Learning Some Stir-Fry Basics

For whatever reason, stir-fry is something that Steve and I never attempted or had an interest in making before this year, and not because we don't love Chinese food. And you'd think I'd be comfortable with it, since it's something that my parents made for dinner a lot growing up, in their red electric wok that I still remember with surprising clarity. I also have memories of avoiding snow peas on my plate and gunning for extra water chestnuts, which is absolutely something I would still do today.

But regardless of why we'd neglected it up to this point, the recurring appearance of bok choy and baby bok choy in our CSA this year sort of demanded that we take a stab at it. It seems like the obvious choice for bok choy, doesn't it? Back in the spring we made this simple Bok Choy Chicken dish, and it was fine. It just felt very, um, utilitarian. "We have chicken. We have bok choy. Let us cook them, together." By contrast, this more recent favorite of ours, even though it's full of veggies and lean chicken, is indulgent. I suppose we have those yummy noodles to thank for that.

Pan-Fried Noodles with Chicken on The Woks of Life

Used From Our CSA (Week 18)
red bell pepper
bok choy
onion
chicken breast

Guess what!? This concoction was made with some of our frozen chicken stock from earlier this year. Victory moment!

Thoughts on the Recipe

• Someday we'll be savvy enough to throw something like this together without needing to reference a recipe, but for now it made for a really helpful guide. We did go somewhat off-message to throw in some extra veggies (listed above), as well as a can of sliced water chestnuts, because yum.
• It's a very preparation-heavy dish, but as the recipe states, once you get underway with cooking, things really do come together quickly. We definitely benefited from having two sets of hands in the kitchen for this meal: Steve did all the cooking, and I helped with prep and did some dishes during that time. By the time it was ready to eat, almost all of the dishes were done (my favorite thing).
• Finally, let me state for the record that this makes a ton of food, which is lucky, because the leftovers are so good (also my favorite thing). 

Are there any stir-fry experts out there? Share your tips & wisdom in the comments!

Skillet Rosemary Chicken

Usually, the recipes I take the time to individually post about here are for new-to-us dishes. That's largely been a function of the CSA; since we're getting lots of new and interesting produce (new in the sense that we haven't cooked much with it before), the experience is lending itself to trying a lot of new recipes. But the dish I'm sharing about today is one that's been in our arsenal for quite some time, and it just so happens that the CSA stars aligned this week such that we got to return to an old favorite. Chicken: check; red potatoes: check; rosemary: check. We were already three-fifths of the way to having all the major ingredients covered!

But the funny thing about this dish is that we've altered it in a number of small ways over time, so that it doesn't much resemble the original dish any more. Most of the changes are due to our personal taste preferences, and one is because we don't have a cast-iron skillet. (Our lack of cast iron skillet is becoming an emerging theme on this blog. I think we must be approaching the critical point of taking the plunge to invest in one.) I'll outline our main changes below. But the main thing you need to know is that the flavors in this dish are truly wonderful. Lemon + rosemary = love.

Skillet Rosemary Chicken on Minimally Invasive 

Used From Our CSA
red potatoes
rosemary 
chicken breast

Right before going into the oven.

Thoughts on the Recipe
- We use chicken breast (usually 2) instead of the boneless, skinless thighs.
- We substitute green beans (frozen in this case) for the mushrooms. I usually just dump in half the bag. I love the way they taste when they get all lemony! Which brings me to the next change...
- I like to one-and-a-half the part of the recipe for the lemon marinade. That means 3 lemons instead of 2 and a bit more of the garlic, rosemary, and salt all get mashed up together on the cutting board. I love having that extra amount of tangy juice in the pan when serving this up. Especially because the potatoes will soak up most of it.
- To make this without the oven-safe skillet, we still get the chicken started in a regular skillet as instructed, and toss the cooked potatoes and frozen beans in the bottom of baking dish while that's in process. Then the chicken, remaining marinade, rosemary, lemon halves, and the rest of the lemon juice all go over the top. Having a cast iron skillet would definitely make that part easier and create fewer dirty dishes, which is always a good thing. Someday...

So there you have it: one of our favorite dinners, and all the wild things we do to it to make it even yummier. I really need to sit down and re-write the recipe with all of our modifications, so I don't forget the altered steps when we make it. Do you have any super-adapted or ever-evolving recipes that you love? 

Butter-Roasted Chicken and Stock

So it's been pretty quiet around these parts this week, huh? I guess I fell off the blogging wagon. But here I am, clambering back on. With or without a post to share, things are chugging right along in the kitchen and in our bellies.

