Flat chicken

I’m  just stopping by tonight because after meticulously relating the flat chicken recipe last night, I just craved it so much I made some tonight with the green noodles. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, look at the previous post. I’m not typing this in again.

At any rate, here it is. I have a few tips on frying to relate. The first one is that you have to do a test piece first. I don’t know why, but it’s kind of like pancakes. The first one never comes out right.

The second thing is that when you are tempted to flip the chicken over, shake the pan. If the chicken doesn’t slide in the pan, leave it. It will eventually unstick itself.

The third thing is that the second side cooks faster than the first. So if you cooked the first side for five minutes, then cook the second for three. Or something like that.

I don’t know why I felt it important to pass along these tips, except that they really work and cookbooks never tell you things like this.

One more thing. You’ll notice the green noodles are topped with pine nuts. Pine nuts are the seeds from, what else, pine cones. I don’t think they’re really nuts but I’m not sure. At any rate, they’re really delicious but you have to toast them first (well, you don’t have to, but I do). Just put them in a dry skillet over low heat until they begin to turn brown. Don’t turn you’re back. They can go from brown to black in a split second. Scared you, didn’t I?

Good enough mother

Okay, I’m so over the Super Bowl and it hasn’t even started yet. I’ve made pizza and brats and dips all week and I’m full.

So, I hope ya’ll are on Facebook. I can’t tell you how many old friends I’ve connected with in the last year. One of my non-Facebook friends says her daughter thinks it’s creepy that old people are on Facebook. I think “old” is a little strong. Mature, perhaps. But I don’t care either way.

The other day I reconnected with Rene Syler, who used to work with my husband at KOLO in Reno. Rene is one of those girls you could easily hate because she is gorgeous. I mean knock down. Just look at her. She really looks like that!  But you can’t hate Rene because she is so nice.

So after she left Reno and was a TV anchor in Dallas she became a TV anchor on the Early Show on CBS. We were so proud. And she was really good. Then somehow they decided it was a good idea to let her go. You know, we in the South never talk about people being fired. We just say they were “let go.” Isn’t that  more pleasant?

But ya’ll know how this works. The old “one door closes, another door opens” thing. So Rene decided to write a best-selling book about life with her husband and two children called Good Enough Mother. And it, of course, does very well. So, now, Rene has embraced the new social media and she makes videos about her life that she anchors in her own walk-in closet! Here’s one I just love. Rene’s in the closet and she’s even wearing a Snuggie!

Now, here’s the food part. With all of Rene’s success, I found out just a few weeks ago that Rene cannot cook. And, of course, that gives me a leg up…finally. Here’s Rene making a ridiculously simple dish in her designer kitchen. Why is it that all non-cooks have designer kitchens while I, a renowned cookbook author, must put up with a kitchen the size of a bath mat (that’s a picture of my pathetic little kitchen)? Well, maybe not renowned. Actually, not even well-known. But I digress.

So now I’m feeling sorry for Rene. All that talent and she has a hard time feeding her family. But she is a Good Enough Mother and she deserves a little help. So I am going to give her, and you, the recipe for what Noah calls Flat Chicken. I am embarrassed at how easy this is.

Flat Chicken

1 package thin-sliced chicken breasts

Seasoned Progresso breadcrumbs (you can usually find them in the flour aisle)

Juice of one lemon

1/2 cup oil

4 tablespoons butter

Trim the chicken breasts of any extraneous skin. Put a goodly amount of the breadcrumbs on a plate. With the cold water tap running, rinse the chicken pieces in cold water and press both sides into the breadcrumbs (a Perfect Mother would do the whole flour, egg wash, breadcrumb thing but this is Good Enough).

Add the lemon juice to a skillet. Then add the oil and butter. Heat over medium heat until the butter is melted and it sizzles when you throw a couple drops of water in the pan. Now, add the chicken. Here is the mistake most non-cooks make. DON’T TOUCH IT. Don’t try to pick it up with tongs or move it around the pan. Just leave it there until the bottom looks nicely browned. Then turn it once and brown on the other side. Because it’s flat chicken, when it looks good on the outside it’s done on the inside.

