Guess What? & Roasted Chicken in Potacchio

I should start off by saying that, for the past year plus I have been incredibly busy and this blog has totally fallen by the wayside. I am still cooking, in fact, my new project lately has been purees. That's right, I have a baby now! My daughter, Abbey, was born mid-September and since then, and even before, my time has been consumed with everything baby.

I didn't think being a mom would be so amazing and so tiring at the same time. It's a good thing she's cute, because she stinks, keeps me up at crazy hours in the night and barfs on me.

I am in the middle of starting a new blog, Mommy Like Whoa, that will chronicle my life as a mom, with recipes, crafts, and DIY projects, but like this one, it's subject to the time I find to keep it up. I am also now on Pinterest and will be making a great effort to try pinned recipes and share the worthwhile ones with you. Follow & Repin me!

And since no EKmW post would be complete without some sort of recipe review, I bring to you:

Roasted Chicken in Potacchio by Scott Conant

Photo by ABC's The Chew

I got this recipe on The Chew, which is my new favorite daytime "talk show". I don't usually have time to watch it, but I always DVR it and catch up on the weekends. This week, on a rare occasion, I got to watch it early and this recipe was the inspiration for last nights dinner.

My local Albertson's was having a sale on whole fryer chickens for 88 cents a pound, so I took advantage! This is a super easy one pan meal, and you'll end up having very minimal dishes, plus it's kid friendly!

You start off with;

1 whole chicken, cleaned and patted dry
1 large yellow onion (or whatever color you have on hand or prefer)
1 can tomatoes (I used diced, but once again anything you have on hand)
4-6 potatoes; quartered, 1-2 inch cubed(I used red, and they worked nicely)
1 cup wine or broth
6 sprigs rosemary (I foraged mine from the wild bush that grows outside our house!)
Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper
Red pepper flakes, paprika, cayenne, or whatever your favorite roast chicken seasons are

I started off by preheating my oven to 375* and pulled out my roasting pan. I cleaned the chicken and patted it dry, and placed it in the center of the pan. Drizzle the chicken with the olive oil, and season the inside and outside with the salt, pepper, and the seasoning of your choice. Arrange the onion, potatoes and rosemary around the outside of the chicken, drizzle with more olive oil, season, and pour the tomatoes over the top. Place in the oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, basting every 20 minutes or so, or until the thigh temperature is 170* and juices run clear. I removed the chicken from the pan to rest and tossed the potato mixture and put it back into the oven for another 15 minutes. Serve.

The best part about this was Charlie LOVED IT, which for some reason lately he hasn't been all that into new dishes for dinner. Even Abbey liked it! I cut off a small piece of the breast and minced it, mixed it with some of the potatoes that I mashed with a fork and she devoured it! Not that I have had a problem with her, she's such a foodie! Just like her mommy!

Enchilads Verdes

Whenever Charlie has a bad day, I do my best to make the rest of his day perfect. This usually includes letting him play Red Dead Redemption for hours on end, giving him a back massage, buying him a 12-pack of his favorite beer of the moment and cooking him one of his favorite labor intensive meals I try to avoid on a normal day. Charlie's love is a little different from mine so when I have a bad day I just ask that he's a little nicer and caring than normal. If I'm really lucky he'll give me a night off from cooking duty and make me one of famous dishes that he makes so well.

Yesterday was one of those days. I spent the majority of my day with my dads side of the family at a memorial and celebration of life of my recently deceased Uncle "Wesser", and I was drained. Emotionally, mentally and physically. So Charlie stepped up and made me one of my favorites - Enchilada Verdes!

We both grew up eating a lot of Mexican food - both mine and Charlie's father's sides of our families are part Mexican - which leads to some of the best food you're going to find anywhere. Plus we're from San Diego, so you could say we're both pretty picky about our Mexican food. His enchiladas are better than any enchiladas I've ever gotten at a restaurant and I'm going to share with you the secret. Lucky you!

