That Old Chestnut

Yesterday Jen made "Chicken Madness" which I came home to around midnight. At first I thought she may have been having some sort of psychotic episode when she declared, "I made chicken madness!" However, it was of little or no consequence when I tasted how delicious it was.



This is what the Chicken Madness looked like. Delectable.



I started off tonight with some sliced Clementines with hot sauce and salt, a recipe passed down from my Guatemalan grandmother. It's a traditional snack in Guatemala (where she is from, you see). I served them with some (read: all the rest of our) greens. Goat cheese and pistachios were some items in the fridge that lent themselves to this salad pretty well.



For the main course I cooked up a little garlic, shallot, butternut squash, and shiitake mushrooms with a little sage (no thyme because we didn't have any) and a small amount of shredded Parmesan. I was also going to fold in a little ricotta at the end but the container in the fridge was molded over. I used a little chestnut puree along with chopped chestnuts.

I also learned an interesting fact today: chestnuts contain no fat! So this entire meal was basically a lowfat meal, getting its only fat from a tiny amount of olive oil and Parmesan cheese. I hadn't intended this to be a quasi-healthy meal but it really turned out to be. Even using skim milk it was a very heavy and creamy sauce.

The whole result was yet another seasonal meal of which my Guatemalan grandmother would be very proud. "Natito," she would say. "I love you too much."

Chicken, and Life, Madness

Oh, today. I had such high hopes for you -- I got our the door on time this morning, I remembered my gym bag, I did not spill coffee on my dressing gown and I remembered my lunch (not in that order, of course). It seemed so promising: get to work, do some interviews, write an issue piece, catch up from being from gone last week, arrange a fashion shoot and call in all the product, plan the party/gossip column for the week, pop out the door at 6 and hit the gym, then come home and make a nutritious and delectable meal.

Clearly I was misguided. I did some interviews, and I did some catch up. I did NOT write an issue piece, so it came home with me. I caught up a little from being gone last week, I called in some product, I did a tiny amount of column planning. I left at twenty past seven and skipped the gym, needless to say. But the night was not past redemption. Thanks to a trip to the grocery store and some last-minute inspiration, I did manage to make a meal that was delish, and while not incredibly healthful was better than a kick with a frozen moccasin.

Anyone who spent any appreciable amount of time on the Georgetown campus has probably had the Chicken Madness sandwich from Wisey's, the deli just off campus. The Chicken Madness, assembled on the huge flat grill and served with chips and choice of soda, has haunted my gastronomic dreams since I graduated. And tonight -- a night where there was leftover chicken breast in the fridge and redemption being sought -- was a perfect choice to try and recreate it.

Thanks to Chowhound and my ever-more-hazy memory, I compiled a mental picture of the Madness: Grilled chicken, bacon and red, green and jalaepeno peppers all heated on the grill with garlic powder and cayenne, served on a sub role with mayo, tomato and lettuce with a slice of provolone on top. Mmmmmm. To make the Jen version, I chopped the roast chicken from the other night and sauteed it with red and green pepper strips (I thought we might have share jalapenos left in the fridge, but no such luck) and two slices of turkey bacon. After being seasoned with cayenne and garlic powder, the mixture was covered with a slice of provolone and served on a piece of leftover paesano bread with mayo, assorted cherry tomatoes and salad mix.

And it was a pretty passable, and yum, imintation, if I do say so myself. The turkey bacon acquitted itself nicely, and the jalapeno wasn't conspicuous by its absence. Salad mix, however, is a terrible choice for a warm sandwich, and the cherry tomatoes were only so so. But it was comforting and yummy, and a glass of TetraPak organic wine is even better than a can of Diet Pepsi. Take that, today.

An Intrepid Dinner

Today, as promised, we attended one of our nation's treasures: The Intrepid Air, Sea & Space Museum!



It begun with a 45 minute wait in line. When we approached the front of the line we found a door that was being held open by what must've been one of the relics from the museum: an old-fashioned wooden door stop! Evidently there was not a great deal of time put into door stops during the two years the museum had been closed for renovations.



We killed some time before meeting up with some friends by checking out the Concorde they have on display. Sadly they didn't allow for sitting in the cockpit, you could just squeeze your way down the narrow aisle and imagine what it would have been like to be a skinny business man in the 80s.



After meeting up with our friends we appreciated the Sunk/Probably Sunk record of the Intrepid. If I were the captain of the Intrepid (could happen) I'd have beefed up the Probably Sunk a little more. This is a situation that just lends itself perfectly to padding the numbers.



One of the best things about World War II was that you could just make posters where you made extraordinarily offensive caricatures of as many races as possible and it was okay. Best of all, most people would not even notice! Hooray for the 1940s!



Here's our friend Eli on the bridge of the Intrepid with his first mate, Jen. Don't worry, his parents were there too. We didn't steal this baby or anything.



When we returned home we continued our usage of the pomegranate and pistachios by making this salad with a little goat cheese added into the mix.



For the main course we roasted a chicken breast with onion, garlic, carrots, rutabaga, potato, butternut squash, and broccoli. Most of it was from the farm.



It is very rare but I had a little port after dinner as we were still pretty cold from our freezing day outside on the aircraft carrier. The plus side to port is that it's delicious. The negative is that it's hard not to feel like a pretentious prat when you're drinking it. I'm even a little ashamed admitting I had some after dinner.

However, I'm not ashamed at all to mention that we've already watched two episodes of Psych and it's not even 9:00PM yet!

Maybe my shame is misplaced.

Chestnuts & Raviolis

Welcome to our crazy world of vegetable antics!

Tonight, after spending thirty minutes unsuccessfully looking for a parking spot I finally entered our home to prepare a quick dinner. For a moment we toyed with the idea of going out but we do have a pretty good amount of food in the fridge so sensibility had a rare win in tonight's meal planning.



For the salad I chopped up some roasted chestnuts and squeezed some pomegranate over some mixed greens (new, non-slug infested ones) with a little olive oil, salt and pepper.



The main course was cheese and spinach raviolis with wilted tatsoi and garlic with Parmesan, salt, and pepper.

We also had a little more bread with olive oil and for dessert we had some vanilla ice cream with more melted ganache.

The real highlight of the evening? Several fresh episodes of Psych.

Tomorrow we wake up early to do something fun. What? Well, you're just going to have to wait until tomorrow to find out.

Hint: it involves our nation's military. But in a fun way!

Nuts About Butternuts

Greetings, Farm Fiends (typo intended)!

Today I had the day off and I also had a tremendous amount of apples.



As you can see, the ratio of apple to available pot was not ideal, however, after a little cooking we had another giant batch of applesauce. Luckily Jen has an unnatural love for applesauce because she's going to push it to the limits over the next week.



Originally I began making a green salad but in the course I found a giant slug in the greens. Nature is a beautiful thing unless it comes in the form of a slug. Even though all salad greens were once bug- (and, yes, slug-) infested it's a different thing to actually find one in the mix.

So I opted for a quick change and made this salad with apples, pomegranate, feta, and almond.



Before the main course we had a little bread, olive oil that Jen gave me last year for Christmas, and some of the remaining wine from last night.



The main course was orecchiette that I made with sweated onion, garlic, butternut squash, Parmesan cheese, olive oil, butter, salt, pepper, and fresh sage.

It came out pretty good. We still have a little butternut squash left and a few other items but it's definitely dwindling down. It's hard to say how much longer the bounty from our final farm pick up will last. And more importantly, what will become of this blog when it's all over?

Tune in tomorrow to find out!