Colorado

I am heading to Fort Collins, CO for the remainder of the week. Given that Denver, lays claim to the invention of the cheeseburger (The trademark for the name Cheeseburger was awarded in 1935 to Louis Ballast). Who knows what tasty burgers await me?

So my usual post is on Thursdays but I since I will be out of town, why not an early one?

As with most cooks we have a lot of cook books and when I say a lot I mean shelves and shelves of them and as with most home cooks we rarely use them. Last week for dinner it was the usual what to make and we decided to whip out Chuck Williams Simple American Cooking (book is out of print but there is a copy on eBay that I linked to) and make the Baked Chicken with Honey Lemon Glaze.

The recipe is very simple and we substituted skinless chicken breast for the whole chicken cut into pieces.

1 lb boiling onions
I lemon
1/4 cup honey
3 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme or 1 1/2 half dry
2 lbs chicken breast
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tables spoons minced shallot
s/ p to taste
1/2 cup golden raisins (we substituted black raisins when we could not find the golden)

The recipe was wicked simple basically you trim and score the onions bring them to a boil and then simmer for 5 minutes, set aside

Zest the lemon and then add the zest, juice of the lemon , honey and the thyme and set aside


Put the butter and the minced shallot into the baking dish and into the oven 375 until the butter melts. I placed it into the oven while it was pre-heating


S/P the chicken , place in the baking dish and cook for about 10 minutes, remove from oven and flip over the chicken



Coat with the honey mixture and drained onions and cook until done about another 15 minutes or until an instant read thermometer reads 160. The juices should have reduced to form a glaze. If not remove the chicken and put the remaining sauce into a small pot and heat until thickened.


Arrange the chicken and serve.




I would serve this again as it was easy to make and was a big hit. We made our usual salad and a side of asparagus and we were good to go!

You stink!

So a friend of mine who reads Sauces and Stuff commented to me that for a blog about Sauces there are very few recipes about Sauces. While he will remain anonymous, I did point out that it is Sauces and Stuff not Sauces Only. So just for him, here is a very stinky to make but very tasty Sweet and Sour Sauce recipe.

Also many thanks to my new readers and comments!

If you google for sweet and sour sauce recipe you get 1,420,000 results. All of them are basically the same with a few variations on the sweet component. Here is my version-

1/3 cup of sugar
1/3 cup of white champagne vinegar
1/3 cup of water
4 teaspoons of corn starch (dissolved in 4 teaspoons of water)
1/3 cup of apricot preserves (or a small jar)



-Bring sugar, water and vinegar to a boil (the stinky part).

-Remove from heat and stir in two teaspoons of the dissolved corn starch, place back on the heat and bring to a boil. (be careful as boiled over anything with corn starch is messy to clean up)

-Once the mixture is brought back to the boil, immediately reduce the heat to low and continue to cook for about 5 minutes or until thickened.

-If you feel the sauce is not getting thick enough you can add additional corn starch one teaspoon at a time until the desired thickness is achieved. (the sauce will thicken naturally in the fridge and as it settles).

-Add all of the preserves and continue to cook for about another 5 minutes.

If you look closely at the photo below you can see the high marks on the sauce pot where the sauce has reduced by almost half.

I store this overnight prior to serving and serve it at room temperature. Unless you have a Vent-A-Hood in your house, I suggest opening the windows and making this the day before. This is very tasty but very stinky!