A Pot Pie by Any Other Name...

So I started off with a plan--lots of veggies, chicken, a savory sauce, a nice top layer of crust. I even had two different recipes marked to follow, but as is typical, I wandered off and made something pretty unrecognizable to the makers of the recipe. The one really appealing factor in this recipe is that while I ate it all week long (it made enough for 11 lunches/dinners, and I added veggies to my eggs a couple of breakfasts as well), there was quite a bit of variation in what was on my plate. A versatile base, with lots of ways to build off of it. Take this as a model and build your own!

Ingredients:

 Veggies:

1 small acorn squash
8 oz baby bella mushrooms
1 red pepper
1 red onion
2 bunches asparagus
4 small carrots
4 stalks celery
1 large head cauliflower
2 small bunches broccoli
4 small red skinned potatoes 
1 clove roasted garlic

Meat:

2 chicken thighs
2 chicken breasts

Sauce:

chicken broth
1 tbs butter
1 tbs olive oil
3 tbs flour
1 1/2 tsp thyme
1 tsp ground mustard
1 tbs spicy brown mustard
dash cayenne pepper
Salt and Pepper to taste

The first step is epic amounts of chopping--each vegetable needs to be diced pretty small, so it will be small in the pie. I had pre-roasted the squash and cooled and peeled it. Once that was prepped, I heated the butter in the pan and added the butter and oil to make a roux. That cooked until nice and golden, and I whisked in the broth and the seasonings and let thicken. Then I added the longer cooking veggies--the carrots, potatoes, onions, celery, peppers, mushrooms, cauliflower. The chicken was chopped and added along with some more broth (I shouldn't have added as much as I did, next time I'd go easier on it.) This cooked down until the chicken lost that pinkness, and I added the broccoli, asparagus, and squash. This continued until the chicken was fully cooked, and the veggies had a little bite.

I divided the mixture into individual oven proof dishes (a new purchase that I LOVE--got them BOGO in a 6 oz and 12 oz sizes) After I'd split them up, I changed my mind and ended up just cooking 4 pies the first day and baking off 3-4 at a time through the week. The rest of the filling went into the fridge.

I used 4 completely different toppings for my top only pies--phyllo dough sheets, cauliflower mash, yogurt biscuits, and cornbread stuffing. The most successful, in my opinion, for eating over the week were the ones topped with the mash and the stuffing. Each baked for 15-20 minutes until the tops were done.

The Verdict: This is a comfort food classic for a reason--it is warm and satisfying. The variety of veggies provide a nice contrast of textures and flavors, and it allowed me to give into my desire to experiment whole heartedly. I love that I can eat a huge bowl of veggies, and have room for a biscuit or stuffing!

Martha Stewart's Carrot Cake cupcakes

No eggs, no go!

The final recipe I tried was from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. Sadly, as good as I was cooking the first two, all of my bad habits came back in this dish. In fact I made it twice, because I forgot the eggs! Let me repeat I forgot the EGGs! Who does that!? How did it even bake into cakes that rose at all? Anyways, when I went to make it again I changed the recipe somewhat. The original calls for a cup and a half of oil--that is a crapload of oil, the batter was oily and while the cakes didn't taste oily, they didn't have eggs so what could I tell. The other issue was that I'd only bought a little of the golden raisins from the bulk bin, so I didn't have enough for the second round. I had some dried apricots from another dish that I chopped really really fine and used with what raisins I did have. So besides dividing this in half I reduced the oil from 3/4 of a cup for a half batch to 1/3 of a cup of oil and the rest crushed pineapple and juices.

Ingredients:

1 pound carrots
3 large eggs
1/3 cup buttermilk
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 golden raisins
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground cloves

So the first thing I did was screw up the first batch, then I tried again. This recipe starts in a different way. The carrots, raisins (and apricots), sugars, oil (and pineapple), buttermilk, and vanilla are mixed together well--if you don't reduce the oil this needs to be whisked a lot or you have an oil slick. Next the dry ingredients are whisked together in a bowl, and slowly folded into the wet ingredients until just mixed. This is a very wet batter, much runnier than the others--even in the batch where I forgot the egg it was thinner.

This went into a cooler oven--325 degrees for 10-12 minutes for the mini muffin tin and 22-24 minutes for the bigger muffins. I did turn half way through to get even cooking.

This recipe turned out an entirely different tasting and appearing cake from the other two. These are a pale light color and rose pretty well even without the egg! You can see on this picture, these cakes are in the middle of the two others, and really stand out in comparison.

