Coq au Vin

So I made this with a few basic modifications. Here is what I did:

1 bottle of wine
2 handfuls mirepoix blend
2 minced cloves garlic
2.25 chicken drumisticks
4 oz bacon, chopped
1/2 bag frozen pearl onions
8 oz crimini mushrooms
flour
salt & pepper

Combine the mirepoix, garlic and the wine, reduce til half (or a third!). Sieve. Coat the drumsticks in seasoned flour. Render the fat from the bacon, and remove the cooked bacon. Brown the drumsticks in the bacon fat, and remove to the platter. Caramelize the onions in the fat, add the mushrooms. Cook five or so minutes, and remove the onions&mushrooms to a separate plate. Deglaze with the strained, reduced wine. Whisk in about a tbsp of flour. Whisk well. Add the chicken & bacon pieces. Cover and simmer for around 40 minutes - an hour. Add the mushrooms & onions back in. Simmer 20 minutes, covered if it's thick enough and partially uncovered if it's too thin.

If you're making it ahead of time, feel free to fridge it anytime after you add the mushrooms & onions. If this is the case, it is also easy to remove the bones and separate the chicken into bite sized pieces before you reheat everything. That is what I did.

I served it on smushed boiled baby gold potatoes, but any sort of potatoes (mashed, roasted, etc) pasta or starch would do. Leftovers will be fabulous.

Panzanella

I've got a few things to update, just been lazy for the most part. Or making the same things over and over (eggs, i'm lookin at you).
Anywho. Panzanella is a rustic bread sort of salad. Its almost a mix between like stuffing and pasta? I don't quite know how to describe it. But its delicious!

For one large serving or two small ones:
1 slice nearly stale, extra thick bread or rustic italian (so i used this cherry blossom bread from nijiya. probably would have worked better with a french or italian sort), cut into 1 inch cubes
1 medium to large tomato (from my parents' garden!), peeled and roughly chopped
1/8 of a medium onion, roughly chopped
1 huge or 2 medium cloves garlic, roughly chopped
olive oil
apple cider vinegar
handful of basil (parents' garden!)

1. In a decent sized skillet, toss in the bread cubes, drizzle with olive oil, season lightly with S+P, and toss about until browned. Alternatively could probably be done in the broiler or oven. Its basically making croutons :D Set aside when browned.
2. Add the onion to the same skillet, with a bit more olive oil if necessary. Wait til half translucent and add the garlic. When its all translucent, throw in the tomato and any juices that accumulated. Season to taste with S+P and ACV.
3. Remove from heat, toss in bread cubes and tear basil over the top. Serve!

Chicken Cacciatore - bastardized

So I've gained about 5 lbs since my dear lovey sister moved down. That, on top of the 5 lbs through the holidays, means I'm really not happy with where I am right now. Granted, I'm still sub-135, but not quite fitting into clothes is not where I'd like to be.

So! I decided now is as good of a time as any to attempt a gluten-free, dairy-free trial run. The fact that I'll be eating more whole vegetables, no bread/pasta and no candy should help me get back to where I ought to be without going crazy about dieting. An all around healthier situation should probably make me feel better too. Possibly make my body feel alive sometime before 10am even?

Anyway. This recipe was adapted quite a bit from a old diet cookbook I picked up at the used bookstore downtown a while back. It has daily menus for about a year of 600 calorie days. Damn, right? Anyway, it says itself that no one should really go to those extremes unless on Dr's orders, and how the fat lil old lady it was originally designed for was sedentary and seeing her Dr once a week and all that. And that its easy to scale. Either with additions (particularly at breakfast where it has a list of items to add and the calories they'd add) or simple multiplication (you want 1200 per day? eat 2 servings!). That's all besides the point though. There are quite a few recipes in there that I'm probably going to modify. They tend to be heavy handed with vegetables, moderate on meat, and nearly nil on grains.
So! Here's the bastardized version of chicken cacciatore:

