Kitten And Grilled Chicken Sandwich

So, I've been a really bad blogger lately. I've been taking pictures sporadically but I haven't had the motivation to get on here and write about it. No worries, I have been cooking as much as usual just not translating to the web.

Also, I have been having a war of sorts with my bread making. My bread recipe has changed slightly because I have been making buns with a new recipe. When I tried to make it into bread (because I love the recipe so much) it didn't work. I have reverted to my old bread recipe that I love. The bread turned out great but STUCK in the pan GRRR!!! So much frustration! The only thing that I have found that will release my wonderful bread is to use liberal amounts of butter. Real deal butter. This is fine because I use butter in my bun recipe so I have it on hand. That's not the point. The point is that suddenly my stupid bread won't come out of the pans and it's *&%ing me off. Anyway...

I have wanted to get a recipe for hamburger buns but haven't been happy with previous attempts. While they have been nice bun recipes they weren't soft enough, they were really crumbly, or they turned out really dense. I think I have finally perfected the bun recipe. I basically make this hoagie recipe that I get from here. BUT, this time I added an egg for softness. They were PERFECT! So good. I grilled burgers to go with these wonderful buns and it was heaven!

Now I have these heavenly buns to eat, what do I do? Make a hot sandwich I guess. 

Let's take a moment to talk about our new kitten though shall we?

Her name is Skittles and we rescued her from the Mississauga Animal Services. She was 8 weeks old when we got her. We figured her birthday out to be around the time of my son's birthday. We don't know her exact birthday so we just say it is the same as Phoenix's for simplicity. She is so cute, sweet, cuddly, and CRAZY. 

You know that moment when you trip over a kitten, your foot is in the air, you have forward momentum and you now don't know where to put your feet to avoid stepping on the kitten freaking out underneath you now because you tripped on her?? No? Well you probably do if you have ever been around cats because they have this stupid habit of walking RIGHT in front of your feet while you walk. Kick the kitten, cue kitten scramble, cue fear of squashing scared kitten. Ugh! Luckily, it didn't happen on the stairs yet.

She LOVES to sleep on our shoulders or just lie across our shoulders. It will be a sad day when she is too big for her favourite spots. And by sad I mean painful because she will probably try, fall, and scratch us as she tries to catch herself. Much like she does now when she makes bad decisions and gravity corrects her.

Anyway, back to the food. I was going for a cornmeal sprinkle on these buns. It was a bit of a fail since I didn't wet the dough in anyway so they barely stuck on and just fall off ALL OVER THE DAMN PLACE. They are messy but I digress.

So first things first, toast the bun. I used my grill, some butter, and HIGH heat until I had evenly toasty buns. Add your veg and sauce. I used just mayo and lettuce at first but added some steak sauce after. So good.

Caramelize some thinly sliced onions. I used salt, pepper, and a touch of sugar. I cheated because I didn't want to wait 20 minutes for my sandwich. Sue me. They tasted great. 

Get some regular shaved chicken lunch meat. Brown it slightly and warm it all the way through.

Stack the onions on the chicken.

Stack that on the lettuce. Tomato would be totally wonderful on this too but I didn't have any big ones, just little cherry ones.

The finished product. It was so good!! 

I highly recommend taking the time to a) toast the bun and b) grill some onions. It totally took this sandwich beyond regular cold cuts to a warm loving embrace.... what? You know what I mean. Enjoy!

Bang Bang Chicken ~ You Will Thank Me If You Make These

I can't remember now exactly how I found her but I have been gobbling up Jennifer Reese's book "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter".  Like, obsessively, reading this book every second I have to sit and read.  I carry it with me everywhere.  I was reading between weekend baking recipes, while cooking supper... while eating supper.  It has replaced social media, iPad games, tv shows... real people conversation.  It has been just Jennifer and I since Friday when the book came in the mail from Amazon.

