Chicken and Waffles

I'm not a big fan of leftovers. I can manage eating a copy of a meal once before I need to really repurpose it or risk it going sideways in the fridge while I avoid it. To minimize this, I seem to try cooking less or inviting guests to reduce the potential amount of leftovers that I need to deal with. This time, however, I felt particularly inspired and wanted to reinvent the leftovers into a dish of its own merit and tastiness.

Enter, chicken and waffles, leftovers extraordinaire from a spectacular roasted chicken and cheese souffle dinner. I have had a few incarnations of fried chicken and waffles in restaurants. Definitely tasty. Definitely a biiiiiiig meal. Barring the fried chicken, why couldn't I make a roasted chicken and waffles dinner? (Or, for those of you facing pounds of leftover turkey, make roasted turkey and waffles??) Cheesy, herbacious waffles... warm fragrant chicken... smothered in gravy... dabbed with maple syrup. What's not to like??

Roasted Chicken with Cheese Souffle

I started my day with a few welcome lattes and laziness before moving on to attempt cultured butter for Cheesepalooza (which I will write about another day). Of course, though, I wasn't entirely focussed on the cheese between making my next latte and reading my book... and what happens?? I scald the cream. It was well well well beyond the required temperature for the butter. Instead of waiting for it to cool down (and even chancing that it could work after being burned like that), I stopped. What does one do with a pot full of scalded cream? Well, make creme brulee, of course! (Yeah, I can see your eyes rolling at that "of course." haha)

So, then I decide to give Julia Child's creme brulee recipe another try... I don't always have success with it setting up without a requisite water-bath but I continue to try. If it doesn't set, brulee it anyway! It's still a success, it's just not creme brulee... it's creme anglaise bruleed! (Whip the eggs, add the sugar, temper the eggs, then incorporate the required cream. Ladle into ramekins, then set in the fridge to cool.)

Now I have six little creme brulees cooling. What is the next logical step? Well, the next logical step would be to invite people for dinner, right? I certainly cannot eat (or rather allow myself to eat) six creme brulees on my own, so I need to invite people to join in the eating.

There was still a bit of scalded cream left, so it seemed only reasonable to melt chocolate into it, add two egg yolk, add a splash of cointreau, then ladle into little ramekins as well for little pot au cremes. Yep. 

Well, the byproduct of making creme brulee other than using up that scalded cream is that now I have a bowl full of egg whites. Six to be exact. What to do when faced with egg whites and a dinner party? Time to make souffle!

To recap, I went from cultured butter to scalded cream to creme brulees to dinner party to pot au creme to souffle. Even my eyes are rolling now...

Roasted Chicken with Thyme, Sage, Parsley and Rosemary

Aged Cheddar Souffle

Green Beans with Butter and Smoked Salt

Mixed Greens with Cherry Tomatoes and Homemade Feta

Creme Brulee and Chocolate Pots with Berries

Roasted Chicken with Maple Butternut Squash Risotto

Two of my absolute favourite things to cook are the jumping off point for this fantastic Sunday (or any other night) dinner... roast chicken and risotto. I see both as blank canvases where you can add seasonal flavours or elements to make a crowd-pleasing meal at any point during the year. A roast chicken and risotto in spring might feature loads of lemon, mint, and young new green peas. A roast chicken and risotto in the winter might feature root vegetables from the cold room, rosemary, and lots of red wine. 

On the cusp of a short fall and a clawing winter, I felt like this sort of comforting, transformative meal was exactly what our household needed after a long overdue weekend of relaxation and home time.

We visited our favourite Bridgeland Market on the weekend to gather some ingredients and also get our pumpkin for the annual market pumpkin giveaway... the jumping off point for the meal came as I walked down one of the aisles and spotted a can of Farmer's Market organic butternut squash (check out their products and the great recipes on their website.. I have bookmarked a few already). It seemed like the perfect starting place for this meal.

