Jamaican Chicken Stew - Bringing Back an Old Fave

This used to be a staple in our household, something I probably made once a month. It's been years now, for one reason or another, but last night I brought it out of retirement to general acclaim. In fact, it tasted better than I remembered, possibly because I'm using higher quality spices these days. It's a bright and tasty one-dish meal, and since it relies entirely on pantry ingredients, it's easy to put together on a weeknight or at short notice. It also doubles nicely, and makes good leftovers.

I really do need to start taking pictures, this is the most boring-looking blog ever....

I hate Runny Babbit

With apologies to the late Mr. Silverstein, but Runny Babbit has to be the most annoying children's book I have yet come across. The conceit gets old on page 2, leaving the book nothing more than a lengthy and obnoxious earworm. And of course, for several weeks before the holidays, L wanted to hear nothing else every night before she went to bed.

Fortunately, we have gotten off that since Christmas, and on to a collection of Just So Stories that I got her. "The Beginning of the Armadillos" is the current favorite, and many of the characters have started appearing in her play.

January Supper Club - Cheese! Dilled Cheddar Cheese Batter Bread

We were even more slapdash than usual this month, the theme being sent out on Friday before we met on Sunday. I dithered for a while and said what the heck, I'll make some bread. I must have gotten this off the Cooking Light bulletin boards, but I didn't note down who posted it there.

I thought that, being a batter, this would be easy to make, but it turned out to have a few problems in the assembly. The first is that there's a typo in the recipe -- the total amount of flour called for in the instructions is more than specified in the ingredient list. I went with the higher number and I think that was the wrong choice, as my dough was quite stiff, not batter-y at all. Second, I didn't have any dill seeds, which I thought I had somewhere, and certainly no fresh dill. I just used a lot of dried dill.

Finally, it took a really long time to rise. I actually thought that I had killed my yeast, a mistake I haven't made in years, but a poke showed that there were teensy tiny air pockets in the dough, so I upped the temperature and it did eventually puff up. Did fine in the oven, too. And the finished product was definitely worth the trouble! I will make this one again, it was quite a hit with the group.

3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 tablespoons dill seeds, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 cup canola oil
3 eggs, room temperature, beaten to blend
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 package dry yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 1/2 cups packed grated sharp cheddar cheese
3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

Bring first 3 ingredients to simmer in small saucepan; cool to 120°F. Whisk in oil and eggs. Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, yeast, salt and 2 cups cheese in large bowl of electric mixer. Add warm liquid mixture and fresh dill; beat 3 minutes. Add remaining 1 1/4 cups flour; beat 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rise in warm draft-free area until doubled, about 1 hour 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan. Do not stir batter down. Spoon half of batter into pan; sprinkle remaining 1 1/2 cups cheese over. Cover with remaining batter; smooth top. Cover and let rise in warm draft-free area until batter reaches top of pan, about 30 minutes.

Bake until bread is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped, about 45 minutes. Turn out onto rack and cool.

Makes 1 loaf.

The rest of the cheesy dinner:

• D - salad (naturally) - Caesar-type
  
• K - chicken noodle casserole! with cream of mushroom soup and everything. Also ricotta cookies.
  
• F - blueberry blintzes
• P - mini-cheesecakes
  

Dinner was fine, but the dessert buffet was breathtaking, and I was very glad I hadn't make a cheesecake, too!

Mobile Post - Supper Club Ideas

I'm going to use this to keep track of the ideas we've already used, and those we might want to use in the future, and will bump the post up as needed.

Future restaurant suggestions:
111 Chop House
Sole Proprietor
that Italian place that is run by the same people

For future use:
Derby Day
April Fool!
Mother's Day
Starts with __ (Letter)
Spring
German
Polish
Scandinavian
Vietnamese
Ice Cream
Italian (non-Tuscan)
Turkish
non-theme (host picks a main dish)
Movie theme
Herb/Spice theme (a single one, a family, by color...?)
casino night
sleepover
luau


Used (and wow, is my memory bad):
June 09 - Fruit (D's house, and I didn't even realize that we were doing a repeat....)
April 09 - Remembering Pam; meetings go to bimonthly
February 09 - "Stuffed" (D's house)
January 09 - Cheese (K's house)
December 08 - Cookie swap at Framingham Olive Garden
November 08 - "Massachusetts" (H's house)
October 08 - Starts with (first letter of your name)
September 08 - Fruit
August 08 - Stir-Fry
July 08 - Restaurant - Allora Ristorante in Marlboro
June 08 - BBQ/cookout
May 08 - No theme, just a favorite dish
Apr 08 - Eggs
Mar 08 - Green
Feb 08 - Red/pink
Jan 08 - Sandwiches
Dec 07 - Restaurant - Family-style Italian
Nov 07 - Soup night (and a baby shower for me!)
Oct 07 - Pumpkin, squash, or apple
Sep 07 - Back to school (lunchboxes)
Aug 07 - American Cookout
Jul 07 - Restaurant - Thai
Jun 07 - French
May 07 - Indian
Apr 07 - Pizza
Mar 07 - Irish
Feb 07 - Chocolate
Jan 07 - Alpine
Dec 06 - Cookie swap
Nov 06 - Cuban
Oct 06 ? - Greek
Sep 06 - Farmers Market
Aug 06 - Restaurant - Chef Orient (teppanyaki)
July 06? - Crawfish Boil
Jun 06 - Tapas
May 06 - Fish
Apr 06? Baby Shower Tea
Chinese New Year
Wine Tasting
Restaurant - Union Station
Moroccan
Caribbean - my first meeting

It doesn't seem possible that we've been doing this for so long, but I'm pretty sure it was autumn 2005 when I started going.

