Caramel and Apple Upside-Down Cake...Again

I made this cake again and this time remembered the milk! Rodney confirmed it's better with milk, so that's good. It'd suck to find out it was better the first time.

Take a look at the batter when all of the liquid is added:

So much easier to "carefully" spread over the apples. I simply poured it on and smooshed it toward the pan edges.

And when it's done baking...

I was a little bit too impatient and didn't let the cake cool enough before flipping it out onto the cooling rack. Caramel oozed everywhere.

Like last time, it was good when it was warm. The next day, it wasn't as good. If I make this again, I will be sure to boil the caramel a little longer. I wonder if I do that AND let the cake bake completely whether the caramel will be stiffer, like on caramel apples. I hope so.

Oven Barbecued Chicken

If you don't have a grill, are sick of cleaning the stupid broiler pan and crave some BBQ chicken, this is the way to go.

Oven-Barbecued Chicken

4-5 lb chicken pieces
1/2 c chopped onion (1 medium)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp cooking oil
3/4 c bottled chili sauce
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp prepared mustard
1/2 tsp prepared horseradish
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper

Skin chicken. Arrange chicken, bone side up, in a foil-lined 15x10x1-inch baking pan. Bake in a 375°F oven for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, for sauce, in a small saucepan cook onion and garlic in hot oil over medium heat until tender but not brown.

Stir in chili sauce, honey, soy sauce, mustard, horseradish, and crushed red pepper; heat through.

Brush half of the sauce over the chicken. Flip the chicken and brush remaining half of sauce over the chicken.

Bake for 20 to 30 minutes more or until chicken is no longer pink (170°F for breasts; 180°F for thighs and drumsticks).

This is pretty easy, on par with the Broiled Lemon Chicken. If you chop your own chickens you can quarter one like I did here, or cut it into easier-to-eat sized pieces (drums, thighs, quarter breasts etc). Oh, and if you'll notice, there are no wings. I put those in the freezer so I can make wings later.

This recipe took 45-60 minutes.

I love BBQ chicken and this sauce is easy to make. It is very similar to the sauce in the recipe for honey and apple ribs. For some reason, a lot of the Better Homes and Garden recipes are similar. It's weird. Anyway, Rodney and I both like this and have it on a somewhat regular rotation.

Cheap, about 5-10 bucks depending on the price of your bird and chili sauce and stuff.

One thing I've noticed is that we have baked potatoes a LOT. Maybe I'll look at making different sides sometime.

Sometimes...

Rodney makes nachos for dinner.

Lemon-Mustard Chicken

I've made this a couple times before and like it. Rodney much prefers the pepper-lime chicken. But since I was making dinner...

Lemon-Mustard Chicken

4.5 lbs chicken pieces
2 tbsp cooking oil
1 tbsp Dijon-style mustard
1 tbsp lemon juice
1.5 tsp lemon-pepper seasoning
1 tsp dried oregano or basil, crushed
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

Skin chicken. Place chicken pieces, bone side up, on the unheated rack of a broiler pan.

Broil 4 to 5 inches from the heat for 15 to 20 minutes or until light brown.

Meanwhile, in a bowl stir together oil, mustard, lemon juice, lemon-pepper seasoning, oregano, and cayenne pepper.

Brush mustard mixture on chicken. Turn chicken; brush with remaining mixture.

 

Broil for 5 to 15 minutes more or until chicken is no longer pink (170 degrees F for breasts; 180 degrees F for thighs and drumsticks).

This recipe is another easy one, even easier than the Broiled Lemon Chicken. I like the mustard flavor, but again Rodney's not a big fan. One thing I did is overcook these a little bit; they were a little dry. I need to remember to use my meat thermometer rather than relying on time.

I estimate this costs about $6-8 depending on chicken and mustard prices.

Roast Chicken Grande y Gordita...Again

I made this chicken again and this time I didn't mess around with flipping the bird all the time and I didn't bother trying to mess with making the gross sauce.

While the oven was warming up to 400°F. I lubed, salted, peppered and stuffed the bird. Then I cooked it breast side up for 15 minutes.

Then I flipped it breast-side down and cooked it for another 15 minutes.

I flipped the bird and basted it with a lot of the stock mixture and returned it to the oven.

