Chicken Divan

You might think, golly, Chicken Divan, there are a gzillion recipes for Chicken Divan. Pick one.  This is certainly not adventurous or dangerous cooking. I agree. 
I was reviewing some recipes, and came across this and thought it an easy dinner to make. The recipe called for cream of chicken soup. Which I did not have on hand. More often than not I don't keep such cream soups in the house. I learned from AB years ago to create a homemade sauce and use that. So, I said to myself "self, use the lesson you learned". 
Made the roux, added the milk along with sour cream and mayonnaise. Well, this recipe didn't call for sour cream, but, others do. Then, in goes colby-jack shredded cheese (I used Sargento's); of course some salt and pepper. Diced and sautéd the chicken in my everyday pan with cumin, curry, salt and pepper. Juices accumulate, this turns out to be a good thing. Dump the cheese sauce into the cooked chicken. Dump the broccoli into the bottom of the pan. Pour the chicken and cheese on top. Bake. 
One key seems to be the addition of cumin. I did that one time by mistake. While making a different recipe for Chicken Divan, I reached for the curry. Then, after it was already in discovered I had a jar of cumin in my hand. Cumin. Curry. Yeah, they are about the same color and consistency. Not quite in taste. But, we love cumin around here, so I figured "what the heck". Easy mistake, huh? Turned out delicious.

Chicken Divan
Recipe By: Sue
Serving Size: 10
Yield: 13x9 casserole

Cheese Sauce:
2 10 ounce packages frozen broccoli
3 tablespoons butter, melted in saucepan
3 tablespoons Wondra flour
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons sour cream
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 cup colby jack cheese, shredded 

Chicken:
4 chicken breasts, boneless, skinless
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
Salt and pepper to taste
Topping options
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated cheese
1 teaspoon butter
Fresh parsley flakes

Directions:
Arrange the broccoli on the bottom of the dish
Melt butter in saucepan until foam has dissipated. Add flour; a pinch of salt and pepper and mix together well and let cook 3-5 minutes. Slowly whisk in milk. Whisk in sour cream and mayonnaise. Mixture will be thick.  

Pour about 1 Tablespoon, once around the pan, vegetable oil in skillet or other wide pan. Sauté chicken along with spices (curry, cumin, salt and pepper). Let cook until chicken is opaque. Chicken will cook more in the oven, so it doesn't need to be completely cooked through. Juices will accumulate in the pan. 

Off heat, pour cheese mixture into cooked chicken. Mix together and pour over broccoli. 

Top with your choice of grated cheese and bread crumbs. You may mix bread crumbs with melted butter for a crisper topping. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. After baking, you may garnish with parsley. Serve over noodles or rice.

Kuhlua Cheesecake

So begins birthday season in our house. Bear with a little history here. Some years ago, not being a huge fan of cake, I requested a cheesecake for my birthday cake. Phil came through with flying colors. Yes, he made it himself! This started something: a tradition of cheesecake birthday cakes. 


This year, Nathan requested a Kuhlua Cheesecake. In scouring recipe sites for a place to start, all I found were chocolate laden recipes with a teeny bit of Kuhlua. What's up with that? I wanted the cheesecake filling to taste like the drink. There is no chocolate in a Kuhlua and Cream drink. I finally stumble on a Cappuccino Cheesecake recipe at Better Homes and Gardens. To get that Kuhlua and Cream taste it seems this needs less tweaking than some of the others. 

My version trades out half the espresso, because I didn't want it to taste like coffee. Adds in Kuhlua. I saved out cookies from the crust, as it seems too thick. I think I could make half as much and be ok. Same with the ganache - saved out half, but still have a lot left over. Everyone agreed the flavor of the cream cheese filling was just perfect.


Layers of the cake:

• Chocolate Graham cracker crust
• Chocolate Ganache
• Cream Cheese filling
• Frosting of cream cheese, sour cream sugar and a hint of vanilla
• drizzled with extra chocolate ganache.

Deep fried wings and easy hot sauce

WINGS:
Can I make wings as good as the my favorite wingeries (wing restaurants)? I have been a wings fan for a long time and a few years ago I decided that it was time to take matters into my own hands. Part of my research consisted of repeatedly watching "Throw down with Bobby Flay" where he challenges Wing King Drew Cerza at the famous Anchor Bar, watching Alton Brown steams and then bakes his wings (Sorry AB, but no way! ), and visiting various restaurants in the area. I like traditional un-breaded wings. And after many batches, I also like to season the raw wings with creole or chipotle seasoning salt.

Cooking the wings is really straight forward: season wings (liberal coating), oil(peanut), temperature(375 deg.) and time(10 min). Something I found interesting is that all of the episodes of deep frying chicken say 350 degrees. I tried a batch at 350 to 10 minutes and waited, 15 and waited, 17 minutes and the were finally done. They didn't turn out right. Adjusting the thermostat up to 375 and I started getting the results I wanted in the 10 min time frame.