Flat chicken is particularly good with Green Noodles, which is another dish Noah named. It’s just thin spaghetti with store-bought pesto sauce. Good Enough.

Super Bowl: Best of the wurst

We are sausage people. We like every single kind of sausage there is – Southern -style sausage patties, Northern-style links and German-style wurst. It doesn’t matter. We just gobble it up.

So for this Super Bowl installment, a bratwurst sandwich is absolutely called for, don’t you think? Now, I actually had to do a little research about bratwurst. It’s a generic term that covers a multitude of sausages. The “wurst” just means sausage and the “brat” comes from old High German and means pure meat with no other filler. I’m all about that.  Some brats are made with pork and beef and some of them are made with pork and veal. The latter are termed “weisswurst.” Too much information? Yea, me too. Let’s just get on to the cooking.

Now, if you need a recipe to make brats, then you just really don’t need to be making this at all. It’s like telling you how to boil a hot dog. Ordinarily, I would do these on the grill, but it’s raining cats and dogs (wouldn’t that really hurt if it was true?) so I browned them in a frying pan. The weisswurst, or white brats, I got were from Boar’s Head, which is really the only wurst of any kind you should get, unless you have access to West Wind Farm. Did I mention that my new boyfriend (so long, Thomas Keller) is Ralph Cole, who is the organic farmer who raises my favorite sausage. Ralph has not told his wife, Kimberlie, about this yet so please be discreet.

But I digress. You just brown the sausage to give it a little extra flavor and then you butter a hoagie roll and get it nice and toasty under the broiler. Add some sauerkraut that you have nuked just slightly to take the chill off, some grilled onions and some spicy deli mustard and you have the perfect Superbowl snack.

Super Bowl: Reader favorites

You know how it is when you go to a church potluck and all the ladies bust out their best recipes? And funeral food? Nothing finer. Well, that’s how I feel when readers send in recipes for their favorite foods. And, in this case, all the recipes come from BBQ people, who most folks outside the BBQ community don’t know are usually superior cooks in all other genres as well.

On a Friday night at a competitive BBQ contest, you will eat better than if you’d gotten a gift certificate to Ruth Chris. You might have filet mignon with Bearnaise sauce. You might  have crab-stuffed shrimp. You might have lamb lollipops.

But this, of course, is about Super Bowl food and if you are eating lamb lollipops during the game you are a complete wimp. So, without further adieu, reader recipes.

This first one comes from John Verville, also known as RibDog on the BBQ circuit.  You have to love any kind of dip that involves the word “fried”. He got this recipe from Ina Garten.

Pan-Fried Onion Dip

Yield: 2 cups

2 large yellow onions
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup good mayonnaise

Cut the onions in half and then slice them into 1/8-inch thick half-rounds. (You will have about 3 cups of onions.) Heat the butter and oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add the onions, cayenne, salt, and pepper and saute for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, for 20 more minutes until the onions are browned and caramelized. Allow the onions to cool.

Place the cream cheese, sour cream and mayonnaise in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat until smooth. Add the onions and mix well. Taste for seasonings. Serve at room temperature.

Copyright, 1999, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, All rights reserved

NOTE: I, RibDog, serve this with either bagel chips or French baguette toasts.

This next one comes courtesy of my friend, Mary Ann Francis, who is part of the Chicks in Charge team along with Linda Gould, Roxanne Gould and myself. The recipe is from another friend, Chris Cappel, who himself is the head cook of the competition team, Dizzy Pig.

The recipe is for twice-baked potatoes, which I absolutely adore. I’m just linking to it so you will go to his website and buy some of his outstanding rub. I don’t get a percentage. I just  like the guy. Here it is. Now I will offer that I believe Chris made a serious error when he omitted fried bacon crumbles from the recipe. I’m just saying.

The last is a suggestion from my friend, Terrell, who keeps me honest when it comes to spreading the love of Southern food. And he’s absolutely right. How could I have omitted Rotel tomato and Velveeta dip! He did not include a recipe, because any fool who lives in the South already knows how to make Rotel tomato and Velveeta dip. But because this is, in part, an instructional blog, I will give you the recipe any Southerner knows by heart.

