Boom Boom Pow Chicken

I had the pleasure to spend a couple days last week working outside observing an install. Most people would not be as excited as I am to spend 12 hours a day in the blazing sun, but to me any day I get to spend soaking up Vitamin D is a good one, not to mention I find our installs fascinating. If I could change my job title to “Professional Install Watching Ninja,” believe me, I would be all over it. Alas, I only get to observe 1 per year usually since most of our installs are further away.

I will say this: no matter how giddy it makes me to be paid to hang outside all day, it is mid-June in the South and it is hot out there! Hulk out hot. Melt onto the sidewalk hot. Way far beyond pit stains hot. The only thing that makes me feel better about getting so sweaty is knowing that I can turn my AC down to 68 when I get home, take a freezing cold shower, and chill out on the couch with Cheese.

On my lunch break before heading over for the first day of the install, I went to the best grocery store I have ever been to: The Green Spot in Dalton, Georgia. I love this place! They have the best meat section. Their prices are hard to beat, and these days who gets the chance to buy groceries from locally owned stores? The owners live across the street from my grandparents and I grew up with their grandchildren.

One of my favorite things about cooking is walking around the grocery store looking for inspiration for a recipe I have never tried before. First stop: meat section. I knew I wanted chicken… it is just so easy! I picked up some boneless, skinless chicken breasts. To me, that is the only way to fly with chicken; something about peeling off skin and cooking around bones grosses me out! How many grocery stores do you shop at where you tell the in-house butcher exactly what you want, and they prepare it for you, and then wrap it in white paper? Boom! 

But what to marinate the chicken in? That always seems to be the question. Yeah sure, you can grab a bottle of pre-made marinade. It is so simple and easy to do it that way, and trust me I do it often. My personal favorite is Fat-Free Italian Dressing. Today, however, I wanted something a little more that I had never tried before. To the produce section!

I told you last week about my love of citrus fruits. I could not ignore the oranges or limes lined up so perfectly in the fruit bins. These are probably my two favorite fruits; I love how the orange is sweet while the lime is the slightest bit sour. That is a great flavor combination, and they were practically begging to come home with me. Boom! 

I can now see a citrusy marinade in my mind, with some cilantro and garlic for extra flavor, but there just seemed to be something missing. It needed something that packed a big punch. I wandered aimlessly until I saw one of my favorite knock-out ingredients: Thai Chili Sauce. Have you tried this stuff? It is amazing! It is the perfect combination of sweet and spicy and it does not take too much of this to knock your socks off. Pow!

And there you have it kids… the recipe for Boom Boom Pow Chicken is born!

Let’s make some marinade, shall we? Zest and juice the fruit, saving the pulp for salsa if you want. Mix that with Thai Chili Sauce, some cilantro, and add a couple cloves of minced garlic. Whisk all of this together, and throw it with the chicken in a Ziploc baggie in the fridge until you are ready to cook it. This is perfect for grilling, but I cooked in on the stove instead to save time and clean up after working all day.

While the chicken is marinating and the pan is warming up, why not make some salsa? Salsa is one of my favorite things to make because you can make it out of virtually anything and at any consistency you want. Normally, I am a pico girl, but today I am in a hurry and so it is all going into the food processor. This Orangey Lime Salsa is the perfect addition to my Boom Boom Pow Chicken because it basically pulls in all the flavors of the chicken but more potently than the marinade does.

On the side, I steamed some broccoli and red peppers. I think some Pinto beans would have gone nicely too; maybe next time. And since I wanted a little extra Pow! I added some extra Thai Chili Sauce to the tops of the chicken while it was cooking.

Now kick back and relax after a rough Monday! You’ve earned it!!

If you want to try this yourself, here is the full chicken and salsa recipe. I hope you enjoy it!

Boom Boom Pow Chicken Orangey Lime Salsa

Cranberry Clementine Salsa

Have you ever made cake balls? I made 4 dozen of those little guys yesterday, and let me tell you, it is a labor of love. We had a baby shower for my cousin today (post later!) and I love her enough to make those cute but painful goodies. Not having a microwave makes melting the outer shells very interesting. Imagine my excitement when this morning Scout found his way onto the counter and snagged a couple, thus deeming the entire batch tainted in my eyes.

No, this is not a post about attempted dogicide or about how I feel the need to make an appointment with my priest to confess the long and extremely creative line of obscenities that came out of my mouth when it happened. It is about my subsequent trip to the Fresh Market on this cold, crappy, rainy, busy day to buy petitfors to make up for my lost batch of cake pops.

Never, ever, ever go to the grocery store hungry. It is the first line of defense against buying stuff you do not need. If you must go hungry, do not under any circumstances go to the Fresh Market hungry. All that produce smells so freaking good! My nose led me through the store. I spent $28 on petitfors and an additional $60 something on… I can not even tell you, except the pimento cheese I wolfed down on my way to Dalton and the fresh cranberries that inspired this post.

I. Love. Cranberries. Period. End of story. I want to put them in everything. I want to boil them on my stove with oranges and cinnamon to make my house smell good. I want to drink alcoholic drinks with cranberry juice in it… Or better yet the simple syrup that boiling cranberries in sugar water creates. They are just so versatile and delicious.

