Leftovers Chicken Alfredo

It's been an interesting, and long, week. The week started with me working a lot of hours, and ended with a fall injuring the cartilage on my ribs. Since I haven't had the time or energy to cook, meals have come from other sources. 

Let's face it, living in a dorm room situation means that you eat out, or order take out food a lot of the time. One of the benefits of take-away food, as our friends across the pond call it, is that you always get little extras thrown in. You know, those ketchup packets, sauces, other items meant to enhance your dining experience. Eventually these 'extras' either take over your life, or get thrown away. Now, I'm a big promoter of reducing waste. On the consumer side, you get more clutter or trash, and on the business side, it's an additional food cost, so a lot of the time, I only take just what I think I'll need. Of course, I like to reduce my food costs as well, so I will save up ketchup packets to refill my bottle, and I love getting the packets of soy sauce, or Parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes when I order pizza. Very handy stuff indeed.

Well, it so happens, we had fried chicken the other day, and one piece was left. I'm not a fan of refrigerated breading, so I simply removed the chicken from the bone to use with a salad or something. Another day, it was pizza. This inspired today's lunch -- Chicken Alfredo.

Alfredo sauce is one of those sauces, that seems like it's had to make, but really isn't, and it's a great way to use some of those little restaurant freebies, so the recipe below is for a single portion, made from leftovers, and giveaway packets. 

A little math first -

3 teaspoons = 1 Tablespoon

2 Tablespoons =  1 ounce

8 ounces = 1 cup

The average 3.5 gram packet of Parmesan cheese equals about 1/2 tablespoon, the average individual pat of butter is about 1/2 tablespoon, and the average container of half and half for your coffee is about 3/4 tablespoon.

By the way,here's what a cup of cream from the individual containers looks like:

Before we get to the good stuff, there are a couple of cooking notes that I've been asked about that are in the recipe. One of the items in the recipe is a minced clove of garlic. To mince something is to cut up into very small pieces. With garlic, the smaller the pieces, the more flavor and less burn, which is why I like to make a paste of garlic when I'm not actively needing larger pieces. To make a garlic paste, chop the garlic clove into small pieces, or use a garlic press.The true cutting technique for garlic is the same as dicing an onion, only on a much smaller scale. A garlic press is much easier and saves time. My good garlic press is still somewhere in storage, but I got this one from Walmart for a couple of dollars and it works fine.

Make a small mound of the chopped garlic on your cutting board, and using the flat side of your knife at a slight angle, press down hard and pull the flat of your knife across the garlic, crushing it into the surface of the cutting board. You can scoop it back together, and do this a few times to get the texture you want.

  

    

Another thing you may notice is that there is both butter and oil in this recipe.The reason for this, is that oil has a higher smoke point. Because the two fats have different smoke points,  you can keep the sauce heating longer to get the creamy results you want from the butter without the sauce scorching. The smoke point of oil is the temperature at which the oil begins to smoke, creating potentially toxic fumes. Butter starts smoking at 350⁰F/177⁰C, while olive oil has a smoke point of 460⁰F/238⁰C (Avocado oil is the highest at a whopping 520⁰F/271⁰C!)

Another nice add to this "leftovers" recipe is broccoli. You just toss it in with the chicken at the end. If you have some in the freezer, great, If you want to use fresh broccoli, this is easy in the microwave. Cut the broccoli into florets and add to a microwave safe container. Add a little bit of butter (like half of those little pats for a single serving) a splash of water and a pinch of salt. Cover with plastic wrap, leaving a corner open to vent, and microwave for 3 minutes. 

Chicken Pasta Alfredo

Equipment

Induction burner

Saute pan

Ingredients

1 1/2 Tbsps (3 individual pats) unsalted butter

1 Tblsp olive oil (vegetable oil, if olive is unavailable)

1 clove garlic, minced

1 cup cream (22 little containers) (Note: if you only have milk available, add a little extra butter to get the texture you want)

1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp salt

1/3 cup (6 packets) grated Parmesan cheese

leftover cooked chicken

3 ounces pasta (spaghetti, linguine, fettuccine, etc.)

Instructions

Bring water to a boil in the pan with a little salt and cook pasta to al dente (still has a little bite), the time will vary according to the type of pasta that you are using. Drain pasta and set aside.

Over medium heat ('4' on your induction burner) melt the butter and oil in the pan.

Add the garlic, cream/milk, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 2 minutes, stirring often.

Stir in the Parmesan cheese and simmer until cheese is melted and the sauce has thickened and is smooth, stirring constantly, about 3 minutes. When the sauce coats the back of the spoon (the French cooking term is "nappe", pronounced 'nap-pay'), the sauce is done.

Add cooked chicken and pasta back into the pan with the sauce and cook for about a minute, stirring until everything is coated. Serve.

Happy New Year 2018

Happy 2018! 

