This is my much “loved” copy of “Classic Chinese Cuisine” by Nina Simonds.

Hot as it was this week, I decided I would make “Cold Tossed Sichuan Noodles” from this book. No way I was creating any more heat than necessary in the house. Plus it is a quick and easy to make dish.

This is actually a great weeknight meal, if the weather is intolerably hot or not. If you have these ingredients in your pantry it takes minutes to throw together the sauce, chop a few veggies, and boil the noodles. You can also make it with any other nut butter, if you don’t like Peanut Butter. Almond, Cashew, whatever.

Quite possibly the trickiest thing in this recipe is poaching the chicken, without making it dry or tough. Even many restaurants *cough*Pomelo*cough* can’t seem to manage this. If you bring it to a boil too quickly it turns into chewing gum. Ideally, you’d seal it in a cryovac bag with rice wine, ginger, soy sauce, and garlic and sous vide it. Lacking sous vide equipment, place the bone on breast in a pan large enough it can be covered with cold water. Add a splash of soy sauce and rice wine. Crush a garlic clove and a couple ginger slices and drop them in the water. Using medium heat, bring the water up to not quite a simmer. Cover and reduce the heat as low as you can. Continue to cook until the breast reaches 145 at its thickest point and the broth is clear. The dish would also be tasty made with tofu instead of chicken.

“Classic Chinese Cuisine” is one of the first cookbooks that opened my eyes and tastes when I was in college and had my first food service jobs. One of the first time I realized that if I followed a recipe from a cookbook, I could make something much tastier than many of the restaurants I had been going to. Chinese cuisine was my first enthusiasm, thanks to this book. “Cold Tossed Sichuan Noodles” is one the first recipes I remember making from it. Just between you and me, I checked out “Classic Chinese Cuisine” from the public library. It was due for return on April 22, 1989. I’m sorry if you have been trying to check it out. The “Cold Tossed Sichuan Noodles” were just so good, I knew I needed to make far more things from the book. It’s not something I’m proud of.

Mrs. Flannestad has been a bit under the weather this week and requested chicken soup last night.

This is what I made…

Chicken and Corn Chowder

2 Chicken Leg Thigh Combo
1/2 onion, roughly chopped
1/2 carrot, roughly chopped
1/2 celery, roughly chopped
1 bay leaf
sprig thyme
few whole black peppercorns
1 whole clove

1/2 pound bacon
Olive Oil
1 onion, chopped
1 small bell pepper, chopped
1 small red pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic
Dry Oregano
Dry Thyme
Bay Leaf
1 TBSP Chili Powder
2 TBSP White Flour

2 Russet Potatoes, Peeled and diced

1 Package Frozen Corn
1 Cup Half and Half
3 Green Onions, sliced
Cilantro, Chopped
Salt & Pepper to taste

Add Chicken to a pot, add onion, carrot, celery, bay leaf and thyme. Cover with water and bring to a simmer. Cook until chicken runs clear.

Meanwhile chop you veggies for the stew proper. Add the bacon to a heavy pot large enough to hold a quart or so of soup. You may need to add a touch of olive oil to get this started faster without burning the bacon. Render fat from bacon and cook until crispy. Reserve bacon. Remove most of the bacon fat from the pan and add chopped onion, bell pepper, and red pepper. Sweat over low heat until they begin to soften and add garlic and spices. Cover and sweat for a few minutes more. Add 1 TBSP bacon grease back in (or olive oil if you prefer), and add flour, stirring to cook for a few minutes. You are creating a roux.

Hopefully, before now, your chicken will be done. Pour off the cooking liquid, strain, and reserve. You should have a couple cups. If not, add extra stock to make it up. Add strained cooking liquid to the vegetables and roux above, whisking quickly. Bring to a simmer rapidly. Add potatoes and lower heat. Cook until potatoes are almost done.

Remove chicken from bones and dice. Add chicken, reserved bacon, corn, and green onions to the soup. Bring to a simmer for a few minutes stir in the half and half and check seasonings. When it again comes to a simmer, ladle into bowls and top with chopped cilantro. Serve with crusty bread.

When I worked at a “Southwestern” restaurant in Madison, Wisconsin, we would sometimes offer these as a special.

If I remember correctly, we would call them New Mexican Enchiladas.

Instead of rolling the ingredients in the corn tortillas, you would build a stack.

Put down a sauced corn tortilla, add an ingredient, add another sauced tortilla, then an ingredient, tortilla on top, sauce, and cheese. Then microwave the whole shebang.

Sort of like a tortilla lasagna.

Tonight I had some leftover chicken. I bought some salsa verde, spiced it up with minced chipotles en adobo, reserved half the sauce, and then stirred the leftover chicken into the remaining sauce. Then I put down a layer of spiced salsa verde, a tortilla, some chicken, another tortilla, some more chicken, a tortilla, the remaining sauce, feta cheese, and cheddar cheese. I baked it in the oven until browned.

At the same time I had crisped some bacon, then sautéed some onions, garlic, and chile powder in the rendered fat. Added a small can of black beans, and simmered. Added the crisped bacon back in.

Yep, not bad for a quick Sunday night dinner.

One of my favorite fish preparations is baking it in a spicy tomato sauce with olives and capers.

Unfortunately, the only decent looking fish at our local market was Pollack, the world’s most tasteless fish. There’s a reason some Asian genius decided to use this as a base to create artificial crab.

Pre-heat your oven to 325 F.

Make a tasty tomato sauce. I actually kind of like leeks a bit better than the yellow onions I used here.

I like line a baking dish with sliced lemons, then place the fish on this.

Then top the fish with some herbs, in this case thyme, and salt and pepper. Cover the fish with the tomato sauce and put it in the oven.

“Wait, what are all these unusual stainless items which arrived at our front door,” sez Ms. Sweetpea?

Acting on a tip from DrinksCompanion I scored a set of 28 oz stainless tins and 18oz cheater tins from BarSupplies.com. Not to mention a full set of stainless jiggers in varying sizes. Interesting posts will follow explaining, if you don’t feel like reading DrinksCompanion’s exegesis.

Linguini is one of my favorite dry pastas. I don’t exactly know why. Versatile?

Take the fish out of the sauce and plate, toss the pasta with the sauce.

Served it with some olive bread from Arizmendi Bakery.

It was only OK this time Again, Pollack is really a pretty boring fish. Probably fish balls or fake crab sticks is the thing to do with it, rather than just eating it. Halibut or Cod would be preferable. But, there you go, a fast and easy to make dinner for a weeknight.