Have I ever mentioned I’m a Taurus? And therefore, stubborn as hell?

I’m still on a mission to master chipotle chicken. As in, duplicating the flavor you get at the fast food place. I knew my latest attempt wouldn’t be spot on, because it looks totally different, but, I was hoping to learn a little more about the flavors used in various chipotle chicken recipes. That’s the plan anyways.

There are certainly enough chipotle chicken recipes to learn from. My goodness. My boyfriend tells me that chipotles became quite “trendy” a few years back. That would certainly explain the 33 pages of chipotle chicken recipes found on epicurious.com. When I search for “chipotle” alone, I got a whopping 266 pages. Holy crap. Whadda think? Should I change this blog to a chipotle cooking blog? A recipe a day? Think I’ll get a movie deal?

The recipe I used comes from Gourmet magazine. I changed it up a teeny bit, by using chicken breasts instead of two whole chickens. My cat’s on a diet*, so, I was just cooking for me and the boyfriend. We don’t need a chicken apiece.

Therefore, I had to guess on the cooking time. I think, just by comparing pictures, that I cooked it less than they did in the magazine. But I’m cool with that. It came out really tasty.

That first night, we had it in tacos. Like the last time I mixed chicken with taco ingredients, the flavors were overwhelmed by the other taco ingredients. It was still tasty, but, it just tasted like ordinary (yet moist) chicken.

The next day at lunch, I had the leftovers with some mashed potatoes. That was delicious. I didn’t even care about the chicken actually, I was just sucking all the sauce off. That pretty much made it BBQ chicken, but, mmmmm. Tasty.

So yeah, it still tasted nothing like the stuff in the restaurant, but I was really happy I made it. I’ll be making it again. The directions were easy to follow, and we had all the non-fresh ingredients in the cupboard. I love it when that happens.

* She’s lost three pounds! I’m so proud.

I made wiener schnitzel again!

I even remembered to save some lemon for garnish, and to put my greens on the plate. See, I’m learning! The point of this project, actually, was to play around with a different breading technique.

I used panko this time. That’s not too crazy. I doubled it again. That’s not too crazy either. But it was a little much. Double panko tasted great, but it also stuck together to itself and totally ditched the veal. It was almost like oil and water. I couldn’t get them to stay together no matter how hard I tried.

A slab of unbreaded veal looks pretty gross, for the record.

It’s good to have a little mystery in life.

Hmm. I seem to be imagining history wrong in my head again. i can’t find any pictures. I guess that really does make this post crazy.

I’ll start with the food food, and then elaborate on the sauces, or mad science as I like to call it.

But yum, huh? Doesn’t that spring roll look good? I snagged the recipe from one of my “Foodbuzz Friends,” Filipinalovesfood. She recommended making them with pork, cucumber, noodles, mint, lettuce, and pineapple. I had never had a spring roll with pineapple in it before, but I loved it. Spring rolls are probably the “freshest” tasting food around. So that’s awesome right there. But when you add sweetness? I’m twice as sold.

And here’s the dumpling recipe. Also yum. We were so full from the spring rolls though, that we didn’t eat many dumplings. Most of them are sitting in my freezer right now, to be enjoyed for lunch later on this week.

Sauce, Sauce, Sauce, Sauce, Sauce

I’ve been quite interested in sauces, as of late. I actually have a copy of, “Sauces: Classic and Contemporary Sauce Making,” by James Peterson sitting on my coffee table. I’m curious about the structure of sauces - why they work like they do, what thickens and why, etc.

Like I said, we made a total of five sauces for this meal. Two were marinades - one from the spring roll recipe (for the spring roll pork) and one my bf just made up (for the dumplings). I liked them both a lot. Marinades are awesome. There are so many different possibilities. My favorite so far has been a lime-flavored marinade though. I was going to make that again this weekend actually. Anyhoo.

