Thursday, on time this time

Playing catch up here...

In my introduction to myself and this blog, I mentioned that I take notes when I watch Iron Chef America. Tonight, I used those notes to make our main entree.

We record Iron Chef every week, and once in awhile, we'll sit down and watch a bunch of them. So, although it aired some time ago, it was just last week when Iron Chef Jose Garces was competing and the secret ingredient was blue cheese.

I actually took several notes from that show. It doesn't hurt that Chef Garces actually lives and cooks within striking distance to us (in Philly - we have reservations for a paired beer dinner at one of his restaurants in August but are unlikely to be able to attend due to a work conflict of John's... but we WILL eventually make it to one - or more - of them!).

One of the courses that intrigued me involved not only blue cheese, but chorizo, onion, garlic, and quail. I've never had quail. I've never seen quail for sale at any of the grocery stores I frequent. But I have chicken on hand, and I'm not afraid to use it.

I had two half-breasts, which I flattened as best as I could so I'd have some space to roll up the filling. The filling was about a half cup of sweet onion, diced, and two chorizo links, crumbled, and sauteed in a skillet with a dollop of olive oil. when those were mostly cooked through I added a large spoonful of the "secret ingredient" - some Danish blue cheese. Chef Garces had used Maytag blue cheese, but my store didn't have that - it had this Danish blue cheese and a plastic container labelled "blue cheese". Pathetic.

By the way, how, exactly, can you tell when blue cheese has gone bad??

Anyway, I took the filling and put a couple spoonfuls on each chicken portion and rolled it up, and secured with a couple of toothpicks. Each portion was huge enough to easily feed both of us, so this would have served four. I put both pieces in a small casserole dish which I'd sprayed with cooking spray, and baked it at 425 for about 25 minutes.

For a veggie, I julienned one yellow squash and one zucchini and stir-fried them in olive oil and dusted them with oregano.

For dessert, I got my inspiration from another Food Network persona - Sandra Lee. I have a couple of her cookbooks and although there was no recipe, there was a picture and short description of a pie-like dessert that sounded really easy.

I purchased a tube of crescent rolls, ready-to-bake, and unfurled that, placing one triangle in each of 8 ramekins. On top of that, I put a couple of spoonfuls of canned cherry pie filling. The 8 ramekins took exactly 2 cans of pie filling. I dusted them with some pink sugar crystals I bought a long time ago and don't remember why, but they're in my pantry so why not... and baked as recommended for the crescent rolls, at 425 for 12 minutes.

I don't know if the blue cheese in the chicken/chorizo enhanced it in any way. But I plan on trying this again down the road without it, since I am not constrained by any secret ingredients.

And we both liked the dessert, which is easy enough for anyone to make!