Last night, I was lazy, however, and just made a tuna casserole. Although, I wasn't completely lazy, since I made the mushroom soup myself instead of using a can of cream of celery and cut some of the fat out by using milk instead of cream or half and half in the soup or evaporated milk in the casserole. Every time I use cream in that recipe it separates and gets all gross the next day. When I use milk it's nice and saucy.
Tonight, I'm making French Chicken in a Pot (also seen here on Recipezaar), which is a recipe I didn't see made last season on America's Test Kitchen, even though that seems to be where this recipe came from. I haven't made a whole chicken in a long time, but it is my favorite way to make chicken. I'm kind of bored with my usual recipe -- one I've been using for almost 20 years now -- even though I know I should use it because there's going to be a hard freeze this week and after that the tarragon will be toast.
Have I ever even posted that recipe? NO?! Mental note to self...
So, I found this recipe because I have this great cast iron dutch oven and I just don't use it as much as I should. And I have never, ever made a chicken in it. Being the dumbass that I am, I questioned whether or not you even could do such a thing, and alas, the Google tells me that I can.
In this pan, I've browned many a roast on the stove before moving it into the oven. I've never done this with a chicken before, however, but that's exactly what this recipe calls for. I was a little afraid, but the skin turned out pretty crispy and good looking where it made contact with the pan. I was also skeptical about the 250 degree F cooking temperature (for just an hour??) but it came out perfect and was, quite literally, the moistest chicken I've ever made.
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| From Food Pictures |
The tomato recipe I found in a book called The Roasted Vegetable
by Andrea Chesman. It's cold. It's getting colder and colder. I have a lot of Pyrex. I went to the library and saw this book and thought, "Wow, this book was meant for me. I can use my oven and all my glassware and I'll be warm and well-fed."Someone else cooked them, too, and posted the recipe here... Mine didn't get quite as roasted, though.
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| From Food Pictures |
The creamed spinach recipe is from a book by Alice Waters -- love her cooking as well as her philosophy on food -- that's called The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution
. I can't get enough of reading it. It feels like all the things my wonderful mother would share with me about basic cooking and not getting too fancy and letting the food speak for itself... I mean, you know, if I had a wonderful mother, that is. Which I don't, but hey, Ms. Waters will do. I want to do a cook-through on this thing, it's full of such greatness. But for now, since I have 3 pounds of spinach hanging out in my fridge...And like the title says, it was simple. I've never put onions in my creamed spinach and after tasting this, it's apparent what I've been missing all these years. Basically, you take a whole onion and sautee it in some butter about 5 minutes, add a pound of spinach and some salt and wilt it down, add 1/3 to 1/2 cup of cream and reduce. Squeeze a bit of lemon over it, add more salt and a little pepper and voila. Perfection. Boyfriend loved it and even the kid chowed down on it (although he liked the tomatoes even more.)
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| From Food Pictures |
