Kosher-Style Pork Cracklins

On Sunday, Amy, Shayla and I made a few chicken dishes. My favorite for taste was Chicken with Mustard Cream on Watercress from Epicurious. Since it was so quick and easy, I made it again for Jay. Instead of watercress, I just used spinach. I didn't quite pound the chicken thin enough and "medium" on my stove is not the same temperature as on Amy's stove. So even though I increased the heat, I still had to cook the chicken a little extra. It still turned out perfect. Jay liked the mustard sauce. He pointed to the wall in the dining room with his bike on it and said something like "What's that?" as he pretended to lick the plate.

Amy's flog entry for the dish

This was the first recipe I picked out when I bought my first fine cooking magazine, and I had been eager to try it out. I wanted to try it on my own first, but never ended up having the time. So I made it last night.

It specifies Lucques or Picholine green olives, but when I asked the olive expert on duty at Whole Foods at Gateway, the guy barely knew what I was talking about. Picholine was listed on their info sheet about olives, but wasn't labelled on the olive bar below. Also, they didn't have a very good selection of canned olives. All of them were green olives stuffed with something. So I asked said olive expert for advice, and he suggested using Beldi olives. Of course I could have figured it out on my own if I had noticed that those were the only non-stuffed green olives available. I bought a small amount, when I planned on cooking 1 chicken for me, but on Friday I just got nearly a big container full, just so I wouldn't run out. That was a good move, as we were able to eat a few while cooking and have enough for the recipe. I halved the recipe, so I should have only needed about 3/4 cup of olives, but the magazine also said about 1/4 pound (4 ounces), and when I hit 3/4 cup of olives it was only 2 ounces. So I filled it up to 3 ounces worth, which was still below 1 cup, and called it good enough.

I skipped adding any parsley since I am not a parsley fan.

I happily mashed up a garlic clove.

Then I thumbed through the magazine looking for information on toasting almonds. I thought I had read something in the magazine about it. Instead, I found a little tip on what they mean by pounding garlic to a paste with a pinch of salt. I had done it wrong. Oops. Oh well, it was good enough I figured.

I ended up following the instructions for How to blanche Almonds and then How to toast Almonds. said I probably didn't need to blanche them, but then I realized I wasn't sure just how I would get the skins off if I didn't. I will welcome any advice that is better than that given in the links above. "Slip the skins off" my ass!

About 30 minutes later, I had enough whole almonds blanched and skinned to make 1/8 of a cup. I "toasted" them, but as far as I could tell, they only browned where they touched the pan. The whole almond didn't turn a golden brown. Looking back, perhaps I should have been more scientific about it, and kept one almond as a control. However that would have added another 2-3 minutes. Boy was I glad to only be cooking for two!

Good enough, I hope... ? Cooking this meal took so long, Jay got a nice nap in. (and this was after he helped me chop the thyme!)

I woke Jay up to fire up the grill. Somehow he had managed to go back to sleep despite me pounding the chickens. The magazine didn't say what temperature the grill should be, only "a hot grill fire", so I figured 350 degrees was good enough.

In addition to grilling the chicken, Jay made yummy salads (spinach, grape tomatoes, sprouts, red pepper, etc) for the both of us.

This turned out to be soooooooooooooooooooooo good. The almonds were GREAT in the mix of things! I may have added a wee too many olives, and the relish seemed to have a wee bit too much olive oil, but it all just went onto the plate, so it didn't make the food taste more oily. It was perfect! In fact, By the last two pieces of chicken, I had pretty much reached my olive limit. I had no idea I even had an olive limit! It seemed like there was enough relish for three chicken breasts.

The recipe doesn't say it's a make ahead one, but I think the majority of the relish could have been made a day ahead, and then just added in the almonds and prepared the chicken to grill the day of the meal.

We had this with a spinach salad and a bottle of 2004 Indian Wells Chardonnay.

Grilled Chicken Breasts with Green-Olive Relish - Fine Cooking #79

Jay has a new grill, so I have been trying to find opportunities to use it. I found a yummy sounding recipe in Cook's Illustrated that I wanted to try for making medium-well to well-done burgers. The point of the recipe was that you can cook your meat well and have a tasty, juicy burger in the end. Well, it worked! I don't think there's anything in the recipe that we would have changed. We used hamburger meat from HEB that was free with a coupon. We had sharp cheddar cheese melted on top and used Pepperidge Farm Premium Bakery Rolls (the whole wheat version) for buns.

