Fig Jammin' Girls!

I gotta hand it to Caitie and Gillian, my jam buddies. They came up with a lot of creative uses for the fig jam we made as gifts for our gift collective. I have just been telling everyone to 'use it on cheese' but I am going to have to rethink this.

I arrived at their holiday party just in time to observe Caitie assembling this baked brie en croute. She added our Fig Jam with Port and Rosemary to a wheel of brie and wrapped it in pastry dough. Just a few minutes later it was an amazing warm holiday appetizer!


The girls also did a fantastic pizza with fig jam, goat cheese and procuitto that was quite good. I didn't get any pictures of it so I'm going to take a turn with this one soon and will post on it later. I never would have thought to use it this way! Good job girls!

I was worried that perhaps the girls had used up all their jam on themselves and didn't have any left over for gifts but Gillian showed me 'the stash'.

Christmas with Southern California Style

Last night we were invited to spend the evening at what is probably the most quintessential Southern California Christmas event: The Newport Harbor Parade of Lights. Its an event that has actually been going on for over 100 years. 100's of ships and homes along the harbor participate by loading up on festive lights. Caitie and Gillian from work live near the festivities and invited us over to sip wine, hang out, and watch the parade. Usually I'm all about the boats but this year I focused mostly on the outrageous home decorations. Some of them came complete with animated characters!


This snow scene was actually out in someone's font yard! Yes, suppose it can bet a bit tacky for sure but it is also so uniquely Southern Californian that you can't fight the joy of it all very long. Viewing it just never fails to put me in the Christmas spirit even after I braving the insane traffic and parking situation required to get to where you can view it.

Simple photography couldn't do this house justice. I had to figure out how to use the video on my camera:


We might have to get back down there before it is over in a few days.

Drunk Chicken!

Well, you don't really see this at my house very often!

My husband said "what is THAT doing here?" when he came home tonight. I've had it in my brain to try out that infamous 'beer can chicken' recipe for awhile now and tonight was the night. I picked up a six-er on my way home. (Turns out the singles that you can buy at the gas station are now 'super sized' to 3 times the normal size of a beer can. They'd never fit in a bird!) For those not in the know, this is the recipe where you set your bird on an open can of beer as it roasts. The hot beer inside the bird supposedly tenderizes the skin and keeps the bird moist as it roasts. Guess what? It works!

I decided this season I was going to work on my chicken roasting skills. For the last few years I have grown as lazy as most Americans who just pick up a roasted chicken at the supermarket or at Costco. Yes, they are great, easy, and cheap. I don't argue those points. But they are also quite salty and the seasonings, at this point, are unmistakably 'store bought'. That sort of takes the fun out of it for me.

Using a can opener, take the top off the can and drink half the beer. I put about a half teaspoon of packaged kabab spices in the beer and rubbed some on the chicken. Any chicken rub will work. Using nothing will work too. Spray a little canola oil on the can to make it easier to remove after cooking. (Thanks for the tip Ms. Fig!) Set up right in a roasting pan and put into the oven at 350. Its that simple.

After roasting I made up a quick sauce by deglazing with a small amount of white whine and chicken stock. I added a teaspoon of the chicken demi-glace I mentioned the other day. Seriously, buy some of this while you still can at Williams Sonoma.


I will definitly be making this chicken again. At least 5 more times.

Cheater! Crock Pot White Bean Chili

So Ms. Fig posts her recipe for Pomegranate Jelly and labels it a "cheater version" for using bottled pomegranate juice? I commented that using bottled juice is no more a cheat than using canned chicken stock in soup, something I do most of the time I make it. (Although to do soup it up with this demi-glace. It is expensive but worth every penny it if you are like me and don't do enough roasting to keep your stock stockpile up to levels. Technically, store bought demi-glace is cheating too so two cheats must make a right. They make beef too so buy some of that too. Who even eats enough beef to make their own demi-glace?)

This has really got me thinking on just what IS a cheat in cooking anyway?

Last night I made a batch of white bean chili which certainly must qualify as the only fresh ingredients are 1 jalapeno pepper and a few cloves of garlic. In addition to using canned chicken stock it calls for canned white beans. Its been ages since I soaked and cooked my own beans for a dish. Tomatoes? Canned. Corn? Frozen. Just about everything in here is bought off the shelf like Ms. Figs juice. At yet somehow, after simmering for hours in a crockpot this chili comes out amazing and nothing that would would think was a cheat. (A crock pot is cheating too since some of the best chili is made in a dutch oven IN the oven. )

Oh, and check out the plastic crock pot liners! Disgusting cheat there too! (I got a sample in the mail and wanted to try those out. I'm not sure about the safety but sure made the clean up a breeze!)

I don't use my crock-pot very often. I got it so I could come home to a ready dinner back when I was single but it turned out I didn't really like food that had been cooking for 10 hours. Go figure. But the thing is made for cooking chili so I keep it even though it gets more than its share of kitchen cabinet space.

White Bean and Chicken Chili

Ingredients:

• 2 TBL olive oil
  
• 2 boneless chicken breast halves, diced
• 12 to 16 ounces chicken sausage or turkey sausage
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 4 cloves garlic minced
• 2 cans (about 16 ounces each) Great Northern Beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 1/2 cups tomatillo salsa (I use the kind from the 'fresh' case but jarred will work too.)
  
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1 can (14.5 ounces) diced tomatoes with juice
• 1 cup frozen corn kernels
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped jalapeno peppers
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• Dash cayenne pepper, optional

Preparation: In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions, diced chicken, and sliced sausage; sauté until onions are tender and chicken is cooked through. Put the drained beans in a 4 to 6-quartcrock pot; add the skillet mixture and all remaining ingredients. Cover and cook on HIGH for 3 to 4 hours or LOW for 6 to 8 hours. Sprinkle with cilantro just before serving. Serves 6.

