Engaging stories of love, joy, comfort and friendship with proven scrumptious, healthy recipes, we celebrate LOVE as the secret ingredient for wonderful food!

Joseph Joseph SmartBar with Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic

April 23, 2017 by Mary 18 Comments

You know, I cook so much and wash my hands all the time but there are still some smells that never seem to leave my hands. Do you know what I’m talking about?

I am a garlic lover so I don’t mind that smell much, but other people? Well that’s a different story. Then there’s the smell from a dishrag that SOME people consistently leave in a pile in the sink, NOT squeezing it out, like, ahem, my husband, ALL the time. It’s that gross, germy foul smell from not having rinsed, squeezed and hung up the dishrag!!! How many times do I have to ask why, and always his response is, “But I’m not finished yet! I was going to do it.”

Blahhh!!!

But now that we have the Joseph Joseph SmartBar, I can remove that foul smelling unsqueezed dishrag smell with one hand wash, easily! You see you fill this nifty stainless steel container/bar with liquid hand soap and depress a little silicone button on the bottom to release some soap while washing your hands with the stainless steel bar. The stainless steel helps remove strong odors from your hands by attracting the sulphur molecules deposited by germy rags or garlic or onions.

Genius, right?

But let’s talk about this genius Joseph Joseph SmartBar by giving you an amazing recipe, instead of talking about stinky dishrags. So here is my version of the famous James Beard recipe from long ago, of Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic.

And use the Joseph Joseph SmartBar while making the Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic recipe to rid your hands of the garlic smell!

CHICKEN WITH 40 CLOVES OF GARLIC using the Joseph Joseph SmartBar to wash all the odors away! – serves 4

4 ribs of celery, coarsely chopped
2 medium-size onions, coarsely chopped
6 sprigs of parsley
2 Tbs. coarsely chopped fresh rosemary
2 Tbs. Dijon mustard
1 whole 3.5 lb. chicken, trimmed of fat, washed and dried with paper toweling
2 Tbs. olive oil
½ cup dry vermouth
1½ tsp. Kosher salt
Fresh ground black pepper to taste
Freshly grated nutmeg to taste
40 cloves garlic, unpeeled – about 2 heads
1 Tbs. unsalted butter
Additional parsley, roughly chopped for garnish
French bread for serving

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Cover the bottom of a heavy 6-quart Dutch oven (I used my Le Creuset) with the celery and onions and distribute the parsley, rosemary and mustard in dollops, on top. Pour the vermouth over everything. Brush the chicken (or use your fingers) distributing the oil all over, coating all sides evenly and place in the casserole on top of the vegetables. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and a few gratings of nutmeg. Tuck the garlic cloves in all around.

Cover the top of the casserole with the lid or tightly cover with aluminum foil to create an airtight seal. Bake for 45 – 50 minutes without removing the cover. Check for doneness – should be 155 – 160 degrees. When done, set the oven on broil and return the casserole to the oven for 3 – 4 minutes to brown the skin, watching it carefully and turning the pot to get an even browning. When nicely browned, let the chicken sit in the hot pot on your cool stovetop for 10 minutes.

While the chicken is on the stovetop, switch the oven down to 350 degrees, wait 5 minutes, and then place your bread in the oven to warm for about 10 minutes.

After the chicken has sat in the pot for 10 minutes, place it on a platter and let sit for 5 more minutes while you warm up the vegetables and the sauce, covered, for 5 minutes. Move the pot off heat and swirl in 1 Tbs. unsalted butter into the sauce. Pour the sauce and vegetables over the whole chicken on a platter and garnish with the roughly chopped parsley.

Serve the chicken along with the vegetables and juices with slices of the heated crispy baguette or French bread. Squeeze the garlic from the root end of the clove and spread on the bread, while dipping in the sauce.

So yummy and satisfying, it’s a perfect, easy Sunday night dinner. Make and serve with LOVE. Enjoy!!

And wash your hands with the Joseph Joseph SmartBar, from our spring MARY’s secret ingredients box! We are all sold out so order your summer box now if you don’t want to miss out on our next batch of cool new products. The summer box starts shipping on June 25th.

Garlicky Chicken With Lemon-Anchovy Sauce

October 30, 2015 by Mary 22 Comments

I very rarely do this, but I knew I must have done something wrong. This Garlicky Chicken with Lemon-Anchovy Sauce recipe from Melissa Clark at the New York Times is a favorite of one of my sons and his girlfriend and even several of their friends as I’ve been told. They’ve made it at their homes and at our home in the country, often.

I made the recipe about a month ago and I was like, “This isn’t very good. Why do they keep making it?”

But yet, it didn’t make sense. I like Melissa Clark’s recipes. I LOVE anchovies, garlic, lemon and chicken thighs, so what’s wrong with this picture?

So last week, one of my brothers was going to be in town from Boston on business and staying with us. I decided to give it a go again.

Ok, ok, so I (as usual) altered the recipe a bit – added more garlic and cooked the whole thing on the stovetop – no oven – and this was fantastic!! Bursting with flavor and freshness with the spark of lemon, the hit of anchovies and of course, the dreamy, creamy garlic.

Even as a leftover, it still held up all that sprightly flavor! I doubled Melissa’s original recipe to make sure we’d have some extra lunches and dinners after the three of us ate.

