Greetings! As I lay in bed this morning, trying to decide what to make myself for breakfast I decided something. It it never too much trouble to make yourself a good meal. Would cereal have filled me up? Sure. If I had a bowl of oatmeal with cinnamon toast would I have felt satisfied until it was time to eat lunch? Well, of course. But...If I took the extra few minutes to boil some water with red wine vinegar and fresh rosemary from the small herb garden in the backyard, turned on the broiler in the oven and sprinkled some lemon juice and cinnamon over freshly sliced fruit...then I could sigh with delight as I sank my teeth into a delicious breakfast made just for me. Which I did. Poached eggs with cottage cheese dill toast and fruit salad. Yum yum.
Needless to say, I cheat and buy most of my bread at Central Market. I am not a baker and do not pretend to be, but I find that for two or three dollars at CM you can find just about any kind of bread on the planet to suit any kind of taste. The cottage cheese dill loaf is one of my favorites. I am a huge lover of dill as a seasoning, and you really just don't taste it in enough things. Most people hear dill and think 'pickle', but if you've ever had (or cooked with) fresh dill, it is such a different flavor. Get some, try it out on some roasted new potatoes or put it in a crisp sauce for fish (instead of tartar sauce) by adding it and some lemon to sour cream. Or you could always head out to your local high end grocery and see if they have experimented with it all. Even my favorite beer house (The Flying Saucer) serves dill flavored popcorn. It is so versatile and has such a wonderful smell and flavor, I really suggest digging your tastebuds into some dill soon.
Poached eggs are a recent love interest. For many years I did not consider myself an egg person. I would eat them occasionally but only scrambled with cheese or in a very heavy omelet laden with everything I could find in the kitchen. About a year ago, I was at a deli by my old job and they had some hard boiled eggs in the cooler and it just sounded good to me. For the next few months, I probably ate two or three fried or hard boiled eggs a day. It became a little bit of an unhealthy obsession. I would find myself sitting at my desk, daydreaming about going home and cooking an egg to go with dinner. It was, to say the least, bizarre. Since then, I have expanded my egg-ucation (hardy har har) and have graduated to sunny side up, over easy and soft poached eggs (probably my favorite way to eat them now). I was so anti-runny-yolk for so long, I never even gave myself the chance to see what it tasted like. Heaven. That is what a soft poached egg tastes like...licking heaven. You should give it a shot.
So that was my breakfast and it was completely worth it. Nothing too crazy or fatty or over the top. Just a nice, simple 'good morning, Lauren' to myself. It is funny to watch my dog, Hoss, jump around me in anticipation of dropping food on the floor while I cook. My mother says it gives a whole new meaning to the five second rule, having him around, funny little man.
My point in all this is really to you. I have heard so often (and used the excuse myself), 'I hate just cooking for one person'. Or even better, the sad lonely single person 'I would cook more if I had a (insert relationship/family related noun here), but I don't really cook for just me.' I ask you this, why not? Why does another person in your dining room make your kitchen worthy of a full meal? Phooey, I say! I know that not everyone has the luxury of a nice breakfast during the week due to getting up early for work...but to make an excuse for every meal. Even if your excuse isn't the amout of people in your kitchen but the amout of time it takes or how tired you are. I think that we, as people, are so used to getting everything made to order or in under 10 minutes or without even getting out of our car....
Take the time, make a tiny bit of effort and the rewards are immense. Immense as in words can't describe it. It will change your life. Well, maybe it will just change your stomach, and your pocketbook, and the happiness you feel when you look at your kitchen will increase. The best part is, it really isn't all that difficult. Feel like exploring? Want to join me on a recipe adventure? Well put on your party hats and get ready for the easiest BBQ chicken recipe I know (as learned from one of my besties, Val by way of her mother, Mary). I'm going to start you off slow so I don't scare you off. :)
BBQ Coke Chicken
Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts (I'll say 2-4 here, but this can be altered. You'll see, it is easy.)
1 medium to large bottle of BBQ Sauce of your choice (I like to use something sweeter for this particular recipe, but the spicy ones are great too.)
1/2 can of dark soda (I usually use coke, but rootbeer is wonderful for this recipe too. Really any dark soda will suffice as long as it isn't diet.)
Thats it, those are all the ingredients you need. I said this was easy, didn't I?
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Put the chicken in a casserole dish. Cover the chicken with the BBQ sauce, pour in your half can of soda. If you want to do more chicken breasts, just put in a bigger pan (so the chicken is in one layer) and use more sauce and soda. Put in the oven for about an hour. The best part about this recipe is that you can even start with frozen chicken, just add 15-30 minutes to the cooking time (again depending on how many chicken breasts you're using).