1 tbsp olive oil
1.5 lb chicken thighs (note, i removed fat first. they were boneless and skinless to begin with)
2 big cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 large red onion, diced
1 28 oz can tomatoes (diced here, cause its what i had)
4 oz tomato paste
3/4 cup chicken broth (using better than bouillon which has whey but has no gluten containing ingredients that i could discern confirmed gluten free)
1 tsp olive oil
7 oz cremini mushrooms, sliced (from an 8oz package that my sister ate about an ounce or so of)
s&p
'italian herbs'

1. Heat the tablespoon of olive oil in a non-reactive heavy pan large enough to hold everything. I used a wok. Attempt to brown the thighs (please note that i'm terrible at this. however, all the bits that stuck to the bottom ended up helping the sauce a lot). S&P as you go. Set aside
2. Toss the onion into the pan, stir about until they start to lose the red color. Toss in the garlic. Cook a minute or two.
3. Add about half a cup of the chicken broth. Use a whisk to get the good browned bits off the bottom of the pan.
4. Return the thighs, add the tomatoes, paste and herbs. Simmer for about an hour or so? Stirring occasionally.
5. In a small pan, heat the additional 1 teaspoon of olive oil. Add the mushrooms and a dash of salt. Cook through, then add to the sauce. Stir in. Simmer a bit longer.
6. Remove from heat.

Since I used 7 chicken thighs, I separated it into seven servings. Each got 1 thigh, then I added spoonfuls of sauce roughly evenly around until it was gone. I ate it on its own, but would be good over zucchini cut into long strips and blanched, spaghetti squash, rice, etc. Or pasta, if that suits you. :D

Nutrition facts per serving:
257 cal, 11g fat, 8g carbs, 4g sugar, 2g fiber, 29g protein


Today, I ate a serving with a over easy egg on top and it was pretty good. I shredded the thigh before putting the egg in. Its also a pretty cheap meal what with finding things on sale and chicken thighs being pretty cheap.

Tuna Casserole

On a comfort food, leftovers to reheat kind of kick.

Tonight was tuna casserole. Well, is tuna casserole. Its in the oven right now. Pretty straight forward, with a bechamel instead of like canned cream of shit.

Went like this this time:
1/4 cup butter (i like to keep salted around)
1/4 cup flour
1/2 white onion, small dice
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cups milk (nonfat today)
1 cup frozen peas
1 carrot, diced
6 oz egg noodles
2 cans tuna fish (today, i added the liquid in one of the cans but drained the other)
Salt & pepper to taste

1 slice whole wheat bread
1 tbsp butter

1. Set a pot of salted water to boil. Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease a pan of some size. Mine's an Ikea (what?!) rectangle thing. I'll measure it later for you. Smaller than a 9x13.
2. In another pan, throw in the half stick of butter over medium-low heat. Add onions. Sweat for a few minutes, until translucent. Add garlic. Cook another minute or two. Whisk in flour. Cook for a few minutes, until bubbly but not any darker (this is a pale roux). Add milk, whisking all the lumps out. I generally add half at a time. This is your bechamel! Continue stirring every so often, and cooking. It should thicken up a bit.
3. Your salted water should be boiling. Throw in your carrots and egg noodles. Cook for around 5 minutes, until the noodles are on the raw-er side of done.
4. Add your peas and tuna to the bechamel. Stir gently, so as not to break up the tuna toooo much. Alternatively, you can wait to put the tuna in til later, but I dont.
5. Put your slice of bread in the food processor. Pulse until you've got fine breadcrumbs. Add the tbsp of butter. Pulse until you've got breadcrumbs combined with butter.
6. Drain the noodles/carrots. Return to pot (because this is your big pot and you dont want to dirty up more dishes! Add your bechamel to it. If you didn't add your tuna yet, add it now. Mix. Salt and pepper to taste. Probably more than you'd think you needed. Pour into your greased pan. Top with breadcrumbs.
7. Bake at 350F for like 25-35 minutes, until browned.

Eat over a period of a few days. Should be 4-6 servings or so.

