Honey Chicken

One lesson I have learned over my years of preparing new recipes is that it is not enough to simply ensure that I have all the ingredients (or reasonable facsimiles thereof) before starting; it is imperative to read the instructions as well. Woe has been begotten on more than one occasion when I discovered that I should have started preparing the food hours before I actually did. So I am pleased to report that I was successful in my preparation of this tasty recipe from the New York Times Cooking pages. A marinade of sherry, honey, line juice, crushed garlic, cinammon, salt, and pepper was easily mixed and poured over the whole, fresh, cut up chicken we'd recently procured from Maribett Farm. The chicken marinated in the refrigerator for about 8 hours and then was placed in the oven for 50 minutes at 350 degrees. As the recipe instructed I basted often and was pleased with the juicy, tender, savory, and sweet meal that resulted. I served this was mashed potatoes on the side and a Chardonnay to complement.

Gochugaru Salmon with Crispy Rice

When this recipe from the New York Times Cooking pages showed up on my Facebook feed along with a colorful photograph I decided to find out what Gochugaru was (a Korean pepper spice) and find out where I could get such in order to prepare this dish. My husband and adult child went looking locally, both online and irl but struck out, so we resorted to Amazon. The spice arrived just in the knick of time before we left for a long weekend at our near-the-beach house. The salmon was (naturally) purchased at our favorite fishmonger Kyler's Catch Seafood Market. 

This was pretty quick to make. The most time consuming part was waiting for the rice to cook. We only had brown rice, so it took a bit longer than the white rice that the recipe calls for. Once the rice was cooked it was "crisped" in the same pan that the fish cooked in, and then the same pan was used again to make the sauce.

As promised in the original recipe this had a sweet, fruity taste. We all enjoyed this meal and will definitely make again. We will also look for other recipes using this spice.

Eggs Benedict for Father's Day

On the rare occasions that I eat breakfast out I look for Eggs Benedict on the menu. It is one of those things that I (for some reason) believed I could not make at home. I had never even bothered to look up the ingredients to Hollandaise sauce, never mind how easy it was to make. It was a package of Canadian bacon in a recent Crescent Ridge delivery that prompted me to see what I needed to do to make Eggs Benedict at home. Turns out the answer is "not much". We already had the eggs and English muffins and the only ingredients needed for Hollandaise sauce are egg yolks, butter, lemon juice, salt, and cayenne pepper. I used this recipe from The Kitchn to make it. 

Father's Day breakfast was a big hit. We recommend adding a dash of hot sauce when serving.

Zucchini Banana Muffins

What does one do when one has some extra-ripe bananas and a zucchini on the edge? Look for something to bake that uses both ingredients of course! A simple Google search using the words yielded me plenty of results from which I selected this recipe for Zucchini Banana Muffins from "Baked by an Introvert". Except for the optional banana chips (which I did not use) I had everything I needed to make these super moist muffins in my pantry. Beyond the oil (I used lemon-infused olive oil) and the eggs the liquid mostly comes from the water in the zucchini, so there is no milk or water called for.

The only change I made to the recipe was to use 1/2 cup of brown sugar, rather than 3/4 cup. I almost always use a bit less sugar than what is called for, especially when baking with fruit. I find that the rest of the flavors are more likely to come through this way.

We will be enjoying these treats for a few more days.

Very Local Chicken

Which came first, the chicken or the #BigGreenEgg? 

I really do not know, but they came together nicely for two dinners a few weeks ago. Our good friends at Maribett Farm recently offered chickens either whole or cut in the traditional eight pieces, expertly processed and frozen. Given the choice between the two, my immediate answer was "YES," by which I meant one of each.

Something about the restaurant industry makes it nearly impossible to find bone-in mole poblano in restaurants and something about the poultry industry makes it almost as difficult to find a whole chicken cut-up (as opposed to packages of a half dozen or more of the same part). So I used the pieces to make a scrumptious mole, following a combination of the many mole approaches described in this blog over the years.

For the whole chicken, I took an opposite approach: simplicity to bring out the flavor of humanely and sustainably raised poultry. I followed the recipe for chicken with lemon, garlic and rosemary from the Big Green Egg web site, with no variations. Following the temperature and timing guidelines, I did not open the Egg until the time I would expect for the somewhat larger size of the bird we had, and we were very pleased with the result. 

NOTE: Readers in southeast Massachusetts can check the Maribett Farm Facebook page for chicken availability. As of this writing (June 14), the farm is taking orders.

Lagniappe

It is difficult to believe how long it has been since I assisted the Maribett chicken operations by delivering chickens to the farm a couple of times. For a summer delivery of a couple dozen live chickens, the family station wagon was the ideal conveyance of new chickens to the farm.

Chicken Run Selfie: I'm James and I will be your driver today.

Super Simple Spicy Salmon

 On Thursdays we eat pink - pink salmon that is! 

When we bought our near-the-beach house six years ago we had the intention of going there together on Thursday nights when James had his rowing night, and then having a fresh, home-cooked seafood dinner together before heading back to our primary residence in Bridgewater. 

It has not always worked as intended, and this past year (plus) even less so as rowing was shut down. Last night we were back to business as (almost) usual with a stop a Kyler's Catch to pick up some salmon before James went off with his rowing buddies at Whaling City Rowing. Our super wonderful adult child is visiting so we enjoyed a family meal together. We selected an easy recipe from the New York Times Cooking pages: Four-Spice Salmon. 

We had all of the four spices called for (coriander, cloves, cumin, and nutmeg) in our spice rack, so once we had the salmon we were good to go. The only additional ingredients were salt and pepper and butter. I used lemon-pepper seasoning and some coconut-infused sea salt from Saltopia. I seasoned both sides with all the spices (although the recipe only says to do one side) then cooked on the stovetop in butter about 3 minutes per side. I served with super simple sautéed squash. This paired well with an oaky Malbec. 

Final verdict: Three thumbs up!