The Verdict: This recipe--even without my changes, is much sweeter, still moist, but less dense and more airy. I think in part the fact that this uses all granulated sugar made a big difference. The extra add ins really contributed to a different texture and flavor profile--with the pineapple, raisins, and apricots this is more fruity as well. I found it addictive, and ate way more than I should because it feels so light. It isn't light, though, so watch out. The interesting thing is that this was the clear winner, even though I mangled the recipe--my sister liked it best, and it got the most votes at work as well. Personally I think it was good, but not a traditional carrot cake taste.  It makes a good cupcake, but if you are looking for a more traditional texture and flavor go with the other two.

The Craft of Baking Carrot Cake Cupcakes

 The next carrot cake I tried is from The Craft of Baking. I actually have baked a cake from this before--but never ended up blogging about it, even though it turned out fine. As I recall, I'd typed it all up and the internet ate it. I guess the cake was so good that it wanted it all. Anyways, this is a nice recipe, pretty standard, except it calls for demerra sugar instead of white or brown. It is also the only recipe I didn't have to divide. It makes 14 cupcakes, which is a strange amount if you ask me.

Ingredients:

1 pound large carrots
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup Demerara sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup light sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg plus one yolk

With the carrots already grated, the first step is adding the dry ingredients and sifting them together, and set aside. The sugar, oil, sour cream, and vanilla are whisked together until blended and then the egg and egg yolk are added in and whisked together.

The flour mixture is added in slowly, until just combined, and then the carrots are folded in. The batter is even thicker than the ATK recipe, and really resembles more a muffin batter than cake.

Since I made this as directed in the book, it made a lot of mini muffins and still over a half dozen regular sized cupcakes. The mini ones cooked in a 350 degree oven for 10-12 minutes, and I turned in the middle of the time. The regular sized ones cooked for about 20 minutes, they were a little overdone, but I didn't fill all of the cups. My sister has since told me that I should fill the unused spaces with water before cooking. Well you live and learn.

The Verdict: A light and moist cake that has a really delicate crumb. It isn't too sweet, with a strong carrot flavor. This was pretty similar in taste and texture to the ATK recipe, though this clearly has more fat with the extra egg yolk and a little more oil. The demerara sugar didn't really produce different results than the brown sugar/granulated sugar mix. This was slightly more popular than the ATK recipe at work--though it was option A so some folks commented that they thought the first thing they tasted was the best. Someone did comment that they thought it had a lemony taste--which I couldn't figure out. I did add some orange zest to the frosting, but I used the same frosting for all of them.

Carrot Ginger Soup with roasted veggies

This soup recipe came from one of the local cookbooks I picked up at the thrift store a couple weeks back--a Junior League Cookbook focused on seasonal appropriate foods. With spring in the air, I wanted to make something to celebrate the wonderful weather and something from a local cookbook designed for the season seemed even more perfect.While these are not to my knowledge local carrots, we do have winter carrots coming on nowish.

Ingredients:

1 large onion
3 cloves of garlic
1 tbs light butter
2 lbs carrots
1 tbs grated fresh ginger
4 c vegetable stock
1 tsp salt
1 tsp white pepper
1/2 c lite coconut milk

I actually only made two small changes to this recipe--reduced the amount of broth used and replaced the optional half-and-half with coconut milk. The first step is to prep everything--peel onion, carrots, garlic, and ginger. Dice the garlic and onion, chop the carrots, grate the ginger. I've learned that having the food all prepped before hand really makes it come together quicker, and prevents things from overcooking.



I put my dutch oven on medium heat and melted the butter, then dropped the onions and garlic on to saute. Once they'd started to soften, I added the ginger, pepper, salt, and all the carrots. This sautes for a while, which gave me time to get the broth going. I made it up using better than bullion--so the water needed to come to boil. Once that was made up, I poured it into the sauteed veggies. This cooks down until the carrots are very tender. Then I use my stick blender to puree it, adding in the coconut milk at the end.


The white pepper is very strong, so if you don't like a lot of heat you might add half as much and adjust to taste. I like the heat, but found it best with some coconut milk to cut it. I served this topped with some asparagus and baby bok choy I roasted in lemon with white pepper and ginger. And a nice slice of homemade whole wheat bread to go along with it.