I'm 2/3 of the way through and having 'end-of-book' anxiety.  I know she has a blog The Tipsy Baker and this has helped me to deal somewhat.  I LOVE the idea of this book and it has quickly become my go to for everything.  I plan to make many of the recipes in this book.  I have already made her recipe for corn tortillas just to turn them into quesadillas for lunch.  A little work, slightly time consuming, and delicious.

Thanks to this book, I have randomly been overcome by the urge to do the things that Jennifer talks about in her books.  I have been known to randomly start talking about getting chickens to which I got puzzled looks from Chris.  I have gotten the sudden desire to making cheese which I shared with Chris.  This sparked an argument when it was implied (in my mind) that I was not knowledgeable enough to make cheese - this was really just the start of how this book has impacted my conversations with Chris.  I would laugh out loud and have to try to explain to him what was so funny.  He wasn't properly prepared for the hilarity because you can't just explain why something is funny and get the same reaction.  This took away from the humour and made me question if it was really funny or if I'm just weird.  I think it really was funny.

Ok, moving on.  To be honest, it was the name that caught my eye for this recipe.  I find recipes I love and make them once or twice and forget about them by moving on to the next big thing.  Not so with this recipe.  I made them for the first time in Germany as best as I could with my smuggled hot sauce, questionable sweet chili sauce, and Italian bread crumbs, I think I bought, from the local Rewe.  In hindsight, I'm surprised this recipe turned out to be a favourite when ingredients are so important to the outcome of a recipe.

I found this recipe on a recipe collection app but it comes from Damn Delicious, find the recipe here.  I have since made Bang Bang Chicken for my Mom, my sister and her husband, and again recently for my own family.  I have made this properly with Panko, real mayo, real (in my mind) sweet chili sauce, and even with tofu for my vegetarian sister.  It, honestly, only improved in my mind.  The panko has a crunch that I have never experienced before.  Regular bread crumb just doesn't quite do it.  This dish is always worth the work and the mess.

I highly recommend cooking with chop sticks for this as they seem to be the least messy.  Unless, of course, you are even more lousy at chop sticks than I am, then use something else.  Dropping food into hot oil off chop sticks is not advised.  I have accidentally "thrown" battered chicken pieces as they have flung themselves to the will of gravity into the pan of hot oil.  A fire hazard waiting to happen.  For the dipping, however, I feel they have the least amount of surface to become goopy.  You decide.  You will need three pairs of chop sticks and a heat safe strainer spoon if you decide to go this route.  I use the strainer spoon to quickly get as many done pieces out the oil like now.  It is also helpful to remove the bits of crumb that collect in the oil.

Get ready, you will love this!

First up, make the dipping sauce.  You will completely forget about this if you wait until the end.  Plus, the more time these lovely products have to get to know each other the better.  Substitute where you must, I won't judge.

This looks like a party in the bowl, it is, it makes this dish.  Don't skip this sauce, really just don't.  Put this in the fridge until you are ready to eat but don't forget it!

Now, the star.  This recipe is 10 times better with real panko.  Go get it.  If you can't, for some reason, use bread crumbs.  You owe it to your crunch-loving side to make this again with panko.  You will thank me, your mouth will thank you.

Pour one cup at a time into a bowl.  You will use more than that but this gets a bit messy as batter drops off into the crumb.  Pick those bits out and discard to help with easier coating.  Also, you don't want to waste any crumb.  You, obviously, can't reuse this once you put chicken in it so just add more as you go.  The recipe calls for one cup but I use at least two for two large chicken breasts.

Last, make the batter.  I have used milk when I didn't have buttermilk and it was good but not the same.  I highly recommend buying buttermilk even if you just use it for this recipe.  Also, you can just use up the rest in mashed potatoes and buttermilk pancakes.

Mix up everything.  It will make a thick batter, thicker than pancake batter.  That is what you want.

Set up your dipping station.