Then I made some peanut sauce for dipping. That was hilarious. I wasn’t paying too much attention to the recipe and I accidently used a tablespoon of sesame oil, instead of a teaspoon. Dammit. A little sesame oil goes a long way. So in an attempt to fix it, I just quadrupled the rest of the ingredients. I ended up with more peanut sauce than I would ever use in my life. My bf delicately suggested afterwards that sometimes it’s better to throw the mistake away and start over, instead of trying to fix what you have. Oh yeah. That would have been smart. I used about half a jar of peanut butter up! It’s a good thing I love it and have 2 1/2 jars left over in my cupboard still.

Also made a soy sauce-based dipping sauce. And a sauce to mix with the marinated pork for the dumplings.

I didn’t care for either of the dipping sauces, actually. Those are all personal preferences though. I’m not a big dipper. Or even a little dipper. I don’t use salad dressing. I eat chips plain. I’m just weird like that. My spring roll tasted perfect just as I had made it, I thought. I also don’t like soy sauce. I’m trying to like it, but it’s way too salty for me. I can put it in things, but when it’s the main ingredient, it’s nasty.

But, that’s fine. The science of a sauces is still fun for me. Here’s me playing with some corn starch and water. That s*it is crazy! Fun times, fun times.

It’s just that, this is a really tough problem! I’ve been gathering information for the past few weeks. Gathering recipes that other people recommend, gathering food substitutions, and gathering lots of (conflicting) information about what people can and cannot tolerate on chemotherapy.

Here’s my unscientific list of that last so far:

Food that cannot be tolerated
Onions, many herbs, vegetable juices, broccoli, milk & dairy, ice cream, vegetables, chicken, chocolate, italian food, hot liquids, garlic, red wine, fried foods

Foods that can be tolerated
Dairy, potatoes, pickled things, chocolate, fruit smoothie, rice, ginger, green tea, greek salads, broccoli, green beans, caesar salads, starches, pasta, soups, sandwiches, fruit, chicken chop suey, salads, creamy soups, veggie soups, cheese, zucchini, lemon-flavoring, jello, banana bread, bananas, cool whip, scrambled eggs, toast, oatmeal, pudding, applesauce, tomato soup, baby spinach, dark greens, avocado, portabella mushrooms, goat cheese, feta cheese, scallions, strawberries

Foods that tasted different
Sweets, watermelon, ice cream, water, grape faygo (soda)

Foods that were easiest to taste
garlic, salt

Seriously, putting that all together is quite the puzzle. But I like puzzles. I LOVE puzzles, in fact. So I shall prevail.

In the meantime, does anyone out there on chemo have any input? What tastes good/bad/awful/bland? Lemme know!

Instead, I will tell you all about these awesome chicken nachos my boyfriend and I made.

We experimented with the chicken marinade/rubs, so there are actually three different flavors of chicken in there. Yum…

These were all the ingredients we used. As you can see, we just went nuts. It was fun.

Dish one was an ordinary dry rub. I forgot what was in it. I apologize. I wasn’t paying too much attention. I was much too excited about dish two, which is where we tried to recreate the chicken they use at Chipotle restaurant.

I’m from the Albany, New York area, and I live there now, but for some years in between I lived in Denver, Colorado. Chipotle stores are every three feet in Denver, so it was inevitable that I’d go in someday. Once I did, I was hooked.

It’s ridiculous. They have a ton of options, but I order the same, plain thing every time: chicken tacos with cheese. That’s it. No salsa. No guacamole. No nothing. Just the yummy, yummy chicken offset with some cheese. I’d get it a few times a week. Kinda sad really. But I have no shame, so I don’t care.

I went for years without it, once I moved away. It made me sad, but that’s life. I always kept an eye out though, to see if they would ever expand this way. And a few months ago, they finally did.

I’ve settled back into the old routine. We’ve reached the point where the folks behind the counter knew what I wanted without me telling them, just like their counterparts all over Denver, lol.

So, yeah. If I could create that flavoring on my own, I’d be so happy. It turns out I have some work to do though. That smokey flavor is hard to get! Seriously, if anyone reading this works there, or knows someone who works there, hook me up. We used hot sauce, dried chipotle and some balsamic vinegar. And cilantro and garlic. I think that’s it. I should have written it down, lol.

