Not Your Mother's Chicken Salad

I have found that most times you order chicken salad, it all tastes about the same.  Not a lot of different flavors mixed in, just chicken, mayo, celery, and onion.  Occasionally you'll find one with something different.  The one thing that bugs me most about the typical chicken salad is how it almost always has chicken that is super shredded (You know what I'm talking about, that pulverized, ground up kind of chicken...)  Well all credit goes to my mom on this one.  She figured out a better way to make chicken salad.  Hence why I say it's not your mother's chicken salad, it's my mothers :P

So here's the trick.  Go down to your local grocery store, even your local Super Wal-Mart, and grab one of those precooked rotisserie chickens in the plastic box.  (And yeah, if it's winter we all like to stand by those stands in line with the radiating heat).  When you get it home, go on and peel the skin off while it's still warm.  Then let it cool off in the refrigerator for a few hours.  I've found that makes this next step a little easier.  Once the chicken has cooled down, Get a big bowl and start picking.  

I find that the perfect sized pieces are about 1 1/2 inches long at the longest and no bigger around than a pencil.

 You will find that the fibers of the muscle naturally want to separate to a certain extent.  The dark meat seems to separate easier than the white meat into good sized pieces (as can be seen above).  The white meat seems to be much stringier.  So once you've picked all the chicken you'll have a bowl like this:

You'll want a pretty decent sized bowl to accommodate everything that goes into this salad.

Here is where the recipe gets fun.  You can add just about anything to the salad from this point on.  Some things are basic, onions and celery.  I tend to use red onions in everything because I like their flavor better.  Another basic item I tend to include is corn.  When I can get it, I use fresh corn on the cob, Unfortunately this time of year I'm not seeing any corn in the produce other than the cobs that come in a plastic wrapped package.  Using fresh corn is the best option as it adds some crispness.

 

So after you add the basics, you add the not-so-basic.  I tend to add just about anything.  I find fruit and nuts to be a great addition.  If I had thought to get some, I would have added chopped up walnuts.  However I have an abundance of almonds, so I chopped some up (using an apple slicer works really well if you don't have a super sharp knife).  I also like to add fruit for a bit of juice and of course, more flavors.  Raisins are always a good addition.  I also gave something new a try and added some Granny Smith apples for the tartness.

I used fairly large chunks this time, next time I plan on using smaller chunks just to make them easier to eat.

Now for the easy part.  Put all of your "stuff" into the big bowl and grab a spatula or a wooden spoon (Plastic works just as well too).  Grab a jar of mayonnaise. Slowly add mayo to your mixture and stir it all up.  I find that the key to making this salad good is only adding enough mayo to keep stuff together, as if you were going to put the salad onto a sandwich.  That's the consistency you're looking for.

Voila, chicken salad!

Now that you've made the salad, pop that into the refrigerator for at least a few hours to have everything chilled.  When you're ready to serve it, serve on a bed of lettuce (or spinach or whatever greenery you prefer), and some chopped or sliced up tomatoes.  (Use the freshest ones you can.

Bam!

That's the great thing about the way we make chicken salad in our family.  It's never the same twice!  Don't hesitate to experiment, be daring.  That is the biggest secret to my cooking.  I experiment and try new things.  It has taken years, but I've learned what flavors go well together without writing a thing down.

Enjoy and as always, may God bless your kitchen!!

Small Kitchen, No Problem!

So my tagline of "Small kitchen - Big expectations" seems fairly obvious.  But I figure I should fill you in on how small of a kitchen I'm talking about.  My apartment is only 620sqft; and the kitchen is a small fraction of that.  The dishwasher and stove can hardly be open at the same time.  The refrigerator and the drawer opposite can't open all the way at the same time.  So yeah, we're talking tiny here.  (Though not as tiny as the "kitchen" in the RV I lived in one summer).

Sink side with minimal counter space, half of which has been taken up by the microwave.

...and some almost as small counter space on the right.

Stove Side with very tiny counter on the left, my three staples of the stovetop...

Lack of storage space in the open leads to filling the hall closet/heat pump/water heater space with your dry goods, etc.

