Barefoot Bloggers: Coq au Vin

Flambé better late then never! I love a good flaming pot of food, especially when I intentionally set it ablaze and not accidentally. This post is late due to my unfortunate incident with the exploding water. My hand healed really well and I can use potholders and everything now just like a big girl.

Coq au Vin. Chicken au vin, coq and wine, chix and wine (which is what we really have here when I'm with my friends, versus cooking like a fool right now) and at last we settle on chicken and wine. I really chopped up this recipe and made it my own due to extreme laziness and the fact that my kids don’t eat anything with “weird” ingredients like small frozen whole onions or (heaven forbid!) cremini mushrooms. DH HATES ‘shrooms, so there’s no point throwing them in just for myself to hear everyone whining and moaning about it and then having to pick them out.

The chicken part was easy – I used boneless skinless chicken breasts as I was too lazy and cold to walk downstairs and shuffle thru the freezer to dig out parts or defrost the bowling ball that is a whole chicken down there. Parts is parts. I also just used up every last shred of carrot in the house – literally just shredded from making a carrot cake - so I used parsnips. If anyone asks, they’re albino carrots. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. So, I blithely start making the chix wit’ wine in my Colossal Pan. Yes, it actually IS called the Colossal Pan. This is one of my favorite pans - it's a big 6 quart puppy and because it’s so big, it’s almost a pot. Would that make it a pant? Hmmm.

Anyhoo, I cooked the bacon (I crumbled it after frying it whole because who wants to dice when they can crush?) I browned the chicken, I sautéed the onions. I added the garlic. I’m thinkin’ to myself – WOW 5 large cloves of garlic? You go girl! Alas, I have the cookbook open to page 2 of the recipe and forgot that my ingredients are on the page before – the pot roast on page 117 uses 5 cloves of garlic, if anyone’s interested – so my c.o.v. had 5 cloves instead of 2. Good thing I love garlic.

Moving forward to the flambé part.

I got the Colossal Lid to my Colossal Pan, just in case I needed to smother the flames before setting my kitchen alight, and grabbed a long fireplace match. I lit it from these cute little penguin candles from Bath & Body Works. Aren’t they sweet? Cinnamon scented, discounted with purchase, you can get coupons from their website if you sign up for email. But I digress. I pour in the cognac and light the match and POOF! Up in flames goes the pan. Coooool. Messy one comes running thinking I’m about torch the place and also says Cool when he is assured that I MEANT to set fire to dinner this time.




Now, I know you’re thinking, well Lisa, that Colossal Pan doesn’t look like it has an oven proof handle. And of course, you’d be right. It always usually helps to actually READ the recipe – I missed the whole preheat your oven thing or else I’d have started out in the other pot that can go in the oven.

Presto changeo. Through the miracle of the internet and my DH who washes the dishes without complaint, the dinner is now clad in stainless steel.



40 minutes later, we’re good to go. I thickened up the sauce with the flour/butter paste and stopped there as we weren’t partaking of the ‘shroom and onion action. Served with egg noodles and they liked it. What? Oh, those are albino carrots honey. No? Oh, silly me those are actually potatoes. You like potatoes. Eat them. No whining, Santa knows when you whine. Trust me.

Many thanks to Bethany of this little piggy went to market for selecting this recipe. If you yourself would like to see exactly how easy, simple and tasty this Coq au Vin is, you can find the recipe on the Food Network site here or in Ina Garten’s new book, Back to Basics on page 116. To join the BB community or to see what all the others did with this, please visit the the Barefoot Bloggers site.

Barefoot Bloggers: Mexican Chicken Soup

This Mexican Chicken Soup was another fast and easy recipe from the fabulous Ina G! It took no time at all to make and the ingredients come together effortlessly to make a warm and comforting meal. We’ll be savoring this soup all week long, in between turkey leftovers. In fact, if this wasn’t due today, Thanksgiving Day, I would have made it using leftover turkey instead, but there’s no reason YOU can’t do it! :) What a fine way to finish off the T-day bird.

