Chicken and Biscuits a la Jessica Seinfeld

So I have to admit I watch Martha Stewart.  I think she’s a freakin’ genius in the kitchen.  I don’t think though I’ve ever actually made any of her recipes because I just don’t have the time to make everything from scratch.  However, her guests are another thing. I’ve tried recipes that several of her chef or foodie guests have presented because they’re so much more feasible for a normal person with a life. 

Recently Martha had Jessica Seinfeld on her show to promote her new book, Double Delicious. She made some really cool and simple looking breakfast items and I was sold.  I didn’t rush out to buy her book but the next time I was at Costco I happened to notice it in the book section and I picked it up.  This is a continuation from her first book Deceptively Delicious and includes recipes that are appropriate for family meals any time. All recipes include some kind of fruit or vegetable puree.  The pictures are wonderful and the recipes are straightforward and fast.  I’ve made a few of them already and all have been hits with both my picky little girl and almost equally picky husband (wonder where she gets it…). 

I made this Chicken and Biscuits for dinner on one of our recent crazy snowy New England days. It was the perfect comfort food to warm you up on a cold day after spending hours battling the snow! It was really tasty with a hint of sweetness in the biscuits and a wonderful rich gravy. I had to improvise a little since I didn’t have buttermilk and was fresh out of whole wheat flour. So, I googled how to make buttermilk and found a great tip on ehow.com: 1 tbs of white vinegar mixed with 1 cup minus 1 tbs of milk will make a substitute (put the vinegar in a measuring cup and add milk to the 1 cup line and let sit for 5 minutes.) Note: if you try this substitution, this recipe calls for ¾ cups of buttermilk.  Instead of the whole wheat flour, I used enriched unbleached flour.  My substitutions must have gone somehow wrong though since my biscuit dough was too runny and instead of individual biscuits dotted over the chicken, it had a sort of biscuit crust covering the whole thing (I suspect it was the flour).  Still, it wasn’t a bad thing and the biscuit dough definitely had the buttermilky tang to it and cooked up nice and airy.  The recipe serves 6 and between my husband, our daughter, my mom, and me, there was only a tiny bit left over (enough for my daughter to have lunch the next day).  Clearly we all liked it! My little girl actually asked for thirds!  Unfortunately I don’t have a photo to share since my camera’s battery decided to die just as I tried to take some pictures but when I make it again I’ll take some photos and share them.  Probably when I make it again I’ll add some frozen peas to the gravy for some added texture and goodness.  Try the recipe, check out Seinfeld’s website at www.doitdelicious.com and buy her book. 

Ingredients:

1tbs olive oil

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed (about 1 pound)

1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 (8.5 oz) can reduced fat cream of celery soup (no one in our family likes celery so I used cream of mushroom soup and it tasted really good.)

½ cup non fat (skim) milk

½ cup pumpkin, carrot, or sweet potato puree

Biscuit Topping

1 ½ cups whole wheat flour

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

½ cup trans-fat-free, soft tub margarine spread

1 large egg, beaten

¼ cup honey

½ tsp cream of tartar

¾ cup low-fat (1%) buttermilk

Procedure:

1.      Heat the oil in a flameproof casserole or Dutch oven over high heat. Sprinkle the chicken with pepper. Add it to the casserole and cook until the chicken begins to brown, 4 to 5 minutes. Stir in the soup, milk, and vegetable puree until all ingredients are well combined. Remove from heat.

2.      Preheat the oven to 375 F. Prepare the biscuits. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Rub the margarine into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the egg, honey, cream of tartar, and buttermilk all at once. Mix just until a soft dough forms. Dot the biscuit dough over the chicken mixture. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, uncovered, until the biscuits are cooked through and golden on top. Serve immediately. 

Prep: 30 minutes

Total: 1 hour

Yield: Serves 6

The time is pretty accurate as I even had time to make carrot puree from scratch (cooking the carrots it my trusty microwave) and still it only took about an hour altogether.  

Giving Thanks and Holiday Feasts

I both love and hate this time of year. I love it for all the cooking shows and magazines full of fall and holiday recipes (that I drool over yet never make). I hate it because those same shows and magazines are a painful reminder that my husband and I are separated from our immediate families by a great big ocean and hours upon hours of travel that costs a bomb.  Oops, maybe I shouldn’t use the words “travel” and “bomb” in the same sentence… In any case, it’s around the holidays that I really miss family.  To be sure, my husband has extended family who are all very close to us and with whom we have spent recent Thanksgivings and Christmases.  We also have our share of friends that have become an extended family of sorts. But still, when you’re bombarded with ads showing happy families gathering around the table and children returning home from faraway places while coffee is brewing in the kitchen, you can’t help but feel a little empty.  I was recently talking about this very thing with a friend of mine who finds herself in a similar situation to ours. As a recent transplant to a new city not only does she miss her family and friends, but she feels extremely isolated because it seems everyone around her is gearing up for celebrating the Holidays with large family gatherings.  My take on this is that being separated from one’s family is actually more common than we all might think and that these cheesy holiday ads represent an ideal and not a norm. Families are scattered these days due to employment, deployment, or because they just don’t plain get along.  And not everyone can afford to travel even if they wanted to. 

Now that we are a family unit of our very own complete with our two year old little missy and less than 2 week old little guy I think it’s time to start thinking of establishing our own holiday traditions, especially when it comes to food.  With my Finnish background and my husband’s Irish heritage we have lots of dishes and traditions to draw upon.  I realize that my timing is not exactly on point with Thanksgiving a day away, but I have to start somewhere.  Thanksgiving was going to be a bit of a throwaway this year anyway as my son was due to be born a week later, and then decided to throw us a curveball by showing up a little early.  Not only that but with my gestational diabetes, I didn’t exactly feel like partaking in any feasts.  So, there is no turkey thawing in our fridge and no plans for oodles of the traditional side dishes.  But still, I feel the need to do something special.  Now, some of you may be gasping in horror that there will be no turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, and biscuits in our household.  But really, is that necessary?  My husband doesn’t even like turkey, so what would be the point of making it, especially when you can’t seem to find any birds smaller than 20 pounds? 

This year, our menu will include a spiral ham, green bean casserole, Brussels sprouts, and potatoes of some sort.  Yeah, it’s pretty simple and not a lot of food but there are only three adults (with my mother here to help with the baby) and one very picky toddler, so why torture ourselves with loads of food to prepare and tons of leftovers?  And why put myself out cooking a feast when I am still recovering from giving birth and need to feed my baby every couple of hours?  Honestly, I’d rather spend that time bonding with my little man.  I am no Martha Stewart, so the ham is pre-cooked and just needs to be heated, the green bean casserole will be made with canned ingredients and the potatoes might, just might be a boxed mashed variety I have in my pantry (perhaps jazzed up a bit with cream cheese or something). The only fresh ingredient is the Brussels sprouts!  But the idea is to enjoy a nice meal with my family and contemplate the things for which we are thankful. Isn’t that what Thanksgiving is really about?  Oh, and since I do not have gestational diabetes anymore, there will be dessert; apple spice caramel cake (store bought).