Continued with a dinner from the freezer: Turkey Chili on elbow noodles (technically the only cooking I did) with a decidedly mild grated 3-month aged Manchego cheese, a plop of sour cream, a drizzle of lime juice, and a sprinkle of green onions.
There was wine.
Of course! I finally got around to adding both recipes to my phoneâs Notepad, so here they are.
Momâs Fail-Safe Company Chicken
Mom always made this with skinned chicken pieces; I prefer full BISO chicken thighs with excess flaps of skin cut off.
4 BISO chicken thighs
1/3 cup flour
1 Tbsp paprika
1 tsp Fine Herbes (or poultry seasoning)
2 Tbsp oil
Sauce
1 can cream of mushroom soup, low sodium (or make your own homemade)
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp dried tarragon
Preheat oven to 450°.
Pour oil into large baking dish, suitable to go from oven to table, and swirl oil around to cover the bottom.
Mix the flour, paprika and fine herbs, and dip the chicken pieces in the mixture, covering all sides. Place meaty side down in the pan and dust with the remaining flour mixture.
Bake at 450° for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, mx all the ingredients for the sauce in a medium saucepan and heat to boiling, using a whisk to blend. (Double amount for more than 4 pieces of chicken or to have plenty of sauce.) Keep warm.
Remove chicken from oven, turning heat down to 350°. Turn pieces over and scoop out excess oil. Pour on sauce and bake at 350° for another 30 minutes, basting occasionally. I usually baste once in the middle, and then near the end when adding the fruit.
To âdress upâ the recipe, about 5 minutes before serving, Mom would throw in a handful of seedless green grapes and a drained can of mandarin oranges. I prefer to peel a large Satsuma mandarin and use the sections.
Mom always served it with Orange-Clove Rice. So I do as well.
Orange-Clove Rice
1 cup long-grain rice (I use Basmati)
1 cup orange juice
2/3 cup water
2 Tbsp dried minced onion
1 stick cinnamon
10 whole cloves
Add rice to a saucepan with orange juice and water, stirring to mix. Add onion, cinnamon and cloves to the top (donât stir!) and cover.
Bring to a boil and cook for 12-15 minutes at a decent simmer. Add 2 Tbsp of water to keep from boiling dry, but it should look dry on top.
Remove from heat and allow to sit for another 15 minutes without stirring. Remove cinnamon and cloves before serving.
Fabulous local spicy fennel sausage, barley and lentil pilaf topped with sautéed tomatoes, olives and feta, and baby kale sautéed in the sausage drippings.
thatâs a shame, but i hear youâŠ
Fuh-reeeezing cold out 
, so another chill Sunday spent at home, with my poor PIC mostly on the couch, hacking away at some sportsing game or another.
I started my Ms. Issippi pork shoulder late morning, doubling the recipe, i.e. 2 packs each of âau jusâ and ranch seasoning whisked together with the brine of two jars of sliced medium hot peperoncini since itâs such a beast of a roast.
Before my bandmates trickled in to rehearse for next weekâs show Iâd picked most of the meat off the bone â after having simmered at 300ËF for roughly 4.5 hours it was already fork tender, and I also got rid of a bunch of fatty parts before throwing the meat back into the pork fat / jus combo for another hour. Rehearsal was really fun, and I even added one of the drummerâs favorite Tom Waits tunes to the set list on his request 
My PIC contributed plain white rice, which was the perfect foil to the pork shoulder, and I made a mixed salad of romaine, sugar bombs, Persian cukes & avocado with augmented buttermilk ranch dressing.
We have pork for dayyyyyys now 
Two great dishes of leftovers, a salad of leftover asparagus with tomato, thinly sliced onion, and Champagne vinaigrette followed by reheated cottage pie, better the second time.
Mexican pork tenderloin, sweet potato and black bean soup. Loosely based on this recipe. I cooked the pork and vegs separately, used roasted poblanos, didnât add the cinnamon or water, used black beans instead of corn and finely diced tomatoes and chipotle instead of salsa. And of course it was soup and not stew. It was good. Spinach, cherry tomatoes, black olives, green onion salad, chipotle ranch dressing.
We had a tub of sliced crimini shrooms that needed to be eaten, so i chopped them finely and sauteed them with shallots and thyme in evoo, and melted in a couple of chunks of nduja for protein and a little heat, then added the BFâs leftover parm/garlic/butter sauce from last week and cooked it down a bit. With pasta water at serving time, mixed into cavatappi with a bunch of minced parsley and a little more parm on top. Turned out a tad salty, but more than edible. Good on a chilly (for us) night.
that little glistening pork chunk is calling my name⊠looks swell!
Thanks, there was a lot of pork hiding in the bottom of the bowl.
Thank you. I bought them from Albertsons on $5 Friday. They are now 9 days old!!
I just sauteed the sliced zucchini in garlic butter. The recipe calls for adding fresh mint however I didnât have any on hand so I skipped that step this time.
Kale-Salsiccia-Pie - pie crust done with a typical pie dough - AP flour, cold butter, little bit of ice water, blind baking etc. Filling made of sautéed salsiccia crumbles, kale and red onion mixed with sour cream and eggs. Topped with cashews and manchego
Youâre as bad as me 
All good; thanks again.
And potatoes! Dâoh.
Yay! Youâre back. 
