Hi Guys! I'm not Dead!

Hello there. I know I've been a major slacker lately, but there's a damn good reason: Chez Stadium made a big move. Cookie Monster and I packed up all our worldly shit into two large metal boxes and paid an obscene amount of money for them to be moved, quite literally, all the way across the country. We're now East Coasters.

My new kitchen is ... interesting. It's fairly good sized in terms of square feet of space. But counter space is at a premium, and so is drawer space and cupboard storage. So half of my kitchen is still in a large cardboard box. Awesome! I have been doing some cooking lately, including my most recent roasting of a chicken, and then subsequent making of chicken stock. It pretty much looked exactly like this. And this. Except with no counter space and no place to put stuff, I have only one onion in my kitchen. Onions are also at a premium. So I did not add the usual amount of onion, garlic and other vegetables to the stock. Meh. I'm over it.

That was the biggest undertaking in New Chez Stadium thus far. I also made some brownies, from a box!, since I have about a half-cup's worth of flour and no cocoa powder. It was a miracle that I could actually find my baking pan!

I think I'll round up my camera and post some pics of the New Chez Stadium sometime soon. Until then, pets, I'll leave you with this, one of my favorite jokes of all time. Because I'm a sucker for puns. And I'm a nerd. I'm not ashamed.
What did one earthquake say to the other?
It's not my fault!

Jamaican Jerk Sandwiches with Caribbean Accoutrements

I have been wanting to make a Jamaican jerk-spiced tempeh sandwich ever since I had a transcendent one at Deschutes Brewery in Bend. Sadly, this exquisite menu item did not make the jump over the mountains to the brewery's Portland location, so I had to try to replicate it at home.

I started off by making a marinade at home. I marinaded some chicken and my tempeh in it for a good 24 hours, using these ingredients:

• Ground allspice
• Ground thyme
• Ground black pepper
• Ground sage
• Ground nutmeg
• Ground cinnamon
• Ginger
• Garlic
  
• Brown sugar
  
• Molasses
• Rum
  
• Vinegar
• Pineapple juice
• Juice of 1 lime
• Jalapenos (but they weren't hot enough)
  
• Green onions
  

To go along with the sandwiches, I got a little wild and tried to replicate Caribbean flavors. Or at least what a white girl from the Pacific Northwest thinks Caribbean flavors are. I bought a plantain and sliced it up, then sauteed til it was golden brown, like so:

I also made a mango-bean-avocado salad to go along with everything. It had kidney beans, chopped fresh mango, halved cherry tomatoes, cilantro, chopped avocado and a bit of pineapple juice to keep the avocado from going brown.

See the pretty colors?

To top the sandwiches, I quickly pan-grilled a few rings of pineapple. I also sauteed some red peppers and onion in this pan to top my sandwich.

I put the whole wheat bun with some cheddar cheese in the toaster for a few, then topped with a pineapple ring.

Here is Cookie Monster's sandwich, made with chicken tenders instead of the tempeh. After I had cooked my tempeh through, I added his chicken and dumped in the rest of the marinade, which reduced into a lovely jerk sauce to cover everything.

Here is my tempeh with the peppers peeking out from underneath.

And my whole plate. I doused the sandwich with a bit more of the reduced marinade/sauce before putting its top on.

All in all, this was a really good recipe, but I did not use enough spice. I actually went into the kitchen and got the jar of pickled jalapenos out, adding a few to my sandwich. The extra spice really added a lot, and I plopped a few more into the leftovers.

This was also a pretty good likeness of my beloved Deschutes sandwich. I did not use focaccia bread, obviously, because I try to make my food indulgences in restaurants and eat healthier at home. But the flavors were very similar, and this was a really good and different dinner.

Go me!

Rice Paper Rolls and Soba Noodle Stir-Fry

One of the staple meals that appears in Chez Stadium is an Asian-style stir-fry. I like to chop as many vegetables as are in the vegetable drawer, saute them all up and add soy sauce or Soyaki or some other form of Asian-flavored sauce. I'll serve it over whatever starch is convenient. Usually this is instant brown rice (c'mon, real brown rice takes forever to cook!) or whole wheat spaghetti noodles. Sometimes it's quinoa. But today I had some whole wheat soba noodles from Uwajimaya, so I opted to cook those up for the stir-fry.

