Something Old: Pineapple Butter

This recipe is one of the oldies, a recipe I made and posted long ago when I was still just sharing recipes with Facebook friends. In fact, it's been nearly two years since I first concocted this recipe.

So if you need something to top your Cream of Wheat (Chase's new favorite thing is jelly in his Wheat) or your beer bread, give this sweet little recipe a try. It also makes a great gift. Put it in a jar, tie it with a bow, and share.

Happy cooking!

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Pineapple Butter January 28, 2010

I’m stuck indoors! This is turning out to be quite the storm. Maybe not the Icepocalypse, but definitely something to keep us inside.

So instead of going crazy, I decided to try something I’ve been curious about trying for awhile: Making jam! Because I don’t have any kind of gelling agent, what I made is more like fruit butter than jam, but it is absolutely delicious and really easy.

While you can do this with fresh pineapple, dealing with one of those suckers is no party. And especially for a recipe like this, canned pineapple works just as well.

The pineapple butter can be stored for about two weeks in the fridge. But I know that mine won’t last that long!

Here’s what I did:

Ingredients

20 oz can chunk pineapple

2 Tbsp packed brown sugar

¼ tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp ground cloves

Ingredients

1. Drain pineapple chunks well. Roughly chop the chunks.

2. Place half of the pineapple into the food processor/blender. Pulse until pineapple are about the consistency of applesauce, wish some small chunks (more or less depending on your taste).

3. Add the second half of the pineapples and finish pulsing.

4. Put pineapple mush into a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Add brown sugar, cinnamon and cloves and mix well.

5. Cook until the mixture reaches fruit butter consistency. This will take about 15 minutes with occasional stirring.

6. Remove from heat and let cool before serving on toast, biscuits or even pork chops!

Something New: Double-Fried Orange Chicken

It's a beautiful day for frying, my friends.

Chase and I realized that the wok is the perfect tool for frying anything, from bacon to breaded chicken. The sides of the wok are very high, so you're less likely to get splattered and burned. The wok also holds a good deal of oil with plenty of space between the oil and the rim, reducing the kind of splashing you get with skillets. All in all, consider this another shameless promotion of the magical wok.

However, if you don't have a wok, this recipe can be made in a deep skillet, or deep fryer if you happen to have one. The other day I watched my friend Theresa fry chile rellenos in a skillet to great and delicious success. If you can do it with giant peppers, you can certainly do it with bite-sized chicken.

Chase and I created this recipe when we were craving some Chinese-style Orange Chicken, but wanted something a little, well, different. So we decided to fry the chicken once with a simple flour coating, and the second time covered with cornbread mix. The cornbread gave the chicken a sweet, thick coating. It was so tasty!

If you want to make a more traditional Orange Chicken, skip the cornbread coating and second frying. Chase and I tried a couple of chicken pieces with just the flour coating, and they were crispy and delicious. We just went the extra Oklahoma mile to deep fry twice.

Last point, this Orange Sauce is delicious. We made a couple of modifications to our personal taste: we left out the red pepper flakes, added extra orange zest and used the green onion as garnish instead of as part of the sauce. As always, our mods are in the recipe below. The sauce turned out to be great on many other dishes too! We made a vegetable stir fry and topped it with this sauce. It would be great on non-Chinese dishes too. I bet any pork chop would shine with a dollop of orange on top.

Happy cooking!

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Double-Fried Orange Chicken

Orange Glaze

1 ½ cups water

2 Tbsp orange juice

Juice of one lemon (about ¼ cup)

⅓ cup rice vinegar

2 ½ Tbsp soy sauce

Zest of one orange

1 cup packed brown sugar

½ tsp finely chopped ginger

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

3 Tbsp cornstarch

¼ cup water

Directions

1. In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine 1 ½ cups water, lemon juice, orange juice, rice vinegar and soy sauce. Stir until blended.

2. Stir in brown sugar, orange zest, ginger and garlic. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.

3. In a small bowl, combine cornstarch and ¼ cup water. Stir until thoroughly mixed.

4. Stir cornstarch mixture into sauce until it thickens.

5. Serve sauce over your dish.

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Double-Fried Chicken

1 lb skinless chicken, cut into bite-sized cubes

1 cup all purpose flour

1 box Jiffy cornbread mix

¼ - ½ tsp salt

¼ - ½ tsp pepper

3 eggs

3 cups vegetable oil (will vary based on your cooking pan)

3-4 Tbsp chopped green onion

Prepared jasmine rice

Directions

1. Pour vegetable oil into a wok or a deep pan and begin heating to medium-high to high heat.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, salt and pepper. In a small bowl, beat one egg.

3. Dip chicken pieces into egg, then flour.

4. Once oil is hot, place chicken pieces into the oil, adding them one at a time. Do not over load your pan, as this will cause sticking. We had about 3 or 4 rounds of frying.

