Chicken twofer redux

Is it time for coffee break yet?

I didn't manage to take a single picture of anything food-related this week. Probably because I didn't do much cooking. Unlike last week, I didn't have to host or prep any special meals or anything. D was even out a couple of nights, so Miss B and I concentrated on taking care of the leftovers amassed earlier.
My favorite of these was a concoction involving the leftovers from the dinner I had hosted for three rather distinguished visitors. (Definitely teapot people!) For the dinner, I had prepared a recipe from Mark and Bruce's Great American Slow Cooker Book, which involved shredding a bunch of carrots and onions, mixing them with seasonings, balsamic, and worcestershire sauce (I think), and then making them into a sort of chicken bed in the bottom of a slow cooker. On top go multiple chicken breasts, topped with sage leaves and then wrapped in prosciutto, to cook for about 4 hours.

This made for a tasty and, dare I say, elegant main course - very streamlined but still flavorful. I served it with roasted potatoes, a green salad, and homemade bread. We started with some kind of creamy dip and finished with a peach-blueberry galette, and everyone went home happy (as well as, in at least one case, reeling with jet lag).

Where the chicken dish really outdid itself, however, was as leftovers. A couple of days later, I had a packed schedule, and (unusually for me) knew I'd be out of the house from before 9 until after 5. First thing in the morning, while I was doing breakfast and lunch prep, I also chopped up the leftover chicken breasts and put them back in the slow cooker, along with the carrot/onion mix and a bottle of tomato passata. I stirred everything together and left it to cook on low for the day. When we were nearly ready for dinner that night, I went in there with a potato masher to make sure the chicken was falling apart and mixed in (it was); then threw in a package of gnocchi and a handful of grated parmigiano-reggiano. I left that to heat through for about 15 minutes, topped it with a generous dusting of grated pecorino romano, and dinner was served.

This was a smash hit - starchy and comforting but also very savory and hearty. Miss B, who has mixed feelings about gnocchi (mainly due to my habit of toasting them in the oven until crispy for certain dishes), ate this with gusto and took the leftovers to school for lunch more than once. This is another chicken slow cooker dish that I'll be cooking at least as much for the leftovers as for the main event (coming a close second to this one).

Unfortunately I didn't remember to take a picture of it, so instead you get a goofy picture of a t-rex trying to fold a pair of jeans. (Why? Enquiring minds want to know.) However, I am doing some cooking today, of which I promise to take pictures for an update in the near future.

Chocolate tart

Today I’m going to share with you what may be one of my weirder frugal habits.

When I have baked goods sitting around that are starting to lose their allure, I don’t throw them away. Instead, I put them in my food processor and grind them up into crumbs. Then I freeze the crumbs.

I also don’t bother to distinguish between the crumbs. The kinds of thing that are likely to get ground up are all sort of variants of the same thing, points along the chocolate chip cookie/congo bar/blondie/brownie continuum. Since they all have more or less the same ingredients, I cavalierly assume they all taste good together, and freeze all the crumbs in the same bag.

That way I’ve got them handy to make stuff like this without advance notice or planning. And they do make the crust taste better than one made with store-bought cookies, though I say it myself - particularly if you’ve browned the butter beforehand.

Chocolate tart

In researching how to make this tart, I discovered that there are two ways of getting a crumb crust to firm up: cooking it briefly, or refrigerating it. Since all the crust ingredients had already been cooked once, and the filling needs to be chilled, I opted for refrigeration. As a bonus, this is a great do-ahead dessert.

Cookie crust

8 oz/240 g cookie or baked-good crumb of your choice

4 oz/120 g butter, melted

2 Tbsp sugar (optional)

Grease the inside of a cake or tart pan* (preferably one with a loose bottom) generously and set aside.

Mix the butter into the crumbs gradually; you might not need all of it, depending upon how dry or wet the crumbs are to start with. You are looking to achieve a thick, lumpy but malleable mass, somewhat like wet sand.

When the crust mix has reached the right consistency, spread evenly in the bottoms and up the sides of the prepared pan, to a thickness of about ½ inch/1 cm. Place in the refrigeration to chill for 20-30 minutes while you get on with the filling.

Chocolate ganache filling

8 oz/240 ml cream

8 oz/240 g bittersweet chocolate chips

2 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp vanilla

pinch of salt

Heat cream in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until hot but not boiling. Remove from heat and pour in chocolate. Leave mixture to sit for 2-3 minutes, then whisk until cream and chocolate have combined into a thick, shiny, pourable liquid. Whisk in remaining ingredients and allow to cool slightly, about 5 minutes.

Remove prepared crust from refrigerator and pour in ganache. Tap and tilt the pan to make sure the ganache fills the crust evenly and smoothly, then return pan to refrigerator and chill for at least 1 hour.

Remove tart from the refrigerator 20-30 minutes before serving to take some of the chill off.

Serves 8.

* I used an 8 in/20 cm loose-bottom cake pan for this recipe. If yours is much bigger, the filling may be too thin.

Reverse engineering

Last year when we were living in temporary accommodation and I had only the TUK at my disposal, I had to dispense with certain aspects of company meal prep (since dispensing with the company was obviously not an option). Appetizers were an obvious choice, especially after I discovered a fresh and delicious basil-cashew-parmesan dip readily available in my local supermarket. This was wildly successful with any number of guests, and especially with DP, who took to requesting it before every company meal. Once I unpacked my food processor, however, I began to think less about how tasty and effortless it was, and more about how much each little tub cost. And since its primary ingredients were right there on the label, I thought it might be feasible to concoct my own version. This is the result of my experimentation.