 
 Alright, so now you have a basic idea of the lack of space I deal with on a three-meal-a-day basis.  But rest assured I am NOT writing this post to gripe about it!  I am writing instead to share some of the innovations I have come up with.  One of the problems I face is the lack of storage space in drawers to keep things for quick access without having to dig for particular items.  Especially things like measuring spoons and cups...  Hence the >$5 solution:

Take a strip of trim wood and framing nails, pop in the nails and label the spaces.  Secure to wherever with those double sided sticky foam strips and you're done!  Oh, by the way if you are going to put this on the back of a cabinet door, switch the nails out with cuphooks.  Otherwise you'll have spoons flying across the kitchen whenever you open the door.  That's why my cabinet door stays open all the time.

For the second space saver I'll be brief.  I love having fast access to spices.  But I had nowhere to keep them.  I have seen ideas about making magnetic spice jars to put on the sides of refrigerators, on top of stove backs, I'd even go so far as to saying on the top of the vent hood.  Well I had a blank wall and figured I'd find something to work there.  Lowe's had this nifty shelf for around $30 I think.  Hangs with 2 (or 4) screws.  Works out great!

The left and rightmost shelf spots get skinny as the whole shelving system is bowed almost like a cross hatched bubble on the wall.

For my last space saver, I present the problem of counter space, or the lack of it.  Anyone who cooks in a small kitchen will know this pain.  There is never enough counter space to  do what you want.  Well back when I was face with the kitchen in the RV, my dad gave me a slab of granite cut to fit over top of the sink.  That created the one counter in the whole kitchen.  As for now, it works over the sink in my current kitchen, but when the sink is full of dishes waiting to be washed, it needs somewhere else to go.  So when I was preparing the mini-lasagnas from my last post, I desperately needed some more counter space.  Putting that granite slab onto the ironing board was the perfect fix.  (Common Sense Alert:  If you're going to be messy with this extra counter, put something on top of your ironing board to avoid staining it.)

Instant Spare Counter!

Other space savers I have found useful is putting wine bottles on top of the cabinets,  storing bread on top of the fridge, even putting less frequently used items (like wine glasses and the fancier dinner ware) in another room where you have a little extra space.

If you have any of your own space-savers, especially those out of the ordinary ones, I'd love to hear about them!

Take care and may God always bless your kitchen!

Mini Lasagna

Okay, so this all started a few months back when I was walking through Ross.  I came across a four set of ramekins and they were only a few bucks so I had to get them.  Now the question because, what do I cook in them?  First thing I decided to try was lasagna.  I mean come on, how perfect is that, single serve lasagna?  This also works out well because of my work schedule; I don't have time to cook on the days I work, so I'm cooking for 3 or 4 nights worth of dinners.  Anyway, I searched online and found a recipe on FoodNetwork.com (thanks to Giada) which I tweaked a bit.  You can find that recipe at the end of this post, following after the photos.

A few notes from my experience though.  Don’t over butter the ramekins.  A light coating should do you fine.  Remember, that when the cheese cooks, it’s going to release some oils.  If you use too much butter in the ramekins, you’ll end up with a bit of a grease pool at the bottom.  Also, don’t put so much filling on top that when it cooks the filling slides over the edge of the ramekin; doesn’t make for a very good presentation.  Though if you don’t care about presentation top that sucker off J. One way you can still cover the top of the noodles with the filling and not overflow is to trim down your noodle flaps so that they just cover the inner filing.  I didn’t do this as I’m not going to waste that extra noodle bit.  But if you are going for a better presentation that should work out alright.

Okay, now for a technique tip.  If you don’t own a zester, don’t fret because I don’t either.   I still managed to get the zest into the recipe.  Take a vegetable peeler and peel the yellow layer of the lemon skin off.  Don’t get too much of the white sub-layer when you are peeling though.  That sub-layer is not going to add that great lemon flavor into your recipe.  Once you get the yellow layer off, take a sharp large knife and drag it across the inside of the peel on a cutting board.  Your goal here is to be dragging the sharp edge of the knife and scraping any of the white sub-layer off.  Next you can either cut the peel into very tiny bits or use a food chopper (it’s like a mini food processor) to obliterate the peel into tiny pieces.

As far as storing the lasagnas you don’t eat on the first meal, leave them in the ramekins and cover the entire ramekin in Saran-wrap and store it in the refrigerator.  I don’t’ know how long they will last as I ate one every night for 4 days, but as always, don’t let them store too long lest it go bad and you end up with a case of food poisoning (not fun at all).

