Day 2 - Saturday Night - of the July 4th Holiday Weekend

Dinner was Vinny's Chicken, Pan-Crisped Deviled Egg Salad on Baby Greens and Vanilla Ice Cream in Puff Pastry Shells topped with Home Grown Blackberries sweetened with sugar.

I started marinating the chicken Saturday morning...

Vinny's Chicken
Adpated from the recipe created by Vinny DeGallo for Villa DeGallo Restaurant
Oceanside, California

2 chicken halves or 4 chicken breasts
2 cups or enough white wine to cover the chicken
1/4 cup olive oil
1 - 2 tablespoons chopped garlic
3 sprigs of rosemary

Lay the chicken flat in a container with sides tall enough so the chicken sits below the top. Sprinkle the chopped garlic over the chicken. Remove the leaves from the rosemary sprigs and sprinkle over the chicken. Gently pour in the olive around the sides of the chicken so as not to disturb the garlic and rosemary. Now add the wine, also pouring gently around the sides. Add enough wine to cover the chicken. Allow to marinate 4 - 6 hours, but you can also do it the night before.

About 30 minutes before cooking, remove the chicken from the refrigerator and allow to come to room temperature. Just before cooking, take the chicken out of the marinade and discard the marinade.

For the grill: Heat the grill on high to get it really hot, then turn it down to about 350 degrees. Cook the chicken pieces until done, turning only once (for boneless chicken breasts, about 15 minutes; for chicken halves, about 25 to 30 minutes). Chicken is done when the internal temperature reaches 170 degrees.

For the oven: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Put the chicken in a baking dish or pan and large enough so that the pieces do not touch each other. If you are using chicken halves, place the chicken skin side up. Bake the chicken breasts for about 20 minutes. Chicken halves need about 40 minutes. The chicken is done when the internal temperature reaches 170 degrees.

Debbie's recipe for this wonderful salad is here. If you like deviled eggs, you will love this salad.


Tom grilled our chicken. It was tender, juicy and so flavorful!


And for dessert...

Simple and delicious. Tom baked two premade frozen puff pastry shells, filled them with no sugar, low-fat ice cream (it's really pretty darn good), and topped them with some of our home grown blackberries.

So, tonight is appetizer night. Tom prepped the salmon this morning and is smoking it as I write this...

But more about that tomorrow.

Just a reminder that if you are lighting fireworks tonight, please do it safely.

So, You Think You Love Bacon??

I am usually of the opinion that if you add a little bacon to a dish, it probably will make it better.

A dish Tom makes on occasion is Spaghetti Carbonara, basically just spaghetti, eggs, parmesan, cream and bacon. Now, what's not to like? But, to put it mildly, it's obviously not the most healthy dish I've ever eaten, which is why we don't have it very often.

My oldest son, Mike, sent me an email the other day with a link to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Artisan Bacon Goes The Local Route, which spotlights local farms that produce Artisan bacons from their locally sourced pork.

To showcase it's many uses, the article includes a couple of recipes using bacon. It was the recipe for Bacon Fat Mayonnaise that prompted Mike to send me the article link.

I scanned down through the article and stopped at

"Bacon Fat Mayonnaise"
"Makes about 2 cups"
Before I actually read it, I was thinking that the recipe would simply be a modified traditional mayo with some cooked chopped bacon blended in to give it the bacon flavor, which of course would probably be pretty tasty. Au contraire!

The ingredients should be chilled and are as follows:

• 5 egg yolks (standard for homemade mayonnaise)
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard (also standard)
• 7 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice (standard again)
• Salt & pepper (nothing new here)
• 1-1/2 cups rendered bacon fat

Yes, 1-1/2 CUPS of CONGEALED BACON FAT!

The deadly cholesterol concentration notwithstanding, the mere thought of a concoction of that texture touching my tongue....Oh Lord! I think I just threw up a little in my mouth!

Use the link for the entire recipe and make it if you dare!

Country Breakfast in a Cup

I'm not much of a breakfast eater. I am just "Coffee, please," first thing in the morning and then usually wait until 9:30 or 10:00 before I can even think about something solid. Most mornings I have either a toasted English muffin or slice of toast with a couple of slices of avocado, or a turkey sausage patty, or a slice of turkey bacon. But, Tom has always been a great breakfast eater, so we go out to breakfast often on weekends.

Generally, for breakfast we wind up at Cracker Barrel, where I will order a breakfast much larger than I would generally eat simply because I like to have a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Grandpa's Country Fried Breakfast is my favorite because I get just what I want and I can pick my way through the eggs, country fried steak, hashbrown casserole, biscuits and gravy. At least, that's what I usually do, but I might have to rethink my choice.

This morning as I was perusing the internet I wandered onto The Daily Beast and into a media gallery entitled "This Is Why You Are Fat." The ninth photo is entitled "Country Breakfast Parfait" and contains nearly all the components of my beloved Cracker Barrel breakfast in one tall glass. . .

The caption for this photo reads: "this winner contains all the elements of a country breakfast shoved into a cup as a parfait would be. Those elements include tater tots, fried eggs, chicken-fried steak bites, buttermilk biscuit chunks, sausage gravy, and bacon.

It's one thing to see your breakfast laid out nicely on a plate, with a separate plate for your biscuits and a nice neat bowl for the gravy.

It's quite another thing to see it layered and mushed all together like a gravy, potato, egg and meat milkshake.

I may never eat breakfast again.

