Jerked Chicken Drumsticks

I have a small confession to make. I've never had real Jamaican Jerk. My wonderful sister Super G has. She's even had curried goat. Or at least she knows where to get it. If I wanted to try curried goat I'd be out of luck. Well unless I felt like hopping a fence and butchering one of Dad L's goats. But I think they're pretty old (the goats, not my in-laws) and the urge has really never struck.

So why did I make Jerked Chicken Drumsticks? Well for 2 reasons. One is very exciting and is getting here tomorrow night and requires a large amount of freezer space. (The first person who leaves a comment correctly guessing what is coming will receives a prize! And no you can't win if you are family.) The other is that I have had this bag of drumsticks sitting in the freezer for a while now and they needed to be eaten. So because I'm pretty lazy lately, I pulled out my frozen drumsticks and my Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes for Two and threw this dish together. And I let it cook. For a long long time while I went to physical therapy (and I've finally graduated from physical therapy yay!) and then I went to the doctor's office (we can all exhale- it's definitely just a sprain!) and then I came home and took a nap.

Apparently when you throw frozen drumsticks into the slow cooker it takes a bit longer than the 6 or 7 hours the recipe says it will take. So I rummaged around in the freezer and found an already cooked pork tenderloin and we ate that instead. Then I went grocery shopping and watched some Olympics. Then the Brain went to bed because he had had a long day. Then I remembered that the slow cooker was still on. Ooops. The drumsticks then became lunch for today. Over cooking them on low in the slow cooker made them super tender. They were falling off the bone. The peppers were super sweet and tasty. And overall it had such a delicious sweet taste that finished with some heat. I think I will have to figure out how to get some real Jerk food. That may require some travel. For now the goats remain safe.

Jerked Chicken Drumsticks

from Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes for Two

1 Jalapeno chile stemmed and cut in half

6 green onions ends trimmed and cut in pieces

2 Tbsp cider vinegar

2 Tbsp brown sugar

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp soy sauce

1 Tbsp rum

Juice of 1 lime

1 Tbsp Caribbean Jerk Seasoning

3/4 tsp salt

4 chicken drumsticks

1 medium sized orange pepper sliced thin

Place the chile, green onions, vinegar, brown sugar, oil, soy sauce, rum, lime juice, jerk seasoning, and salt in a food processor; puree until smooth.

Spray the inside of the crock with nonstick cooking spray. Place the drumsticks in the slow cooker. Pour the jalapeno mixture over chicken and try to make sure all the drumsticks are covered. Lay the bell pepper strips on top. Cover and cook on low until the chicken reaches a temperature of 180 degrees. This could be 6 to 7 hours or many more. Serve hot.

Bucatoni with Peppers

I had noticed this recipe in Serving Up the Harvest long before it was traveling home with me. It seemed so simple and so easy. It also called for fresh linguine. At the time that was no problem. The fresh linguine wasn't a problem until yesterday. When I was stumbling around the Trader Joe's after my fabulous eye doctor dilated my pupils. Seriously, if you live in the West side of Cleveland, you should visit my eye doctor, Dr. Kaye at Skyvision Centers. He's great. But he dilated my pupils and I was fairly blind. Wandering around Trader Joe's.

Somehow in my groping around and taking off and on my glasses trying to focus, I managed to spot some bucatini. Now the only reason I've heard of bucatini is because I watch Rachel Ray. Yes, she's insanely peppy. And the whole EVOO thing is pretty annoying. Especially because she says "that's extra virgin olive oil" after she says it EVERY SINGLE TIME. Why bother to say EVOO then? But bucatini is pretty tasty. It's like elbow macaroni, but really really long. I think kids would really like it.

So really the fresh linguine wouldn't have been a problem if I hadn't spotted the bucatini and been eager to try it. I'm glad I did. I'm glad I tried this recipe. I'm glad I bought the book. How about that? This pasta is light and fresh tasting and yet filling. the sweetness of the peppers works well with the little morsels of prosciutto. It works really well as a terrific summer dinner.

Bucatini with Peppers

adapted from Serving Up the Harvest

1 onion, quartered

1 celery stalk, roughly chopped

1 carrot, roughly chopped

2 garlic cloves

3 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil (or EVOO)

1/2 cup finely diced prosciutto

6 red, green, yellow, or purple bell peppers, cut into thin strips

1/4 cup chopped fresh basil

salt and freshly ground pepper

1 pound bucatini

1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Combine the onion, celery, carrot, and garlic in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion mixture and saute until fragrant and softened, about 3 minutes. Add the prosciutto and saute for 5 minutes.

