Today's fun with the new oven was Toll House cookies. I used the classic recipe but I used Giridelli milk chocolate chips. Yummy!
The new oven's Convection bake setting in addition to using parchment paper made for the most even cooking cookies and no cleanup. I am so in love with my new oven. (Which by the way is a Kenmore Gas range with true convention.)
Now that I have a fancy schmancy new convection oven I have been dying to make some "Beer Can Chicken."
First got an all natural no hormone chicken from Publix - their GreenWise brand. I got some Shiner Bock beer. (It came in a 6 pack box of the right size cans. Since we don't really tend to drink a lot of beer I didn't want to get a big 12 or 24 pack and I wanted to try something new. You have to drink 1/2 the can - (It's in the recipe, I had to do it!) so its good to get a beer you will like. Shiner Bock seems to be a sort of halfway beetween an ale and a dark beer. It has a light taste, but you can taste the hops and yeast. Very nice.
I have a cheapie beer can chicken cooker thingy I got from Big Lots last year. It basically helps hold up the can - nothing fancy. I put it all in another oven proof pan so I could use the drippings to make gravy. Oh god that was some good gravy.
I washed and dried the bird, then I rubbed a mix of kosher salt, Hungarian paprika, garlic powder, and different kinds of fresh ground pepper all over it. I set the oven to convection bake at 425 and when it came up to temperature I put in the chicken with a meat thermometer in it. I like having the meat thermometer because it takes the guesswork out of when your bird is done. A meat thermomter is a cheap item that is useful over and over and doesn't take up much space in your drawer.
In my new oven, the chicken cooked in just over an hour. It came out so yummy! I made a simple gravy with the pan dripping - just adding some corn starch, a buillion/seasoning packet from Trader Joes, and some water. Easy peasy. I served up this lovely tender chicken with rice and green beans.
For New Years Eve I cooked up some of the famous "My Mother's Brisket." That's the name of the Epicurious recipe, not my mother's actual recipe. (Although me and my mom do both make it this way!) I made about 5 pounds of brisket and it was pretty much all gone the next day. I pretty much follow the recipe but after I brown the meat and do the onions I then cook it in the slow cooker instead of the oven. Since my oven was broken at the time that was handy.
Here's my haul - 5 pints! It was a lot of work, but I am pretty proud of myself. I used this recipe but I substituted some red and yellow bell pepper for some of the green tomatoes.
Southern Living - Green Tomato Pickles
After some web searching and deliberation I am going with this recipe:
Here is today's tomato haul. I paid the kids to go out and pick them. I don't think they got them all either, so I will have to motivate myself to crawl around and get the ones tangled up in the bushes. Its quite a jungle back there.
With all this vitamin c I won't need any Wholesale Insurance.
I decided that in addition to addng grill marks to the hot dogs, I would cut up some veggies to go along. I had bought some radishes last shopping trip, I have plenty of cherry tomatoes from the bushes growing on the side of the house, and I had carrots and celery on hand.
Wait, I thought, this is the perfect opportunity to use the pressed glass crudite plate I picked up at Goodwill! Voila, what was once fresh raw vegetables has now become.... Crudité. Isn't that an awesome divided plate? I snagged that right up when I saw it. I love old pressed glass.
In celebration of Mom in Law's visit we took her to a pretty fancy Korean restaraunt - Seo Ra Beol. (Pleasant Hill Road in Duluth, GA) This is the place that used to be Seoul Garden. Not only do they cook the BBQ on a grill in the middle of the table - its a real charcoal grill. It's amazing - they come out with a big bucket of glowing hot coals and put them on the grill then bring out the meat to cook!
Here's a picture that shows all the yummy kimchi sides they bring out and some Gal Bi ribs cooking up. It was so good we ate ourselves silly. (Might need to pick up extra disability insurance - just kidding I was careful)
I had some strawberries on the way to going mushy and realized I also had a bottle of "Simply Lemonade" in the fridge. I thought to myself, "self, I could make strawberry lemonade." Hubster piped up and said "daiquiris?" which got me thinking. So I "unvented" a drink.
This is what I came up with ---
Captain Morgan's Spiced Strawberry Lemonade:
Strawberries macerated with sugar
Simply Lemonade
1 Shot of Captain Morgan's spiced rum
Pour over ice and serve!
Absolutely delicious. I think this would be great blended up in the blender as an iced drink as well.
Cheers!
