Menu for One

20 Quick, No Cook Meals Using Roasted Chicken

"UGH.  There's nothing to eat."  Have you ever said this while staring into your kitchen cupboards?  I say it all the time.  A recent house-sitting gig, however, caused me to change my attitude and muster my creativity.

I spent the first week of August taking care of a dog, a cat, two birds, and a fish.  A wonderful crew, really.  While hunting for some doggie ice cream in the freezer one day, I came across a list taped to the side of the refrigerator entitled, "What to Do If I'm Bored."  Clearly, a child had complained one time too many that there was nothing to do.  Top of the list?  "Build fairy hut in the front yard," which was followed by "Write down 20 (or 10) nice things about someone you know, and then give them that list," (on second thought, this idea was a little ambitious, I guess) and "Host movie festival for your friends."   A movie festival?  Great idea!

Inspired by her list, I decided that I would create my own lists for the side of my refrigerator.  These are perfect no-recipes for the dog days of summer, when you can't bring yourself to turn on the oven, or when you're just looking for a quick and tasty meal using the leftovers from that chicken you roasted.  Share your go-to, no-recipe meals in the Comments section!

Chopped, sliced, or shredded rotisserie/roasted chicken with...

1. pesto, dried cranberries on salad or in a wrap
2. curry powder-spiked plain or greek yogurt and halved green grapes, served over rice (hot or cold)
3. black beans, rice, cheese, salsa, and your other favorite burrito accoutrements
4. bbq sauce and coleslaw on an onion roll to make a kickin' BBQ chicken sandwich
5. tomatoes, bibb lettuce, provolone, and mustard on pumpernickel
6. with mayo, chopped celery, and dill on a crossant
7. with curry-spiked mayo on an onion roll
8. soy sauce and stir-fried vegetables on a bed of rice
9. thinly-sliced brie, and granny smith apples or grapes, mustard optional, on frenchbread, served hot or cold
10. scrambled eggs or omelet with sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese
11. carrots, onions, tomatoes and green beans simmered in chicken or vegetable broth
12. rice and sauteed veggies, and stuffed in a blanched red bell pepper
13. bacon and blue cheese on a pizza
14. thinly-sliced potato, shallots, and spinach on a pizza
15. finely chopped pickled vegetables in a hot dog bun
16. farfalle pasta, pesto, and halved cherry tomatoes
17. lettuce, tomato, minced jalepeno, and mashed avocado inside a taco shell or tortilla
18. cheese and tomato on sandwhich bread, grilled
19. toasted french bread, sliced tomatoes, arugula, and creamy caesar salad dressing
20. spinach, feta, and red bell peppers in a tortilla, grilled into a quesadilla.

The Easiest Impressive Thing You Can Cook in a Kitchen: Roast Chicken

[Note: This is arguably not the most impressive thing you can cook in the kitchen, but it is the easiest impressive thing you can cook in a kitchen, and takes less skill than required to boil an egg].

Eager to impress a date?

Trying to prove to your mom you are perfectly capable of keeping yourself alive, and that no, you don't subsist on ramen and Kraft mac & cheese?

Embarrassed that the friendly staff at Chick-Fil-A knows you by name?

If you answered yes to any of the questions above, you'll want to roast a chicken.  Now, this is bare bones here.  There are a million ways to skin this chicken, so to speak, and we can get to that later.  For right now, here's what you'll need:

INGREDIENTS:	SUPPLIES:
A whole chicken.  3-4 lbs, preferably one that was treated well during its lifetime.  If it ate well and roamed around, you will taste it.  Ask your butcher for advice if you need it – they love to help.	An oven.
[insert fruit or vegetable here].  This is a wildcard.  You may stuff the chicken with a halved lemon, apple, or onion.  Pick whatever you like – it just keeps the chicken nice and moist.	An oven-safe pan large enough to fit the chicken.  For example: a cast-iron skillet, a roasting pan, a cookie sheet, or that pan you cook brownies in.
Optional: carrots, celery, or diced potatoes.  I like to set the bird on top of a layers of vegetables so it doesn’t stew in its own juices.

Set your oven to 425F.  Make sure there's nothing in the bird (sometimes butchers store a bag of giblets there).  Halve a lemon (or other fruit or vegetable) and stuff it in the bird.  Sprinkle the chicken with a tablespoon of kosher salt; this will help develop nice, crisp skin.  (You can do all of this the morning of or the night before if you want.)

