Hungry Sam: Hurricane Mode! Or, Lemon Chicken a l'Irene

If you hadn't heard, DC was being punished for its sins this last week. Earthquakes, flooding, hurricanes -- all pretty mild, actually, at least here in Washington. I guess our sins can't be that bad.

During the worst of the hurricane on Saturday night, I didn't even lose power -- so obviously I decided to roast a mid-hurricane chicken.

I used a four pound chicken I'd thawed over two days in the fridge. I started by spatchcocking the bird (butterflying; for more here's my post: "Spatchcocked Chicken...heehee") and arranging it skin side up on a foil-covered tray. Then, I melted about two tablespoons of butter and painted the skin before massaging thyme, sage, and salt and pepper in as well. I cut four sprigs off my poor, sad rosemary plant and tucked them under joints, and finished preparing the chicken by arranging wheel of sliced lemon on top.

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Seriously, People, Don't Trust Cafeteria Lobster

Lobster Bib.

I'm going to try hard to get through this post without cursing.

Seriously, people, don't trust cafeteria lobster.

Just...don't. So, for example, if you show up to the cafeteria at the National Education Association and see they're serving a lobster lunch for $12.95, just walk away.

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Pan-Seared Flank Steak, Stonewall Kitchen Style

Outstanding Savory Condiment, indeed.

Though I've become a D.C.-citizen, sans-voting rights and all, I remain at heart a Mainer with an inordinate amount of state pride. So, obviously, I am a staunch and stalwart supporter of Stonewall Kitchen products. 

Oh, you didn't know? Stonewall Kitchens, purveyor of awesome jarred sauces, syrups, salsas, and other good stuff, is based in York, Maine.  

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Giant Changes at Hungry Sam

Photo via Maryland Route 5

Ok, not really GIANT changes. I was just using hyperbolese to make you interested in this post. I'm sorry.

I feel a lot better getting that off my chest.

Reasonable-sized change number one:  

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BREAKING: Turns Out My Caffeine Addiction is Awesome

 
Here's some fantastic, life-changing news to brighten your morning: Caffeine definitely maybe prevents skin cancer.

A recent University of Toronto study has built on previous findings, suggesting "that caffeine can help lower one's chances of UV-associated skin cancer by inhibiting a DNA repair pathway, essentially helping cells die after exposure to sunlight."

I have no interest in understanding the nuances of this article, or the study on which it's based. Why ask myself questions about correlation versus causation? Why challenge the research methodology or equivocate on its findings? What's my motivation here?

Obviously, my motivation is to seek out evidence to continue feeding my coffee problem habit hobby.

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Apparently, Freedom Tastes Like...Cheese

This shouldn't surprise me, but it would seem that freedom tastes like cheese.

FONDUE IN A RICE COOKER = BLOWING MY MIND.

How do I know? Well, as self-appointed office Food Czar (yeah, it's in my email signature...sometimes), I'm the "organizer" of sporadic department potlucks or food excursions. I equivocate on the term "organizer" because all I do is send an Outlook invite and come up with an absurd, poorly thought-out theme. 

For the potluck I "organized" last week -- a thank you and farewell lunch for our awesome interns -- my absurd, poorly thought-out theme for the dishes was the following: I encouraged everyone to make and bring a dish that provides an answer to "What does freedom taste like to me?"

Really, don't ask me how I think of these ideas.

Anyways, it turns out that we had an extreme preponderance of cheese. I brought freedom baguette with freedom Camembert and a homemade strawberry-thyme compote (get it? Ok, lame, but tasty), but there were pizzas (freedom to order over the internet, i.e. speech), cupcake-sized cheesecakes (I think this one was freedom to choose your own toppings), and a classic fondue lovingly crafted in a rice cooker (BRILLIANT; meant to symbolize freedom of association AND America's melting-pot nature).

To dip in fondue.

I also covered pizza in fondue, which sort of makes a First Amendment sandwich (freedom of association and speech, plus the freedom to later practice a religion in honor thereof).

It's a lousy picture, but trust me: It's pizza with a healthy glomp of Gruyere fondue

Other dishes were tasty and creative too. We had a pasta salad that, to the creator, represented freedom in that it's the first dish she could make with confidence after leaving home. One of my Yehudi brethren made a Ashkenazi charoset, the traditional apple, walnut, wine and honey dish eaten at Passover -- which is ALL about freedom. We had vegetables to be slathered in a number of different dips (freedom of choice) and chips to dip in choices of salsa.  But clearly, the focus was cheese.

 

All in all, we had potluck success. And each of us ate many times the recommended daily serving of cheese.

Key Lime Pie: The Easiest Pie Ever

I even kind of made it look pretty.

Ok. Unless you're a masochist who enjoys spending several years squeezing tiny little Key limes, this pie is definitely the easiest pie, and perhaps the easiest dessert, evah. Which is how we like to say "ever" whenever we're excited the Red Sox decided NOT to spend July and August dropping to the bottom of the AL East! But I digress.

There are FOUR ingredients, and one of them comes with the dish for baking:

-Key Lime Juice (You can spend 14 hours squeezing 'em, or it comes in a bottle)

-Sweetened Condensed Milk (you can own a cow, or it comes in a 14 oz. can)

-Egg yolks (comes in an...egg)

-A graham crust (you can make it, or it comes in a pie tin)

Note my awesome super old hand mixer.

If you want to make it look pretty like I did, then you also need:

-One blackberry

-Half a lime

See? So easy.

Important detail: You can't just use regular lime juice. Key limes are significantly tarter and possess a greater depth of flavor -- they almost taste more like a wicked tart berry than a citrus. They're very, very small, about an inch in diameter, and you can sometimes find them in small sacks in the produce section. Each lime contains only a scant amount of juice; however, my Grammy turned me on to Kellie and Joe's Famous Key West Lime Juice and I haven't looked back since. I've seen it sold everywhere form a standard supermarket to the neighborhood bodega, so look around.

Actually making the pie is simple. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Using an electric beater (mine's from like 1976, if you can't tell) or a whisk, or a fork (but come on, spring for a whisk), beat together three egg yolks, the milk, and 1/2 cup of the juice. Then, pour it into the crust. BAM. That's it. If you don't know how to separate egg yolks from their whites, here's a helpful video explanation. 

 

Now if you want to be fancy (happy, Dawn and Rachel?), paint the exposed edges of the crust with the egg whites you've separated out -- it gives the crust a nice sheen and will help prevent it from breaking into crumbs when you try to cut the final product.

That's an el cheapo silicon brush, but fingers work too!

Throw the pie in for 15 minutes. Don't worry if it seems a tad loose when it comes out; it's set in about another ten minutes on the counter. Here's the pie BEFORE being topped with fruit:

Finally, if you're decorating, thinly slice a halved lime and arrange on the pie. I threw a blackberry into the center, because we had some and I like blackberries, which is the reasoning that guides many of my cooking decisions.

I think it's best to let it cool fully and to refrigerate the pie before serving, but that's your journey. The pie keeps reasonably well for maybe five or six days in the fridge.