Summer Salad: Wild Rice Salad

Here is a refreshing side to take to your next picnic, party, or just make for yourself!

Wild Rice Salad

1 pouch ready-to-serve wild rice (warmed then cooled)
1 cup finely chopped celery (4 to 5 celery ribs)
1 cup finely chopped red bell pepper (1 bell pepper)
1 cup finely chopped zucchini
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup bottled salad dressing (balsamic or raspberry)
1/4 cup chopped fresh herbs (parsley, basil, mint)

Mix all ingredients and chill several hours to overnight before serving.

Optional add-ins:
chopped walnuts or pecans
sunflower seeds
Feta cheese

Cupcakes!

Cupcakes are a way to put a power pack of flavors into a artful package. You can be as creative as you want to be with flavors, textures, and techniques, from classic to CRAZY!

Refreshing Lemon Crinkle Cookies

I’m always looking for a good cookie that almost has a ‘refreshing’ taste. I stumbled across this recipe on Pinterest and decided to give it a whirl. The result is like an ice-cold glass of lemonade, just in a cookie.

Lemon Crinkle Cookies
yield: 2-3 dozen

Ingredients:
            ½ cups Butter, Softened
            1 cup Granulated Sugar
            ½ teaspoon Vanilla Extract
            1 whole Egg
            1 teaspoon Lemon Zest
            1 Tablespoon Fresh Lemon Juice

            ½ teaspoon Lemon Extract
            ¼ teaspoon Salt
            ¼ teaspoon Baking Powder
            ⅛ teaspoon Baking Soda
            1-½ cup All-purpose Flour
            ½ cups Powdered Sugar

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease light colored baking sheets with non stick cooking spray and set aside.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whip in vanilla, egg, lemon zest and juice. Scrape sides and mix again. Stir in all dry ingredients slowly until just combined, excluding the powdered sugar. Scrape sides of bowl and mix again briefly. Pour powdered sugar onto a large plate. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar. Place on baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough.

Bake for 9-11 minutes or until bottoms begin to barely brown and cookies look matte {not melty or shiny}. Remove from oven and cool cookies about 3 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

*If using a non stick darker baking tray, reduce baking time by about 2 minutes.

Recipe adapted from Lauren Brennan

Quick Meals using Dark Meat Chicken

You’ve learned how to use the white breast meat from the rotisserie chicken but now what to do with the dark meat? Below are a couple of recipes.

Asian Lettuce Wraps

          2 cups cooked dark chicken meat, minced

          1 small can water chestnuts, minced

         ½ cup red onion, minced

         2 medium carrots, shredded

         1 clove garlic, minced

         2 T Thai Basil, finely chopped

         1 T fresh grated ginger or 

               minced pickled ginger

         1 tsp Chinese 5 spice

        ¼ cup bottled General’s Tso’s sauce, 

                   Sweet Chili Sauce, or Orange Sauce

        1 T Soy Sauce

        1 T vegetable, canola or sunflower oil

        1 tsp sesame oil

        Leaves of lettuce – such as iceberg, romaine, red leaf, or butter

In a medium skillet heat vegetable oil over medium heat and add red onion. Cook for two minutes until slightly translucent. Add chicken, water chestnuts, carrot, garlic , basil, ginger, 5 spice, soy sauce and sesame and stir two minutes more. Turn heat to low and add ¼ cup sauce and stir gently till coated. Let warm for 5 minutes more, stirring often.  Serve warm in lettuce leaves.

Mexican Chicken, Beans and Rice

                2 cups cooked dark chicken meat, chopped

                ½ cup onion, diced

                1 clove garlic, minced

                1 can cooked black beans, drained and rinsed

                1 package pre-cooked Mexican rice, heated

                2 cups bottled salsa, taco sauce, enchilada sauce

                2 T fresh cilantro finely chopped or 1 tsp dried cilantro (parsley can substitute)

                1 tsp ground cumin

                1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

                2 T oil (vegetable, canola, olive, or sunflower)

                Shredded lettuce, shredded cheese & sliced avocado for garnish

In a medium skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and cook for 3 to 5 minutes or until translucent. Add garlic and stir one minute more. Add chicken with herbs and spices and cook for two minutes. Finally  add beans, rice and sauce. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring often. Serve hot, topped with cheese, lettuce and avocado.

               

A Refreshing Summer Chicken Salad

Now that you’ve learned how to break down a rotisserie chicken, what do you do with it? Chicken salad! I’ve typically always made chicken salad with the same components: chicken, celery, onion, craisins, walnuts and mayonnaise. I needed to come up with something different, so here’s a great chicken salad to make for the summer.

Cabana Chicken Salad

2 cups cooked chicken breast, diced and chilled

½ c pineapple tidbits (fresh, frozen or canned) , coarsely chopped

¼ c mayonnaise

¼ c red onion, finely chopped

¼ c cilantro, finely chopped

1 jalepeno, seeded and diced

½ of a lime, zested + 1 T lime juice

½ tsp garlic powder

Salt and pepper to taste

Slivered almonds or chopped macadamia nuts (optional)

In a medium bowl mix, mayonnaise with lime juice, lime zest and garlic powder.  Stir in pineapple, onion, cilantro, jalepeno, and chicken. Add salt and pepper to taste. Chill for at least 1 hour before serving to let flavors mix.

This can be served as shown on a leaf of lettuce, with crackers or on bread with some slivered almonds or chopped macadamia nuts on top. 

