Not quite fit for a king

Every once in a while, I like to break out with a Rachael Ray recipe. While I'm a big fan of hers and like both her talk show and magazine, for whatever reason, I haven't managed to make that connection with her cooking, even though I own about several of her cookbooks (30 Minute Meals 2, 365: No Repeats, Just In Time, Express Lane, and Classic 30 Minute Meals). I like reading them and am glad they're in my collection. I just can't seem to be able to get amped about making them. I think part of it is that Jim has never raved about any of them. And they do usually take me longer than 30 minutes. I think I'm okay with the chopping and stuff, although I'm no match for her speed. What chews up the time is assembling all of the ingredients and timing the cooking of all of it. I can't get her flow down, and I feel very clumsy. Plus I am slowed down by the gloves for the meat.

Anyway, Jim's freezer needs a major overhaul, so I'm trying to cook up the scads of meat in there. I took out some boneless, skinless chicken breasts last night, and Rachael is pretty much the queen of those recipes. I decided to go with Chicken a la Queen, a recipe from her new Just In Time book. It was marked as one I wanted to try, and this way, I got to use up the puff pastry shells and peas in the freezer, as well as the celery and carrots that have been hanging around, some more half and half, leftover chicken broth from last Friday's roasted chicken, and white wine that I also opened up on Friday.

I went over to Jim's house this morning and began to prep the meal by baking off the puff pastry shells and chopping the carrots, onions, and celery. Besides getting to hang with him for a bit, I also got to eat a little of the blueberry coffee cake, which is really quite good and not overly sweet. I read the reviews of the recipe, and a lot of them said that the blueberries sank to the bottom, but that didn't happen with me. The other complaint was that it overflowed, but my springform pan is pretty deep, so I wasn't surprised that didn't happen to me either. Jim ate about a quarter of the thing for breakfast, so I think we'll be okay eating it all up. Of course, he may squawk a bit when he finds out I'm going to be making muffins later on in the week (have to use up the rest of the sour cream and blueberries!).



Over lunch, I went to Trader Joe's for asparagus, red bell pepper, and tarragon, the ingredients I didn't have at the house. TJ's didn't have either asparagus or tarragon. So I rushed over to Raley's and ended up paying out the butt for asparagus ($3.99 a pound!) and not being able to get tarragon. I did get kale, because I saw Bobby Flay make creamed kale and it looked interesting.

Once I got home, I finished up the dish by sauteeing the veggies with a bay leaf, salt, and pepper. Because I only had 6 puff pastry shells and the recipe called for 8, I made 3/4 of the recipe, which probably worked out better anyway (fewer leftovers). Plus the skillet wouldn't have been big enough for everything. Things were plenty tight as it was already and I needed a pasta pot to finish it all. After the veggies cooked, I melted some butter in the pasta pot and cooked off some flour before whisking in wine and chicken stock in. The chicken, which had been diced into bite-sized pieces, poached in the liquid and I finally added the asparagus, half and half, peas, and tarragon.



Since I used nonfat half and half, I expected it not to thicken up, and it didn't. It ended up being a little soupy, but I thought it was a pretty presentation with lots of different colors--green from the peas and asparagus, the red bell pepper, and orange carrots. Jim liked the food, but it ended up being a lot of leftovers. I'm glad I didn't make the full thing. Even with 3/4 of the recipe, there are three leftover servings. I have no idea what it tasted like, but the name "a la queen" raised my expectations pretty high. Visually, it just didn't seem quite up to par. I'll accept responsibility for that, since I did use the lower fat ingredients.



I guess I don't really have to cook for the rest of the week, but I've got chicken to use up, so it looks like I'll be making some more chickies tomorrow. I diced up the leftover stuff, so I'll have to find a suitable recipe. But right now American Idol is what it's all about.