A little good PR

I know 2 posts in one day.... but wanted to share a pretty good interview I had in the local paper here in Aurora, the Beacon News. It has to do with a running theme about men who cook, and since they already had a on about BBQ and Smoking Sandy said I should drop the reporter an email and tell her about my blog... and my recipes.

Well I did and here is the article I included a link and a jpeg of it I scanned in. I hope you enjoy it.

http://beaconnews.suntimes.com/lifestyles/11239993-423/fox-valley-cooks-hunter-likes-to-know-where-his-food-comes-from.html

Spring has sprung!

Hi everyone;

Happy Spring - and boy has it sprung all over the place - I still have gas in my snowblower (used exactly once this year) and now need to mow my lawn. The farm had 5 calves today - always a busy time but the good news was the guys didn't have to walk through knee deep mud to get them up and nursing on momma.... Belated Happy Birthday to my mom, who turned a not so spry 85 on Friday --- Bad news was she celebrated it in the hospital, but good news - she was out at a rehabilitation center by Monday. You just can't keep a good German woman down ;) .

Anyway on to the good recipe. Sandy had torn a chicken breast recipe out of Good Housekeeping and I have to admit it looked pretty good so I thought I would try it out tonight, so here goes:

1 pound carrots thinly sliced at an angle

2 tsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 Cup Panko Bread Crumbs

1 1/4 lbs Skinless, boneless thin sliced chicken breast cutlets (about 4)

1 Tbsp Dijion Mustard

1/2 cup plus 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

5 oz baby Arugula

1/2 cup Fresh basil torn

1) Preheat oven to 450* and on Jelly Roll pan toss carrots with EVOO and 1/8 tsp each salt and pepper. Roast 8-10 mins until crisp-tender and transfer to large bowl to cool.

2) While carrots cook, place panko on large plate and in medium bowl toss chicken with 1/4 tsp black pepper and mustard until well coated.

3) Transfer chicken to panko and press to coat well. let rest 5 minutes. Place chicken on rack over same jelly roll pan and cook 12 -14 minutes or until registers 165* on thermometer

4) While chicken cooks in 1 quart sauce pan, heat 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar and 1/8 tsp salt and pepper to a boil and then reduce heat simmer 8 to 12 minutes until syrupy.

5) To same bowl as carrots add arugula, basil and remaining Tbsp balsamic vinegar. Toss and serve with Chicken and balsamic glaze.

It sounds like it would take a long time but if you look you can stack almost all the time so this can go from 0 to dinner in 30 minutes... You tell me 370 calories per serving with 33 g of protein.... Looks pretty good to me. It was absolutely perfect match with a Yellow Tail Chardonnay

We're gonna "BOL" you over

Hi everyone,

While I was preparing my last post subject meal (the pheasant roll ups) Sandy wasn't too keen on eating them so she prepared some spaghetti and meat sauce (home made meat sauce by the way) and garlic toast. Nothing really new there as I swear she is the most Italian Swede I have ever met - she could eat noodles with sauce almost every night. But what is different about the meal was not the content but the container. It is called the "OBOL" and what is different about it is how it is constructed.. It is pretty self explanatory by the pics - they say one pic is worth a thousand words and I talk too much anyway so here they are:

As you can see the bowl has two distinct compartments - originally designed for people who don't like soggy cereal but Sandy thought it would be a great way to keep her garlic bread from getting all saucy... It really worked great! Note the pic on the right also shows the "handle" that is built in for securely holding what ever is contained. Here is the link to the site.... http://www.obol.co/ Enjoy

"Ike, No bird".....

Last of the season

Hi everyone;
Well as you may know, pheasant season for wild birds ended in January but the game farms can continue until the end of March so Ike and I attended the last of the Blackhawk Sportsman Club continental shoots and clean up afterwards. The weather has been unseasonably warm, and lately even warmer that it was Saturday so Ike and I are hanging up the hunting vest for about 6 months so this was our last hurrah!

Ike didn't let us down it was windy and warm and Ike hit the ground running on the clean up pointing a bird in the trees right off. They weren't holding very well and as as we got to the end of the first push, one of the guides said he thought he saw a bird land in a group of brush. Well Ike got birdy pretty quickly and I knew there was a bird in there but just couldn't find it. Ike wouldn't give up and after approaching it from 2 different directions the bird ran out. Well he was wounded and couldn't fly and Ike didn't let me down -he caught and got his rooster. That was the way it was all day, Ike really worked hard in the heavy brush, in fact I still am recovering from all the scratches on my hands and arms from following him in those brambles and multi-flora rose.

We all benefited from his nose, Chuck and Chuck's nephew John both made some good shots on birds that Ike pointed and even I got a couple so it was a GREAT way to finish the season.

I wanted to share a couple shots of probably the simplest recipe for grilled pheasant and I took my inspiration from reading "A Hunter's Road: A Journey with Gun and Dog Across the
American Uplands" by Jim Fergus. (I highly recommend this book by the way - not so much a hunting tome, but more of a story of discovery and a very good read.) While he shared many recipes from his 200+ day travel across the country hunting all species of upland birds many times he would pull his 2nd hand Winnebago off in a camping area, fire up his little charcoal grill and simply grill his game with olive oil, salt and pepper. So that is what I did. I filleted the breasts and coated with good Olive Oil, salt and fresh cracked pepper. I also wrapped them in some home cured peppered bacon to keep them moist. And as is the case with most wild birds I was careful not to over cook them.

Sometimes simple is better. I will tell you they tasted even better than they looked.

So A great way to finish the season but look for more pheasant recipes - I have a freezer full. One last thing.. "Thanks Ikey, you're my best hunting partner".