101 Uses for a Roast Chicken #26: Epic Chicken Sandwich!

So, I had a hormonally-induced hankering for a big-assed BBQ chicken sandwich. I also watched the Divers, Drive-ins & Dives marathon on Food Network over the weekend, and it had me salivating. Funny how one thing influences the other. I had a chicken carcass from one of my roast chicken dinners to turn into stock, and a couple of backs a relative gave me after a chicken dinner she made. I got a lot of great meat off these bones when I made up the stock on the weekend, and I wanted to do something different from the usual pot of soup. So, it was actually three events (hormones, Triple D, and stock-making) that induced this particular craving.

It's very simple: get a big giant bun. Grill some veggies (in this case, onions, peppers, and mushrooms), slice some havarti, and dig out your favourite BBQ sauce. After the veggies have done, put them on the bun and top with some havarti. Add some left-over roast chicken to the pan and heat through; add BBQ sauce. When everything is nice & hot, throw it on the bun & top with more havarti.

Sensational!

I served them with some homemade oven fries and this meal totally hit the spot!

101 Uses for a Roast Chicken #24: BBQ Chicken Pizza

Yeah, I know it's been forever since I've done an installment in this series. I haven't been on the ball, what can I say?

Recently, my relative, C, did a catering job and had so many leftovers she was giving them away to everyone she knew, and I was lucky enough to receive a bag of roasted chicken pieces. I put most of them in the freezer, which is a great boon to me. Tonight, I had a hankering for pizza, and since my friends Chris and Deb gave me a bunch of Tony Roma's BBQ sauce, I thought making a BBQ chicken pizza was the way to go.

I have no idea who Tony Roma is, but he has a restaurant chain named after him, and this chain also sells its own name-brand BBQ sauce. I used the hickory one, and it was quite tasty.

The crust I used was Giada de Laurentiis's pizza dough, which is now my go-to recipe. I cut it in half and froze the other half I didn't use tonight.

Otherwise, the pizza was very simple: a light smear of cream cheese went on the crust first, after I softened it in the microwave. After that, I chopped up two pieces of chicken and mixed them in the pizza sauce, then put that down on top of the cream cheese. Then I sauteed some red onion and on that went. Finally, I topped that with a bunch of low fat mozza.

The end result: ridiculicous! This is definitely a keeper combination! And my crust was awesome - probably the best result I've ever had. I think the pizza stone I baked it on helped with the crispy texture.

Family Dinner

Sometimes it's just so nice to have someone cook a meal for you! Last weekend, me, my dad, my brother, and my SIL got together for a family dinner - something we hadn't done in a while because of everyone's hectic schedules.

Dad provided the steaks, and my brother, Jem, marinated them in Worcestershire Sauce, balsamic vinegar, and some steak spice. Then he threw them on the BBQ.We had some company, the neighbour's toy chihuahua, Lilly. She is half the size of Juno and very cuddly!

As the steaks cooked, my SIL made stuffed potato skins, using bacon bits, green onion, tomatoes, and cheese.We also had a salad with dinner - and it was one excellent meal! Everything was wonderful!

And for dessert, there was a leftover blueberry dessert made by Shan's aunt - light and a perfect ending to a great meal!

More Shrimps on the Barbie

OK, last night I was bored & peckish, but only wanted something quick & light after my meal at The Sunshine Cafe. I also have little fridge room right now and needed to start using up some of my POM juices. So, I decided to experiment with a POM BBQ sauce for some shrimp.

This needs some tweaking, but it was a tasty start:

POM Asian BBQ Sauce

1/4 cup POM juice
2 tbsp hoisin sauce
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp rice vinegar
1 tsp honey
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 garlic clove, grated or crushed

Whisk together. Brush on shrimp on the BBQ.

Like I said, it needed some tweaking. There was something missing, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. Luckily, I have some left over for another night, so maybe I'll come up with something in the meantime.

I also made a drink with some of my POM juice. I love the POM iced teas, so I decided to mix some POM pomegranate & tangerine juice with some good old fashioned Nestea iced tea mix, and it was pretty good. While I'm generally liking the stuff I make with the POM juice, I'm not keen on the juice itself; it's really strong for me. But it's fun to play around with!

The weather has cooled somewhat, but it's still hot and the cool weather we were promised hasn't materialized, and according to the forecast, it's going to get cooler, but not as cool as we were led to believe, and not quite yet. What is the point of a forecast when they can't get it right? Why do I even listen to the weather guy?

Tackling Brisket

Having been inspired by several bloggers, most recently Bob of the amazing bacon-wrapped brisket, to give making beef brisket a go, I finally got around to it yesterday. I went to the local overpriced grocery store and asked the butcher if I could have a hunk of brisket. After debating how much I wanted, I decided on 3lbs or so - just enough for one person to do a bit of an experiment. For $9.54 I got a whack of brisket and I was on my way.

