Poulet Roti

Roast Chicken with Lemon and Herbs

One of my favorite cookbooks is this over sized French cookbook by Carole Clements and Elizabeth Wolf-Cohen.



There are some recipes I use over and over again. This one has been a long standing fixture and one that I know I'd grab instinctively if I was told pick an armful and lets go! Sorry 'bout that Nigella - But you'd be amongst those I'd be keeping if pressed to pare the number of them down.

This particular roasted chicken is one of many variations we've had over the years. A roasted chicken is a perfect blank palate; here is the canvas, awaiting a wonderful meal to share.





This uses lemon as does another of our favorites, Lemon Roasted Chicken with Balsamic onions.

Also, I used the roasting rack in my wicked cool roasting pan, keeping the chicken lifted and basted it several times in an hour. So this also made a bit of a difference in flavors.


Here are the ingredients you'll need:

3 lb. chicken
1 lemon halved
several springs of thyme
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp butter, softened
salt and pepper


Step one - Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Season chicken inside and out with salt and pepper.

Step Two - Squeeze the juice of one lemon then place juice, lemon halves, thyme and bay leaves inside chicken cavity. Tie legs with string and rub butter over chicken breast and sides.

Step Three - Place chicken on rack in roasting pan. Roast one hour; basting two or three times.



Before carving the bird I lay out newspapers under the cutting board to prevent the juices from sluicing out over the counter.






This roasted chicken is moist and lemony. Not overpoweringly so but a light lemon taste.



Garlic steamed green beans are nice side.


Chaumes and Camembert are great enders to the meal.




Anyone have a favorite cheese? It's hard to pick just one, isn't it?

Chocolate and Bacon........heavenly

Mo's Bacon Bar - wow, what a combination. It's bacon AND chocolate! Brilliant.....




Large squares of delicious milk chocolate with bits of applewood smoked bacon and sprinkling of alder salt.





From the package -

"Breathe...engage your 5 senses, close your eyes and inhale deeply. Be in the present moment, notice the color of the chocolate, the glossy shine. Rub your thumb over the chocolate bar to release the aroma of of smoked applewood bacon flirting with deep milk chocolate. Snap off a tiny piece and place it in your mouth, let the lust of salt and sweet coat your tongue."

Wow. What a sensual description; Wish I'd written it. I feel like I need a cigarette.

This lovely chocolate combination is a product of Vosges Haut Chocolate and is sold, among other places, World Market. The creative force behind this line is Katrina...just Katrina, no last name. She graduated from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris then furthered her food studies through extensive world travel.

Katrina founded Vosges Haut Chocolate with the concept of travel the world through chocolate in a mission to create a sustainable luxury chocolate experience.

My favorite chocolate is dark, but this combo with milk chocolate was supreme.

This is definitely going to be a birthday present for my boss this year. His b-day is in October so I have plenty of time to sample some of the other varieties before deciding which chocolate bar he gets.

Grilled Tilapia

Yes, tilapia again.........It's a Summer meal - light and easy

If it's on sale, we'll probably buy it and grill it! But I don't think we'll be grilling tilapia again, not without a fish basket, because it's so thin that it sticks. However, the flavor of this particular fish grilled beats any of the oven cooked versions I've done. Very smokey. We use charcoal rather than gas because of the flavor. Takes longer but it's always been worth it.

Nice grill marks....



For sides we had a veggie mixture - looks like I am making ratatouille. What was available in the fridge was a baby eggplant, yellow squash, portabella mushrooms, red onions and fresh tomatoes.




Saute with a tiny bit of sesame oil and sea salt.



Don't saute too long or some of the vegetables will lose crispness.



Slice up some fruit such as strawberry, kiwi and toss in a few blueberries in for contrast. Love the summer fruit season :-)



Paired with Little Penguin chardonnay



Followed by a cheese course



This is another quick summer meal that is inexpensive and healthy. You can actually get sick of tilapia, not on it fro eating it, just from having too much. But while it's cheap we will certainly be trying it in different disguises...such as fish in a packet.

Fish in a Packet

Here is a quick summer meal that is tasty and healthy. Yum.





Another quickie meal with healthy ingredients.

Tilapia filets were on sale at the local market so we purchased three.

They are generally inexpensive enough so we couldn't resist when they were sale priced. Plan to have one filet per person. You can use other fish for this such as cod or grouper...tilapia just happens to be abundant around here.

