Lemon Chicken with White Wine Sauce

Okay, no, this recipe is so much more than the title implies. It's crispy skin and flavorful meat and olives and lemon and who-cares-about-all-of-that-because-OMG-those-PRUNES! Oh, and you can also make a red-wine version with orange instead of lemon and I seriously can't figure out which version I like better. Just go with whatever wine or fruit you have on hand, I guess.

I found this recipe in Molly Stevens's (incredible) book All About Braising, but I changed it kind of significantly. That is to say, I made it into something you don't braise. I did this because A) braising is awesome for tender meat, but not so awesome for crispy skin (crispy skin is WHY I eat chicken, people!) and B) I don't have a casserole dish suitable for braising and even if I did, there's the fact that C) I don't have an oven big enough for such a dish. So, here is my crispy-skinned, small-oven approved recipe for really, really excellent prunes chicken.

This recipe is for two people. Feel free to add more chicken if you have more people and a bigger oven (you won't need to change any other amounts. I kept the sauce the same because SAUCE).

Ingredients:

• 2 whole chicken thighs (the kind with the leg attached)
• Salt and pepper
• Flour for dredging
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 cup dry white wine (Chardonnay is good. Never cook with wine you wouldn't drink! Unless you don't drink dry white wines in which case...don't cook with wine I wouldn't drink! Use good-ish wine, is what I'm saying.) (Or use a red wine if you're doing that version of the dish)
  
• 1/4 white wine vinegar (or red wine vinegar, if using red wine)
• 1 garlic clove, smashed
• Zest of 1 lemon (or one orange, if using red wine)
• 2 whole cloves
• 10-12 pitted prunes
• 1/3 cup good-quality green olives, pitted (or, again, black olives if using red wine)

Preheat oven to 375. Salt and pepper your chicken, then dredge it in flour.

Heat oil in a skillet, and cook chicken 3-4 minutes on each side (without turning) until a brown crust forms. Set aside and drain off the fat, leaving behind all the delicious brown bits.

Then add the wine, vinegar, garlic, zest, and cloves to the pan and use a wooden spoon to scrape up all those brown bits. If you have an oven-proof skillet, scatter over the prunes and olives and stick the whole pan in your oven. If not, transfer the sauce and chicken to an oven-safe dish so that the pieces fit snugly, and then scatter over the prunes and olives.

Cook uncovered for 30 minutes. That's where your crispy skin comes from.

Remove the chicken, prunes, and olives, and return the liquid to the pan (or return the pan to the stove). Cook over high heat, stirring frequently, until the liquid has reduced to the consistency of a vinaigrette.

Discard cloves and zest, pour sauce over chicken (and over the rice or whatever you're serving this with) and serve with the olives and (omg) prunes.

Yes, the prunes are really that good.

Creamy Red Pepper Sauce

I was looking for a pasta sauce recipe that wasn't cream-based, because I just noticed that about 112% of my recipes are, when I found this one...

...which is totally cream-based but shhhh. It has vegetables in it! I made a few changes from the original recipe by making it a bit easier, reducing the dirty dishes (oh what, you have a dishwasher? How awesome for you, person-who-sucks), and increasing the vegetable-to-cream ratio.

Ingredients:

• 2 red bell peppers, or any combination of red, orange, and yellow
• 5 cloves of garlic, minced (or more - you can't have too much garlic, that's my motto)
• 1 tbsp dried basil (or a big 'ole handful of fresh basil, chopped, if you've got it) (or probably a spoonful of pesto, mmmm, I bed that'd be great)
  
• 1 cup half-and-half
• 1/4 cup Romano or Parmesan cheese
• 1-2 tbsp butter
• Red pepper flakes, or cayenne pepper
• Chili powder
• Salt and pepper
  
• Olive oil (I never really measure olive oil. Like garlic: it's hard to have too much)

Preheat your broiler. Or preheat your absurdly tiny oven which pretty much is a broiler. Cut your bell peppers in half and remove the seeds, then brush both sides with olive oil and let them roast until the skin has some black spots and the flesh is tender. Then let them sit, in a sealed plastic baggie if you're really on top of things, (or just on a paper towel in the fridge if you're me not) for about 45 minutes.

