Give In to Temptation

I just put together a nice summery salad for dinner, and thought I'd toss it on here as a way to let you all know I'm still alive.

Two cans of Costco chicken breast meat
One can of coconut milk (not sweetened or low fat or anything fancy)
Big glop of mayo (maybe 1/2 cup?)
Big squirt of Srirachi sauce (about a tablespoon?)
Squeezins from half a lime
A couple of green onions, finely chopped

Make up plates full of fresh greens (we used greenleaf and Romaine lettuces, and some baby spinach). Chop up a couple of tomatoes and/or avocados. Pour the chicken mixture over the greens (it'll be a little soupy, but it doubles as a dressing... voila!). Makes four dinner servings.

If I'd had some fresh ginger, I might have grated up a couple teaspoons and squeezed in the juice (I think the actual gratings themselves might have been too strong). Some toasted almonds might have been nice, too, or chopped green apple or celery for crunch. I was too lazy for those... we were very hungry.

No photo, sorry. It was devoured in seconds.

So I had this package of chicken thighs. I was feeling lazy and kinda wanted to do a one-pan dinner, sort of a cacciatore-type thing maybe, but not bake them. I didn't even want to do a separate pasta pot. I wondered if there was a way to cook 'em in the crockpot or rice cooker.

Of course, the day slipped away and the slow-cooking method got abandoned. I never really found a good recipe I wanted to try, but I did find one that included rice with veggies cooked with a single thigh on top. Why not all the thighs?

I also thought that claypot cooking, an Asian method of baking food in a moistened, sealed earthernware pot to steam the meat and veggies, sounded an awful lot like a rice cooker. So I went ahead and marinated the thighs in some water, black bean sauce, and sesame oil for about an hour, then threw the whole thing in with rice, water, chopped red bell pepper and onion, some more sesame oil and soy sauce, a few cloves of garlic and a chunk of grated ginger, and set the whole thing into the rice cycle.

It was fantastic! The meat came out juicy and flavorful, and the rice was almost like fried rice (but not so oily). Even the teen who hates rice ate some. So, two lessons: 1) you can cook chicken just fine in the rice cooker, and 2) go ahead and experiment if you think it sounds good, even if you can't find a specific recipe!

(Hee... now you are all gonna show me the Big Giant Rice Cooker website I missed that explains this in detail, right?)

Out in California, we enjoyed frequenting a hot spot called Fuzio. Their specialties were funky martinis and internationally inspired pasta dishes.

Every once in a while, I get a hankering for either their Firecracker Pork, or the Barbwire Chicken. I've looked online for copycat recipes, but without much luck. This time, I kept at it and, thanks to Uncle Phaedrus, Finder of Lost Recipes and some lucky guesses, I managed to put together a decent rendition of each dish.

( Recipes and photos behind the cut... )

Would love to hear feedback on these!

Yep, I'm back from California, all the Christmas decorations are put away (record time for this house), all three teenagers have started their community college courses, my man and I have started a new gym routine, and I'm starting to think about cooking again.

Well, I mean, I cook all the time. But most of it is on autopilot: six people, hungry, dinnertime, stagger around kitchen and patch something together pronto. But now I'm seeing some pockets of unclaimed time in my busy days, and I'm pulling out my cookbooks and looking around the 'net and the newspaper for inspiration. Today, I saw a mention of jambalaya in the Sunday paper, and I KNEW it was the right day for it. I've never made the stuff before in my entire life, but the second the word sank into my brain, it was flashing like neon all day.

So I poked around on eGullet and found a recipe by someone who knew what they were doing. Unfortunately, it was for a crowd of 125. Also, I have a vegan and a vegetarian on hand, so I simultaneously had to create a veggie version (unless you beg, I'm not posting the recipe... it was a sad, sad parody of the real thing).

It was glorious. Just perfect for a cold and clear day like today, smoky and spicy and filling and hot. ( Here's how to do it... )