me make food

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Take a chicken bewb or two and smash them down to an even thickness between some cling wrap. You can moisten the inside and outside of the cling wrap with water to make it less sticky. it really seems to help.

Use the flat side of your smashy thing and not the toothed side. You do not want a puddle of destroyed chicken goop. You want a slightly smooshed and even thickness bewb. It is still going to rip the meat a bit, but not too bad. It does not need to be really thin, just evenly thick. You could use a can of food to do this, but use one with a smoothish bottom cuz one with a ring will hurt it bad.

schmashed good

These are the spices I used to make a cajun seasoning. I know there is cajun seasoning as one of my spices, but I still for some reason feel the need to add some single spices in there to make me happy that I am in control of this situation. Be careful with the cayenne though.

Coat the smooshed bewb with your seasoning really well. This is what is going to flavor the whole dish and the cream and the cheese are going to fight the spice and try to make it all dull so spice up that bewb good.

Put a pan on medium heat and let it get hot. I like to use stainless pans because I am going to be wisking it and it sure does look pretty. If you want to test how hot the pan is fling some water from your fingers and wait for a sizzle. After it is hot pour a bit of olive oil or cooking oil in there. You prob do not want to waste good olive oil Like I am doing in the above pic, but I like to live on the wild side. Just enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan. We are not deep frying. The oil should heat up pretty quick so go grab that bewb.

We are not trying to blacken this, just cook it. Burnt spices really do not taste good so monitor your heat. I end up going a bit below medium. If it is smoking you are way too hot. Check for doneness on the first side and flip once. Might need to add a bit more oil and the oil is going to absorb some of the spice and change colors. The 2nd side should cook pretty quick.

Once done pull off and let rest. I like to put it on a piece of foil I have crinkled up so it can drain the juices. I seal it and let it carryover while I work on the rest of the meal. You will slice it later and maybe find out that it is not all the way cooked. That is fine because it will be going back into the sauce when it is cut up and it will finish up no prob.

Pull the pan off the heat so the goodness does not burn off and cut up some garlic and sun dried tomatoes.

If your pan is still hot keep it off the burner and add the garlic and SD tomatoes to the pan. Might need to add a touch more oil. Scrape them around on all the golden fond in the bottom of the pan and lightly cook for a minute or two. We are talking med low or lower if you put it back on the burner. Burnt garlic and burning all the seasoning leavings is going to ruin the whole meal. The SD tomato and garlic will prob get coated in all the fond in the pan and look gross, but do not worry.

Now we are going to add some white wine to add flavor and get all the goodness out of the crap in the pan. You pan should not be hot so you do not need to worry about this steaming all over. Add enough to cover the stuff and then let this simmer down and reduce on close to medium heat for a few minutes.

How about we cut up some tomatoes for a pretty garnish. Are the necessary? Nope, but they look good.

For some reason I forgot to get a pic of my cut up chicken. grrrr… Oh well, cut it up how you want. I go for bite size pieces. If there are juices in the foil or plate make sure to add that back into the sauce. it is magical dripping I tell ya.

Add some heavy whipping cream to your reduced sauce and stir it around.

this would be a good time to boil the pasta of your choice.

Throw that chicken in the pan now and simmer close to medium to reduce that sauce. Unfortunately this is the part you just need to learn by doing it. Getting the sauce to the right thickness is a bit tough. The warmer it is the runnier it is going to be. By the time it is on the pasta and plate it will thicken up. Oh and you still have to add the cheese which will thicken it up more. if it seems thick in the pan add some more cream, stir, and pull.

Shred some parmesan cheese very fine. I use a microplane which makes the smallest little slivers of instant melt cheese.

Get that cheese in there and make sure you have a bit left over as garnish. it just looks nice darnit. Stir it up and melt it. Now is the time to decide if it is thick enough. You could let it simmer some more, but not too hot because the cheese might mess up on ya. You could throw the pasta in there too, or just pour over pasta.

Garnish and enjoy.