 

Pomegranate Barbecue Sauce & Deviled Egg Salad

It seems everyone has received free bottles of POM Pomegranate juice. Everyone, that is, except me. I had to buy mine. But, that's okay, I actually buy it regularly because I make a refreshing afternoon drink with it. I fill a tall glass with ice, pour pomegranate juice to fill the glass about a fourth full, then pour orange juice until the glass is half full, then fill to the top with diet ginger ale. It's sort of like an afternoon snack for me.

We were planning a cookout this past weekend and I wanted something different. I had been seeing a lot of POM recipes in the blogosphere lately and thought about making a Pomegranate Barbecue Sauce. I did some looking around the internet and every single recipe called for Pomegranate Molasses. Now, com'on folks, I live in Arkansas. There are times during the year when the grocery stores don't even carry regular molasses because it is considered "seasonal" (like nobody would use it any time other than the holidays ~ go figure). So, I KNEW there would be no way I would find pomegranate molasses. I had to use my creative genius. I decided to reduce the pomegranate juice down to a glaze. So what do you think? Looks delicious, huh?



Here's what I did. I had some sliced smoked beef brisket in the freezer that I had smoked back in November and vacuum sealed. I made the barbecue sauce and then warmed the brisket slices in the barbecue until we were ready to eat.

Last week, Debbie @ Friday Friends posted a recipe for Deviled Egg Salad...well, actually the recipe's specific title is Pan-crisped Deviled Eggs on French Lettuces, but as I said, I live in Arkansas. The only thing French you will find here are Fries. But, in defense of the state where I now live, I did find a really nice herb and spring mix at WalMart. They don't carry it often, but when it's there, I buy it because it is really tasty. I like biting into my salad and being surprised with a taste of fresh dill or basil.

So, anyway, we love deviled eggs at our house and this salad looked so darn good I just had to try it and I can tell you, I will make it again and again. It was delicious.



Okay, so technically, we didn't actually cook out, but we did eat outside. And we enjoyed every single bite.

Pomegranate Barbecue Sauce
by Terri Powers for Terri's Table

1 Tablespoon olive oil
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
2 teaspoons (about 2 cloves) garlic, finely minced
1-3/4 cup pomegranate juice
1 cup cider vinegar
1 cup ketchup
2 teaspoons dry mustard
2 teaspoons chili powder
2 Tablespoons chipotle peppers in adobo
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
3/4 cup white wine
1/2 teaspoon each kosher salt and fresh ground pepper

In a large frying pan, heat the olive oil. Add the onion and cook until translucent. Add the garlic and cook about a minute. Pour in the pomegranate juice and bring to a boil. Boil the mixture for about 9 or 10 minutes until the liquid is reduced by a third.

Add the vinegar the remaining ingredients, stirring well, bring to a boil and reduce the sauce to a simmer. Simmer until slightly thickened. Use as a glaze or sauce.

Note: I initially did not add the white wine. I only added it later after the sauce has simmered for awhile and still had too much of a vinegar bite for me. The white wine cuts that bite very nicely.

Debbie's Deviled Egg Salad
adapted from Debbie's recipe @ The Friday Friends

For The Eggs:
8 large eggs, hard cooked and peeled
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 med. garlic cloves, minced
2-1/2 teaspoons minced onion
2-1/2 Tablespoons fresh flat-leafed parsley leaves, coarse chopped
2-3 Tablespoons milk
2-1/2 teaspoons mayonnaise
1-1/2 teaspoons white wine vinegar (I only had cider vinegar, so I used that)
Salt and fresh ground black pepper
2 Tablespoons chives, chopped - I had to add them. They are growing beautifully in my herb garden. I also used them for garnish on the finished salad.

For The Dressing:
the leftover egg stuffing
3 Tablespoons good tasting extra virgin olive-oil
1 generous teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 1/2 Tablespoons milk
2 Tablespoons cider vinegar.(The original recipe called for 2 1/2 teaspoons white wine vinegar)
Salt and fresh ground black pepper

For The Salad Greens:
4 generous handfuls of mixed greens such as Bibb lettuce, mache`, and dandelion greens or frisee`, washed and dried. (I used a full plastic container of herb and spring mix

To Make The Hard Cooked Eggs:
Place 8 eggs in a large pot and cover with cold water. Bring the water to a boil over high heat. Once the water comes to a boil, cover the pot, turn off the heat and allow the eggs to sit for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, drain the water from the pot and cover the eggs with ice and cold water to stop the cooking and cool the eggs so they can be easily handled.


1. Cut the hard cooked eggs in half lengthwise. Gently remove the yolks with your fingers and place them in a medium sized bowl. Set the whites aside on a plate.

2. To the yolks, add the mustard, garlic, onion, parsley, milk, mayo, vinegar and chives. With a fork, crush everything together into a thick paste. Add salt and pepper to taste.

3. Pack the egg yolk mixture back into the hollows of the egg whites. Fill so that the stuffing mix even with the surface of the egg white. DO NOT mound the stuffing. You will have leftover stuffing and this becomes the base for your salad dressing.

4. To the bowl with the leftover egg stuffing mix, add the salad dressing ingredients and whisk until smooth. Set aside.

5. In a large non-stick skillet, heat 2 - 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Gently place the eggs in the pan, stuffed side down. Cook until the eggs are beautifully browned, 3-5 minutes. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper as they cook.

5. As the eggs saute`, put the salad greens into a large bowl. Add all but 2 tablespoons of the dressing to the greens and toss until well coated. Remove salad greens to a large platter.

6. Gently lift the eggs from the pan, turn them filling side up and set them on the greens. Be careful! They are really slippery little suckers. I had one casualty.

7. To serve, drizzle remaining dressing over eggs, sprinkle with chopped chives and serve.