Reverse engineered basil-cashew-parmesan dip
I prefer the consistency of this to be on the chunky side, as that is more like the original dip. If you prefer a smoother, more pesto-like consistency, then you will probably want to add the extra olive oil, as indicated below, and maybe even a bit more.

2 cups firmly packed basil leaves

.5 cup roasted salted cashews

.5 cup shredded parmigiano reggiano cheese

1 clove garlic

1 anchovy

2 tsp lemon juice

2-3 Tbsp olive oil

salt

Place all ingredients except olive oil and salt in bowl of food processor, and puree to a chunky paste. Drizzle 2 Tbsp of olive oil over, sprinkle with salt, and process again. Look at consistency and add third Tbsp of olive oil if desired.

Makes about 1 cup of dip. Serve with pita chips or other tasty dip-conveyor of choice.

Active socially

Remember how I was lamenting having no one to cook for a while back?

Scratch that. First we hosted my sister and her gang a couple of weeks back. Then, DP, who is in the throes of teaching his first intensive seminar in his new position (eight students, 8-12 hours a week), decided that the least he could do in the way of hospitality would be to offer each of the half-dozen or so visiting guest speakers a home-cooked meal during their stay. Plus have a cookout for the seminar students and their families. Oh, and invite a prospective student or two (plus families) over for a weekend lunch. Oh, and reciprocate invitations to the people who had us over when we were camping out in the serviced apartment. Oh, and….

Family harmony

We had guests for dinner last Saturday night. A few days beforehand, I was pondering what to make; Miss B and DP, knowing my ways in these matters, asked one night over dinner what Saturday’s menu would be. Both seemed particularly interested in dessert.

I, who have a seven-kilo box of crisp orchard apples awaiting my attention and an insatiable appetite for fruity desserts, was considering something appropriately autumnal. “I was thinking about an apple pie,” I mused.

The response to this was somewhat half-hearted. “Why, what do you guys think I should make?” I asked, hoping to generate some enthusiasm.

This time the response was immediate, loud, and unanimous. “CUPCAKES!” they shouted. “Make cupcakes again! With lots of frosting! Colored frosting!”

“Cupcakes?” I replied incredulously. “When we have people coming? I know you guys liked those cupcakes I made for Easter, but is that really something we should be giving company?”

“YES!” they bellowed.

What could I do? I bowed to familial pressure. And, after all, I’ve never met anyone, of any age, who doesn’t love a cupcake. Our guests were no exception.


Anytime Cupcakes
This recipe is based on the classic proportions of an English Victoria sponge—all you need to remember is 4/4/4/2 (using imperial measurements) for the usual four ingredients (although I’ve added a few extras) to produce exactly one standard 12-cup tray of cupcakes. For some reason, knowing this makes whipping up a batch of cupcakes seem like not so much of a big deal. The cupcakes will be on the short side, but since they’re really just a vehicle for frosting, I wouldn’t expect any complaints on that score.

Cupcakes
4oz/100g all-purpose/plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
4oz/100g butter, softened
4oz/100g granulated/caster sugar
2 eggs
3 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla

Fluffy buttercream frosting*
2oz/50g butter, softened
Pinch salt
1 tsp vanilla
8oz/200g confectioner’s/icing sugar
2-4 Tbsp milk
Food coloring (optional)

Line a cupcake pan. Preheat the oven to 350F/180C.

Mix the dry ingredients and set aside. Mix the milk and vanilla and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy, then add the eggs, one at a time. Alternately mix in the dry and wet ingredients and beat just until combined.

Scrape cake mixture into cupcake papers and bake for 15-25 minutes, rotating the tray once halfway through.

To make the frosting: measure the first four ingredients into a large bowl and mix with a hand beater to combine. Add milk cautiously and continue beating until you have smooth, fluffy frosting.** Divide up the frosting into separate bowls if you want to dye more than one color, then color as desired.***

Frost cupcakes and serve. Watch whoever you serve them to revert to acting their shoe size.


* If you really want to go to town on the frosting, double all of the measurements and you’ll be able to put an inch-thick lid on each cupcake.
** The more liquid you put in, the runnier the frosting gets. Fluffy is good, especially if you want to pile it on.
*** This is a very minor extra step which delights people (the baker included) out of all proportion to the effort required.

Good advice

Following good advice makes life so much easier sometimes. Especially when it comes to dinner.

It all started with 5 second rule’s useful post about managing your greens. Reading it was like hearing a voice say, “Hey, you! Yeah, you, trying to stuff that giant bunch of silverbeet in your fridge? Why don’t you try this instead?”

(Silverbeet is Australian for chard. It’s two feet long. That’s it in the picture. I put a regular-sized Popsicle stick next to it to give you some scope for comparison.)

The post provided detailed instructions for how to prep your greens when you buy them, so that they a) fit in your fridge and b) are ready and waiting when you want to eat them.

Having followed these recommendations on Friday afternoon, I sat back in a glow of quiet contentment, thinking about how easy preparing Saturday night’s dinner would be. Then I started to get cocky: how could I make it even easier? How could I make an absolutely fabulous dinner that would also be quick and simple?