chicken with morels, rhubarb galette, pickled hatch chilies, and a long overdue post!

Fall has arrived in Alaska.  I love this time of year.  The mornings are crisp and cold, the leaves are beginning to turn, and my flowers are just about ready to call it a season.  

It was a doozy of a summer.  The weather in Alaska was nothing short of spectacular.  Seems like wherever I’ve been (which feels like EVERYWHERE this summer) the sun was shining and the berries and mushrooms have been plentiful. Life has been very good, if not very, very busy.

Lobster roll nirvana

My summer has largely been spent getting from Point A to Point B.  From Barrow to Sitka, from Bethel to Delta Junction, and a few stops in between.  I even snuck down to the lower-48 for a spell (where I located a delectable lobster roll in Minneapolis.  MINNEAPOLIS- of all places.  Who knew?!)  In fact, I'm writing this post as I'm flying the friendly skies back home.

Like so many other folks, my summer got away from me and my life refuses to slow down.  As I was picking the last of the plump raspberries off the plentiful bushes that line my backyard, I suddenly realized that as my life seems to have evolved this year, so must my little blog.  Finding time to cook is not a problem.  Cooking is my therapy after a long day on the job.  For me, it’s like breathing and sleeping.  And without it, I’m just not me.  

But finding the time to write recipes, take photos (which for this amateur blogger is not an insignificant amount of time), and publish new posts has proven a bit more difficult.  So I’m just going to improvise!

Oh, I’ll still post recipes and pictures- don’t you worry.  Some of the recipes will be my own, but many may just highlight recipes that I’ve tried and loved and want to share with others. My pictures may not be as carefully staged and styled to perfection, but they'll still be my own.

This summer in Alaska has truly been a delicious one, and I wanted to share some of its culinary highlights.  It began on a foraging expedition with friends Renee and Michael for wild morels. I posted last year about my foray into mushroom foraging.  After last year’s beginners run, I was totally excited to tackle fungi foraging this summer.  And I’ve done so with gusto!  

Wild morels- one of my favorite adventures all year!

Creamy chicken with morels, photo by Renee

Morels are a tricky mushroom.  Prized by chefs for their earthy, meaty flavor, they’re also fairly elusive to foragers unless you know where to look.  A brief internet search will tell you that they thrive in sparse forests recently struck by wildfire.  They only grow in springtime, so get out there early next year.  They.  Are.  Worth.  It. 

My friend Renee is a fabulous home cook, who's  culinary skill and technique exceed my own.  The woman is stealth in the kitchen.  We turned this incredible bounty of morels into a truly astounding dish: Creamy Chicken with Morels, (recipe courtesy of our guru Ina Garten).  My mouth still waters thinking about that meal.  I cannot wait to hunt for morels again next spring!

While I was home with my family in Fairbanks for Fourth of July, my sister Holly and I threw together this Rhubarb Galette, courtesy of our pal Martha.  It has a cornmeal crust that is TO DIE FOR and comes together very quickly.  My only modification is that I swapped out half the ice cold water for ice cold vodka, because I’ve learned that it makes a flakier crust.  Just trust me on that (or don’t, and Google it for yourself!)

Rhubarb galette with a cornmeal crust.

Juneau was chock full of salmonberries this year (Juneau friends— is it like this every year?!)  I’ve said before, but it bears repeating, that I have a nearly insatiable enthusiasm for foraging wild edibles.  It's difficult to locate my "off" switch when you turn me loose on a berry patch.  I located these jewels in a friends backyard.  While I was excited at the idea of converting them into jam, the delicious treats didn’t make it through the night as we gobbled them up like candy.  Not quite too pretty to eat!

SALMONBERRIES!

One of the very best parts of my summer was spending time in Bethel with my friend Valerie and her beautiful family.  Valerie and her Yu’pik ancestors have been harvesting the land in Western Alaska for thousands of years.  Val taught me the traditional way of processing and smoking wild salmon, just as her mother Tilly taught her, and Tilly’s mother before her.  Just look at the beautiful salmon in her smokehouse!

My happy place: smokehouse on the Kuskokwim River

With the swift work of her ulu, Valerie quickly processed the salmon we caught by setnet.  My job was to tie up the strips of salmon to hang in the smokehouse.  I’m proud to say that I excelled at this task.  I tied up salmon LIKE IT WAS MY JOB.  And it was…for two whole hours.  I ate so much smoked salmon that weekend that I nearly made myself sick.  Zero regrets.

