Apple Cider Chicken

I've talked about how easy it is to make things up on the fly if you know what tastes good together, and this is an example of an "off the cuff" meal.

I'd planned to have chicken parm with spaghetti, but I just wasn't feeling like cooking that. We have a bit of stress in our lives at the moment, and it's very easy to fall down the, "I just don't feel like cooking, let's get fast food instead" slope. That isn't good for anyone.

I love the "chicken marsala" I make, but I didn't have any marsala wine or mushrooms. What I did have were some shallots, and some apple cider that needed to be used up. I threw some potatoes on to boil, and set to work on the chicken. This served 2 and Quinn.

Apple Cider Chicken



2 boneless chicken breasts
A bit of flour
Salt and pepper
Oil
4 shallots, sliced
About 2 cups apple cider
About 1 cup chicken stock
Sprig of rosemary
1 tblsp cold butter

Put frying pan on to heat to about medium. Rinse, pat dry and pound chicken breasts to about 1/2" thick.

Put about 2 tblsp of oil into the pan and toss in sliced shallots to soften. Meanwhile, season a few tablespoons of flour with salt and pepper and lightly dredge chicken breasts and place in pan. Cook a few minutes until done on one side, and flip.

Once chicken is cooked through, add cider and chicken stock and boost heat to high.

At this point, after tasting the sauce, I thought it might need a little something more. Apples and rosemary go well together, so I went out and grabbed a sprig of rosemary and tossed it in to infuse the sauce with its flavour.



After about 5 minutes of boiling, I removed the sprig, and put the chicken breasts on a plate, allowing the sauce to reduce further. Make sure to taste and adjust for seasons. After about 3 minutes, remove from heat and put 1 tblsp butter in pan, swirling until butter is melted (this will make the sauce richer).

I served this with riced potatoes and corn kernels.

This was a great experiment. I will DEFINITELY make this one again! This would be great with pork too!

Thanksgiving Dinner

Sorry it's been so long since I've updated. I have a little bit of time, and a lot of catching up to do! Here's the first of them.

It's the Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend...well, officially, the holiday is Monday but most people I know do dinner on the Sunday and spend Monday recovering.

Don has been away a lot in the past couple of weeks, so I wanted to have a bit of a celebratory dinner to welcome him back, on Friday.

I made turkey breast, stuffing, and brussels sprouts...and for dessert, a pumpkin pie.

The turkey and stuff are adapted from Rachel Ray's Thanksgiving in 60.



Turkey Breast

I prefer to have a boneless turkey breast (because it is so much easier to cut). If you can't find a boneless turkey breast, see if the butcher will debone it for you, or just take it home and do it yourself...it's not that hard, and if you don't know what you're doing, check the internet. I'm sure there are plenty of sites that can help you out. Also, this is the one time I won't put foil on the bottom of the roasting pan because you'll need the bits at the bottom to make a gravy.

1 small onion, chopped
1 lemon (for zesting)
12 fresh sage leaves
1/2 cup flat leaf parsley
1 teaspoon salt
Olive oil
4 tablespoons butter
2 boneless turkey breast halves (skin on)
Freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons flour
2 cups apple cider
1/2 cup chicken stock
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 450. Oil roasting pan and put aside.

Using a food processer, chop onion and lemon zest (avoid the pith, but I'm sure I don't need to tell you that) until fine. Add sage, parsley, olive oil and a pinch of salt and pulse until a course paste.

Melt butter in a small saucepan on the stove. The original recipe also recommends adding 2 fresh bay leaves to this butter and letting the oil infuse, which is very tasty...but I could find neither fresh bay at the market nor my dried ones at home, so I left them out this time. Once melted, pull off heat.

Place turkey breasts on a work surface and carefully run fingers between flesh and skin to create a pocket. Don't yank it completely off...you're going to stuff the paste you made in the food processor under the skin so you don't want it to fall out. Once you've loosened the skin, get to stuffing (using half on each breast, obviously).