The third dish was my boyfriend’s special, make-it-up-as-he-goes-along concoction. I liked it the best out of the three, due to the lovely sweet and spicy mix he had going on. He used brown sugar and cocoa for the sweetness, cumin, oregano, and cilantro for the inbetween, and sriracha for the heat - that’s a Thai hot sauce for those of you (like me) not in the know. Plus some salt and pepper just for fun. The end result was really tasty all by itself, but the subtlety was overwhelmed by the rest of the nacho stuff, like the cheese and sour cream.

That was my common complaint actually. The nacho stuff tended to drown out a lot of the seasoning. I’m not sure if that means more seasoning or less other crap though, lol. Next time, we have plans to marinate them longer than two hours, baste while grilling, and to actually tenderize them and flatten them out to increase the surface area of the chicken. That all should help.

My boyfriend liked the dry rub the best, actually. I appreciated the crispy crust it made, I didn’t like that the chicken was dry compared to the marinades.

It was really weird to me how different each piece of chicken looked after marinating for a while. I should have been surprised by the different staining, but I was.

Ahh, Middle Eastern food. It really has a certain smell, doesn’t it?

When my boyfriend and I made these Persian Beef Kebabs the other day, that was the first thing we said. “Wow, these really smell Middle Eastern, don’t they?”

“Funny though,” I continued. “They aren’t garlicky at all.”

“Do you associate garlic with Middle Eastern food?”

“Yeah!”

I think he thought that was a little weird. But it all made sense later when we had five cloves of garlic left over.

“Where are these supposed to go?” he asks me, keeper of the recipe.

“Oh crap. They were supposed to go in the meat marinade.”

I also forgot to bring my saffron with me. I had been looking for ways to use it up, which was why I had that recipe in the first place. It was definitely an instance of “cooking while spaced out.” Ah well. It tasted good anyway. We had cumin as a saffron substitute, and just slapped the garlic over the meat at it was grilling. No harm done.

Except to the tomatoes. Have you ever just slapped a tomato on a grill? It’s frickin’ weird! “Cook until blistered and soft,” the recipe says. I should have taken a picture of the “blistered and soft” tomato. All the pics I’ve found on google don’t do the warpness justice.

Next time, next time.

Let’s start off with this pretty picture of the Miss Albany Diner in Albany, N.Y. Wasn’t it a beautiful day? It wasn’t raining for a change. Ahh the memories…

I’ve actually been postponing this restaurant review, because I feel weird that they don’t have a decent web site. Look at it. Pathetic. It’s part of their charm, I suppose. It’s a dinky, old diner located in the warehouse section of the city. It was once used as a set for the utterly depressing film, Ironweed, which starred some folks you may have heard of: Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, me… Okay, so maybe my part was smaller than theirs. I’ve never actually seen the whole thing you know. I read the book and so was flattened by it, that I couldn’t bring myself to watch the whole movie. Just the first ten minutes, until I show up waaay in the background. Anyhoo, if you’ve seen the movie, the diner still looks like that.

The Miss Albany Diner is a complete greasy spoon. No doubt about it.

And it tastes just like a greasy spoon should! Delicious!!

I think the sunshine went to my head, though, because I didn’t so much grasp the concept when I ordered the lean sausage. Yeah, lean. Non-fatty. A few herbs instead of fat. At a diner. Not good enough. Despite it being made in their kitchen, I wouldn’t recommend it.

My boyfriend, however, has excellent taste. He ordered the Mad Irish Toast. It has pecan cream cheese between the french toast slices, and is drowned in a butterscotch whiskey sauce.

Uhh, yeah. Get that. Definitely get that. I snuck a bite or two, and it was delicious.

It is a shame the website doesn’t have their menu on it though. There is really a lot of interesting, different stuff on there. If you live in the area, or ever visit, you should check it out.

This month, we went to the Stockade Inn in Schenectady, NY (That’s upstate, in the Capital Region, for you folks not aware).

It’s located in the lovely stockade district, which floods a lot so you probably don’t want to live there. But visiting is okay. The Inn itself was fairly devoid of customers. The inn told us this was a summer thing. I’ve been before, in winter, and indeed, people do go there.

