Cooking by the Seat of my Pants » Blog Events

Thirteen of my favorite chicken recipes (so far) - TT #31

Jerry — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:10:48 +0000

One would think that after running a food blog for over a year and a half, I would have already managed to post all of my favorite chicken recipes. I certainly thought so. I mean, how many different recipes did I have in my arsenal when I started? How many could I have had?

Apparently, a lot more than I thought.

When I started writing this, I figured I’d show off a few of my faves, especially those from childhood. I opened the chicken category and went looking through the entries…

To find that I have not posted a single one of my favorite childhood chicken recipes!

Oh, sure. I’ve posted some good recipes, even a few that I would consider great, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve overlooked at least ten recipes that were staples in my home throughout my formative years. I just can’t believe that i have yet to post these things that I still hold so dear to my heart, not only as reminders of time with my mother and my family, but as the first glimpses of the wonderful and nearly mystical culinary star that chicken really is.

Chicken is more versatile than any other protein in the kitchen, save perhaps tofu, which I am unexperienced with. As a matter of fact, it’s so wonderful that we associate any flavor we can’t quite define with it. You know, like when someone says that frog legs “taste like chicken”. (They don’t, but hey, some people think they do.)

So while this post is about my thirteen favorite chicken recipes to date, it most definitely lacks my all-time favorites. This, my friends, will be corrected in due course. An oversight this heinous must be rectified, and it will be. But not until after I’m done with this particular post…

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Thirteen Thigs about my wife - TT #30

Jerry — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 01:04:24 +0000

With my wedding anniversary coming up this Friday, there really was only one logical choice for this week’s Thursday Thirteen, The lovely and incredibly talented Mrs. seat of her Pants, a person whom I could not be more proud of or in love with.

Truthfully, thirteen things does not begin to cover everything I could say about my wife, there’s a lot more to her than that. She is exceptional at being so many different things; a wife, a mother, my best friend, an instructor and mentor for Department of Defense students, an author and editor, and more. She gives 120% of herself to each and every one of these things, sometimes to more than one of them at the same time. Unfortunately, the nature of the Thursday Thirteen is that I only have room for thirteen things.

And for those of you who aren’t fans of washed out Nagel-esque photos, here’s another shot of the reason I wake up every morning wishing I could just lie there all day.

Please note that these are not in any order whatsoever:

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Another Frugal Friday is coming up!

Jerry — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:15:03 +0000

Just a wuick reminder that entries for the sixth round of Frugal Fridays Food Blog Fun is upon us. C’Mon! We want to see you there! Dive into the kitchen and whip up a frugal treat, then pop over to FrugalFridays.net and tell us where to find it. The more the merrier!

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Thirteen ingredients I probably rely too heavily upon - TT#29

Jerry — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:22:07 +0000

Everyone has their go-to ingredients. These are the things that you grab when you’re cooking that you may not even realize you use almost every day. At least until you run out of them, at which point you find that you’re staring blankly at the spice cabinet and the food that’s begun to burn in your skillet without the faintest idea what to do next.

I ran into this problem last week when I realized I was out of black peppercorns. (or thought I was… They had fallen over behind a huge container of chili powder and I didn’t see them.) It took me a full five minutes to realize that I actually do have preground pepper in the pantry and it’s fresh, because I never-ever use it.

So here we go. These are some of the things that I would be lost without in my pantry or my refrigerator.

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Daring Baker’s - Danish Braid…

Jerry — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:02:58 +0000

Is an event that I missed out on, due to an inability to get cardamom in time to actually get it done.

Oh sure. Ben gave an alternative, but really… There is no substitute for cardamom, so I sat this one out.

So go check out what the Daring Bakers have been up to this month! I’m hoping to join back in on the next round.

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Basil and Oregano Roast Chicken with Southwestern Rice

Jerry — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:52:09 +0000

I’m a day late to my own party! This recipe was created for the Frugal Fridays Blog Event, hosted and created by yours truly and was supposed to be posted last night, but several things conspired against me. First there was sleep deprivation. Our son has hit one of those stages where sleep doesn’t seem to be something he requires much of. since Mrs. Seat of her Pants holds down a job outside the house, I’m the one who stays up with the little hellion sweet child until I can get him to nod off. three days of that was enough to have me nodding on the couch by 7:00 pm.

Top that off with the fact that my probe thermometer is either damaged or was inserted into the wrong portion of chicken ans I can add “Kitchen Disaster” to the list of things that held me up. For once it looked like everything was going to be ready at the same time. that’s actually a rarity, especially when you’re making things up as you go along. Last night it all looked perfect. Right up until the time I cut the bird…

Now I love to see a big bunch of deep red juices come pouring out of a steak or a roast, but when it happens to be coming from a chicken… Let’s just say it doesn’t thrill me. Especially when I’ve already poured some of the pan juices into my side dish as well! This little revelation set me back a full 30 minutes, since everything had to be heated past 200 degrees and held there for at least five minutes… Fun!