Roasted Chicken with Garlic and Herbes de Provence

Maple Butternut Squash Risotto

Maple Gravy

Camp-foodie

A few weekends ago (and ambitiously early in terms of my tolerance for outdoorsy activities), we packed up our world and trekked it out to Spray Lakes. For someone with a near-complete disinterest in the discomfort of the outdoors, I needed a beautiful setting, good company, and really good food in order to get to the point of suspended disbelief and settle into enjoying the escape. 

Our first trip to Spray Lakes was last year and while there was a general state of preparedness, there was one tremendous misstep, which led to one tremendous meltdown. We each thought that the other had put the bag full of blankets in the car..... it was cold..... there was one sleeping bag between the two of us..... there was ugly crying..... need I say more?

Well, we made it through (without driving back home in the middle of the night) and in true Christine fashion, we laid everything out upon arriving home and now have itemized Excel packing lists, prepacked tubs of gear, and dedicated camping blankets whose sole purpose is to get us through the camping cold snaps. 

So, obviously, the first thing that made it to the car this year was a tub full of blankets (haha!) and we got on the road and out to our little hideout in Spray Lakes. We even managed to procure our same campsite, which just made everything so familiar and lovely. It really is the perfect site. And because I was packed up and felt prepared (basically since last summer), I had the time and energy to focus on the part that I really love... the food!

My Roasted Chicken

Every person... well, every meat eating person... NEEDS to have a go-to roast chicken under their belt. It really is a necessity in my mind.

It is the crowd-pleasing dinner party item. It is the feels-like-home meal. It is comfort. It's leftovers can become soup when you need the warmth or a cure. A pot pie, if you're so inclined. Sandwich filler. Or warmed with the veg and gravy of its first meal, to make leftovers something to be celebrated. I could and really want to go completely over the top on this one (if I haven't already). Any day when I need a meal that is going to warm me, bring me comfort, make me feel like home, and break bread with people... I think of a beautiful roast chicken. 

It is the simplest thing to add to your culinary repetoire and you'll never regret it. 

Asian Marinated Chicken

Aside from a rudimentary stir-fry, I haven’t ventured far into the realm of Asian cooking. While not unfamiliar, the spices and flavours of Asian cooking are not quite so second nature for me when I hope for inspiration and spontaneous combinations. Maybe that is why it is equally fascinating… and daunting.

I have a cupboard full of Asian flavours that I have been collecting for a few years now and using sparingly, as I dabble but not jump into Asian culinary creativity. Sesame oil, fish sauce, rice vinegar, hoisin sauce, tamari… and, as of recently, Chinese five spice. The arrival of the five spice on the scene was, apparently, enough to make me jump…

Tortilla Soup

This is the last of the trio of soups aimed at making even the most enjoyable of leftovers more palatable in repetitious consumption. Forget boring, tired leftovers that you end up resenting as much as a relationship gone bad. These soups helped me to consume every last morsel of the one dinner... not to mention leaving me with an entirely virtuous feeling in not having thrown any bit of food away.

The tortilla soup was not my idea but rather that of one of my mini-tour-mates, Sheena, who requested a more brothy soup versus the tortilla soups of the North that seem to be pureed within an inch of their lives. The tortilla soup was the challenge... so I hit the books. I read a great number of recipes and decided on what I liked and didn't like about each of them. Then, I surveyed Sheena for her "key components."

Last thing, before I get down to business, I think that there is something fundamentally enjoyable about food that comes with all sorts of opportunities to personalize it. This soup is no exception. You can tweak it throughout the cooking process... but you can also tweak it when you go to eat. Any number of different additions - lime wedges, sour cream, guacamole, avocado chunks, cilantro... and so on - could adorn or not adorn that particular portion of soup. It almost seems to make each bowl a new experience... an adventure of sorts. And one with immediate belly-filling satisfaction.

Roast chicken and veg...

