Eat Mor Chik'n

Don't you get sick of chicken?  I don't know when it happened that the only acceptable protein is chicken.  Is it because they aren't cute?  Beef has a bad rap because it's all fatty and clogs your heart.  Ditto bacon.  Leaner pork is ok, but everyone is always afraid it's going to cause parasites or something.  Fish is expensive.  People don't shoot squirrels or possum for themselves; and if I tried to serve rabbit I think my children would disown me.  Actually, they might try to have me arrested.  Bunnies are cute.  Cows and pigs are cute, fish is expensive (plus: mercury).   Chickens, well, they are loud, smelly, and peck your feet.

Ok, I don't actually know that for sure because I haven't truly spent a lot of time with chickens.  When my mom was growing up in Kentucky, there were chickens running all over my grandfather's gentleman's farm.  And when my grandfather was growing up in West Virginia - a lot of what his family ate came straight from the yard - what they grew and what they raised.  I think it's a little sad that I am most intimate with chickens when they are already sliced into a cutlet and wrapped in plastic.  But what can you do.  I don't live in the country.  The farmers I know, I know because they are standing under a tent in the parking lot of the GSB building once a week.  Selling stuff from a truck.

I'm going off on a rant here - and it's doing this post no good whatsoever because the meal I made last night was indeed chicken, pre-sliced into a cutlet and dressed with ingredients that are either slightly exotic or out of season, or both.  So much for my holier-than-thou-I-only-shop-at-farmer's-markets attitude.  Because the reality is, my kids ate it and asked for more - Which means that this recipe is a keeper and I'm going to make it again.

I took a Martha Stewart recipe and bumped it up a bit.  The original is in the December issue of Martha Stewart Magazine.  If you have time, marinate it longer - I really only had time to throw the ingredients on it and let it sit out on the counter for an hour while I cooked up some rice.

I do not like this picture, it's too shiny.  Food shouldn't be this shiny.

Lime & Basil Chicken

2 limes - juice one and a half for about a 1/4 of lime juice.  Slice the last half for garnish
1/4 cup of grape seed oil
2 tblsp of lower sodium soy sauce
1 shallot, thinly sliced
1 tbslp of brown sugar
1 tsp of dried basil
1 tsp salt
some grindings of pepper
8 thinly sliced chicken cutlets (or you can take 4 boneless chicken breasts and with a very sharp knife, slice them in half length wise)
1/4 cup of white wine (something slightly sweeter - but not too sweet)
1/4 cup of chicken stock
1/4 cup of fresh basil - (which I didn't have - however I did have the cool frozen basil from Trader Joe's - which comes frozen in these great little cubes - I used about four of those) plus a bit extra for garnish.


Mix the first 8 ingredients (limes through pepper) in a shallow dish - and then place the chicken in the dish flipping and swishing them until they are covered in marinade.  Let them sit at least an hour, or, if you're more organized than I am, mix it all up in the morning before you head out for your day so they are all nice and marinady when you get home.

Then, heat your saute pan until it is very hot.  Drop 3 or 4 cutlets in the pan (don't over crowd the pan, it's ok to do all this in sections).  Turn the heat to medium and sear the cutlets on one side for about 4 minutes.  Then flip them and sear for another 4 minutes.  Repeat with remaining cutlets.  Let the chicken rest in a bowl where all their chickeny juices can collect.

When all the chicken is cooked and relaxing in the bowl, pour the wine and chicken broth into the pan along with the marinade.  Don't worry, you are going to cook the marinade - in fact start scraping up all the brown bits from the bottom of the pan.  Let the marinade come to a boil, stirring all the while.  Reduce it down so that it is about half the amount, add the basil, and then return the chicken to the pan, cooking to heat it through over a lower heat.  Serve the whole thing over a nice steaming bowl of rice.  You can sprinkle some of the lovely basil over all, which I didn't do because I didn't have any.  I did, however, lovingly place a sliced lime right on top of your cutlets.  Very pretty.  And it keeps the cows happy...

