Heading Home to See Mom, and Eventually Cook with David

Photo (c) west-chester.com

I'll be grabbing a red-eye Sunday night for snowy Western New York, to spend a couple weeks visiting with my mother, Pauline, and the rest of the family. But wait, that's not all! While I'm home, I'll be driving down to West Chester, PA, to the QVC Studios to train for a future appearance to help promote the cookbook I did for Parragon Publishing (read about that here, if you're not already in the know).

Before they let you on the largest home shopping network going, you have to do a day of training to learn all the finer points of shilling, telling people that operators are standing by, and how they can afford the book by breaking up the payments into smaller, more manageable installments.

If everything goes well, I'll be appearing on the wildly popular, In The Kitchen with David. I've never seen the show, but I found this video on fellow celebrity blogger, Hungry Girl's YouTube channel. Have a great weekend, stay tuned, and enjoy!

Honey-Brined, Southern-Fried Chicken Breasts – Boneless, Skinless, Low-Fat, and Delicious?

Is there anything less inspiring than a boneless-skinless chicken breast? There must be, but for the sake of this post, let's say there's not. So, how do we turn this culinary snoozer into something worthwhile? Fry it. Hey, that was easy.

Of course, the problem here is there's no flavorful skin on which to attach a crunchy coating. To add insult to injury, the fatty skin also protects the bland breast from drying out. Despite these obvious issues I decided to attempt Southern-fried boneless-skinless chicken breasts anyway.

As fate would have it, the same day I bought the chicken, Alton Brown was doing a honey-brined pork shoulder on Good Eats. To combat the dreaded dry chicken I decided to use a simplified variation to soak my breasts.

I won't bore you with all the scientific details, but through osmosis, brining raises the internal temperature at which the moisture is forced out of a protein. Even though I only brined my breasts for an hour, it worked like a charm. As you'll see in the recipe video, the meat was very juicy.

As far as the skinless-coating went, I was also pleasantly surprised. Even though it was incredibly thin, it stayed on the meat throughout the frying, and the final result was nothing short of quite good.

And yes, I am calling this low-fat (relative to regular Southern-fried chicken). When you eliminate the skin, you significantly reduce the calorie count, and even though we're cooking this is lots of oil, the coating is too thin to absorb very much of it.

If frying isn't your thing, still I encourage you to give this ultra-simple brine a try anyway. I think you will be impressed with its effect. I plan on using this on a regular basis this summer while rocking the grill. Enjoy!




Ingredients:
2 boneless-skinless chicken breasts
3 cups cold water
1/4 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup buttermilk
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon onion salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
lots of cayenne
vegetable oil for frying

Arrogant Bastard Chili

This recipe won my wife's office chili cook-off a couple of years ago. It was a unanimous favorite and in a chili town like Cincinnati, that says something. The recipe calls for Arrogant Bastard Ale but if you can't get your hands on a case of this, Michelob Amber Bock works really well too.

Ingredients:
2 pounds of ground beef
1 yellow onion, diced
3 - 5 garlic cloves, diced
1 28oz. can of Joan of Arc spicy chili beans
1 14oz. can kidney beans
1 28oz. can diced tomatoes
1 14oz. can RoTel tomatoes with green chilies
1 46oz. can tomato juice (use 2/3 of can)
1 tbsp chili powder
1/2 tbsp paprika
1/2 tbsp cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

1. In a large pot or Dutch Oven, brown the ground beef.
2. Add the diced onion, salt, and pepper. Cook until onions are translucent in color.
3. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer for 4 to 5 hours.

Recipe courtesy of Rachel Kirkwood

Related Recipe:
Spicy 3 Bean Chili
United States Ohio

Gluten-Free Cinnamon Raisin Scones

A warm gluten-free scone. Hot tea. Breakfast bliss.

Are you sick of the snow yet? My heart goes out to you. So many of you have been hammered this winter. Spring will arrive this year not a moment too soon. My advice? Bake some scones. Scones are easy to throw together. The oven warms up the kitchen and chases off the chill. And in less than half an hour you have a tender gluten-free morsel to share and savor. Gently spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, and studded with sweet bursts of raisins, I predict these cinnamon raisin scones will make you smile.

And speaking of predictions, Punxsutawney Phil better man up and predict an early respite come February 2. My fingers are crossed for all of you shoveling out from under. Not that I'm superstitious, or subscribe to the precognitive powers of double furred rodents, but. I remember the long dreary bouts of cold and gray all too well. I spent almost fifty-five years in the grip of Old Man Winter, praying the illustrious marmot would not see his shadow.

Will we have an early spring?

I hope so, Darlings. I hope so.


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Next Up: Low-Fat, Honey-Brined, Southern-Fried Chicken Breasts (Yes, I get paid by the hyphen)

Cream Cheese Arepas and the Machine

When I first discovered arepas on a trip to New York City last year, it was love at first bite. I couldn't wait to get back to San Francisco, find some P.A.N. arepas flour, and make a batch or two, which I did in this post.

Since it was my first attempt, I used the classic water, salt, white cornmeal mix to delicious effect. As I read more about arepas, I saw there were hundreds of variations, using all sorts of combinations of milk, cheese, cream, buttermilk, yogurt, etc. I decided I wanted to try a breakfast version made with cream cheese and milk, topped with butter and honey. Unfortunately, I never did.

So, when my friends at Imusa asked me to test their arepas maker, I knew exactly which recipe I'd try. As you'll see, this machine was very easy to use, and produced some fine arepas (even though my dough was a tad dry and cracked a little – and to paraphrase the great Whitney Houston, when it comes to arepas perfection, cracks are wack).

If you don't use a specially made grill for these, worry not; they would come out fine using a pan as I did in the original video. If you want more info about this particular model arepas maker, please check out this Imusa product link. Also, if you can't find the P.A.N. arepas flour in a store near you, follow this link to purchase online.

On a side note; I have to admit, as I was using the machine, I kept daydreaming about doing burgers and eggs with it as well. So, don't be surprised if you see this machine appear in future videos with alternative recipes. Enjoy!

UPDATE! As viewer AFB just brilliantly pointed out, you can certainly just place your dough balls in the maker and let it press them down into patties for you. This is, of course, the main advantages of using this machine! I like the smoother edges hand-shaping provides, and I did make sure they were thicker than the press is deep, so that both sides are in contact. I may do an updated test to see how this faster and more traditional use of the press works.




Cream Cheese Arepas Ingredients (makes 4):
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup softened cream cheese
1 tsp sugar
1 cup P.A.N. arepas flour

Note: This video was made possible by Imusa, and the arepas maker was provided free of charge to test.

You Asked for It!

Remember when I posted the "Potato Ball in Potato Box" video, and you guys started joking around about deep frying it? Well, here you go! This was a YouTube video response from kashioable.