Tex-Mex Chicken Breasts with Rockin' Red Sauce

Annnnnnd....we have yet another success story from "Dr. Frazier-stein's" lab!! This recipe is fast and easy and will surely please lovers of Tex-Mex!

Click the link below to view this yummy creation:

 Tex-Mex Chicken Breasts with Rockin' Red Sauce

Very Tasty!!

Michael Angelo's Chicken Piccata: Product Review

Yes, it's been a while but I'm still here! Please enjoy this product review and then run out and buy some for yourself....(just click the link below):

Michael Angelo's Chicken Piccata

Michael Angleo's Chicken Piccata served over fresh pasta.

 

More Fun with Sriracha: The Sriracha Chicken Sandwich

These Sriracha chicken tenders would make an excellent po' boy sandwich. I didn't have any baguettes on hand so I made a regular sandwich with them the day after I enjoyed the successful Spicy Sriracha Chicken Tenders recipe.

This sandwich is served graced with tomatoes, lettuce, black olives and spicy ranch. If I'd had some sliced avocado, it would have been the perfect finishing touch.

I think it would be worth it to butterfly the breast, then follow the recipe as usual. Use the butterflied breasts to make a sandwich using regular bread, ciabatta bread or toasted hamburger buns. Yum!!

Beats any chicken sandwich from any fast food joint any day of the week! 

Sriracha Chicken Sandwich

Spicy Sriracha Chicken Tenders

Chicken tenders marinated in Sriracha, then tossed in a spicy coating. Unlike the Colonel, I will share my recipe. There's no junk in it to hide from the public. Like, you know, msg and other bad crap you shouldn't be putting in your body.

Served with celery, avocado slices and spicy ranch dressing.

Most of the time spent for this dish is the preparation time. The cooking time is minimal.

Stay tuned for this recipe, I'll post it as soon as I can.

Spicy Sriracha Chicken Tenders

Spicy Sriracha Chicken Tenders

Chicken Picatta--I Love It a Lotta!!

Yeah, yeah, go ahead and laugh at my lame title, ha ha! ;)

My cousin never had the pleasure of eating Chicken Picatta. (Is it picatta or piccata? There seems to be no universal agreement about this. Not even all Italians agree on the spelling.)

I decided to make some Chicken Picatta for supper and my cousin--(who can be like "Mikey" on occasion...remember that commercial?)--was dining with us. I have learned to emphasize certain items for certain people, if I'm asked to list ingredients in a recipe, and to downplay other ingredients. It's not to be mean or cruel. Sometimes ingredients just can't be substituted. Oh, they can be substituted and the dish will still be edible but it won't have the same classic taste.

Well, I didn't have capers for the dish last night so I threw in some fresh mushrooms. It was good and still had a ghostly flavor of "traditional" picatta. It didn't have the delightful explosion of flavor that the capers provide, though.

My cousin liked it, though, and she enjoyed the orzo as well. (She'd never had that, either.) She went back for seconds and all we had left to put away in the fridge later was a little smidge of chicken and a few mushrooms. A big WIN! WOO-HOO! :)

My next goal is to make sure I get some capers so I can see how well she likes the classic recipe.

Side View: 

 

 

Chicken Picatta w/Mushrooms, Orzo & Fresh Green Beans


Top View:

 





Chicken Picatta with Mushrooms, Orzo & Fresh Green Beans

 

Coleman Organic Chicken

Look at the gorgeous bird below...it's a Coleman Organic Chicken! Recently I published a product review about this beautiful chicken, which can be seen here:

Coleman Organic Chicken

Coleman Organic Chicken--Ready for Service

A Few Words about Chicken Nuggets....

Last week my cousin offered me a sample of some chicken nuggets that she'd purchased at a local fast food restaurant. I'm not going to mention any names here but one of the main colors used by this establishment is orange. The other is white. 

I bit into a chicken nugget. At first chew, it tasted okay and I was pleased to see that appeared to be made with real pieces of chicken, rather than the "mechanically separated" and "glued back together" version. 

I hadn't finished chewing completely before the horror struck my taste buds. Whatever they use in the batter for these nuggets tastes extremely bad--they're too salty, for one, but the chemical aftertaste was far worse.  Whoever had this "bright idea" for a recipe should have to go to a chicken farm and clean out the chicken coops for a week! Terrible! Awful! Yuck! 

I am disappointed in this establishment. These were some of the worst chicken nuggets I've ever tasted, and that includes the ones that don't use whole chicken pieces. I think they should remove them from the menu post-haste.

I might not have noticed if I had dipped them in any sauces first, but I doubt it. It could be that my taste buds just won't tolerate this kind of junk anymore...I eat fast food on VERY rare occasions, so my palate is not subjected to a lot of processed food. 

I used to eat burgers from this establishment occasionally, but I haven't in many years. The last time I did, they were still making burgers to order. They were okay. Nothing to dance in the street about, but okay. I think they should stick to burgers, really. 

Maybe I'm not being fair and I should give these nuggets another chance. I ate a total of four...all that my cousin had left in her box that she didn't want to eat. I guess I should have asked her the real reason she didn't finish them. I only ate them because I didn't want to seem rude by refusing her offer. Mistake! But I do hate to waste food and I certainly wouldn't have fed those things to any animals....so I went ahead and took a bullet. (Four of them, to be exact). 

Should I give them another chance? Not on my wallet!

Chicken Stock Obsession

One of my favorite activities in the kitchen is preparing chicken stock. I like to make beef stock, too, but that one is more labor intensive. With chicken stock, you just throw it all in the pot and you're good to go. The most labor intensive part of making chicken stock is the end when you strain it and cool it. Well, you do need to skim some junk off of the top during cooking once in a while--but that's easy.