Place a piece of foil, large enough to wrap the fish tightly, on a baking pan. Spread a tiny bit of olive oil on the foil and place filet on top.


For our toppings we chose sliced red onion, sun dried tomatoes and thinly sliced lemon.



Put lemon on first and sprinkle with dill.



Now add the red onion slices and sun dried tomato.




Seal the packets.



After 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven the fish will be cooked. Open foil carefully so you do not burn your fingers!



ASPARAGUS



While the fish was cooking these lovely tender asparagus were steaming above salted water. These stalks are particularly fresh and nice looking.



I wish I had colorful plates - it would look so much nicer. Have to work on that. What color would be a good one do you think....pale blue, green? Red would be too much I'll bet. Hmmmmm...

Damn Internet

I am starting to think the Internet gods are out to get me. OK, I have missed reading all the blogs and seeing my email this week but then I thought....I really do spend way too much time staring at this laptop screen. I could be reading more, I could work on my genealogy, clean the house (naaaah)but I do want to post.

So here I am at the public library, finally was able to plug into an electrical outlet so I don't run out of battery life....and then I tried to post a fish recipe. Bad request, illegal request, from server. This is so frustrating.

Thanks to all of you for the emails and postcards! I have not abandoned you (I write not knowing if anyone will ever read this message) and hope to more active soon!

Tina

Beef Tortellini Soup

Wandering Coyote over at ReTorte had a nice recipe using leftover buffalo or beef in a soup. You can find her post here at her “What to do with a …….” Series.


I happened to have leftover aged beef from a steak dinner and also had many of the vegetable items on hand. Perfect – just grab a package of tortellini at the grocery store and I’m set to try this one.


Slicing the carrots and onions…look…..I had a pac-man carrot! Wocka wocka wocka…




Simmer the carrots and onions; now add beef and tomatoes.


I did not have home canned tomatoes so I used a can (DelMonte) and added some sliced garlic and a bit of green bell pepper.


stir it up .......



and here you have it.



Oops…I added a bit too much wine.








Buitoni cheese tortellini had ricotta, Romano and Parmesan cheeses. These are great on their own but in the soup they had a particularly creamy taste, soaking up that beef broth.



Once it sits in the broth it all gets rich and thick.





It’s hot here in the summer but this family loves soup. This was hearty and filling for our daily lunches and lasted us three days. A nice change from the chicken soups I generally bring but next time, I won’t tip as much wine in it. The last day we had it I brought cooked white rice and ladled the soup mixture in top. By day three there wasn’t as much juice so it was like a small casserole.

If you like tortellini and you you have some of these pantry items I would recommend this soup!

North Carolina

Taking a short trip to North Carolina this Saturday and returning Sunday evening. So I guess we’ll be eating restaurant/fast food/ packed lunches those two days. The shibas will be accompanying us so we avoid the kennel fees and they also love a car trip. Hextall will be home and hopefully be looked after by Tristan. Hexie is an old man now and I worry about him.

He likes to be escorted upstairs........



He'll sit and wait and wait until you walk up with him. We think he's about 15.




In the meantime, I hope everyone has a nice weekend and I will be posting about some great soup tomorrow...or Sunday............

It continues to be an aggravating week.

Appetizers and Champagne!

Sometimes a nice dinner can be appetizers, served with champagne. This isn’t something we typically do, as champagne is a bit of an extravagance, but there was a good sale on at a local liquor store.

Can you believe French Mumm champagne was $15 off for a steal of $28 ? We contemplated putting is aside for a special occasion…….then thought….what the hell. Then I spied a Taittinger and it was in the cold case. Perfect….we didn’t have to wait for the chill down.



So, the menu consisted of tropical fruit salad of mango, papaya, kiwi fruit and pineapple.




Toasted sesame and everything bagels from the bakery with sides of cream cheese and Vita lox



Marinated mushrooms and artichokes.......



Brie and Fontina cheese followed. By this course I wasn't even looking for the camera :-)

Right. It was grand and it was fun. And that is what we like about planning, cooking and consuming our meals. The fun. Now, we are cutting back a bit, both on calories and economizing....I love a sale...and you can find some mighty nice deals out there if you look.

I believe lox is on sale this week!