Enjoy!

~tl

All Hail the Rotisserie Chicken!

image courtesy of ifood.tv

About 10 years ago I created my first cookbook called "The White Trash Connoiseur", which showed the novice cook how to make easy, tasty meals on a budget and in little time. Sorry, everyone, this is no longer in print and only a very few people were lucky enough to be given a copy of it. In this publication, I devoted an entire chapter to the amazing wonders of canned chicken. At the time I was a broke college student and canned chicken was a great way to get chicken in a dish with very little effort. Thankfully, my culinary tastes have matured over the years and while I still encourage those on a tight budget to by-all-means use canned chicken, there is a healthier and much more flavorful option: the store-bought rotisserie chicken. 

I know some of you have already known of this amazing food, while some of you are getting ready to click the 'x' and close this window, but give me a chance. I'll warn you, if you are any bit squeamish, this task may not be for you. Even I was a bit green doing this the first time, as like most people I wasn’t used to seeing a chicken in this form.  Once you learn how to break down and use a rotisserie chicken in everyday cooking, you will be wondering why you never did this before. Found in most grocery stores, rotisserie chickens come in a variety of flavors. I tend to go with the most basically seasoned, as you can add additional flavor later depending on the dish you are preparing. Choosing a rotisserie chicken is easy - pick the freshest you can find and the most appetizing-looking. You really can't go wrong from there. 

When back to your kitchen you will need a cutting board, a slotted spoon, a colander, a small pot of simmering water, and a knife - I'd suggest a medium-sized one (a chef's knife too large and a paring knife too small). I'd like to interject here and mention, I'm a self-trained cook, so what I've learned over the years has come from personal experience and hours of watching cooking shows. Please do not rely on me to be 100% accurate on terminology and for heaven sake not grammar or spelling. Feel free to experiment on your own. Feeling comfortable with the ingredients and tools you use to prepare is key and just do what feels right and tastes right to you. But, learn to take risks too! Okay, back to the cluck-cluck. Your chicken will either come in a resealable bag or some other container - do not throw this away as it will be important as you breakdown the bird and dispose of it later. These birds are juicy and if it’s been a mere minutes since you purchased it, it will be HOT so be careful! Open the container and carefully move the chicken from its packaging and place the cutting board. Once the bird is on your board remove any bindings that may be holding the bird together, plastic, string or otherwise. Now it’s time to break it down, cue a *funky tune*. 

As most everyone knows a whole chicken is comprised of white meat and dark meat. First take off the white breast meat, found on both sides of the breast bone. You’ll find it’s very easy to remove this meat by first removing the skin from the breast and placing it to the side or in the container the chicken came in. Next, carefully cut along the either side of the breast bone with your knife. Then, using your fingers, dig in and gently pull the meat away. Again, be careful as the bird may still be very hot. Gently use a fork if necessary. Get as much of this juicy delicious meat off as you can - you should easily be able to pull about 1 lb. of breast meat from the bird. Next comes the dark meat. Now, for those of you who just can’t stand dark meat, give it a chance. It is undoubtedly the most flavorful and is delicious in soups, casseroles, and many other dishes. This meat is located throughout the rest of the chicken. You have to work a bit for it, carefully watching for small bones, gristle, and other unfavorable pieces. Place these pieces, along with the skin in the package the chicken came in – do not throw these away yet! With practice, you should be able to get about 1 lb. of dark meat off as well. Altogether you will have anywhere from 3 to 4 cups of deliciously juicy chicken meat that beats canned chicken’s pants off, if chickens wore pants that is.

You will notice while the chicken is incredibly juicy, it is also quite greasy. This is where that simmering pot of water comes in. Plunging your poultry in simmering water will render fat from the bird. White meat should be done for 45 secs to 1 min; dark meat for 1 ½ to 2 mins max. With a slotted spoon carefully remove the chicken from the pot into a colander to drain. After a couple minutes, carefully move back to the cutting board and let cool about 5 minutes. After cooling, it can be chopped finely for dishes or left whole, used in a dish you are working on or chilled in the fridge for later use. Do not feel you have to render the fat from the bird, though.

Now, for those ‘leftover’ pieces of the bird. They can be used to create a flavorful stock – to be discussed in a future post. This can be done right away or the remaining pieces can be tightly wrapped and frozen for later use. My favorite use is of the skin. I add it to a pot of boiling potatoes to add flavor that will knock your socks off! Just remember to discard the skin after boiling. If you don’t want to deal with doing either of those things, simply discard, sealed in the container it came in. For those with pets, while you may sneak a bit of meat to them, but do not give them any of the bones as these can cause harm to them. Just let them have the good bits.

For those of you who haven’t left this post yet, pat yourself on the back. While this may seem like a tedious task, with practice you can break down a bird in 15 minutes or less and have up to 2 lbs of moist, flavorful chicken meat.

~tl

p.s. not all posts will be this long, promise J

Finally!

Welcome to the blog that so many friends and family have wanted to me to start over the years. Pin & Cleaver came to me one day when I decided I needed to stop clogging my Facebook profile with my culinary creations but showcase them on a space of their very own! As a newbie blogger I can't promise consistent updates but I guarantee if there is something that I want to share with you all, it will be on here. Also, I'm planning on opening the blog up to some of my friends to delve into their creative culinary psyche, because I think that's what this blog should be about, sharing food ideas with friends, family and anyone else who cares to take a look!

nom noms to come!

~tl