At this point, I SHOULD have reduced the temperature to 350°F. Oops. Check out how dark and crisp the skin became!

While the bird looked good, it was a little dry.

Broiled Lemon Chicken

A whole chicken, cut up and broiled.

Sometimes when I have a whole chicken, I just want to cook the whole thing without roasting it whole. It can be hard to find a recipe that looks good that calls for a cut-up chicken. When I came across this one, I decided to try it even though I'm not a big fan of lemon-y food. And I was a little worried about so much white vinegar.

The original recipe (click the link below) says to grill the bird, but since I don't have a grill, I did it in the broiler. I didn't have a lemon either, so I used bottle lemon juice and skipped the peel. Click the link for the original recipe.

Grilled Lemon Chicken

1/3 c white distilled vinegar

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tbsp lemon juice

2 tsp steak sauce

1 tsp salt

1 (5 lb.) chicken, cut up

Bring vinegar, butter, oil, lemon juice and steak sauce to a boil in small saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat. Stir in salt.

Place chicken on lined broiler pan/rack. Brush with lemon mixture.

 

Turn; cook 20 to 30 minutes or until chicken juices run clear, brushing and turning chicken every 10 minutes.

Pretty simple recipe! Since I lined the broiler pan, clean-up was simple too. Dinner was done in about 45 minutes.

The chicken tasted ok. It wasn't over-the-top with lemon or vinegar, but wasn't so great that I knew right away I'd make it again.

Cost:

• chicken: $0.79/lb = $3.95
• A1 Steak Sauce: $3.49/5 oz.

Total: $7.44. The recipe says this gives 6 servings, we got 4, so that makes it $1.86.

I'm not opposed to making this again. Maybe I'll like it better next time.

Garlic-Lime Chicken Drumettes

A pile o' wings.

I don't remember if I talked about how I like to get whole chickens and dismember them myself or not, but I do. Usually, that means I chop them up specifically for the boobs and legs, leaving me with a bunch of wings which I save in the freezer. Everytime I put them in the freezer, I would wonder what the hell I'd do with all those wings, but knew I'd figure it out sometime.

Well, the wings were starting to take over -- this isn't even all of them.

With that, it was time to make some appetizers for dinner.

Click the link to check out the original recipe, which includes a chipotle mayo that I didn't make due to Rodney's lactose-intolerance (which he's completely willing to gloss over if something tastes good, leaving us both to suffer later).

Garlic-Lime Chicken Drumettes

6 garlic cloves, minced

2 tsp grated lime peel

2 tsp coarse salt

2 tsp dried oregano

2 tsp cumin seeds, toasted, crushed*

1/2 c lime juice

1/3 c olive oil

24 chicken drumettes and flat wings

Place garlic, grated lime peel, salt, oregano, crushed cumin seeds, lime juice and oil in nonreactive shallow pan large enough to hold chicken in one layer such as a 9x13" Pyrex baking dish.

Add chicken; turn to coat completely with marinade. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours or up to 4 hours.

Heat broiler. Remove chicken from marinade; discard marinade. Broil on preheated broiler pan, 12 to 14 minutes or until browned and juices run clear, turning once.


*Toast cumin seeds in dry skillet over medium-low heat, stirring frequently, 1 minute or until slightly darkened in color and aroma is toasty. Crush with mortar and pestle or flat side of chef’s knife.

Pretty simple. I was irritated with having to toast the cumin seeds for some reason and sort of wondered if they actually got toasted. And I was worried that the cumin seed flavor would override everything else.

Rodney liked the flavor of these a lot more than I did. I can see how the chipotle mayo (that I didn't make) would compliment these well. No, they weren't too cumin-y.

The time it took to make these was longer than anticipated because I used way more wings than the recipe called for. We had more than 30! Not including marinating time, I think this took just under an hour to make, the majority of it being broiling time.

Since these were actually chicken left-over pieces, it was essentially free. I looked at the prices of wings and they go for $1.99 a pound at Stater Bros -- on sale! Crazy!

If we wind up with another surplus of wings, I'll do this again, but I'll be sure to prepare the mayo as well, though just a half-batch.  Rodney is lactose-intolerant, you know.