I hope you were not looking for a recipe with measurements and the like. I do not roll that way. Cooking from a recipe is important in baking, but experimenting it by doing it and tasting along the way is going to help you so much more than any recipe will for cooking. Plus I do not know how many people you are going to be feeding or how hungry you are. Hope you enjoy it if you try to make it. maybe put a spin on it and use shrimp or something.

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so many people leave the cat out of theirs. Bewilders me

Figured I would soak the dry chicken in some water and spices. Added a bit of taco seasoning and some green chillies.

Mixed in jack cheese, enchilada sauce, sour cream, and some salt and pepper.

Cat and puppy fighting on the food prep area

Brought them to temp on the grill. Delicious.

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Made up some bread. I am so loving making this bread. It is soooo good. I need to figure out how to cook it on the grill somehow this summer. As long as the windows are open I will keep making it though.

Halved fingerling potatoes and carrot slices all gooped up will be our side.

I had a monster chicken bewb and flattened it and let it soak in the goop for about 30 minutes. Then made a bed of the vegetables on the top and bottom with all the goop in there along with some butter.

Both packs flipped a bunch and peeled the foil on the chicken. It smells amazing. The chicken looked done and I for some strange reason took it into the house and cut it in half to see if it was done. Would have been a great time to use my new fancy instant read digi thermometer. Doh. It was still raw on the inside so back on the grill it went.

The potato and carrots were done perfectly so we sat down to eat…….

Meh…. on all accounts. Hardly any flavor for both foil packs. The chicken only had a slight bit of flavor and the potato/carrots were bland as heck. It was kind of crushing because of how much work went into the meal with so many ingredients.

Things we learned:
* the chicken was not in the pack with all the veg long enough. It did not have enough time to pick up the flavors
* I should of tenderized the bewb more and maybe cut the chicken up to allow it to get more flavor
* more juice/marinade would not just impart more flavor, but would of steamed it more
* it is the flavor that counts, not the char from direct cooking

Not sure what the next foil pack adventure will consist of, but we are determined to keep at it till we get it right. Doing this on the grill reduces the dishes we need to do and it just awesome to be grilling again. We have used Itilian dressing in a foil pack with chicken before and it is super awesome. Will make my own dressing for the next one. If you guys have any good recepies for foil packs on the grill I would love to hear from ya.

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I was a little worried about putting too much spice on the chicken, so I went light on the cayenne and then added granulated garlic, paprika, salt, black pepper, and Penzey’s cajun seasoning. Instead of usinf a cast iron pan I cooked it in the pan I was going to build the sauce with so I could get all the flavorful fond in the sauce.

Almost burnt it, but in the end it did not matter. Pulled the chicken out and sliced it into chunks.

Threw some garlic and the sun dried tomatoes in for a minute and then deglazed with some white wine.

Added heavy whipping cream and the chicken chunks. Once it had reduced down to a nice sauce mixed in parm cheese and we poured it over some pene pasta.

Threw some more cheese on top and some diced tomatoes for garnish. It was delicious. Not exactly a healthy meal, but amazing. If I was going to try this without seeing how Guy did it, I would of made a bechemel for the sauce. This one was really easy and fast too. nom

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Made up a bechamel and used whipping cream in there. Added asiago, parmesean, milk, and black pepper.

Deglazed the saute pan with some reisling wine, reduced it a bunch, and then added that to the cheese sauce.

Bread came out much better at 500 degrees, thanks DISH. Had some yukon gols potato slices with it. I sliced up some roasted red peppers to garnish the chicken.

It was one of the best meals that I have made in a really long time. It is totally on our list from now on. The flavors were very rich. The cheese sauce was amazing and having just a litle on there made it not overpowering. Can’t wait to have it again.

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olive oil and a bit of clarified butter to cook the bewbs

for some dumb reason I put capers in there. They are pure evil. Oh some chicken stock and onions too.

then some cream and the zuchini bits

oh and the lemon juice and zest.

some bowtie pasta and hoped for the best. Was not horrible, but not good. The chicken was nice

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