Best Laid (Birthday) Plans

 

The plan was to have a lovely brunch in a favorite restaurant with family for my birthday. But Covid happened. (Daddy-O has it but isn't too sick, thankfully.) So we were home alone and I cooked my own birthday dinner. Good move on my part. This was so good. And because there was the tiniest bottle of bubbly rosé in the refrigerator left from last year's wine advent calendar, it felt like a felt like a celebration!  I've wanted to try this recipe for a while and I had a chicken in the fridge. Jessica made this here a few weeks ago and told me she makes it almost every week because it's easy. She's right.

This is a "do what I say, not what I do" photograph. I should have tented the chicken with foil sooner, but it was fine. That's the seasoning that got so black, not skin that burned. I'll try the avocado oil next time and see if that makes a different. You're seeing my real cooking, train wrecks and all. Look at the next photo.

Oops!

Working too quickly, I managed to split the wrong side of the chicken ALMOST the whole way through. This dinner was only for the two of us, so I just flipped it over and cut out the backbone. It cooked just fine. Not exactly a photo worthy finish, but since I cut the chicken into pieces and put them on a platter to serve, no one would have been the wiser if we'd had guests.

Cooking boo boos happen. But food is so expensive now, you need to be okay with figuring out a fix. Meat still tough after it's cooked? Chop it up and serve it on sandwiches or over rice. The classic "fix" is crumbling up a cake that stuck to the pan and layering it with pudding and/or Cool Whip to make a trifle. The big trick is NOT to tell anyone that the "fix" wasn't your original plan. 

This really isn't a recipe as much as a starting place for you to cook this dish. Jessica says she's used all kinds of seasonings, but really likes this one. She likes golden potatoes. I had red potatoes on hand. She said sometimes she mixes the seasoning with some oil and rubs it under the skin and rubs plain oil on the outside. If she's feeling extra decadent, she mixes the seasoning with some cold butter for the under-the-skin rub.

ROAST SPATCHCOCK CHICKEN AND VEGETABLES

1 whole chicken, about 3-1/2 to 4 lb

Red potatoes, cut into large chunks

3 or 4 carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks

Olive oil or avocado oil

1-1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

1./2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon oregano

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

Preheat oven to 425º. Line large sheet pan with foil. Mix dry seasoning ingredients. 

Remove giblets from chicken and pat dry. Using sharp knife or sharp kitchen scissors, remove backbone from chicken. Pat the inside dry. Open chicken up and lay it out flat, skin side up on sheet pan. (Google "how to spatchcock.")

Toss vegetables with a little oil and add to pan around chicken. Sprinkle some seasoning over veggies.

Mix a little oil with some seasoning and rub under the skin. Rub outside of chicken with oil and sprinkle rest of seasoning over the bird.

Roast, uncovered, for about an hour. (Smaller bird may be done sooner.) If the chicken is getting brown too quickly (or the spices start to burn), tent with foil.

After it comes out of the oven, let it rest a bit before serving. I cut mine into the normal chicken pieces and placed on a platter along with the vegetable. Jessica pulls the meat off the bones and serves it that way.

My weekend was not what I planned, but it might have been what I needed. I spent the day digging deep into my messy laundry knitting/sewing room, sorting and tossing out and even finishing up projects that were so close to being done. I listened to a book while I worked. I watched some Christmas movies while I worked on a new knitting project.

I woke up this morning and felt good when I looked at the neat laundry room. Daddy-O is beginning to feel better. Life is good.

UPDATE: Before I hit the "publish" button for this post, I got sick. Hopefully sunny days are just around the corner. I'm taking time off until after Thanksgiving, then I'll regroup and see what I have to share.

A Stew By Any Other Name

Alabama Camp Stew

I'm almost embarrassed to share this recipe—because it's a bunch of cans dumped in a pot. Almost embarrassed. But I'm doing it because it tasted good, it was so easy to make AND Daddy-O went back two times for more.

I came across this recipe on the food blog Southern Plate years ago. Christy, the writer, is from Alabama. What made me remember the recipe was that she said if you have these cans in your grocery cart, when you check out, the cashier is likely to ask if you're making camp stew. That's why she calls it "famous."

At the beginning of the pandemic I stocked up on shelf stable foods when we weren't sure if the grocery stores would stay open. I remembered this recipe and bought all the cans, printed out the recipe and put the cans and recipe together in a box and added the box to my pantry stash. 

Thankfully those days are behind us, but I realized I liked having a food stash. Not as big as my pandemic stash, but extras of things that we use often. Our closest grocery store is 7 miles away. That's a 14 mile, 25-minute round trip drive to the store and back if I find out I'm out of sugar mid-recipe. So I keep extras on hand. 

Yesterday I was going through my stored foods and checking expiration dates (that's part of storing extras at home) and saw that the tomatoes in my camp stew box needed to be used. Tomatoes, unlike many canned foods, should not be used long past the expiration date.

After a long day of working around the house, this easy recipe was worth a try last night. And it sounded like good football watching food. So glad I finally tried it.

I imagine some of you will have a hard time finding the canned pork or beef BBQ. I found it on the bottom shelf at our Ingles store. But knowing that I have readers in California and Maryland and other far flung states, I googled "camp stew" to find other ways to make this. There are recipes for cooking fresh meat. Some bought BBQ from their local barbecue joint. And one person said that instead of canned, she subbed refrigerated BBQ, such as Lloyd's, found in the refrigerated section, near the mashed potatoes, at the store. 

And to be honest, if you're from California or Maryland, you're probably horrified by dumping all these cans together and would never make this anyway. Right?  In my google search, I did find this fun story about How Camp Stew Became A South Alabama Icon. Read it and learn.

I found a zillion versions of this stew online. Sometimes called camp stew, sometimes called Brunswick stew, depending on where you live. One of our friends has a stew cooking every now and then and sells quarts of Brunswick stew that we like. This recipe has a similar flavor. He uses chicken and pork that he has smoked. If you don't need to make gallons of stew, try this one pot recipe.

ALABAMA CAMP STEW (or Brunswick stew if you live in another state)

3 (14-oz) cans diced tomatoes

14-oz can whole kernel corn

14-oz can butter beans or lima beans

1 onion, chopped

2 (10-oz) cans Castleberry’s Pork or Beef in BBQ sauce

10 or 12-oz can chicken breast

Dump all cans, including the liquid, and chopped onion into a large saucepan. (Mine was 4-1/2 qt.) Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes to 1 hour, stirring occasionally, making sure the bottom doesn’t scorch. 

Made with the Castleberry's pork, the stew had a little kick. And it's a little sweet, like my friend's Brunswick stew. You can do anything you want with the recipe. Add hot sauce if you want it even hotter. Add a diced potato, leave out the corn or add more corn. Use leftover rotisserie chicken instead of canned. Use all chicken (add BBQ sauce) if you don't eat meat. Tinker with seasonings.

What to serve with the Camp Stew? We just had crackers. But this cornbread would be an excellent choice. I made these two pans last Sunday to take to church for a vegetable soup and cornbread fund raiser.

Two batches of Corny Cornbread

CORNY CORNBREAD

1/2 cup vegetable oil  (plus extra to grease the pan)
1-3/4 cups self-rising cornmeal mix  (make sure it's cornmeal mix)
1 cup cream-style corn (frozen or canned)
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 cup grated cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Generously grease a cast iron skillet or a 7x11-inch baking pan. Preheat pan in the oven while you're mixing the batter.

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl, stirring with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until combined. Pour batter into the preheated pan. Place pan in the oven and bake until golden brown, about 30 minutes.