Set the chicken in an oven-safe pan.  I place mine breast up, but it really doesn't matter.  Put the pan in the oven and walk away.  That's right, just walk away.  Your work is done here.  Come back in an hour and remove the pan from the oven.  Let the chicken hang out for 15 minutes before carving (it will be difficult, but fight the urge to dig in right away; this will be the key to your success).   THE END.  For real.

Do this and you will succeed where Cher of Clueless fame did not (remember the log of cookie dough incident?), for now your house will be filled with the rich, warm, and impressive smell of a home-cooked meal.  If you're not sure how to carve a chicken, there are many step-by-step videos on YouTube.  The bird will be so juicy, however, that you can easily pick the meat off with your fingers.

The Toaster Oven: is it toast?

Long famous for its scientific methodology and thorough, but dry reporting style, Cook's Illustrated listed the results of its latest study in its November 2009 issue:the best small kitchen appliances.  Surprisingly, the waffle iron made the list, but the toaster-oven did not.  Cook's Illustrated explained, "Our one recommended [toaster oven] cooked food more evenly (including roasted chicken) than the other models we tested, offering reliable cooking, user-friendly controls, solid construction—and even decent toast. But since it is expensive, we only recommend it if you want to invest in a higher-end toaster oven for small cooking projects. You can do equally well (and save a lot of money) with an ordinary toaster and your full-size oven."

Sure, there are savings when choosing to pass on the toaster oven for the ordinary toaster, what about the energy savings involved in pre-heating a toaster oven instead of an oven?  Do you ever feel guilty turning on the oven when cooking for one?  Full disclosure: my toaster oven did not make the cut in my last move, and to be honest, I'm loving the extra real estate on my counter top.  But when I have the urge to make a baked potato or a tuna melt, I feel a twinge of guilt when I turn on the oven.

What do you think?  Does the toaster oven play a more important role in the solo cook's/solo eater's kitchen?  What are your toaster oven success stories?  Do you agree with Cook's Illustrated that only the more expensive toaster ovens deserve a spot in your kitchen?

Not Just On Top of Spaghetti

I think I may be on to something (or at least I hope I am).  For Christmas, I received both Ina Garten's new cookbook, Back to Basics,and Giada De Laurentiis's New Italian Favorites.  I love reading a cookbook for the first time, and I read it cover to cover like a novel, marking anything that looks interesting.  [note: I am sure this may sound weird to some, a college friend used to do this and I imagined it was about as exciting as watching paint dry.  This is one of those happy instances where I am wrong.]

But I have learned the hard way that I have to pace myself when it comes to making these new dishes- after all, I'm making a menu for one.  Logistically, I can only make two, maybe three in a week...and that's if I take my lunch to work and eat in every night.  So I've tried to be better about planning the meals that I'll make - and it's more fun than it sounds.  Usually, the three dishes feature different flavors and textures, but in order to make the most of what I take home from the grocery store, feature some common ingredients.

And to this end, last week I came up with a plan that would not only enable me to try two new dishes, but also to have some go-to meals ready for the future.  The key to my master plan was...wait for it...

MEATBALLS.

(disappointed?  not rocket science, I know, but baby steps toward what I am going to call "spontaneity in the kitchen"). 

First of all, meatballs are really unsung heroes.  At least I wasn't singing their praises.  Everyone knows that they can be in pastas, soups, and sandwiches, but let's just take a second to marvel at that!  I mean, it practically rivals chicken in that regard.  Plus, it's a great vehicle for using up odds and ends in your refrigerator (sort of like the taco).

Giada De Laurentiis's book featured a recipe for orechiette with grape tomatoes, bocconcini, and mini chicken meatballs (where everything is about the same size - isn't her food always good looking?).  Then I also decided to make Ina Garten's recipe for Italian wedding soup - I'm crazy about soup (you may as well know that now).  Some people don't consider it a mean, but (a) it's CHEAP, (b) it's easy to adjust the recipe to serve 1 or 100, (c) it's perfect at this time of year, and (d) did I mention it's easy to make? 

I decided to double Ina's meatball recipe and use them in both recipes because hers were based on a combo of ground chicken and chicken sausage (which I though would be more flavorful than using ground chicken alone) and because her recipe called for the meatballs to be baked instead of cooked on the stove-top (read: less labor intensive).

My master plan worked!  I had enough for both recipes, plus some left over that Im keeping at the ready in the freezer for spaghetti or a quick meatball sub.  I can't find my pictures for the soup or the pasta (argh), but see here how this freezer gold was put to use!

 

   

Add some pureed tomatoes, et voila!