Dave Page » dinner

Bayless Chicken – sort of

dave — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 13:09:15 +0000

I bought a package of chicken at Jones’ Country Meats recently, on sale, and looked for a good recipe to make. I found an interesting one in Rick Bayless’ Mexican Everyday, called Chicken in Tangy Escabeche of Caramelized Onions, Carrots, and Jalapenos. It is basically a skillet dish with lots of good stuff, sounded good.

Reviewing the recipe, Rick suggests refried black beans, which we love, so I tried to find his recipe. It was not in the book, strangely, but I was able to find it online in two parts, first to cook the beans, then to make the refried beans. Kind of a pain, I will merge the recipes. I started cooking the dried beans in the afternoon, since they take two hours.

I opened up the chicken package and found connected thigh-leg parts. I thought they would be split. SO first, break out Aunt Lynn’s Cutco cleaver and hack off the back and try to find the joint in the still-frozen chicken. Complete with no lost fingers – success!

Then I started the spice rub, with pepper, allspice, oregano and salt. First a bit of olive oil, then added the rub. Smelled good. It was hot outside, and I did not want to heat the kitchen with cooking a skillet dish, so I decided to just grill it as is.

We grilled some corn on the cob from a local farmer, make a nice salad from our CSA spinach and the chicken slow grilled wonderfully. Skin not burnt, meat done well but not dry. Good Saturday project, and leftovers for lunch!

Madrigal Dinner

dave — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:19:07 +0000

Kat was in the madrigal singers at Wheeling High School. We went to the last of her dinners in the school cafeteria. They used to be at Chevy Chase Golf Club, which is a beautiful place for a madrigal dinner, as it looks just like a castle. The cafeteria is a little less overwhelming.

The kids sang great of course. The food was miserable. I have never had catered food as bad. The Chicken Vesuvio was cold, chopped unidentifiable meat in a juice of unknown origins. Cold beans, cold potato chunks.

I wish I remembered the caterer so I could rant on about them. Something Pasta Mobile. Better try a different caterer next year, kids.

Pizza Night

dave — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:23:59 +0000

Since I replied with this to my old Friend Lori on Facebook, I thought I would put it here for reference in case a) the Rosati’s computer fails or b) we lose the receipts taped on the inside of our cabinet.

Our standard Friday night (or during the week more often) pizza is the 14″ Chi-Town Pan with “Fabulous Four”, Italian sausage, mushroom,onion, green pepper. Make sure you say “well done.” I would put it up against any Giordano’s or Uno’s comparably equipped.

That said, beware. They are a franchise, and I have heard uneven things about various other stores. The one here in Woodstock IL is owned by Mike Rosati, one of the Rosati family and our daughter’s friend. He makes good stuff.

Website (with Mike’s store) see www.myrosatis.com
Another Corporate website (Mike’s store not listed here, but see menus). Same family story. Perhaps the brothers had a fight.