Kicking Chicken Wings

Roasted Chicken Wings Yesterday, the weather in northern Virginia was sunny but rather chilly. With drenching rain forecast for the coming weekend, we took advantage of the afternoon to cut the grass, weed the flowerbeds and generally reclaim the garden....

banh mi sandwich with lemongrass chicken

I made this meatball sandwich with ground turkey and it was delicious

When the women's liberation movement began, when people began protesting against the Vietnam War, civil rights movement, at the beginning of those movements, the majority of the country was not with them, did not believe in the basic principles of any of those philosophies.

Michael Moore

Banh mi Sandwich is a heavy snack or a meal-on-the-run. It is sold by ambulant vendors, in food stalls and in what we'd call "regular" restaurants. The great thing about banh mi is that there are so many variants that one can have banh mi for a week or longer and each sandwich will be different from the last.

What's in a banh mi sandwich? It starts with the baguette, of course. The Vietnamese baguette has a thinner and crisper crust than its French ancestor. And banh mi sandwiches are traditionally made with petite baguette which are smaller than the French baguette and meant to serve one.

What's inside the baguette? There are staples like fresh herbs and pickled carrot and radish. The base can be mayonnaise or liver pâté or both. The main filling can be pork, beef, chicken, meatballs, fish, "head cheese" (parts of the pig's head that are rolled, cooked then sliced like cheese), 

INGREDIENTS

• 3 to 4 chicken thigh fillets (or use breast, if you prefer white meat), skin on or skinless
• 3 to 4 tablespoon nước mắm (fish sauce)
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons r (use only the tender center of white portion of the stalks)
• 3 to 4 petite baguettes (or one regular-sized baguette cut into 4 portions)
• about 4 tablespoons mayonnaise
• about 8 tablespoons spreadable duck or chicken liver pâté, store-bought or homemade See homemade recipe below.
• 1 cucumber, cut into thin slices
• pickled carrot and radish, as much as you like
• fresh cilantro and mint leaves

• Prep Time: 15 minutes
• Cook Time: 10 minutes

• Total Time: 25 minutes
• Yield: 3 to 4 banh mi sandwiches

PREPARATION

Season the chicken fillets with the fish sauce, garlic and sliced lemongrass. Mix with your hands and work the seasonings into the meat. Place in a bowl, cover and leave in the fridge for at least an hour to allow the chicken to soak up the flavors.

Grill, broil or shallow fry the chicken. Cut into thin slices.

Split the baguettes. Pull out the centers to make space for the filling (reserve the soft

centers for another use). Spread the hollowed out bottom half with mayonnaise followed by liver pâté. Top with cucumber slices, chicken slices, pickled carrot and radish and, finally, with fresh herbs.

Serve at once.

Though this pâté can be eaten the day it's made, we find it even more flavorful when made 1 or 2 days ahead. If you use several small ramekins instead of a pâté crock or terrine, 

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter
• 1 cup finely chopped onion
• 1 large garlic clove, minced
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme or 1/4 teaspoon dried
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh marjoram or 1/4 teaspoon dried
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh sage or 1/4 teaspoon dried
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 pound chicken livers, trimmed
• 2 tablespoons bourbon

• Special equipment: a 2 1/2-cup crock or terrine or several small ramekins
• Accompaniment: crackers or toasted baguette slices
• Garnish: a fresh thyme, marjoram, or sage sprig

PREPARATION

Melt 1 stick butter in a large nonstick skillet over moderately low heat, then cook onion and garlic, stirring, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add herbs, salt, pepper, allspice, and livers and cook, stirring, until livers are cooked outside but still pink when cut open, about 8 minutes. Stir in bourbon and remove from heat. Purée mixture in a food processor until smooth, then transfer pâté to crock and smooth top.

I mixed calf liver, duck, chicken, and just to top it off some goose liver. In fact I saved all this liver up in the freezer until I got it all. 

Melt remaining 1/2 stick butter in a very small heavy saucepan over low heat, then remove pan from heat and let butter stand 3 minutes. If using herb garnish, put sprig on top of pâté. Skim froth from butter, then spoon enough clarified butter over pâté to cover its surface, leaving milky solids in bottom of pan.

Chill pâté until butter is firm, about 30 minutes, then cover with plastic wrap and chill at least 2 hours more.

