This weekend has been a rough one in my household. We lost our dog of 13 years to a particularly nasty cancer. There wasn't a lot we could do for her, she was not digesting food and did not even have the energy to hold her head up for extended periods of time. I am not the kind of person that can sit around and watch people suffer, I have to fix things. I try to find the right words to help heal a heart, or the right gift to lift spirits. I am not good at seeing emotions and just allowing them to be unless they are happy emotions. The thing is that people need to have time to be sad and to embrace the mourning process. Please don't get me wrong I too am feeling all the hurt but I have always preferred to mourn in solitude. I have been distracting myself through preparing food.
Last night I went to the Commissary (I am staying with my parents on a military base and for those of you not in the know that is what we call the community grocery store) and they had croissants on sale. I bought 4 croissants and a pound of end meat chicken from the deli, I also got a jalapeno and a shallot. All this for less than $4, they may not have great selection but the prices cant be beat.
I used the chicken along with some left over rotisserie chicken to make a chicken salad. Tip for the quick cook, rotisserie chicken is great for chicken salad. Just let it cool off and you can really get every last piece of chicken off of the bone with very little difficulty and no burning of the fingers. I mixed the chicken with some mayo, mustard and sweet relish to make chicken salad. Usually I like to add a little mango chutney and curry power to chicken salad, and to give it some texture I use almonds, dried apricots and grapes. I did not have great access to ingredients so i left the salad with just chicken and dressing, but I did add some flavor with some Tony Cachere's seasoning (I swear this stuff would even taste good on ice cream) and some cumin. The cumin added depth to the flavor of the chicken salad and I really liked what it became.
The shallot, the jalapeno (minus the seeds and veins because my mom doesnt love spicy) went into my food processor with an avocado and 1 and a half small tomatoes. A little splash of lemon juice and a few spins in the food processor yielded fairly edible guacamole. I wasn't too thrilled with the dip, but my mom swears it is the best she has ever had. I definitely recommend utilizing the full spice of the jalapeno when making guac, the avocado is so creamy that it can stand up to the heat really well. I also forgot the lemon juice (lime juice would work just as well if not better) until the end and it turned an interesting shade of brown. The acid in the lemon juice keeps the avocado from oxidizing and will keep it that nice green color. I am not sure that I love the guac from the food processor, it was too homogenous. One of the great things about guac is the chunks of avocado, which even though I am allergic to I still find almost irresistible. So lesson learned, take the extra time and dice your peppers and onions so that you don't need the food processor. Also I liked using the shallot instead of a regular onion, I am not a fan of raw onions and the shallot still gave that onion flavor without hitting you in the face with it.
What I actually enjoyed almost as much as the cooking was setting the table for the meal. I put my croissants in a wicker bread basket, and the salad in a bowl. I sliced some tomatoes and ripped up some lettuce and left that on a plate and put it all on our lazy Susan. It was build your own chicken salad sandwich. For mine I chose sliced tomatoes with salt and pepper and then a big mound of salad. Delicious.
Dessert may have been my favorite part of this meal. I made strawberry shortcakes, but again I made them to be assembled at the table. Strawberries are in season here in Germany so we had a ton of them in the house. Quarter your strawberries, place them in a nice bowl and sprinkle them with just a hint of sugar. Place the bowl in the fridge and the strawberries will macerate, this just mean that their juices start to flow. It concentrates the flavor of the berry and gives them a nice sauce. I am not a believer in shortcakes on those prepackaged little cake things. I like mine on a biscuit. I know you think this sounds strange, but trust me. Get some flaky biscuits in the refrigerated section of the grocery store, you know the kind that you can peel off in layers. In a bowl place a thin layer of biscuit, then top with a few strawberries. Dont use to many here, three or four pieces at most. Repeat layering biscuit and berries until you reach the top of the biscuit. You want at least 2 sections of strawberries in the middle of your biscuit, preferable 3 sections. Here comes the weird part. I know you are thinking, hey lady the biscuit was weird enough, but trust me again here. Take some cream, like the kind you put in your coffee. Please, for your heart, dont use heavy cream here, half and half or whole milk will do nicely. Pour about an ounce of cream over your biscuit. Top with a generous spoonful of berries, and a dollop of whipped cream if you are so inclined, and you have a tasty shortcake that itsnt too sweet.
Hope you try some of these things in your culinary adventures this summer. Definitely take advantage of in season fruit like strawberries, the flavor cannot be beat.
No comments:
Post a Comment