So give this a go. This does take a little longer than my usual weeknight dinners, particularly because I like to trim ALL the fat from the thighs. Cook with LOVE. You’ll be happy!
Garlicky Chicken with Lemon-Anchovy Sauce – serves 8 – adapted from Melissa Clark

3 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken thighs (about 8 thighs)
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
12 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
1/2 cup (scant) extra-virgin olive oil
11 anchovy fillets
4 Tbs. drained capers, patted dry
2 large pinches of chile flakes
11/2 lemons, cut in halves
Fresh chopped chives, for serving

Trim all fat from the thighs, wash and pat dry with a paper towel. Season the chicken thighs with salt and pepper and let rest while you prepare the anchovy-garlic oil.

Mince two of the garlic cloves and set aside for later. In a large skillet over medium heat, add the oil. When the oil is hot, add the 10 smashed whole garlic cloves, the anchovies, capers and chile flakes. Let cook, stirring with a wooden spoon to break up the anchovies, until the anchovies dissolve, about 3 minutes.

Raise heat to medium-high. Add the chicken thighs and cook until nicely browned on one side, 5 to 7 minutes. Lower the heat to medium, flip the thighs, cover and cook another 7 to 12 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through.

When chicken is done, transfer thighs to a plate. Place skillet back on the heat and add minced garlic and the juice of one whole lemon. Cook for about 30 seconds, scraping up the browned bits on the bottom of the pan. Return chicken to the pan and cook it in the sauce for another 30 seconds.

Transfer everything to a serving platter. Squeeze the remaining lemon half over the chicken and garnish with chopped chives. Serve with crusty bread or rice, your favorite vegetable and of course, LOVE!

Cumin and Mustard Roasted Chicken with Fruit

November 8, 2014 by Mary 9 Comments

We had some friends over for dinner on Tuesday night. They were coming at 7 pm. I got home at 6:15. I thought that getting home so late might happen so I had set the table the night before and had planned an easy dinner of grilled Cauliflower Steaks with an herb salsa verde as a first course (divine), followed by roasted sumac chicken stuffed with fennel stalks and Parmesan cheese rinds, roasted baby Yukon Gold potatoes and roasted tomatoes with olive oil and Greek oregano. Simple, yet if done right, perfectly delicious and comforting after a full days work on an early fall evening. Paired with a Petit Syrah and we were set!

Grilled cauliflower steaks with an herb salsa verde – a great Food and Wine recipe

Now you all have seen my kitchen in our videos. It is a galley that is completely open to the living room. With a small gathering, our guests sit right across the counter from me while I’m cooking, and literally see everything. So all is going well until I start to open the organic chicken package only to discover that it’s not a whole chicken! It is chicken parts, and badly cut at that, yet they had put it together in the package to appear as a whole bird!! Well I was surprised, flustered, and of course, a little ticked off at my husband, as he picked out the meat that shopping trip. (I had to blame it on someone!) So now, in my head, I was scrambling, what was I to do? I was searching for something with great flavor to work with, quick, at that late hour. What did I have? No pancetta, which is a great way to add some big flavor in no time. There was no time to make a tomato sauce, no nice savory jams in the fridge. No mushrooms on hand and no time to caramelize onions. Really, my mind was racing while making small talk to my guests sitting right in front of me!

So I thought to start with a little butter and olive oil, instead of just the oil. Salt and pepper on the skin side, added a sprinkling of cumin on the other side. White wine is always good and then I smeared some Dijon mustard on top. Then I saw this box of dried fruit on the counter to the left of my stove. I had just bought it last week to serve with some lovely cheeses, but that never happened. So I thought, what the heck, let’s try this. I topped each chicken piece with slices of fruit – apricots, apples, peaches, pears and prunes, and then threw the whole thing in the oven for about 17 minutes and voila, it was divine! And the oven was hot – 450 degrees for that roast chicken that wasn’t to be – so the fruit got golden and beautiful and dinner was saved. This new recipe is good enough to share, good enough to repeat, and different too! The only thing was that the roasted tomatoes with oregano sort of no longer went with the other food – but they tasted good with the potatoes!

Has this sort of thing ever happened to you? Please share.

CUMIN AND MUSTARD ROASTED CHICKEN WITH FRUIT – serves 4

One whole organic chicken, backbone removed, cut into 8 pieces, extra skin and fat trimmed
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 Tbs. unsalted butter
Salt
Pepper, fresh ground
11/2 tsp. ground cumin
½ cup dry white wine
4 tsp. Dijon mustard
16 – 18 slices of mixed dried fruit – apricots, peaches, pears, apples and prunes
1 – 2 Tbs. Chopped Italian parsley for garnish

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Wash and dry the chicken pieces, all fat and extra skin trimmed off. Salt and pepper skin side.

Warm olive oil and butter on medium high heat. Swirl to combine and when butter stops sizzling, place the chicken in the skillet, seasoned side down to brown and crisp skin for 3 – 4 minutes. While that side is browning, season the top side with salt, pepper and cumin. After the first side is nicely browned, turn chicken pieces over and brown the other side for two minutes, then add the white wine and spread the mustard on top of each piece. Then place 2 pieces of dried fruit on top of each lightly mustard coated piece. Put 2 – 3 pieces of fruit on each of the breasts, depending on the size of the fruit. You want to essentially cover the top of the chicken.

Place the skillet in the oven and roast for 15 – 18 minutes. Check doneness with a thermometer – should be 160 – 165 degrees. Remove chicken pieces to a platter, keeping the fruit on top. Pour any juices left in the skillet on top of the chicken. Let rest for 10 minutes and sprinkle chopped parsley on top and serve with LOVE.

Engaging stories of love, joy, comfort and friendship with proven scrumptious, healthy recipes, we celebrate LOVE as the secret ingredient for wonderful food!

Joseph Joseph SmartBar with Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic

Garlicky Chicken With Lemon-Anchovy Sauce

Cumin and Mustard Roasted Chicken with Fruit

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