Stir in bell peppers, cover and cook for 10 minutes, until the peppers are soft. Stir in the basil and season generously with salt and pepper.

Cook the pasta in a large pot of salted boiling water until al dente. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup of the cooking water.

Add the pasta to the bell pepper sauce. Toss and add the reserved cooking water as needed to make the pasta moist.

Transfer the pasta and sauce to a serving dish and pass with cheese.

Greek Week Day 5: Chicken Souvlakia

OK, it's HOT. hot hot hot. This is the kind of day I don't want to cook indoors. So what's a gal exploring Greek food to do? Take it to the grill. Other than the 3 hour marinating time, this has to be one of the quickest, easiest recipes yet! I just had to throw together a marinade, chop up some chicken breasts, wait the 3 hours, and then thread the chicken onto skewers with some yummy vegetables and grill. Fantastic!

I did alter this recipe just a bit. Instead of 12 small mushroom caps, I used 18. Instead of 12 cherry tomatoes, I used 18. I didn't chop the green peppers into 12 pieces. I chopped it into bite size pieces. Maybe my peppers were just big, but 12 pieces would have been very big pieces. And then, I only used 4 skewers instead of 6. Mostly that's because I finally broke down and bought skewers. And there were only 4 in a pack. Despite my alterations, these were very very tasty skewers. I served them with some rice and I think I'll be cherishing the leftovers in leftover pita pockets. Yummy!

Chicken Souvlakia (Souvlakia me Kota)

adapted from The Complete Book of Greek Cooking by the Recipe Club of Saint Paul's Greek Orthodox Cathedral

marinade:

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/4 cup red wine

1/2 Tbsp minced garlic

1 tsp dried oregano

2 chicken breasts (boned and skinned) cut into bite sized pieces

2 green peppers cut into bite size pieces

18 button mushrooms

18 cherry tomatoes

Combine marinade ingredients in a bowl. Add chicken and marinate in the refrigerator for 3 hours. Using 4 long skewers, arrange alternating pieces of chicken, green pepper, mushroom, and tomatoes. Brush with some of the marinade. Barbecue on the grill for 15 to 20 minutes, brushing with marinade and turning frequently.

Grilled Zucchini and Bell Pepper Couscous

One of the best things about living in a tiny town in the middle of North Central Ohio is that surrounding the town are even smaller towns, like the kind with one stoplight, and a whole lot of farmland. There is something nice about seeing acres of corn and wheat and even soybeans starting to grow. We're not there yet, but today was a sort sopping wet day where it rained on and off and back on again. During one of those breaks from the rain, as I was driving back from going grocery shopping at Meijers with a car load full of vegetables (seriously I went overboard again), I decided to drive with my window down. There is nothing as great as the smell of fresh wet dirt. It's the smell of possibility.

Last night, however, it was not raining. It was actually fairly hot. And I decided that we wouldn't be cooking inside. Perhaps I should explain that our tiny little house holds some heat, so the hotter the day, the hotter the night. So the Brain came home at just the right moment. I had the vegetables cut up and the pork chops seasoned. I think it made his day that I just handed him some tongs and the big lighter.

The vegetables were for this delicious Grilled Zucchini and Bell Pepper Couscous. Maybe I'm just lucky that I have a husband who can perfectly grill things, but the chopped up zucchini and red bell pepper were charred just right and softened just enough. I made the couscous. I love how easy couscous is and that it's ready within 5 minutes of the boiling liquid. Although I have to say, I'm not sure how Rachel Ray makes mashing garlic and salt look so easy. That was the hardest part of this whole recipe!

Oh and because we're a happy little family of 2 we naturally had leftovers. Those leftovers made and excellent lunch with some canned garbanzo beans and reheated for a minute in the microwave. I'm glad there's more leftover's for lunch tomorrow!

Grilled Zucchini and Bell Pepper Couscous

adapted from Gourmet

4 small zucchini (about 1 pound)

1 small red pepper

1 tsp olive oil

2 small garlic cloves

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

1/2 cup chicken broth

3/4 cup water

3/4 cup couscous

Chop the zucchini and red pepper into chunks about 1 inch in size. Toss the vegetables in the oil and place in grill basket. Grill over medium heat until zucchini and red pepper are a little charred, but still crisp tender.

