Devine Eats

I cannot believe that in over two years of posting on this blog I have never posted about this chicken club salad. I'm embarrassed.  Even more so because it's now showing  up in this hastily photographed state.  I had to snap this with my phone before I even finished mixing it all together because I knew the second that it was ready, it would disappear in the blink of an eye.  My apologies for a messy bowl and unevenly distributed dressing.

Chicken club salad is the food of gods. This is not an exaggeration. Right up there with the perfection of a summertime BLT or this lovely dish of Vietnamese noodles, stir fried beef and veggies, this salad has been a favorite from first bite. I've made it for friends and roommates who have in turn made it for their friends or special someones and every last one of those people has proclaimed this "salad" as devine perfection. I can give you references if you don't believe me, or you can just go and make it yourself. Like, right now.

You might think, after taking a quick glance at the ingredient list, that this is merely a salad or panzanella form of a BLT, but in fact it's a whole different beast.  Sure, it has brightly acidic tomatoes, and bacon, and mayonaise and toasted bread but then that mayonaise gets transformed when it's blended with basil and yogurt and lemon juice.  And there are cubes of gently poached chicken and thin rings or green onion dotted throughout.  This is nothing like that classic sandwich.  I'll repeat: this is the food of the gods.

A recent search for the original recipe lead me to a Food Network page saying the contents I was searching for could no longer be found.  Which would really be a shame, except I have here my version, one I've tweaked over the years and I think is even better.  There are more croutons for more crunch!  I use half mayonaise (Best Foods only, please!) and half plain yogurt for the basil dressing and then slather the whole thing over the salad instead of a measly 1/2 cup.  And the bread, use whatever your heart desires as long as it has some structure to it.  One time I used an Italian loaf with lemon zest in it and it was heavenly.

You're welcome.  I single handedly just saved the internet.

Chicken Club Salad
adapted from Sara Moulton

There are several elements to assemble here: poach the chicken, make the croutons, blend up the dressing, fry the bacon and cut up the veggies, but all of this can be done in advance if need be. Store the croutons in an air tight container, the veggies, dressing and chicken separately in the fridge but the bacon is probably best freshly crisped up. About 10 minutes before serving toss everything together in a big bowl and you're good to go.

6 to 8 servings

6 cups of 3/4-inch cubes day old country loaf
3 tablespoons olive oil
6 slices bacon, chopped
3 pounds whole chicken breasts OR 1½ pounds boneless/skinless breast, poached and the meat cut into bite-size pieces
1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered
4 scallions including the green part, sliced thinly
Quick Basil Mayonnaise, recipe follows
Salt and pepper

Quick Basil Mayonnaise:
2 cups loosely packed fresh basil leaves
½ cup mayonnaise

½ cup plain yogurt 

4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
salt and pepper

In a food processor or blender blend together the basil, mayonnaise, yogurt and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper.  Refrigerate until ready to use.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a bowl drizzle the bread cubes with the olive oil, tossing them to coat evenly, and season generously with salt and pepper. Spread the bread cubes in a jelly-roll pan (or cookie sheet) and toast them in the middle of the preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until they are golden.  Let them cool. 

In a skillet cook the bacon over moderate heat, stirring, until it is crisp and transfer it with a slotted spoon to paper towels to drain. 

In a large bowl combine the chicken, tomatoes, scallions, bacon, quick basil mayonnaise, and salt and pepper to taste. Just before serving, mix in croutons and let sit 5-10 minutes.

Leftovers

Sometimes I forget that I took pictures of food.  Sometimes I leave pictures crowding up space on my camera's memory card.  Sometimes I don't transfer them onto my computer for 3 months.  Bad food blogger.

Clearly I enjoyed tomatoes this summer.  Actually, that shouldn't even be past tense, I am STILL enjoying tomatoes into fall.  Thank goodness for living in California and thank goodness for San Francisco's Indian summers.  So if you're lucky enough to still catch the season's last trickle of tomatoes -  hopefully before it's too late and you have to hang on to these until another 9 months from now - you might consider making one of these for dinner. 

 

Grilled Steak with Bloody Mary Tomato Salad

A deconstructed cocktail alongside some grass fed beef?  Don't mind if I do!

 Haricots Verts a la Dijonnaise

 

Sopes with Refried Beans, Tomatillo and Avocado Salsa, Feta Cheese and a sort of Pico de Gallo

 

A Simple Tomato Panzanella

(I added a Persian cucumber, because why not?)

Good Morning Sunshine

I have a weakness for anything Heidi Swanson does.   I  am yet to make one of her recipes - be it from her blog or either of her cookbooks - that I didn't fall head over heels in love with.  She has the Midas touch with vegetarian food.

I also adore cornbread.  Crunchy bits of cornmeal between my teeth, oh so crumbly texture, slathered in butter and honey; sign me up.  So back in March, the lovely Miss Swanson posted a teaser PDF just before the release of her second cookbook.  I must have spent the next hour or so drooling (literally) on my keyboard, completely in awe of the six beautiful recipes and photographs it included; one of which were these millet muffins.  You better believe that once I snapped back to reality I was all over it, single minded in my task of making something - anything - from that preview.  Cabinets were scoured, shopping lists were made and shortly after these beautiful muffins came out of the oven.