For 4 servings: Cal=483, Fat=23g, SatFat=11g, Carbs=34g, Fiber=4g, Sugar=10g, Protein=34g

*EDIT* Total cost ~ $4.54

Pot Roast

I love love love pot roast in the slow cooker.

My basic recipe goes a little like this, but it changes all the time!

3-4 lb beef (like my dad, i prefer the 7 bone chuck. bones are great)
1 onion (or more or less, slice decently thinly)
2-3 carrots (sliced thinly)
2-3 potatoes (diced on the bigger side)
oil
flour
salt&pepper
optional: wine, spices

So! Heat your oil in a skillet big enough to hold your meat. Season the meat with salt and pepper. Coat with flour, and brown for a few minutes on each side. This is the only chance for it to brown. Put your onions and veggies in the crockpot. Put your browned meat on top. Add about 1/2 cup of liquid (today it was half wine and half water - i used 2$chuck, so we'll see how it works out!). Put it on low and leave it for at least 6 hours. Preferably more.

When the meat's just about done (tender and falling apart), remove it to a cutting board and tent with foil. Reserve the veggies, and pour the remaining liquid into a sauce pan. Reduce for 10-15 minutes, thicken if need be for a great gravy. Slice the meat, and serve!

This can be the ultimate one pot meal. I mean, veggies and potatoes and meat... What else do you need? For leftovers (there ought to be leftovers), cube remaining meat and store with the veggies and gravy. It will heat up into a divine stew. If you dont have leftover veggies, just add more while you're heating and it'll make you simmer everything for a while. Which can only help the potroast.

Alternatively, you can do what I did today. About 10 hours in (i started with a frozen roast. just up the cooking time), I took out most of the liquid and all of the veggies (i added them late!). I put this to boil, and returned the meat to the crockpot. Should be awesome. I'm also serving it over mashed potatoes, simply because my groceries hadn't come in yet, and I didnt have potatoes til later.

So! Easy peasy. This roast is costing me about 4$ total, because meat was on sale (and the original piece was huge! I hacked it in half and froze one. this is that one). Carrots, potatoes, and onion are all cheap, so it works splendidly.

No nutrition facts, because it varies so much by how much you eat.. just like everything else. But for this, its so easy to eat just a lil more or a lil less.

Basic Quiche

My parents re-introduced me to quiche a few months back, after my brother requested quiche for his birthday. We're an odd family. :D They brought my boyfriend and me a housewarming quiche (lucky for me, it had shrimp in it so i got to eat it all!). Anyway, I realized how amazing, filling and fairly cheap quiche is, so I had to steal my dad's recipe.

Its loosely based on this recipe: Country Quiche. We adjust for a deep dish pie shell, generally store bought and frozen.

So basically:

• 1 9" deep dish pie shell, unbaked (prick all over with a fork)
• 6 eggs
• Splash of cream, half and half or milk
• 1 small onion, diced fine
• 1/4 lb bacon, diced
• 2 tbsp flour
• Salt and Pepper, to taste
• 4-6 oz cheese
• 1-2 cups veggies (whatever's on hand, whatever might be about to go bad)
• (optional) 1 4 oz. can green chilies, drained

Preheat the oven to 350F. In a small to medium skillet over medium heat, cook the bacon. If you like, drain off some of the fat (into a small container that you keep in the fridge. bacon grease is heavenly). I generally don't. Add the onion and cook til translucent. Add any vegetable that might benefit from cooking, such as spinach, mushrooms, etc. Some vegetables do better with blanching. If you've got those, blanch away, drain well, and blot dry. Cool bacon combination, and any vegetables you're using.

Combine eggs, milk and flour. Beat well. Season to taste, and add cheese. Add cooled bacon mixture and any vegetables. Stir well. Pour into pricked pie shell and bake for around 45 minutes, until quiche is set and top is lightly brown.

At this point, I cool it to room temperature, and put it in the fridge. I love cold quiche with a salad and cup of soup. So so good.

Today's combination will be:
bacon, onion, spinach, colby jack, chilies and 1/4 of a chopped tomato for a little bit of color.