I set some rice going at this point to serve with my bang bang chicken.  Bring to a boil, turn to minimum, forget about it until your chicken is cooked.  Alternately, use a rice cooker.  You will be BUSY making the chicken so don't have anything that needs your attention going along side.

I also start heating my oil now.  I like a deep frying pan for this with about an inch or two of oil.  It gives you a lot of surface area and heats (and reheats) quickly.  Also, put a baking sheet in your oven and turn it on to 350F.  You are going to be putting your chicken on it as you cook to keep it warm and also ensure every piece is cooked completely until you get the oil temperature set just right.

Now get your chops stick ready.  Each bowl gets their own set of chops stick and they do not go into anything but their own bowl!  This is very important if you don't want to have battered chop sticks that look like sausages.

Last, I cup up the chicken into bite sized cubes.  I like to use partially frozen chicken because it is easier to cut and it cools the batter as it thaws.  That's more food safe, right??  Truthfully, I usually have just pulled it out of the freezer earlier that day so it is slightly frozen still and just works perfectly.

The first time I made this, I put the chicken in the batter in batches.  It's not necessary.  Just dump all your chicken in the batter.

Using the batter chop sticks, turn the chicken around in the batter until evenly coated.

Once your oil is hot, drop a couple of pieces of battered chicken into the panko crumbs using the batter chop sticks.  Try to shake or scrap off a bit of excess batter (anything that is trying to drip).  The extra just falls off and makes things messy.  I find that 3 - 4 pieces is the most manageable.  If you put too many in they will stick together and make a mess.  Now using the crumb chop sticks toss them and flick crumb over them.

By now your oil should be hot and you can drop your battered chicken pieces into the oil using the crumb chop sticks.  Don't crowd your pan but you can usually get about two maybe three batches of chicken going at the same time.  The crumb chop sticks should be used to ease these pieces slowly into the oil.  The pieces should start bubbling right away but take several minutes to become golden.  If they don't bubble right away, the oil it too cold, if they brown too quickly, it's too hot.  You need to find that perfect temperature that will give you non-oil logged and not raw chicken.

Go back and batter the next batch of bang bang chicken.  If you are slow like me, by this time your first bunch is ready to turn.  Be sure to only use the oil chop sticks in the oil.  You do not want to mix these up.  You will develop the technique of pick up chop sticks, move chicken, drop chop sticks, pick up next chop sticks, move chicken, drop chop sticks... this is important.

 You are aiming for this deep golden brown.  I quickly move the done chicken onto a pan in my oven using the strainer spoon I linked to above.  When the pieces are done you want them out of the oil to keep the crumb from burning.  The strainer spoon is big enough to take out several pieces at once and no chop stick dropped chicken to splash oil.  Get the cooked chicken onto your hot pan in the oven and continue cooking in small batches until you are out of chicken.

I also keep a bowl handy for emergency chicken removal.  Some pieces are trickier than others.  At some point you will probably turn around to find that you need to get the chicken out now!  This bowl is a good pit stop on the way to the oven.  It stops the chicken cooking, clears up room in the pan for the next batch, and is easy to handle to dump the cooked chicken into the hot pan once you have a moment.

This is what you will end up with.  It is like chicken nuggets if they were dropped in wonderful and slathered with awesome.  Don't forget to get your sauce out of the fridge!  We use the sauce as a dip or just slather it on top or bathe in it, whatever, I'm not judging.

Serve with a nice salad - to counter all that grease of the frying - and some rice.  You might resent the space they take up in your stomach that could be better filled with Bang Bang Chicken, in that case just eat the chicken and sauce.  It's ok, it's delicious! 

Now, in the rare case that you have leftovers, they reheat perfectly in the oven.  Be sure to make up more of the sauce if you ran out.  Ketchup will not do these justice.

