Indonesian Ginger Chicken

Are you sick of me blogging about how much I love Barefoot Contessa? Gabe always tells me if I love her so much I should just marry her. Too late for BC, honey - I already married you. Besides, you're waaaaaay cuter. ;)

Her food is just so..awesome. This super simple Indonesian Ginger Chicken is SO GOOD. A great prescription for my chicken hoarding problem. I hoard whole chickens when the price dips to anywhere around $0.70/lb. Hoard, friends. Just stick them in the freezer. I wish I had an extra freezer but I have no room for it. Therefore I can only hoard 2 or 3 max since my freezer elicits gasps of horror from my sister-in-law and mother at the sight of how gorged it is w/ food. I'm getting better.

Tell me you don't want to eat this for dinner:

Told you.

Let's begin.

I've been on a ginger kick lately too. Ginger is really good for inflammation and I have rheumatoid arthritis, so it's supposed to help.

Tip: I've said it before folks, peel and freeze your ginger. It grates up so nicely straight out of the freezer. Like ginger snow. Super finely grated ginger. And you don't waste a bit if you peel with a spoon. It just barely scrapes the paper thin skin off the ginger. Double bag it and it lasts in the freezer forever.

Dump the honey in a saucepan.

Soy sauce to follow.

Ginger, grated on a microplane.

Lots of garlic.

All the kids get dumped in the pool.

Bring to simmer, take off the heat.

Let cool.

Meanwhile, get the chickens butchered.

Set yourself up for success here. Have your sheet pan nearby and your meat cutting board ready to put into the dishwasher.

Remove the neck bones, liver and/or gizzards. Lisa loves that part. Then cut the backbone out. Just use the little chicken butt as a guide to cut about a 1" wide spine out of the chicken.

Use some heavy duty kitchen scissors if your knife isn't working.

I leave the thigh and drums together as well as the breast and wing. Big big meaty pieces.

Then take your cooled marinade and dump it on the chicken. Skin side down.

I made the mistake of not lifting the pieces up so the marinade could get underneath the chicken.

Get it all over the chicken. I'm an equal opportunity marinader.

This sauce smells awesome.

Everyone happy?Happy.

Cover and refrigerate overnight.

This is what they look like after a little sleepover in the marinade.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and put this thing in the oven (foil on please).

After 30 minutes, you're going to remove the foil and it'll look like this. Freaky 1/2 cooked chicken. Calm thyself.

Flip it over so the skin side faces up. Now crank up the heat to 375 degrees and bake for another 30 minutes.

Then you'll get this.

Glorious golden sweet gingery garlic goodness.

Leftovers were amazing. I ate both hot and cold. Both awesome.

I loved the charred pieces.

That skin. Awesome.

BC's Indonesian Ginger Chicken

a direct recreation from this Barefoot Contessa recipe

makes 6-8 servings

1 cup honey
3/4 cup soy sauce (I used low sodium)
1/4 cup minced garlic (I just put a full head of garlic)
1/2 cup peeled and grated ginger root
2 (3-4 lb) chickens, quartered, backbones removed

Put the honey, soy, garlic & ginger in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Immediately after it comes to a boil, remove from the heat, let cool.

Butcher your chicken into eight large pieces. No sissy pieces here, friends. Put the chicken skin side down on a baking sheet - something w/ sides, I used my trusty half sheet pans.

Pour the cooled marinade over all the chicken, slather. Make sure the skin side is down but the marinade gets all underneath as well. After all the chicken is coated, cover with aluminum foil and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. When heated, put chicken (still covered with foil) into oven and bake for 30 minutes. The chicken will look half cooked, it is. Don't worry. Flip everyone over so skin side is up and turn oven up to 375 degrees. Bake for another 30 minutes until skin is nice and golden. Some of the little wing tips may be a little charred, delish! To check for doneness make sure all the joints don't have any blood and there isn't anymore pink flesh.

My Hero & My Hunky Hubby

Saturday was a whirlwind of a day. I had the tough job of going to a fantastic chocolate tour to celebrate my friend Lisa's birthday. I know, boo hoo for me. Then we headed to this great bar for more celebration festivities. What could possibly tear us away from celebrating the birth of one of my favorite people I've met since moving to Seattle, a perfectly good party w/ hilarious & entertaining people, yummy bar food and a light beer buzz?

Answer: The Pioneer Woman.

I'm not going to go into detail. If you want to know about her, I suggest you visit her website. Millions of people already have. Her pizza has changed my life. And don't start reading her love story unless you want to get hooked. She's a great writer, seriously.

Back to Saturday, we left the bar half an hour before the book signing started thinking I wouldn't be too late.

We get there right as the signing starts.

