Chicken Parmesan Sandwich

I've had a headache for several days and with it, a wicked craving for a chicken parmesan sandwich.

And there it is! Yum!!!

This is what I did so you can do it, too.

I used an Aidan's bun. They are gluten-free. I bought it at the Carrot and while I don't love them, they have a portugese bun-y consistency that works with this type of sandwich. The package is now frozen in my freezer, so I grabbed one, wrapped it in foil, and out it in the oven (425 degrees) for 15 minutes. Took it out, sliced into it, and kept it warm.

Chicken. Pounded out chicken breast. In two bowls, I put in egg mixed with water and another bowl of glutino bread crumbs mixed with salt and pepper, parsley, and garlic powder. I sprayed a pan with cooking spray, laid the chicken out, sprayed with cooking spray, and then put in the 425 oven. I cooked it for about 45 minutes.

I heated up some Archer Farms Arrabiatta sauce. Spread some in the bun. Sprinkled on some shredded cheese. Put the crispy chicken breast on the bun, topped with more sauce and added more shredded mozzarella.

And yeah, it was good. I still have a headache and am so tired that I can barely lift my head, but I have satisfied the chicken parmesan sandwich craving so today is a win!

We are smokin'

I have a great desire for a smoker. But the reality is that it involves quite a bit of time and there is limited real estate in the backyard. So at this juncture, no smoker. That doesn't mean that I am not keen to  try smoking at home and we have bought a few things and I have read a lot about smoking in the oven etc. but not yet tried. 

Well in the spring I found these smoking bags at Lowe's. Emeril Lagasse promises from the packaging that I can make fabulous smoked foods with no hassle. As we have barely eaten at home in the last month, there's not been much time for experimentation. This weekend we spent mostly at home and with groceries in the fridge so I figured let's give the smoking bag a go. 

I grabbed a chicken breast from the freezer but sadly there was no dark meat, which I prefer. No worries- there was a cornish hen. Let's just ratchet up this experiment. I cut the little bird in half, seasoned it all with some thyme, oregano, garlic powder, salt and pepper and then just opened the foil envelope, popped the poultry in, and sealed it up. 

Apparently the bag has wood chips and stuff embedded into it. I heated up the bbq and stuck it in there on high for about 15 min and then medium for another 30. As the bag is sealed there's no way to know if there's magic or chaos going on inside. The backyard smelled like a smokehouse so I took that as a good sign. Took the bag off the heat and let it rest for 10 min or so then cut her open. Inside...some pretty freaking perfectly cooked and well smoked bird!!!

J made an awesome potato salad (and kindly used some parsley from the garden) and I made some green beans. All in all an very delicious experiment and a thrill to have a meal at home.

Tagine in a tagine

Our friends Joanna and Gary bought us a tagine as a housewarming gift. I have not used one although I'm very intrigued. As it required a bit of beyond the ordinary, the gift ended up sitting on the shelf for a few months. So Friday, I decided I would give it a go and found a recipe online that actually cooked it in a tagine -- versus a slow cooker -- so I was ready to rock.

So you can actually use certain tagines to cook in, rather than just serve in, and the one we were given was a cooker. But that didn't make me any less nervous about putting the clay bottom right on the gas. I was somewhat buoyed by the memory of seeing big clay pots sitting over gas and coal cookers in Mexico recently so I off I went. There were a few weird things, and I'm not sure if once it's been cured and used a few times that it will be different. But the main thing was that putting oil in the bottom, it got hot but wehn I put the chicken in to brown I didn't get much sizzle. There seemed to be quite a lot of liquid. So the chicken didn't brown but it didn't matter much. The whole event was quite fun and I must say that I deboned that chicken with quite some skill!!

Anyway everything gets chucked in there and then it boils way for a bit with the lid on and steam escaping through a little vent in the top.


The final product was very delicious although I will likely mess around with the spice mixture becaxuse that's what I do. It's got preserved lemon in it, which is classic, but I'm not so sure about it. Regular lemon may just do the job. The recipe I used also doesn't include any fruit, which is also classic, but I don't really like fruit in my food, so I was happy about that.


Served over some lovely couscous. It's a meal worthy of a king! Or at least two happy-go-lucky gals on a Friday night.

Bringing it home

It has been an absolutely crazy week. My company got bought, well part of it did, and others not. Not much actual work got accomplished despite the show going on, etc, etc. So I needed to get in the kitchen and try and calm it all down. Of course, a little Mexican feast was the perfect antidote to get me focused and my mind away from the reeling . . .

