Chicken, Sesame!

 

Theirs, not mine: photo by Andrew Crivani, NYT

Since it was first offered in our dairy box a few months ago, we have made free-range chicken breasts from Common Wealth Poultry a routine part of our weekly order, whether we have a specific recipe in mind or not. 

I was prepared to make "chicken something or other" -- probably barbeque -- when Pam found something more interesting in New York Times Cooking: Pierre Franey's Sesame-Coated Sautéed Chicken Breasts.

This is one of those recipes that is so simple that the title provides most of the instructions. One step not included in the title is to "gently" pound the breasts between layers of waxed paper. I used a heavy spoon instead of a mallet to partly flatten them, and then dredged the breasts in sesame seeds. I then transferred them to our indispensable cast-iron skillet, in which I had melted a substantial amount of butter over medium-high heat. The recipe calls for five minutes per side, but did not call for sufficient pounding -- had I gotten the meat to a 1/4-inch thickness, the timing would have been correct. I lowered the heat and continued until heated through.

Meanwhile, I cooked thin spaghetti and tossed it with parmesan cheese. When I removed the chicken from the pan, I whisked in some lemon juice and poured it over both the chicken and the spaghetti. This was a delicious, buttery dinner that paired well with chardonnay. This is not a choice we would not normally make on a cool, cloudy day, but it was perfect!

After a pause (that is, watching Mary Tyler Moore on Hulu), we had a perfect dessert: mint chocolate-chip ice cream in our house of the same color, with Kahlua in honor of National Kahlua Day and in memory of our many previous travels to Mexico.

Scallion Egg Wrap

I saw this recipe in an article from the New York Times that listed what the newspaper's food editors prepared when they didn't feel like cooking. It looked simple and fun so we put it on our dinner list for this week. I started by chopping some scallions and chopped up some mushrooms I found in the refrigerator as well. I heated our small indispensable cast-iron skillet added a bit of butter and sautéd the veggies for just a few minutes and then added two beaten eggs to the pan. The eggs cooked quickly in a thin layer. Once they were cooked (but still just a bit runny) I placed a warm tortilla on top and heated just long enough for the tortilla to stick. Now comes the scary part: the recipe says to "flip onto a plate egg side up". I found this a bit daunting, but with careful use of a spatula and a bit of patience I managed to do this successfully for both the wraps I made. I folded the wraps into quarters as indicated. Since this looked a lot like a Mexican dish, and it was National Tortilla Day, we had tortillas on the side and served with sour cream and salsa. James added some Tabasco sauce to his as well and declared it delicious - and cute!

National Dog Biscuit Day

An international pandemic can certainly make a person do things they might not have done in precedented times. For instance, I only paid a tiny bit of attention to the National Day Calendar prior to last spring, but I check it out everyday now. I don't necessarily celebrate something each day because sometimes the things that are being recognized are a bit weird (like National Promposal Day - why is this even a thing?) and other times there are things we might have celebrated, but didn't have enough advance notice to prepare properly (National Pizza Day). Recently we decided to always look at the week ahead before going shopping so that we are not caught unawares again. 

We are always happy to celebrate with our dog Perry when appropriate. She enjoyed last Saturday's Love Your Pet day with some extra snuggling. Today, National Dog Biscuit Day, she enjoys a special treat prepared from the Throw Me a Bone Cookbook which apparently has made only one previous appearance on this blog when our only child was the guest blogger almost 10 years ago.

Today's entry is a variation on "Paw-mesan Tail Twisters". The ingredient list included

2 c. whole wheat flour

1/4 c. yellow cornmeal

1 egg

3/4 c. milk

1/2 c. freshly grated Parmesan cheese (I used considerably less, like way less of even half of that for our dog who was recently put on a low-fat diet).

I mixed all the ingredients, saving a bit of the grated cheese. When everything was well mixed I took out small bits of the dough and rolled into balls (rather than "logs" as the recipe said to do). I then rolled the balls in the remaining Parmesan and baked at 325 for 30 minutes.

Once the treats were cooled Perry gave it a taste test. After rolling her snack around on the floor for a minute or two she eagerly ate it up and gave it an enthusiastic "two dew claws up".

Like a party on your plate!

Groundhog's day (or Woodchuck Day, or Marmot Day, or Whistle Pig Day) is also Candlemas. We celebrated with a recipe from The Wicca Cookbook. I selected Blood Orange Mahi Mahi (for which I actually used tuna steaks from Kyler's Catch). The most difficult part of this was making the salsa, which really wasn't hard at all, it just took a lot of ingredients and a lot of chopping and dicing-more time consuming than difficult.

The salsa consisted of: 

1 sectioned blood orange

one half of a decent-sized chopped red onion

1 cubed avocado (James found a perfectly ripe one at the grocery - dark green skin, and lovely "Grinch green" inside)

1 t. dried cilantro

1 minced jalapeño pepper

juice of one lime

The tuna steaks were cooked in a skillet on medium heat for about 5-6 minutes per side. The recipe said to sauté in olive oil. Lucky for me I had a big bottle of Blood Orange Fused Olive Oil from Lebherz Oil and Vinegar Emporium. The recipe also called for salt and pepper for seasoning. I used coconut-infused black sea salt and lemon pepper, which really was the right thing to do. In addition to the salsa, the steaks were sprinkled with some crumbled feta cheese.

A beautiful presentation with an explosion of colors. The bite of the red onion and jalapeño complemented the sweetness of the orange and the creamy avocado and salty feta perfectly. This may become an annual tradition.