I'm not big into making resolutions. In fact, I've only set one, and that was to finish projects that I start (I had a lot of unfinished craft projects that year!) What I am good at is setting goals. So, my goal for this year is to start every day doing something positive for myself. You can't always stop the other stuff from happening to you, but I figure, if I have something positive in each day, I will have a positive year. I hope everyone also has a great year. 

Wow, this has been an incredibly long week, but I finally have a day off. After spending the last 7 days, 9 1/2 hours per day, on my feet (my last stretch before having to take time off because of my car was 8 days), my plan is not to get out of bed.  But of course, a girl has to eat, and what better to eat than baked goods.

As a baker, it has been especially frustrating that I haven't been able to bake for the last year and a half, but that's going to change. I'm starting off with something simple - a slow cooker banana bread.  

It also helps that I was gifted with some bananas past their prime. Actually, I have tried this before. I was talking to the produce guy at our local supermarket, Roxy's, and was offered bananas that were past selling stage. I don't know if other local markets do this, but it never hurts to ask. It saves you money, and saves food waste, a win-win for everyone.

There's always something comforting about banana bread, and everyone does it just a little bit different. Some people like it sweeter (I'm one of those),others add walnuts, or chocolate chips,etc. The list goes on and on. There are also a lot of recipes for baking a banana bread in a slow cooker. These will also vary, usually in batter amount, because some of these recipes call for putting a smaller amount of batter in a small loaf pan and sitting that in the ceramic insert to bake. My recipe is the one I've used to make a regular size loaf, or in this case, a large round loaf. The only adjustment that I've made is for my baking it at high altitude.

Anyone who has ever baked knows that science is involved. Baking at high altitude (generally 3,000 feet above sea level) adds more rules to the mix. Unlike cooking, where you can always add 'a little of this' or 'a little of that', or 'salt and pepper to taste' to achieve the results you desire, that is definitely NOT the case with baking. Baking without following the scientific rules that govern the art, in order to achieve edible results, is like fooling around with that chemistry set you got as a gift when you were a child. In either case, not being aware of the chemical reactions, will give you an end result of some kind of green ooze, that you can't identify, and definitely don't want to eat.

Baking with yeast at high altitude is pretty much the same, because the yeast is doing the heavy lifting in the recipe. When baking a recipe that does not involve yeast, there are some things that you need to remember. I'm still learning these rules, and there is a great chart that can be found at https://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/high-altitude-baking.html or from the University of Colorado website, who basically wrote the book ("High Altitude Baking: 200 Delicious Recipes & Tips for Great Cookies, Cakes, Breads & More") on the subject.  For my purposes, at over 6,000 feet, I added more butter and less sugar, and started testing the cake at 2 hours, and cake was done at 2 hours and 45 minutes. Yours may be different, but start checking around the 2 hour mark to be safe.


Banana Bread

Equipment
Bowl and hand mixer (or fork)
Slow Cooker
Cooking Bag

Ingredients
2-3 very ripe bananas, peeled
1/3 cup melted butter (I used 1/2 cup of butter for an altitude adjustment)
1 cup of sugar (can easily use 3/4 cup, or drop it down to 1/2 cup if you want it less sweet) (I used 3/4 cup for an altitude adjustment)
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

Optional: 1/2 cup chocolate chips or chopped walnuts

Instructions

In a mixing bowl, mash the ripe bananas with a fork until smooth. Stir the melted butter into the mashed bananas.

Stir in beaten egg and vanilla extract. Mix in the sugar, baking soda and salt. Mix in the flour till just incorporated. The batter will be smooth and a little gooey.

Gently mix in any option ingredients.

Pour the batter into your prepared slow cooker and bake on low for 2-4 hours, or until a toothpick or cake tester comes out clean.

If you've never had to do the toothpick test, this is the difference between a not done test, and clean toothpick test.

This pick still has some batter, while the next one is clean.

Carefully pull out the bag from the slow cooker and sit on a cooling rack. Allow the bread to cool for 10 minutes before pulling the bag away. Set the banana bread back on the rack and allow to cool completely.

 

The finished banana bread.

 (You might notice my banana bread looks slightly burnt on one side. I left it in for 3 hours and should have pulled 15 minutes earlier. That can happen if you forget to check.)

Before I go, I have to share. It gets pretty cold here in the Montana mountains, and I have small hands, so I can't move my fingers in the waterproof gloves that skiers wear here. To compensate, I have been wearing two pairs of gloves, the little $1 stretchy ones (which don't need to stretch for me), and my Columbia fleece. Somehow, I lost the little gloves, and have taken to wearing tube socks over my gloves, like two sock puppets, to keep my hand from freezing. I'm on the road before 5am, and once it gets down to negative temps, (the other morning it was -17⁰ F), it's not really effective. I stopped into one of the shops at the resort, and paid more than I wanted to, but absolutely fell in love with these mittens. They're faux fur lined and feel awesome, and I love them! Oh, I already said that.