While in Mexico recently, I purchased a comal -- the metal flat cooking sheet for dry roasting -- but had not seasoned it yet so it couldn't be used. But in order to make tonight's delicacy, the comal had to come out of its shell and get to work! So I got it out, washed it, wiped it with oil and heated up until it was good and hot. Then let it cool, washed, wiped with oil again and got it all hot and smoky once more for good measure. Another cooling and washing and wiping and we were ready to rock and roll. I imagine it will get blacker over time but this is just it's virgin voyage.
This is the comal after the seasoning and then getting itself in the game with some garlic and tomatillos.

The dinner plan was chicken in pasilla sauce. It was one of the sauces I learned at cooking school and have wanted to give it a go since I got back. Luckily I had planned ahead and pasilla chiles were sitting in the kitchen waiting for their moment in the sun! Tonight I made it so.

Dona Elena would be pleased that I cooked my chicken (a whole one cut into pieces) in the pressure cooker. I'll tell you this, 10 minutes of pressure cooking time is too much!! Who knew? So the chicken was a tiny bit more done than necessary but I did also get a couple of cups of chicken stock for the freezer out of the deal, so double excellent.

I will admit that I did leave out one of the herbs from the sauce, which may explain why it was as awesome as the one we made in Tlaxcala but it was still pretty freakin' good. It started with many tomatoes, tomatillos, and cloves of garlic cooking it up on the comal (as you've already seen from the fab pix above!). Then taking the dried pasilla chiles, which are not hot but have a very deep taste, cleaning the seeds out and toasting them on the comal. I kept in mind the lesson of doing it very quickly -- they will blister in seconds, flip 'em over for a few more secs and then toss them in some boiling water with onions for five minutes or so until they're soft. Then you waz everything together in the blender. Do it for longer than you really think it needs because that'll make the sauce smoother. This is where I forgot to add the thyme but the sauce was still good.

I added small cubes of potatoes to the sauce and chicken, which needed to cook together in a pan for a while to get all flavourful. The taters were from our CSA box and were like the hardest potatoes ever. It took forever for the tiny lit squares to get soft so the already well cooked chicken got even more well cooked. Luckily in the case of this saucy dish, it's okay if the chicken fell of the bone. Served it up with some tomato rice and some fresh corn on the side.

We have also been getting a tremendous number of cucumbers in our veggie box and seeing as how J doesn't really eat cukes and they can't be cooked really, there is not a whole heck of a lot to do with them. So tonight I tried a really simple cucumber salad. First thinly slice the cuke and salt it and let sit for about half an hour to get some of the liquid out. Rinse off some of the salt and squeeze out as much liquid as you can. Add an equal amount of water and vinegar (depending on how much cucumber you use, you need just to cover it all), a pinch of sugar, and a bit of dill. Mix it up, put it in the fridge to chill and eat!

It was actually nice to cook at home tonight and it did the trick and calmed me down a bit. And I think J enjoyed it after her super-terifically long run! And just for good measure, I finally bought James Taylor's Mexico (and other of his super tunes) so I've got them on my computer and I can really feel like it's summer because to me, JT's music means summer.

I feel like chicken tonight...

As a girl who has only recently embraced the vegetable as friend, I am still finding ways to incorporate them into my life that will trick my brain into eating them happily.  Case in point?  BBQ chicken dinner night with twice-baked potatoes.  Oh sorry, were you wondering where the vegetable came in?  No silly reader, it's not JUST the potato!  Them there potatoes had SPINACH lurking within!!!

Oh yes, bbq chicken is lovely.  And green beans lightly steamed with some salt, pepper, and lemon is a delight.  But the twice baked potato was DIVINE!!!  I sauteed some spinach (or did I microwave it?  hrmph) and, after baking the potato sans foil in the oven for about an hour, I cut the spud in half, scooped out the innards, mixed in some light laughing cow and spinach (and salt and pepper), and then stuffed the shells with the filling.  Sprinkled a little bit of grated old old cheddar on top (grating gets you the feeling of lots of cheese for very few points) and baked for about 15 more minutes.  You can't beat that sort of feel-good comforty food!!!  And pretty points friendly!  (I don't know about you, but I tend to save about half of my daily points for dinner.  It's how I eat and how I am comfortable keeping track... you???)