Rotel and Velveeta Dip

1 pound Velveeta

1 can Rotel diced tomatoes with chilies

Cut the Velveeta into cubes and add them to a crockpot on low heat along with the tomatoes. Heat until cheese is melted. Serve with tortilla chips.

By the way, if you really want to go whole hog, as it were, add a half pound of cooked crumbled sausage.

Super Bowl: Dips

I have a deep and abiding love of dips. When Louise and I were little girls, we used to steal the plastic tub of store-bought onion dip from the icebox on Saturday mornings, grab the bag of potato chips and sneak away to the closet in our room where we would sit on the floor with the closet doors shut and just dig in. This, in no small part, contributed to the weight problem I developed in elementary school but did not diminish in any way my adoration of dips.

So, today we have dips for Super Bowl. Now it is a well-known rule in the South that most dip recipes need three ingredients and three ingredients only. I don’t know why but there it is. So the first, is the coveted hot artichoke dip. I am sure many of you are well aware of hot artichoke dip, but I include it here because if you are not, you will want to run to the Publix right now and get the ingredients.

I am almost embarrassed by the simplicity of this. Take one large can of artichoke hearts (not marinated) and put them in a mixing bowl. Add one cup of mayonnaise and one cup of grated Parmesan cheese. Mix thoroughly, mashing up the artichoke hearts as you go. Put the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.  Serve warm with crackers. I am partial to Wheat Thins.

This next one is just delicious and it is not my recipe. It is Paula Deen’s curry dip. I made this for a church function and people just gobbled it up. Here’s the recipe. All it is is mayonnaise, curry powder and lemon juice. She suggests serving it in a hollowed out red pepper, which I have always thought looks tacky. However, you will note that I snapped the photograph of it in a plastic container, which is equally tacky. But I was about to take it to church, so there you go. I serve this with asparagus that has been tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted in the oven at 400 degrees for about ten minutes.

Now, here is the capper. It is Bunny’s legendary ham dip. And it only has two ingredients. How clever is that? You take one large can and one small can of Underwood Deviled Ham and mix it with one 8-ounce container of sour cream. That’s it! Let it sit in the icebox for a couple of  hours. Serve with Frito’s Scoops (mandatory). I cannot describe to you how good this is. I sprinkled some dried dill on top for the picture because I will admit that without a little color it does sort of look like, well, I just won’t say it because then you’ll never make the dip.

I just want to say a word about double dipping since we’re on the topic of dips. I am all for it. When did we get so afraid of a few germs? In the ladies room of one of the restaurants I frequent they have the soap, the towels to dry your hands after you wash and then a separate towelette to open the friggin’ restroom door with. I am a member in good standing of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church where each and every Sunday at least 200 people per service drink wine out of the same communion cup (albeit turned a quarter between each sipper and wiped with a cloth towel) and none of us have ever gotten sick.

I believe that says it all.

Super Bowl: Pizza

Ya’ll, I am so excited. It’s Super Bowl week! I am madly in love with football, particularly college football. But after New Year’s Day, the absolute best day of the year because there’s the Rose Parade in the morning and then football all day long, my next favorite day is Super Bowl Sunday. I would love it if my Titans were playing, but it’s still all good.

I am torn this year about who to root for. I could go with the Colts because my beloved Peyton Manning from the University of Tennessee is the quarterback. But I could also go with the Saints because I am just in love with Louisiana in general and New Orleans in particular. And is Drew Brees not just a hunk? Hey, did you know that football players don’t wear underwear under their uniforms? I just thought that might bring a whole new dimension to the game for you.

But I digress. Super Bowl Sunday is also all about the food. And as I was watching The Bachelor On the Wings of Love last night, I just thought about doing a whole week of super Super Bowl food. By the way, I know you think less of me for watching The Bachelor, and I usually don’t, but this season they have some wacks as bachelorettes and that makes it so much more fun.

So, tonight it’s pizza. Yes, I know. You can just order it. But it’s so much better to make yourself and it’s so easy. My favorite combination in the whole world is caramelized onions, provolone and prosciutto so that’s what I’m going to tell you about. By the way, Terrell told me the other day he was not familiar with prosciutto. But you know what? I had that man at the grocery store in Georgia searching for Panettone to make French toast with so I am convinced he will be willing to find prosciutto. I just love Terrell.