French Onion Soup

In spite of the heat we really enjoy a good bowl of soup. Every day for lunch we have soup and a yogurt. Love it! You'd think the pounds would be flying off me, eating soup for lunch, but we also love our cheeses and beef and cream with some dinners. That is going to have to stop...or cut back....but in the meantime, here is a pretty good recipe for soup that we enjoyed awhile back and I neglected to post.

Kitchen is closed tonight but we'll be sure to have this one again very soon.

French Onion Soup

My coworker Shelia Randolph had some lovely large Vidalia onions the other day. She kindly gave me one so I could make soup.


I adapted an Alton Brown recipe which called for sherry, which we didn't have, and quantities to serve eight people. It's a winner and one I would recommend...if you like onions.

You'll need the following Ingredients:




2 or 3 sweet onions (like Vidalias) or a combination of sweet and red onions (I used Vidalias)

2 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups white wine

10 ounces canned beef broth

3/4 cup chicken broth

a bit of apple cider per your taste

Bouquet garni; thyme sprigs, bay leaf and parsley tied together with kitchen string

French bread, sliced into half inch pieces

salt and pepper

Fontina cheese, sliced or grated


Trim the ends off each onion then halve lengthwise. After removing peel, finely slice into half moon shapes.



Melt butter in a skillet or deep pan then add a layer of onions. Sprinkle with a little salt.

Repeat layering onions and salt until all onions are in the skillet.



Let onions sweat down for 15 minutes. After that, stir occasionally until onions are caramelish in color and reduced to approximately 2 cups. This should take 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on your stove.



Add enough wine to cover the onions and turn heat to medium, reducing the wine to a syrup consistency. Add broths, apple cider and bouquet garni. Reduce heat and simmer 15 to 20 minutes.

Can't believe I forgot to take a photo of the broth simmering. But that's not terribly exciting anyway so....no loss.


IF you have crocks that will withstand the broiler then place oven rack in top 1/3 of oven and heat broiler. My crocks can't withstand broiler temps so I just heated our oven to 400 degrees.

Cut bread in rounds large enough to fit mouth of oven safe soup crocks. Toast the bread in the oven or just use a toaster.


Season soup mixture with salt and pepper. Remove bouquet garni and ladle soup into crocks leaving one inch to the lip. Place toasted bread on top of soup and top with grated Fontina cheese.

Safety Note: Place crocks on a cookie sheet for easy removal from the oven. Hot soup sloshing across your wrist is a disaster on so many levels. The pain, the seared flesh, the flying hot crockery and clean up. No soup to eat...... just use the cookie sheet.


Broil until cheese is bubbly and golden, 1 to 2 minutes. OR just place the cookie sheet and crocks in the 400 degree oven. When cheese is melted - you have this to put on the table.



Soup for me is a true comfort food. This one will surely make the rounds at our table again.

Beefy Crescent Bake

What I needed this week was easy. And most of this was in the fridge so....
If you have the following ingredients on hand here is a quickie.

1 and a half pounds of ground beef or a combo of ground turkey/beef/pork
1 medium onion, chopped
mushrooms, sliced
about a cup of shredded cheddar cheese
refrigerated crescent rolls
sour cream
oregano, basil
a small can of tomato sauce

Saute the onion and mushroom. Add garlic if you have it.

When the onion mix is soft add ground meat and brown. Be sure to drain the fat off after the meat is browned. (No photos of that procedure but it's simple).

Add tomato sauce and some oregano, salt and pepper to meat. It will look a bit like a sloppy joe. When it's mixed up, grab a baking dish. A 9x13 should do well.

After you've tipped the ground beef mixture into the baking dish, cover with cheddar cheese, or whatever you like such as colby jack, mozzarella...




Now prepare the cresent rolls and sour cream mix. In a small bowl place about 3/4 cup or more of sour cream. Add oregano and basil. Mix well.

Separate the crescent rolls and place a heaping tablespoon of sour cream mix inside. Roll up as you would to bake a crescent roll. Place atop the ground meat mixture.

Here it is just popped in the oven. Bake at 375 degrees until crescents are browned.



After 25 minutes you'll have browned crescents rolls atop the melted cheese on beef mixture. Herbed sour cream sliding out the sides of the hot rolls....a real treat.




For a side dish that is equally easy, we sauteed some veggies.

Light vegetable side dish of tender yellow squash and fresh tomtato......



Stir it gently with a bit of olive oil......



The yellow, red and browned bits compliment each other........



Tasty, fast and inexpensive meal.



Nice comfort food when you've had a less than ideal week.