Despite the lack of people, it didn’t feel awkward or desperate. The wait staff didn’t hover. That’s really important to me. I hate it when the server is whipping your plate away the second you finish eating, or is refilling the water after every sip. It’s like, I know you’re bored (as I used to wait tables too), but find something else to do. You’re cramping my conversation! Please.

So they didn’t hover. The server did have a little wine spilling incident though.

By some weird coincidence, each member of our party was dressed in black and white. It looked like we planned it or something. I was amused. But… red wine on L’s white pants = unfortunate. I bet next month, we all show up in red. But the Inn apologized profusely and offered to pay up if it doesn’t come out. They also made her a special yummy vegetarian entree because there wasn’t one on the menu. So, accidents happen. It was all handled quite well.

Anyhoo. The food. The first adjective that comes to mind is ENORMOUS. The portions were huge. Holy crap. Most of us got appetizers in addition to our entrees, and we got two desserts in the end too. I think we are all set on leftovers for a week.

This was my lunch today, half of my Surf & Turf Bruschetta appetizer.

It was good, but I was full after eating half an appetizer. Look at the size of that thing. It’s hanging off my plate. And there were two of them. It was very pretty in its original plating though. This place seems to like drizzling glaze all over everything. I liked it, but not everyone did.

I also tasted the Crispy Calamari. It was delicious. Light and not slimy. I see now that the sauce had that lemon-butter thing going on that I love. Not surprising.

I stuck with the steak for dinner. I was in that kind of mood. The Prime Sirloin came with monterey jack & bacon mashed potatoes, broccolini, warm gorgonzola cream, and shallot bacon shiraz demi glaze. Most of the sirloin is in my fridge right now, frankly, but I managed to get the mashed potatoes down. I was told that the Seared Sea Scallops were tasty as well.

For dessert, we ordered two huge pieces of pie. There was a peanut-buttery one that wasn’t too sweet. And a coconut one that was simply divine. I love coconut, so that was right up my alley. But even the self-professed coconut-dislikers thought this pie was great. Again, the portions were huge and most of it was brought home in a doggie bag.

* This month I did very well and finished “The Thirteenth Tale” well ahead of schedule. I thought it was a bit squicky at first, but ultimately an entertaining, if soap-opera-ish, read.

** I was going to take more pictures of the food, but my camera battery died. Sorry ’bout that.

Before I blather on for a bit about planning a complete meal, I have to share tonight’s dinner. One of my favorite food memories is eating crab cakes three ways. I don’t recall exactly how each crab cake differed from the next, but, I remember it they did, and it was delightful. So, I’ve slowly been trying to recreate that.

Not all at once. That’s too time-consuming and crab is freaking expensive! But, a new kind every few weeks or so sounds good to me. It’s my summer thing.

About two weeks ago I made some baked cajun crab cakes. It’s a weight watchers recipe, so I’m not sure if that link will work if you aren’t a member. They were quite tasty, but I had a hard time getting them into cake shape. They just kept falling apart and breading them was a nightmare.

Tonight, I made mini corn bread crab cakes, from Cooking Light. Again, baked, and again, delicious. And this time they stuck together pretty well.

The big deal here is that now I have some Tabasco-like product in my pantry. *curse you mini corn crab cakes, for turning me into one of those people* lol. I have no idea what I’m going to do with this jar of hot sauce in the future. I’m not a fan, generally speaking. I actually picked this particular bottle of hot sauce because it was the prettiest, and I thought it should have at least that going for it.

Food Pairing

I paired this with a Tri-Colore Orzo recipe from that Everyday Italian show. My logic in doing so? They both use lemon.

Now that I seem to have some cooking basics down, one of my biggest challenges seems to be planning a complete meal. I really have no clue what I’m doing there. I can pair together meat and potatoes, but that’s about it.

Tell me, how do you plan a meal?

Do you stick with a certain cuisine? Do you go one complicated dish, and two simple? A protein, starch, and veggie? Do you mix up colors? Tell me your approach.

It’s a goal of mine to be able to plan a meal of complementary foods, but I don’t know where to begin.

*help*