But I digress again.

O.K. Here we go. You’ll need a pizza stone for this. Believe me, you will want to go to the trouble of getting one.

Caramelized Onion and Prosciutto Pizza

1 large sweet onion, such as Vidalia

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

6 thin slices prosciutto

¾ pound sliced provolone cheese

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 ball pizza dough

Flour

Cornmeal

Preheat oven to 500 degrees with the pizza stone on the lower third of the oven.

Heat a large sauté pan to medium heat. Add olive oil. Slice onion into rings and sauté until the onions turn a deep caramel color, about 20 minutes. If pan appears dry, add a little more oil.

Divide pizza dough in half. Flour work surface and roll out pizza dough to desired thinness. Transfer to a cutting board dusted with cornmeal. Sprinkle oregano on dough. Cover with slices of provolone cheese and prosciutto. Top with caramelized onions.

Sprinkle cornmeal on pizza stone. Transfer pizza to the oven and cook about 8 minutes, checking frequently.

Meatloaf

We have been snowed in for four days now, with the exception of the perilous trips to Jack in the Box, Five Guys, and Buca Di Beppo, so I felt it was time to make meatloaf. Meatloaf was the only thing my mother made that I can truly say was good, and that was because she followed the recipe on the Quaker Oats box precisely. She even made a recipe card for it, suggesting at least for a moment that she enjoyed cooking.

Now I may run into some opposition from the macaroni and cheese contingent, but I think the only sides you can serve with meatloaf are mashed potatoes and peas. Homemade mashed potatoes, of course.

My husband says the only reason I make meatloaf is so I can have meatloaf sandwiches the next day. He’s right. Perfect meatloaf sandwich: meatloaf, mayonnaise, salt, pepper, iceberg lettuce and soft bread – no variations.

The best thing about meatloaf is that it’s kind of like a casserole. Add what you like and leave out what you don’t. The recipe that follows is for the grill. It gives the loaf a nice smoky flavor. But seeing as how there is four inches of snow on the deck, I’m baking mine in the oven tonight. Three hundred and fifty degrees for an hour.

Grilled Meatloaf

1 package meatloaf mix, about 1 ½ pounds

¼ cup diced red onion

¼ cup diced red pepper

2 eggs, beaten

1 8-ounce can tomato sauce

1 cup panko breadcrumbs

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 ½ teaspoons salt

½ teaspoon pepper

½ teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon dried oregano.

2 slices (or more) bread

Your favorite barbecue sauce

Preheat grill to medium heat.

Mix all the ingredients, except the slices of bread, thoroughly. Clean hands are your best tools here.

Line a baking pan with foil and put a grate (the kind you would use to cool cookies) on top of it. Put enough bread slices to cover the base of the meatloaf. The bread will soak up the grease. Shape the loaf and put it on the grate.

Place meatloaf on grill and insert a probe thermometer about halfway into the loaf. Cover the grill. Cook until the meatloaf reaches an internal temperature of 160 degrees. Check about halfway through and if the meatloaf is getting too brown on top, cover with foil. About 10 minutes before it is done, baste with barbecue sauce.

Weather warriors

When I was in the television news business and bad weather came, we divided up the staff into two categories: Weather warriors and weather weenies. The warriors made it to work, no matter what. The weenies called in with feeble excuses like, “I can’t get out of my driveway” and “My car won’t start.” Yea, right.

We got snow yesterday. Lots of it. And since I had prepared so well by laying in at least 450 pounds of Totino’s Pizza Rolls and Nathan’s Pigs in the Blanket, plus eight boxes of Corbett Canyon wine in a variety of flavors, we were all set to remain at the domicile until things thawed out a little.

But this morning, we just started getting a wee bit of cabin fever and decided to throw caution to the wind and go to Jack in the Box for some curly fries and burgers.

This is what happens in Middle Tennessee when there’s a pretty good snowfall. First of all, the streets in every subdivision are unplowed and covered not only with four inches of snow but also a thick layer of  ice. We are undaunted. Mark can drive in any weather condition as long as you don’t talk and don’t invade his “driving space” by, say, trying to put a drink in the cup holder.

