Cheap Bastid's If You Grill Chicken Breast...Meg Will Come

Last Thursday I had the day off. So I stuck my head in the freezer. Now, this freezer (if you recall the photo I ran last week of all the stuff in my freezer) is chock full of hard frozen food. For those of us over 50, it’s more like Fibber McGee’s closet than a freezer. You never know what’s going to come tumbling out when the door opens.

So I poked around just a bit. I wanted something to grill which would give us some left-overs because I had to work all weekend and wanted to be able to take something for lunch.

I stuck my arm in on the far left side where I keep the chicken and started pulling out freezer bags of stuff. God, it hurts when you drop a quart bag packed full of frozen chicken thighs on your toe when you’re wearing slides. Geez, damn! Anyway there were thighs and legs and boneless/skinless breasts and way in the back—so far back I literally had to stick my head in there was a bag with 4 bone and skin on breasts. Suddenly, there’s a voice in my head, “If you grill it, she will come.” Whoa! Since when did I turn into Ray Kinsella? I pulled my arm back like it was about to freeze off. I peered back inside, bags of other chicken parts beckoned on the counter.

Tentatively, I stuck my arm back inside the freezer. “If you grill it, she will come.” Gingerly I grasped the bag filled with the 4 breasts and eased it out onto the counter and then I slowly replaced the multiple bags of other chicken pieces.

“If you grill it, she will come.”

It started a few months ago. I had taken 2 bags of chicken out of the freezer. One bag had 4 thighs and the other 4 legs. It was going to be a feast with left-overs. We got a text while I was grilling the chicken. Miss Meggie was on her way over (Meggie is my 20 year old step daughter). OK, no problemo, we thought. When she got here we were sitting and eating our salads. Meggie dropped her bag and computer in her room and came out to get a tray. When we finished our salads we noticed that out of 8 pieces of chicken that there were only 4 left. We looked at one another and started laughing. Guess she’s hungry!

“If you grill it, she will come!”.

I pulled the bag of breasts out and put them on a tray on the counter to thaw (or as Carolyn says to “unthaw”). The first thought that crossed my mind was, “Hmmmm, I wonder if this is enough? The last 2 times I did bone-in breasts on the grill, Meggie came over for dinner.” Naw, it’s OK. I tell Carolyn what I’ve taken out for dinner and her response is, “I guess that means Meggie will be over. She’s been over the last few times you grilled chicken.” And then we didn’t think anymore about it.

But all day, I kept hearing in my head, “If you grill it, she will come.”


So, we let the breasts thaw and prepared for a simple dinner of grilled chicken breast and left over potato salad (homemade of course). It’s now coming up on 5 p.m. Carolyn’s sitting at her computer and starts laughing. “Walt, I just got an e-mail from Meg. She’s coming over for dinner. She’s going to think the only thing we eat is chicken breast.”

“If you grill it, she will come!”

She never spontaneously shows up on nights we’re doing canned soup and salad or hot dogs. But she seems to have an infallible radar for the juicy goodness of crispy-skinned grilled chicken breast.

But I’m grumbling just a tiny bit. There goes my fantasy of having chicken salad sandwiches for work or a cold left-over breast teasing me from the fridge in the break room, beckoning me to snitch bites on the fly throughout the day.

The really good news though is that with Miss Meggie coming over, it mean it’s time for an “emergency” ice cream run. I hop in my ageing Mazda and head on over to Stater Bros. (We’ve been on a plain old chocolate ice cream kick lately topped with sunflower seeds). Just for a few seconds I stand in front of the poultry counter fantasizing about picking up another package of breasts at $.99/lb but no, we’ve got enough and I can stock up later in the week.

To make a long story short. Miss Meggie came over, gracing us with her regal presence and there was enough chicken to go around. It’s just too bad she didn’t ask us if this was heaven. Because then we could have said, “No, it’s Vista.”

Now, somehow or another it seems that I’ve finally mastered the technique of grilling bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts. It’s only taken me 30 years! I know that it’s not as healthy as boneless/skinless but it sure tastes better. And I have plenty of use for that healthier kind. Let’s put it this way, cavemen did not bone and skin the birds they killed and cooked. They skewered them and shoved them over an open flame.

So here’s how I do it:


Miss Meggies Chicken Breast

4 chicken breasts (bone in & skin on)
Salt, pepper, garlic
1 tbsp cooking oil

Thaw the breasts. Put them down on a tray big enough to hold them. Peel the skin loose with your finger and shake a bit of the salt/pepper/garlic mixture (my basic, go-to spice blend) under the skin onto the meat & cover it back up with the skin. Using a silicone basting brush, paint a really thin skim of oil onto the surface of the chicken and then sprinkle some of the spice blend onto the breast. Turn them over and paint the bottom (bone side) and sprinkle more spice blend. Now you’re ready to cook.

Prepare grill to medium hot (you should be able to hold your hand about 3” over the hot grill for about 4 seconds). Put the breasts bone side down onto the grill and leave them for 3-4 minutes. (As they say sometimes in poker: “no peekie; no lookie”). Then flip them over onto the skin side for 3-4 minutes. You’re going to be generating some smoke because what you’re trying to do is render the fat off the breast to moisten and flavor the meat.

Now, flip the breast back over to the “bone side” and move it to a slightly cooler portion of the grill. The smoke should be pretty much gone because the fat is rendered. The skin which is now up should be starting to get some color and have some grill marks. Let it cook for about 10 minutes. Then flip it again for 3 minutes and finally back to skin side up to finish, about another 3-4 minutes.

