A Mixed Bag

We were in Reno for Yom Kippur this last weekend with our daughter Lili. It might sound funny to write about a holiday where you are fasting on a food blog, but it really is pertinent. We had dinner with our friends Walter and Cindy at a Thai restaurant, Bangkok Cuisine. We love it there. The food is wonderful. I had pumpkin curry. I think I could eat it every day. Lili had spicy basil noodles. They were wonderful too. Rob had steamed Salmon and complained that his portion was entirely too small.

We decided on Saturday when we were shopping at Costco that we would have roast chicken for dinner before Yom Kippur. You need a really good dinner before you fast. You don't get as hungry as early that way.

So, I put the chickens in to roast. 425 degrees for 1 and 1/2 hours. Wash the chicken, clean the inside really well, make sure you get out all the liver and kidneys and heart, and neck. I've never done it, but I've been told people have roasted it in the bird. I stuff my chicken with a half an onion and a half a lemon. Then I tie the bird up. I used to leave the legs open and I had the worst time trying to get it to cook. This is the best way, truss it up. Now, you can use kitchen string, but I saw my butcher do this and it makes so much sense. Take the skin at the back of the bird, right near the opening, and make a slit in it large enough to take the end of the opposite leg through it. Do the same to the other side. Rub the chicken with olive oil all over, this helps the crust brown. I have when I want a particularly juicy breast taken pats of butter and put them between the skin and the breast meat, but I didn't today. Season it with salt and pepper. Roast. Use a meat thermometer. 170 at least.

When I put the chickens in the roasting pan, I usually put them on a rack, but because it was a strange kitchen, I didn't have one that fit my pan. I cut up about 10 red potatoes and put them on the bottom of the pan after I had tossed them in 2 tbs of olive oil and some salt and pepper. Then I sat my two chickens on top of the potatoes. This way the chickens get a lift away from the bottom of the pan, and the potatoes get a good soak in all the chicken juices.

I was a little worried about the chickens, I cooked two, because it was a strange oven and I didn't have a meat thermometer, but they came out great.

We also had chicken soup. Usually I would have used homemade stock made from the chicken carcasses I have stuck in the freezer, but again we were away from home, so I used good ole Swanson's Chicken Broth from the aseptic container. I love this broth. I added carrots and some sliced onion and let it simmer for about twenty minutes. I then added kreplach. Kreplach are a Jewish ravioli. I took one chicken breast and poached it. I cut it up and put it through the food processor with one-half sauteed onion and 1 tsp of sauteed garlic. Mix it with one egg and that is the filling for your kreplach. You can make your own pasta dough, but I didn't have time so I used the square won ton wrappers you can get in the vegetable section of the grocery store. Put about one teaspoon of the filling into the corner of the square, wet the sides of the pasta, fold it in half and then crimp with a fork.

This was a great soup. Really nice and light.

We also had green beans with tomatoes and onion. I saute about two tomatoes and one half onion in 1 tbs of olive oil. I then add my cleaned green beans with 1/4 cup water and let them simmer or steam in the pan until the green beans are crisp-tender.

The final accompaniment was white rice cooked with some of the broth from the soup. We were saving the potatoes for the next day when we could break the fast.

The meal was really good, so good. We ate a lot, but I think it helped get us through the next day.

We broke the fast at 4:00 on Monday. That's really early, but we had to put Lili on the plane at 6:50, and she had to eat before she got in the air. We carved the bird, warmed up the potatoes and cooked some brussel sprouts in the leftover juice from the chickens.

I made some mushroom turnovers. So simple. I took 8 ounces of mushrooms, 1 tbs of garlic and 1/2 onion and sauteed it in olive oil. I rolled out two cans of crescent rolls and cut out circles with a tea cup. I spread one tsp of cream cheese on each circle and then dolloped on 1 tsp of filling, folded the circle in half and then put them into a 375 degree oven for about 12 minutes. They were so yummy. The cream cheese is a nice surprise when all you are really expecting is mushroom.

So we had the mushroom turnovers and pickled herring with green onions for an appetizer, and then we dug into the rest of the meal. It was so good!, as Rob would say.

After we put Lili on the plane we stopped and got a quick coffee and headed on down the road to Elko. We were both a little peckish when we got home so we cut up a baguette, some manchego cheese, a little extra aged edam, and a tomato and had a lovely snack. I guess it's really not good to eat at midnight, but sometimes you just have to.