Eat – Dirty Martini Chicken and Rosemary Polenta Fries

Keri loves a dirty martini.  What’s not to love? It’s briny and strong and perfectly balenced. (Mmmmm.  Mar-teee-neeeeee.  Mmmmmm.)
That salty, earthy balence is kind of a perfect match for chicken as well, and crispy crunchy polenta fries seasoned with Rosemary give you something to sop up the extra sauce. This will serve 2 hungry eaters, or you could pair with a green salad and feed 4 easily

What You Need:

2 large boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into 1-2 inch pieces

8-10 green olives, minced

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 teaspoon dried Thyme

1/4 cup water or stock

1tube polenta

1 tablespoon dried Rosemary

Olive oil

What You Do:

Rosemary Polenta Fries

Preheat oven to 425

Cut the polenta into sticks I cut the tube in half and then slice each of the halves into sticks, as seen above.

Brush with olive oil

 Sprinkle with half the Rosemary

Lay sprinkled side down on baking sheet and repeat oil and Rosemary

Bake for 40 minutes or until desired level of crunch is achived. (Crunch is personal, yo – so you guide you on this one.)

Chicken

Heat a skillet over high heat, and add olive oil to coat bottom.
Add chicken pieces in single layer and allow to brown on one side (give it a few minutes until some color develops)

Flip each piece, then add stock, lemon juice, Thyme, and olives.

Allow to cook until sauce reduces down, scraping the bottom of the pan to release all of the delicious goodness that has built up during cooking, (if you would like things a bit thicker, a sprinkle of flour and a stir will do the trick.)

This dish cooks quick since the chicken is cut small, so 12 minutes or so from start to finish is about all you’ll need. (Which means you will want to get the fries well down the road to being done before starting the chicken.)

To serve, pile the fries up in the center of a plate and top with chicken, then spoon extra sauce (and those olive bits,) over the whole magical pile.

Dinner is served.

BTW, Jr is a big fan of SUPER crispy polenta fries- and Rosemary is only one way to season – try Parmesan cheese, parsley, and garlic mixed together for the grownups, with just the Parm for kiddos. Mmmm

Drink- The almost classic Margarita

Happy Margarita Day!!! (No really, it’s a thing, and today is it, I swear. I never lie about booze.)

I grew up working in a Mexican Restaurant. Have I said that before?   Ok, “grew up” is a relative term, because I wasn’t in my play pen in the back of the house or anything, (which one owner’s daughter actually was, it was an actual family joint,) but I did plenty of growing up from 16 to 22 in various jobs there, so…..

Our claim-to-fame was the extra shot of tequila we served with every Margarita.  Some stirred it in to their drink, some bombed it right back on its own (some also bombed back others on the table ehhemmm, Mom, ehhemmm,) and some left them on the table.  The latter meant that the bus boys brought them to the kitchen where we bombed them back while frying sopapillas, er, poured them down the drain, how sad.

Anyhoo, that restaurant of course specialized in the syrup-y sweet typical “house Marg” that gets produced in a Margarita machine. Fine and dandy, but we can do better, my dear old friend of a drink.  Try this instead for something a little less like a Slurpie, but still easy drinking enough to be dangerous.

What You Need:

2oz tequila
1oz tripple sec
1oz lime juice (fresh is best, but don’t judge my jug)
1 oz (give or take to taste) Simple Syrup
Salt for garnish (if you are salt-eh like me)

What You Do:
-wet rim of glass and then invert glass into salt (if you don’t have the marg salt like us drunks savvy veterans have, spread your salt on a small plate to allow for enough space to dip your rim)

-  in an ice-filled shaker combine all the other ingredients.
- lid on, shake doing your best impression of Tom Cruise in Cocktail (refrain from drawing attention to being too young to know that reference. K?)

- pour into glass of your choice.  Here’s my thing with this marg- I like to shake and pour into a bigger glass fille with fresh ice. Much like the simple syrup isn’t traditional, neither is the glass of ice, but I like a little sweetness, and I like a little ice melt in this drink.  Kind of like an Old Fashion, a little icy water-y-ness isn’t really a bad thing to me.   But you do you, and less-or-more the sweetness and the ice in the glass as you see fit.  Mine look like this:
:

Mmmmmm.

Btw- if you want the pre-fab variety, we can totes accommodate that too, thanks to this stuff from Dr. Sissy (I think it is the sorority girl in her.)

You just say the word and I’ll bust out the blender.

Eat – PERFECT Pork Tacos

I have talked about the salsas from The Women’s Bean Project around ED&BK in the past (as in, right here.)

First of all, I LOVE LOVE LOVE what they do – read all about them and find all of their deliciousness on their website.

I have been really excited to see their products popping up in King Soopers lately (look in the Mexican/Latin foods isle in the bagged dried spices to find their yummy salsa mixes,) because it means that I get to cook with them on a whim!