To reheat, unwrap the ramekin and put it on a small plate.  Pop it in the microwave on high for 1:30 to 2:00.  (That’s minutes, not hours :P)  Again, you can serve in the ramekin or on a plate.  Here are a couple of final product photos:

Fresh out of the oven.  As you can see, haivng the cooking sheet is vital to help catch any overflow.

Not exactly pretty when you dump it out on a plate, but it is a little easier to eat.

I found that pairing the lasagna with a large side salad was a good balance.  Really simple salad:  Baby spinach leaves, mushrooms, stir-fry beef strips sauteed in a pan with black cherry cider, almond slices, and raspberry vinagrette salad dressing.

Here is the recipe:

Single Serving Ramekin Lasagna

Ingredients:

Butter, for ramekins
8 lasagna noodles
3 cups frozen corn kernels, thawed
1/2 cup whipping cream, at room temperature
1 1/2 Tablespoon garlic, minced (I use the garlic that comes in the small jar)
1 cup (8 ounces) mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
About 3 cups grated Very Sharp Aged White Cheddar
1 large lemon, zested
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup packed chopped fresh basil leaves
Extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO), for drizzling
Special equipment: 4 ramekins and a large cooking sheet

Directions:

Arrange an oven rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Butter the ramekins then set them aside.  (DO NOT over butter the ramekins, a light coating will do just fine.)

To make the filling:  Mix the whipping cream and mascarpone first.  Then mix in the corn and garlic.  Follow this with 1 cup of the shredded cheddar, the lemon zest, salt and pepper.  Then mix in the basil.

Get a large pot of lightly salted water with a light drizzle of EVOO boiling over high heat.

Add the pasta and cook until tender, stirring occasionally.

Now to put everything together, take one of your ramekins and two of the lasagna noodles.  Make an “X” out of the noodles and then gently press the center of the x into the bottom of the ramekin, letting the ends hang over.  Put ¼ cup of the filling into the bottom of the ramekin and add a large pinch (probably about 1 TBSP) of the shredded cheddar on top of this filling.  Now fold over the tails of the noodles.  On top of this, add a little more filling, another smaller pinch of the shredded cheese on top of this.  Drizzle with a little EVOO.  Repeat for each of the ramekins.

To cook, put all of your ramekins evenly spaced out on the cooking sheet.  Slide that into the oven and cook for 25-30 minutes.  You want the tops to turn golden brown for the most part, but don’t let it burn black.  A darker brown color on the edges is going to be normal.  Pull the cooking sheet with ramekins out of the oven and let it cool for about 10 minutes before serving.

To serve, either serve the whole ramekin on a small plate or you can run a knife around the inner edge of the ramekin to loosen the noodles.  Flip the ramekin over and serve the upside-down lasagna on a plate.

That's all for today!

As always, may God grace your kitchen!

Starting Off

Alright, well I guess I should lay the groundwork out here.  I have always loved cooking.  I grew up in a household where my parents both cooked (mostly my Dad when he wasn't out of town on business).  But more importantly to me, BOTH of my parents encouraged me to help out in the kitchen.  And I don't mean by just doing the dishes.  I remember spending time with my mom making salads, leaving out the stuff I thought was gross at the time from mine.  Which of course left me with a bowl of lettuce, carrots, bell peppers and onions.  With a LOT of salad dressing to cover up the fact that I was eating lettuce to begin with.  I also remember spending time helping my dad cook a variety of things, but the thing I helped the most with was probably the home made pizza.  And no we did not just do plain old pepperoni and cheese pizza.  The crust was made from scratch and we put just about anything on it.

With that being said, I now live on my own, in a new city, and have to do all of my own cooking.  (Okay, so I did visit this city a few times in college and I have been known to cook my own meals before, even while living at home with Mom & Dad).  But all that aside, it's been a learning experience.  Just recently I learned a valuable lesson in food freshness...  Ended up getting food poisoning.  Take it from me, avoid getting that at all costs.

But I seem to be rambling here, so let me cut to the chase.  I am going to give this blog thing a try because I'm making some pretty interesting discoveries with cooking techniques, recipes, and even management skills in a very small apartment kitchen.  I never write down recipes, so I figure if I started a blog I might be more inclined to write down at least how I got to the final product.  I will share the successes and the failures, with photos when I remember to take them.  Tonight's dinner was an adventure, and it turned out pretty well.  however I do have to go to work in the morning and need all the sleep I can get.  So stay tuned, I'll have my next post turning out in the next couple of days!

May God grace your kitchen and the nourishment you gain from it!