Working through our bounty in Bethel.

A trip to Sitka last month resulted in a BOATLOAD of winter and golden chanterelles.  I was excited to learn how to identify them easily so that I know what to look for on future expeditions.  My friend Heather’s adorable mother Benny was totally thrilled to share her love for mushroom foraging with others, and was the ultimate host.  She turned our bounty into both mushroom quiche and cream of chanterelle soup.  HOLY DELICIOUSNESS, BATMAN.  Sadly, I don't have pictures of the food because I was too busy stuffing my face (along with her homemade biscuits- we ate like champs).

Wild golden and yellowfoot chanterelles foraged in Sitka

Milo's version of "blueberry picking"

Of course, no summer in Alaska is complete for any forager without taking a hike up a mountain for wild blueberries!  

Just like last summer, my friend Erica joined Milo and I for a bit of hiking and a lot of picking.  Last year I posted this tasty recipe for blueberry cornmeal cake, which I love.  I think this year I might make blueberry jam with my bounty.  If so, I’ll post it!



Last year I posted a picture of some pickled Hatch chilies that I made and enjoyed all winter.   Another shipment just landed in the grocery stores here in Alaska and several of your have texted me for the recipe.  I just put up another batch last week, and here's the recipe I used.  I eat them with my Taco King takeout so I feel like I'm getting a few veggies as I scarf down my carne asada special tacos.

Pickled Hatch Chilies

This is just a scattering of my summer food adventures.  I plan to make jams for winter soon, and pickle a few more veggies to eat all year round.  I'm even going to take another stab at perfecting rhubarb ketchup- and if I succeed, I'll post it!

Alrighty, Alaska...bring on winter! 

xo h

perfect skillet chicken

There is something in your kitchen that you've been neglecting.  Perhaps you received it as a wedding present.  Or its been passed down to you from your grandmother's grandmother's grandmother.  Or maybe you've been living without one all this time.

The cast iron skillet.

If you have one...why is it sitting there, sad and lonely, collecting dust along with your waffle cone maker, your Hawaiian ice shaver (my Mom has had one of these sitting on her kitchen counter for like 15 years!), and your quesadilla maker?  The latter three you can shuffle off to good will.  But your cast iron skillet, you must start using immediately!

I only say this because I'm guilty as charged.  I actually didn't even own one until two years ago, and mostly because the idea of "seasoning" a skillet freaked me out until I watched someone do it on TV and realized how totally easy it is (check out just how simple it is here).  Seasoning a cast iron skillet simply means baking on a layer of oil (or other fat) to protect the surface of the pan and provide a cooking surface.  Cast iron is fantastic because it conducts heat so evenly, and is particularly well for giving any kind of meat a delicious, crispy golden exterior.  But it's also great for skillet potatoes, pan-frying vegetables, or baking a rustic (read: easy) cornmeal cake like this one that I love. 

 

Case in point: these beautiful chicken thighs.  My mouth waters just looking at this photo!

 

If you follow this recipe, you can't fail.  Truly- it's as easy as that!  I made them for my friend Ann, who practically melted with satisfaction when she took her first bite and then said something right on point: "When you eat this, who needs fried chicken?!"

 

Exactly.  The skin is incredibly crispy, and the key is to season your chicken well with salt and pepper.  Try it.  Love it. 

 

(Also, it is super delicious cold at 11:30 p.m.  Don't ask how I know, I just do.)

Perfect Skillet Chicken Thighs

(Adapted from Bon Appetit)

6 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees.  Pat the chicken with paper towels and season both sides liberally with salt and pepper.  Heat the oil in a 12 inch cast iron skillet over high heat until hot but not smoking.  Place the chicken thighs skin side down in the skillet and cook for 2 minutes.  Turn down the head to medium-high and move the chicken around in the pan to make sure they're cooking evenly and not hitting "hot spots" in the pan.  Cook until the skin is a golden brown, roughly 12 minutes.

At this point, put the whole skillet in the oven and continue cooking the chicken skin side down for another 13 minutes.  Flip the chicken and cook an additional 5 minutes.  Remove the chicken to a platter and let it rest for another 5 minutes before serving.  So delicious!


Enjoy!
xo H

Italian Wedding Soup

Fall has now turned to winter, and the snow flakes have transformed the landscape once again.  Milo the wonder pup is thrilled- snow chasing is his favorite sport of all time.  (What, it's not a sport?  Don't tell him, he thinks he's in training.)

