Blue Chicken

OR: Cooking for the Morgue.

So you'd think that if I had a reputation to maintain I would take some steps to protect it, wouldn't you? You'd think that if New Zealand's No. 51 Blogger was coming to dinner, I'd be at pains to research the best recipe I could and to make sure it was all as good as it could be, wouldn't you?

I say: Nah. Although I had a concept in mind, I didn't actually make up my mind about what I was going to cook for Morgue and StrongerLight until I went into the kitchen and, to be quite honest, happened to open up the fridge looking for a spark of inspiration.

What I saw instead was not something expensive or gourmet or haute cuisine: It was two packets of Blue Cheese, bang on their Best Before dates, and reduced from $4.70 each to 0.50c each, which Dessert Chef had spotted and bought a few days earlier. But hey, it's Blue Cheese. What's it going to do, go mouldy?

I had my inspiration. I will keep this brief:
Take your deliciously ripe Blue Cheese and slice it into thin, flat pieces. Dispose of annoying crumbly bits in your nearest mouth.
Slide the cheese under the skin of 4-5 large chicken legs. Wrap whole rashers of bacon around the chicken, fixing in place with skewers, and place on a bed of sliced leek, halved cherry tomatoes, cubed pre-cooked potato and kumera, and sliced mushrooms. Season and drizzle with a viniagrette mixture.
Bake at 200C for 1 1/2 hrs. Cook up a pot of jasmine rice, and reserve the starchy water when you drain it.

Remove the chicken from the roasting tray, placing onto your plates with the rice and steamed veges. Drain the juices from the pan into a bowl. Scoop off the bulk of the fat (there will be HEAPS due to the melting of the cheese) and return to the roasting tray. Add the starchy water from the rice as a thickener and mash up the veges there to make a thick and chunky gravy, while you heat it over an element. And guess what? That gravy is completely Gluten-Free.

OK, it was a bit more like a soup than a gravy, but with a little bit of stock and some more time on the stove, it would have been much more like the gravy we know and love. As it was, it was delicious regardless. And not to be outdone, Morgue and StrongerLight brought the dessert. What a grand way to top off a fabulous night.

Thanks, guys. Let's do it again sometime soon.

Impromptu Indulgences

On a bit of a spur of the moment, we took a ferry to Picton on Friday night and spent the the weekend on Obi and Nan's boat. The weather came to the party on Saturday and after the morning's frost we had a beautiful day on the water. We motored across Queen Charlotte Sound from Waikawa and anchored up in Kaipakirikiri Bay, where Isaac showed Mum and Obi how to row the dinghy. We had soup and toast for lunch and as the sun disappeared we slipped back to Waikawa and relaxed.

Cheese and crackers and mussels came out for a late afternoon snack, and when no-one could be bothered cooking a proper dinner, we improvised. We grilled up a packet of Gluten Free Smokey Bacon Sausages and began stuffing them with cheese. Mmmm. Then someone had the bright idea that sausage stuffed with creamy blue cheese and mussel might be nice, and I had to try it.

So. Good.

Smokey Sausage stuffed with Blue Cheese and Mussels

Slice a cooked sausage into one-inch long segments, and slice these lengthwise to about 3/4 deep. Slice off a thin hunk of Creamy Blue Cheese (or Cambozola, or something Blue) and squeeze it into the sausage. Slice a Mussel in half and push it into the cheese. Give a few moments for the heat of the sausage to soften the cheese, and eat.

Just to get back to the healthy stuff, we had a double lamb roast last night. Check back here for full coverage in a day or two.

Behold!

Here it is! With a picture just to show off, one dinner course of Chicken Pasta Alfredo. Just boil up a pot of pasta and mix up the Alfredo sauce on the stove:

Melt 2 T Butter. Add 1 Cup of cream and gently stir for 5 mins or so. Heat well without boiling. Whisk in 3/4 Cup of Cheddar Cheese and about 1/4 Cup of stronger cheese, like Parmesan or Emmental until melted. Add pepper and parsley to taste.














A good friend pointed out tonight that if this is the quest for a model of financially prudent food purchasing, then the fact that butter, cream and cheese are three of the most expensive foods in the supermarket right now might actually make this a luxury dish. I guess I consider that since we've made two dinners and two lunches out of one chicken, that the money we've saved by buying less meat leaves a little extra to go into making the leftovers go down that much more pleasantly.

Nyum.

And here's Isaac, helping with the grinder photoshoot. Very helpful!