So, remember the POM freebies (or almost freebies) I got? Well, this was the big experiment. I wanted to combine the brisket with the POM. Dave of My Year on the Grill posted a great BBQ sauce made from pomegranate juice that looked really good, but I couldn't find one of the key ingredients. So, I decided on a marinade instead.

Now, I was a little intimidated by the brisket. Bob advised "low & slow" but didn't specify how low or how slow. Dave had a lot of advice for me, however, and also provided me with a great link to a page with lots of great info on BBQing brisket.

I realized I might have an issue. I have access to a BBQ, obviously, but it isn't very fancy or big and it doesn't have very fine temperature controls. It doesn't even have a thermometer. I needed a temperature of about 225F and I really had to guess at it.

But before I get ahead of myself, here is the marinade recipe I whipped up. This was purely something I made on spec, and it took a lot of tweaking before I got a flavour I was happy with.

POM Pomegranate Juice Marinade

1 cup pomegranate juice
juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp grated ginger
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp garlic powder
3 tbsp soy sauce

Combine ingredients in a large freezer bag. Mush around. Add brisket. Put in fridge for a few hours.

OK, onto the BBQing process. Low & slow, right? So, I started the BBQ and put only one half of the element on, and set it as low as I could get it. I put the brisket on some foil on the other, non-lit side of the BBQ, and let her rip. Well, no, not "rip." Keeping "low & slow" in mind, and bearing in mind the advice dispensed by both Dave and the site he mentioned, I was looking at about 1 hour 15 mins./pound of brisket. I was worried about getting a tough, chewy, inedible piece of leather-like meat. I put the brisket on at about 5pm, and at about 6pm, I basted it with the marinade a bit. This is what it looked like at that point:Hm...Looked to me like it was cooking a tad too fast for my liking. So, I got out my fancy-wancy thermometer with probe and stuck it the thickest part. It was 158F. I was going for 180F. I set my thermometer to beep when the temperature reached t 180, put the lid back down, and waited.The beeping stared at about 6:45, so the brisket took about 1 hour 45 minutes to BBQ. After removing it from the BBQ, I let it rest about 20 minutes, while I made a sauce from the leftover marinade, before slicing it thinly. Here is the end result!I would have preferred it slightly rarer, but whatever. And it was so juicy...It could have been more tender, but it was by no means the chewy nightmare I was worried about. The meat was really nicely flavoured, lean, and just plain delicious! The marinade, which I turned into a reduction, was really amazing, too. My dad came over to help me eat it, and he was really impressed. I served the brisket with a green salad and some of my homemade hamburger buns. I even made a POM vinagrette, but that's a post for another time!So, now I have enough leftover brisket and sauce to keep me in beef dips for many days - woo-hoo!

Thanks to Bob and Dave for all the help!

Garden Bounty 2009: Dill

My dill is doing very well this year. Last year, it did quite poorly; I got two plants, one small and one big, and both got infested with tiny, dill-coloured insects I couldn't be bothered to ID properly. This year, I have a nice row of lush-looking dill, and so far, no bugs. But time will tell with these things, as it usually does.

So, I harevested some dill last night and decided to make some BBQ shrimp with it. I always keep frozen, zipperback shrimp on hand because they are so convenient and quick. I marinated the shrimp in lemon juice, garlic, and the fresh dill. I put the shrimp on skeweres - wooden ones, after soaking them - and BBQed them. I served my meal with green beans and rice, something I'm doing a lot these days. It was delish!

Syringa Creek Dinner

It's seriously hot - mid 30sC! Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to be able to escape to Syringa Creek Provincial Park for the day and spend several wonderful hours floating in the lake. It was heavenly.

Of course there was also food, prepared and served by my favourite cooks ever, my SIL Shan & her mom, C. The menu was simple: a whole chicken cut into pieces & BBQed, potatoes roased in a foil package with garlic scapes, and a nice salad. Perfect!

The chicken, happily BBQing away...

Garlic scapes...

Shan preparing the potatoes & garlic scapes...
Dinner is served...

Hope everyone is enjoying summer so far!

Family Dinner

Last night I went over to my brother and SIL's place for dinner with my dad. Dad donated a roast of beef that Shan BBQed, and it was fabulous! We also had a variety of other stuff, too.

Here is the roast of beef on the BBQ. Shan made a spice rub for it, and a homemade BBQ sauce. She started the roast off at a higher temperature, then brought the temperature way down to slow roast it.

She also somehow stuffed the beef with whole cloves of garlic - yum!

