cook: leftover rotisserie chicken done two ways

I try not to buy rotisserie chicken or only resort to the convenience food when I need to get dinner on the table that night without hours of cooking. Last week was one of those occasions. I've seen cookbooks with recipes incorporating rotisserie chicken, but who including my dogs can eat that much chicken? Note to self, if I ever write my own cookbook, it won't be about how to cook dishes from rotisserie chicken as an ingredient. I've also heard Patrick complain about his mom cooking chicken so often that he felt like he could pluck pinfeathers from himself. Which is why we supplement our diet of vegetables and grains with steaks and ground beef and fish more than chicken breasts or thighs. The last time I brought home a rotisserie chicken was before spring break a couple months ago, and I cooked Arroz con Pollo after the initial roast chicken and vegetables dinner. And by the way, a rotisserie chicken just doesn't compare to a roast chicken home cooked without the brining. Rotisserie chicken is so chock full of chemicals and salt that I'm sure is not healthy. While at the produce store last week, I shopped with the intention of making use of all this chicken.  

Hence, my mise en place included the usual suspects of shallots and lots of garlic.

 

And I always have scallions and with the warmer weather, basil, on hand.

 

I also bought a yellow squash, a few green beans, 

a red pepper, and some snow peas.                             

I lamented that there were no sugar snap peas, and so I took out some frozen petite peas too. I was all set to cook a Thai chicken curry, but then what would Patrick (who does not like Southeast Asian cuisine) eat? And so I set aside the coconut milk, red curry paste, fish sauce and palm sugar for the next night.

And then it was a flurry of boiling linguine, draining and setting it aside before sautéing the chopped vegetables in butter and olive oil and then adding heavy whipping cream and chicken to flavor into a sauce before tossing with pasta. I also sprinkled atop the pasta, fresh torn basil.

Patrick deemed the pasta primavera okay. Insert eye roll here.

And so the next night, I used the same vegetables plus the rest of the bamboo shoots from another Asian meal to make a Thai chicken curry. I had also added kaffir lime leaves and a jalapeno to the curry, and then removed the vegetables which had leached their water into the sauce so I could boil the sauce down some more to infuse it with that sweet and salty deliciousness of fish sauce and palm sugar.
         

I was first introduced to Thai food in San Francisco when I went to Marnee Thai in the Richmond District while still a college student. I loved, loved, loved whatever curry dish I ate, surprised that it didn't resemble a South Asian curry. And then a few years later would cook Thai chicken curry (both red and Panang) with a boyfriend and his friend for dinners after a day of woodworking and crafting. I had forgotten how easy it is to cook Thai food if one has access to those Southeast Asian ingredients like coconut milk, chilies, Thai basil, lemongrass, fish sauce and palm sugar though back then we used brown sugar instead. And our Thai dishes were maybe not as flavorful, using the curry paste without the lime leaves at a Ranch 99 and lemongrass which I can even find these days at a Safeway.

Thirty-five years ago, I would never have guessed that Thai dishes with all its raw ingredients and heavy use of fresh herbs would become so popular outside of Thailand. But I am vowing to not buying another rotisserie chicken for at least 3 months. 

cook: đồ chua + thit heo quay as made by a non-vietnamese

I tasted the daikon and carrot pickle Friday morning. The đồ chua tasted like it could use another day to sit in the pickle juice of sugar and vinegar and maybe a bit more salt. I also over salted the thit heo quay or pork belly a bit too much, but Cecilia's Vietnamese lemongrass grilled pork and my roasted pork belly or thit heo nuong xa plus pork pate and the raw vegetables balanced it out into a delicious three little pigs bánh mì.  

I’ll know next time to just rub lime and just a little bit of salt over the skin side of the pork belly. And just a dry rub for the meaty side. And so I demonstrated my construction to Cecilia when she brought over her homemade baguettes. Split the bread in half, but not all the way through to better contain the sandwich. A bead or two of  Kewpie mayonnaise on the upper half of the baguette and a thin layer of pate on the lower half. Then the lemongrass pork and a few dots of hoisin, then the pork belly and a few dots of sriracha, then cilantro, then the pickled daikon and carrot, then the cucumber.