EASY HOT SAUCE:

I've made an easy sauce which works in a pinch but I'm still not satisfied when I compare what the local restaurants serve. Here it is, submitted for you approval: 1 cup Franks Hot or Xtra Hot sauce, 2 cloves of garlic, 1/2 stick butter. Enjoy.

Homemade Krispy Kream Donuts

I had a hankerin' for donuts. I also have an affection for fresh hot krispy cream donuts. However, the nearest Krispy Kreme shop is 38 miles away. However, my desire for the convenience confection treat was much more appealing in the coziness of my kitchen with a hot cup of joe. I set out and did the next best thing...I found a recipe on google. I took the first result for "homemade krispy kream donuts recipe" and began.

I followed the recipe (for the most part). There were steps missing in the instructions and I replaced the shortening with real butter. I let the donuts rise in a 200 degree oven before I fried them. They were very good and mostly fluffy. They were not dense like a cake donut. I found the longer they rose the lighter they were. Which makes sense, but I'm so used to homemade donuts being heavy and more like cake.

NEXT DAY UPDATE:

The true test is the next morning. After trying 1-day-old-donuts I think I still need to do some research (this was done on a whim). The bread isn't sweet and glaze I made needs work. They were really good fresh, so I'll chalk this one up to experience ~b

Spaghetti with Meatsauce

Does kicking up jarred spaghetti sauce with onions, peppers and oregano and ground beef count as cooking dangerously? Since today involved a rather extensive recipe for cheesecake, perhaps so. The cheesecake episode will be revealed due time. At the moment it is sitting in the oven coasting to the finish line while the doctored meat sauce simmers on the stove. 

Salsa

Salsa has been a staple for quite sometime. Bill started it. Gave the recipe to us. I played with it, never changed the ingredients just modified the order of items in the food processor. Phil requested an alteration to the chunkiness - that is more chunky. The other night we made chicken enchiladas and the salsa for a topping. 

Yum.

Nagasaki Beef

This stir-fry dish was originally introduced to me and my wife Lauren about 10 years ago. Nagasaki beef uses miso which is a paste that is fermented from barley, rice and soy.

To make, I combined soy sauce, miso, sesame oil and sugar into a smooth sauce. It's very aromatic. I also found some black soy sauce which is made with molasses. Then blended it half and half with regular soy sauce to make a nice sweet and salty mix. The sirloin steak is cut into strips and marinated in the sauce. Sue showed me that cutting against the grain for the beef strips helped to keep the meat from becoming chewy. The cooked strips were tender and didn't require any gnawing. Next, after 20 min. it was time to sear them in the wok.

Since this is a meat heavy dish it needs a nice side of vegetables. I stir-fried some green beans with an orange pepper and threw in some garlic.

The only thing left is to serve, eat. Wow, tender and delicious.

French Onion Soup

Combining Julia Child and Cook's Illustrated recipes for French Onion Soup we come up with a version all our own.  Julia suggests 1 1/2 pounds of onions. Cooks' Illustrated, 4 pounds. We went with the 4 pounds. Julia suggests beef stock and white wine. Having been on a search for the best tasting French Onion Soup some years ago, we had decided those made with chicken broth more tasty. Thus, I went with chicken stock. It took longer than the 40 minutes to caramelize, but it was worth the wait. Once the onions caramelized, in went the stock and spices (thyme, bay leaf, salt and pepper) to simmer for another hour. I had toasted some bread slices. After floating them on top and topping with shredded gruyère cheese I broiled the bowls. Gruyère cheese has a distinctive smell when broiled that the children thought repulsive. The next time, I think I will take the baking to melt the cheese option.

Pancakes

Another "test" of King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour. Here with a modified recipe for pancakes. In the past use of another all-purpose flour produced acceptable pancakes. The use of Bisquick also produced acceptable pancakes. Being dangerous, the substitution of King Arthur All-Purpose Unbleached flour produced stunningly light and fluffy pancakes.


Yum.

Pizza

Bill has been developing this pizza recipe for some time. I think we have reached perfection. Doesn't it look yummy!? In making the pizza with different flours, his has learned that the King Arthur flour makes the crust crispy and flavorful. Cooks' Illustrated states this about the gluten content of flours:


"High-protein flours are generally recommended for yeasted products and other baked goods that require a lot of structural support. The reason is that the higher the protein level in a flour, the greater the potential for the formation of gluten. "


For this pizza dough recipe, this statement holds true. Therefore, we use King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour.

If you'd like to make your own pizza, here's a good place start.


If you are a member of Cooks' Illustrated Online, you can read the test results: click here.

Off we go

On New Years Day 2010, under the influence of Julia Child and Julia Powell, Susan Bour and Bill Davenport decide to embark on the assembly of a TasteBook cookbook. In the ensuing discussion, we realized that we need to document the discussion and discovery that go into the recipes we create and/or modify. This blog is our discussion.