 I love the fresh food of spring and summer, but there's something so deeply satisfying about the smells that come out of a winter kitchen.  Warm, hearty dishes designed to warm the soul when it's, oh, about 8 degrees outside.  Which it will be...very soon.

I've mentioned this before, but if my job in life was to follow a recipe down to the last teaspoon I'd be living out on the streets.  It is not uncommon for friends to come over and see three seperate cookbooks opened up to a clam chowder recipe (yeah, that happened).  Usually, when I want to see how a singular recipe actually turns out without modifying it, I make a phone call to my sister Holly.  She'll actually follow a recipe the first time.  Plus, we both have the cooking gene, we have similar styles of cooking (transl: each of us owns all of Ina Garten's cookbooks), and we look an awful lot alike.  No, that last characteristic doesn't really help us in the kitchen, but it is fun to tell people about how my brother-in-law Sam thought we were the same person roaming the halls at Willamette Law School for almost an entire school year.  (Yeah, that happened too.)

A few years ago I made my first batch of homemade chicken stock.  I was completely pleased with myself.  After refrigerating it, skimming the fat, and pouring the stock into individual containers for freezing, I thought...now what?  I called Holly, who told me to try this soup from our girl Ina.  Holy moly, after that I wanted to dedicate my homemade stock solely to this dish.  This is a delicious Italian-American soup which I doubt is served at Italian weddings- I've heard that the "wedding" part of this dish actually refers to the wonderful marriage between meat and vegetables.  In that case, "I do."

 True to form, this is my own version of Ina's terrific recipe.  I think my changes simplify the soup without sacrificing any flavor.  First, you start with the meatballs.  Usually Italian Wedding Soup calls for beef meatballs, but Ina uses chicken and I love the flavor.  Like homemade chicken noodle soup with the volume turned up. 

The original recipe uses a mix of ground chicken and ground chicken sausage.  I think that requires opening too many different packages, so I just use chicken sausage and they're delish.  (In fact, these meatballs are so good on their own you could use this as appetizers for your next holiday party served with a side of marinara.) In a pinch, I've used turkey sausage.  But lately chicken sausage has been easier to come by so I find I don't need to substitute as often.  For the meatballs, the food processor is a cook's best friend.  I whir up the Parmesan and the bread crumbs (any white bread will do, and even wheat if it's all you have, but I used the artisan white loaf from my friend Janis at Fire Island Rustic Bakeshop- my favorite bread ever!) in the food processor, easy peasy.

Great tip: "grate" Parmesan in the food processor.  Just throw chunks of cheese in and let 'er rip.

If you use store-bought breadcrumbs, you may need to add a little more milk to the meatball mixture because it might be a little dry.  After all the meatball ingredients are mixed, drop them by the rounded spoonful onto a parchment-lined baking sheet- it makes roughly 35 meatballs. 

Baked meatballs.  These are tasty, tasty balls. 

While the meatballs are baking, start the soup by sauteing the onion, celery, and carrots in a little olive oil.  Once they're soft, add the stock and wine and bring it to a boil.  Turn the soup down to a simmer and add the pasta.  I like using little ABC's or stars.

Cook the pasta in the simmering water for about 8 minutes, or until the pasta is tender.  Then add the chopped dill, kale or spinach, and the meatballs. 

Cook for another minute, and taste for salt & pepper.  Ladle the delicious soup into bowls and top with a little more grated Parm.  Yummy, yummy, yummy, yummy.

Italian Wedding Soup

(Adapted from Barefoot Contessa)

For the meatballs:

1 lb. chicken sausauge (make sure it's not the already-cooked variety)

2 T. milk

2/3 c. fresh breadcrumbs

1/3 c. grated Parmesan

1 egg, beaten

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 T. chopped parsley

kosher salt and fresh pepper

For the soup:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium onion, diced

3 carrots, diced

2 celery ribs, diced

10 c. chicken stock (preferably homemade- see recipe below)

1/2 c. dry white wine (I usually use a savignon blanc or pinot grigio, or whatever is leftover in the fridge)

1 c. small pasta (I usually use stars)

1/2 minced fresh dill

6 oz. kale, ribs removed and chopped, or 12 oz. baby spinach 

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2.  For the meatballs: combine all ingredients gently with your hands or a fork.  Drop by rounded spoonfuls on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  You should have about 35 meatballs, give or take a few.  Bake for 30 minutes, or until golden brown.