We made it out of Stonehenge and onto Franklin Road, just partially plowed. We head toward Cool  Springs. The Barnes and Noble is closed. The Galleria Mall is closed. The “hot” sign is on at the Krispy Kreme so we hold out hope that the Jack in the Box will be open. Despite the fact that they had not shoveled the parking lot even for disabled people, it was open.

We triumphantly ordered two giant boxes of curly fries, some burgers and Cokes. The extremely tattooed but pleasant young man behind the counter was more than helpful, given that we were the only three people to have come through the door. I’m sure he was lonely.

After we eat, Noah decides we should commemorate our brave expedition into the frozen wasteland with a photo.

You will notice that Noah is dressed snazzily in skin-tight jeans and a light-weight jacket while I have thrown fashion to the floor and put on my super-warm yet slightly unattractive University of Tennessee parka and my caribou boots I got 16 years ago when we lived in Reno.

It is important to at least maintain the facade of bravery  in a weather emergency. Mark’s and Noah’s cars are parked at the bottom of our steep driveway. Theoretically, they can go anywhere. My car, however, has been tucked safely in the garage for the last two days. And if the snow doesn’t melt tomorrow, I may be forced to shamefully join the weenies. I have a business meeting Monday. But I really might not be able to get out of the driveway.

Comfort food

As I am sitting here waiting for the blizzard to begin, I am eating a peanut butter and butter sandwich. On Pepperidge Farm pumpernickel bread (highly prized because it has no crust).

My mother made these up, I think, because she ran out of jelly one day. I don’t know, but I remember eating them in the backseat of the car. A red Oldsmobile convertible. Isn’t it strange how food memories have these odd  moments of clarity? When I can’t decide what to have for supper and the boys aren’t home, I just crave a peanut butter and butter sandwich.

So, what’s your favorite comfort food? I need to know. Takes my mind off the snow.

We might just starve, part two

Awhile back, I told ya’ll about our annual get-together with my in-laws and my son and daughter-in-law in the mountains. We bring enough food to last for two weeks even though the trip only lasts three days because, after all, we might starve.

There is a rumor of snow in Middle Tennessee tonight. The weather service is calling for “significant accumulation.” Normally, the level of frenzied discussion of snow is in direct correlation to the lack of actual snowfall we receive. But this does not keep us from engaging in sheer panic and food hoarding.

So today I went to the Publix just to get a few things. Some mushrooms and a head of lettuce. But I could feel the fear of my fellow shoppers as I wheeled my buggy toward the meat section. There might be snow. Significant accumulation. The bread was almost gone. I pick up a loaf.

Pork chops. I could probably use some pork chops. Just in case. And chicken. Chicken is always good. Fruit. Fresh fruit. Is scurvy still around? It could be. Who knows how long we’ll be trapped in the house? I pick up some tangerines and apples.

Breakfast. Do I have enough for breakfast if we’re snowed in for a week? Sausage. I must have sausage. And Little Smokies, an essential survival tool during a blizzard. Blizzard? What exactly does “significant accumulation” mean?

I pick up a bag of biscuits, too. And some spaghetti. And some potatoes. Starch. We’re going to need a lot of starch if we’re going to survive this. And milk. My God, I’ve forgotten the milk. I barely make it to the dairy case in time. The threat of calcium deficiency weighs heavily on my mind. I don’t even drink milk. But I might have to start.

The last real threat to our survival occurred only a few weeks ago. Forecasters at the television stations were warning of dire consequences if the citizenry was not completely prepared for a long confinement to our homes.

We spent an anxious night, listening for the snapping of large tree branches and the sound of our roof caving in from the weight of the anticipated snow. And we woke up to this. I don’t think you could actually measure the depth of the snow with a pica pole.

However. HOWEVER. We were prepared. I had laid in supplies for this storm, too. We Southerners are alert and ready for every weather emergency. But we are particularly attuned to the possibility of snow, with all the precarious dangers it brings.  There might be sliding. There might be swerving. You could fall down the steps and break your leg!  Attending school, of course, is out of the question. Work is not a possibility either.

So I am ready. The protection of my family is my foremost concern. After all, we might just starve.