Turkey Chilli, green salad,corn bread, fresh berries.

Turkey Chili
Total Time:
1 hr 20 min
Prep:
20 min
Cook:
1 hr


1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 cup chopped sweet onions
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/4 cup chopped yellow bell peppers
2 pound ground turkey
1 (28-ounce) can crushed organic tomatoes, undrained
4 (16-ounce) can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon fresh minced garlic 
1 teaspoon chili powder
11/2 teaspoons sea salt

Directions
In a large skillet, saute onions, garlic and bell peppers in peanut oil over medium heat until onions are translucent. Add ground turkey and cook until browned.
Add cilantro, sour cream, tortilla chips or avocado for a traditional Mexican garnish. Use soy instead of the turkey if you are going meatless.  Less

I prefer red kidney beans and .most of the time I cook them from scratch and then use them for chilli as needed but you can use chilli beans, black beans, pinto beans they all work well. They each change the taste of the chilli a it but they are all delicous. I often just forget the meat if that is one of my meatless days, or one of the days I save money by forgetting the meat.  You can also use ground round. I had it one night with grass fed ground beef. I did not like it as well but it was good I just prefer lean ground turkey.  

Corn Bread
Usually I make my corn bread from scratch but bought the salad and the corn bread and the beer at Safeway. They were yummy and I made the chilli the easy way. So dinner was ready in a snap

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Banana Bread Recipe and Banana nut Cookie recipe

Recently one of our local stores sold to another chain and for some reason they did not want to use each others products so a lot of them were given away. But some of it was just sold cheap. They had 5 pound bags of bananas for almost nothing at the time I bought them they were not even overripe. But of course like the way of all good bananas they became really ripe, really fast. I dug out my Mother-in-laws recipe for banana bread and another for cookies and I turn that big sack of ripe bananas into all the cookies and bread I could eat for a long while. I gave some to the neighbors and then the rest went into the freezer. I do this whenever I can if I find a real buy on something then I buy that make it into something yummy and stick it in the freezer.  Tonight when I went to the store to buy a little more stuff to make the banana bread and cookies they had those pork loins very lean and so good.  They were 2 to 2.5 pounds each. So I bought like three of them they ran about $4.00 each and I brought them home and while I was baking I stuck those in the crock pot. Now I have around 6 pounds of pulled pork. The little pork loins are lean and boneless so they make perfect pulled pork.  Since I never eat more than a 1/4 pound of meat this will last me a long time. It saves money cooking time and cleanup. Icook a whole bunch at one time and then forget about cooking for quite some time. 

Banana Bread Recipe

INGREDIENTS

SERVINGS10YIELD1 loaf


Banana Nut Cookie Recipe 

• 1⁄2cup butter
• 1cup sugar
• 2eggs, beaten
• 4bananas, finely crushed
• 1 1⁄2cups flour
• 1teaspoon baking soda
• 1⁄2teaspoon salt
• 1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla
• Directions

• DIRECTIONS

1. Cream together butter and sugar.
2. Add eggs and crushed bananas.
3. Combine well.
4. Sift together flour, soda and salt. Add to creamed mixture. Add vanilla.
5. Pour into greased and floured loaf pan.
6. Bake at 350 degrees for 60 minutes.
7. Keeps well, refrigerated.

• Banana Nut Cookies

• 
  

• 

  Original recipe makes 3 dozen  Servings

  • 1 cup butter
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1 cup packed brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon banana extract

  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 3 cups rolled oats
  • 2 cups chopped pecans

  Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
  2. Cream butter or margarine with mixer. Blend in whole eggs, sugar, and extract. Add flour, baking soda, and salt. When the ingredients are thoroughly mixed, add oats and pecans. Mix on lower speed until consistent.
  3. Drop pieces of the dough using an ice cream scoop onto an ungreased cookie tray roughly 3 to 4 inches apart.
  4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes. Eight minutes would yield crispy cookies with a chewy, slightly doughy center. For harder, crispier cookies, bake longer. Cool on wire rack.