It is no secret that I can’t get enough of the tex-mex/south-west/mexican food – it is a rare week when less than two of our dinners incorporate SOMETHING influenced by those cooking styles and flavors.   Keri es muy caliente, I guess. 

I have been CRAVING (seriously, severely, ) street tacos for a while now, but a 2 week bout of Bronchitis kept us on a steady diet of take out (we haven’t been here long, and all of my faves know me by name and some even know the family order at this point.  Yikes,) and Pizza-cicles.

BUT I’M BACK, BABY!  Feeling strong(er) but still not wanting anything complicated – just something really packed with flavor.

So into the crock pot went a pork loin, 1/2 cup chicken broth (ok, I confess, it was bullion,) AND a packet of the magical mixture that is WBP Original Hot Salsa Mix.

Oh. Yeah.

8 low-cooking hours later I shredded it all up and served it in corn tortillas warmed in a skillet, sprinkled with diced onion and tomato for me and liberal amounts of cheese for The Hub.  BOOM.  Taco perfection achieved.  PERFECTION.

(No pictures here – alas, we scarfed down the subject matter before I could even think – I lost control!)

Try it – Keri wouldn’t do you wrong – it is STUPID good.

Then send WBP products to all of your friends and family and share the love and pride packed into each of their items.

You’re welcome.

Be – So fickle

Yeah…  Being Keri lately has left me extra-fickle about blog stuff.

Like I have been doing this lately, because I just don’t feel like it fits in here, but maybe writing it down helps or something.

And I have been crabby. And snarky.  And sick, it feels like forever, too.

 

Man, I am such a frickin’ ray of sunshine.

 

Roasted Butternut Squash Gratin

Reblogged from No Empty Chairs:

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I love butternut squash in the winter. Squash are great, inexpensive vegetables that can be cooked many different ways, both sweet and savory. If you want to pay a little more, you can also buy them pre-peeled and diced. But then you don’t get any of those great seeds for Roasting.

This gratin is a savory side dish that is really flavorful and goes great with roast chicken or beef.

Read more… 114 more words

Uh - I am NOT worthy. This looks A-effin-MAZING!! BTW... Happy New Year. Cooking, Parenting, Working, Wifing, Writing... not here. Bad Keri. But more on all that later.

Be – technically unsavvy…

Um,  Yeah….  so here I have been “posting” away from my Smart Phone for the past month +.

One problem..  Smart Phone, but NOT Smart Phoner.

Pardon while I fill in the gaps.  (Note some “past” entries coming on line as I get them off my phone and into the proper spot in the timeline.)

Eat – Jalapeno Beer Cheese Soup

We had a nice little cold snap this week, which always leaves me wanting something warm and hearty to eat for dinner.  But not every day can be a “giant roast cooking all day long, Sunday dinner ” kind of day – so soups and stews are a go-to for me, since they give you that stick-to-your-ribs kind of cold weather meal feeling, and can be super fast too!

As for this one – it has beer, and cheese, and bacon.  And it is spicy.  Why say more?

 What You Need:

1/8-1/4 cup (or more) diced pickled jalapeno

1 can chicken broth (I like low sodium)

1/2 can beer (you could use more, OR you could drink it.)

2 cups shredded cheese

1 tbls. flour

1 tbls .vegetable oil

several dashes of Worcestershire sauce

1 cup milk (give or take)

3/4 teaspoon yellow mustard

2 (or more – maybe many, many more) crumbled slices of cooked bacon

 

What You Do:

In a large sauce pan or stock pan, heat the oil over medium high heat, stir in the flour, and allow to cook a couple minutes stirring frequently to cook out that “flour-y taste.”  (you are making a roux, like in this post,)

Next, add the chicken stock and then the beer slowly, a little at a time, whisking briskly to distribute the roux each time you add liquid.  Try different Beers – a dark stout makes for a different taste than an ale, but both are way tasty.

When the flour mixture is completely incorporated and liquid is boiling, stir in jalapeno and bacon.

Remove from heat.  Whisk in cheese and stir until smooth.  (Again, try different cheeses…  think about what might complement the beer you are using – the combos are endless, I like strong cheeses with dark beers, and mild cheeses with lighter beer – so neither flavor overwhelms the other.)

Add Mustard and a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce (some like the flavor more than others, I a like a generous amount, personally.)

Now slowly add milk and stir to reach the consistency you like best for this kind of soup – it is personal, so add as much or as little as needed.

- Lay out a toppings bar so all can enjoy personalizing their bowls – sour cream, extra bacon bits, horseradish, jalapeno slices, fresh diced onion….  whatever sounds good.  Serve with crusty bread or pretzel rolls for sopping up the end of the soup.

*Back dated to date I *thought* I published from my phone.  You’re welcome.  (Especially awesome since someone specifically asked me to share this recipe.  sigh.)