And done! Remove the chicken from the sauce (I would test a couple of the pieces by making sure they are not pink at the thickest part) and serve. I will sometimes put a little side of BBQ sauce with each plate, but you don't really need it. This will be the most tender and juicy BBQ chicken you have made in the oven. Do it, try it...it literally takes minutes, if not seconds to prepare. It takes longer for your oven to preheat. It takes longer for you to read this blog!
So there is your first recipe. I hope that you use it and enjoy it. Please give me your feedback. Maybe later today I will post a side dish to go with it in honor of my first week back at school. I'm feeling froggy.
Happy eating and cooking and everything else that makes you merry,
Lauren
'Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.' - Harriet Van Horne
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
The Best Place to Start...
Good afternoon food lovers!
I have been talking about getting this blog/vlog/expression of my most passionate self for almost a year. After some of my trademark procrastination, I'm biting the bullet and starting here...at the beginning.
Welcome to The Happy Food Dance. A child that was born in my heart and moved quickly to my brain and slightly less quicly to my fingers. As a person who has been cooking almost my entire life, I don't think I ever appreciated that there were people in the world who could not navigate around a kitchen. This was most upsetting to me when a former co-worker asked me how to boil potatoes and when even another asked me what it meant to preheat an oven. In this outlet I hope to help you, the novice, become more comfortable with a whisk and sauce pan in your hands. And, as I've just started culinary school, maybe share some tips with a few of you more seasoned cooks. I'll even share some of my favorite recipes and will have some demos up as soon as I can.
Culinary school is more than I could have ever imagined. I have never, in my short 29 years, felt that I was in the right place at the right time. After almost 12 weeks of school, my stomach still turns flips every time I walk in the building. I find myself thinking 'I can't believe I'm really here, I'm really doing this' on an almost daily basis. Chasing a dream has been, and is, the most fullfilling thing I have ever done. It is like jumping off of a cliff...spreading my arms wide for a swan dive into absolute bliss. The first time I made my own bechamel I thought I would cry. Making hollandaise for my best friend's birthday that was better than any that we have had in any restaurant ever was the most fun I've had in a long time.
I've known that I was a talented cook for a long time. In saying that, I didn't know I could cook like this. I didn't know how happy I would be when I got my first callus from cutting so much. Who knew I would get a work out from making sauces from scratch?
After six years (or a lifetime, but who is counting) of doing something that I had no passion for, just taking this first step towards my future has made the difference between night and day. I look forward to walking myself through the next 20 months and I hope you join me.
On that note, time to put on my chef coat for the night.
"Happy and successful cooking doesn't only rely on know-how; it comes from the heart, makes great demands on the palate and needs enthusiasm and a deep love of food to bring it to life." --Georges Blanc, Ma Cuisine des Saisons
I have been talking about getting this blog/vlog/expression of my most passionate self for almost a year. After some of my trademark procrastination, I'm biting the bullet and starting here...at the beginning.
Welcome to The Happy Food Dance. A child that was born in my heart and moved quickly to my brain and slightly less quicly to my fingers. As a person who has been cooking almost my entire life, I don't think I ever appreciated that there were people in the world who could not navigate around a kitchen. This was most upsetting to me when a former co-worker asked me how to boil potatoes and when even another asked me what it meant to preheat an oven. In this outlet I hope to help you, the novice, become more comfortable with a whisk and sauce pan in your hands. And, as I've just started culinary school, maybe share some tips with a few of you more seasoned cooks. I'll even share some of my favorite recipes and will have some demos up as soon as I can.
Culinary school is more than I could have ever imagined. I have never, in my short 29 years, felt that I was in the right place at the right time. After almost 12 weeks of school, my stomach still turns flips every time I walk in the building. I find myself thinking 'I can't believe I'm really here, I'm really doing this' on an almost daily basis. Chasing a dream has been, and is, the most fullfilling thing I have ever done. It is like jumping off of a cliff...spreading my arms wide for a swan dive into absolute bliss. The first time I made my own bechamel I thought I would cry. Making hollandaise for my best friend's birthday that was better than any that we have had in any restaurant ever was the most fun I've had in a long time.
I've known that I was a talented cook for a long time. In saying that, I didn't know I could cook like this. I didn't know how happy I would be when I got my first callus from cutting so much. Who knew I would get a work out from making sauces from scratch?
After six years (or a lifetime, but who is counting) of doing something that I had no passion for, just taking this first step towards my future has made the difference between night and day. I look forward to walking myself through the next 20 months and I hope you join me.
On that note, time to put on my chef coat for the night.
"Happy and successful cooking doesn't only rely on know-how; it comes from the heart, makes great demands on the palate and needs enthusiasm and a deep love of food to bring it to life." --Georges Blanc, Ma Cuisine des Saisons
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