3.  For the soup: on medium-low heat, add the olive oil to a large soup pot.  Cook the onions, celery, and carrots for 8-10 minutes or until soft.  Add the stock and wine and bring it to a boil.  Turn down to a simmer and add the pasta.  Cook about 8 minutes or until the pasta is tender.  Add the dill, meatballs, and kale or spinach and cook for about one more minute. 

4.  Ladle the soup into bowls and top with a little extra grated Parmesan.  (And the soup tastes even better the next day!)

The Best Homemade Chicken Stock

(Makes about 20 cups of stock)

Don't bother peeling the veggies- just make sure they're well scrubbed!  After making stock a few times, I've found that roasting the veggies makes the most delicious stock.

2- 5 pound chickens

6 carrots, sliced in half lengthwise

4 celery ribs with their tops if they have them, sliced in thirds lengthwise

2 onions, sliced in half

20 sprigs of parsley

20 sprigs of dill

20 sprigs of thyme

2 t. peppercorns

2 bay leaves

2 T. salt

1.  Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  Remove the giblets from the chicken, but save the neck.  Rinse and pat dry.  Cut the wings off the chickens.

2.  Put the chicken wings, carrots, celery, and onion in a large roasting pan.  Toss with 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil, a good pinch of salt and peppper.  Toss together, then roast in the oven for 35-40 minutes.

3.  In the meantime, place the chickens in a large stock pot (the biggest one you have).  Fill the pot with 5 1/2 quarts of cold water.  When the veggies are done, add the veggies and the rest of the ingredients to the pot.  (If you have a stock bag, which is similar to cheesecloth, place the veggies, chicken wings, the herbs, and peppercorns in the bag, tie it off, and place it in the pot with the chickens.)

4.  Bring the pot to a boil (this will take a little while).  Once boiling, lower the heat and simmer the pot uncovered for 4 hours.  Remove the scum when it forms.  After about an hour of simmering, remove the chicken and let it cool for a bit.  Remove all of the chicken meat and put the bones back in the pot to simmer (if you don't remove the chicken meat now, it will be the consistency of shoe leather after 4 hours).  Save the meat for another use (I put it in plastic baggies, wait for it to cool in the fridge, and freeze it for later).

5.  Strain the contents into plastic containers and refrigerate overnight.  The next day, skim the fat from the top of the stock, and use the stock within a few days, or freeze.  This is the secret to the best soups you've ever tasted!

Enjoy! xo H

Outrageous Chicken

Let's have an honest moment here.  Up until this point, this little blog of mine has been an extremely friendly place for my vegetarian friends.  This is more of a happy coincidence than anything else, but it does reveal a little bit about my style of cooking.  I love veggies, and there are literally countless ways to prepare them.  My parents never had to force me to eat my Brussels sprouts, or finish my broccoli.  In fact, my brother and sister and I were always great about eating our vegetables, and I think that's a huge tribute to having two parents who were wonderful cooks and realized the importance feeding a well-balanced diet to their children.  I'm so happy to see that both my brother and my sister recognize the importance of this with their own children.  My family is a family of GOOD EATERS.  Those of you who know me well know that my love for good food and cooking is no accident.

That said, to my vegetarian friends:  I love you.  But you can stop reading now.

Because today, I'm sharing one of the best chicken dishes I've ever tasted.  While I love my veggies, I also love a beautiful, juicy, tender piece of meat.  Ironically, this dish was discovered on a quest to prepare a meat dish for my vegetarian friend Rebecca's wedding.  Ha!  The wedding was a potluck feast, and they requested some omnivore-friendly dishes for the spread.  I didn't want to make anything just ordinary, so as I often do I polled my friends to see if they had any ideas.  Enter my friend Heather, who is a fabulous cook and handed me this gem of a recipe.  It's actually a very well known recipe called Chicken Marbella from The Silver Palate Cookbook, but she told me she just calls it "Outrageous Chicken."  And she's right, because it's OUTRAGEOUS. 

After the guests had feasted at the wedding, I was in line to refill my glass of wine and started up a conversation with a woman next to me.  (As my friend Laura says, I've never met a stranger!)  When I introduced myself, her face suddenly changed and she said to me, "Are you the Heidi that brought that chicken dish?  Oh my God, that was delicious!  Can I have the recipe?"  I think I started floating a bit after she said that. (Although no one else will claim I was "floating" 3 hours later while working the dance floor to "Footloose" after several glasses of wine, but that's beside the point...) 