Pandemonium.

There are TONS of people. There appears to be a line but lots of other people (read: women) standing around w/ books in their hands. I mill around and catch a glimpse over a bookcase.

It's Ree! And her daughter too. Her daughter is TALL. Like, Amazonian tall. She walked past me and I caught the eye of another starstruck PW groupie and whispered loudly, "Was that her daughter?!?"

By the time I realized I had to go to the cashier and get a ticket to get in the queue, I was holding a ticket w/ the letter "I". Group I. Ok, that can't be that bad - only eight groups ahead of me. Right?

How much longer until I was handing her my book? Posing for a picture w/ the fantabulous Ree Drummond?

At hour 2, Gabe's patience was wearing thin.

This is Gabe putting his foot down. Just you wait, honey. Your patience will be worn to the brink of lunacy. That's saying a lot for Gabe.

I wouldn't leave this chair. Having a chair at this crowded bookstore was like having some sort of beachfront real estate in Hawaii or something. My butt didn't leave the plush leather chair for anything.

Half an hour later..the meltdown begins.

Oh, the drama.

Gabe's foot down, for the 2nd and final time. Notice the pointing. All for dramatic effect. This is some time during group E. Group E was filled w/ a bunch of aholes. They took nearly an hour.

Arms swinging impatiently. I swear, sometimes I think I married a child.

The signing started at 5 p.m., mind you.

Ooh! There's PW's Amazonian daughter. Rockin' the side ponytail. I even ran into here when I got there and told her, "Wow - you're so much taller than I thought you'd be!" She smiled and walked by. I felt like a maroon.

This photo? It's my knee. This is what hours of waiting and trying to calm your impatient hubby down drives you to do.

And this.

Hour 4.5. Evil Gabe rears his (ugly) handsome head. No worries honey, they're on group "H" already.

I've gotta say, my patience was wearing a little thin too. Gabe was knocking over books, talking in a super loud voice and doing generally annoying things. I stood in line thinking to myself, had I known I would've been waiting for 5 hours to get PW to sign my book, I wasn't too sure I would've done it..

Then finally, we met. I made some stupid comment about how I couldn't believe her hand was still attached to her body after 5 hours of signing. Then she replied that she was fine and that she only had an indentation in her thumb. Hahaha. You're funny PW.

I made a comment about how Gabe was cranky and she took our picture - just like the couple ahead of us. Bye Ree, you're my hero and I love you. And Ina. I love you and Ina equally. But Ina doesn't go on book tours.

I left and felt TOTALLY redeemed. Gabe was muttering something about how he had to get home and take the dogs out and how I had to wake up early to volunteer the next morning. No matter. I was in a blissful post-PW haze.

Then it was Gabe's turn for redemption. PW posted our picture on her post in a very apropos post. Thanks hon, for being so patient - I love you more than you'll ever know. And judging from most of the comments - most people agree, my hunky hubby sure can melt butter.

Tien: if this blog post is any indication of how crazy GLD's signing will be, we'll have to get there earlier. :D

Sesame Ginger Steak Salad w/ Ginger Dressing

This blog is making me fat. Did you see the past 3 posts? I have way to any baked goods in this house. Dessert and treat blogs are more fun but now it's time for some sensible food.

This steak is so yum.


Sesame Ginger Steak

this was enough to marinate a flank steak a little over 1 lb.

2 tbsp. sesame oil
2 clove garlic, grated
1" garlic, grated
1/4 c. low sodium soy sauce
3 tbsp. rice wine vinegar

I like to peel and freeze my ginger so it's super easy to grate on a microplane (Rachael Ray tip, love). If yours isn't frozen, no worries. Just grate about 1 tbsp. of ginger, grate garlic and mix the rest of the ingredients together. Pour over steak in a ziplock bag and refrigerate for at least 3 hours - overnight is better.

Preheat a cast iron skillet on high heat. Take the steak out of the marinade and discard the bag. When the skillet is smoking, put the steak on. My steak was about 3/4" thick. Cook for about 4 minutes on first side and about 3 minute on the other for a medium rare steak. After cooking, let the steak rest for 7-10 minutes before slicing. Slice and serve on top of your favorite salad greens and ginger dressing (recipe follows), sprinkle w/ sesame seeds. I imagine it would be fantastic as lettuce wrap fodder as well.

Ginger Dressing

makes 2-3 servings

1/4 c. low sodium soy sauce
1" ginger, grated
1 clove garlic, grated
1 tsp. lemon zest
1 tbsp. sesame oil
2 tbsp. honey (or agave nectar)
2 tbsp. lemon juice (or rice wine vinegar)
2 tbsp. canola oil (any light flavorless oil works)
1 tsp. toasted sesame seeds
dash white pepper, optional

Mix everything together and serve over the steak and your favorite salad mix. This dressing is great on chicken or shrimp too. This is a total guideline, make sure you taste the dressing before you dress the salad - add whatever you like if it's not quite to your liking. Enjoy!