If you're in a pinch and you need stock quickly, you can simply throw in some chicken parts and cook for a short time. For classic stock, though, you want to simmer for a longer time in order to achieve maximum flavor.

Here's my personal procedure:

I never buy chicken parts anymore. I haven't for many years. Well, I take that back--if there is a good sale on chicken breasts, legs, thighs, etc. and they are of exceptional quality and not "Franken-chicken," I may buy some from time to time. Otherwise, forget it.

It's much more economical to cut your chicken at home. Not only can you cut it the way you like, (and not have to worry about bone splinters that occur so often in pre-cut chicken because pre-cut is usually done with a machine), you can use the extra parts that no one will eat to make chicken stock.

In the photo above, there are two sets of chicken remnants. The one on top is from a free-range, organic fryer. This brand had the giblets and the neck. You generally don't see that too often these days, unless you buy a hen instead of a fryer. The chicken on the bottom is from a local company, no giblets and neck for that one. It's a lot smaller, too.

When I cut up a chicken, I usually take the breasts off sans bones, so these chickens have the breastbones intact. The legs, thighs and wings are removed and the wingtips are saved for stock. Why not? No one eats those.

This chicken is frozen. You don't need to defrost before you make stock. Just toss it in there.

Add water, leaving about 1 1/2 to 2 inches of space at the top. You aren't going to be boiling the hell out of it, so you won't have any problems with it boiling over. Oh, and by the way, it's an 8-quart stockpot.

Next, add your veggies. You don't have to get fancy about those, just make sure they're washed. You can snap the carrots and celery in half and throw it in there, celery leaves and all. Don't even bother cutting it. Maybe cut the onion half in half, that's about it. You can use whatever odds and ends you have in your fridge as far as vegetables go. Just avoid using any strong vegetables, like broccoli.

Ingredients for classic chicken stock are: onion, celery, carrots, fresh parsley (leaves & stems but you can also use stems only), a bay leave and a handful of peppercorns (about 1-1/2 teaspoons for this recipe).

For this batch, I had a couple of chunks of red onion so I threw those in, too. Turn on the heat to medium high or so, but don't let it get to a rolling boil. You want a slow simmer for stock. Once it starts to simmer pretty good, reduce the heat to low or medium low (Depending on your stove--this varies).

Here's the whole shebang in the pot. it's already accumulating foam on top. This is the stuff you want to skim from the top, along with fat when it rises. Oh, and repeat after me three times: NO STIRRING!! Never stir stock. You want all of the impurities to sink or rise so you can remove them easily.

Here's some "chicken skim" that came up. You'll get this early on in the "chicken stock journey." 

Here we are, almost at the end of the journey. (The stock was simmered for over 2 hours, probably closer to 3). Your stock is ready to be strained and cooled. Unless you have one of those really cool stockpots that have a faucet on the bottom, you'll have to do this by hand. Dip out as much as you can. Use tongs to carefully remove the chicken and vegetables. Then you can easily pour the rest through your strainer.

Here is the rich, gorgeous result. I only strained this stock through a standard strainer. If you want even more purity, use a strainer with smaller mesh lined with cheesecloth.

Cool and refrigerate. Or you can freeze it, it keeps for a long time. If you do a lot of cooking, though, it won't be in your freezer for long. Any fat you may have missed with your earlier skimming can be removed easily after refrigeration.

I got about 1-1/2 gallons or out of this batch. It could have been a few ounces more or less--I didn't measure it. Let's just say it was A LOT, ha ha! 

What you end up with is a much healthier stock than what's available in grocery stores. It's really economical, too. A quart of stock in a regular grocery store usually runs about $2.99. It's even more in specialty food stores.

So you get cheap stock that is of great value. There's no salt added so you can use it however you like. Use it to cook your rice, pasta or vegetables for extra added flavor. That way, you don't need to use a lot of butter or extra salt. Use it for soup, for poaching, or in a sauce. Whatever you do, use it in good health!

Important things to remember when making stock:

• Never, ever stir it!!
• Always start your stock with cold water, (if you don't, it will be cloudy) 
• Never allow stock to come to a full, rolling boil. (you'll end up with cloudy stock for sure) 

Until next time....Happy Eating!!! :)

Cornish Game Hens: The Mangled Truth

Yesterday we had Cornish game hens for supper. We like to have them now and then and it had been a while since we had any.

We opened the packages so we could start preparation and found hens that were in a sorry state. I should have taken pictures of all of them. We made three and all three were damaged in some way. One of them had a mangled leg. The other two had damaged breasts--specifically the skin. The skin had tears and some was missing. I ended up barding all three hens. Two because of the skin and one just to take attention away from the mangled leg.

What in the world are they doing to these hens at the processing plant? I don't recall ever seeing any before that were in such sorry shape.

We were having an informal supper so it was no big deal. The flavor wasn't affected by the damage, either. But what if I was having a dinner party and had hens in such bad shape? I would be mortified.

Here's a photo of the hen with the mangled leg. I was unable to truss the bird properly so the string is all over the place:

The legs were still spread out too far in spite of the trussing. Don't get me wrong, the flavor was still great. It's the aesthetics that are bothersome.

I'm going to write a letter to Tyson about this. The hens we purchased were under the "Patti Jean" label. Maybe they will do something about it so unsuspecting people don't have to deal with such a mess.

Please let me know if you have had the same experience with Rock Cornish Game Hens.

Enjoy your day! Especially at suppertime! :)