Kitchen Envy

Lately, I have been lamenting the fact that I don't have a double oven. I know this is a luxury for most people, but my parents have always had a double oven and I would give anything for one! When I think about my meal plan for the week, I always find myself thinking, "No, I can't make the roasted cauliflower with the pork tenderloin in the oven at the same time, I need a side dish I can cook on the stove top!" Does this happen to anyone else?

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For some reason, I get really inspired to cook on Tuesdays. The Monday slump is over and I just feel much more willing to spend a little extra time on my feet (I am on my feet all day long, after all!) on Tuesdays.

I came home today ready to cook, but I wanted to make chicken and cornbread and a dessert bar - all in the oven! I knew that if I wanted to get it all done, I should just get started right away instead of sitting around on the couch reading blogs for an hour. :)

I started by making Emily's Jalapeno Cornbread. I subbed AP flour and dairy milk and made them in a baking dish instead of as muffins (because I hate cleaning my muffin tin and I always forget to buy liners!).

 Then, I decided to treat my husband (OK, and myself!) and make a batch of Pumpkin & White Chocolate Bars that I have been eying for a few days.

Finally, I bookmarked this recipe for Honey Mustard Chicken in Food & Wine months ago and decided to try it this week.

All three get the Ellis Seal of Approval, but the Pumpkin & White Chocolate Bars are crazy good. B says, "They taste like the holidays!" And they do. Go make them now. I've exhausted myself from all this cooking.

2 for 1 Crockpot Chicken

If you are like me, you don't blog for a living. And if you don't blog for a living, that means you probably have a job (or school) that requires you to leave your house every day for an extended period of time, therefore making it difficult sometimes to find the time to make dinner.

This is why I love my crockpot. Do you have a crockpot? Mine was the first thing I registered for when B and I got engaged. I remember my mom using the crockpot all winter long when I was a kid. I would come home from the school and the house would smell amazing and dinner would be ready. It's a super time-saver.

That's not to say that all crockpot recipes are winners. I've had my share of duds. And nothing stinks more than coming home expecting dinner to be ready only to find out that dinner needs to be thrown out and you have to start all over from scratch.

That said, roasting a chicken is my favorite way to use my crockpot. It's foolproof.

What you'll need:

• 1 whole chicken
• 1 lemon
• 1 onion
• 3-4 garlic cloves, peeled
• salt, pepper, thyme

Toss the chicken in the crockpot with the lemon (cut in half), the onion (cut in quarters), and the garlic cloves. Season with salt, pepper, and thyme, set the crockpot to low, and go to work.

When you come home, you'll have a chicken so moist it is literally falling off the bone.

Separate the meat from the bones. You'll have a bowl full of delicious, perfectly-roasted chicken meat:

And a bowl full of.... gunk:

You'll be tempted to throw the gunk out, but I beseech you - DO NOT!

Instead, rinse out your crockpot and toss the gunk back in it. You're making chicken stock now!


I usually toss in an onion, a few carrots, some garlic cloves, and several wilted celery stalks along with spices (1t each thyme, basil, sage, and whole peppercorns). Really, almost any veggies will do. I was fresh out of wilted celery this week, but I had some wilted scallions, so they got tossed in. Sometimes, I'll use a potato. Whatever you've got, throw it in. Then, fill your crockpot about 3/4 full with water, set it to low and walk away.

I cooked mine overnight, but you could let it cook during the day too. It needs about 10 hours (more won't hurt).

When it's done, let it cool for an hour or so, then strain it and let it hang out in the fridge for a little longer. Skim the fat off the top and you're good to go. I like to freeze mine in 1/2-1c baggies so it is easy to use, but if you use stock super-regularly, you could just keep it in the fridge in a tupperware.

Oh, in case you were wondering, I used my roasted chicken in this yummy Butternut Squash Orzo dish from The Little Red House. It was divine (despite the crappy lighting).

Seventeen Pieces

My running schedule has been totally thrown off this week. I typically do three training runs during the week and then a long run on Saturdays, but between my sore knee and my cold and, I'll admit, sheer laziness, I only did two training runs this week. On Tuesday I did three miles of rolling hills on the treadmill, which totally aggravated my knee. Today I was supposed to do 5-miles, but pooped out around 4. I waited WAY too late to run so it was hot out and I drank more coffee than water this morning and... bleh. 

I have 10-miles on the calendar for Saturday, so let's keep our fingers crossed that it goes well! Fortunately, good eats the rest of the day made up for my lackluster cardio morning!

I was so hot when I came home from my run that I made a big fruity Green Monster and slurped down over half of it before snagging a picture.

