Piggy Chicken

Well, once again I have proven that I have the self control of a gnat.  I gained weight over the holidays.  And you can count the holidays starting with Valentine's Day, LAST YEAR.  So, I am trying to get a jump start on losing this weight by going back to VERY low carbohydrate eating.  You must understand that I think baked goods should be one of the most important food groups. Sugar?  White flour?  But, of course!

So now, I am trying to be good.  I like salad, but EVERY night?  Boring.  So I will be searching high and low for items to add in to my diet that are low carb.  And not boring.

Luckily I recent read Cinnamon Roll Murder, by Joanne Fluke.  She is one of my favorite "murder with recipes" author.  The other one being Diane Mott Davidson.  Joanne Fluke is best know for her cookie recipes.  And there are quite a few in this book that I will be making.  Eventually.  Especially the Cinnamon Rolls from the title.  Picture this, cinnamon rolls with chocolate.  I'm already drooling and I can't make these for months.  Unless I get a B&B customer.  Then I will have to eat one before serving it....to make sure it is OK...good business practices, and all.

 But she also throws in a bunch of other recipes and there is one she calls Piggy Chicken that will fit the bill.  It was our meal when watching the Super Bowl.  (Which bored me and I left half way through.)

Piggy Chicken is a chicken tenderloin pounded flat, spread with a cream cheese mixture, wrapped with a strip of bacon and baked.  I made a few minor changes to suit me in the cream cheese, but it is basically the recipe from the book.  I really liked them, but next time I make them, I will leave the bacon off.  Sure it was delicious, but I am trying to do low carb and not go crazy high fat, although it is allowed.  Can't be good for you, right?

 

Piggy Chicken

Chicken tenders   I used five from the package and will use the others in a soup later.
Bacon  Five strips for just the two of us. 
1/3 block of cream cheese, softened
2 teaspoons finely minced onion
dash garlic salt
Pepper

 

Preheat the oven to 375°.

 

Place a piece of plastic wrap on your cutting board and put one of the tenderloins on top.  I like to cut off the thick white tendon with a pair of scissors. 

 

Put another piece on top and pound the tenderloin flat.  I used a rolling pin.  You don't want it so flat that it falls apart, but you can easily quadruple the width.
 
 

Place the chicken "pancake" to one side and repeat for as many pieces as you are making.  I made five.

Find an oven proof dish (or two, if you are making enough for a family) that will hold your pieces about an inch apart, so the bacon can crisp.  Spray it with Pam.

 

Mince the onions and add them to the cream cheese in a microwave safe bowl.  You may need to pop it in the microwave to get it soft enough to spread on the chicken.  I added a dash or two of garlic salt, but regular salt works. 

 

Place one of the chicken packets back on your cutting board and peel off the top layer of Cling wrap. 
Use a rubber spatula to spread a layer of cream cheese on the chicken.  Sprinkle with a bit of pepper.  Roll it up from the long side in the shape of a big, fat cigar.  This is where you will discover if you pounded them too flat!  Take one piece of bacon and wrap it around the chicken cigar  You may have to stretch it a bit and not cover the whole thing.  Place your Piggy Chicken in the prepared dish and continue with the rest of the chicken.

 

Bake at 375° for 25 minutes.  Then turn the oven up to 425° for 5 minutes to crisp the bacon.  My bacon didn't get crispy and I didn't want to overcook the chicken, so I took it out after about 6 minutes and it was fine.  The bacon did get a bit more crispy as it cooled.

 

Then disinfect everything you touched with your raw chicken and raw bacon fingers.  I wiped the pepper mill, the Cling box, etc.   I sent the rag I wiped my hands on to the laundry and washed everything else in hot soapy water. 

 

I liked them and Lee liked it enough for me to make again.  I may add some chopped herbs to the cream cheese.  Like I said, I may leave off the bacon.  Of course, then I will have to call it something else.  Cream cheese chicken cigars???

 

Serve with a salad.  I made cole slaw.

Light and Airy Baked Cake Donuts

After baking the Magic Chocolate Flan Cake, I had every intention of stopping eating for at least a week.  Or maybe just massive dieting.  After all, the kids were leaving soon and I needed to get started on convincing my stomach that it does not require three big meals a day.  One meal and a few healthy snacks scattered throughout the day is adequate for me....really.  But then I was reading this book, Powdered Peril,  a few nights ago.  It is one of my favorite genres, murder with recipes!

These are also called cozies, because while someone always dies, you don't get (have) to experience the murder and mayhem up close and personal.   Someone no one really likes is found murdered and then the protagonist gets to help solve the mystery of who done it.  While making delicious food and finding a hot, usually a cop, guy to feed and fall in love with.  Love, food and murder.  A winning combination.  What's not to like?  Some of my favorite authors of mysteries with recipes include Diane Mott Davidson and Joanne Fluke.

I found this book while trolling the list of new books cataloged by the library system where I worked.  Why hadn't I read Jessica Beck before?  No idea. But I fired up my Nook and ordered the first four books in the series.  Right in my bed,  at night.  Love my Nook.   I like to start at the beginning and read a series chronologically. 

I also like when a recipe catches my eye and then I make it and I love it!  I wanted to try the donut recipe with chunks of apples, but that was a fried donut.  The one I chose is a baked donut and it made little ones.  Donut hole size.  So then I could just eat one and serve the others to the visiting family as a final treat.

You didn't buy that for a minute, did you?  Well, it made sixteen donuts and there are four of us.  Do the math.  I had four and if someone else didn't finish their share, I may have had another one.  Who's counting?