Usually appearing in my vegetable drawer are carrots, onions, broccoli, sweet peppers (either red or green) and zucchini. All that went into the stir-fry, plus button mushrooms and some frozen snow peas. I also had some leftover roasted sweet potato I threw in at the end.After it's all cooked, I usually grate in fresh ginger (stored already peeled in the freezer) and add Soyaki or soy sauce or some combination thereof.

Feeling ambitious, I decided to make rice paper rolls to accompany the stir-fry. I really enjoy these at Thai restaurants (especially E-San), but they are fairly easy to make at home--just a bit time-consuming to prep all the fillings. I keep it simple, going all veggie, and today I put in the following: julienned cucumbers and red peppers, grated carrots and radish, alfalfa sprouts and avocado (not pictured). Some directions call for boiling the rice paper for a few seconds, but I don't bother with that. All I do is run them under warm water for 10-15 seconds, then quickly fill as they soften. You want to make sure your toppings are all ready before you start working, since when wet, the rice paper gets really sticky.

Here's my rice paper, which I also got at Uwajimaya.

And my rice paper roll-making station:


Basically, you just run the wrapper under warm water for ~15-20 seconds, lay it flat and quickly fill with your prepped toppings. Then just roll like a burrito and seal. I served these with Trader Joe's Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce.

Aww, a poor roll has become a bit flaccid. How embarrassing.

And here is the stir-fry. Pictured on top is the chicken I cooked all day in my Crockpot. I threw various Asian ingredients in, like soy sauce, peanut butter, ginger and garlic and just let it do its thing all day. De-lish! Crockpots are delightful contraptions.


So, pets, it's not hard to make a foreign cuisine at home.

Eggplant Stacks

We have been doing a different type of grocery shopping in the past few months. We usually do a massive grocery store journey once a month or so, then supplement fresh fruits and veggies as needed. However, we haven't made the pilgrimage to the grocery store for a giant trip in a long time. As such, we are, about once a month, down to a jar of pickles, bottles of beer, condiments and a carton of three eggs, with a few things left in the pantry. This makes me get pretty creative with meals, like I'm playing Iron Chef: Cupboard Remnants.

Hmm, I think I'd like to see that show. It'd be way more like real life. You know, because everyone I know makes trout ice cream on a regular basis.

We lucked out with this meal, because at least we had some fresh ingredients. The eggplant is left over from our camping trip last weekend because we did not use it, and the squash we also picked up last weekend at the Newport Farmers' Market. The basil came from my garden!, and everything else was hiding in the fridge door or needed to be used up.

For the eggplant stacks, I cut the eggplant into rounds (after peeling it. I hate the texture of eggplant skin. It's just icky) and roasted it, along with rounds of an adorable round yellow squash. Of course, they were first dressed with olive oil, garlic and good ol' S&P.

Here is the sandwich I made for Cookie Monster. Notice that it's on a hamburger bun. Yep, you guessed it: left over from camping! I think a hamburger bun sandwich made an appearance in Cookie Monster's lunch four times this week, and he had a hot dog bun sandwich at least once. I'll be damned if I throw food away! (And, to be fair, a hamburger bun sandwich made its way into my lunch too!)

I bought a rotisserie chicken right before we left, thinking it would be good for camping, but we didn't end up taking it with us. So, we have a lot of chicken left over, hence the copious amounts of Cookie Monster chicken sandwiches.

This one has chicken, chipotle marinade sauce and bleu cheese on (yep! you guessed it!) a hamburger bun. After a short stay in a hot oven, it was quite delectable-looking.

I sliced up a tomato to go into the eggplant stacks and had a little leftover, so into Cookie Monster's sandwich it went. We also had some avocado needing to be used (are you sensing a pattern here?), so into the sandwich that went, too.

And here we have my eggplant stack with squash. Cookie Monster does not like squash (good! more for me!), so he didn't have any in his stack. I alternated eggplant slices, squash slices, basil leaves and tomatoes until I had a lovely little pile, like this. Drizzled with just a bit of balsamic vinegar, it was scrumptious.


And I didn't even put it on a hamburger bun.