As I said, I have made these with tofu.  I used extra firm, my sister pressed the extra moisture out.  I made it first to avoid having chicken dipped tofu - that would defeat the purpose I thought.  We all loved the tofu as much as the chicken.  I have also seen Bang Bang Shrimp which I'm certain would also be mind blowing.  I think you could probably dip card board and serve it with this sauce and it would be delicious... well maybe not but I think my point has been made.

ENJOY!!

Go To Meal and Gaming

Remember how I was talking about all my stuff that came over from Alberta recently?  Well mixed in with all those cook books and my kitchen was all my gaming systems.  I have an embarrassing or in other words awesome collection of games and gaming systems.  Yesterday was all about the Xbox and Xbox 360.  Gamers out there will know what I'm talking about when I say revisiting old favourite games after years of not being able to play them is a special treat!  DDR and Spongebob anyone?

This game is best played with another 'real' person as it is played in teams and well we should probably interact with a flesh and blood person every now and then.

Anyway, onto the good good food.  So when I'm feeling uninspired and lazy I have a few old reliable meals that I know will be satisfying and hardly any work.  I don't make them often but they are always successful so they are my go-to meals.  In particular fried potatoes fit into this category for me.  I remember my mom making these for us as kids and often we would ask for this meal.  She would usually make these with ground beef fried with onions and I do too when I have ground beef.  Add a side of canned corn and I'm in heaven.  I have called this a ketchup meal because ketchup goes good on everything on the plate.  Honestly, if you haven't done ketchup on canned corn you are missing out!  I have since grown up a little and only put ketchup on my potatoes (usually).  Let get started.

Peel some spuds.  The last bag of potatoes we bought wasn't that great.  Lots of spots and such to get rid of and my poor potatoes ended up looking funny but they cooked up just fine.

This is also a great time to break out my mandolin.  It is really under used but I appreciate it every time I get to use it.  Thinly slice all those funny look spuds.

Heat up some oil in a nice heavy bottom pan.  You will use more than you think but you can add more as you go.  Just get a healthy (haha) dose in the pan to get you started.

I seasoned these sliced potatoes heavily with seasoning salt and pepper and let them get to work.  They will be crispy on the bottom, soft in the middle and slightly salty all over.  Let these sit and develop the crust then turn them over to expose that golden base.  Mix them around to develop as much crust as possible.  Keep an eye on them, they burn easily, especially if you run out of oil in the pan.  Add more oil as you need to keep developing that lovely crust.  If you are in a rush you can cover the pan to help the potatoes steam and cook faster.  Be sure to take the lid off halfway through to prevent having soggy potatoes.  Keep an eye on that crust development though, seriously, it is the best part!

Now that our spuds are underway it is time to think about the chicken.  I have recently discovered oven fried chicken.  I make a seasoned flour usually using the spices here from my ribs rub but I will throw in something extra, substitute, and mix it up.  I have also done just lots of seasoned salt, pepper, and paprika into about a cup of flour which is really nice too.  This is where you can get creative.  Everything goes pretty much.

Here we have two lovely chicken thighs.  The chicken thigh is my favourite cut.  It's juicy, flavourful, the skin is always evenly crunchy. Just good stuff.

Here is my coating.  I like the way the flour and spices crisp up but if you really want to get crunchy put the spices into some panko instead of flour or a mixture of the two.  You won't be sorry.

Evenly coat the chicken.  I find that I don't need a liquid to get this coating to stick.  If you do, go ahead and dip into some milk, shake off the excess then dip into the coating.  Bake in a hot (400F) oven for about 30 minutes or just let them keep going until the potatoes are done.  I start them skin side down and turn them over when the skin is golden and crunchy.  I usually start these by heating the pan up in the oven with about 6 tbsp of butter (hence the oven fried bit).  I then place the coated chicken into the hot fat and bake them that way.  Extra deliciousness ensues but also extra fat.  If you want to go lighter just omit the butter step.  The chicken will bring it's own fat to the cooking process.

I didn't have corn but I couldn't skip the "healthy" part of this meal so I tossed some peas on and just let them come to the boil then turned them off.  No mushy peas for me, thanks.

