Grown-Up Lessons in the Kitchen: Tarragon Almond Chicken Salad

It’s been drizzly and gray for the past two days, and last night my desire for comfort food got the better of me and I roasted a chicken and some redskin potatoes for my friend Rence and me. We had to wait an hour for it to cook but a bit of red wine, a baguette and some Camembert made it bearable as spitting and crackling noises from inside the oven alluded to the treat to come. Even though my oven has no temperature indicator and I had to resort to counting for how many seconds I could keep my hand in the open oven to judge heat, the chicken was delectable with transparent golden skin revealing whole sprigs of fresh rosemary, which I’d stuffed underneath.

The only problem with roasting a chicken when you live alone is that one person, or even two, can rarely eat a whole chicken. Even after Rence’s help I was left with about a third of the bird, or maybe a little more. Leftovers? A problem? The thing about a perfect roast chicken is that leftovers only remind me of how much better the original meal was, before the grease congealed and the once crispy skin went soft.

I decided then to use the leftover chicken in another recipe, something that would be good of it’s own merit and not because of its suggestion of its former glory. Earlier this weekend I tested out the following recipe for my friend Lela’s baby shower. I spooned the chicken salad onto tiny tea sandwiches and then scraped the bowl clean, so delicious was the outcome. I love both chicken salad and tuna salad but get so weary of their usual ingredients, so this chicken salad recipe was a welcome escape from the normal grapes and walnuts.

If you want to try this recipe but don’t have a roasted chicken on hand, I recommend using two skin-on chicken breasts and poaching them in 3-4 c. of chicken broth or water for 15 minutes, turning them once halfway through. Remove from heat and allow to cool in broth for 20 min. before removing and patting dry. 

Ingredients:

Leftover roasted chicken, the equivalent of about two breasts

¼ c. mayonnaise

2 tsp. tarragon, fresh or dry

¼ c. chopped shallot

¼ c. blanched slivered almonds

1 tsp. olive oil

salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Toss the almonds in the olive oil and transfer them to an aluminum foil-lined pan.  Salt them and bake at 350°F for 8-10 minutes, or until golden brown.

2. Remove any skin and bones from the chicken. Shred finely with a fork. I had to chop my chicken a bit after shredding it.

3. Combine chicken, mayonnaise, tarragon, shallot and almonds. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve on warm, crusty bread or on a bed of lettuce.

Grown-Up Lessons in the Kitchen: Spring Beans For One

Cooking for one, I had nearly forgotten, is a real challenge. After nearly a year of living with my parents, I’ve managed to escape the tiresome task of preparng meals from scratch in single-person quantities.  As I try to relearn the art of making dinner for me and only me, I’m going to try to share more recipes designed to feed one person for a single meal, or things that I cook in advance in large quantities with the intention of saving and reheating.

It’s an exercise in economy, I have decided, and in being truly creative with leftovers. As dinnertime rolled around last night, after completing a 3-mile run, I was in the mood for something light, fresh and healthy, but also had leftover Amy’s organic chunky tomato soup from last night that I felt obligated to use up. 

Ingredients:

garlic clove

1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

1 c. fresh green beans, washed and trimmed to 1-2 in. pieces

½ tomato purée, tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes, or chunky tomato soup

½ tsp. crushed red pepper

1 tsp. fresh basil, julienne or coarsely chopped

About 5 cherry tomatoes, halved

2 tbsp. Parmesan or Romano cheese (I prefer Pecorino Romano and used that)

salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Finely chop one clove of garlic and sauté with 1 tbsp. of olive oil in a skillet over low heat. Please, please, please don’t let your garlic turn brown! Not even golden brown. As soon as the garlic turns, it bitters.

2. Add the green beans. If you’d like, blanche the beans first; I realize I’m in the minority in my preference for really crunchy green beans.  Toss the beans in the garlic and oil and sauté about 4 min. over low heat. Salt and pepper generously.

3. Add tomato puree, tomato sauce, or canned crushed tomatoes. Here’s where my leftovers served me: I used leftover soup. Add crushed red pepper and basil. Set burner to lowest setting and toss ingredients to combine; cover and simmer for 2 min.

4. Uncover and add cherry tomatoes. Let simmer until their peels have just started to prune; transfer to a warm plate and sprinkle with cheese and additional salt and pepper, if desired. Serve with a warm hunk of baguette, perfect for mopping up leftover tomato sauce!

Grown-Up Lessons in the Kitchen: Croissants

My first attempt at baking croissants from scratch is behind me. I’m not sure how I ended up with a yeast-free recipe (croissants without yeast are traditionally called croissants de patîssier, as opposed to the croissants de boulanger to which I am more accusomed), but they still tasted okay and I was definitely pleased with the flakiness.

I am very excited to try a new recipe for batch numero deux.