Chicken Curry

I try to change it up here in Chez Stadium. Of course, Cookie Monster and I have our favorites--pasta, salad, garlic toast, sauteed vegetables, etc.--but you gotta branch out now and again, you know? (One of us--I won't say who--requests cookies for dinner almost daily. But I won't say who, to protect this monster's privacy.)

So here we have VCK's foray into the Wonderful World of Indian (and/or Thai) cooking. Hey, wouldn't that be a cool TV show? "So, what'd you do last night?" "I watched The Wonderful World of Indian and/or Thai Cooking! It was interesting and/or informative!"

I don't know if this is technically an Indian dish. It could be Thai since it has coconut milk. But I'm not too worried about technicalities here. Will it be good? Will it go in my tummy? Sold!

For this dish, I actually followed a recipe. Gasp! I wanted to do this since I really have no idea what I'm doing in this genre of food, so I figured a solid template would be appropriate. Here is the recipe I used. However, I still did not measure anything, and I most certainly did not use the 1/4 cup oil it calls for. Blech! That is way too much oil! I added some zucchini, as well as a little bit of harissa to add some spice.

Here we have the curry cooking away:

And here is the finished product. I served it over brown rice, and with it I warmed up some of Trader Joe's frozen naan and some mango chutney.

Verdict: It was pretty good, but missing something. It lacked that depth of flavor that most curries have, be they Indian or Thai. It's probably because the restaurants put copious amounts of ghee or other really-bad-for-you ingredients into their curries. I think next time I would add more of the spices it calls for.

This is a good introduction into this type of food. It didn't take long to cook and it was a satisfying, fairly healthy meal. I recommend it.

Barbeque Chicken Pizza

Cookie Monster and I like to make homemade pizza every now and again. Here is one we sometimes like to make. This one is totally different, and it's the first time we've had this variety of pizza at home. Using the barbeque sauce I made from scratch, along with the chicken I roasted at home, this made an awesome pizza. CPK, you got nothin' on me!


I wanted to make homemade pizza dough, but I didn't have time this day. So I went with our ol' standby for pizza dough: whole wheat baking mix. I just mix it with water 'til it's the right consistency, then stretch it out onto a pizza stone drizzled with EVOO so it won't stick. Then I added the awesome pizza ingredients. I started with a layer of bbq sauce, then spread out the chicken. Then I added mushrooms and olives, and grated a layer of white cheddar over everything. Then I cut up a slice of proscuitto and put the pieces all over the top so they would get crispy.

I baked it 'til it looked like this:

And it was incredible. If I do say so myself. Which I do.

Chicken Tacos

With all that chicken I made, we have had a lot of chicken dishes lately. Luckily, chicken is a versatile thing (unlike, say, a toilet plunger, which pretty much has only one use). So, Mr. Chicken put on a sombrero and said "Ole!" and poof! We had chicken tacos! Well, not poof, exactly. I had to make them. Mr. Chicken didn't automatically hop into a pan with seasonings and become a taco. But I digress.

I shredded some of the meat, then sauteed it with green peppers, zucchini, fresh jalapeno and some tomatillos. I also used a few yummy spices that make things "Mexican," at least at my house. I used cumin (I love cumin!), paprika, Muzzy's Magic seasoning, (the kind with jalapeno and cilantro) a bit of cayenne, chili powder and of course, good ol' S&P. I squeezed some fresh lime juice over everything.


I made a quick guacamole with jalapenos, cilantro (I love cilantro! Some people think it tastes like soap. I think those people are crazy. Oh well. More cilantro for me!), lime juice and a bit of already prepared salsa to add some color.

Another condiment I made is mango salsa. Well, I guess it's technically a pico de gallo, but who really cares? De gallo, salsa, let's call the whole thing off.

I digress. The mango salsa de gallo (now everyone's happy!) had fresh-cut mango, lime zest, lime juice, cilantro (lots of cilantro! Did I mention I like cilantro?) and some sliced cherry tomatoes. And, as always, S&P. Good lord it was good. It was la mierda, even.



So, now that we have all our taco components, let's make a taco! I used both corn and flour tortillas. Because I'm a wild child! I live on the edge! Why be confined to the constraints of taco-dom? Break free!



Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the sour cream. I put some on there. Because I love sour cream.