Heat some olive oil in a skillet. Remove the skin from the peppers and throw them in the skillet with the garlic, the basil, and the spices. You can purée this mixture later if you want a really smooth sauce, but if you prefer to minimize your dirty dishes then just mash up the peppers with your spoon as you cook the mixture for about 10 minutes over medium heat.

Then add the cream and cheese and stir until it's all a uniformly gorgeous orange-y color. Add the butter, more or less depending on how much you care about your arteries, stir it again, add salt and pepper to taste, and serve over pasta or whatever, seriously, you could actually just eat this sauce by the spoonful.

It's particularly good with cheese ravioli.

Veal Piccata

I have wanted to make this since I ate it at a restaurant two years ago. WHY did I wait so long? It's super-lemony and so easy to make. You could use chicken or pork cutlets, or probably tofu.

Veal Piccata

4 veal cutlets,pounded thin
Salt
Lemon pepper
Flour
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp garlic powder or equivalent fresh garlic
1 cup white wine
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons capers
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley (or a tablespoon of dried)

Season the veal with salt and lemon pepper, then dredge in flour. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Saute cutlets for 3 minutes per side, or until golden. Set aside and keep them warm in a very low oven. Add garlic powder (if using fresh garlic, add to pan first, saute 1 minute), wine, lemon juice, and capers. Bring to a boil and continue to boil until liquid is reduced by half. I use the end of a wooden spoon to as a "dipstick" to measure the level of liquid. Then, just reduce to a simmer and stir in butter and parsley. Simmer for a minute or two. Return veal cutlets to pan and coat with sauce. Serve immediately over linguini (or rice?) with lots of crusty bread to sop up the lemony goodness. If you want to be fancy, you can garnish the platter with lemon slices and parsley.

Cod and Cumin Soup

No no, really, it's delicious! Just try it! This is a slightly modified version of a recipe that I found in a French diet book (I know, right? but trust me) and it is very unusual in a very good way.

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp butter
• 2 bunches green onions (or leeks. But leeks can be expensive, and green onions are DELICIOUS), thinly sliced
  
• 2 cups chicken broth or bouillon (or fish bouillon, or vegetable, whatever's on hand)
• 1 cup almond milk (or regular milk, but almond milk is amazing in almost every soup ever, people!)
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• 1 bay leaf (optional. I usually forget to add it.)
• 1 lb (approximately) cod fillet. Or haddock; that's what the recipe originally called for.
• 1 lb (approximately) potatoes, peeled and diced. I like those little redskin potatoes, but use what you have.

Melt the butter in a pot big enough to hold the soup. Add the green onions and/or leeks and cook until translucent but not browned. Or just a little bit browned. This is a very forgiving recipe.

Add the broth, milk, bay leaf, and cumin and lower the heat. This is your poaching liquid. Have you ever poached fish? It's not at all scary. Add your fish to the liquid and bring it to just below a simmer. You should see very few bubbles, but you should see one or two every now and then. Now let the fish sit in that very-slightly-bubbly liquid for about six minutes. Remove it, check to make sure that it flakes like cooked fish, and set aside. You can poach your fish in two batches if you don't have room for all in one go.

Now bring that liquid back to a boil and add your potatoes. Simmer until tender, take off the heat, and add the fish back in.

Serve as an appetizer or main dish. Definitely serve with crusty bread.

Zucchini Pancakes

I first made this recipe in the States last fall, loved it, forgot about it, and rediscovered it a few weeks ago. The recipe comes from here originally, and I made it almost exactly as recommended (making substitutions where exotic ingredients such as store-bought breadcrumbs were unavailable) and it was delicious up until the moment where it made me sick to my stomach due to the massive amounts of olive oil required for frying. Also, it was kind of a pain to make -- literally -- as pan-fried foods often are. So, I changed it! Here is my new recipe for oven-baked zucchini pancakes, which absolutely everyone seems to love. Try it!

