Pintos, Chicken, Laziness

Hello, hello! I'm actually posting again! Will this become a regular thing? Hope so!
So, school's been crazy busy (of course), but I've been feeding myself plenty well (yaye!), so I have a few things to post about.



So, Wynona had her first batch of cornbread in the apartment, and it was probably the best batch I've made so far. I don't know what I did differently, but the batter came together much better that it usually does...it was actually a batter instead of meal in liquid. Perhaps it's because I used whole milk? In any case, I devoured it almost instantly. It was rather nice with sour cherry preserves.

So, being a college student, I'm rather lazy. Enter the lazy supper! It takes about half an hour to make, depending on how fast you prep spinach, and really requires very little work apart from that.



Lazy supper consists of spinach, scrambled eggs, bacon, and corn pone. (This corn pone recipe is from Crescent Dragonwagon's Cornbread Gospels.) The first thing you do is start the corn pone. Set the oven to preheat to 375F while you throw 2 cups of corn meal, 1 tsp salt, and 1 tbsp drippings (or butter)into a bowl and pour 2 cups boiling water over them. Give the mix a few good stirs and let it sit 5 to 10 minutes. While it sits, prep your spinach, and scramble your eggs. Check your corn mash. If it's cool enough to handle, form pones about 1/3 inch thick, put them on an oiled baking sheet, and throw them in the oven. Otherwise, fry up your bacon first, making sure it renders up a good amount of grease (oooo, yummy yummy bacon grease!). At this point, the pones should definitely go in the oven, for about 15 minutes. While they bake, saute your spinach until it's just cooked, and plate it with the bacon. Make sure you get all the pot-liquor, too--the pones will soak it up and be super delicious! Now come the eggs. Replenish the pan's fat if you need to. Your eggs should be perfectly cooked as soon as the pones are ready. Plop a couple pones on your plate, add the eggs, pour yourself a nice, cold glass of milk, and dig in!

I haven't been entirely lazy, though. Weekends are my big cooking days, and I've done two big projects that I'm rather proud of. The first is a roast chicken. This method is actually one that Matchstick and I developed last year, and it's totally one of my favourites.

• Remove the giblets and rinse the chicken inside and out. Pat dry with paper towels. Remove that silly, useless pop-up timer!
  
• Place the chicken in a roasting pan, and tuck its wings back. I'm not sure how to explain how to do this, but you kind of twist the tips of the wings around to the wrong side, behind the shoulder blades...if you have questions, better consult Julia Child.
• Slice an orange, squeeze half of it all over the chicken. Stuff both halves into the cavity.
• Peel and halve an onion, and stuff that into the cavity too.
• Sprinkle the chicken with ground cloves, salt, and a little pepper.
• Roast at 350F until the temperature is 180F on the meat thermometer, or until the drumsticks are loose and wiggly when you jiggle them.
• Let the chicken rest 10 minutes before carving.

This recipe always comes out moist, even without basting, and I really love the spicy note the cloves add.

One of the benefits of roasting a whole chicken, instead of just thighs (or whatever), is that you can make your own chicken stock! And, since it's getting to be that time of year, when everyone suddenly catches dorm (or homeroom) plague, there's nothing better to have on hand than a nice batch of Yiddish penicillin. Home made chicken stock is so fantastic, and almost guaranteed to cure whatever ails you! So, once you've carved your chicken thoroughly, don't throw away that carcass! Put it in a pot with the wings, and maybe even the leg bones, throw in the giblets, three ribs of celery, one or two scrubbed and broken carrots, some peppercorns, and a dash of salt. Add enough cold water to cover everything and fill the pot. Bring the pot nearly to a boil, skim any scum that formed, and set it to simmer, covered, for...well, for as long as you feel like. Longer is usually better. You want to extract all the chickeny goodness you can. You should skim the pot occasionally. After, o, six hours, taste the stock. You may want to simmer it down a bit if it seems weak, but when you deem it finished, strain your stock into a separate container. You'll probably have enough to freeze a good portion and still have enough for soup. If you're going to make chicken soup straight away, you can pick the meat from the carcass and add it to the soup, along with slices of the carrot you used for the stock.

My second project is the beginnings of a recipe for pinto beans. Inspired by my success with blackbean soup, I decided to be daring, and came up with something rather nice, but definitely in need of some tweaking:

• 1 lb dried pinto beans, soaked
• 3 ribs celery, chopped
• 1 "cheek" cabbage, shredded
  
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, smashed
  
• 4 strips bacon, chopped into medium chunks
  
• 1/2 tsp cumin seed
• 2 costeño chilis
• 1 ancho chili
• 3 chilis de arbol
• 3/4 tsp cumin
• 3/4 tsp paprika
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
  