Breakfast for dinner, Mexican style

We often have breakfast for dinner because it's generally fast and easy and we have the necessary ingredients around the house. So tonight we decided was a breakfast for dinner night as we were without any other dinner plan. But I didn't just want scrambled eggs and homefries or whatever, so put a bit of a Mexican (can you believe it?!!) twist on the whole affair. I'd been reading about chilaquiles but they are usually fried and that's not on right now. But the idea of them was in my mind . . . This is what I did. It's easy. It's tasty. This is pretty low fat. It's the way to go.


Took 4 whole corn tortillas and sprayed them lightly with cooking spray then put them on the pizza stone in a 400F oven to crisp up.

In the meantime, I found about a half a cup of frozen roasted tomatillo salsa (having the sauces and salsas in the freezer really makes it easy to whip up the dishes in a hurry) and heated it up. We had a few bits of leftover chicken, which got sliced up and added to the salsa with a little squeeze of lime juice. Also mashed up an avocado with some chopped green onion, salt, pepper, and the juice of half a lime. No chili because I didn't want to compete with the tomatillo salsa. Grated some queso viejo duro (old strong cheese, really, I don't make this up that's what is says on the package) which is a strong and dryish cheese so you don't need much. Last but not least, fried four eggs (if you put them in a good Teflon pan with just a splash of water and cover it, you don't need any oil here either!).

Then put it all together in layers on top of the crispy tortillas and serve with the avocado on the side.

Classic chicken soup

Someone at work asked me for my recipe for chicken soup, so here it is. It's dead easy, just takes a lot of time on the stove. You can use this as soup or strain everything out of it and keep it as stock. I usually save it in 1 cup portions in baggies in the freezer, which makes it really easy to use.

Classic chicken soup

• 1 whole chicken cut into pieces (if you're using it for soup) or any amount of leftovers and carcasses if you're just making stock
• 2 or 3 ribs of celery
• 3-4 unpeeled garlic cloves
• 2 leeks roughly chopped
• 2 mediums onions, sliced into chunks
• 3 large carrots, cut up
• 3 bay leaves
• 2 sprigs of rosemary
• 8 sprigs of fresh parsley
• 5 springs of fresh thyme
• 10-20 black peppercorns
• optional: 1 whole chile pepper

Put it all in a very large stock pot and fill with enough water to cover. Bring it all to the boil and then turn down to simmer. Skim the foamy stuff off the top when necessary and continue to simmer for about 4 hours.

Cool a bit and then strain it all so you have the veg/chicken and liquid in two separate containers. If you're going to be serving it as soup, save some of the carrots and shred some of the chicken and return it to the soup. If you're just looking for stock, then toss all the solids. Once it's totally cooled, you can seperate it and then freeze. It will keep for a few days in the fridge but quite a few months in the freezer.

Now if you're looking to add some matzoh balls to that soup, I've got a bit of a Mexican twist, of course, that you can use. This is especially excellent when you're in a week of eating a lot of matzoh-flavoured foods and need a little something different.

Poblano matzoh balls

• I do not make my balls from scratch - use any boxed mix and this will work.
• 1 large poblano pepper

Take one poblano pepper and either grill it on a bbq or in the oven until the skin is black. Take it out of the oven and cover it with a kitchen towel for a few minutes while it cools. Peel the skin and remove the seeds. The flesh of the pepper should be pretty soft and mushy.

Once you have prepared the matzoh ball mix, simply add and mix the poblano in well. Then, refrigerate and then make the balls and cook as per the instructions on the box.

They're not spicy but the pepper adds a little extra zip.

Sorry no pics for this one, but I'm sure it's not hard to imagine a steaming hot bowl of chicken soup with a couple of green matzoh balls floating in the middle . . . divine!

The best Mexican restaurant in town

Last Saturday J & I had some old friends and their kids over for dinner - we hadn't seem them in ages and I was excited to have some adventurous eaters over so I could cook with some gusto. So I'd planned the meal for ages and was excited to once again dive into the Rick Bayliss-inspired Mexican.

A few weeks ago I made some tamales that were okay but I used the wrong corn masa so despite not really wanting to have another bag of ground corn in the cupboard, I did bite the bullet and buy the right one for tamales - it has a coarser grain - which made all the difference. I made green chile chicken tamales. Now I don't want to toot my horn, but they were fantastic!! We ate the whole lot of them (save one tiny little one that made it as a lunch snack the next day).