Korean-Style Noodles with Vegetables (Chap Chae)

First new recipe of the new year! I've had a package of thin rice noodles in my pantry for probably years--I may have bought it with optimist thoughts of spring rolls some long-ago day--and finally used them to make this pleasant but unfortunately not outstanding recipe. To go with it I brushed some boneless chicken thighs with a mixture of hoisin and soy sauce, then cooked them under the broiler.

The recipe made quite a bit, and with a few more vegetables would make a lovely light supper by itself for two or three people.

A Very Quiet New Year

Our plans to drive to the city for a party were derailed by the latest winter storm warning. As it happened, the storm didn't amount to much, but by the time this became apparent it was too late to go (the perils of living an hour away from pretty much everything).

Instead, I made cookies -- Triple Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal, and some more cutout ones to replace the Christmas cookies long since devoured -- to take to a friends' open house New Years Day.


Try though I would, I could not seem to relax and get into a groove with the day. JJ was cranky, L was pesky, and I was snappish, and finally several cookies slid off the sheet as I was putting them into the oven and commenced burning into a smelly mess. Deep breath time. Open windows, turn off smoke alarms, turn on fans. The cookies got done regardless, and I spent some time playing with L before it was time to start dinner.

Given the uncertain planning, we kept it simple -- pizza and a movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas. We had seen it before, but not since just after L was born, and for some reason, I always manage to forget the musical aspect. It remains a very well-done, stylish, and funny film. I was a bit concerned about L, but she didn't seem to be scared by anything that was going on. It's hard to tell at age 4 what she thinks about most things; she has picked up the concept of "scared," but I have yet to see her really frightened about anything. She certainly isn't afraid of dogs or the dark or anything like that so far.

In the course of replying to a post in an online forum, today I opened up the recipe tracking file I started at the beginning of last year. I was astonished to see how much cooking I did back then, and how many new recipes I was trying (62 in three months!), even after I went back to work. Lately I seem to be all out of energy for that sort of thing, and I really hope to get it back.

Here are the presents!

No blogging for a while since we were in PA visiting my mother, and I of course was not cooking (though I did help chop once in a while). My mother does not, as a rule, cook either--it is entirely unfair, in my eyes, that she has not one but two gorgeous Wegmans stores nearby, bursting with fabulous vegetables and so many cheeses I get quite dizzy, while I have the world's crummiest Shaws (I went in there yesterday and they were out of whole chickens--I had to ask at the counter for them to scrounge me up one).

The trip out there went well, though we were delayed getting on the road as one of our cats had a sudden attack of something and wasn't breathing very well. So, rush her to the vet, wait for the vet to get there, and look at her, and tell us that she looks okay now, make arrangements with him to do some tests, arrange with the cat sitter to pick her up later on so that we can finally get going. While on the road the vet called to let us know that our cat has heartworm. Heartworm?! In a cat who hasn't been outside in her entire life? Apparently so.

But, back to the food. My mother (Nana, now that the grandkids have come along) did a good job for our visit--we had squash stuffed with a cheese, breadcrumb, and nutmeg filling one night, and simple roasted veggies over couscous another. My grandmother provided the traditional (for our family) Christmas Eve ham, potatoes, asparagus (cooked to a sorrowful fare-thee-well, unfortunately), corn, and salad. For dessert there were of course Christmas cookies, though I wasn't together enough this year to bring any.

We had gifts with my grandparents Christmas Eve, my mother Christmas morning, and my sister's family Christmas afternoon. Then on Friday we had JJ's first birthday, in which all of the above stopped by my mother's house. JJ seemed to like his cake (the very last Christmas cake they had at Wegmans, as it turned out -- their bakery seemed to have taken the day off, or something...). On Saturday we took the kids to Erie's Children's Museum and let them run around for a while, which was very much needed.

My cooking-related gifts this year were:

• from D, a new pepper grinder (ours had started shedding bits of plastic, not good)
• from D, a new timer/thermometer (ours gave up the ghost on Thanksgiving!)
• from my in-laws, a creme brulee torch! and a book of recipes to go with it (cue Beavis voice...).
  
• from my friend Dottie, a jar of herbes de Provence
  

And L got a cute little apron and chef's hat from her cousin, to wear when she's helping me. She is, by the way, coming along, little by little -- we had Chinese food that first night at Nana's house, and she sat right down and ate some broccoli and a little bit of rice, just like a normal person. She sat down to supper at my grandparents' table and had some salad. Last night, she asked for chicken--didn't eat any of it, but nor did she push her plate away and burst into tears, and she did eat a few bites of green beans. She's even started to let us know that she's hungry, which is something of a miracle.

The trip back was just as delayed as the one out there--the New York State Thruway was inexplicably closed at the PA end, so we turned around and took I-86 across NY instead. It was reasonably pretty, but it did take a bit longer than we would have liked. When we got home, we opened up a couple of cans of soup and called that supper.

Yesterday I spent most of the day doing laundry, and made a quick run to the grocery store. For my first night back in the kitchen, I roasted a chicken with garlic and herbes de Provence, put together a rice pilaf (the potatoes at Shaws being, of course, all green...), and steamed some green beans. Simple as it gets, and I quite enjoyed it.

A few days of vacation left, and enough on my "to do" list to energize without overwhelming me (for now). Bring on the new year!