Ingredients:

2 medium-largish zucchinis
1 large or 2 small onions (or just one small onion - it doesn't make that much difference)
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
3 eggs
1 cup bread crumbs, plain or seasoned
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp oregano
other Italian-ish seasonings, especially if using plain breadcrumbs
salt and pepper to taste

Grate the zucchini and onion in the easiest and least tearful way possible, by hand or with a food processor or whatever. Dump them into a colander (make sure the holes aren't so big that you lose significant bits of grated veggie) and let them drain. Encourage them to drain, actually; get your hands in there and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. You'll be amazed at how much liquid is contained in a few zukes and onions. Don't hope to get them entirely wrung out. Just do the best you can.

Now preheat your oven to 425ish.

When the veggies are reasonably drained, throw 'em in a mixing bowl and combine with the rest of the ingredients. I'm not entirely sure what I mean by "salt and pepper to taste," because you won't actually be tasting the uncooked mixture and by the time it's cooked, it's pretty much too late to adjust the seasoning. So just do your best guessing and call it good. You can cover up any flavor deficiencies later with great big spoonfuls of sour cream. You can. Because you live in America where sour cream exists. (Did she just complain about the food in France? Yes. She did.) Mix everything up and make sure it's not too dry or too runny. It should be damp and gloppy but spoonable. Pretend that makes sense, okay?

Line a baking sheet or two with parchment paper and pour some olive oil on the paper. Spread it around to coat. Then drop your pancake mixture onto it in spoonfuls and flatten them down into pancakes. With the back of the spoon or with your hand or with a pancake-flattening tool. Which probably really exists somewhere. Then I like to brush the tops with more olive oil, but that's probably superfluous since we're going to flip them anyway. Your call.

Now stick them in the oven for 20 minutes, take them out, flip them over, and stick them back in for another 15 or so.

Serve with sour cream (*sniff*) or applesauce or samurai sauce (ha! so there! I'm getting my revenge for the sour cream).

That's all there is to it. I have nothing else to say about this recipe, but it felt wrong to end it with a spiteful parenthetical, so...well....enjoy!

Leftover Soup

Guess what today is, everybody? It's the coldest November day in Orléans since 1953. It's five degrees outside! The ground is covered with snow that melted into slush and refroze, the buses have come to screeching (and skidding) halt, and I'm wearing every sweater I have, wrapped up in every blanket I have, chain-sipping a mug of hot tea.

In other words: It's a soup day!

Fortunately, I have the perfect soup recipe. I've been making this soup once or twice a week for about a month now, but I haven't posted the recipe because it just doesn't seem like a real recipe. The ingredients change every time! Sometimes quite drastically! And I've never actually quantified any of the ingredients! But the basic structure stays the same each time, and it has never - not EVER - been a disappointment, so I felt that I had to share. Also? It tastes approximately ten times richer than it actually is. Seriously. Don't let the cream scare you away. This is an everyday kind of a soup.

I had no idea what to call this soup. Technically, it's not really leftover soup. It's "this is in my farmer's basket and I have no idea what else to do with it" soup, but since weekly baskets of fresh, organic produce are not a natural occurrence for everybody (I'm sorry. I wish they were a natural occurrence for everybody), we're going to go with Leftover Soup. Or, more precisely, White Leftover Soup.

The system is this: take whatever leftover whitish vegetables you have on hand and make soup with them. This can include - but is not limited to - any combination of: potatoes, onions, rutabaga, leeks, cabbage, parsnips, cauliflower, and celeriac*. All of those together would be spectacular. Any two of those are just fine. When I started making the soup, I thought that potatoes would have to be a staple in each one. Then I made a leek-potato-parsnip soup and realized too late that I was out of potatoes and surprise! Potatoes are not indispensable!