Pop the turkey breasts into the roasting pan, giving them a little room to breathe, and brush the turkey skin with half the butter you melted. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and place in the oven. Close the door and decrease the temp to 400 degrees.

Wash your hands. Not that I need to tell you that. You just handled poultry.

After 20 minutes, baste the turkey breasts with the remaining butter and pop back into the oven for about 25 minutes until cooked through. The thermometer should read 170 (but I prefer 180 tbh...it wasn't quite done, but the skin was starting to get dark so I covered the pan with foil so the meat could cook through - our oven is a jerk).

Once cooked, remove the turkey breast and let it rest for 10 minutes. This gives you time to make the gravy. At this point, timing wise, you should put the stuffing in the oven to brown (see below).

Put the roasting pan on the oven and turn the element on to heat the pan. Sprinkle flour over the pan and cook while stirring for a few minutes. Add the chicken stock and whisk until smooth, then slowly add the apple cider, continuing to whisk to avoid lumps. Continue heating gravy, stirring occasionally, until thickened. Taste, and season with salt and pepper.

Slice turkey breast and serve with gravy.

Apple Stuffing

2 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons butter
4 ribs celery, chopped
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
3 Royal Gala apples (or whatever you have on hand), peeled, cored, and chopped
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons poultry seasoning
1/4 cup fresh parsley leaves chopped
8 cups cubed stuffing mix (I used the Paxo, which is more crumby than cubed and that worked fine, but I love the cubey stuff better, for texture)
2 cups chicken stock
1 cup apple cider

Preheat a large skillet over medium high heat...I used my cast iron, because I popped it in the oven to crisp the top. If you don't have a large skillet you can put in the oven, just use a frying pan for the first bit, and finish it off in a baking pan or casserole. The original recipe made muffins. I was too lazy to get out my muffin tin.

Add olive oil and butter to heated skillet. Add chopped onion and celery and cook until softened. Add apples, salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning, and cook another few minutes. Add parsley and stuffing cubes, and toss together to combine. Moisten stuffing with chicken stock and apple cider (you might need to adjust the measures so it's soft but not soggy)

Pop the lot into the oven while the turkey is resting (and you're making gravy) until the top is crispy and browned.

Serve with gravy on top.

Pumpkin Pie



I followed the directions on the can of pumpkin puree, adjusting it to be not as sweet, and cooked it. I mixed together the topping I use for my apple crisp (oats, flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and a little salt, mixed with melted butter) and sprinkled it on top.

While we ate our dinner, I popped the pie in the oven to toast the topping and warm the pie.

Apple Butter

We have lots of apples :)

My aunt and uncle have an orchard in Windsor, so I'm no stranger to apple recipes. You may see a few more while I whittle down the stash we picked up at Wagner Orchards.

This is a Michael Smith recipe...

Apple Butter

10 apples, cored and cut in quarters (I left the skins on)
1/2 to 1 cup brown sugar (to your taste)
1/2 cup apple cider
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla

Pop it on the stove, cover, and cook on medium high heat until apples break down and the pulp is thick and dark brown.

Puree with an immersion blender (or a traditional blender), put in a jar, and refrigerate.

I cooked it for about 3 hours on the stovetop. It could have been cooked down a little longer to make it thicker. I usually make it in the crock pot, but mine was in the dishwasher :)

Harvest Pork and Apple Bake

Campbell's (you know, the soup company?) has a ton of great recipes. How easy is throwing some rice, veggies, meat and soup into a casserole and baking it?

I found a recipe in a magazine for Harvest Pork and Apple Bake and made it up last night. As usual, I fiddled with it a smidge.

Recently, I talked about how blending flavours is easy if you know what tastes good together. Thanks to the Brady Bunch, we all know pork chops and applesauce work good together, so apples and pork tenderloin will be great, with the apple flavour strengthened through apple cider.