The end product is a piece of my childhood.  The ketchup is a requirement, it just isn't the same without it.  This dish is so "Canadian" to me.  When I think of Canadian food I always think poutine, Alberta steak, maple syrup, you know, those things.  But this is what I should think.  

So simple, so good!

Veggie and Chicken Curry with Cranberry Quinoa.

Until recently I was in Germany.  Last summer I moved back to Canada and now we are in Ontario.  Before that I was living in northern then southern Alberta.  I had packed up much of my stuff already from a previous move.  When I decided to go to Germany I put all my things into storage and hopped on a plane.

Now that we are back in Canada we had to get all that stuff from Alberta to Ontario.  Stuff like my entire kitchen, all my cook books, everything.  All I took to Germany was clothes, computer, and the books I need to finish my study.  We hired movers who loaded my stuff onto a train and 5 weeks later it's here.

Now that I have all my stuff back I'm really digging in, like using cook books that I haven't seen in over three years.  I have an old slow cooker I bought at a garage sale year ago and have really been wanting to break it out and revisit that wonderful feeling of knowing my meal is making itself with little effort from me.

As you can see I have a bit of a selection, I have a lot of cook books.  Some would say it's a problem, I say, I haven't bought any for years and I'M SO BEHIND!  

All I knew for sure when I was going through these books looking for options was that I'm out of potatoes, I wanted it to be mostly if not entirely veggies, and I also needed something to do with two chicken thighs I had left over from the previous night.

I found a recipe for a veggie curry but I was missing a lot of the ingredients.  I did a massive veggie shop awhile ago now but I'm getting low.  I felt that I could modify the recipe really easily to use what I had.  I will be making this again, it turned out great.  I would be interested to try it as the recipe suggested but this way was just fine too.

Gather all your ingredients, or at least what you have that you'll be using, heh.  Chop up the onion and pepper into bigger pieces, the carrot into coins, and the celery into one inch long bites.

First, I mixed up the curry, coconut milk, and flour.  Set aside. 

I figured the chicken would happily stew under the veggies with all that yummy sauce so I just lightly seasoned them on both sides and tossed them in first.

The recipe called for garlic and ginger.  Unless I need big pieces for some reason I usually use a grater to take care of these.  Just peel back what you think you'll need of the ginger and get it going.  I always peel and leave the end on the garlic when grating it.  You have something to hold onto that way and just chuck that bit away when you get down to it.  I grated these both straight into the sauce.

Just toss all those chopped veggies in on top of the chicken.

Now the sauce.

My good friend Laura made a wonderful dish for me that had roasted chicken, apricots, raisins, and veggies with this dreamy sauce.  I loved it.  I wanted to get something sweet to go along with the coconut milk sauce that I just knew was going to be awesome.  I remembered that I had raisins and craisins in the cupboard and thought they would be pretty good, sweet and tart, just what I was looking for.  I also wanted to get some quinoa going so I looked up a recipe for quinoa and cranberries.  I found this recipe that wasn't a perfect fit but was close enough.

I use two cups of water, 2/3 cup craisins and 1/3 cup raisins and got that boiling before I put in one cup quinoa and 1/2 tsp salt.  

Part of this recipe called for 1 tbsp each oil and lemon to be added to the cooked quinoa so I prepared that so I wouldn't forget to add them.

Let that cook for 20 minutes until the germ part of the quinoa is clearly visible and all the liquid is absorbed.  The fruit re-hydrated some and swelled up to sweet and tart little gems.

Check on your veggies and chicken.  I let this cook about 4.5 hours total.  It made my whole house smell amazing!

This was so satisfying.  Phoenix loved it.  The curry, the veggies, the sweet and tart hits in the quinoa.  This is going to happen again.  The chicken was so tender and flavourful.  The lemon and oil in the quinoa just brought it back to life and gave it a really satisfying feeling in your mouth.