Father Feeds Flock!!!

My friend, Stacey Harvey Pross, posted a version of this recipe on Facebook. It sounded so good that I had to try it. Starting with her recipe, I added a few Todd Touches and here is what came from it. Her recipe called for a can a cream of chicken soup.  I'm not a big fan of condensed soups, so I made cream of mushroom soup and used that instead.  I had some left over roasted chicken, so that's where I started.   Adding green chilies, black olives, tomatillas and cheese completed the filing. One of Staceys suggestions was to use flour tortillas. I wasn't too sure about this, as I would tend to use corn for enchiladas. Showing trust in her, I stuck with the flour. This is such a departure from traditional enchiladas, that I started to  get a little nervous.  Which was unfounded.   These were AWESOME! The mushroom soup added some rich, creamy mushroomy flavor  that was unexpected, but very welcome. ...

I was at Costco a few days ago and saw a package of persimmons. I've never tried them, but been curious.  I bought them and then had to come up with something to do with them. In addition, my rosemary bush is totally out of control and needed some heavy duty trimming.  I plan to make christmas gifts out of the huge rosemary bounty that I now have in my kitchen.  But I digress.... I used my googleskill, and found that there are many recipes that utilize both persimmons and rosemary. Most online searches came back with a bread, cookie or cake. I took that as a sign and started with a cake.  The recipe I used did not include rosemary, but I simply just added rosemary to persimmon pulp. I peeled and seeded 6 persimmons and then put that into  the food processor and blitzed it up a bit.  I purposefully didn't scrape the sides until the end.  I wanted to have some variety in the size of the pulp pieces.  Af...

For the Dutchess' birthday this year (back in October) I got tickets to Michael Buble'.   This was our 3rd time to see him so I wanted to go to a very nice restaurant to add to the experience. I decided to go to John Tesar's Spoon. We had never been, but John was on Top Chef and Spoon came highly recommended from fellow foodie, Brad Murano. Check him out at:  http://www.thebradsblog.com/ We made a reservation and when we showed up they asked us if we wanted to sit at the chef's table overlooking the kitchen....yes, please! The menu was on an iPad, but we knew that we were going to forego that and elect for the tasting menu, at Brad's suggestion. The first thing that came out was King Salmon with Summer Truffle. This was melt in your mouth awesome.  My first taste of truffle and it was extremely tasty. The next course was a Sea Scallop, brown butter, dashi and burgundy truffle.   The unami in this dish was phenomena...

Wanted something yummy, but leaning toward the healthy side tonight. Thought roasted chicken would work, so I paired it with wilted spinach, sauteed baby zucchini and carrot and for dessert... yummy goat cheesecake! First task was to brine the chicken breast.  I used skin on breasts cause I knew that it would help with the pan gravy I was going to make. Plus, crispy chicken skin is quite tasty. Whole pan full of spinach, yields just enough for three people.  Cooked with a little olive oil and butter. I pre-cooked the carrots and baby zucchini in the microwave, then sauteed them in butter with herbs d provence. Here is a close up of the mirepoix from when I roasted the chicken. I placed on the stove burner to get it bubbling, and added a cornstarch slurry. I removed the veggies, and added some chicken stock.  I plated it simply by alternating the veggies and placing a bed of  spinach on the plate and topped it ...

I've never cooked a beer can chicken, so I thought I would try it out. I decided to pair it with tomato duxelle and roasted red potatoes. First I shoved a can of Busch Beer into a chicken and threw it in a 350 degree oven. I added some rub to the skin. The key to duxelle is 2 fold, first you have to chop the mushys quite fine  (add some onions and shallots),  then overcook the mushys till they are brown and dry. Take a tomato and core and seed it, then put the mushy mix in the  cavity.  Then add some parmesan cheese on top and put it in the oven to cook the tomato and melt the cheese. I took the chicken drippings and added some cream and buttermilk, to create a sauce.  I put the roasted potatoes on the plate then poured some sauce on the plate.  I placed the chicken leaning up on the taters. This was an awesome meal! Very tasty and it got 3 thumbs up!

My cousin, Travis Lawton, is a professional photographer. While we were in Washington State to meet his 6 month old daughter Lilah, he snapped some photos.   I wanted to impress my family a bit with some things I learned in culinary school.  I ended up going to  an old family stand by...my mother's lasagna! Since we had lots of people, I decided to make 1 by her exact recipe, and the other one veggie and a bit healthier. Father fed an even bigger flock! No complaints, but we had LOTS of veggie left over!