Pain au Chocolat

One of my favorite results from starting my blog is seeing exactly how many other people are out there doing the exact same thing. I see all these bloggers that have been doing this for years and years and you can certainly see it reflected in their blogs. Now, I'm not going to get all self-deprecating and harp on how my blog compares, etc. I recognize I'm new at this and it can only get better w/ time, right? (Right, honey? How about that new fancy camera?)

This post is directly from one of my favorite vegetarian blogs - she's local too. I feel like I could run into her somewhere on the street (and no, I probably wouldn't have the nerve to introduce myself). It would be like spotting a reality star while you were out running errands..Snooki at Target buying hairspray or something. Not that I would peg her to have anything in common w/ Snooki. Is that weird? Don't answer that.

Anyways, every time Gabe recalls this trip he took as a child to France (here he is celebrating his 3rd bday one his first trip there - is he picking his nose?), he's forever telling me about how much he loved these pain au chocolat. Gabe's lucky enough to have some family from France and he had the opportunity to visit them for a summer and eat tons of real French bread and pains au chocolat. I never repeat that in person, by the way. I always say 'chocolate croissant' because, well: 1) I'm not French, 2) I don't live in France, 3) I don't speak French, and 4) I've never visited France. I took Spanish in high school. Thanks, Mrs. Gavilanes.

Another awesome thing blogging has forced me to do is branch out and cook things I probably wouldn't have tried to make without explicit instruction. Not because I was lazy (or maybe so, there will have to be a pretty good reason to ever spend my day making one of these again) but because I don't want to mess things up and throw away all that food. I'm cheap. And having a blog recipe w/ step-by-step instructions (something this blogger is famous for) takes some of the mystery and unknown out of the equation. Worse comes to worst, I can always ask somewhere out there in the blogging community and I'm sure I'll get some help.

Preheat oven 400 degrees. Best thing to do is get everything ready then take start working w/ the puff pastry. Get the chocolate cut up, sugar in a bowl, egg beaten w/ a splash of water. Have a baking sheet w/ parchment paper or silicone mat standing by too.

Then bust out the puff pastry - found in frozen foods section at the grocery store. Make sure the puff pastry is 'defrosted' overnight in the fridge. This isn't something you can cheat, you have to defrost overnight in the fridge. Flour work surface lightly and roll out to about 1/8".
Use the creases where the folds were and cut into 3 equal sections. Then cut each piece in half, then half again. Then brush each piece with egg wash.

Place chocolate on one end of the puff pastry. You can use your favorite chocolate. This batch is made w/ some Dark Midnight Espresso Theobroma chocolate my mother-in-law always gets us from her (and Gabe's) hometown of Sitka, AK. Love.

You can use chocolate chips if you want. Another variation is using fruit preserves. I've done fresh blueberries and sprinkled sugar on them too.

You may have to play w/ the position of the chocolate. You ideally want to end up with the seam side on the bottom.

Like this.

Brush w/ egg wash again and sprinkle w/ Sugar in the Raw (which, I didn't know is also know as turbinado sugar). Just any coarse sugar.

Aren't these little things cute? You can make both sheets if you're bringing someplace special.

Bakey bakey.

And 15 minutes later? These gorgeous little nuggets of joy (to quote Carrie).

So adorable. Enjoy!

Pain au Chocolat (Chocolate Croissants)

makes 12 mini croissants

Found on this post.

Make sure to thaw out the puff pastry overnight in the fridge.

1 sheet puff pastry

8 oz. dark chocolate

1 egg

2 tbsp. turbinado sugar (Sugar in the Raw)

Preheat oven 400 degrees. Get all ingredients ready. Beat egg with 1 tbsp water, have a pastry brush handy. Cut your chocolate into 2" by about 1/2" pieces. Oh, get the sugar in a bowl ready for sprinkling too. You want to work quickly with the puff pastry so it stays cold.

Unfold and roll out one sheet of pastry and sprinkle w/ flour. I rolled out a little thinner than how they come in the packaging - maybe a little thinner than 1/8"? Cut into 12 equal squares, they'll be a little rectangular. I just use the creases as guides. Cut there first, then cut each of the remaining 3 pcs in half, then half again. Brush with egg wash. Lay the chocolate on one end of the pastry and loosely roll. It's best if the seam ends up on the bottom. Place on baking sheet and brush with more egg wash. Sprinkle w/ sugar. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.