So: choose your whitish vegetables, in whatever portions you find them in your crisper. Peel where applicable. Chop roughly. Dump into a pot of 2-4 cups of boiling water along with a chicken or vegetable bouillon cube. Simmer until everything is tender. Let cool a bit, then puree it in small batches in a blender, food processor, or with an immersion blender. Add 3/4 cup cream or half-and-half and reheat. Salt and pepper to taste. Add some crumbled bacon if you feel fancy, or extra hungry, or just to give yourself something to chew on.

Thus far I have tried this with the following combinations, each one as delicious as the next:
potato+leek
leek+parsnip
potato+parsnip+onion
potato+onion
potato+onion+celeriac
cabbage+potato+onion
potato+cauliflower+onion+celeriac
The possibilities are truly endless.

*A note about celeriac: it is the best vegetable ever! I discovered celeriac a few weeks ago and we're still in that honeymoon phase. I think that phase is going to last. It's amazing! It's everything I love about celery, densely compacted, and purged of everything I hate about celery! Namely: it is full of that spicy, celery-like flavor but completely void of that chlorophyll taste that celery stalks have. And with no stringy fibers. And without that unpleasant explosion of water when you bite into it that makes the whole thing taste like...well, like watered-down celery. Celeriac has the wonderful celery flavor (that I spent most of my life not realizing that I liked, because it had always been nastily concealed inside a stalk of celery) in ROOT form! A root that can be stored for long periods of time, unlike wilt-happy stalks of celery! A root that is easy to peel and chop, that yeilds lovely consistent chunks of something that resembles a potato but tastes like THE BEST CELERY EVER. It can be used everywhere that celery can - except, maybe, with peanut butter, but that's a snack that's always perplexed the hell out of me, so no loss - and many places that celery can't. It's amazing in soups, it's fantastic in chicken salad, and...well, that's all I've used it for so far, but it was SO GOOD, people!

Okay. I'm done now. Go buy some celeriac!

Twice-baked Sweet Potatoes

Twice-baked potatoes are one of my all-time favorite foods, as are regular-baked sweet potatoes. That it's taken me until the age of nearly 23 to think of combining these two foods casts significant doubt on the cooking abilities of which I've always been rather proud.

I mean, it's not even an original idea. You can find recipes for twice-baked sweet potatoes EVERYWHERE. Except, until today, on this blog.

Which is a cryin' shame. Because twice-baked sweet potatoes? Are every bit as awesome as you think they are. If you don't think they sound awesome at all, then they are SIGNIFICANTLY MORE awesome than you think they are.

You should try these potatoes, is what I'm trying to say.

This isn't really a recipe. It's a suggestion and an imperative and some vague instructions. Such as:

• Bake some sweet potatoes. As many as you like. Rub a bit of oil or bacon grease on them (not too much! just a little!), stab them with a fork a few times (this will be surprisingly difficult, if you're not used to stabbing sweet potatoes), and stick them in a 350-400 degree oven for 45 minutes to an hour. See? Vague. You want them to be tender, is what you're going for here.
• Slice them in half (carefully! Don't let the skins rip in half!) and scoop out the guts (carefully! Don't let the skins rip in half!).
  
• Put the guts in a bowl with some stuff. Suggestions for stuff include: bacon, sour cream, cheese (I used cheddar and Gouda because it's what I had in the fridge and oh my, this was a good idea), chives, spices (Cayenne pepper for a nice kick) and anything else you might like.
• Mix up the stuff and pile it back into the skins that you didn't rip. Put them back in the oven for 5-10 minutes until the cheese is all melty and the tops are just sliiiighly crusty.

I will never be able to fully accept that sweet potatoes are healthier than regular potatoes, when they're so delicious that they taste like candy.

Seriously. Serve these potatoes for lunch, dinner, side dish, or dessert. You can't go wrong.