Together we made three platters of sandwiches to feed ten guests. We’re Filipino, and so we always cook too much. But the guests seemed to enjoy eating them, and I had one leftover sandwich to eat over the weekend for lunch.

clay: sgraffito

Sgraffito = a form of decoration made by scratching through a surface to reveal a lower layer of a contrasting color, and in this case, white slip and underglaze layered over Smooth Red clay.              I spent Tuesday afternoon, painting white slip on four leatherhard mugs I had made on Saturday and added yellow and pink underglaze over the white slip of the two larger mugs. I also underglazed a sea mug with marine blue and medium blue. And then carved an orchid and a mandala on two of the mugs. I didn't have it in me to carve two more mugs. And so home for dinner.

I'm thinking of taking a how-to-write-a-cookbook class along with a course in iPhoneagraphy at Stanford. Could I put my poke bowl rotation into it? What would be my cookbook's theme?

The next day I carved. And played with mark making on ceramics.

 

And one large mug to go.

I enjoyed and am pleased by the carving of the sunflower, but I really need to find a better carving tool.

And finally lunch. I love a goat cheese and beet and walnut salad except when it's tossed in with kale greens. Other than the other savory and sweet viands, my salad tasted like grass. I should have massaged the champagne viniagrette more into the kale.

Today at lunch, I enjoyed a delicious deviled egg salad sandwich compliments of the lunch ladies at the cafeteria. Then a boring afternoon of managing kids in the library and a faculty meeting. And then back to my happy place of slapping mud into a mug and a vase.

 

I found texture mats that I love and can't wait to see these two vessels glazed in Coyote's gun metal green. Once home I cooked an easy dinner of handmade ravioli and leftover vegetables.

 

While Patrick baked his chocolate chip cookies, I watched my gardening and cooking shows and perused these recipes for tomorrow's birthday meal. My neighbor, Cecilia volunteered me to make bahn mi sandwiches for Nancy. Sigh. My neighbor, Helen complains that her home becomes the default place to host gatherings in inclement weather, but Cecilia and I likewise are the default cooks for these parties. I told Patrick that for my birthday, I don't want a party because I know I'll end up cooking the meal.

 

But I dutifully sliced daikon and carrots on the mandolin, salted the vegetables, and then steeped them in sugar and vinegar and water. And placed the pork belly, meat side down in a marinade of soy, chile and five spice while scoring and rubbing lime and salting the fatty skin.

Tomorrow I'll be slicing more vegetables--cucumber, jalapenos, cilantro--and roasting the pork belly. Fingers crossed that the pork won't be salty.

cook: breakfast and bookstore browsing

I invited the neighbors to the garden for a breakfast strata. I had stale French baguette in my freezer. And so the night before, I sautéed onion, leek, shallot—all scrap alliums in my vegetable bin—in butter and folded it in with country sausage, grated cheddar cheese, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, nutmeg into the stale bread broken into bite-sized chunks along with a custard of eight eggs beaten with heavy whipping cream.                

The condo smelled like thanksgiving and was my favorite part of this breakfast casserole. Next time I will roast turkey legs or wings and serve alongside this casserole without the cheese and no eggs. Patrick had to run an open house (he’s hoping a buyer will put in an offer by Wednesday), and so Sadie and I went to buy a tuner for his 12-string acoustic guitar and my ukulele at Guitar Center. And hey why not also browse books at the Barnes and Noble a few doors down. I found books I plan to check out at the public library.                                

Well Faire is a magazine, but it has photography and text that looked enticing. And I may return to buy it and another magazine for making macrame for the modern home to give to my teacher’s aide, Isabella who is so creative and matriculating at the Art Institute in Chicago this fall. I want to gift her something that she’d love to pore over and be inspired in her own artwork.

cook: seafood supper or oysters part two

I was going to broil the rest of our oyster delivery as an appetizer with hot brown butter. I zested and squeezed half a Meyer lemon and mixed it with Louisiana hot sauce and then poured hot browned butter into that.    

But it was all for naught because hubby said he wanted the oysters raw. Good thing I kept the leftover mignonette. This time however I grilled salmon and roasted Brussels sprouts and cauliflower as our entrée.  

But ooof, oysters two nights in a row made for intestinal issues later.