Towse: views from the hill

Last night we used up the last few pieces of chicken from the rotisserie chicken I bought for the book club meeting here 04 January. That meeting was canceled because of issues with the sewer — alas — and we found ourselves with a $5 rotisserie chicken from Costco for the second time in our lives.

(Why don’t we buy rotisserie chickens more often? Is it because I think, “I can cook my own chicken! Why do I need to buy a pre-cooked chicken from Costco?” That Monday was a day of upsets, though, with several issues precluding a home-cooked meal for the bookers. Then, after all that, the sewer problems. …)

We had chicken legs &c. on Monday, January 4, for dinner. Salad. Garlic bread. Chicken again the following night or maybe two.

A week later, this Monday, we took the solid pieces of chicken off the carcass and saved them and threw the carcass and the wings into a pot and made chicken vegetable soup w/ spaetzle. Finally, we’re coming to the end of the chicken and have had … eight-plus meals out of it? Amazing. (And despite me eating chicken soup w/ spaetzle for breakfast twice since the 11th, we =still= have another serving of soup and spaetzle left as well. …)

I made mole sauce last night and popped the cooked pieces of chicken leftover from the 11th in the sauce and let them simmer a bit before serving. Delish.

Chicken Mole recipe (a snap, a cinch, easy-peasy)
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Large heavy pot of a proper size to hold everything.

Add ~ 2T olive oil to the heated pan. Heat oil. Add 1 small onion, chopped. Stir around while it browns.

While it’s browning, chop 2-3 garlic cloves. Put in custard cup. Add to custard cup
2T chili powder
1t ground cumin
1/2t ground cinnamon.

When the onion is showing signs of browning, toss the garlic and spices in on top. Stir until you can smell them toasting.

Add one can diced tomatoes. (I used Hunt’s fire-roasted diced tomatoes w/ garlic)
Add a cup or so of Trader Joe’s ménage à trois peppers, chopped. (or one green pepper, chopped)
Add 10-oz chicken broth.
Add large spoonful of peanut butter (adds some bass tones to the sauce)
Add 2 oz. chocolate, broken into smaller pieces. (Bitter preferred, but if there’s no bitter in the house, any dark chocolate w/ >70% cocoa. DO NOT EVEN THINK OF USING MILK CHOCOLATE!)
Add two chipotle peppers, chopped, if you have them, or some chipotle pepper salsa if you don’t, or don’t worry about it if there’s no chipotle peppers of any sort in the house. The flavor =is= a nice addition if you have it.

Keep stirring sauce on heat until the chocolate’s melted and the peanut butter has blended in. At this point, you throw in the chicken pieces, if you are not dealing with leftover chicken.

In either case, keep stirring and bubbling until the sauce has reduced to the thickness you’re happy with. (And the chicken is cooked, if you weren’t dealing with pre-cooked chicken.) A bit before then, I put the pieces of cooked chicken in so they’d absorb some of the flavors before serving.

Tonight I plan to cook a few boneless chicken thighs and toss them in the (leftover fr last night) mole sauce and have an encore performance.

Delish. (And easy-peasy!)
(w/ hattip to Paula Deen, whose recipe is the foundation of this one. …)

Chop. Chop. Chop. Garlic. Onions. Carrots. Celery. Brown a bit in olive oil. Add bay leaves, 8C water, leftover bits of a denuded roast chicken: meaty bones, wings, whatever. All tossed into the pot. Bubble for 2hrs.

Strip the chicken off the bone and tear into shreds and add back into pot. Discard bones. Retrieve bay leaves & discard.

Add some leftover chicken salvaged from the pre-denuded roasted chicken to the pot. Taste. Add Herbes de Provence. Bring to boil then shut off.

Boil some water. Make spaetzle. Strain spaetzle. (Made four batches worth so I didn’t overwhelm the boiling water.) Add butter and toss spaetzle.

Reheat soup. Serve. (Me) : Spaetzle in the bowl, covered w/ soup. (He): Buttered spaetzle on the side. Soup in a bowl.

Since Sunday, chimes had jangled like mad. Jets took off in the other direction from SFO’s runways to adjust for winds from the south. Clear signs our first rains of the season were coming. Cue early morning hours. Pelting rain. Creaking trees…. Wild winds. I was awakened when a heavy set of chimes ripped from its moorings and landed downhill.

I sat next to the windows yesterday, watching the storm beating down. The wind sometimes blew the rain sideways. The parrots were in hiding.

A supper of stew seemed in order. I had no beef suitable for stewing in the house, so I opted for chicken. I was going to make Gentse Waterzooi, which his nibs adores, but had no leeks and no intention of leaving the house to pick up ingredients.

Here is what we wound up with for supper last night.

[RECIPE] Not Chicken Waterzooi

6 chunks of boneless chicken thighs cut into large pieces
2 large carrots, cut into chunks. (Next time I’ll shred them as is more proper for Waterzooi, but I was being lazy yesterday.)
half a large yellow onion, chopped
leftover grilled strips of trumpet mushroom and onion from the Bixby weekend

Toss into a crock pot with 1 1/2C chicken broth, parsley, mixed herb seasoning.

Let burble for several hours until the chicken and carrots are tender. Add as much frozen O’Brien hashbrown potatoes as you’d like to the mix. Cook until the potatoes are tender.

Serve in large soup bowls.

No added heavy whipping cream. No thickeners beyond the natural thickening talents of carrots and potatoes.

Delish.