You're going to need;

* 6 medium sized flour tortillas
* 2 cans La Victoria mild green enchilada sauce
* 2-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
* 1 cup shredded "Mexican" Cheddar Jack cheese
* 1/4 cup sour cream
* 1 bunch of cilantro, finely chopped
* 1 block of Jack cheese, sliced into 1/4 inch chunks

Start by boiling the chicken breasts until cooked, then cool and shred with your hands or 2 forks. Open and dump both cans of sauce into a medium saucepan and let simmer until slightly reduced and thickened. In a large bowl combine the chicken, shredded cheese, sour cream and cilantro and mix well. Stuff a tortilla with the chicken mixture, roll up and place in a casserole dish. Repeat with remaining tortillas and chicken. Pour the thickened sauce over the top and top each enchilada with the sliced cheese. Bake at 350* until sauce bubbles and cheese on top is melted, about 15-20 minutes. Cool to set and serve with rice, beans and a ridiculously healthy appetite! Om nom nom.

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FATCAKES! #1 Snickerdoodle Cupcakes

So for Christmas, Charlie got me a bunch of cupcake cookbooks, and then almost immediately requested a recipe, Snickerdoodle Cupcakes. He's a HUGE Snickerdoodle fan, and I'm a HUGE cupcake fan, so I thought I would start off the new year, and my new FATCAKES! series with Snickerdoodle.

Charlie calls me "Fatcakes" cuz I love to quote a line from iCarly (yes, shut up, sometimes I watch Nickelodeon. Don't judge me.) that Sam says, "Mama knows her Fat Cakes", anyway, it stuck.

Anyway, the FATCAKES series will be a big project for me this year in I hope to go through the entire cupcake recipe books I have a make as many as I can in 365 days. Keep checking up on me and my progress!

SNICKERDOODLE CUPCAKES

These pretty little cupcakes taste EXACTLY like the cookie and are surprisingly easy to make. Makes 28.

You will need:
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1 1/2c. cake flour* (NOT self rising)
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 sticks butter, room temp
1 3/4 c. sugar
4 large eggs, room temp
2 tsp pure vanilla extract (you all know how I feel about this one)
1 1/4 c. milk

*If you don't have cake flour, or are hard pressed and can't find it, you can use all-purpose flour and substitute out one tablespoon of flour for one tablespoon of corn starch.

Preheat the oven to 350* and line your cupcake pans with papers. Sift together the flours, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. If you have a sifter, awesome! If not you can use a sieve to sift, or mix well using a fork.

Using an electric mixer, or your handy dandy Kitchen Aid, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy on a medium high speed. If your butter has not come to room temperature, you can cut it up into small cubes, this helps break it down a bit.

Add each egg, one at a time until well incorporated. Beat in vanilla and reduce to a low speed. Add flour and milk by alternating in batches (flour 3, milk 2).

Divide batter into your cupcake pans, until about 3/4 full. I find it easier to scrape down he bowl and transfer the batter into a large plastic or pastry bag and pipe it into the liners. This helps with control and allows for less spills and drips.

Bake cupcakes for about 20 minutes, or until a cake tester (toothpicks or raw spaghetti noodles work well) inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cupcakes cook on a wire rack.

Frost cupcakes with 7 minutes frosting, and dust with a mixture of cinnamon and sugar to make them look perfectly adorable.

Hash House A-Go-Go

If you ever find yourself in San Diego, jonsing for some amazing breakfast (or even lunch) , look no further than Hash House A-Go-Go on 5th Ave in Hillcrest, famous for huge portions and ridiculously long lines that go surprisingly fast.

Now I've been to HH a few times, and I have NEVER EVER been disappointed, not once. Not only is the food amazing, the portions HUGE, and the plating beautiful, it's a great place to take someone who's never been, just to see the look on their faces when their food comes. Honestly people, it never gets old.

Now just a heads up, the pictures below are from a few different trips over to HH, were not REALLY that big of pigs, I swear.

Charlie and I stopped in for lunch once (they serve breakfast all day), I was craving their French Toast, and I sadly found out that the French Toast is pretty much the only breakfast item they DON'T serve all day.