• 1.5 cups chicken stock
• Salt to taste

1. Set the costeños and ancho to soak in a bowl of hot tapwater
2. Fry the bacon in the bottom of a large pot, stirring it to make sure it renders all its fat
3. When the bacon is crispy, remove it from the pot, and toss in the cumin seed and garlic. Saute a few minutes
4. Add the onion, and cook until they begin to turn yellow
5. Add the celery and cabbage, cooking until the cabbage is well wilted
6. Remove the costeños and ancho from the water, and squeeze them out. Discard the water and chop the peppers. Add them to the pot
7. Wash your hands really well. The capsacin from the peppers will cling to your hands, and if it gets in your eye by accident, bad things would ensue
8. Add the beans, bacon, and chilis de arbol
9. Add the chicken stock, and enough water to cover everything
10. Add all the spices except the salt, and stir well
11. Bring to a boil, and simmer, covered, until the pintos are nice and soft
12. Stir the beans, and mash a good number of them against the side of the pot as you do
13. Add salt to taste, and simmer until nice and thick
14. Serve over rice or macaroni!

I like the way the bacon compliments the meatiness of the pintos, and the sweetness that the ancho chili adds. The cinnamon definitely is a nice addition, but I need to fiddle with the seasonings a bit. I definitely need to up the heat, probably with more chilis de arbol, and maybe a couple other varieties of pepper...maybe pasillas. I might add a pinch of cocoa, too, to balance the sweetness of the peppers with the pungency of the cinnamon.

Well, that's all for now. Next time, snickerdoodles!

Review: Rt. 9 Diner

Yesterday (well, technically the day before, now. Gotta stop this night-owl blogging!) was moveout, and it was surprisingly easy. So, one year of college, done! Exciting exciting! And now I'm back home in Jersey. Ah, the joys of being home... And I'm excited for Jersey Fresh produce! Rhubarb should be coming in soon, and strawberries are just starting, so some fun stuff with those may be showing up soon. And, of course, the family-favourite biscuits are at the top of my to-do list, so they'll probably be next post.

I'd overslept yesterday, so I skipped breakfast. Turns out this worked in my favour, because by the time we were done moving everything out it was lunch time! My father took me out to lunch at the Rt. 9 Diner, which I had recommended. I'd had an absolutely delightful breakfast (never mind that it was after noon!) there with Matchstick some weeks earlier, and I had been craving it again. So, since I hadn't had breakfast at the usual time, and was still craving breakfast food, I had what could only be called a diner breakfast: two eggs over easy, with wheat toast, bacon, homefries, grapefruit, and a cup of coffee.

OMG so good! Fried eggs are something that I'm rather picky about, just as I am with quite a few other foods. These eggs were amazingly good. They're cooked so the whites are fully cooked, but still tender and flavourful. They're perfectly done, and the yolks are still runny. There's absolutely no eggy odour at all. And, of course, they go deliciously with the toast, which is warm, perfectly crisped, and slathered with butter. You don't need to salt the eggs if you eat them with the toast. (I do, however, pepper the hell out of my eggs. This is due in part to a scene from All the Pretty Horses, but is mostly because my dear friend Ami got me addicted to black pepper during our camping adventure last summer. All I can say is, "pepper is yummy.")
The bacon is made exceptionally well. If anyone says that they don't like bacon, they ought to try the Rt. 9 Diner's bacon. It's cut thick, with more meat than fat. It's cooked perfectly, neither soggy nor crunchy, and it's just salty enough without going overboard. It's really a joy to eat.
The homefries are flavourful and soft. Perhaps a little softer than some are accustomed to (Matchstick mentioned they were a little softer than he would have expected when I mentioned I was writing this review), but hearty and filling nonetheless. They're made with green peppers, too, which is unusual, but it gives a nice textural contrast.
The grapefruit was delicious, of the ruby red variety. When I went with Matchstick, the grapefruit was a white grapefruit, so it was rather more tart, but this one was sweet and sour and refreshing, a perfect finish for a heavy breakfast. I love grapefruit, so I enjoy both white and red varieties, but if you're the kind of person who likes to honey or sugar their grapefruit, I'd definitely recommend red over white.
And now we get to the coffee. It's diner coffee. If you're looking for good coffee, hie thee to Starbucks! But, at the same time, it's not really bad. I've had bad diner coffee, and I've had good diner coffee. This was definitely good diner coffee. I don't know why I like diner coffee. As coffees go it's pretty bad, but there's just something about it... And with half and half and two sugars, it goes perfectly with a diner breakfast.

I also ordered a piece of their baklava. It was, needless to say, diner baklava. I'm accustomed to baklava being crisp and flaky on the outside, with honey-sweet layers of filo and nuts inside. This, however, was sodden with honey. There was very little difference in texture between all of its components, but it was rich, and tasted of spiced honey and nuts. If you're expecting true baklava, this isn't what you'll want to get, but if you're looking for diner food, this is a delicious finish to a meal!

The diner itself is delightful. Its interior is very well decorated, and it can get absolutely packed without being claustrophobic. It's classic, really, with its chrome, glass, deep booths, bar, and jukebox. There are also little jukeboxes on the wall of each booth. They have a delightful selection of music, both older music and more modern. The waitstaff is friendly and efficient. It really is a delight to eat there, and I highly recommend the Rt. 9 Diner.