Cran-Apple Chicken

Behold: the Deliciousness

Mash 2 tbsp butter with garlic powder, sage, thyme, and cinnamon.  Rub the flavored butter all over some chicken legs, then place them in a baking dish.

Peel & chop a Fuji Apple.  Rinse 1 c of frozen cranberries.  Scatter the apple pieces and cranberries over the chicken.  Pour some apple cider over the chicken until the dish is about half-way full of cider. 

Bake at 425 for 50 minutes.  Cover with foil for the last 20 min or so, when the apples start to dry out.  

Eat the deliciousness.

yum!

 leftovers for the weekend

Heart-attack Guinness Gumbo

Last year, a friend and I decided to enter the annual gumbo cook-off at the Pub.  We got up early that day, cooked all morning, showed up, and won.  Lots of fun.  So naturally this year we had to do it again.  This time, we started cooking at 8 PM the night before.  Since we were making it even awesome-er than last years, it took longer.  I didn't get home til 2 AM.  Good thing we didn't try to make it the morning of...it wouldn't have been done in time!

Here's a picture of last year's Heart-attack Gumbo:

Here's a picture of this year's Heart-attack Guinness Gumbo:

(there really is Guinness in it...yum)

Interesting that they are the same color...we spent way more time on the roux this year.

I'm not entirely sure how long it took last year, but we definitely did NOT spend an hour and forty-five minutes on it like we did this year.  

That's right, we whisked our roux non-stop for an hour and forty-five minutes. True dedication.

I was a little bit disappointed when I woke up this morning and my right arm hadn't doubled in size from that workout.

I can't give you our recipe or top-secret secret ingredients, but I can give you lots of pictures because I was having fun with my new camera.

meet Meg:  the only witness to the gumbo-magic

The Cooking

the chicken...heavily seasoned

The seasoning mix, thrown together by yours truly.  There was absolutely no measuring involved.

I threw a bunch of stuff into this bowl, and the bowl got dumped into the gumbo.

mushrooms, green peppers, onions, celery

some of the seasonings

BACON!

chicken thighs, cooking away in their bacon-grease bath

browned chicken waiting to go into the gumbo

Somehow our roux started out orange. The colors are a bit skewed here, but it looked a lot like tomato soup.  It eventually turned a very light brown, and then sloooowwwly darkened.

whisk...whisk...whisk some more...

The Cook-off

The tasting.  

There were only 4 entries this year.  They were all good and the rankings were pretty close, it got a lil tense as we watched the points coming in, but our gumbo pulled through and won in the end.

I think there ended up being 15-20 tasters.  They each got a tray with the 4 samples and gave each one a ranking from 1-4.

4: Deliciousness in your mouth

3: Yuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmy

2: Good

1: I'll eat it

All the points were added up and the gumbo with the most points won.   

Ours ended up with sixty-something points I think.

We each had a bowl of ours after the competition.  

We played countless dart games this afternoon, needed something to do while we drank our Guinness and waited for the results of the cook-off.

Looking forward to next year, when we will win for the 3rd year in a row!  

Nope, I'm not modest at all.

quick & simple veggies

shave a small zucchini and a medium carrot

heat some olive oil in a skillet, add the veggies, sprinkle on some garlic powder, and cook them up

make a meal

veggies, pork chop w/melted gouda, pasta

Don't forget the cinnamon-apple cider!  

(my favorite part of fall)

After years of waiting, I gave in and bought myself a DSLR camera.  I've had it for about 24 hours and I'm already in love.  It takes low light and night pictures (something NONE of my other cameras have done...always drove me crazy)  and it's just so much fun to play with!  Definitely my favorite "toy."  Hopefully I'll be able to make my food look even more scrumptious for you now.  

Look what it can do:

silly pony has apparently been spending too much time leaning on the fence

night time

If I'm not too tired in the morning and the weather cooperates, I'm gonna try to get up early and get some cool sunrise/fog rising pictures.  

Cranberry-Mustard Dressing

INGREDIENTS

3/4 c fresh or frozen cranberries

two small chunks of fresh ginger

rice vinegar

mustard

olive oil

DIRECTIONS

rinse the cranberries

grate the ginger

put them in a food processor along with:

a large squirt of mustard 

some rice vinegar

a whole bunch of olive oil

blend it up

pour it on some salad

yum

arugula, carrot, radish, zucchini

add pork

add salad dressing

add some tortilla chips for crunch

Cranberry Sauce

1/2 c water

1/2 c apple cider

12 oz fresh cranberries

heaping 1/4 c brown sugar

2 tbsp cocoa powder

Put the water, cider, cranberries, and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil.  Stir occasionally.  (I used a non-stick saucepan, you may need to stir more consistently if yours is not non-stick).  Let boil for a few minutes, then add the cocoa powder and stir it in well.  Cranberries are officially done when they have "burst."  I cooked mine until I liked the thickness of the mixture.  I taste-tested it with some bread this evening, but my real plan for this sauce is to use it as a pancake topping.  I'll have to wait til morning for that. I'll probably add some pictures of that in the morning after breakfast.  And of course I'll let you know how it tasted on top of a chocolate-chip pancake.  Side note: I am super-excited to make my pancake with apple cider tomorrow!  I've been missing cider pancakes since...cider disappeared from grocery stores at the end of the last cider season.  

As for this evening's taste-test, the sauce is pretty tart.  I know I didn't add nearly enough sugar, but being the sugar-hater that I am, I was willing to risk tart.  Much better than sickeningly sweet.  It's a lot easier to add sugar than take it out!  I'll see how it tastes on the pancake tomorrow, and I may decide to add a bit more sugar, who knows?

I had fun taking pictures of the water while I was rinsing off the berries.  My camera actually managed some cool pictures.  Usually it drives me crazy by not focusing on what I want it to.  These pictures aren't perfect, but they're pretty stellar for my little point & shoot!

Breakfast is Served:

this

 plus this

equals this

Pretty tasty.  I would say that this experiment is a success.  I almost like cranberries now.  I think I forgot to mention earlier that I don't really like cranberries.  But you may have noticed by now that I like to find ways to change my mind about foods I don't like. Tis the season for cranberries, so I'm sure there will be more cranberry-filled things appearing here in the near future.