He wanted lunch I wanted breakfast, neither of us were hungry enough for our own plate, so we opted for the Sage Fried Chicken and Bacon Waffles, which was just recently featured on Man Vs. Food on the Travel Channel.

The plate comes PILED with bacon waffles, and TWO huge chicken breasts, pan fried golden brown, topped with fried leeks, drizzled with a maple reduction and stabbed through the center with a heftily aromatic spring of fresh rosemary. Yes, that's ONE serving. Thankfully for those of you who want this, and don't live near a HH, Food Network tackled this recipe, and I'm sharing it with you.

Another breakfast favorite of mine are their Farm Benedicts. HH's benedicts are unlike ANYTHING you've ever seen, tried or made at home. Seriously, it's pretty epic. Below is the Sage Fried Chicken Benedict.

It's served on a bed of mashed potatoes, a huge housemade biscuit, and topped heavily with scrambled eggs, fried chicken, bacon (which I got on the side) fresh spinach, ripe tomatoes and griddled mozzarella cheese then topped with chipotle cream sauce.

On our last trip, Charlie and I met Adam for breakfast since he was in town the evening before, and HH was my first choice when he asked where we should go for breakfast.

Adam opted for an Indiana Favorite, Andy's Sage Fried Chicken w/ maple reduction, 2 eggs, bacon mashed potatoes & biscuit.

I finally got my French Toast. It comes dipped in Banana Cinnamon Cream, grilled until golden brown and then topped with a griddled banana, sliced lengthwise, toasted pecans, powdered sugar and maple syrup. TO. DIE. FOR.

Burger Bar Las Vegas

So much stuff has been happening lately that I've hardly found the time to blog. Lots of changes in the personal life of me.

This past weekend I went to Las Vegas for a wedding with Charlie to see our friends Christina and Eric bite the dust tie the knot at the LOVELY Mandalay Bay Casino. Food is always a huge part of our outings, which is probably why we mesh so well together, and Vegas was no exception. After a weekend of hoity-toity food and drink, we were happy to find this little gem.

Burger Bar, is the brainchild of Uber Chef Hubert Keller. Burgers are our life.

Burger Bar is set up like a super fancy Burger Subway where you start with the bun and pick everything you want to build the most epic burger of all time.

I opted for the Black Angus Burger, with caramelized onions, peppered bacon, whole grain mustard and peppered jack cheese with buttermilk zucchini fries as my side.

Charlie opted for a plain burger, well done, with cheddar and peppercorn sauce on the side and fat fries.

Don't bother the man with petty pictures when he's eating.

The cool thing about Burger Bar is they have loads of awesome toppings, some basic and some very gourmet. In fact they have a $60 kobe burger on their menu that is topped with shaved black truffles and sauteed foie gras, which if you're into that is awesome, but I'm more of a extra pickles kind of girl.

Charlie snapped a few pictures as I attempted to fit the burger in my mouth. This one is my favorite.

Burger Bar has an awesome Sweet Burger Menu filled with amazingly delicious looking treats, which we didn't order, and also some Beer Floats which I was tempted to order, but we had to be hitting the road.

Cooked perfectly pink and juicy.

All in all it was a great experience that we both loved and still talk about to this day. The only downside is you're going to have to be ok with spending at least $20 for a burger and side, but I think it was more than worth it.

Mediterraneo in Alpine

Just recently, I was privileged to get to go to Mediterraneo in Alpine for dinner and drinks. I had never been, but I had heard it was delicious and raved about so I was ready.

We started off with some drinks. I got one of the special martinis of the week, and Charlie got a Cranberry Grey Goose.

We started off with some Bruchetta, with toasted crustinis and shaved Parmesan cheese.

I ordered their Free Range Chicken, which was amazing and came topped on a bed of mashed potatoes with Chinese long beans with a wine reduction. Did you expect any less?

Charlie got this delicious pasta with chicken and cream sauce that was pretty much to die for.