We had a little friend over for the evening, so I thought hamburgers would be more kid friendly than the other recipes I'd been planning for the week. We also baked some frozen french fries in the oven that were leftover from my birthday party. Everything was so yummy!! (Jay even raved about the burgers to his coworkers the next day!)

Sara couldn't wait to work with the raw meat.

Sara helped me mix up the meat with the other ingredients.

Jay was our backyard chef, and did an excellent job with the burgers!

Sara found some cute potholders given to us by Jay's parents.

• Well-Done Burgers Done Well (Cook's Illustrated #81, August 2006, p. 20-21)
  

This recipe has been on my "to cook" list for awhile. It's the first recipe that I've ever entered into TheRecipeManager. I got this recipe from the Pillsbury Bake-Off competition when Amy's cooking friend Anna won the grand prize!

Austinite Anna Ginsberg is $1 million richer this morning, as the winner of the 42nd Pillsbury Bake-Off. Her original recipe for Baked Chicken and Spinach Stuffing beat out 98 other finalists from all over the country for the grand prize announced today, which will be awarded as a $50,000 a year annuity for 20 years.

I've been paying attention to what during preparation really makes a difference in the end. For example, I'm not sure all the time devoted to blanching and toasting the almonds really paid off, and a lot of times I work too hard to cut things perfectly. The recipe said "breaking up waffle pieces slightly" which I took to mean try to cut up with my spatula. I gave up after a bit, and in the end, the pieces that weren't "broken up" were easier to get with my fork than those that were. So I guess I took that line a little too literally. I got confused on the total amount the chicken was supposed to be baked, but it turned out well putting the spinach in and cooking it an additional time. We just waited til the chicken hit the right temperature and then declared it ready.

I was really impressed that the sauce stayed on top of the chicken! I had expected it all to slide off. You could definitely tell there was maple syrup in it by the smell which was kind of funny, but it wasn't an overwhelming taste. I thought this was great! Even better than the chicken was the stuffing. Wow we could have eaten a lot more of that!! It was especially nice having the recipe made for two.

This was a weird sight, so I had to photograph it.

• Million Dollar Baked Chicken and Spinach Stuffing

I was eager to start cooking new things this week, and it turned out that today was the day to start! Yesterday, I left my workout in south Austin knowing I had to eat something quick and light for lunch. Some fast food joints crossed my mind, but I crossed them off my list because what I would have ordered would not have been healthy. Ah ha! I was driving south to north, so a stop at First & Oltorf to get a yummy Southwest Chicken salad from Baby Greens was in order. On my way home, I kept thinking how I needed to look up a recipe that would be just as good as their Tangy Lime Vinaigrette!

Today I started searching the net. The recipe I finally settled on had no cilantro (a lot of them do! ew!) and it was a sure winner citing balsamic vinegar on the ingredients list. I knew it wouldn't be a copycat of the Baby Greens Tangy Lime, but I was still quite eager to try it.

It was very quick and easy to shop for. I couldn't find any fresh mint at my local HEB. Since it was late, I just skipped it.

This recipe was very easy to make. It didn't dirty hardly any dishes. I GOT TO USE MY NEW LEMON JUICER!!! It worked flawlessly, simply, quickly, easily. I don't know why anyone would buy a smaller juicer just for limes. I also knew how to use it properly because Amy taught me several weeks ago!

As I took a picture of it, I couldn't wait to dig in. Mmmmm! It was so good! Even better than the picture. This will definitely be a repeat. I paired it with some homemade leftover artichoke, mushroom, pepperoni pizza (originally was going to be grilled chicken until I saw the leftovers), warmed sourdough bread and some Tangerine Pomegranate juice. If only I would eat this healthy every day!

Ingredients
4 cups (about 4 ounces) baby spinach
1/4 cup mint leaves
juice of 1/2 lime
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon chopped shallot
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 cup fresh blueberries

1. Place the spinach in a large mixing bowl. Stack the mint leaves and cut them crosswise into thin strips. Toss in with spinach.

2. For the dressing, combine the lime juice, vinegar, shallot, and salt in a small bowl. Whisk in the oil. Season to taste with pepper.

3. Pour the dressing over the greens, tossing to coat lightly. Divide the dressed spinach among 4 salad plates. Sprinkle the blueberries over the spinach. Serve immediately.

Serves 4.

• Recipe source: care2