Grown-Up Lessons in the Kitchen: Chocolate Cappuccino Cheesecake

This may be the richest, most decadent cake I’ve ever eaten.

I don’t like cheesecake, but my little brother loves it, and since his birthday’s on Valentine’s Day and he came home from college to celebrate with us, I decided to indulge him. (Plus, when I asked him what kind of cake he wanted, he told me to “do [my] worst,” and a real grown-up can’t ignore a challenge like that!)

This 3-inch deep cheesecake has a Kahlùa and chocolate cookie crumb crust, a thick bottom layer of chocolate ganache, another thick layer of coffee- and rum-flavored cream cheese filling, a sour cream and vanilla topping, and is decorated with chocolate ganache and chocolate-covered espresso beans.

I ate one slice and, because I dislike cheesecake and am lactose intolerant, just about tossed my cookies, but if it looks appealing to you (and I think that to anyone who loves chocolate and cheesecake, it should), you can find the recipe on my favorite food blog, Smitten Kitchen.

If you follow this link, please be a doll and don’t laugh at how awful my cake looks compared to Deb’s. She probably has the benefit of using high-quality pastry tips, whereas mine are made of cheap plastic and come from the cake decorating aisle at the grocery store. Plus, I don’t even have pastry bags, so I used plastic storage bags. They were constantly breaking and on two occasions the pastry tip shot straight out the corner of the bag and embedded itself in the middle of the cake, hence the oh-so-subtle disguising pile of espresso beans right smack in the middle of my cake.

Grown-Up Lessons in the Kitchen: Date Night Gift

I was pretty proud of the way this meal turned out. I cooked for the parents of my charges as a Christmas gift, delivered the meal to their door, and whisked the kids off for a night of pizza and movies at my house.

I served rosemary roast chicken on a bed of barley bean risotto with roasted, spiced carrots. I also made martinis as an apératif and added a French bâtard and a bottle of wine. For dessert, crème caramel with a dark chocolate triangle.

I was worried that the chicken would be too dry because even though it was less than 4 lbs., I cooked it for over an hour but basted constantly with butter and drippings. I was really happy with the color and crispiness of the skin and was later assured that it was succulent! I also tried something new, separating the chicken skin from the flesh and stuffing fresh rosemary in between before replacing the skin. The way the leaves showed through the skin was really pretty.

I’d really like to experiment more with crème caramel. It wasn’t actually that hard to make but it took several tries to remove it cleanly from the ramekin. I had to eat about two-and-a-half of them that I ruined. Boy, my life sure is tough.

Grown-Up Lessons in the Kitchen: Cooking With Carrot Greens

It was just Papa, Hannah and I for dinner last night, and the cupboards were a bit bare. I found some beautiful organic carrots with their greens in the fridge, though, which is perfect since I’m trying to eat as vegan a diet as possible. I remember seeing a Kevin Gillespie make a carrot green purée on Top Chef and decided to try my own hand at cooking with them. Plus, they’re supposed to be super healthy!

THE MEAL: ROASTED CARROTS WITH A CARROT GREEN VINAIGRETTE-TOPPED HERB SALAD AND VEGAN CORNBREAD

First I cut the greens off of six carrots and scrubbed the carrots clean. I am of the opinion (a) that a little dirt only makes you stronger and (b) that the skins of fruits and vegetables should be eaten whenever possible. I then sliced the carrot on a diagonal into inch-and-a-half long chunks, which I tossed in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and about a ¼ each of cumin and cinnamon. I cracked some sea salt and black pepper on top, threw them in a baking dish, and popped them in the oven at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes.

In the meantime, I combined the following ingredients in a mixer:

1 cup cornmeal

1/2  cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 tablespoons canola oil

1 tablespoons honey

1 cups soymilk

1 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

I poured this mixture into a greased 9-inch cake pan and put it in the oven alongside the carrots (still at 400 degrees) for 20 minutes. I recommend cooking it ahead of the carrots at 350 degreed for about 30-35 minutes because mine came out a bit dense. Also, adding a bit more honey or a dash of salt would give it more flavor. Mine was a bit bland (Papa kindly called it “delicate”) but I ate three pieces anyway because I was famished!

Next I combined 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, the juice of one lemon, a small garlic clove, and about 3 tablespoons of chopped carrot greens in a food processor to make a light dressing for the organic fresh herb salad I found in the fridge. I also chopped up a couple more tablespoons of the carrot greens and added them to the salad, but only after I tasted them and made sure I was okay with the bitterness. I think the carrots, sweet as they are, nicely balance the bitter and sour salad, but you may not agree, so taste, taste, taste along the way!

Papa and Hannah made some chicken legs to eat alongside, but I think this is a really delicious and satisfying weeknight meal even if you’re not vegan. The carrots were perfect (the bigger ones could have cooked longer, though they weren’t underdone) and I could have eaten a whole plate of them easily.