Episode 5: A Bird in the Pan

This episode is made up of just one recipe, B&B Chicken, which I believe stands for butterflied and broiled. But, after getting to step 4, I realized why Alton cut us some slack this time....butterflying a chicken is no joke! I've never butterflied a chicken. I never even knew you could butterfly a whole bird. But, here goes. Ed and I both read the 4-paragraph description on how to complete this task...several times. And, it took my tad of restaurant knowledge mixed with some of Ed's brute force actually carry out the task. But, I feel much more knowledgeable about chicken butchering these days! It really wasn't as hard as we were making it out to be. We used the directions for using a "really big knife", and it worked out quite nicely. I do see where Alton's method of scissors would work out a little better though. We just don't have any scissors lying around that I would propose we grub up with chicken goo. So, we cut the back bone out, and leveraged the keel bone out. Oh yeah...new vocab word: keel bone--small bone between the two breasts of a chicken, covered in a clear membrane, easily breaks in younger chickens where bone turns to cartilage (aka the calicification line). The garlic, and especially lemon, add an enormous amount of flavor. This recipe is complete with fun words--like gremolata! It was just fun to rub the gremolata inside the chicken skin (another new technique I will be using). I do love this method of cooking a whole chicken. I've baked whole chickens before, but it usually takes a slightly longer time. And, this just has a completely different taste, so it's a great cooking method to add to the repertoire! I think I may deduct about 5-8 minutes from the cooking time the next go-round--there was a little more char on it than what I think is necessary. Or, perhaps my cooking rack was slightly too high. Either way, this was all yummy! The chicken was really moist on the inside, and was easily carved with a regular ole knife. I loved the sauce--the taste of red wine owns me! Ed wasn't completely sold on the sauce, but he thought the chicken was awesome! We both took leftovers for chicken the next day, and the sauce really helped to not dry the chicken upon re-heating. This is a recipe we'll have again, but just when we have some time...maybe Saturdays or Sundays. I mean, now that we know how to butterfly a chicken, I feel like we're golden!!

Episode 4: Salad Daze

This episodes recipes caught me a little off guard--first, there is a recipe for a salad dressing. Next, there is a recipe for a salad. I concluded, wrongly, that I could use the dressing on the salad. Nay! The salad recipe is complete with dressing. The first one we tried was the Hail Caesar Salad. Caesar salad--simple enough, eh?! Not when you're making everything yourself. I am a personal fan of the caesar-salad-in-a-bags in the produce section. But, I suppose I really should expand my horizons in this arena. Besides, Alton says that people have really butchered a simple salad. I refuse the accused of such a thing...so here goes. I got the day old bread on the clearance shelf at my local grocer. It's already day old there....and, it's cheaper. HELLO! So, I sliced the bread, dried it out, and tossed it with some garlic-infused olive oil. The one problem we did run into with this recipe, is that we don't have a mortar and pestle for food preparation. It's now on the lists of "needs" for our kitchen! We used the back of a spoon against the side of a bowl. As Alton points out in the book--there is really no substitute for a mortar and pestle, and the spoon-bowl contraption worked like crap! So, I just smashed the garlic as much as possible, and left it with the oil in the pan. It worked well enough, in my opinion because the croutons were the BEST part! Anyway...we made the salad, raw eggs and all. I didn't pay much attention to the recipe ahead of time, so we had waaaay too much salad for the two of us, but it was good. I think I was a little shy with the salt. I added what I thought was enough, but it was begging for more upon first taste. So, a little bit more, and BAM! Oh, wait...that's a different chef. The croutons really were the best part of this whole recipe. There were some leftover that we stored in a zip-top bag at room temp. We've eaten them several times since then! Overall--I think this recipe cured my opinion of salad-in-a-bag syndrome. But, I will probably still use the dressing-in-a-bottle....or more likely the other recipe from this episode: Veni Vedi Vinaigrette. We used a shaker bottle to make it. After discovering that the salad recipe had its own built-in dressing, we stored the dressing at room temp until the next day, when we had a tossed salad (with more croutons, of course) topped with this vinaigrette. It was pretty delicious. And, it makes a good bit that we still have a little on hand. It's also made of things that I always keep around, so that makes it even easier to throw out the bag...and bottles that I'm so accustomed to.

Episode 3: The Egg-Files I

I was pretty pumped about this episode because I always have all of the ingredients on hand! And, I mean, it only takes 5 ingredients total! Eggs Over Easy and Scrambled Eggs should be some of the easiest recipes ever...buuuuuut, Ed likes his eggs over easy, and I can never get them right. And, well, I always over-cook scrambled eggs. I guess it's the fear of not cooking them enough that always gets to me. In this episode, we learned all about the anatomy of an egg. What I always thought was just a white and a yolk, is really 5 parts! We did our best with the Eggs Over Easy. Ed tried first. We concluded that the pan wasn't hot enough. I think that when Alton refers to "low" heat, he's using a gas stove, and we have an electric stove. So, we turned the heat up to medium, and I tried my hand at runny eggs. I was a half failure at the flip--one of the yolks popped on the landing, but the other one stayed intact. Ed's second attempt was more successful than mine. He did get the egg to completely flip, but one of his 2 yolks also busted. So, we both had 1/2 runny eggs! Lol.

I didn't think that I liked runny eggs, but it turns out--I do! For the Scrambled Eggs, we doubled the recipe (but shouldn't have after the other eggs!). It cooked exactly as described in the cookbook. Ed LOOOOOVED the them, but I had a textural issue with them. They are much fluffier, and more moist since you add milk. My problem was that the consistency was more like cottage cheese, maybe. And, I suppose that is why I always over-cook the scrambled eggs I make. We did add a little cheese to the top of them, and well, that part was yummy to me! Overall, this was a good episode because I learned something new--that I can't flip an egg without busting the yolk. No, really--I learned that I do like eggs over easy, and I'll definitely be making them next time we have brinner (breakfast for dinner

Episode 2: This Spud's For You

This episode is complete with a little chemistry lesson about starches. Which, although I have a little chemistry background, it was nice to relate it to something yummy this time around! I will say that I learned all about the different types of potatoes, and what makes them different from each other! We used red potatoes and russet potatoes to make Mashers. And, then there was this delicious concoction of milk, heavy cream, and garlic to mash in with the potatoes. Yummmmy! I think these mashed potatoes may be the easiest I've ever made sans a box of flakes. And, they definitely have the fewest ingredients with the most flavor. Those garlic cloves just infuse the cream to a milky yummy goodness. We'll for sure make this again. It's good, makes a huuuuge pot of potatoes, and is great as your making other dishes because there are a couple of 15-20 minute wait times. The second part of this episode is Masher Cakes in case you have leftover mashed taters. Because, who would have thought, we do actually have leftovers after making a measly 4 pounds of potatoes! Since it's lent, and we've given up grains, we can't make the Masher Cakes until after Easter. But, stay tuned, as soon as we can, we'll be on that like fat kids on....well, a spudcake!

Episode 1: Steak Your Claim

The first episode includes a simple way to cook a couple of ribeyes and a cognac/cheese dipping sauce. The Pan-Seared Ribeye Steak was seasoned with a little salt and pepper, and combined stove-stop searing with oven cooking. Then, we used the same pan to make the cognac sauce. I was skeptical about the cognac sauce, but it was delicious! The Cognac Pan Sauce is just cognac, butter, and some gorgonzola cheese.

You can pour it over your steak, or put it in a ramekin for dipping....Ed and I used different techniques!

Ed says: The steaks were quick, easy, and almost a perfect medium-rare. Sooo yummy!