Lou's Just OK Chicken Fricasee

Not the most excellent...but good. Better than edible. What it really is is a dish your grandmother used to make to feed an army of starving mouths living on a budget. I tried to update it (still a starving mouth, but not living on too tight a budget) but the result is the same: it's chicken in a pot with veggies.

A little - well, a lot - more tender and healthier too. I would venture to call it kid friendly if your kids like carrots, celery, and turnips (which you can leave out). Best of all this is SUPER fast and easy; comes together in one pot in under 30 minutes and slow cooks for hours in the oven at low temp.

1 whole chicken breast, bone in, skin on
3 cups chicken broth
2 medium yellow onions, halved and sliced thin
3 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
1 "poultry" bouquet garni*
6 carrots, chopped into 1" pieces
6 celery stalks, chopped into 1" pieces
1 turnip, baseball sized, peeled and cut into 1" chunks
1.5 TBS flour
Salt & pepper
Canola oil

*You can buy a poultry herb mix usually all done up in those plastic herb boxes. If not, make your own with 1 sprig rosemary, 5 sprigs time, and 5 sprigs sage.

On a cutting board, place the chicken breast, skin up, and smash once with the base of your palm or a small sauce pan. All you want to do is break the bone (not yours, the chickens, dip-shit) down the middle so it lays a little flat. Sprinkle the breast with about 1 TSP of salt. In a five quart Dutch oven, heat up 1 TBS of canola oil over medium high heat. Add the chicken breast, skin side down, and brown for about 3 minutes. Flip over onto the bone side and cook another 3 minutes. Brown on each side as well. Set the breast aside, reserving the fat in the pot.

Reduce heat to medium and add the onions. Saute for about 5 minutes until softened. Add the garlic and cook an additional 30 seconds. Then add the flour and stir into the onions; it will become pasty. Cook like this for about a minute.

Add one cup of the chicken broth and stir, the broth will become thickened. Add another cup, mix, and then the final cup. If after the second addition the broth is very thin - like soup - only add another half cup.

Bring to a light boil and add the bouquet garni. Simmer for about 5 minutes and then add the carrots, celery, and turnips. Bring back to a simmer and remove the bouquet. Add salt & pepper to taste.

Halve the chicken breast and cut each piece into thirds. Add to the pot, stir to mix, cover, and place in the oven for about 3 hours or longer.

The chicken will be very tender when finished. Remove as many bones as you can - they'll just come right off - but warn everyone that some smaller ones might still be present. Serve with noodles or rice.

Lou's Most Excellent (Adult) Chicken & Rice

The reasons why our mothers made chicken and rice - that classic cream o'mushroom + rice + chicken mix - are simple. It was quick, easy, and could cheaply feed an army of hungry kids.

It's a guilty pleasure to us all, still. No one wants to admit they love White Trash Cuisine but this dish is one of the hallmarks.

I was mouth-agape/appalled at Paula Deen's take on this. No where does she have fresh anything (except the onion) and to top it all off, you use precooked chicken in it. To her credit, though, to give her dish some pseudofresh crunch she adds in water chestnuts...canned, of course. It's probably the only thing with crunch that comes in a can but I thought it was a neat addition. Still, welcome to the sad state (or future) of American cooking.

This one here, folks, is good enough to feed to guests and doesn't take too much work. You'll need a very large pan for this, either a roasting pan or a 10 x 15. This will not fit in a 9 x 13.

And yes, it still uses canned soup.

1 eight-part cut whole chicken*
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 can Progresso Creamy Mushroom Soup
1 can Campbell's Condensed (of course) Cream of Celery Soup
2 cups Jasmine rice
1½ cups dry white wine
10 Shitake mushrooms, stems removed and sliced into ½" strips
8 carrots, peeled and cut into 1" chunks
4 rutabagas, peeled and cut into ½" cubes
6 parsley sprigs, leaves minced
2 thyme sprigs, leaves minced
3 ounces sliced water chestnuts, rinsed and drained
1 TBS butter
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Pepper

* You can buy whole chickens precut if you want to save time.

Preheat your oven to 325.

Rinse and pat dry the chicken parts. Generously salt and pepper the pieces. In a large skillet add the butter and heat to medium high. Brown the chicken parts, 2 - 3 at a time, for about 3 minutes each or until the skin has browned. For the legs brown each side. Set pieces aside.

[If you notice in my picture, the leg bone near the ankle is exposed. You can do this by cutting a ring around the ankle of the leg prior to cooking with a very sharp knife so you cut through the tough, white tendons. What results is a big, mega-tender, meltingly delicious ball of chicken meat on the end of the bone.]