The tacos were awesome! The chicken was still moist, flavorful and delicious, and this time it had a Mexican twist. Ole!



VCK's Chicken Tacos

Corn AND flour tortillas (Break the mold! Eat both!)
Chicken taco filling
Sour cream (if you're a sour cream lover like me. If not, be lame and leave it out.)


For the chicken taco filling:
Leftover roast chicken, shredded
1/2 zucchini, chopped
1/2 bell pepper, chopped
2-3 tomatillos, chopped
1/4 fresh jalapeno (leave the ribs and seeds in if you like it spicy)
Paprika
Cumin
Chili powder
Muzzy's magic seasoning (or any type of season salt)
Cayenne
Juice of just a little less than 1/2 lime

Saute vegetables in olive oil 'til they're tender, about 3-4 minutes. Add chicken and spices and stir. Reduce heat and keep warm.

For the mango salsa de gallo
1/2 mango, peeled and cut into bite-size chunks
Cilantro-- a lot
2-3 cherry tomatoes, halved
Juice of 1/2 lime
Zest of 1 lime
S&P (or use more Muzzy's. I won't tell)

Dump all ingredients in a bowl*. Stir a few times. I know, it's really hard.

Quick Guac
1 avocado
Cilantro
Juice from the rest of that lime
Some more of that jalapeno, chopped finely
A few spoonfuls of prepared salsa (steal some from your mango salsa! I won't tell)
Muzzy's seasoning

Moosh up the avocado with a fork. Dump the rest of the ingredients in*. Stir.

Now you have everything ready for your tacos! Warm up your tortillas, then put all your delectable ingredients inside. It's now a fiesta!

*This is a real cooking technique. Really. They teach it at Le Cordon Bleu, only there they have some fancy-pants pretentious term for it. But I know the truth.+

+Ok, so here is something highly amusing. I typed in "dump" into a translation service and got this: décharge publique. I translated it back into English and got this: public disposal. Ok, so maybe they don't teach that at Le Cordon Bleu...

Chicken Stock

After making my roast chicken, I had a whole chicken carcass left over. What to do? I pretended I was the Grim Chicken Reaper, but that got old pretty quick. So, instead I made some chicken stock, of course! It was really easy. I threw in the leftover lemons, onions and garlic that I stuffed the chicken with, along with some carrots, peppercorns, dried oregano, basil and thyme, a lot of salt and of course, the chicken bones. I put it all in a large pot and filled the pot with water.


Then I just simmered and simmered away! I think I let it simmer for about 3 hours or so. After that long, the volume had gone way down and what was left was a concentrated, delicious, herb-y, salty chicken stock. I was actually a little disappointed with the volume, so I strained it all, put it in a container in the fridge and did it again! The second batch wasn't nearly as concentrated as the first, but once mixed together, there was plenty of yummy homemade chicken stock. Good stuff!


Chicken Stock

Carcass of 1 chicken
Baby carrots
Leftover stuffing materials used in roast chicken
Peppercorns
Dried herbs
Lots of salt

Throw all in a pot, then cover with water. Simmer for a long time, about 3 hours. Ta da!

Roast Chicken!

Being the half-assed vegetarian that I am, I am pretty inexperienced at cooking meat. But I want to expand my culinary skills, and meat is a fairly large group of cuisine. Not too big, but big enough that I should perhaps dip my toe in the water. :) Well, I decided to tackle a roast chicken, loosely based on Ina Garten's recipe. It was not as intimidating as I thought it would be. That's right, this mostly veggie gal took that chicken by the ... wings and showed it who's boss! Thou shalt be cooked, chicken! And thou wilst like it!

So here we have the dead bird. Doesn't it sound so lovely when you put it like that? Sometimes it doesn't even register that it really is a dead bird. But indeed it is. This bird, since I purchased it at New Seasons, was at some point in its little bird life wandering around outside, perhaps picking at some worms, pondering the existence of life as a chicken. "Why can't I fly away and be with that blue jay, floating on the breezes? It would be so great to float fancy-free among the clouds, and then I could..." WHACK! Mr. Chicken's head was then cut off, and he is now sitting in my roasting pan. Sorry, Mr. Chicken. C'est la vie.