For an appy, Shan sauteed edamame in garlic, six spice mix, sea salt, and a bit of soy sauce. It was awesome!
Shan makes wicked salads...
And we had some grilled veggies...

There were also some potatoes with fresh dill & sour cream. Here is my dinner...

For dessert, I brought a selection of cookies I've made recently and frozen, including these, these, and these. There was also ice cream with Shan's homemade caramel sauce, which is just to die for!

Awesome dinner, and I came home with a pile of left-over roast beef, so I'm set for sandwiches for a while now!

Kamloops Trip, Food Edition, Part 3

On Sunday, after a breakfast of homemade egg mcmuffins made by S, my dad picked me up and drove me down the highway to my friend Anita's place. She has a ranch style home on a large property in the countryside just beyond Kamloops. I actually lived there for a few weeks when I first left my husband in May 2005, but hadn't visited since about spring of 2006. Lots of changes, but this one was the most impressive for me:This is their brand new fridge/freezer combo: freezer on the left, fridge on the right. Isn't it amazing? Trust me, it's even more impressive in real person! I was continually drooling over this the whole time I was there!

For dinner, Richard made a Mexican dish of yummy rice, sauted peppers, BBQ chicken with lime and cumin, and sliced avocado. It was excellent, and Richard is an amazing cook.On Monday, Anita and I went into Salmon Arm to run some errands and visit Gort's Gouda. This is a really cool cheese factory on a farm and you can walk around and visit the cows and sheep, sample the wide variety of gouda on offer, and have an actual tour of the factory. We visited the animals and sampled some cheese but we didn't have the tour. I actually used to live not far from here and often went to Gort's, and I can honestly say that they make superb cheese. Apart from gouda, they also make quark, different sheep cheeses, fresh cheese curds, sheep's feta and other stuff.

There were lots of animals to see. Visitors can wander around the barn where the cows, calves, sheep, and lambs live - and who doesn't love calves and lambs? There were plenty of babies to see! The St. Croix sheep herd had many lambs, and of course they were so cute. Also, there were lots of calves, which were also very cute. Many of the animals are pretty friendly and would come up to use to be stroked or to suck on our fingers, and while I'm not a fan of animal phlegm all over my hands, I was OK with it because I always pack hand sanitizer with me. Lambs make me smile...Calves make me smile...Gouda makes me smile...I bought a small round of Italian-flavoured gouda, since the one with red pepper and cumin that I usually get wasn't available.

For dinner that night, Richard was away working, so Anita and I slapped a couple of steaks on the BBQ, made a Caesar salad, and I had a baked potato. Yum!
And who else ate well during my stay? Anita's neigbour's llamas, of course! He keeps a herd of sheep and as they graze in the back 40, he has the llamas there to protect them. Llamas love snacks - especially alfalfa and carrots, and Anita always has some on hand. The sheep are shy and don't take well to hand feeding, but the llamas got right in there! In fact, they are known to hang around the back gate waiting to be fed.

And that about sums up the food angle of my trip!

For more about my adventures, you can read this post.

Kamloops Trip, Food Edition, Part 2

My friend S found this bakery in the Kamloops area called Craig's Bakery. They do not have a web site, unfortunately, but they do have some of the most amazing scones I've ever had. S swears by them, and the ingredient lists are always full of naturally good stuff and no crap. Scones and fruit salad were on the menu at S&M's on Saturday morning before M and his parents headed out to the gun show (where they met my dad - the gun show was the whole reason behind this trip) and S and I went to the mall.

No trip to a major centre in BC would be complete for me without a visit to the local Purdy's location!

What can I say about Purdy's other than they are the most amazing chocolatiers ever in the history of chocolatiers? They are to die for! They are also really expensive, but they usually have a basket on the counter of "almost perfect" chocolates sold at at discount because they're a little less than perfect. This particular day was my lucky day: I found a 1lb dark chocolate assortment - my favourite!!!!! - in the almost perfect basket! Of course, I snagged it. Woo-hoo!
For dinner that night, after a hard day of shopping, S's husband BBQed a huge side of salmon, using BC's Famous Salmon Marinade & BBQ Sauce. I love this stuff! Accompanying our salmon was a mixture of BBQed veggies and baked potatoes with all the fixings. For dessert, we had ice cream with sliced strawberries & whipped cream.
M is an excellent BBQer and the salmon was perfectly done and so, so succulent! And I love veggies grilled on the BBQ. This was one outstanding meal.

Incidentally, the plate my dinner is on and the platter the salmon is on were both made by S, who is a wicked potter!

Thank you so much for your hospitality, S&M! You guys rock!

Up next: my time at Anita's!