More comfort food. Every time I leave my house on some sort of trip - business or otherwise - I become more and more fascinated with the simple comforts of food that reminds me of home. After this last little stint on the road, three cities in three days (while not the most arduous of trips... it was tiresome nonetheless), I arrived home with a list of recipe requests and a need for easy, simple comfort food.

I think everyone should be able to roast a chicken. As one of the easiest and most enjoyable of meals, it requires very little prep and fuss while satisfying a person completely. I'll get into roasting the whole chicken another time...

Now, this bit of roast chicken (pieces) and veg was a bit more calculated than simple satisfaction. One SKer friend wanted a simple, easy meal that would feed the family (this is for you, buddy!). Another wanted a tortilla soup. And I wanted a smoky soup. So, each component of this meal was to be first enjoyed, then repurposed into something a bit more than repetitive leftovers of days past.

Oven fried chicken...

What do you do with leftover buttermilk?? Well, make fried chicken, of course. I could have kicked myself after getting chicken setup in its wonderful little buttermilk bath, then checking my schedule and realizing that I had a meeting tonight. Consequently, I was not to enjoy the chicken as planned... or at least as early as I had hoped. Rather, it was 9:30pm and I am hovering over the stove, searing chicken and putting it into the oven.

Thai-inspired Coconut Chicken Soup

OMG. This soup is sooooo good. It seemed ridiculous but every time I tasted to the soup to see what needed to be added or tweaked, I kept saying, "this is soooo good." But it is!

Forget Wing Wednesday... I'm going for Thigh Thursday!

Chicken thighs are probably my favourite piece of chicken to cook with, if I'm not cooking a whole chicken. Bone in, skin optional. Chicken thighs, in my opinion, do not fall into that boring, bland, "I don't know what else to cook, so I'll cook chicken" category.


I used Donal Skehan's sticky mustard drumsticks as the base for dinner tonight.


As I write this, the house is filling with a sweet and spicy aroma of marmalade and mustard... my mouth is watering. My mom made a lovely marmalade for each of us for Christmas this year, so I used that in this recipe. (Maybe she'll let me add that recipe to these pages...)

Thoughts for next time:
- I think I would marinate the chicken in advance. The chicken was good but I definitely think that some extra chill time with the mustard and marmalade couldn't hurt.
- I may try a batch with the skin on... though I don't think that anything was lacking in its lack.


I can't wait to try these tomorrow... cold with a salad.

Coq au Vin... day two.

Whether due to wine or exhaustion, my mind was buzzing with the various things that you could do with the Coq au Vin on its second and third and fourth days.
How about...
Slicing a baguette on the diagonal, so you have long slender platforms. Rub each piece with raw garlic. Both sides! Lay the slices on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil (just a touch). And crisp slightly in a 250 - 350 F oven.

Use either as a garnish to a warm bowl of Coq au Vin. Or, use as a crostini and top with some of that meltingly tender chicken, mushroom and 'au jus.'
Or...
Make an open face sandwich. Using some nice bread, top with Coq au Vin (reserving the juices, so your bread doesn't become a sponge), cover with slices of brie or swiss or gouda or whatever cheese makes your mouth water. Set under the broiler or in the toaster oven for a few minutes, until the cheese is bubbling and, hopefully, colouring slightly. What else??

Coq au Vin... according to me.

This couldn't be easier to make... or more impressive sounding. It's a beautiful chicken (traditionally, rooster) stew and requires very little fuss beyond choosing some high quality ingredients. The prep time on this was less than 20 minutes. (And it is probably fair to say that I wasn't working too quickly.) After that, like any stew, you can decide how long you would like to cook everything together. Obviously, as all of the ingredients have a chance to hang out and ask the other for a date, the flavours will mingle and intensify. You can easily make this recipe in advance and heat it gently before you are ready to serve. It's all up to you!
Lovely. Pretentious. Comfort food. :)