Mince garlic and mash to a paste with salt.

In a dry medium saucepan toast cumin seeds over moderately low heat, swirling pan occasionally, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add broth and water and bring to a boil. Add couscous and immediately cover pan. Remove pan from heat and let couscous stand 5 minutes. With a fork fluff couscous and in a bowl toss with vegetables, garlic paste, and salt to taste.

Blushing Cream of Cauliflower Soup

Sometimes I just want something soothing and comforting. Like a hug. It may be 60 some degrees outside and sunny, but I'm still fairly much on house arrest until we can get the swelling down. I did sneak out to Meijers over the weekend and filled my tiny little cart with an assortment of vegetables. I've discovered that husbands, although they have many spectacular qualities, cannot be trusted to grocery shopping by themselves. It's all nitrite laden meat and no veggies. blecch. well the 3 packs of bacon in the fridge is weirdly comforting. But otherwise blecch.

I am a veggie girl. I have been craving veggies. So even though I've had a lot of very good soup over the last 3 weeks, I thought of my Soup & Bread cookbook and the Blushing Cauliflower Soup recipe and loaded my cart full of cauliflower and red peppers.

This is some serious good soup. It's comforting. It's filling. It's fairly nutritious (the full cup of heavy cream keeps me from saying it's totally healthy). Cauliflowers are a cruciferous vegetable so it has cancer fighting properties. It's also super high in Vitamin C. The red bell peppers are high in both Vitamin C and Vitamin A and provide help against anti-oxidants and free radicals and may help protect against heart disease. It's not the easiest soup ever. It does take 2 pans. But overall I think it's worth it. I really liked the combination of flavors of the nuttiness of the cauliflower, the cooked red pepper and the crunch of the raw red pepper. Yummy.

Blushing Cream of Cauliflower Soup

from the Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread Cookbook

1 large head cauliflower, broken into florets

cooking spray

1 Tbsp butter

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 large onion chopped

1 carrot, peeled and diced

1 rib celery finely diced

3 red peppers, stemmed, seeded, and diced

6 cups chicken stock

1 cup dry white wine

4 fist sized all purpose potatoes, peeled and diced

1 Tbsp tomato paste

1 tsp dried basil

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1 cup milk

1 cup heavy cream

salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Steam the cauliflower over boiling water until barely tender, about 5 to 7 minutes.

Spray a large skillet with cooking spray. Add the butter and oil and heat over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until wilted about 2 minutes. Add the carrot and celery and saute 2 minutes more. Add 2 of the bell peppers and saute another 2 minutes. Scrape the sauteed vegetables into a soup pot.

Add the stock, wine, potatoes, tomato paste, basil, and thyme to the soup pot. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat to medium low and simmer until the potato is done and the cauliflower is quite tender, about 20 minutes. Let cool slightly.

Using an immersion blender, puree the soup until it is smooth. Reheat, then stir in the remaining sauteed vegetables, the milk, the cream, and about three quarters of the remaining bell pepper. Season with the salt and pepper. Heat the soup through, being careful not to let it boil. Serve hot garnished with remaining red pepper.

Spicy Bell Pepper Salad

Sometimes when I go to the grocery store things aren't on my list and I know that I'll need them for recipes I've planned to cook through the week. These are the staples. Things like carrots, potatoes and peppers. You would think that I would remember whether or I have these things or not, but remember, I've run out of flour without knowing it before. Sometimes I think I don't have them at home and I end up with enormous excesses of them. Remember the 10 pounds of carrots? And sometimes I forget that I don't have them at home. I did this with potatoes this week. It's hard to make a potato dish without potatoes. Unfortunately, instead of those potatoes I grabbed peppers. Close, but no cigar. Suddenly I had 6 bell peppers of assorted colors in the fridge. And really I'm not eating 3 days of stuffed peppers. I like them, but that's too many days in a week.

I could repeat the chocolate bell pepper salad, but it's been cold outside and sleeting and generally yucky and I wanted something cooked. My mind has officially drifted to wishing it was spring. This of course was not helped by the fluke sunny 50 degree morning we had on Monday. Now I want to plant my garden and grill on the BBQ (which currently is under a healthy layer of sleet).

