Fried Chicken and Cheesesteaks

If you don't happen to be in an area experiencing chicken wing shortages this week, try this recipe on for size: Start with 3-4 pounds of THAWED wings. This was a bag of all drumettes from my local Super Walmart. Yes, I do sometimes I go all out with gourmet food sources. Add some garlic powder and hot sauce, and marinade overnight. Then preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Put a few pats of butter in a large pan, and melt them in the oven: Drain off the marinade. In a one gallon ziplock bag, make a breading mixture of 2 cups Bisquick, paprika, fresh pepper, garlic salt, and onion salt. Then, add the drummettes about five at a time and SHAKE IT UP BABY! Bake for about twenty minutes, then turn and bake for another fifteen-twenty: If you like, toss the baked wings with buffallo sauce. But in all honesty, next time I would probably just increase the heat in the breading, instead DRIZZLE the wings with ho...

Chop one large onion and sautee: Use microwave to thaw frozen corn : Chop onions. To make a large dice, first cut off the ends and remove seeds, and then cut in two: Force the two halves to lay flat: Cut into strips: Cut the strips into squares (sorry for the blurry picture) Add the peppers (I used a mixture of green and red for visual interest) to the pot, along with chicken stock or canned chicken broth. I added cumin, cilantro, salt, pepper, and ancho chili powder. If you're not trying to be careful of the heat level, you can add hot sauce as well. Add the chicken in the last two minutes, so it doesn't dry out. I added half of this chicken meat - so the meat of one chicken. Serve with salsa or hot sauce for anyone who wants to add more heat.

"picking" a chicken just means removing the meat from the bones and tearing or chopping the meat - just what you need for soup, chicken salad or casseroles. While you're at it, separate the larger bones for chicken stock. This is just an exercise in patience - it doesn't take special tools or skill. I normally use a plastic bag to catch the refuse - the chicken skin, the small bones, and cartlidge. The large bones go in the crockpot to make stock. (more on that later this week) The meat, both light and dark, get ripped into small bits.

Roasting a chicken is a good basic skill for any home cook. Roast chicken is inexpensive yet very tasty. And once you get past the first one, really pretty easy. The leftovers are great for soup, chicken salad, casseroles ... Preheat oven to 500. First - place your roasting pan next to the sink. Open the package of chicken in your sink. Remove the plastic bag of ... ummm ... chicken innards. I normally discard these. The days I'm feeling more ambitious I roast them, and use them for making gravy. Place the chicken, breast side up, in the pan. I normally cook two at once because it is only 10% more work to make two at a time. Liberally sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place one or more of the following aromatics in and around the chicken: quartered onion, peeled garlic cloves, celery stalks, quartered lemon, peeled shallots, sprigs or rosemary, fresh sage leaves ... Put the chicken in the oven. After about 30 minutes (after the top skin starts to brown) turn th...

This evening I was speaking to a good friend who LIVED IN JAPAN for about six months, and was surprised that she had never made or heard of Nasi Goreng. We were first introduced to this wonderful, economical dish by friends in South Carolina. They had been raised in the Dutch Reform community in Canada, and therefore had deep cultural ties with the Indonesian culture, and had been raised eating Nasi Goreng. Like most fried rice dishes, this one is very flexible, and a great way to use up the bits of this and that in your refrigerator. You need already cooked cold rice to make this dish - so make this the day after you have Chinese take-out to use up that last big container of white rice. Ingredients: cold cooked rice, preferably jasmine rice onion garlic bits of vegetables (zucchini, peas, snow peas, carrots, peppers, tomato ....) bits of meat or seafood (chicken, shrimp, beef, ham, pork) 3 or more eggs a packet of Nasi Goreng seasoning (from Asian grocery store), or chili powder, corr...

Last night's dinner (this is a rather inprecise recipe, but I don't think the exact quanitities will matter much): ~ 1.5 pounds boneless chicken breasts ~ 12 oz fresh spinach ~ one slightly mushy green pepper, bad bits removed (if you only have a fresh one, I suppose it will do) ~ 1.5 cups chopped artichoke (frozen, fresh or from a jar) ~ one large onion, chopped ~ garlic - fresh minced, from a jar, or frozen minced cubes from Trader Joes ~ 8oz. block cream cheese ~ a few tablespoons of pesto, homemade or from a jar ~ olive oil ~ salt & pepper ~ romano, parmesan or a similar flavorful hard cheese Sautee spinach in a bit of olive oil until fully wilted - turn a few times while cooking: Set aside the surprisingly small quantity of spinach which results. In the same pan, sautee the onion, and when that is almost cooked (translucent) add the chopped pepper and garlic. Once the vegetables are soft, turn the heat down to medium, and add the cream cheese. WATCH THIS CAREFULLY, sti...

Marinate chicken breasts in lime juice with canned jalapenos overnight. Drain the juice off, and grill the chicken. Allow to cool, or else you'll burn your fingers shredding the chicken. Shred the chicken with your fingers (not aiming for perfection here). Mix in one pound of frozen corn - preferably frozen ROASTED corn from Trader Joes. Mix in one jar of your favorite salsa verde. Add the juice of a couple limes, some garlic powder or chopped garlic, some ground Ancho or ground chili pepper, chopped cilantro, salt and pepper to taste. Microwave sliced bell peppers (multiple colors is GREAT!) and mix them in as well. We ate this all last week. I made nachos with it (sprinkle mixture over corn chips, add some shredded cheddar, broil for a few minutes then finish the presentation with a scoop each of guacamole and sour cream), wraps (serve warm, with cheese in a tortilla), and ate it cold on salad. The resident Southerner was well pleased. He topped every variation with hot sauce and...