In the end it all turned out well, just a little dryer than I would have liked. It’s still a dish that I would recommend to anyone, and hey. If you’re a vegetarian, leave the chrizo and chicken stock out of the rice. It’s a gread veggie-friendly side. Or add another good dose of black beans and it could be a main course. Good stuff!

But how much did all of this set me back? let’s see.

Chicken: $3.42
Herbs - Free, I grow them myself
Rice - approximately $0.25
Black Beans: $0.85 per can
Corn: less than 1/3 of a bag of frozen corn, so $1.09 / 3 = $0.36
Chorizo: 1/2 of a $2.99 package, so roughly $1.50
Chicken stock: 16 oz. out of a 32 oz. container @ 2.09 = 1.08

Everything else was pantry staples and the garlic was leftover from my last FF, so

Grand Total: $7.46 for a meal that would easily serve four. In fact there is still a ton of rice left over!

Not too shabby if I do say so myself!

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Thirteen Uses For Old Ice Cube Trays

Jerry — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:23:40 +0000

Even if you’ve got an ice maker in your fridge, chances are that you have a few old ice cube trays hanging out somewhere around your home or apartment. Why not re-purpose those dust collectors into something that you can use on a daily basis?

No, Really, they’re good for more than just one or two things, and some of these uses surprised me in a very pleasant way. I’m sure everyone knows that you can make Kool-Ade Jammers with them, but I think you might be surprised by a few of the other uses you can put them to.

Following are some ideas I came across on the Associated content Network and a few of my own. I will of course post links to the original authors in the footnote.

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Frugal Fridays #2

Jerry — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:41:47 +0000

To all my food blogging friends and foodie associates:

C’mon guys, it’s getting lonely over at FrugalFridays! Please come out and play!

All “Da RuleZ” and everything else you need to get going in the fun can be found here. I’m sure you guys have ideas I’ve never thought up and never would, and I’m sure that there is an adoring public out there somewhere that would love to know how to feed their family for a little insted of a lot.

Just think of it as a party! You’re all invited and I’ll miss you terribly if you don’t pop in from time to time.

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Thirteen reasons I don’t have a better Thirteen

Jerry — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:15:29 +0000

Some weeks just don’t go like you expected. All the planning in the world simply can’t make up for the things that didn’t go the way they should have, and I suppose that’s the real reason for this TT. No matter how hard I tried, something always got in the way of researching what I actually wanted to do this list about.

So instead of that list, which I will endeavor to complete by the Next Thursday Thirteen, I give you

Thirteen reasons I don’t have a better Thirteen:

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Frugal Fridays #1 - Linguine with Crab Sauce

Jerry — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:47:22 +0000

Welcome to the very first installment of Frugal Fridays, where I (and hopefully other bloggers) aim to prove that you can eat very well and still manage to keep a few dollars in your pocket book for good measure. The Challenge of Frugal Fridays is to create a meal that will feed a family of four for $10.00 or less. While I’m not expecting gourmet fare for this amount, I know that if anyone can whip up a meal on a budget that still tastes phenomenal, it’s a bunch of food bloggers.

This dish was a flash of inspiration from a conversation I had with my wife a few days ago. She mentioned that her favorite seafood was crab and I had an immediate burst of inspiration on what to make. The dish itself is simple, promised great flavor and was planned to make my wife smile. What I didn’t know was if I could do it for under $10.00. It sounded like the perfect Frugal Friday challenge.

My first thought was to use lump crab meat. Unfortunately, in this part of Texas a pound of decent looking lump crab would have used up my entire $10.00 budget. I was stuck with using the best canned crab I could find. Don’t get me wrong, I would have preferred the lump crab meat, but we’re going for a filling meal here, and I didn’t think 2 oz. of crab would do it.

The rest of the ingredients were straightforward and very inexpensive, including the shallot wich I admit took me by surprise. As I’ve said, for a $10.00 the assumtion has to be made that there are some basic cooking ingredients available, such as oil, butter, salt, spices, etc. so that’s the premise I ran on. In the end I came in well under budget and made a remarkably tasty dish that would easily feed 4 to 6 people to the point of comortably full.

Just to prove that this came in under budget, here’s the complete list of what was purchased:

Linguine - $1.09
Crab Meat: - $4.17
Mini French Loaf - $0.75
Lemon - $0.59
Shallot - $0.51
Garlic - $0.30
Parsley - $0.49
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Store Surcharge - $0.40
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Grand Total - $8.30

Not too bad for a seafood dinner for four with bread, eh? I could have sprung for a salad, but I just wasn’t in the mood for it.