In a large bowl add the two soups together, the parsley and thyme, and 10 ounces of water (one Campbell's can). Stir to mix and set aside.

Turn the heat down to medium and add about 1 TBS of olive oil and the onions. Saute for about 8 minutes, until the onions are nicely yellowed and near translucent. Add the garlic and saute for 30 seconds, then add the rice and stir to mix for two minutes.

Add the white wine and simmer an additional two minutes and then the carrots, rutabagas, water chestnuts. Saute one more minute and then add the soup mixture. Increase heat to high and bring to a boil.

Lightly butter the roasting pan. Pour in the rice/soup mixture into the pan and spread evenly. Set the chicken pieces, skin side up, on top of the rice with the larger pieces toward the ends of the pan. Cover with foil and bake for 50 minutes.

Voila.

[Or, in Deenish, "VOH-WAH LAH!"]

Lou's Most Excellent Pan Seared Ravioli

While in Whole Foods I called my wife. Putting on a slight exasperated voice, "Honey, I am totally uninspired to cook tonight."

Hoping she'd get the hint and suggest, "Well, why don't we go out and grab some sushi or something?" she then started throwing out ideas. "Nah....doesn't jump at me.....ehhhhhh...." She wasn't giving in.

Foiled, again.

I had some chicken thawing at home that was grill-bound but we needed something else to go with it. Wandering around all the veggies, up and down the packaged and canned sides, nothing was hitting me. Except pasta. I love pasta and Judy does too.

But I needed some kind side to go with it and a big steaming plate of veggies or salad wasn't doing it. Let's combine the pasta and veggies. You know, primavera-ish.

At the end this maybe took less than 20 minutes to make (once I had the water boiling). Two hours prior I was totally uninspired. That evening Judy said, "I'm exhibiting immense self control to not eat more of this."

10 ounce package of fresh four cheese ravioli
1 cup of cherry tomatoes, cut lengthwise
4 ounce jar of Italian marinated artichoke hearts, coarsely chopped; 2 TBS of juice reserved
2 cloves of garlic, minced
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt & pepper

Cook the raviolis according to the manufacturers directions minus 20% of the time (i.e. if it says cook for 2 minutes cook for only about 90 seconds. Drain and quickly add to a large pot of cold water to "cold shock" the pasta. This stops it from cooking so you can continue on later. Leave in the water until ready for use.

In a large non-stick skillet add about 2 TBS of olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and sizzle for 30 seconds then add the raviolis. Continue to saute the raviolis until they're lightly browned on each side, about 3 - 4 minutes per side. Add another 2 TBS of olive oil and turn the heat up to medium high, add the artichokes + juice and tomatoes. Saute an additional 2 minutes gently tossing constantly. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve immediately.

In the future, if I had more time, I'd peel the tomatoes (just quick saute them in hot olive oil - the skins peel off easy) as I'm not much a tomato skin fan. A sprinkling of basil and a little feta might complement well too.

Lou's Most Excellent Spinach Apple Pie

What fun is spinach? It’s boring and your mother used to make you eat it. But what if you could make it taste good?

I’m not saying your kids are gonna eat this, but I certainly would’ve given this a shot if my mommy put it on the table………maybe.

I still, for the most part, hate vegetables. I know I have to eat them and dousing them with Cheeze-Whiz and cream isn't the right way to do it. But I'm trying.

11oz baby spinach, cleaned and drained
1 sweet apple, such as a Braeburn or Fuji, sliced in 1/8 inch pieces
¼ medium sweet/Vidalia onion, sliced paper thin
1 head of fennel, thinly shaved
2 TBS Zante currants soaked in 2 TBS rum for 15 minutes
¼ cup plain bread crumbs (fresh, coarse cut preferred)
Juice of one Clementine (or ½ an orange)
Balsamic vinegar
Unsalted butter
Salt

Blanch the spinach in salted boiling water. Drain, quickly cool under cold water. When cooled squeeze excess water out and set aside.

In a medium non-stick skillet add 2 TBS of butter over medium heat. When butter melts add the apples, onion, fennel, currants + rum, ½ TSP balsamic vinegar, ½ of the Clementine juice and a big pinch of salt. Sweat the mixture until the apples turn tender and floppy, about 8 minutes.

Toss in the spinach and mix well. Move the mixture to the center of the pan into a pile and toss on the bread crumbs. Pour remaining Clementine juice over this and simmer over medium heat for an additional 2 minutes.

Quickly mix the whole thing together and serve immediately.