Braised Cabbage and Carrots

While checking out a recipe on the FoodNetwork web site, I ran across a recipe by The Neely’s for Braised Cabbage and Carrots.  This recipe sounded good, and I wanted to see how this dish compared to the braised Red Cabbage that I made in December.

The afternoon I was going to make the Chicken Cutlets with Almond Butter Sauce, I decided I would make the cabbage dish to go with dinner.  I already knew that it takes over two hours to cook; I planned accordingly so that this cabbage dish would be ready with the rest of the dinner.

I grabbed our largest pot and tossed in six slices of bacon to brown on medium heat.  When they were about half cooked, I added the head of green cabbage, cut into two-inch chunks.  Into the pot, I added the seasoning consisting of cayenne pepper, celery seed, and garlic powder as well as the one-cup of water and set the heat to simmer.

The recipe says to stir the cabbage every fifteen minutes while simmering for two hours.  I noticed that after the first fifteen minutes that the cabbage we pretty well cooked.  I made sure the heat was at the lowest setting and continued to let it cook.

While the cabbage was cooking, I prepared the chicken cutlets and the almond butter sauce.

After the two hours were up, I noted that that the cabbage in the pot now looked like cabbage mush, but I went ahead and added the bag of baby carrots and let them cook.

I tasted the resulting dish before serving and thought that it might be a little spicy…  A little spicy is an understatement!  I ate about three bites and my wife maybe two bites.  We decided that anytime a recipe calls for one teaspoon of cayenne pepper, I will cut it at least by half.  We ended up discarding the remainder, as there was no way we could eat it.  It also was not very appetizing after the cabbage turned to mush.

If you would like to make this dish, I recommend cutting the cooking time by at least an hour and adding a little of the spices to your taste, not the recipe.

As a side note, I think it's funny that when I made this dish I was reading a cooking murder mystery by Peter King titled: Spiced To Death.

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell

Love Your Wife Chicken

While doing my 30-minutes of cardio exercise on the elliptical trainer at our health club, I was watching the Food Network on the integral TV.  The Neely’s were demonstrating several dishes, of which the main course looked very interesting.  I must say that I do not care for the name given to the dish: Get Yo’ Man Chicken.  As I made this recipe for my wife, I decided to change my title accordingly.

Yesterday morning was a nice sunny spring day, and I checked with my wife and we decided to have our larger meal of the day around noon.  After watching the TV program, I found and printed the recipe, then made sure I had some chicken thighs in the refrigerator.  I was fortunate the day I shopped at the grocery store as the chicken thighs were on sale, so I was able to purchase 6 to 8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs discounted 30 percent.

If you compare my cooking steps to the original recipe, you will see that I made a number of changes based on the ingredients that I had on hand as well as how I thought the dish could be cooked.

The first thing I did was to get out the chicken thighs and patted them dry with paper towels.  I didn’t want another eruption of hot oil and water on our range top.  Then I heated our 12-inch non-stick skillet over medium heat on the range.  Once the pan was heated, I added about a tablespoon of olive oil and swirled it in the pan to heat.  I quickly added the unseasoned chicken thighs to the pan and then covered the pan with a splatter shield and let the thighs cook.

After about four minutes, the first side of the chicken thighs were browned, so I turned the thighs over and let the other side cook for about four minutes.  During the browning of the thighs, I quickly sliced a large white onion into larger pieces.  When the thighs were browned, I removed them from the pan and placed them on a plate for later.  If you only start with a little oil, there is no need to drain any excess after cooking the thighs.

I added a little (2 tablespoons) of the white wine into the pan and then added the chopped onion.  Using my silicon spatula I scraped the bits of chicken off the bottom and sides of the pan while sautéing the onions.  I remembered that I had finished the last bottle of white wine while making Shrimp Scampi with Artichokes and Basil, so I went to my storage area and grabbed the first bottle I found of white 3-buck chuck (Charles Shaw from Trader Joes).  Later I realized that I was fortunate to get the right wine as I had written “Dry” on the bottle of Pinot Grigio while at the store, so I would know to use it for cooking.

Sautéing the onions took about three minutes, then I added one-cup of chicken broth and an additional half cup of the wine.  As indicated in the recipe, I turned up the heat to reduce the volume of liquid by about one half.  When I went to get the can of crushed tomatoes, I found that we only had a can of stewed tomatoes.  OK, a little substitution should work fine.  The stewed tomatoes also have some celery and spices added that should enhance the flavor of the recipe.

Into the pan went the can of stewed tomatoes as well as 3/4-teaspoon of kosher salt, a couple of grinds of black pepper from the pepper mill, 1-teaspoon of dried thyme, and 1/2-teaspoon of Italian seasoning.  After turning the heat to low, I stirred all the ingredients in the pan together and tasted the seasoning - perfect!  I returned the chicken thighs to the pan, making sure to immerse them in the sauce, then covered the pan with a glass lid and stirring occasionally, simmered for 40 minutes.

While the chicken dish was cooking, I reheated some brown rice and cut some slices of thick bread that I had purchase for the Shrimp Scampi with Artichokes and Basil meal.

As most of the food in this meal is white or light brown, I remembered to use our new red plates for serving. 

We enjoyed a late lunch of chicken thighs over rice while sitting in the sunshine.  The stewed tomatoes along with the dried seasonings enhanced the flavor of the sauce.  The chicken was very moist and tender, cut like butter, and cooked to perfection.  My wife really enjoyed this meal and asked me to make it again in the future.

I strongly recommend this recipe to just about any skill level of cook.  I may make this recipe the next time we are camping, as it would be easy to make in my Dutch oven.

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell