Buttermilk Roast Chicken Breasts for #RandomRecipeChallenge

Chicken marinated in buttermilk becomes tender and juicy, even whole chicken breasts, which are notorious for becoming dry during roasting.  These were succulently, fragrantly delicious! 

The Random Recipe Challenge has gone back to its theme-less origins this month, with Dom proclaiming that we should choose a random cookbook off the shelf and open it to a new random recipe.  And make it.

Read all about it by clicking here.

I got lucky.  Not in the sense that I had the ingredients, because that did require a trip to the supermarket but I was hoping for something savory after completing Cookie Week last Saturday and the Creative Cookie Challenge on Tuesday.  I enjoyed baking the cookies.  I really did.  But my fervent prayer was still, “Please don’t let it be another cookie!”  My random book was Nigella Lawson’s Express, a book I really haven’t used very much so the chances of my opening to a familiar recipe were practically nil.  It fell open to Buttermilk Roast Chicken and I thought it was going to be like Jamie Oliver’s chicken baked in milk, which I have made.  And enjoyed.  But, nope.  The buttermilk is just part of the marinade, with seasonings added.  I have to say, “Thanks, Dom!”  Because I think we’ve found a new family favorite!

Ingredients
For the marinade:
2 cups or 480ml buttermilk
1/4 cup or 60ml olive oil plus more for during roasting
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1/2 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon sea salt flakes or 1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon maple syrup (You know what I substituted.)

For roasting:
6 chicken breasts with wings still attached (or chicken pieces of your choice, approximately 3lbs or 1.4kg total weight)
2 tablespoons of olive oil or duck fat for the baking pan
Sprinkle cayenne pepper and extra black pepper

Method
In a Ziploc bag large enough to hold all your chicken breasts, add the peeled garlic, salt, cumin, black pepper and olive oil.

Close the bag and use the heel of your hand to crush the garlic cloves, being careful not to pierce the bag.

Add in the buttermilk and then the chicken.  Seal the bag and mash everything around to make sure that all parts of the chicken are covered with seasoned liquid.

Leave the chicken marinating in the refrigerator overnight or at the very least out of the fridge for 30 minutes and up to 2 hours.  I put it in a deep plate, just in case the bag leaked a little.  Fortunately, it didn’t, but you never know with those Ziplocs.

When you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375°F or 190°C.

Prepare a baking pan large enough for the chicken breasts to sit apart and in a single layer by lining it with foil and coating it with olive oil or duck fat, if you prefer.  If you are using duck fat, you can melt it in the pan in the preheating oven.

You KNOW I chose the duck fat option! 

Take the chicken out of the bag and drain it well in a colander.

Arrange the breasts in your prepared baking pan, skin side DOWN to coat with olive oil or duck fat.

Now turn the breasts over, sprinkle with a little more black pepper and some cayenne.  Bake for 30 minutes.

Remove from the oven and drizzle a little more olive oil on the breasts and bake for an additional 15 minutes or until golden and cooked through.

Remove the chicken to a serving plate and use a spoon to gently scrape up the lovely brown bits from the foil, adding a little hot water if necessary to remove them.  Serve this lovely pan juice alongside your chicken.   It is fabulous on mashed potatoes or rice.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

Deep rich chocolate cookie dough studded with mint and chocolate chips freezes beautifully so you are ready to bake up homemade chocolate chips by the time the oven preheats. These will disappear as fast as you can bake them.

You’d think I would know better.  I should know better!  Most of my adult life I’ve lived in places where I either needed to bring special items with me from the States or stock up quickly when I see them in the stores.  Reams of expat correspondence and countless conversations through the years have been devoted to where to buy what and, “Oh, my goodness, the soft toilet paper has come in at CV Central!” or “The advent calendars are here at Marks and Spencers!” and the like.

But I’ve gotten complacent living in Dubai.  I can buy most everything I need and it usually comes in great abundance.  Sometime too great.  I happen to know, because I have watched it with horrified interest, that the delivery of Borden’s Eggnog from the last Christmas season is still on the shelves at my local grocery store.  (The “best by” date is September 2013 but it’s covered by a sticker in Arabic.)  But I didn’t anticipate the run on Hershey’s Mint Truffles Kisses at all.  They appeared last week and I picked up a bag and fondled it but I didn’t buy because I didn’t have a plan.

Then I made a plan, for a mint chocolate make-ahead Christmas cookie that would be even more fabulous with a mint truffle Kiss on top. And now BOTH of my nearby grocery stores are out, fresh out, already. So I’ve left some plain (still fabulous) and topped some with peppermint Kisses and still others with dark chocolate Kisses. If you can find the mint truffle Kisses in the green bag, give them a try and send me a photo. I think they’d be beautiful. And if you are a fellow expat, don’t bother saying, “You should know better.” I do. I really do. Deep sigh.

This month our Creative Cookie Exchange group is baking up cookie dough that can be made ahead and frozen until you are ready to bake so make sure to scroll down to the bottom and check out the rest of the links.  We’ve got some great ones for you!

Ingredients for about 3 dozen cookies

These were a gift from my sister, brought from the States.

1 cup or 225g butter, at room temperature
1 cup, firmly packed, or 200g dark brown sugar
2 cups or 250g all-purpose flour
1/3 cup or just over 26g unsweetened cocoa powder (I used the special dark.)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
10 oz or 283g bag mixed dark chocolate chips and mint chips

Optional to decorate: A variety of Hershey’s Kisses

Method
If baking right away, preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your baking pan by greasing it lightly or lining it with parchment paper.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine your flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.

With electric beaters or in your stand mixer, cream together the butter and brown sugar, until they are light and fluffy.

Add in the flour mixture and beat until just combined.

Now add in the chocolate and mint chips and beat again briefly.

Roll the dough up into a thick sausage shape with cling film and chill for about 10 minutes in the freezer.  (Or for as long as several weeks if you aren’t baking immediately.  In this case, let the dough thaw for about 10 minutes before trying to cut your slices.  This also gives your oven time to preheat.)

It's not pretty but it is pretty delicious. 

Cut slices of the dough and lay them out on the prepared pan with enough space between them so they don’t run together as they bake.

This dough had been frozen for about 30 hours, then thawed for 10 minutes before slicing.

Once your oven has preheated, bake for 10-12 minutes or until just set.   Allow the cookies to cool on the pan for about 5-7 minutes before adding the Kisses or trying to remove them from the pan with a spatula.

Just out of the oven! 

If you’ve added Kisses, do not touch the candies until they have had a chance to harden up again.  The whole Kiss gets soft from the heat.  You can pop the cookies in the refrigerator if you are in a hurry.

With Kisses

Enjoy!

Unadorned but still delicious

To join in the fun of the Creative Cookie Exchange, just complete the steps below:

1.  Write a blog post with recipe and original photo. The theme this month is make-ahead freezer cookies for the holidays.  The post should describe how to freeze the dough and also how to bake the dough when you are ready. We would like the recipe to be one you’re making for the first time, and photos must be original.
2.  Post the Cookie Exchange badge somewhere on your blog so others can join in the fun:
Badge Code: should work for all types of web sites, blogger, self-hosted and free.

<center> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Creative-Cookie-Exchange-hosted-by-The-Spiced-Life-and-At-Home-with-Rebecka/148873331987243" target="_blank"><img alt="Creative Cookie Exchange" src="http://i784.photobucket.com/albums/yy124/BiteMySweetTarts/3329aec3-6749-4ab7-8af953332dfb9487_zps437070c3.jpg"/></a></center>

3.  Make a good faith effort to visit and comment on the other cookies in the Linky party.  We all love cookies so that should be easy!

4.  LIKE the Creative Cookie Exchange Facebook Page

5.  FOLLOW the Creative Cookie Exchange Pinterest Board

6.  LINK your blog post below using the Linky tool.

You can also just use us as a great resource for cookie recipes.  Be sure to check out our Facebook page, our Pinterest Board, and our monthly posts. You will be able to find them the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month!  

Here are this month’s great make-ahead recipes:

• Best Ever Sugar Cookies from Liv Life
• Chai Spice Girls from All That’s Left Are The Crumbs
• Cherry Pistachio Ice Box Cookies from Noshing With The Nolands
• Chewy Pumpkin Ginger Cookies from If I Ever Owned A Bakery
• Chocolate Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies from Food Lust People Love
• Chocolate Mint Cookies from At Home with Rebecka 
• Christmas Linzer Cookies from It’s Yummi!
• Coffee? Tea? from Ninja Baking
• Espresso Pinwheel Cookies from A Baker’s House
• Neapolitan Striped Crisps from Karen’s Kitchen Stories
• Pumpkin Cranberry Cookie Drops from KarenTrina Childress
• Salted Dark Chocolate Crisps from The Spiced Life
• Scottish Shortbread from Made With Love

Brown Sugar Browned Butter Maple Muffins

Browned butter and brown sugar add a depth and richness to these maple syrup muffins that make them perfect for a Sunday morning brunch or midmorning snack. 

Here’s a confession guaranteed to get me disowned by any Canadians that may have once loved me:  At our house, we use Aunt Jemima Butter Lite syrup on waffles and pancakes and French toast.  In fact, on anything that would normally require maple syrup.  Truth is, I’ve never done a side-by-side taste comparison with the real thing because we love our Aunt Jemima.  It's one of things I've hauled in great quantities to the various countries we've lived over the last 26 years. It tastes like home.  It’s sweet but not too sweet, and that added butter flavor (Yeah, I know it doesn’t have real butter and the flavoring will probably be found to cause horrible cell mutations someday but for now, we are blissful in our ignorance.) makes adding butter optional.  If anyone wants to give me a bottle of the real stuff, I promise to keep an open mind and perform a blindfolded taste test.  But just know that until then, when I say “maple,” I really mean Aunt Jemima Butter Lite.  Feel free to substitute your favorite syrup.

Ingredients
2 cups or 250g flour
1/2 cup, packed, or 100g dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup or 120ml milk
1/3 cup browned butter, at room temperature (Start with 7 tablespoons or 100g of butter and follow these easy instructions.)
3/4 cup or 180ml maple syrup
1 large egg

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your 12-cup muffin pan by greasing it thoroughly or spraying with non-stick spray or lining it with paper muffin cups.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt and stir well.

In another bowl, whisk together the milk, browned butter, syrup and egg.

Pour your wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold them together until just mixed.

Bake in the preheated oven about 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool on a rack for a few minutes and then remove the muffins to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Muffin Monday is an initiative by Baker Street, a culinary journey of sharing a wickedly delicious muffin recipe every week. Drop her a quick line to join her journey to make the world smile and beat glum Monday mornings week after week.

Plus learn all you ever need to know about muffins at Muffin 101.

Roasted Butternut Squash with Balsamic Vinegar Honey Butter

Lots of recipes call for butternut squash to be peeled before roasting but I have found that the peel is actually quite tender and deliciously edible so I like to leave it on.  It adds fiber as well as flavor. 

After the indulgent recipes of Cookie Week, I am delighted to tell you that I’ve got an easy, healthy dish for you.  #SundaySupper is celebrating winter squash so I made one of our family favorites.  I’ve been roasting pumpkin and butternut squash for several years now, sometimes just drizzled with olive oil and a pinch of sea salt, and sometimes fancied up with spices (Cumin and/or cinnamon work beautifully!) or sprinkled with minced garlic with a pat of butter in the hole.  No matter the additions, it is always delicious.  And nutritious.  I hope you give it a try!

Ingredients to serve four
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon honey
2 small butternut squash (About 15 1/2oz or 440g each)
Sprinkle of sea salt flakes
Green onion tops for garnish, if desired

Method
Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C.

In a microwave-safe bowl, combine the vinegar, olive oil and honey with your two tablespoons of butter.  Melt your butter with a quick couple of zaps of perhaps 10 seconds each in the microwave and stir well to combine.

Cut the stem off of your butternut squash and then cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds.

Put your four halves in a baking pan and drizzle the vinegar honey butter mixture all over the squash.  Divide the remaining mixture between the wells in the squash.

Roast in the preheated oven until a fork goes in the thickest part quite easily.  This should take between 45 and 60 minutes.

Remove from the oven and sprinkle each butternut squash half with sea salt flakes.  Garnish with green onion tops, if desired.

Enjoy!

Ginger Lemon Snaps with Ginger Glaze

Ginger and lemon are best mates, as the lovely Jamie Oliver would say. The warmth of the fresh ginger is enhanced in this pretty cookie by the addition of bits of crystallized ginger and a bitey ginger glaze on top and brightened beautifully by the sharp fresh lemon juice and zest.

Ginger Lemon Snaps with Ginger Glaze - Click here to print recipe

Ingredients
For two and a half dozen cookies:
3 1/2 cups or 440g flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Zest of one medium lemon
4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 small knob fresh ginger (about 1 oz or 15g after peeling)
1/3 cup or 75g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup or 200g light brown sugar
2 eggs

For decorating: About 2 oz or 60g crystallized ginger plus 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar to separate the sticky bits when chopped

For the ginger glaze:
2/3 cup or about 85g powdered sugar
1 teaspoon ground ginger
Pinch salt
1 1/2 - 3 teaspoons milk

Method
Preheat oven to 375°F or 190°C and prepare your baking pan by greasing lightly or lining with parchment paper. A dab of butter or a quick shot of non-stick spray under the paper will keep it from sliding around on the pan.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine your flour, baking powder, soda, salt and lemon zest.  Set aside.

Chop your crystallized ginger into little bits and put them in a small bowl with the 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar. Rub the ginger and sugar between your fingers until all the bits are coated with the sugar and no longer stick together. Set aside.

Peel and grate your fresh ginger.

With electric beaters or in your stand mixer, beat the sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy. This takes just a couple of minutes.

Add in the eggs and beat again. 

Your grated ginger and lemon juice should go in now. Beat again for just a few seconds. 

Add the flour mixture in TWO lots, mixing well in between.

Scoop one tablespoon of dough out onto your prepared cookie sheet for each cookie. If you are using an actual tablespoon, you can roll them into balls and then flatten them for a more uniform appearance.

Sprinkle the top of each dough disk with crystallized ginger bits and sugar.  Press them down a little bit into the dough to stop them falling off after baking. 

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the cookies are golden on the bottom and set on top. 

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes in the pan and them put them on a wire rack to cool completely.  

Meanwhile, make your glaze by combining the powdered sugar, ground ginger and the pinch of salt.  Add milk a tiny bit at a time, stirring very well in between, until you reach drizzling consistency.  You may not use all the milk. 

I like to use a piping bag for more uniform drizzling of glaze but you can also put your glaze in a plastic bag and cut off one tiny corner for the same effect.  When the cookies are completely cool, drizzle on the glaze.

Enjoy! 

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Chewy Brigadeiro Pecan Bars

These wonderfully chewy cookie bars are made with melted chocolate and dulce de leche, sandwiched between layers of oat/pecan cookie dough and baked to golden perfection. Toasted pecans, melted chocolate, rolled oats and dulce de leche (caramelized condensed milk) make a chewy cookie bar that remind me of one of our favorite candies, Brazilian brigadeiros.

Chewy Brigadeiro Pecan Bars

I first saw this recipe on The Spiced Life, written by my friend, Laura, creator of the Creative Cookie Exchange group.  It sounded fabulous just as it was but I wanted to try a couple small modifications, exchanging the condensed milk for dulce de leche and toasting the pecans first.

Ingredients for four dozen squares
For the bottom/top dough:
2 1/2 cups or 315g flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup or 225g unsalted butter plus more for buttering the pan
2 cups, packed, or 400g brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
3 cups or 285g old fashioned rolled oats
7 oz or 200g pecans (Half for dough, half for sprinkling on before baking)

For the chocolate filling:
14 (or 15) oz or 397-510g can dulce de leche (store-bought or homemade - very easy!)
13 3/4 oz or almost 290g semi sweet chocolate
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla

Optional: 1 teaspoon sea salt flakes for sprinkling on top of the bars before baking

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.  Prepare your baking pan (Mine is about 11x16in or 28x40cm.) by lining it with foil and rubbing it with some butter.

Put your pecans in a separate pan large enough to hold them all in a single layer.  Pop them in the oven while it preheats.  Set a timer for five minutes at a time and keep checking on them and giving them a shake until they smell like roasted nuts, warm and fragrant.  Depending on how quickly your oven preheats, this could take from as little as 10 minutes to as many as 20 minutes.  Just be careful not to let them scorch.  Remove from the oven and allow the pecans to cool.

When the pecans are cool enough to handle, chop them roughly.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine your flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar together until fluffy.  Add in the vanilla and then beat the eggs in one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl between each addition.

This is the addition of the second egg. 

Add in the flour mixture in two lots and mix on the lowest speed until well mixed each time.

After the flour is all added. 

Add the oats and mix on low until mostly incorporated. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.

It's pretty stiff after the oats have been added.  You'll want to scrape the beater as well.  

Add half of the pecans and mix until everything is completely incorporated.

Remove two cups or 600g of this dough and set aside.

Dump the remaining dough into your foil-lined pan.  Divide it into smaller chunks spread around the bottom of the pan and then press it down until it covers the entire bottom.  Set aside.

To make the filling, put your chocolate in a microwaveable bowl and zap for 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between, until the chocolate is completely melted.

Add in the dulce de leche, vanilla, butter and the pinch of salt and stir well. The butter should melt in the heat of the chocolate but if it doesn't you can give the whole bowl another quick zap.

Pour this warm chocolate mixture over the dough pressed into the pan.

Use your fingers to break up the reserved two cups of the dough and sprinkle in over the chocolate. It won’t and shouldn’t cover all of the chocolate.

Now sprinkle the remaining toasted chopped pecans over the whole thing.

Finish by sprinkling 1 teaspoon sea salt flakes over that, if desired. I love the sweet and salty mix myself.

Bake for 25 minutes, or until the top is golden brown.

Allow to cool for about 15 minutes on a cooling rack before removing the foil and the whole cookie bar from the pan. Cool completely before cutting into small squares.

Store in a well-sealed container with waxed paper or parchment dividing the layers. If you live in a very warm climate, store this in the refrigerator. These cookie bars also freeze nicely and will keep for several weeks.

Enjoy!

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