01/09 Seasonal Chicken with Beer!

After being blamed for Heather's inability to post anything or carry the weight while I was busy with other... how should I say... endeavors, I decided I should take matters into my own hands and cook up a little somethin' somethin' for the kids. Truth be told, I don't actually have kids. But I digress. I've actually been cooking from time to time over the last couple months, but there were certainly weeks where I was living off of burritos and Indian food. I even grew to like the Anna's Veggie Burrito, which is a sure sign of needing to get back into my own kitchen.

Anywho... I was sitting on the Red Line last week, flanked by two people with very large rear ends, considering my options for dinner. I had a bunch of random things in the fridge including a whole chicken that didn't seem like they would amount to a whole heck of a lot. It being winter time, and me living in the northeast, there's not much in the way of fresh fruits and veggies this time of year. Then all of the sudden I had one of those "light bulb" moments, just like in a cartoon - in fact it was just the lights in the train that had turned back on, allowing the fat people to whip out their 'south beach diet' books. Anyway, my inspiration was a Mario Batali dish I'd made a while back, though I never referred to back to it and actually, I couldn't even really remember what it was.

Basically, what I came up with was chicken braised in Harpoon Winter Warmer beer. Yup, beer. Into the dish went two clementines, a bunch of green olives, pancetta, extra pancetta fat for good measure, some celery, one onion, maybe two - i forget, fennel/cumin/celery seeds, salt&pepper. Now I know what you're thinking - "that sounds awfully weird!" and "what Batali dish could possibly inspire that crazy concoction?". Well, I can't really speak to your first thought, other than to reassure you that it came together nicely fed me for several days. As for the Batali dish - after some searching, I realized what it was that I was thinking about on that bone-crushing train ride back from work. It's a lamb shank braised in white wine & tomato sauce with olives and oranges... not exactly the same thing, but you know what - the final product was pretty similar.

So there you have it, my first post since mid October. Now that I have my life back to some degree, I'm hoping I'll have more time to entertain you and make you hungry. So keep checking back as we bring this blog back to life!