The filling was really easy. I whipped up some tomatillo salsa (a can of tomatillos, one roasted jalepeno, few cloves of garlic, half a white onion, big handful of cilantro all wazzed up in the blender). Then put it all in a pot, added about a tablespoon of masa harina and thickened up the sauce a bit and then just mixed it with some shredded cooked chicken.

The corn husks were boiled for a few minutes and then left to sit soaking in the water for about an hour. I just followed the instructions on the tamale masa package for making the dough.

Now I don't have any type of steamer so I jerry-rigged this one last time that is essentially a big colander set in the top of our biggest pot and then filled with tamales, covered it up with leftover corn husks and the lid and steamed it all for about an hour and a half. Presto, delicioso. Time consuming, for sure, but I sure do like seeing all the little soldiers standing up ready to be counted in the steamer.

The other main dish I made was one of the first Mexican dishes I found: braised short ribs with poblano peppers, tomatoes, and herbs. Ordinarily this would take forever to braise in the oven but I used the fabulous and fast pressure cooker and the whole thing cooked in 15 minutes.

I can't say enough about the pressure cooker's efficiency. Let it cool for a few minutes and you have fall-off-the bone meat and saucy deliciousness ready to be wrapped in a tortilla!! The poblanos give it an extra taste dimension that's less spicy than chiles but also just a bit more fortified than bell peppers.

The meal was rounded out with a few salsas: quick tomato-chipotle that had quite a bit of bite, classic semi-pickled onions and cilantro, and a crunchy tomatillo avocado salsa that was just a slightly different take on the beautiful avocado than the regular guacamole. Refried beans and rice rounded out the offerings.

I would like to report that our guests said the tamales were some of the best they've ever had. The kids were gung ho and got stuck into everything and a great time was had by all.

It's been awhile...

I know, it's been awhile.

There are numerous reasons. Lots of little things, at a conference in Vegas, work has been crazy, home has been crazy, I have been sick. But in reality, I think I just needed a bit of a break. I started feeling really overwhelmed by everything, updates on facebook, twitter, the blog, emails, and I finally had to start de-technologicalizing myself. (Is that a word?) So it's been a bit without facebook and twitter and I have to say *breathing a sigh of relief* it's better. I feel so much better being alive and in the moment. I feel a bit in control again.

Plus, it would seem that issue with wheat is more of an intolerance. So it's going to pop up from time to time on my blog, but hopefully not in any considerable amount! The food/illness thing has been very very overwhelming and I am still trying to make it all okay with myself, so you're just going to have to roll with it with me for awhile. It will become second nature, I know that.

So in the spirit of trying to live in the moment, G and I received our first CSA meat and veg box!!! Our meat haul is a bit much for two girls: loads of steaks and hamburger patties, a whole giant chicken, and a giant chicken split in half. Yummy! Our first veg wasn't so entirely spectacular, but it's early days for the harvest. Lettuce, spinach, asparagus, spring onions, and LOADS of rhubarb. We were amazed at the size of our chickens, and with a tiny freezer, we knew we had to roast the seven pounder all at once.


That is one half of one of the chicken breasts. I couldn't eat it all! We overcooked the asparagus a bit, but it was our first of the season and it was amazing. We stirred some of the green onion (chopped very finely) into the mashed potato. Not super innovative, no, but very delicious all the same. We really enjoyed the first fruits of our lovely CSA farms labour!

(The farm we have started using is the Cooper's CSA Farm located in Uxbridge, Ontario. It's really fantastic. We sadly missed the Open House, but have greatly enjoyed the delicious food and veg that we have been getting! Finding a fantastic CSA farm to get both meat and veg has been wonderful.)

Just Like Momma Makes!

My Mom makes the best fried chicken. I've said this before. But honestly, it's really really good. Having a daughter who is extremely squeamish about eating meat on the bones (*cough*), Mom started making boneless chicken breasts for us instead. I guess it's like chicken nuggets, but not rubbish, and not crazy breaded.

So tonight, I channeled my Mom and made fried chicken with cream gravy, mashed potatoes and corn. It almost went off without a hitch. We made frozen corn, but it had a really manky taste, so that wasn't going to fly at all. G found a can of creamed corn in the cupboard, it was okay.


Isn't that lovely?!

The chicken is pretty straightforward, and I am going to give you a recipe for it because, if you are squeamish about bones, this is for you... enjoy fried chicken again.

Mom's Most Deluxe Fried Chicken with Cream Gravy

You need:

Two boneless chicken breasts
flour
salt
pepper
vegetable oil
milk

1. Take the chicken and rinse and pat dry. Cut into large chunks.

Salt and pepper the chicken.