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Olives Salad, Stuffed Olive celery, Crusty bread, cheeses, fresh berries

Ranch and Black Olive Stuffed Celery

Ingredients

• 8 celery ribs, cleaned (dried well-very important)
• 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 -2 tablespoon milk, as needed
• 1 (1 1/4 ounce) packet Hidden Valley dry ranch dip mix
• 10 green olives, diced very small

Directions

1. Wash celery. Dry well with a paper towel (very important).
2. Cut into 3" pieces, and set aside.
3. Put cream cheeses into a glass bowl. Put in microwave for 45 secs., until soft.
4. Add enough milk to get creamy texture, starting with 1 T. and adding more if needed.
5. Add Ranch dip mix, diced green olives, and add to all. Mix well.
6. Stuff celery with cream cheese mixture.
7. Wrap, and put in refrigerator for at least 1 hours.

Strong in flavor, garlic-stuffed olives are green olives that have been pitted and then stuffed with whole cloves of garlic before being preserved. While these olives are high in sodium, they also contain a number of health benefits: Garlic may help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, and olives are full of healthy monounsaturated fats.

Green Olive Nutrition

Because of how are prepared they are high in sodium.  But because you are only going to serve perhaps 20 olives they are not so extreme a salty food as one might think.  Because of the small serving size, green olives do not contain large quantities of essential vitamins and minerals, but they are still a source of calcium, B vitamins, and vitamins A, E and K.Green olives are picked before the olive is fully ripe and then cured in a salt brine, pickling solution or water to make them edible. Ten olives have only 39 calories per serving, just over 4 grams of total fat, the majority of which is monounsaturated, and no cholesterol. 

Benefits of Garlic

Garlic is rich in antioxidants, which help protect your body’s cells from damage from free radicals and environmental toxins. Antioxidants may also help with lowering cholesterol levels as well as potentially preventing heart disease, particularly atherosclerosis, the hardening of the arteries. The chemical that produces the strong scent of garlic, allicin, is also responsible for its numerous health benefits, as well as the high sulfur content of the herb. Naturally low in calories, 10 cloves of garlic, one for each olive, have only 45 calories per serving and less than 1/4 gram of total fat. Garlic is a good source of iron, calcium, potassium, phosphorus, and vitamins C, E and K relative to its small serving size. It also provides some B vitamins, vitamin A and magnesium, phosphorus and zinc.

Olive Salad

4 cups of olives, the wider the variety, the more appealing

¼ cup olive oil
1 red pepper
½ white onion and ½ purple onion
½ cup fresh parsley or cilantro
2 scallions, sliced thin

Crusty Bread  and a Good White Table Wine,

Fresh berries and assorted cheeses. 

Yum

Judi Singleton owns bejewelu.com where you can dress the whole family for less

Banana Nut Pancakes Topped with Mixed Berries & Greek Yogurt

These are really good with fruit syrup and fresh berries and nuts mixed in fruit syrup topped with unflavored yogurt. I mixed a whole rather green banana with strawberries and raspberries into plain yogurt then I put in some raspberry low fat syrup (I bought originally for my coffee but I love it on these pancakes. ), I added mixed nuts.  Made a really good topping for the pancakes. Other things I put on for topping is coconut. I love fresh coconut shredded with the fresh banana, berries, and fresh yogurt.

If I feel energetic  I double the recipe and put half in the freezer then when we are real busy I pull them out for a brunch or evening meal. 

• 1 1/2 cup spelt flour (or mix equal parts of white and whole wheat flour)
• 1/3 cup ground flax seeds
• 1/4 cup chia seeds
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts optional
• Variations: You can use 1 cup flour and 1/2 cup oat bran if desired.If you try to avoid sugar,you can avoid adding it,or replace with honey or any other healthy sweetner.You can use regular granulated or brown sugar too.You can replace regular dairy milk with almond,coconut, or soy milk

1. In a mixing bowl combine flour,chia seeds,flax meal,baking powder,salt, and walnuts (if desired).
2. Using a hand mixer,beat eggs,sugar and bananas.Gradually add milk.
3. Add flour and other mixed ingredients to wet ingredients.Mix until well combined and all lumps disappeared.
4. Heat a lightly oiled skillet or griddle on med-low heat.Add one scoop of batter using a ice cream scooper.
5. Allow pancakes to cook until they are golden brown.Flip pancakes over and cook the other side until golden brown .

Judi Singleton owns and operates bejewelu.com, where you can dress the whole family for less