Cooking Digest 6/15-6/22

Below the fold: Whole Wheat Sesame Bagels, Minted Marinated Carrots, and Hellfire Jerk Chicken with Rummy Pineapple.

KAF's Whole Wheat Bagels

Have I mentioned that I'm bartering bread for help with my backyard with a neighbor?  I love this exchange, since it gives me a chance to make recipes that I've been wanting to try and build up my bread-making chops.  This week, I made KAF Whole Wheat Bagels, which I gave an egg-white wash (1 egg white, separated while cold, + 1 tablespoon water, whipped with a fork) and then sprinkled with sesame seeds before baking.  I realized when they were baking that I'd missed the 30-minute pre-refrigeration rise, so imagine my surprise when they came out great, if a tad small!  I am convinced letting them rise in the fridge for the full 24 hours afforded me some bagel grace.  I do this recipe in my bread machine, and it's a snap!

Minted Carrots

I adore mint, and my mint was going gangbusters till the weather became scorching this past week.  Having tried Serious Eats' Minted Marinated Carrots about two weeks ago, I decided to have another go at it.  I found the rice vinegar a bit sweet, so this time I used sherry vinegar instead.  What a very good decision!  If you don't have sherry vinegar, red or white wine vinegar will also work.  And instead of mint, you can use tarragon.

Jerk Chicken and Pineapple on the grill.

Finally, I got a whole chicken, which was a complete coup: cutting up chicken is not very difficult--I use Allrecipes.com's guide to help me through it. I put the unused raw chicken parts in a freezer bag to freeze for stock, which means I get at least two meals out of a single bird (there's a joke there with two birds and one stone that I'm taking a miss on), but I was really excited to test my grilling skills on Serious Eats' Hellfire Jamaican Jerk Chicken with Rummy Pineapple.  I let the meat marinate almost the full 48 hours (after which chicken gets bitter), and the rummy pineapple got a good 5 hours in.  I grilled some asparagus which I basted in the reserved marinade on the grill before adding the pineapple--as you can see, real estate is a bit tight on my grill.  Anyway, this was SUCH a great recipe, and my one regret was that I only used a single habañero to save the second one for another recipe.  Next time, I'm going all out!  Also, because I was dipping and redipping my basting brush into the reserved marinade to baste the chicken, I didn't feel comfortable using the remainder as sauce on the cooked bird, which just about broke my heart.  Next time, I'm going to pour out some marinade for basting and keep the rest for serving!


I've got some insane cooking plans coming up, so stay tuned--and wherever you are, enjoy what you eat!