Cute Food, Does It Exist?

Brief Remodel Update: The cabinets have been moved from the storage building to the house, and they have taken over our living room. We began moving things around upstairs, to make some room for storage, and the sink should arrive soon. My father will be drawing out the rewiring plan and plumbing plan before he goes to the races. (I should make racecar cookies, those would be killer.) In the next week the kitchen will be taken apart, meaning here in the Kitchen, there may not be a lot of cooking posts with pictures because everything will need to be grilled. No stove at all for us for at least a week.

I have a friend who doesn’t believe that food can be cute because food is just food, we will call her “P”. I respectfully disagree, and I show her cute food all the time in an effort to prove her wrong. P still insists that even the most adorable cookies, cakes, and candies are not cute. Even food with carefully crafted animals is not cute. We are forced to conclude that P has a heart of stone. So this post is dedicated to her.

My first introduction to “cute food” came at snack time when I was perhaps five or six, or at least that is what I recall, and I must admit, it wasn't very cute. But in all honesty, I despised celery and raisins, and I wasn’t a peanut butter fan even then; so the idea of those things combined did bias me. The adults had made these celery bugs, and I was disgusted. I may have been the only one in my class not pleased with the sticks of celery filled with peanut butter, with raisins stuck on for eyes and regular pretzels for wings and pretzel sticks for legs. They even forced us to create one, in hopes that we’d be terribly excited by our fun and healthy snacks. Needless to say, I was less than thrilled with these things, and to this day I still believe that they were not cute. But this does not deter me from believing that food can be cute.

I believe that food is a visual experience, and I have always had a passion for cute and pretty food. I like nice presentations and decorations. Cute food is my guilty pleasure, and you can often find me browsing sites like tastespotting, cooing over adorably shaped and decorated desserts. To be honest, other than some really fabulous lip cookies decorated in nonpareils and red sugar,  and some adorable girl and boy shaped cookies, I’ve never had the opportunity to make really cute food. I cannot wait to create some. Royal icing, fun equipment, pretty decorations, and lots of experimenting here I come. I’m so looking forward to it. That is after the kitchen is finished and I have some money in the bank again. But I digress, lets talk about the point of this entry, which is the question I posed in the title.

As I said earlier, I think food is not only an experience of taste and scent; it is also a visual experience. Colors, textures, shapes, all of this is important and adds to the quality of the food experience. Maybe that seems crazy, but personally, I am slightly repelled by ugly food, unless it smells delicious. I am drawn to lovely golden brown pie crusts with small leaves and designs and cakes with smooth frosting and delicately piped trim. I am a sucker for shaped cookies with smooth royal icing and neatly piped designs. Macarons, not to be confused with macaroons, are probably the prettiest and cutest simple cookies I’ve ever seen come out of a kitchen. They are something that I have been dying to try. In fact, it was that very cookie that sparked the cute food debate in a conversation. P declared that macarons looked nasty after seeing a picture of them in bright colors, and we began to argue because most of us were talking about how pretty and adorable they were.

So what makes food cute? Is it the size?  The shape? The color? I think it’s a combination of all of that, really. I think small cookies with pretty colors are adorable, like macarons, and I think cookies with fun shapes and decorations and designs are fabulous too. If I wasn’t terribly lazy, I would go an find the cutest foods I’ve seen lately, but that is a big job. I’m just too tired to deal with that. Over all, I think I need to apologize for the lousiness of this post. It lack wittiness, humor, or anything of any interest. So, I’m sorry. I will do better next time.

What do you think dear readers? Can cute food exist? Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

Let’s Spice Things Up: Grilled Chicken Stuffed With Jalapeños

Before I begin, I’d like to point out that I am sorry for the lousy photos from last post, the lighting in my kitchen is terrible due to faulty wiring shorting out a light. This will be remedied in the remodel, and I am looking forward to it. Also, after speaking to a friend about my potato issue last night, she reminded me that sometimes the potatoes can be too starchy, leading to them not taking flavor. I rinse my potatoes to prevent this, but I didn’t do a very good job of it because I was in a hurry. She suggested that I rub the cut ends together and rinse off what builds up to reduce the starchiness. Helpful tidbit really! I plan to try that next time.

Brief remodel update: The new sink arrived this morning, and it is beautiful. However, it was wrong. We ordered a 31” black, cast iron, single basin sink with four holes for the faucet; we got a 31” black, cast iron, single basin sink with three holes. This is problematic, especially since we paid $500 for it. So my father called Home Depot and reordered the sink, the correct one this time, and we are taking the incorrect sink back to the store this afternoon.

Tonight for supper I am cooking grilled chicken stuffed with cheddar, jalapeño peppers, and onions, corn (out of a bag), pinto beans, and cornbread. None of this requires a real recipe, but it does require a taste for spicy food.