Many thanks to Judy from Judy’s Gross Eats for choosing this recipe. If you yourself would like to see exactly how easy, simple and tasty this Mexican Chicken Soup is, you can find the recipe on the Food Network site here, or in Ina Garten's book, Barefoot Contessa at Home, page 34. To join the BB community or to see what all the others did with this, please visit the the Barefoot Bloggers site.

Chicken Cacciatore “Pronto”

I went to the library the other day and was relatively surprised to realize that they have a large selection of cookbooks available for checkout. DUH! Cook. Book. Library. Ok, so maybe sometimes I’m a little slow on the uptake folks.

I sat on the floor, happy as a clam perusing the shelves, completely unaffected by the reproachful looks shot at me between the stacks by the librarians. :) One of the books I ended up checking out was The Best of Cooking Light. No Thank You Boy helped me choose Chicken Cacciatore “Pronto” for dinner, sans mushrooms (of course). I traded the thighs for chicken breasts, added some chiffonaded basil and served with store bought gnocchi. For some reason the CL picture is much “browner” than mine, probably because of the mushrooms.

High marks all the way around!

Cornflake Chicken

So I have this big box of cornflakes left over from the holycraptheseareamazing cookies burning a hole in my pantry (metaphorically speaking, of course). What to do? Cornflake chicken, of course.

Cornflake Chicken

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 cups Cornflakes, crushed. (I start with about 2 cups and add more as needed. I hate to waste perfectly good flakes.)
1 egg,
Flour for dredging
Vegetable oil for frying

1. Wash and pat dry the chicken breasts.
2. Set up a little 3 part breading station for yourself:
a. Flour. (depending on the meat involved I either use a shallow pie pan or the ol’plastic bag method wherein you coat it shake n’ bake style)
b. Egg wash. Beat one egg with about 3 tablespoons of water in a separate shallow dish.
c. The breading – cornflakes in this case, also in a shallow dish.
3. Go thru the breading process – coat the chicken with flour, dip into the egg wash and then roll it around in the cornflakes, pressing down so that they stick well.
4. Heat the oil in a non-stick pan or cast iron skillet.
5. When the oil is hot, carefully place the chicken breasts in the pan.
6. Allow the chicken to cook at least 4 minutes on each side or until the flakes are golden brown, the chicken is cooked through and juices run clear.

Serve with greenish looking mashed potatoes :)

Chicken and Lettuce Wraps?

We were getting into a bit of a rut with our chicken dinner selections, and I wanted to change things up a bit and to see if there was anything else in the world that No Thank You Boy would eat. A friend and I went to see Mamma Mia! and then went out for appetizers afterwards. We had chicken lettuce wraps and I thought I'd try to recreate them after a fashion. My thought was that it's fun, different, and you could eat with your hands (ok, that part appeals more to Messy Boy rather than No Thank You Boy). I had all the basic ingredients on hand (um, like chicken and lettuce). I have to limit the number of blatantly obvious ingredients so that I can slip some others in under the radar, so this is a pretty stripped down version. I did manage to sneak in water chestnuts without "anyone" noticing and prep was easy. It was a mess to eat but everyone liked it.

Chicken and Lettuce Wraps

Ingredients:
Filling:
Rotisserie chicken, meat stripped off bones and roughly chopped
1 can water chestnuts, sliced and roughly chopped
2 cloves minced garlic
½ small onion chopped
4-6 leaves of lettuce, rinsed and dried
2 tablespoons olive oil

Sauce:
2 tablespoons soy sauce
¼ cup brown sugar
½ cup water
Dash sesame oil
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Create sauce by mixing ingredients in small bowl and set aside. In a medium bowl, combine chopped chicken and water chestnuts. Add garlic and onion. In a medium pot, heat the olive oil. Add the chicken mixture, stir in the sauce ingredients and combine thoroughly to coat and heat through. Remove from heat. Place one lettuce wrap on each plate and place a small scoop of the chicken on each. Roll up, forming a small pocket or envelope.