   

Light and Airy Baked Cake Donuts

1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/8 cup canola oil     Hey! Low fat, too!!!
1 Tablespoon butter, melted    Oh, well, it's only 1 Tablespoon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt


   

Heat the oven to 365.  If you have mini donut baker, you can use it with this recipe.  I used a mini muffin pan and they were just the right size for two bites...or three if you are polite and not too terribly hungry.  The recipe said it would make 6 - 10 small donuts. 

   

I used some Crisco on a piece of waxed paper to grease 10 little indentations in the mini muffin pan.  I saved the greasy waxed paper and it is a good thing, as I ended up needing 16 holes.  Don't grease holes you don't end up using.  Not good for the pan.

In a large bowl, whisk the egg and the sugar until blended.  Then add the buttermilk, oil, butter and the vanilla and whisk everything together.  Place your sifter on a small plate and fill it with the dry ingredients, flour, baking powder, nutmeg and salt.  I didn't measure the nutmeg.  I just finely grated what looked to me like the right amount.

   

Sift right into the bowl and then dump whatever is left on the plate into the batter.  Mix well.

I used the smallest cookie scoop and made a rounded scoop.  The recipe called for walnut sized portions and that looked about walnut size to me. 

   

Once again, the recipe called for baking 6 - 10 minutes.  That may work for a donut baker, but my oven took about 12 minutes.  They were just starting to get golden brown on top.

Serve with orange marmalade.  I didn't have marmalade but I did have some homemade blackberry jam leftover from this summer, so I used that!

These were a bit hit.  Really and truly, light and airy.  They were also delicious just plain with nothing on them.  They would also be good with some powdered sugar sifted on top.  I mentioned to Tara that the next time I make this (and I will) I may want to put in some lemon zest.  And then she suggested making some lemon glaze (powdered sugar with a bit of lemon juice) to pour over them.  Oh, man, does that sound good! 

 

   

Bad thoughts!  Go away!  Come again some other day, like when I have lost the weight I gained over Christmas!

Viking Cookies

                             

I like to read mysteries.  There is a satisfaction in a good mystery.  The bad guy always gets caught and usually gets what is "coming to" him.  This differs from real life and is one of the many reasons I prefer a good book to the news

                    

Joanne Fluke writes the kind of mystery that is called a "cozy".  This is a mystery that is mostly bloodless.  The actual crime takes place out of the view of the reader.  Then the protagonist solves the mystery and every one, except the murderer, moves happily onward.  My favorite part of her mysteries involves the recipes.  For the uninitiated there is a whole sub-genre of murders with recipes.  Diane Mott Davidson is another favorite of mine.  Her mysteries are a little less cozy and as the protagonist is a caterer, has a wider variety of recipes.  While I might check out a regular murder from the library, I purchase the ones with recipes that I want to fix.  (Note to self:  If you write a book, include recipes.)

I haven't made cookies in quite sometime and I went to my stash of Fluke mysteries and found a new one.  It had to be one that would freeze as there are only the two of us at home.  But you never know when someone will stop over and you need something to serve.  I decided on Viking Cookies.  The recipe made a ton of cookies and they freeze well, so my criteria was met.  On with the baking.

Viking Cookies

2 cups butter (four sticks, melted
2 cups brown sugar
2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cardamom  (nutmeg will work in a pinch, cardamom is better)
4 1/2 cups flour
3 cups white chocolate chips  (the real thing, not vanilla chips)
3 cups rolled oats

This makes 10 to 12 DOZEN.  If you don't need this many cookies, feel free to cut the recipe in half!

Pre heat the oven to 350.

Melt the butter in the microwave.  I covered the bowl with the paper wrappers from the butter to keep it from spitting all over the inside of the microwave.  Set it on the counter and let it cool while you get the rest of the ingredients ready.

I use a Kitchen-Aid mixer.  It is really handy, especially for such a large batch.  The last few ingredients really put a strain on the mixer.  I can only imagine what it would have done to my arm!

Scrape the butter into the mixing bowl.  Add in the white and brown sugars and blend well.

                                    

Add the baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt.  THEN add the vanilla.  This will prevent you from getting a handful of wet measuring spoon and from dripping liquid in one of your expensive spices.  Mix in the eggs.  Ms. Fluke beats them with a fork first.  I just dump them in the mixer.

Add the flour in 1/2 cup increments. 

                                

Whenever I have more than 2 cups to add, SOMETHING happens to make me forget where I am.  The phone rings or the cat starts scratching the couch.  Something.  So I keep a piece of paper nearby and make a mark for each cup added.  In this case I needed 9 times each 1/2 cup measure.  I would have made a hash of it for sure if I hadn't marked each time I added one.

After you can no longer see the flour, add in the white chocolate.  I could not find enough white chocolate chips.  I even went and asked at the customer service desk.  They only had one bag left and this recipe calls for one and 1/2 half bags of white chocolate chips.  Ms. Fluke was very insistent on this.  But I had some vanilla chips and I added them for the final cup of white chocolate.  If there is a difference, other than size, I couldn't tell you.

                                 

Now add the oatmeal one cup at a time.  It will be VERY stiff by this time.  It almost worked its way out of the mixer.

                              

Drop by teaspoons onto greased cookie sheets.  The saved butter wrappers are good for this.  I use Silpats. No greasing, no sticking.  I also use a small cookie size ice cream scoop.  Perfect size, way less work and much faster.

With your hand or spatula, gently smush the tops of each cookie mound.  This will keep them from rolling around when you transfer them to the oven.  Bake for 11 to 13 minutes until they are golden brown.  Cool for 2 minutes on the cookie sheets before you transfer them to a cooking rack.  I hope you have a LOT of cooling racks.

                             

Joanne Fluke recommends rolling the cookies in foil and then placing them in a freezer bag.  I just put them in a Ziploc Vacuum bag.