My mother loves pinto beans and cornbread, and she does the the inevitable thing that I find disgusting, which is to mash her beans in her cornbread and use extra bean juice. But I digress. When I do pinto beans, I begin the night before by soaking them; I pour the beans into the pot I will use to parboil them the next morning and remove any beans that look bad. The next morning I drain and rinse the beans, removing any bad ones that I may have missed the night before, and then I fill the pot with water and boil the beans for at least an hour with one or two chicken bouillon cubes. While they are boiling I try to skim off any of the residue that may build up on the top. I then drain them again and rinse them to remove any of what I like to call the “bean scum”. Since I have a gas stove and I normally cook my beans all day, for maximum flavor, I put the beans in a crock pot, cover them with water and cook them on low. For flavor I add half a white onion, two dried cayenne peppers because my family likes things spicy, and a spoonful of bacon grease. If I can find decent salt pork that has a good flavor I add that too. But lately I have yet to find any; the best way to determine whether salt pork is flavorful is to fry a piece and taste it. I suppose I should’ve warned you that I am Southern, and we Southerner do not waste things. When I fry bacon, I reserve some of the grease to be used later. I know it sounds disgusting, but it really is helpful.  The only problem with this cooking method is that the juice does not thicken well; to thicken the juice, I often pour the beans into a pot on the stove and bring them to a rolling boil.

Now, you can’t have pintos without cornbread, and cornbread the way my family does it is very simple. First, you will need an iron skillet, properly seasoned with oil. An iron skillet can be seasoned by heating oil in the skillet so that it absorbs it into the metal; this takes time, and it is not a pleasant experience. But a well seasoned skillet is well worth it. Pour enough oil in the bottom of your skillet to cover it; too much and it will cover your batter, too little and your bread will not be crisp on the bottom. Remember, You can always add more oil and heat it; it will be difficult to take oil out. Now, heat the oil and the skillet to 375 degrees; this can be accomplished in one step by letting the skillet heat as the oven heats. For the bread you will need milk, one egg, and self-rising cornmeal mix. I simply add blend together the ingredients until I get the right consistency, keeping in mind the size of my skillet. The thicker your batter, the dryer your cornbread will be. Once again, bear in mind it is easier to add than it is to subtract; also bear in mind that if you have to blend in more meal or more milk its going to increase the amount of batter fairly significantly. Once blended well, I pour it into the hot oil and bake until done. The bread is done when a toothpick can be inserted into the thickest part of the bread and come out clean. The bottom will be crisp and brown, and you can flip the bread from the skillet onto a plate and cut.

Finally we have the chicken, which was not as difficult as one would imagine. First I chopped up one whole white onion and sliced three medium jalapeños; using my quick chop, I diced them very small and mixed them in a bowl. I then sliced four boneless chicken breasts with a sharp filet knife, opening them up so I could fill them. The chicken was marinated in Allegro Hot & Spicy marinade for three days, which gave it a slightly darker color in places and added to the spice. I put two spoons full of the onions and peppers into each chicken breast and topped it with shredded cheese. I used Kraft Mexican Four Cheese Blend.
       
       

Once each was filled, I rolled them tightly and wrapped them in slices of bacon, which acted as a sort of bandage holding the chicken together. While the chicken was convinced that I was helping it by bandaging it with bacon, I skewered them with bamboo skewers and grilled them.

                           

Once they were done, I slid them from their skewers and served them. The cheese and vegetables acted as a sort of glue holding the chicken in shape. These, combined with the spicy pinto beans, were enough to require a glass of milk to cool the mouth. They turned out delicious, even if getting a final shot of the filling was difficult and none of them came out well.

             

Recipe (not really a recipe) for the Pinto Beans: Sassy Southerner Style:

One bag of pinto beans
Two chicken bouillon cubes
1/2 White Onion
Two dried Cayenne Peppers (whole)
One spoonful bacon grease
Garlic powder, onion powder, and other seasonings to taste

• Soak beans over night
  
• Rinse beans and parboil for at least one hour with bouillon
  
• Rinse beans and transfer to pot
  
• Add onions, peppers, and grease, season to taste and cook until done.

A Simple Recipe for Cornbread:

One egg Self-rising cornmeal mix Milk Vegetable/Canola Oil or Olive Oil or Shortening (enough to cover the bottom of the iron skillet)

• Heat oil in seasoned iron skillet to 375 degrees
  
• Blend ingredients until desired consistency is reached, adding meal and milk as needed
  
• Pour batter into skillet
  
• Bake until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean

The Renegade Kitchen’s Jalapeño Stuffed Grilled Chicken:

Four medium sized boneless chicken breasts (marinated if you wish) Three medium jalapeño peppers (sliced) 1 White Onion (sliced) Shredded cheddar cheese 6-8 slices of bacon Four to five bamboo skewers

• Finely dice peppers and onions, then mix together
  
• Slice chicken along the side of the breast, laying them open flat. Do not slice completely through.
  
• Fill chicken with desired amount of peppers and onions, then top with cheese
  
• Fold the chicken over so that the filling is covered, then wrap each breast with two slices of bacon, making sure it is wrapped tight to hold the meat closed.
  
• Once the chicken believes it is safe, stab it with skewers Secure the chicken with skewers; you should be able to use two skewers to hold to breasts. Be sure to insert the skewer through the bacon and in such a way as to hold the chicken together.
  
• Grill chicken until the meat is firm, the juices run clear, and the meat is white. Turn the meat frequently to prevent burning and ensure even cooking.