For Rebecca's wedding, I prepared the dish crockpot style.  It turned out delicious, but it's really best baked in the oven so that the skin gets beautifully golden and crispy.  I loved this dish so much that I made it just a few weeks later at my friend Mera's baby shower.  Needless to say, they loved it too.  In fact, so many requested the recipe at the shower that I promised to post it soon.  The wait is over!


The shower spread screamed fall.


When I read the ingredients for the marinade, I had a very good feeling about this recipe.  Some of you might think that it sounds a bit strange, but you'll just have to trust me on this one because I don't think there's a person on this planet who has tried this chicken and not liked it.  Consisting of red wine vinegar, olive oil, garlic, capers, dried oregano, bay leaves, green olives, and prunes, it sounds a little...weird.  But weird in a delicious way!

The original recipe requires you to quarter 4 whole chickens at 2 1/2 pounds each, but that's too much work for me.  Instead, I did what my friend Heather suggested and used 10 pounds of bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs-- my favorite piece of the bird.  You could use any part of the chicken you like, and I think boneless, skinless chicken will work too.  But my preference is always bone-in with skin, because that's where chicken derives so much of its flavor.  The original recipe also calls for whole olives and prunes, but my olives and prunes were really big, so I halved both of them.  You don't have to, especially if you're short on time.  You could also get fancy with the olives, but I'd previously purchased a double-pack of Spanish olives stuffed with pimientos from my beloved warehouse store (I could write an entire post on why it's a terrible idea for a single girl to use Costco as her main grocery store).  I just sliced each olive in half and 86'd the pimiento.  Easy peasy.

(Note that this makes a HUGE amount of chicken, so unless you're preparing this meal for a large party, you can easily devide the recipe in half.)

What I love about this dish is its utter simplicity.  Most of the work is done in assembling the marinade.  Once you add the chicken to the marinade, cover it and let it marinate overnight. 



(I forgot to take a picture of the big dish of chicken marinating, but this is the two chicken thighs I stashed away for my dinner the next night!)

The next day, place the chicken and the marinade in two 9 x 13 inch baking dishes.  Pour a 1/2 cup of white wine over each of the dishes, and sprinkle the top of the chicken with brown sugar.  The original recipe requires you to place the chicken and the marinade on a shallow baking pan (think large cookie tray), and bast the chicken often with the juices.  But I've found you get a similar result, without all of the basting, by using two 9  x 13 inch baking dishes.  The chicken is immersed in more of the liquid, which eliminates the need for basting, but the skin is still exposed to maximize crispy deliciousness.

If this doesn't look good to you, your eyes are broken.

You really can't go wrong with this chicken.  Tangy, sweet, and fall-off-the-bone tender.  Plus, it's a beautiful dish.  Your friends will think you're an amazing cook, and they don't need to know how easy it was (unless they ask for the recipe, and they will!)  Serve it with any good starch to soak up the beautiful juices- a lovely pile of buttery mashed potatoes or a pillow of soft, creamy polenta would be perfect.  But it's also great just on its own.

Outrageous Chicken, a.k.a. Chicken Marbella

(adapted from The Silver Palate Cookbook)

10 lb. chicken pieces, bone-in and skin-on (or 4 chickens, 2 ½ lbs. each, quartered)
cloves from 1 head of garlic, peeled and finely pureed
1/4 c. dried oregano
kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1/2 c. red wine vinegar
1/2 c. olive oil
1 c. pitted prunes, halved
1/2 c. pitted Spanish green olives, halved
1/2 c. capers with a little juice
6 bay leaves
1 c. brown sugar
1 c. white wine
1/4 c. chopped parsley (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine pureed garlic, oregano, vinegar, olive oil, prunes, olives, capers and juice, bay leaves, and kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.  Add chicken and mix well (you may need to divide the mixture into two bowls if you make the entire recipe). Cover and let marinate in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day, place the chicken in a single layer in two 9x13 inch baking dishes and spoon marinade evenly over all pieces. Sprinkle the chicken with brown sugar and pour white wine around them.

Bake the chicken for about one hour. The chicken is done when its juices run yellow (as opposed to pink). Sprinkle with parsley before serving.

(This makes enough chicken for a party, so note that this recipe can easily be divided in half!)

Enjoy! xo H