(spinach, banana, apple, orange juice)

A week or so ago, my blender tragically bit the dust. I was super bummed because it was a wedding present and I have only used it, like, 5 times. I was griping about having to buy a new blender (and trying to compromise by making smoothies in my food processor, but it's just not the same!) and my uncle offered to give me this sweet Magic Bullet-style system that he found in his office's basement. 

I tried it today for the first time, and it works! My only problem is that my blender was two pieces but this sucker is seventeen pieces and now I need to find homes for all of them!

For lunch I had some leftover Italian Chicken Salad on a bed of spinach leaves. It was delightful. 

Italian Chicken Salad
adapted from The Kitchn

Ingredients

• ~3 cups shredded chicken (I bought a rotisserie chicken and shredded it, but you could oven roast 2 large bone-in breasts if you prefer)
• 1/4 medium red onion, chopped
• 2 medium celery stalks, chopped
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds, toasted
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced roasted red pepper (check out Emily's great post on roasting your own)
• 1/2 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 4-5 artichoke hearts, quartered
• 5 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
• handful of Italian parsley, chopped

For the vinaigrette:

• 2T red wine vinegar
• 1t dijon mustard
• 1/2t salt
• freshly ground pepper
• 1t sugar
• 1/4c olive oil

Method

1. Make the vinaigrette. Whisk together the vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper, and sugar. Stream in the olive oil, whisking until combined.
2. Combine all salad ingredients in a large bowl. Pour in vinaigrette and toss to coat.

Yum. This is one of my favorite salads to make. Red wine vinaigrette, chickpeas, bacon. Good stuff.

I would venture to say that dinner was equally magical. I made a batch of Ashley's Zesty Italian Veggie Burgers and a summery couscous salad. I topped my burger with mozzarella cheese, basil from our garden, tomato slices, and a little pesto. B was more traditional and had his on a bun.

These burgers were huge! I definitely could have made 8 patties instead of 6. The only changes I made were:

• No carrots. I realized I had eaten them all with hummus earlier in the day. Oops!
• I added an extra zucchini and a stalk of celery
• I used half yellow onion and half red onion
• No pepitas, so I threw in some extra sunflower seeds

I am looking forward to having one of the leftovers on a salad tomorrow already!

Tomorrow is also the second to last day before we leave for Hawaii! I have so much to do, mostly in the form of cleaning. I hate coming home from vacation to a dirty house! I need to finish laundry, run and empty and the dishwasher, and just do some general picking up.

Do you do a major cleaning overhaul before you go out of town or am I the only weirdo?

Meet Bob

Oh hey guys, meet Bob.

Bob is our Weber grill that we received almost a year ago as a wedding gift from a thoughtful friend who didn't know Brian has never grilled anything before and is terrified of setting our porch on fire.

Bob has been through a lot, sitting on our back porch unused for almost 12 months. Poor Bob.

Bob during rainy season

Now, something you have to understand is that I am a big BBQ fan. My family owns a grocery store and my dad is a butcher. I grew up with some serious BBQ going on. I was determined this week that not another summer day was going to go by without firing up the grill. I even made sure we had one of these:

But this is not just a post about inanimate objects around my apartment though. Oh no. This is a post about the best Teriyaki marinade of my life. And about how Brian finally conquered the BBQ.

That's my man!

Kebabs were on the menu. I started with 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts and this delicious marinade:

The Mighty Marinade
adapted from b*spoke

1/2 cup water
2T packed brown sugar
6T low sodium soy sauce (I used a little less)
2 T lemon juice
3T vegetable oil
1/4t coarsely ground pepper
1t garlic powder

1. Combine all ingredients in a shallow baking dish or large ziplock bag.
2. Cut your chicken (or beef, pork, shrimp, tofu, tempeh, etc) into 1-2 inch pieces
3. Add to marinade, making sure meat is completely covered
4. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour

Once my meat was good and marinaded (??), I skewered it with pineapple chunks, mushrooms, red onion, and red bell pepper (if you are using wooden skewers, soak them in water for at least 30 minutes prior to assembling your kebabs!).

Then we threw those puppies on the grill, turning them 2-3 times for about 10 minutes total. In the meantime, I was whipping up Emily's yummy goat cheese and red potato salad (scroll down to the comments for her full recipe) and a green salad.

Nothing caught fire and the kebabs were deeeelish! Brian said it was the yummiest marinade in the world (he maybe exaggerates sometimes).

And, even better, B is now totally 100% on board for future grilling! Whoohoo!

What is your favorite thing to grill? Who does the grilling in your house?
Me? I like just about everything on the grill! And even though B and I don't necessarily follow typical gender roles around the house (he does the laundry, I declog shower drains), I prefer that he grills. It just seems... right.