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More on Frugal Fridays

Jerry — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:35:14 +0000

The response to the Frugal Fridays event has been wonderful. Quite a few people have taken interest and hopefully the momentum will increase as this rolls along. As it stands, I’m still working dilligently on getting things set up and ready to go for the very first Frugal Friday, and if you’d like to join in, here are the rules for the FF #1:

The cost of food must be right around $10.00 for four servings. If serving two, you can, of course just make $5.00 worth, or you can just make enough to have a few leftovers, it’s your call.
Standard spices and seasonings are not included in the overall price. If it’s something that most people are going to have hanging out in their spice rack, we’ll just assume for the sake of argument that it was already a part of the home’s inventory. (season-salt, garlic powder, dehydrated onions and other spice-rack basics are freebies, use them well!)
Any fresh vegetables, spices or produce must be counted in the overall price, unless you’re growing it yourself. (I’ve got basil and oregano growing just outside my front door… Why would I pay for this?)
If possible, get a picture of the dish in the post. It’s nice to know that inexpensive food can look good, too!
At some point n the post, mention that it’s a part of the Frugal Fridays Event, a once a week event started by Cooking by the seat of my Pants.com and add a link back here and to your blog friend’s that are participating if you’d like.

I’ve already purchased FrugalFridays.net and will be setting up a blogroll there as soon as I can. This probably won’t be done by this friday, which is why I’m asking for links back here for the moment. In the end I’d rather have the blogroll seperate from this site, and that’s what I’m working towards. Blogrolls and events of this nature are designed to bring traffic to everyone who participates, and I don’t mean to hog it all for myself ;)

For anyone who would like to help, I could use the following…

I’m goning to be putting out a few buttons and banners. If you ahve an artistic bone in your body and a bit of free time, I could use a cool graphic for this. (This is a time issue, not a lack of talent. I’ll get to it, but it all takes time, and Friday is approaching rapidly!)
Anyone who’s run an event like this before… If you’ve got any hints of tips for us, I’d be glad to hear them, especially as applied to rules, etc…

For now that’s all I can think of, except perhaps for suggestions on the look and feel of the Frugal Fridays site itself.

Have a great week everyone! I’ll keep this update running as new things happen!

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Thirteen terms I use that sound foreign to everyone else.

Jerry — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 21:14:40 +0000

Techno-babble. We’ve heard it used when referring to Star Trek and Star Wars, but did you know that every industry has its own form of techno-speak? Most often these are words that are used among just people in the industry and we understand them just fine. It’s when they’re used among “civilians” or the “uninitiated” that we either sound like geniuses or complete idiots.

As a professional web developer for over 16 years, I have acquired a large collection of terms and phrases that most people in their right minds have absolutely no desire to understand. The following list contains some of those terms. (And alterneately, the terms I use to describe the issue to the client when necessary.)

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Thirteen Things I do. Every… Single… Day…

Jerry — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:18:33 +0000

There are things that each of us does on a daily basis. Some of them are for our personal amusement, some are for health reasons and some are things we’d really rather not be doing, but end up doing anyway.

For me each day is usually a combination of all three of these things. As a Work At Home Dad, it sometimes means that the workday either lasts well into the morning hours, or that no work gets done at all because, and let’s face it, a toddler doesn’t really give a rat’s behind what Dad has contracted out today. He’s interested in his life, not mine. And then there’s always the other little things…

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Thirteen things I won’t miss about this old house

Jerry — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:34:20 +0000

As I’ve said before, we’re getting ready to move next week. The move is to a much nicer home with more features and a fenced yard, whih will make both charlie and Mr. Seat of his Diaper pretty happy, I’m sure! Part of me will miss the house we live in now. It’s the first real home we ever shared, and that is something you can never get back.

On the other hand, this house is OLD. It was build somewhere around 1946, and let’s just say that the maintenance programs here on base have not been kind tho this old girl. She’s not what she once was, and the decision has been made that she never will be. Her time has come.

Over the past several days it has occurred to me that there are things I absolutely will not miss about living here. I thought I’d share those with you.

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And the award goes to…

Jerry — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:29:34 +0000

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had received the “E” for excellence award from Ben over at What’s Cooking. Part of the honor of winning that award is that I’m supposed to pass it along to a few other bloggers that I feel deserve the honor, so here’s my list of blogs that I feel deserve to be called excellent.

Chef Tom Cooks. Tom is a really great guy, and he posts some pretty wonderful recipes. Now, he just needs to go get a camera!
If anyone deserves this, it’s Lis at La Mia Cucina. She was not only one of the first visitors here at CbsoP, but she’s never stopped popping in to leave her support. We lover her and I’m proud to shoot this her way.
The Homesick Texan really deserves this as well. She’s been an inspiration to me and countless others over the years and I’ll be reading her work and admiring her photography skills for as long as she keeps going with it.
Matt Bites has most likely already gotten this award, but I’m going to send it his way anyway. If I’m ever 1/4 the photographer that Matt is, I’ll be very pleased.
Last, but never by any means the least of my choices to be considered an excellent blog to read is the venerable and rather charming(in a very strange but pleasant way) Dr. Biggles of Meathenge. If you still haven’t popped over to check out his blog, you should. It’s more than worth the time!

I wish I were able to simply state that everyone on my blogroll deserves this award. As a matter of fact, I am going to say that! If you’re on that list, you deserve this award! Feel free to accept it.

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