Baked Chicken Rose and Feta Stuffed Cucumbers

I've been having a lot of fun with a cookbook that's really old.  It belonged to a friend of mine who recently passed away.  Her hubby showed up at the office with a box of cookbooks.  This was the first one that I pulled out.  Published in 1963 by the Wine Advisory Board it is well beyond dog-eared.  Just as I do, Janet wrote lots of notes on the recipes she tried. And on the ones she wanted to try.  We started with one called Sherried Tomatoes.  Connie inhaled his serving while declaring, "These are some of the best tomatoes I've EVER had."  It was a recipe Janet had marked, "Excellent."

One that she'd not marked tried or to try was called Baked Chicken Rose.  Now, let me mention again that this cookbook is old.  VERY old.  It's of the generation that used convenience foods whenever possible.  So much so that when I found a recipe that called for starting with making chicken stock I was totally shocked.  So, this recipe calls for chicken bouillon and canned mushrooms and margarine.  Things I pretty much avoid or, in the case of margarine, never use.  I also realized that using chicken thighs I could make the whole dish on the stovetop.  It's just plain hot enough that I didn't want the heat of the oven.  What did we think?  I"m so glad there are leftovers!!!  This was a five out of five.  I've never used rose wine in a dish before but I'm certainly going to start now.  Fabulous flavor!!!  If I was someone who had the monthly rotation of recipes, this one would be on it.  But, I don't so all I can say it I'll make it again SOON!

To go with the chicken, I made a salad.  Not too sure what I was going to do, I peeled and seeded a big cucumber.  Then, I cut the halves in half so I had four smallish "boats."  My mind went to my friend Christiane's cucumber salad.  That I love, love, love.  I also could taste a wonderful herb salad.  Out to the herb garden where I cut a big handful of dill and a big handful of parsley.  Those got chopped finely.  Then, out came a tub of feta and the jar of capers.  I added some of each to the bowl of herbs.  Then, I poured in some really good extra virgin olive oil and pretty much mashed the whole thing up.  All of that went into the boats.   Which went onto plates and were topped with a good drizzle of everything aioli.  It's basically a spicy mayo with some tomato and some mustard and some peppers in an aioli base.  It's yummy!  But, you could drizzle over a balsamic glaze or a nice salad dressing just as easily.  We gave this one a five out of five too.  

Here's the recipe for the chicken:

Baked Chicken Rose


Ingredients:

6 chicken thighs, bone -in and skin on
2 T butter
6 T flour
1 c chicken stock
1/2 c rose wine
1/4 c thinly sliced green onions
8 oz box cremini mushrooms
1 T butter
1/2 T soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
14 oz can artichoke hearts (reservc the juice!)

Directions:

Melt the butter in a large skillet.  Sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of the flour over the chicken skin.  Put the chicken thighs in skin side down.  Saute until they're nice and brown.  You're not going to want to eat the skin, but the browning will add flavor.  Flip the thighs and sprinkle on the balance of the flour.  Cook for a few minutes and then pour in the stock and the rose wine.  Allow all of that to thicken a bit.  While you're initially cooking the thighs, in a small skillet saute the sliced mushrooms in a tablespoon of butter.  Once the liquid has cooked off, add in the soy sauce and garlic.  When that liquid has cooked off, remove the skillet from the heat and set it aside.  Back to the thighs...  Add the green onions and the artichoke hearts and juice.  I chopped the artichoke hearts and they pretty much cooked into the sauce.  Next time I'll put another can of them in and cut those in half.  Add the mushrooms and cook until the sauce is thickened.  I had to add a bit more flour to get it as thick as I wanted.  You can serve this over rice, noodles, pasta, bulgur, quinoa, couscous...  Or, just plain. 

Shrimp Pesto Quesadillas and Sausage Sandwiches on French Toast

This week has been clean up the kitchen for two.  First, we had brunch with kids and grandkids at one of our favorite places and brought home hash browns with corned beef and half a eggs florentine. Here's what we had at Uptown Cafe:

Then, I made grandson Bradley's favorite crepes for dinner and made homemade sausages to go along with them. 

For dinner one night I used the rest of the ground pork and made pork burgers using essentially the same mix I'd used for the sausage.  When I couldn't find my Hoosier Mama cookbook with my favorite sausage recipe, I made one up.  And, wound up liking it better.  I can't quote you the measurements but can tell you the ingredients:  ground pork, lemon juice, crushed red pepper, salt, ground black pepper, ground sage, garlic powder and dried onion.  Here's the mix ready to be mixed: 

They were really good on some kaiser rolls with mustard, tomato and lettuce.  Unfortunately, they were inhaled before I remembered a photo!

The leftover sausages got put onto an open faced sandwich.  First I made some french toast using rye bread, milk, eggs and a savory seasoning from Penzeys.  I topped that with some sliced tomatoes, then the sausages, then grated mozzarella cheese.  The whole shebang got topped with a poached egg and some everything bagel seasoning.  Here's what that looked like:

Along the way I bought several clamshells of strawberries on closeout at the stand up the street.  Some went into a strawberry/turkey/almond/cheese/spinach salad topped with a jam dressing (jam, soy sauce, red wine vinegar, whole grain mustard and olive oil) and some went into strawberry daquiris.  Those were thanks to Connie's efforts!

Finally, we were out of leftovers to use up.  Connie wanted pesto.  So, I pulled out my friend Monica's trusty recipe.  Still the best one I've ever had!  Would we do old faithful linguine with pesto?  Or something else?  Shrimp sounded good.  Off to this blog.  I found pesto risotto.  We've made that and loved it.  And, then there was the pesto BLT.  YUM.  Except my heart was set on shrimp.  Ok, on to eatyourbooks.com.  More pesto risotto.  And, all kinds of pasta with pesto and shrimp.  And, then, Kevin Lynch of Closet Cooking to the rescue.  Shrimp pesto quesadillas.  He'd made pesto shrimp and had leftovers and turned it into quesadillas.  I was starting from scratch so used his recipe as inspiration and on I went!

The shrimp were cooked in a bit of olive oil, white wine and garlic.  Monica's pesto was made.   A triple batch!  And, I got the quesadilla ingredients ready to go.  Here's the recipe:

Shrimp Pesto Quesadillas
serves two

Ingredients:
two tortillas
14 - 21-25 size shrimp, uncooked
1 T olive oil
1 T white wine
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 c pesto
1 T olive oil
1 c shredded Italian blend cheese (or mozzarella)

Directions:
Pour the olive oil in a large skillet.  Add the thawed shrimp and saute until one side is pink.  Add in the white wine and the garlic.  Flip the shrimp and cook until the 2nd side is pink.  Remove the shrimp to a bowl and rinse out the pan.  Remove the tails and coarsely chop the shrimp.  Add the other tablespoon of olive oil to the pan.  Lay the first tortilla in and fold it in half so it follows the contour of the pan.  Fold the other one in half and add it to the pan.  Turn the heat on to medium.  Open one tortilla and sprinkle half the cheese in.  Then, so the same to the other.  Next, add the shrimp.  Then, coat the sides of the tortillas that'll fold down on the shrimp and cheese with the pesto.  Once the first side of the tortillas is nice and brown take them out of the pan very carefully and flip them then slide them back into the pan.  I use a plate for this.  Once the second side is brown, plate the quesadillas and drizzle them with balsamic glaze. 

Here's how it looked: