat to medium high; add oil, and cook onion until it begins to soften and brown.
3.Meanwhile, clean, trim and slice mushrooms; add to onion as it cooks.
4.Wash lamb and remove fat. Cut lamb into small cubes, add to onion and mushrooms as they cook, and stir to brown on all sides; remove from heat.
5.Following package directions, bring water to boil for couscous.
6.Coarsely grate ginger; finely grate lemon and orange rinds.
7.Add grated ginger and rinds and couscous to boiling water; cover and remove from heat, and allow to sit until water is absorbed and couscous is tender, about 5 minutes.
8.Stir the cherries, tomato paste and orange juice into the lamb; season with pepper; return to heat and cook through. Serve over couscous.
YIELD2 servings


Emily's Version:Omit the mushrooms because I accidentally used the ones I bought in a dish the previous night and it didn't sound good with mushrooms anyway.
Use lamb steaks with bones in because that's all I could find at Publix.
Double the recipe.
Add extra cherries because, hello! delicious.

Zola (3) ate the cous cous and some green beans and a few cherries and some matzoh without honey. She tried one bite of lamb, declared she LOVED it and wouldn't try it again. Niva (16 months) ate everything except the lamb which she promptly spit out after it made it's way into her mouth along with a bite of cous cous.