The Verdict:

This is a simple yet very flavorful soup, that is very healthy and satisfying. The white pepper and fresh ginger are a little strong, but I like a soup with assertive flavors. If I were to make this for work, I would reduce both seasonings and have more coconut milk for people to add if it were still too strong. This would be a good soup for a cold as the ginger will clear your sinus' out. The recipe says it could be served chilled or hot.

Carrot Cake from Best Light Recpes

So one of my resolutions this year is not just to bake more and improve my skills, but to find more ways to share what I make so it isn't just me chowing down and judging what is good and bad. I like what I like, which isn't always what everyone likes. So I decided to bring in goodies for Birthdays for my coworkers--we are pretty small, only about 10 of us at the location, so it is not a lot of people to treat. The one trick is that some don't eat sugar or try to eat healthy. Anyways, we had a birthday coming up and the staff member requested carrot cake. I tried to make some carrot cupcakes a while back that were terrible--as in I ate one and a half and threw the rest out. So I wanted to make something a step above that--and have something edible to bring in.

Selecting a recipe to try was difficult--it seems like half of my books have carrot cake recipes. So I decided to try three recipes and hope at least one turns out well enough to bring. The first one I'm going to post about is the recipe in The Best Light Recipe by Cooks Illustrated. I did a half batch and made some in a mini cupcake tin and some in a regular cupcake tin.

Ingredients (this is for the full batch, to split required some eyeballing):

2 1/2 c unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/4 tsp baking power
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 pound carrots--about 3 cups


I don't have a food processor, so I went at my bag of carrots with my grater and some arm muscles. All together for the three batches I needed 2 pounds of carrots--I weighed after I grated, though I should have done it before--I ended up with more than I needed. I did all the carrots for all the cakes at once and set them aside. 

As with most ATK recipes, this relies not only on the ingredients, but the technique to produce the correct results. Dry ingredients are sifted together and set aside. The eggs and sugars are beat together until they are thick and creamy--which takes a couple minutes with an electric beater. Once that is mixed, the oil is added slowly while beating. this is clearly better if you don't use a stick beater or if you have three hands. The flour is added in two batches, stirring, not beating it in, until smooth, when the carrots are gently folded in.

This isn't a super runny or thin batter, especially with the carrots added in. So it needed to be divided into the pans with a spoon, not poured. I filled the cupcakes 3/4 of the way full and baked them in a 350 degree oven until a fork came out mostly clean. The mini muffins cooked for about 5 minutes and then I turned the pan and cooked them for another 5-6 minutes. The larger ones cooked about twice as long.

The Verdict: Moist and flavorful, with a very tender crumb. Not too sweet, with a light spice. This was probably the least popular at work, but I found this recipe and the craft of baking's recipe to have nearly indistinguishable results, though they have different methods and ingredients. The one thing I like about this recipe is that it has less oil but doesn't have a light taste--it is still moist and delicious.

Taking Stock

This cooked, while I babysat!

After my adventures roasting the whole chicken, I had a lot of under cooked meat still on the carcass, so I set out to make stock so that none of it would go to waste. I've used stock and broth and seen at least one episode of a TV show where Alton Brown made stock, but it isn't something I'm familiar with. I perused several blogs, advice forums, and cookbooks, and decided this was something I could do!

Of course, I don't have a stock pot, but I do have a crock pot and a whole day to leave it on! From what I've read, this is more a method than an exact recipe, because what you have doesn't have to be the same each time.

Ingredients:

Chicken carcass, chicken necks, chicken bones with meat still on the bone
2-3 carrots
3 celery stalks
1-2 medium onions
3-4 garlic cloves
bay leaf
pepper corns
salt
vinegar
water

So I put the carcass and neck in the pot. Most of the meat on the drumsticks and wings was still on the bone as it hadn't cooked enough to really dissolve the tendons. The neck was completely uncooked and kind of gross, but it should provide flavor. My crock pot is pretty big, so there was plenty of room.

I roughly chopped the carrots, celery and onion. I did peal the onion, though I've read that leaving the skins on can add flavor and color (I've heard of people dying eggs with a dye made from onion skins) The skin on my onion was dubiously clean, so I skipped that. The garlic went in as whole, pealed cloves.

Besides the aromatics (that is what Martha Stewart told me the onion, celery, and carrots were called), I added a good amount of peppercorns, two bay leaves, and a little salt. I also added a dash of rice wine vinegar--I read that it helps the bones dissolve and release the gelatin, which is supposedly the marker of a correctly made stock.

Babysitting!