Immediately I did a mental rundown of my meal plan for the week to see where I could work cranberries in. The only potential place I could see was fish taco night. My experimental cooking brain went into overdrive wondering how cranberry flavored pico de gallo would taste. I decided to go for it!

I made it tonight for Wednesday’s tacos. Initial thoughts after it was made: YUM. We shall see on Wednesday after it has had three days to meld together. I am pretty sure it will only get better. In fact, I am so confident, I am posting the recipe now instead of after we try it. I say we because I am so confident in this little salsa I invited my ever critical favorite foreign friend and the Gentrys over to experiment with me.

Here it is folks… Experimental cooking at its finest.

You will need fresh cranberries, orange slices, red onion, a jalapeño, parsley and cilantro, 2 tbsp olive oil, garlic, and tomato. I have no idea how much I anything I put in and it really is dealer’s choice based on what you like. Little Sister gave me some leftover clementine sections and that is what I used.

I had this many cranberries.

Maybe a cup? Who knows? What I do know is you have to boil them to soften them up a little. It was so tempting to add sugar to the water like I normally do when cooking cranberries. It probably would not have hurt anything but I am not looking for sweet… This time. You will know when they are ready because they will start bursting. It only takes a few minutes. It is hard to see but if you closely at this picture you will see their skins are split.

Strain out the water and put them in a mixing bowl. No need to chop these little guys… They are soooooft. Everything else will need to be chopped and added to the bowl. When it is all in there, add 2 tbsp olive oil and mix it up. It will need to be refrigerated for at least 3 hours but the longer it sits there the better it will turn out.

I spooned mine into a quart sized mason jar so I can shake it up this week before fish taco night. Here is my finished product!

Do you ever do experimental cooking? How do you choose what to throw together? What do you to when it is bad? I have had so many experiments turn into disasters! I just get so bored with everyday recipes. Sometimes I need to get a little kooky in the kitchen. :)

Mini Apple Pies

Maybe it is because it is fall.

Maybe it is because the holidays are right around the corner.

Whatever the reason, I have become much more addicted to apples than usual. I can not seem to eat them fast enough! I have apple bars in both of my Scentsy burners. I try to eat 2-3 a day year round, but here lately I have been eating closer to 5-6. If I packed them in my lunchbox, I would probably eat 10 a day. I have little Jif to Go packs that I can dip them in, and I love anything sprinkled with cinnamon so sometimes I just do that to my apple slices. Just typing this, I am salivating like Pavlov’s dog really craving a big juicy Gala.

In my last post, I mentioned making mini apple pies that I had seen on Pinterest. I like the concept, but the attached recipes do not excite me too much. Last night I had two thoughts running through my head: 1 – I wonder how those mini apple pies will turn out on Thanksgiving. I hope they are not bad. Maybe Thanksgiving isn’t the best time to try out new recipes, and 2 – Mmm, apples. I decided that since I was making apple pie filling to freeze anyway, it would not hurt anyone if I decided to try to make some mini apple pies.

I guessed my way through and you know I love experimenting like that. I have a pretty solid apple pie filling recipe that has never failed me, but I decided to work on my crust recipe a little. I mean, it is not that is bad necessarily. It is pretty darn good to be completely immodest, but it uses frozen shortening. I hate shortening. It grosses me out. You absolutely cannot get it off a measuring cup or a spoon to save your life. Scooping it out is bad enough, but the thought of disgusting frozen fat in my freezer grosses me out. I decided last night to make a shortening-free crust by adding more of a completely nondisgusting solid fat called butter.

Another motivation to make the mini pies is that in addition to shortening, I am not a big fan of cutting cakes or pies. Growing up, I was the punch server at just about every wedding my cousins had and my sister Nicki was the cake cutter. Even now, I can serve punch like a champ, but I never got the cutting skills like Nicki did. Two years ago, a friend asked me to serve the cake at her wedding. I thought, “How hard could this really be? Nicki did it when we were ten; I’m thirty now. No problem at all!” How hard could it be?!? Throw in a glass or six of wine, and you will have the perfect setting for the story of me butchering my friend’s wedding cake. It was ugly. I started making only cupcakes after that for fear I would have to recreate the ugly cake serving incident of 2010.

The pies turned out deliciously, and I like that they were small. It is perfect for someone like me who lives alone and wants dessert without having to make a whole stinking pie. Not to mention, no more cutting. The stress of deciding the perfect serving size and then cutting it and transferring it to a dessert plate without dropping it or destroying the crust has been completely removed from the process. My personal preference is enough crust to make the insides not so spicy sweet, but some people like a lot of crust and some people like as little as possible; this method allows you to make a little of each. Maybe on some use a top crust and on other just a strudel? It is the perfect use for my new humongo muffin tins.

And, just for you, I am including the recipe below. I also just decided to post one recipe a day of what I will be serving next Thursday between now and Thanksgiving. Maybe it will inspire me to get in the ballgame and actually grocery shop for the holiday.

OOH, and here are a couple warnings from the middle sister before you make your pies:

1: Just because it has apples, do not be fooled. This is in no way, shape, or form a healthy recipe or a diet food. In fact, if you are feeling adventurous and want to add a couple more calories, try sprinkling the tops of the crust with some brown sugar. Yummmm!!

2: You may want to throw in a couple extra apples when peeling them. If you are like me, I always scoop a little of the filling out into a bowl so that I can “check the taste.”

Cheers!