2. Get a bowl and put some flour in the bowl. Generously salt and pepper the flour. I added a little smoked paprika, as well.

3. Heat a large skillet suitable for frying on the stove with enough oil to just cover the pan.

4. Dredge the chicken in the flour and make sure it's really coated.

5. Once the oil is properly heated, add the chicken pieces to the oil. Let cook until crispy, then turn and keep cooking.

6. When the chicken is brown and crispy all over, place on paper towels on a clean plate. Put in the oven that has been heated to warm but is now turned off.

7. Drain a good chunk of the oil, just leave about a tablespoon full. Take some of your flour and put in the pan over the heat. Keep stirring it, adding flour as needed, until it looks like a proper roux. Keep cooking for about a minute so that the flour taste is cooked off. Add milk until the pan is covered in milk. Keep stirring until it sets up. Add more milk if necessary.

8. EAT IT ALL UP!!!

See, how easy was that?!

It's really dead easy and it's such a wonderful way to enjoy chicken that isn't crazy breaded or just really greasy or full of bones. It's a great dinner and I would like to thank my Mom for fixing my chicken woes. (I used to add way too much oil and too little flour. I didn't realize it until Mom and I made it together and I paid more attention.)

Vacation at the Cottage.

Spending a week at a cottage is in no way a bad vacation. In particular, spending a week at a cottage with beautiful sunny days, loads of books and magazines, and a well-planned menu is definitely not a bad way to spend a week. And we relished it.

You've already seen the steak... but what about the chickens? Oh yes. I absolutely HAD to make another Everybody Likes Sandwiches recipe for bbq chicken and coleslaw. And we had to have them as sandwiches. (As this is the second recipe of hers that I have blogged about in the past few days, I am feeling a bit like a stalker, but her stuff's good, man.

The downside? Only that the picture is total nonsense.


I was using G's camera because I completely forgot to bring my own, and I wasn't used to it at all. It's a proper camera, not like my lovely little Lumix, and I really was out of my league. You can't see the chicken, but believe me, you'd love this chicken dinner...

When you look at the link for the actual recipe, you will see that ELS's chicken is a bit more bbq-y looking. I did not bake the chicken in the oven, opting instead to utilize the grill outside since it was such a luxury. BUT! It turned out lovely on the grill and I took the marinade and cooked the absolute heck out of it (to kill any beasties) with some Sirachi sauce to make a thick sauce for the sandwiches. You just can't see that in the picture.

Here's my adapted recipe based on what was available:

bbq chicken sandwich topped with north carolina coleslaw

1 small green cabbage, shredded
1 large shredded carrot
1 onion, diced crazy small

1.5 c apple cider vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp red pepper flakes
1/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c ketchup

6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs,
1 tsp chipotle powder
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp cumin
1 T olive oil

1. Combine the cabbage, carrot and the onion in a large bowl. Mix the dressing ingredients in a medium sized bowl and pour about 1/3 of it over the slaw. Refrigerate the slaw and keep the remainder of the dressing aside. (This is directly from ELS.)

2. Take the chicken and dust with chiptole, cumin, etc. Dump in the remaining sauce and marinate the chicken for a couple of hours or so. Turn it ever so often if it's not all fully covered.

3. Shake off the marinade and have your resident grill master (G, in our case) grill the chicks to perfection.

4. Take the remaining marinade and put in a small saucepan. DO NOT TASTE. Add some Sirachi sauce to taste, and let cook for AT LEAST half an hour or longer. It will thicken considerably, and eventually you should be able to kill in raw chicken badness.

5. Shred the chicken and place on white hamburger buns. Top with coleslaw and some of the cooked sauce. ENJOY!

This was really a very good thing. In fact, it was so good that I am going to make it for my Mom when she comes to visit in September. I really think she will like it. The chicken comes out slightly sweet and really flavourful. The coleslaw is tangy tangy tangy. (Actually, I made this again later in the week and used much less of the apple cider vinegar and it suited G's tastes much more.) The coleslaw is crunchy and sweet and spicy. It really fits on the sandwich and just adds another element.

We served this with exceptionally fresh Ontario corn. This corn was by far the best corn I have had this season. It's not been hot here (which is unusual) and it's been crazy rainy (which is also unusual) and so all the fruit and veg seem to taste slightly different this year. The corn has not been great, but we bought this one at a farm stand that sold only corn and wild blueberry's. Yeah to both.