And this salad would go great with BBQ. It's the Spicy Bell Pepper Salad courtesy of Bon Appetit. It's not really too spicy. The spicy actually brings out the sweetness of the peppers. I'm sure it would be better with fresh dill, but my dill plant is also under a nice covering of sleet and has been dead for a long time. I used dried dill and it worked pretty well, although the fresh dill would be prettier. I'd like to try it next time with fresh. And yeah, there will be a next time. With a nice grilled steak. or chicken. and a beer. mmmmmmmm.

Spicy Bell Pepper Salad

from Bon Appetit

1 1/2 tsp caraway seeds

2 Tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp dried crushed pepper

1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/3 inch thick rings

1 green bell pepper, cut into 1/3 inch thick rings

1 yellow bell pepper, cut into 1/3 inch thick rings

1 medium onion, cut into 1/4 inch thick rounds, separated into rings

1 lemon

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

2 Tbsp dried dill or 1/4 cup fresh

Peel lemon with potato peeler so that you have wide strips of the zest (no white parts).

Toast caraway seeds in large skillet over medium high heat until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in oil and crushed red pepper. Add all of the peppers, onion rings, lemon peel, and the garlic slices. Saute until all of the vegetables are crisp tender, about 7 minutes.

Transfer pepper mixture to a bowl, mix in dill and cool. (Here you can remove the lemon peel, but I found it added a really interesting and cooling dimension to the dish.) Juice the lemon and mix it in with the salad and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Hooray it's my 100th post!

If Only the BBQ wasn't buried in snow...

After yesterday's oh so decadent chocolate sandwiches that left me sitting around bloated and overstuffed with a happy smile on my face, today is the triumphant return of vegetables! I return to vegetables with perhaps one of the healthiest. Cabbage. Both red and white cabbage too. Double whammy!

Cabbage is a great source of Vitamin C. It's also high in manganese, dietary fiber, folate and vitamin B6. Cabbage is one of those worldwide vegetables. It can be found all over Europe, it's used in cuisines from India and the Orient. It can be eaten boiled, fermented, sauteed, or even raw. Like I did.

I wanted to make a red and green cabbage coleslaw. I guess I just thought it would be pretty. That and Val over at More Than Burnt Toast keeps posting recipes to BBQ. Our BBQ keeps getting snowed in. How weird is it that we have more snow in February than in January? Very odd if you ask me. All this BBQ posting has me in a picnic sort of mood. So I hunted around and found this recipe on Epicurious that I sort of used as my inspiration.

Although I kept having to switch bowls to get one big enough to accommodate the entire salad, it was a fairly easy recipe to make. I personally found it easier to just cut up the cabbage by hand than to use the food processor and spend so much time cleaning it. But I'm sure the food processor would work for this too. The result was this lavish and colorful salad that is super super tasty. It would go great with a burger. Or if you're a vegetable nut like me, a heaping helping is a satisfying lunch!

And since it only used half a head of red cabbage and half a head of green cabbage, expect more cabbage recipes in the very near future. Cabbage starts to lose its vitamin C quickly after being cut.

Multicolored Cabbage Slaw

inspired by Bon Appetit

3 Tbsp rice vinegar

2 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 Tbsp sesame oil

2 Tbsp creamy peanut butter

1 Tbsp soy sauce

2 Tbsp packed brown sugar

2 large cloves garlic, minced

1 Tbsp minced ginger

1/2 medium head of red cabbage thinly sliced

1/2 small head of green cabbage thinly sliced

1/2 yellow bell pepper cut into thin strips

1/2 red bell pepper cut into thin strips

1 cup precut matchstick carrots strips

4 green onions thinly sliced (green and white parts)

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

1 Tbsp sesame seeds

In a small bowl mix together vinegar, oils, peanut butter, soy sauce, sugar, ginger, and garlic until combined.

Combine cabbages, peppers, carrots, onions, cilantro and sesame seeds in a very large bowl. Add dressing and toss to coat.

Cacao Nib Vinaigrette and Bell Pepper Salad

Chocolate has long been seen to have a calming effect on women everywhere. When my mom went back to work all the younger men knew to bring her a piece of chocolate. Every day. They also called her "Your Highness", but don't ask me how that got started. They're engineers. What can I say?

When the Brain hurt himself, (he's hanging in there and appreciates all the good wishes), I went to the grocery store and stocked up on chips and Chef Boyardee and the various "boy" foods that he likes. I also stocked up on 2 bars of Ghirardelli chocolate, a bar of Hershey Cacao Reserve dark chocolate with nibs, and a Dagoba Xocolatl bar. I knew that at some point in the 3-6 weeks it will take for him to be more comfortable and 8-12 weeks for the pain to go away that I will need some chocolate.