Basil

I have planter of basil in my yard.  One.  And even though I have an enormous amount of pesto in my fridge, and the plant still looks like this:

You can see how dry it's been - I watered this this morning

I cut it back almost every day, and over night it grows back to frightening heights, and I just want to say that plants like this scare me.  It's all a little alien - like if we don't pay close attention they might just take over.  Grass is like this; grass grows through blacktop.  Freaky.  Let's just say I'm looking forward to the winter months when things are dormant.  In the meantime, I'm making pesto as fast as I can.  Since my daughter can't eat pine nuts, I usually mash the basil up with garlic and oil and call it a day.  Sometimes I add cheese, sometimes I don't - however the other day, I added lemon and it was a revelation.

I've been using my little crock of lemon/basil pesto on EVERYTHING - from turkey sandwiches to scrambled eggs.


But the best thing, so far was slathering a tablespoon or so on these beautiful pork chops I picked up at the Farmer's Market and marinated.  Then I grilled them and heavens they were good!

Look at em:

I just ate lunch, and these still make me hungry

Aren't they beautiful?





Lemon Basil Pesto


Start with a fistful of basil from your yard (or the farmer's market) and strip all the leaves from the stems. Jam it all in your blender or food processor, or if you have one in the bowl of a stone mortar.  Add at least one clove of raw garlic, and about a tablespoon of lemon zest (I used one large lemon).  Blend, pulse or pound all this together until it makes a paste.  Then squeeze the lemon into the basil paste and blend, pulse or stir.  Finally add about 1/4 cup of very very good extra virgin olive oil to the whole thing.  If you are blending or pulsing, add it slowly through the feed tube.  If you used a mortar then whisk it in until combined.  Taste the whole thing.  You can add some parmesan here if you like, about 1/4 cup grated, or, just sea salt.  Both are good.  Sometimes I just like just to add the salt - especially if I'm going to let it sit in the fridge for a while because the parmesan can kind of take over.  Always add a bit of pepper.  If you like a little zing - add about a 1/4 tsp of red pepper flakes to the mixture before you blend, pulse or pound.  This keeps in the fridge for about 3 weeks or so.  You can also freeze this: put tablespoons of the pesto into ice cube trays, freeze for a couple of hours, then pop them out and put the cubes of pesto in a freezer bag.  Very yummy in the dead of winter when all you want is a shot of something really really green.

Pork Chops and Basil Pesto


So go get yourself some pork chops or lamb chops - they're good too with this. (Although I always feel like I have to sell a kidney or something to afford enough lamb for the 4 of us.)  Slather them with the pesto at least 2 hours before you grill them, or over night.

Heat the grill - I have a new charcoal grill that I'm in love with - I like to pile all the hot coals on one side of the grill so I have a really hot side (for searing) and a cooler side for the cooking.

By the way - if you make a small slit in the fat around the outer edge of the chop, your pork chops won't curl up when you grill them.  (I stole this tip from Cook's Illustrated).

Goat Cheese

Last night I went out to dinner with my friends Laura and Michelle and we had goat cheese for appetizers and goat cheese in the main course.  We were sharing everything, and I expressed my insecurity about ordering too much goat cheese, when Michelle, who is a very wise friend, said, "there can never be too much goat cheese."

I think this is one of the great truths of the universe.  Goat cheese rules.  So, this afternoon I ran myself over to the farmer's market and bought a bunch of gorgeous heirloom tomatoes (because my sad few on my sad vine aren't red yet) and a fat hunk of goat cheese.  I chopped those tomatoes and threw them in a bowl with a bit of sea salt and let their juices leach out and settle. Then I cooked up a bag of ravioli I had knocking around my freezer, along with the last bit of a box of pasta,  sprinkled it with olive oil.  Ran outside to cut some basil, which is doing very well, thank you very much, and threw it all together with goat cheese while the ravioli was still warm.  Oh yeah, I also tossed in a few sprigs of parsley and a several grindings of pepper.

Perfection.  Because we all know, there can never be too much goat cheese.