here on the day after the last day of october, and for the record, let me just put forth that i am the halloween grinch, which more or less goes with my overall dislike for kids.  ok ok – all you great folks out there with beloved children… i’m just not the one dying to hold your baby or smile at your tantrum throwing toddler – especially in a restaurant or at 35,000 feet.  but before you jump on me, i happen to have raised one great and impressive (step) kid and i am in love with one particular 5 year old who calls me “granclaud”.  so i’ve not led a totally kid-less life.  plus my boyfriend comes with not one, but two rather appealing tweens that i’m quite partial to.  still, overall i don’t like kids much. i just like certain individual people who i’ve come to know and respect – who happen to be under the legal drinking age.

i (happily) live on a road that does not allow for trick-or-treaters.  it’s trafficky and i’ve got a very long and winding driveway that goes way up into the woods. so last night, safe from the barrage of cuteness i made dinner for some friends. 

i’m still on my ‘eating down the house’ kick.  so last night’s dinner was in keeping with what was available to me within the current confines of my pantry and my fridge/freezer.  a quick trip to the market for a head of garlic and some shallots – along with a 4 pack of mediocre mini bottles of pinot grigio for cooking – and i was set.  my dessert required a 14 oz. container of whole milk and a baguette so i grabbed those too.  oh, but that’s worthy of a whole other post…

i had searched the freezer to see what meat i had in stock and i began defrosting 4 very large locally produced, super organic chicken breasts from ‘west wind farms‘.  then in my mind i assembled the ingredients and decided to bake the breasts due to their sheer size and proceeded down a mediterranean path.  i had a few naked lemons in my egg tray that had been zested for a batch of gremolata and they needed to be used stat.  i chopped a few large shallots, used some wonderful dried-on-the-vine oregano from sicily, added some lemon juice and finely sliced rind -  as well as thinly sliced lemons that were peeled of their nearly 2 week old hardened pith.  (hey it’s lemon in nearly every form imaginable!)  then salt, pepper and a mini bottle of pinot grigio and into the oven it all went.

i baked the chicken at 400 for about 30 minutes or so.  then i broiled them for a few extra minutes to slightly brown the skin a bit more.  they came out great.  not dry.  thank god.  dry chicken breasts are the worst.  it seems to always be a crap shoot for me with bone-in chicken breasts.  i also used the cooked shallot and lemon mixture when i plated everything.  it was way too good to toss.  i especially loved the thin slivers of lemon rind.

while all that was going on i opened a bag of moretti polenta from market hall foods.  the bramata polenta is a coarse yellow flour that takes about 40 minutes of nearly constant stirring.  when it was close to done i added a very buttery spanish olive oil that i have become quite attached to and a large handful of finely chopped parmigiano, both from zingerman’s.  the polenta was sublime.  cary commented that he could live on just that.  for like forever.

and the last element on this plate was quickly executed.  i already had a big leftover bag of the 3 mixed greens that i had used in my sweet potato stew.  about 5 cloves of garlic were minced and then added to some italian olive oil and the chopped greens went in about a minute later along with a bit of water and a cover on the pan to steam them down.  the trick here is not to burn the garlic even a little, hence the use of the water which disappears.  it’s my own little method and it works for me.

not a sexy plate of food.  but a hearty autumn dinner that worked out just like it was supposed to.  and that right there for me is a big deal.

i’ll take a little fleeting success in any form.