Harvest Pork and Apple Bake



2 cups whole wheat yolkless broad egg noodles
1 carrot, peeled, quartered, and chopped
2 tablespoons oil
1 lb pork tenderloin, cut into 1/2" medallions
2 cups crimini mushrooms, sliced
1 small onion, sliced
1 can cream of celery soup (cream of mushroom or chicken would also work...and I bet cream of cheddar would be good too!)
1 cup apple cider
3 sprigs fresh thyme
1/2 tsp cinnamon
salt and pepper
1 red apple, unpeeled, cored and cut into wedges

Cook noodles and carrots in boiling, salted water until noodles are al dente.

Meanwhile, brown tenderloin medallions in a frying pan with a little oil (about 4 mins each side). I talked about browning meat before putting in the crock pot yesterday...same goes here. Brown the pork and give it a little caramelized flavour and it will make your dish extra delicious. Once cooked, put pork on a plate and put aside.

In the bottom of that frying pan is a delicious bunch of gunk created by caramelized sugars and proteins from the pork and it's going to help flavour the rest of your dish. Toss in the onions and mushrooms and cook on medium high heat until they are soft.

Turn up the heat, add apple cider to mushrooms and onions and deglaze anything left on the bottom of the pan that the mushrooms didn't pick up. Reduce cider, stirring frequently, for a few minutes (this will concentrate the flavours and thicken things up a bit).

Preheat oven to 350.

Turn heat down to medium and add soup, thyme sprigs (just throw them in whole...remember how many go in so you know how many twigs need to come out!) and cinnamon.

Toss drained noodles and carrots into sauce and stir to combine. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed.

Toss noodles, sauce and vegetable mixture into a 1 1/2 quart casserole (I used my oval shaped one over the round one so there's more room for the pork and apples on top, but use what you have!)

Arrange pork and apples on top (see photo above) and bake for 30 minutes, uncovered.

Apple Picking!

We went apple picking last Saturday. It had been YEARS since I'd been.



Having a very active nearly 2 year old, we're always looking for things to do as a family that gets him out and active, and what better excuse in September than going apple picking? He loves apples, so it also serves as a little lesson in where his food comes from.

Wagner Orchards and Estate Winery was recommended to us by a friend.

It was perfect for us! Not ridiculously busy, equipment for Quinn to play on, apples (of course), a winery, and some good eats. I also love that it's family owned and run.

We bought a bag at the shop ($10 for a 13-15lb bag) and hopped onto the tractor's trailer. The tractor took us to the Gala section of the orchard and we walked back, picking as we went.



Quinn loved picking the apples (there were plenty of branches low enough for him), and tried to eat each and every one. We wandered down the path, filling our bag with delicious apples (they use very few chemicals and try to use natural pest control over insecticides, when possible).

We wandered over the barn where Quinn talked to the cows.

Wagner's also sells beef that's hormone and antibiotic free. They are pasture-raised (but are finished on corn...that they grow themselves).

We walked across the grass to visit with the horses and donkey.



We started back toward the buildings and "accidentally" wandered in through the winery door. There were a number of wines to choose from, but I was drawn to the ice fruit wines and picked up a bottle of the raspberry (they also had apple and blackcurrant, as well as some ice fruit wines blended with red), then followed my nose into the main shop.

There, I was tempted by some pies, strudels, sausage rolls, homemade Mennonite sausage...I wanted to tell them to just hand me a fork and put it on my tab, but I was good and only purchased some ground beef ($3.50 a lb - I made Lazy Cabbage Rolls with some of the beef and it was incredible!), a couple of strudels and some apple cider.

We went back outside and let Quinn loose on the the jungle gym!



I really enjoyed Wagner Orchards and it was a perfect pace for Quinn at this stage. It wasn't super busy, had close proximity parking, allowed him to pick his own apples and contribute, gave him a safe place to run around, offered a few extras (like seeing the cows and petting the horses...and I swear I heard a sheep around somewhere), and a jungle gym for him to play on. We're also supporting a locally owned and run family business.

It was a great family outing, and we will definitely be back!

Thing about picking apples with the kids is that you usually end up with more than you can eat...so what have I done with our apples?

* Apple Butter
* Harvest Pork and Apple Bake