All of that was covered with cold water to the top of the pot. I put the lid on and put it on high for an hour and then switched it to low and let it cook for over 12 hours. Every couple of hours I scooped off some of the fat and scum from the top, but besides that I mostly let it go from 8 am when I put it in and when I took it out at 11:30 pm after coming back from babysitting. The rib bones had all softened and broken and the stock was a rich color and flavor. 

I strained the broth through a fine mesh strainer and then strained again through a cloth and strainer to get rid of the impurities. It then went into the fridge to cool. I did save the meat for the puppies--it had given up all its flavor and tasted like sawdust, but my dogs still love it! The fat should rise to the top to be scraped off and the rest can be frozen or used in soups. I'm planning on using it to make a cauliflower soup!

Don't be Such a Chicken

The other day I ran out of Diet Coke, it was terrible! So on my way to water aerobics I stopped by the store to pick some up. In my caffeine-deprived, early morning fog, wearing ratty workout clothes over my swimsuit, I was approached by every single member of the store's management to say hi and chat--it was surreal. Anyway, as I searched blindly for the soda, I stumbled across a cooler full of whole chickens, for 99cents a pound. This has nothing to do with soda or swimming, but it seemed like a good deal, so I bought one. I've never cooked a whole chicken, nor even been around someone else cooking one--if you don't count the rotisserie at the grocery store. I did find the soda and get to aerobics, and now I'm trying to figure out this whole chicken thing!

Many of my cookbooks have recipes for roasted chicken, so many recipes it is overwhelming. Also they aren't that similar--different cooking times and temperatures, different preparations, and as many flavor profiles as one could expect. So of course, with too many to choose from I'm getting a little from one and a little from another. Mostly I'm following a recipe I found in a new cookbook I was putting away at the library, and found again online. It is a Coriander and Orange Chicken from Michael Symon. I watch him on the Chew and other food network shows, and so I can practically hear him read the directions. I may not be following them so well, but the flavors and technique are inspired by this.

Marinate Ingredients:
2 tbs Coriander Seeds2
 Garlic clove
1 chipotle in adobo
1 Orange (zest and juice)
1 tsp Olive Oil
1 tbs Honey
1 whole Chicken
1 bay leaf
Salt and Pepper

So the day before I planned on cooking this, I got out the chicken and got marinating. I love the idea of adding flavor, but I worry about the fact I can't taste it until after it has finished cooking. I zested the orange, grated the garlic, juiced the orange, minced the chipolte, and added the oil in with a good helping of salt and a fair amount of ground pepper. I put the coriander and the bay leaf in a frying pan and put it on medium heat, tossing frequently so they don't burn. When they were nice and fragrant, I added them to the rest of the marinade.

That done, I braced myself to tackle the chicken. It was not so bad--it only had a chicken neck inside, instead of all the gizzards I was expecting. I loosened some of the skin to get the seeds, garlic and zest up against the flesh. Then rubbed the whole bird, front, back, and inside with the liquid and placed the whole thing in a plastic bag where I can easily turn and rub the marinade into the bird. The whole thing went into the fridge, to be turned frequently, so the flavor can really get worked in.

Remaining Ingredients

4 medium Carrots
4 medium Parsnips
Small head of Cauliflower
2 yellow onions
Orange
garlic
leftover marinade
marinated chicken 
oil spray





So I peeled and chopped the carrots, parsnips, onions, and garlic into pretty big chunks and tossed them with leftover marinade and put them in the bottom of my dutch oven. I put the chicken on top and put it in an oven heated to 425.

Done on Top

Not done on bottom

The recipe says for 45 minutes, but after half of that time the top was very dark. I turned the temp down to 375 and let it cook for an hour. It wasn't ready so I let it cook for another half hour and the thermometer said 165, on the breast so I took it out to rest. Well it wasn't done, so it went back in for another hour. After that it still wasn't done, but I was ready to eat the dog, so I cut off a slice and microwaved it with the veggies until it was good and done.


The Verdict:
This was a disappointment in that the chicken never cooked through-- though I was able to use all the chicken by taking it off the bird and cooking again. The actual meat was quite flavorful, though it was a little over cooked by the time I ate the last in a taco with a whole bunch of veggies. The veggies that cooked under the bird were lovely and tender and so flavorful with all that fat and marinade! The best thing on the whole dish was the veggies, and I've finally had a parsnip that was really worth eating. I will tackle the whole chicken again, and I will overcome! My plan next is to cook a whole chicken in a crock pot--it wont get crispy skin, but it should cook through!