Low, Slow, and Totally Sexy Chicken

This chicken is so incredibly easy, amazingly versatile, and fantastically delicious. What it isn't is quick. But still, it's not so bad. You can very easily come home from work, pop it in the oven, take care of the family or things around the house, and take it out in time for dinner.

Sexy Chicken

Preheat the oven to 265. Rub a chicken breast with your favorite seasonings - I recommend salt, pepper, and garlic and wine seasoning (plus cayenne if I'm feeling spicy!). Wrap the chicken in a foil packet, making sure the edges are well sealed. Bake in the oven for 1 hour.

The finished chicken can be served as it, or it can be easily shredded for other uses, like my delicious chicken-spinach go wrap:

Shredded chicken, baby spinach, and marinated mozzarella, melted in the oven for a crispy crunch on the tortilla!

Watch out, or the cat might steal it! That's how good this chicken is!

Pizza, pizza!

So, after seeing my friend's delicious pictures of her pizza posted all over facebook, I hopped over and borrowed her dough recipe from her blog over at Magnifico! and made myself some pizza and cheese sticks. I really need to restrain myself when it comes to the cheese, and endeavor to get a thinner crust, but it came out quite nicely. Now I need to convince the husband to buy me a pizza stone or two!

Pizza Dough
Ingredients
3/4 c warm water
1 t active dry yeast
1 c whole wheat flour
3/4 c bread flour
1/2 t salt
1 T olive oil
1 T honey
dash of oregano

Mix the water and yeast in a small cup - set aside for 5 minutes to proof. In a bowl, blend together the flours, oregano and salt. Stir in oil, honey, and the yeast mixture. A dough should form, sticky but not damp. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead for a few minutes. Form the dough into a ball and place it seam-side down in a clean bowl. Cover and set in a dry, warm place to rise approximately 1 hour.

Turn back onto floured surface and knead for about 30 seconds. If you want two smaller pizzas, pull the dough in half and form two balls; otherwise just form one. Leave on the board and cover. Allow the dough to rise again for 1 hour and 30 minutes.

After the first 30 minutes, preheat the oven to 500.

Once the dough has risen, gently stretch to the desired shape and thickness. Add sauce and toppings and bake for 10 minutes.

Sauce
Ingredients
4 parts tomato sauce
1 part pesto

Blend the two together and spice to taste.


Toppings
Let yourself go crazy! I used some roasted chicken and five different kinds of cheese.

Rosehip Tea

Rosehips, for those unfamiliar, are the little fruits that appear on the rosebush after the flowering is done. They start off yellow, then darken to orange and finally red, at which point they are ready for you! Those in the picture came off of the wild rose bushes behind my house.

Rosehips are, among other things, very high in vitamin C. It being flu season - and a bad one at that, with the swine flu coming my way - vitamin C is a great thing to have! Rosehips can be eaten fresh or dried. I tried both and didn't find a particularly strong taste either way.

I took my hips and set them in a cupboard to start drying. After a day or two I sliced them open and removed the seeds. The necessity of this step is debatable, but I got rid of them and dumped them in my garden. Maybe I'll get a rosebush next year! Anyway, after de-seeding them I left them alone to continue drying.

Once the hips are dried they can be stored or used whenever you like. I put them in a pot with 2 cups of water and simmered it for about half an hour. This produced a mild-tasting tea which I livened up with a bit of honey. Next time I'd like to do a blend with some other herbs. Maybe a bit of ginger or peppermint.

UPDATE 3/24/10: I'm really enjoying throwing a few dried rosehips in with a pinch of dried mint leaves and a few slivers of cinnamon. Fantastic tisane!

Molasses Crowberry Cake

Berry season makes me cook a lot! Apparently blueberries and molasses are a good combination, so I decided to use my own berries for this. I had about a cup of crowberries, a cup of bunchberries, and a few cranberries and leftover blueberries in this mix. The berries are a sweet contrast to the stronger molasses flavor - this is a definite keeper!

Ingredients
3/4 c water
3/4 c sugar
2 c berries
2 T flour
2 T hot water

1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c oil
2 eggs
1/2 c molasses

2 c flour
pinch salt
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t ginger
1/2 t nutmeg
1/4 t cloves

1 t baking soda
1/2 c hot water

Preheat oven to 325.

Mix the water and sugar together in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil for five minutes, then add the berries. Simmer for five minutes. While simmering, mix the flour and water together and slowly stir into the berry mixture. Return to a boil until it thickens to a syrup-like consistency.

Blend the brown sugar, oil, and eggs together in a large bowl. Stir in molasses and set aside. Mix together the flour, salt and spices in a second bowl. In a separate cup dissolve the baking soda into the hot water. Blend the dry ingredients into the molasses mixture, alternating with the water and baking soda.

Pour batter into a lightly greased square pan. Swirl in 1/2 to 3/4s of the berry mixture. Reserve the remaining berry sauce for topping. Bake for 45 minutes.

Berry Crisp

The absolute best part of fall is that it is time for berries. I have been remiss this fall for several reasons, but today was my day off work as well as one of the most gorgeous days we've had all summer. Hopefully it's not our last! So, when a friend asked if I wanted to do something, berrying was the obvious answer! So excited that I couldn't wait for her to arrive, I checked out my backyard and found a whole bunch of bunchberries which I gathered. There were crowberries and low bush cranberry, but the former were rather wimpy and the latter not quite ripe. Bunchberries it was. After my friend arrived, we headed out to Arctic Valley in search of blueberries. We didn't find many, the more accesible bushes having already been picked over (and with my friend some eight months pregnant, hiking a mountain or two was out of the question), but the crowberries and cranberries were beautiful!

Now, you don't need to go pick your own berries to make a crisp, but it does taste better. Use any berries you'd like for this recipe. I had a lot of tart berries, so if you go with a sweeter mix you might want to reduce the sugar.

Ingredients
2 c berries
2 t sugar
1/2 c oats
1/4 c brown sugar
2 t chai spice blend
1 t sugar
pinch salt
3 T cold butter

Preheat oven to 375. Toss the berries in the 2 t of sugar. Set aside. In a bowl, combine the oats, brown sugar, chai spice, salt, and remaining sugar. Mix, then cut the butter in to form a crumb topping. Grease four small ramekins. Spoon berries into the ramekins, then top with the crumb mixture. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until topping is browned.

Akutaq

Akutaq (a-goo-duk) is what people commonly refer to as "eskimo ice cream." Traditionally, it was made with lard rendered from animal fat, sometimes fish, and berries. I decided that, for my first ever akutaq, I'd better go a bit more modern. It sounds weird, but it really is tasty!

Ingredients
2 c berries (if frozen, no need to thaw!)
1/2 c crisco
1/2 c sugar

Whip the crisco and sugar until fluffy. Fold in the berries and refrigerate. Simple as that!

Spinach-stuffed Chicken

I'm on a bit of a spinach kick. Made this one a while ago, but I've been lazy and only just got around to getting pictures off of my camera. Hopefully I remember how I made it!

Ingredients
1 chicken breast
1 c baby spinach
1 T sweet mustard (honey, etc. I use the mustard-based house dressing from Melting Pot)
1/4 c grated parmesean and asiago cheese
salt, pepper, garlic

Puree the spinach and mustard in a food processor. Stir in the grated cheese and set aside. Rub the outside of the chicken breast with salt, pepper and garlic. Slice a pocket into the breast and stuff with the spinach blend. Heat a lightly oiled skillet. Once it is hot, add the chicken and cook for 3-4 minutes per side or until cooked through.