Yes, millet.  It's not bird feed, it's delicious (HS has a millet fried "rice" recipe in Super Natural Cooking that's killer too).  Little crunchy balls that pop when you bite them, lightly nutty, and perfect in these muffins.  They're not quite cornbread, but they have a similar tang and crumb.  The lemon zest is my favorite addition, taking it from a nutty and wholesome breakfast, to one that has a bright lemon zing at the finish.  A little sunshine in the morning to wake you up.  I slathered them in a strawberry, champagne and rose petal jam from one of my favorite farmers' market vendors and it was a match made in heaven.

Millet Muffins
Adapted from Super Natural Every Day, Heidi Swanson

I did just a tiny bit of tinkering here, really, just a little.  Instead of just putting the millet in raw to the muffins, I toasted it in a skillet before adding it into the batter.  I like the depth that toasted grains have and it plays nicely with the flavor of whole wheat flour.  But do as you like, or just save yourself a bit of time and put it in raw.  I used whole milk yogurt, but I imagine a Greek yogurt would be a pleasant added tang.

1 dozen

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/3 cup millet, toasted
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
1 cup plain yogurt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup barely melted unsalted butter
1/2 cup honey
Grated zest and 2 tablespoons juice from 1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 400F with a rack in the top third of the oven. Butter a standard 12-cup muffin pan or line with paper liners.

To toast the millet, heat a skillet over medium heat.  Add the millet and move it around the pan until it begins to smell nutty and reaches a light golden brown color, about 3 minutes.  Let cool.

Whisk together the flour, millet, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, eggs, butter, honey, and lemon zest and juice until smooth. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until the flour is just incorporated. Divide the batter among the muffin cups, spooning a heaping 1/4 cup batter into each one, filling it to a bit below the rim.

Bake for about 15 minutes, until the muffin tops are browned and just barely beginning to crack. Let cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then turn the muffins out of the pan to cool completely on a wire rack.

Gratuitous Banana Bread

Another banana bread recipe.  You need it like you need another hole in the head.

I've got nothing fancy to add to this world of bread, no reason it stands out from the crowd of other recipes that are out there other than nostalgia.  Go ahead and do a quick Google search for banana bread.  See you when you're done sifting through the eleventy zillion options that are out there for you.  Really, I can wait.

But for this I am not apologizing.  There's something so comforting about a simple loaf of banana and nut goodness.  No fancy-schmancy gimmicks or innovative ideas.  Just the other morning I baked some up simply because I had nothing in the house for breakfast - the stash of biscotti that I'd made my morning routine since Christmas had run out and the Cheerios box lay empty in a pile to be recycled.  There are always overripe and abandoned bananas in the freezer and a stash of various nuts in the pantry completing the makings of morning time, or snack time, contentment.

This recipe is well loved, as is the cookbook it comes from.  The banana nut bread recipe that is within is one you don't even have to search for, the book just seems to open knowingly to the page you're seeking.  Currently that book lies on my mother's shelf, in two pieces with no cover or back, the pages yellowed and stained with use.  There are several pages that have fallen out and been tucked back in, a few might even be missing.  These are signs of love.  My copy of the recipe though, is scribbled in a yellow spiral bound notebook that is a compilation of food I grew up loving.  Mostly simple recipes that would help guide me in the kitchen on my first foray out into the wide world of living as adult, away from my parents.  This was before I discovered foodblogs and the even wider world of the food related internet resources.

This bread is like home to me.  The other versions, the dressed up ones, indeed have their place, but they are no stand-in for my no frills, one bowl and mix it up, make it in my sleep, plain banana nut bread.

Banana Nut Bread

Adapted from Betty Crocker 

Trust me, I love me some dressed up banana bread as much as anyone - lightly spiced and studded with crystallized ginger, swirled with a chocolaty counterpart, or simply with a bit of chocolate chips thrown in - but this plain Jane version always has me coming back.  I'm going to go ahead and say that the extra step of toasting the nuts is key, do not skip it.  I find whirling them around for a few seconds in a food processor is a quick way to get them chopped to the right consistency.  This is a one bowl operation, why not dirty one more dish? Besides, I really need to get out of the habit of eating dessert-like food for breakfast. 

1 loaf

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons oil

3/4 cup milk

2 -3 ripe bananas, mashed [I use 3 to keep things moist]

1 egg

1 cup walnuts, toasted and finely chopped

1 1/2  teaspoons cinnamon

dash of nutmeg

dash of ground allspice

Preheat oven to 350F.

Grease and flour a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan.

Measure all ingredients into a large mixing bowl and stir together with a wooden spoon until fully mixed and the batter is completely moistened.  Pour into baking pan and bake 55 to 60 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean and the top is deep golden in color.

Let cool in pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes, then invert it onto a plate and back onto the rack to finish cooling.