Deconstructed Chicken Pot Pie, inspired by a comfort-inspired hotel lunch

Herbed biscuits stand in for pie crust in this deconstructed chicken pot pie. Herbes de Provence, garlic and wine give the American classic a French accent. Recipe below.

I recently had lunch at Dine, the restaurant of the Crowne Plaza Chicago Metro hotel. I wasn’t there because of my food writing credentials. Marion’s sister Lena works in the travel industry. The hotel had invited her to lunch; I was her plus one.

Historically, hotel restaurants have offered safe, if less than inspired meals to weary business travelers and wary tourists afraid to play restaurant roulette in a strange city. That’s beginning to change, though. Increasingly, hotels are bringing in new chefs and inviting them to play with their food. Continue reading “Deconstructed Chicken Pot Pie, inspired by a comfort-inspired hotel lunch” →

Sweet meets tart and savory: Grilled Chicken with Strawberry Balsamic Vinegar Sauce

Grilled chicken breasts get a flavor boost with a simple, jam-based sauce. Recipe below.

I read somewhere recently that chicken growers are having trouble marketing chicken parts that aren’t skinless, boneless breasts. And it’s not because chicken breasts are more convenient to cook, or that chicken thighs and legs are more fatty than breast meat. It’s that skinless, boneless chicken breasts don’t have bones and therefore seem less like they came from an animal and are therefore somehow less icky.

Seriously? If you’re going to eat meat, own up to it. You can pretend all you want, but that boneless, skinless bit of animal protein was just as much a part of a living chicken as a bone-in thigh or drumstick.

If you’re not ready to give up eating meat (I know I’m not), but you want to feel better about doing so, there are a number of things you can do. Continue reading “Sweet meets tart and savory: Grilled Chicken with Strawberry Balsamic Vinegar Sauce” →

Aged balsamic vinegar plays well with others: Vinegar Chicken with Mushrooms

Balsamic vinegar offers a subtle and surprisingly mild twist on cooking chicken in wine. Butter and chicken broth help tame it. Recipe below.

I DON’T DOUBT FOR A MINUTE that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. But vinegar is just so much more interesting to me. (Besides, do you really want to catch flies?)

I know honey is enjoying a moment right now, especially with the sudden surge in popularity of beekeeping, but we use a heck of a lot more vinegar in our kitchen—and stock a wider array of them—than we do honey. Right now, for instance, we have three different balsamic vinegars, Japanese rice vinegar, Spanish sherry vinegar, red wine vinegar and, oh yeah, some apple cider vinegar. We have two small containers of honey.

So when I came across the phrase “vinegar chicken” somewhere recently, probably in a restaurant description, I was interested. Continue reading “Aged balsamic vinegar plays well with others: Vinegar Chicken with Mushrooms” →

Pure and simple: Roast chicken

Simple is often best when it comes to roasting a chicken. Here, we start with a good bird, use minimal seasonings and let heat do the rest. Recipe below.

These days, even the most hardcore carnivores [and yeah, that includes me] are thinking more about the meat they consume. Where it comes from, how it’s raised, how it’s processed—even how it’s packaged. So when I was invited to sample some Just BARE™ Chicken—all natural, minimally processed chicken raised cage-free by independent, local family farmers in the upper Midwest—I jumped at the chance.

Some home cooks are fortunate enough to have access to local farmers markets or CSAs [Community Supported Agriculture groups] that can provide them with a regular source for meat and poultry raised by small scale independent farmers. Many, however, aren’t. The challenge has been to find successful business models for translating better farming practices [better for consumers, the environment and the animals themselves] to larger scales to feed a larger market affordably and profitably.

Solutions are being found. Increasingly, terms like organic and free range are showing up in places like Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and even more mainstream supermarkets. Often these products carry a higher price tag, but more and more consumers are showing a willingness to pay it. And that has more and more producers looking for ways to serve this growing market. Continue reading “Pure and simple: Roast chicken” →