Chocolate has also long been considered an aphrodisiac. The Aztecs thought it invigorated men and made women less inhibited. Chocolate contains Phenylethylamine and Seratonin which both make you feel happy. They cause rapid mood change, a rise in blood pressure, increased heart rate and an energy boost. Wheeee. Perfect for some hanky panky.

Chris at Mele Cotte is hosting a blog event about aphrodisiacs used in appetizers, side items or dinner dish to celebrate Valentine's Day. And I'm coming in right under the wire with only 2 hours left until the deadline. I've heavily borrowed from a couple recipes in The Essence of Chocolate by John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg (which is an unbelievably cool book that explains all about chocolate making and the cacao plant and has some gorgeous photos), to come up with a Cacao Nib Vinaigrette. Then because I figured salad dressing isn't really a side item, appetizer, or dinner dish, I made a yellow bell pepper salad. A really easy yellow bell pepper salad. And although this salad and vinaigrette won't necessarily make you rip your clothes off, it's pretty tasty.

And where did I get Cacao Nibs? Why I got them on a trip up to Ann Arbor at Morgan and York, one of my favorite places to shop while I'm there. I've heard they are also available at gourmet shops from Scharffen Berger. But we don't have any gourmet shops in this county.

Cacao Nib Vinaigrette

adapted from The Essence of Chocolate

5 scallions sliced thin

2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 1/2 tsp cacao nibs, coarsley chopped

1/2 cup olive oil

Mix the scallions and balsamic vinegar and let sit for 15 minutes. Stir in cacao nibs and then slowly whisk in olive oil. Makes 3/4 cup.

Yellow Bell Pepper Salad

1 yellow bell pepper

2 Tbsp Cacao Nib Vinaigrette

Salt and freshly cracked pepper

Slice the yellow bell pepper into thin stips. Toss with vinaigrette. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

I told you it was easy.

A Bite and a Cocktail

So. Yeah, after that article, I'm trying to up the amount of alcohol I drink to moderate. Well, not exactly. It's a Blog Party! Wheee! I'm participating in Blog Party #30 over at Dispensing Happiness. The rules are simple. I have to prepare one cocktail and one appetizer. There's one teensy little catch. It has to be vegetarian. Dairy is ok though.

Piece of cake. Well not really a piece of cake. The Brain's favorite cocktail is a Maker's Mark on the rocks. That is also what all the brother-in-laws drink, and what my mom and Grandma drink. And I usually pass on the cocktail. So today I got all fancy and girly. I was at the local grocery (not the big chain store that's closing) and they had some beautiful pink grapefruits. Unable to remember exactly how to make the martini I used to indulge in, that I raked up a $114 bar bill at the Knickerbocker hotel in Chicago drinking, I decided to improvise.

For my cocktail, first I mixed 1 tsp grapefruit zest to 2 tsp sugar and dipped the rim of my glass in grapefruit juice and then in the sugar/zest mixture. Then I pureed the pulp and juice of the grapefruit to make a grapefruit puree. And what the heck, I gave it a cute cute name.

Little Mary Sunshine

1 oz. vodka

2 oz. grapefruit puree

sparkling mineral water (San Pellagrino)

First pour the vodka into the bottom of the sugar rimmed glass. Then add the grapefruit puree. Stir. Pour sparkling mineral water to fill the glass.

Now on to my appetizer...

This was really good. Really. I even had a good time roasting the peppers and I didn't catch the oven on fire. I did however manage to melt my tongs a teeny bit.

This is again out of my Vegetables Every Day cookbook by Jack Bishop. There's very good instructions on how to roast red peppers and that's what I did, but I'm sure you could go out and get a jar of roasted red peppers and it would work just as good. And I'm sure leftovers would be great on sandwiches. If you have leftovers.

Roasted Pepper Spread with Goat Cheese and Herbs
from Vegetables Every Day by Jack Bishop

3 medium colored bell peppers (I used a red, an orange, and a yellow) roasted, steamed, peeled, cored and seeded

3 oz. goat cheese

3 small garlic cloves

6 large basil leaves

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

Puree the peppers and their juices along with the cheese, garlic, and basil in a food processor until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste. This spread can be refrigerated in an airtight container for several days.