Last Sunday we roasted our first whole chicken, and Steve had the idea to try our hand at a basic chicken stock with the carcass. Both were a relative success, I think. The only downside is that we barely set foot outside of the kitchen all afternoon/evening, but to be fair, I also decided to make some homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream with the leftover mint leaves that we bought for the chicken. You might be thinking: "Woah, overkill." but in that case you probably have never tasted ice cream made with real mint, because it melted all that hard work away with one bite. Well, almost.

Four cups of chicken stock, now hanging out in our freezer.

Butter-Roasted Chicken with Cilantro and Mint on Food & Wine

Used From Our CSA
whole heritage chicken

I had a pretty personal encounter rubbing our bird down with the flavored butter. First time for everything!

Thoughts on the Recipe
Really this was pretty straightforward. Of course we halved the recipe since we were only working with one bird. The flavor was great, really unique, and even more pronounced in the next few days (I wonder if our stock will take any of that on). We ate it for dinner with a green salad on the side. Very satisfying and made for some great leftovers.

The only thing I am coming to loathe about all these non-breast chicken parts we've been working with is the crazy amounts of splatter in our oven, and the resulting smoke-filled kitchen and fire alarms that go off every 90 seconds. I think I am going to try tenting the pan with foil next time we make legs, wings, or a whole chicken in the oven. Do you guys have any other suggestions?

After dinner Steve started work on Phase II of the marathon chicken-cooking day, a basic stock recipe. It felt like a pretty low-risk, marginal-reward experiment, so why the heck not give it a try?

The Gateway Stock on the paupered chef

Used from Our CSA
chicken carcass, uncooked wing-tips, neck, etc. (everything that came with it, minus the liver)
scallions

Thoughts on the Recipe
- In addition to the scallions, Steve also threw in a bunch of other non-CSA stuff that we already had on hand, loosely following the guidelines of the recipe: more onion, bay leaves, ginger, and cilantro (we did just get cilantro in yesterday's box, though, so go figure).
- I totally agree with the one commenter on the recipe site who submitted that it's ridiculous to go out and buy new produce just to make it into a stock - in that case isn't it easier to just buy a can of stock? But there was a great follow-up comment from someone who accumulates their veggie scraps in a bag in the freezer and uses them when the time comes to make a stock, and I think that is so smart.
- I think our finished liquid went straight into the freezer, so we may have missed the "let it refrigerate for a day" step, to let the flavors meld. Ooops - next time.
- As he says in his recipe, this may not make the most highly refined stock, but it will suit great in a lot of the one pot dishes that Steve and I tend to gravitate towards.

In the end we got four cups of stock out of this experiment, which equates to two cans from the store. I'll take it. Have you ever made a stock from scratch before? If so, I'd love to hear your tips and tricks in the comments!

Thai Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Last night we made these yummy lettuce wraps for dinner. And Steve was only a few bites in when he declared that this is the second best thing we've made so far this year (right after bacon pancakes, a snow day favorite). Bold statement.

But I agree: this made a great dinner. And despite the long-ish list of ingredients, everything came together pretty easily, especially with two of us working together. We also learned to poach and mince a chicken breast, which there is nothing difficult about at all, but still: life skills! It was a little tricky to find a lettuce wraps recipe that looked just right: a lot of them seemed either so simple that they weren't really going to get at the flavors we were hoping for, or so complex that they really couldn't have made a practical weeknight dinner for us. This one seemed like it would strike a happy balance, and we were not disappointed.

Thai-Style Peanut Chicken Lettuce Wraps on the cozy apron 

Used From Our CSA
chicken breast
green leaf lettuce
red scallions (from Week 1)

Thoughts on the Recipe
-There are a handful of semi-unusual oils and sauces required for this recipe, and if you don't have them on hand (which we fortunately did) this meal might start to add up cost-wise. However, most of them have a pretty long shelf-life, so if you like cooking with Asian flavors, they might be worth the investment.
- Along those same lines, we actually skipped the peanuts in this recipe. We didn't have any, don't use them much, and felt like the peanut butter would carry that flavor just fine.
- I also skipped all the garnishes. Wednesday night dinners call for realistic food-prep if you ask me. Apologies if these photos suffer from lack of flair. Oh, wait: here's a picture with a flower in it:

This will also make a great lunch today. I'm looking forward to it!

Steve is bringing home our third CSA box tonight. There are several things on the list this week that I have never even heard of! The challenge continues...