5. Fry the chicken until the pieces float and are browned, about 3-4 minutes. Remove and place on a paper towel to drain.

6. Continue to fry your chicken in batches until all are done.

** If you want a more traditional Orange Chicken stop here and top with orange sauce!**

7. Once the flour round of frying is done, pour Jiffy mix into a large mixing bowl. Beat remaining 2 eggs in a clean bowl.

8. Dip chicken pieces into egg, then roll in Jiffy mix. This round, you'll want to bread your chicken in batches, so the original flour breading doesn't get soggy in the egg.

9. Fry your first round of corn-breaded chicken until golden brown and crispy (about 2-3 minutes this time).

10. Repeat corn-breading and frying until all chicken is double-fried.

11. Serve over jasmine rice, topped with Orange Sauce and garnished with green onion.

Prepped for the first round of breading.

Chicken hiding in flour.

You'll know your oil's hot enough if you get a strong bubbling right away.

Chicken after Round 1. Stop here for more traditional Orange Chicken.

Breading: Round 2.

Fried to a corny golden crisp.

Sauced and garnished. Happy cooking!

Something Old: Peach Salsa Spiced Chicken

Chase and I made this recipe quite recently, or at least it feels like recently. I realized the other day that we've survived (and enjoyed) 8 months of living together now, so "recently" really just means "since I've moved up here."

Regardless of the date of invention, this recipe is quick to throw together and delicious to eat. That last part is a little unnecessary to say. I wouldn't share bad recipes with you!

Happy cooking!

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Peach Salsa Spiced Chicken June 22, 2010

Last week, Chase and I went on a camping trip to the beautiful Hocking Hills. In addition to all the traditional camping activities (hiking, fishing, feeding the campground raccoon), we also went shopping at the local market and found a great Amish food store. We bought, among other things, a jar of peach salsa that is to die for. When we got home with it, we decided we had to come up with a recipe that did it justice.

This is what we created. I’m pretty proud of our first “blank slate” recipe. I was always a little nervous about recipe invention, but Chase and I had such success with this, I think we’ll definitely be creating original dishes again. This was delicious!

Ingredients

1.5 lb boneless chicken breast

2 cups peach salsa (we used Amish Wedding brand)

¼ cup olive oil

1 tsp cloves

1 tsp dry oregano

½ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp paprika

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

aluminum foil

Note: We chose the spices based on the specific flavor of the salsa we were using (quite sweet,

very little heat). Be sure to taste-test your salsa first and adjust the marinade accordingly!

Directions

1. In a medium mixing bowl, combine all dry spices. Add olive oil and mix well.

2. Dip the chicken into the spice mixture, coating both sides. Place in a greased casserole dish and marinade in the fridge for 30 minutes - 1 hour.

3. About an hour before you're ready to eat, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

4. Leaving them in the casserole dish, smother the chicken breasts with salsa. Cover the casserole dish with aluminum foil.

5. Cook for 40-50 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through.

6. Let the chicken set for 5 minutes. Serve and enjoy.

The spoils of our Amish shopping spree.

Everything in the casserole dish, ready to hit the oven.

Served with veggies and potatoes. Happy cooking!

Something Extra: Cucumber Hummus

This Christmas, I got a food processor and one of the first things that Chase and I did with it was attempt to make hummus. The first attempts were satisfying enough (we certainly ate it all), but we couldn't quite get the texture right.

Finally, in a stroke of genius, Chase suggested we add cucumber to the mix. It worked! Granted, the flavor is a little untraditional, but it's absolutely delicious.

We also used peanut butter instead of tahini, a traditional ingredient that's about 10 dollars for a tiny jar. For us, the peanut butter substitution was great, but if you happen to have tahini or gobs of food money laying around, give tahini a try.

Have a great weekend and happy cooking!

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Cucumber Hummus

Ingredients

1 can chick peas

½ cucumber, peeled

1 Tbsp peanut butter

½ tsp basil

½ tsp oregano

1 clove garlic, chopped (brown in skillet first for a milder flavor)

approx. 1 Tbsp lemon juice

approx. ½ cup olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Toasted pita bread or pita chips

Directions

1. Add chickpeas, peanut butter, garlic, basil, and oregano to food processor. Blend until mixed.

2. With the food processor running, add about half of the olive oil into the processor through the tube and mix.

3. Add lemon juice and cucumber, cut into small chunks, into the food processor. Blend until the cucumber is processed and blended in.

4. With the food processor running, add the remaining olive oil into processor, until the mixture becomes smooth. Add a little more or less oil to get to your desired consistency.

5. Add salt, pepper, and additional lemon or spices to taste and blend.

6. Serve with toasted pita bread or pita chips.