I'd show you a picture of it all plated and garnished but this batch was portioned out for this week's lunches and a future dinner or two.

Camera Cleanout: Cranberry Sauce

Time for a camera clean-out. This should have gone up a long time ago but now that I think about it, there is value to holiday cooking postmortems since many Christmas dinners look a lot like Thanksgiving dinners. I saw lots of discussions on turkey, stuffing, various side dishes, and pies this year but not a lot on cranberry sauce (or gravy!).


Just because I didn't cook on Thanksgiving doesn't mean that I didn't make cranberry sauce this year. I did. And, like pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce is another staple of the holiday table I'm not all that fond of. Oh, I like the taste, I just don't really like it with turkey. Perhaps its just the fact that when the holiday plate is full, a heaping serving of sugary fruit is not what I need just then? Nonetheless, I still make it each year. My dear husband enjoys its tangy goodness as an ice cream topping and I like it on roasted chicken. The recipe makes a bunch so I end up canning it in 1/2 pint jars to use all winter during roast season since the packaged fresh cranberries aren't all that available after the holiday rush is over.

Like my gravy, there isn't much special to the recipe. I use the one on the package but its souped up with orange:

Cranberry Sauce:

2 packages fresh cranberries
1 cup water
2 cups sugar
1 cup fresh orange juice
grated orange zest of one orange
Grand Marnier to taste

Combine water, orange juice and sugar in saucepan and bring to boil. Add cranberries and simmer, stirring occassionaly for 10 minutes until berries burst and its gets 'saucy'. remove from heat and add orange zest and Grand Marnier to taste. 2 TBS for my taste.

Mixture can keep for 2-3 days in the refrigerator and 6 months if canned using the water bath method. (Maybe longer but mine will get used up l0ng before 6 months.)

Useless Crap

Not pretty, is it?

I really liked this article on Mintlife Blog. It offers strategic advice on how to divest your life of clutter. In a nutshell, they recommend moving items you don't use to an "outbox". An outbox is some shelf, corner of the garage, or a room where you get things out of site for a bit before finally giving them away. So simple, and yet so profound is this piece of advice: "you don’t have to be responsible for making sure all of your former stuff reaches its proper place in the universe." I have to admit that this is one of my biggest hangups when it comes to getting rid of stuff. Could I get more money for this stuff? Should I donate it? Throw it away? Where? But its worth so much more! Just pick do it and don't get hung up on whether you got top dollar.

For those of you who have never heard of mint.com, it is a website that attempts to make budgeting, money saving, and to a lesser extent, financial planning easier. I've been using it for about 4 months now. Unfortunately, I have saved no money. The good news, if you can call it that, is that I do know very clearly where each paycheck is going. Just configure your mint.com account with your bank and credit card account information and it nearly automatically categorizes your spending and lets you easily set budgets. It will even track your investment goals and offer some money saving ideas after it 'gets to know you'. Yes, its secure. (And even if someone discovers your login and password information all they could do is see your cash flow. No money is ever moved with Mint.) If you are lucky enough to have an iPhone there is a companion app that puts all its information at your fingertips. "Before I buy these shoes, how much have I spent on clothes this month? That much? Really? Well, one more pair can't hurt. They're on sale."

What does this have to do with clutter? Eh. Its a stretch. The Mintlife Blog maintains that if you have too much clutter you could be spending too much on your apartment or house. I don't really buy that as I would bet that we sort of grow our clutter to fit the amount of available space. Perhaps you could get rid of some storage though.

I foresee a more brutal me when it comes to divesting of clutter in 2010. First up, the gadgets bin!

All the rest is GRAVY!

Can you believe that this is the most coveted kitchen utensil in my mom's aresenal?
Its a birch twig whisk and apparently it is Scandinavian in origin.

On Thanksgiving day when I Facebooked about the fact that my brother did not want me to bring anything to dinner I received a lot of congratulatory emails from my friends. "Those invitations are worth their weight in gold!", they shouted. That may be but I always end up helping out. Almost inevitably I am asked to make the gravy. I don't know why as I don't have a secret recipe. I make the same gravy my mother made and I'm sure hers came out of The Joy of Cooking. Giblet stock, Wondra, more stock, giblets, water chestnuts, stock, Wondra, stock, salt, pepper....wallah! No secret ingredient. I'd really like to try out a new recipe and searched the food blogs a week before the holiday hoping to find a showstopper to impress everyone with. (Perhaps one with cognac?) . I asked one of my favorite food bloggers why his Thanksgiving roundup didn't include gravy. The answer was obvious. Who wants to cook an entire turkey BEFORE thanksgiving just to do a gravy recipe?)

The secret to our gravy is not an ingredient but the whisk you see above. My mother got it a couple dozen years ago and it is without a doubt the best whisk around for making gravy. It quickly scrapes up the brown bits, including those in the hard to reach corners, and works the gravy easily and quickly. You really get a lot of whisk surface area moving the sauce around and working the flour into the stock. The clumps up quickly and easily. Once you have tried it, you will never want to use a regular whisk for gravy again.

The whisk you see above has been traveling for years, going to whomever is hosting the dinner. For years we have been trying to find them in a store or online so that we can all claim one as our own but this has not been easy and each year we ask Mom to bring the whisk. Well, I finally found them here and ordered them for everyone. Mom can even retire hers! It has served us well. (Hi Mom, I know this ruins the surprise but I wanted to share this while there is still time for people to buy one. Oh, and I have no affiliation with that website!)