I reached into Mr. Chicken's dead carcass (how delightful!) and pulled out his innards, now all neatly packaged together in a tidy little sack instead of placed properly in his body to help him carry out his chicken-ey life. My dad made me do this to a turkey when I was about 8 and it scarred me for life (well, life up until this point). I was so revolted at this task he gave me that put on a glove before reaching in and fishing around inside a butchered, dead bird, my hand frantically flailing around in desperate search for this dreadful little bundle of guts. Blech. See? I told you I was traumatized. So that's why I was so proud of myself for just doing it with this chicken. I didn't even wear a glove! After Mr. Chicken was thoroughly de-guttified and rinsed, I brushed him thoroughly with melted butter, and then stuffed him with quartered lemons, onions and garlic. Then I coated the outside thoroughly with S&P.

Per Ina's recipe, Mr. Chicken was united, if only temporarily, with Mr. Bacon. I didn't really see the point of wrapping the chicken with bacon, but since this was my first foray, I didn't want to mess with the recipe.


See? There's Mr. Chicken in Mr. Oven. Ok, this personification thing is getting a little ridiculous.

I roasted Mr. Chicken at 425 until the bacon was done on the outside. Unfortunately, the underside of the bacon was still undercooked, so I just took it all off and put it off to the side in the pan, where it cooked some more and got really crispy.


That's ok, I like bacon when it's almost burned. I continued to roast him for a while longer, and the skin started to get nice and golden brown. My crappy old thermometer didn't register that he was done, so I kept having to put him back in the oven. The skin was crisping up, so I covered him with foil. I pulled him out of the oven after about 1.5 hours(ish) and my thermometer still said he wasn't done, but I pulled his leg and it nearly twisted off in my hand, so he was done.



I let him rest for a long time--about an hour--until I was ready to carve. And carve I did! See?

Perhaps Mr. Chicken needs to hear Taps. He is definitely done. And, coming from a mostly vegetarian, this chicken was GOOD!


I dumped all the juice into a saucepan and whisked in some flour to make a delicious (and I do mean delicious!) gravy. Maybe this meat thing is something I should do more often!

Coming soon: homemade chicken stock! I know you're waiting with bated breath for it!

Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

About a week ago, I decided to try my hand at a homemade chicken pot pie. I had one pie crust left in the freezer, so decided to make that the top of the pie. Oh. My. God. The pie was fabulous! One of the best dinners I have ever made! Woo hoo!



I made them in individual dishes for easy serving. Since I had a small amount of pie crust left over, I made a small artichoke and gorgonzola empanada. It was...eh. I though the gorgonzola got lost in the buttery-ness of the crust, but Cookie Monster really liked it.


The inside of the empanada:



I cook using the Rachael Ray method--I never measure anything, throw things in I think might taste good together and rarely use a recipe. I find this is the best way for me to experiment with different flavors, and it works because I am usually not patient enough to follow a recipe.

Here is the VCK recipe for homemade chicken pot pies:

Olive oil
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, chopped
5-6 baby carrots
1/4 onion
Oregano
Parsley
Paprika
Cumin
Red pepper flakes
S&P
4 T flour
2 glugs Washington white wine (yes, a glug is indeed a real measurement)
2 glugs regular soy milk
Vegetable stock 'til covered
Frozen corn
Frozen peas

Pie crust, defrosted
Egg wash

Heat olive oil in a medium pot. Cook chicken until cooked through--mine took about 5-6 minutes. Add carrot, and onion and saute until soft. Add spices, then flour, stirring until incorporated. Add white wine to de-glaze the pan and cook about a minute. Go find wine glass and pour yourself some. Resume cooking pot pies. Add milk and vegetable stock and cook over medium heat until just boiling. It will thicken up as it cooks. At the last minute, add peas and corn so they are just heated through.

Spoon mixture into individual oven-safe serving dishes. Brush sides of dishes with egg wash, then put pie crust over and mush down to seal (yes, "mush" is a technical culinary term Ask any chef!). Brush the top of the crust with more egg wash, then sprinkle on a little salt. Cook pot pies 'til crust is golden brown. I think I had my oven at 400, but I can't remember (see? This is how I cook).

And this is what you end up with. Glorious, glorious pot pies. Good lord they were amazing!

Come hither, my sweet, sweet pie.