All total, it takes about 20 minutes or so to come out with chicken breast that’s done, that has a deep, rich, brown, crispy, tasty skin and meat that’s juicy with just a hint of the salt/pepper/garlic you applied in every bite. Let the breast rest for about 5 minutes or so before eating so the juices flow back in and the meat’s cooled enough to eat.


So that’s it. We like to serve this simply with either a garden salad or potato salad and it’s a terrific meal. Carolyn likes to peel the skin off her's and eat it last almost like a chicken skin Chicharrón. (I wonder why no one's every tried to make chicharrons out of chickn skin?)

The Cheap Bastid Test: This is easy. I buy these breasts on “special” at $.99 a pound. Each breast is about ¾ lb. So 4 breasts cost about $3. Add about $1 for the potato salad ingredients and you’ve spent $4 to feed 3 or 4 people.

And Meggie loves it too.

That’s the Cheap Bastid Way: Eat Good. Eat Cheap. Be Grateful!

Cheap Bastids Memorial Day Grilled Sirloin Steak

Memorial Day is the first 3 day weekend of the summer. Time for neighbors getting together and stoking up the grill. One of the things I do like about living here in Southern California is the ability to grill pretty much year round.

Back when my kids were young, we lived in a neighborhood in the small town of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. Summer holidays were always the perfect time to do what we called an “Alley Cats Picnic” in someone’s back yard inviting the families and all the kids who lived on our paved alley to party and enjoy. We would make shared dishes and bring our own meats and have a couple of grills going.

The kids would run around and have a good time and the adults would visit and laugh and play with the kids. And, lots of good food would be eaten.

But, this is a Cheap Bastid post on grilling sirloin. Now, sirloin is a pretty lean piece of meat so you generally don’t want to overcook it. It also works pretty well marinaded. I cook with it because, quite frankly, my favorite cut of steak—flank steak—as well as my other favorites, rib-eye and New York strip are just getting too expensive to buy. I have a hard time justifying $6 or more per pound for any food. So, I stock up on sirloin when it’s on special at the grocery store (a few times a year they’ll have it at $1.99) and then freeze it in about 1 ½ pound packages in freezer bags.

It’s really pretty simple. Thaw out your steak (skip this if it hasn’t been frozen). I like my sirloin to be at least an inch thick—preferably 1 ¼ to 1 ½ inches. Then put a really thin skim of cooking oil on the surface—just drizzle a few drops on each side and rub it with your fingers.

Then season your meat—it doesn’t come off the cow seasoned so adding a bit of flavor really makes a difference. Here’s a rub will add some good flavor to the meat. I’ve gotten to the point where I keep a big shaker on hand all the time of coarse Kosher salt, dried garlic chips and coarse ground black pepper (mixed in equal quantity). You get a bit of heat from the cracked pepper, flavor and aroma from the garlic and the coarse salt melts into the meat. Shake it pretty liberally over the sirloins and then pat it into the surface with your fingertips. Then let the meat sit for a few minutes while you get your grill ready.

Build a hot fire. If you’re using propane like I do or if you’re using charcoal, get yourself a nice hot fire going. The fire is ready when you can only hold your hand over the grill for about 3 or 4 seconds before it gets too hot. Now you’re ready for your meat. Put your meat on the grill directly over the heat. Now, close the lid. Leave it alone.

I’ve conditioned myself to cook based on time. I put the meat down. Personally, I time it for 3 minutes. Then I flip it. DO NOT, EVER use a meat fork. Use tongs. Or even a spatula. Stabbing a hunk of meat with a meat fork only lets the juices drain out, drying out the meat. What happens if the meat sticks to the grill? Don’t force it. Give it another minute. The meat will let go of the grill when it’s ready. Cooking, even caveman grilling over open flame, is chemistry. Flip the meat and let the other side have a shot at cooking. You should have some nice, sexy grill marks on the steaks you just flipped.

Cook the meat another 3 minutes. Now you’ve got some decisions to make. If you want a rare steak, you should be there. If you want it medium rare, give your meat about 2 more minutes per side. For medium to well done steak, put the meat on a cooler portion of the grill and let it roast so that the juices stay sealed in and it continues to cook. Medium should take about another 4 or so minutes per side and well done around 5 or 6. But hey, your cooking times are going to set by how many BTUs your grill throws out. Know your equipment and how it reacts to different air temperatures and humidity.

The only way to really learn it is to have done what I have done on more than one occasion—you have to have cremated some perfectly good meat and then had to chew the hell out of it soaked in A-1 to give it any moistness at all just to be able to choke it down. Like Tom Colicchio says when someone over cooks meat, “It was already dead and he killed it again.”

That's the Cheap Bastid Way: Eat Good! Eat Cheap! Be Grateful!

Oh, by the way--I LOVE to take a crust of bread and sop up the drippiings from the platter! Man, that's tasty! My Dad always called me a "gravy sopper"!

Cheap Bastids Pork Loin Chops with Orange Glaze

Well, Cheap Bastid doesn’t have a whole lot of inspiration with the news of a new granddaughter yesterday, but I thought that I’d look at what I’ve cooked and photographed recently and see what I could share.

One of our favorite “proteins” (that’s a “foo-foo” foodie word for meat) are thick cut (about 1 ¼- 1 ½ inch) boneless loin chops. This is arguably the one meat that we consistently keep on hand which is the most expensive cut (about $2.89 lb at Costco). But, we like to do 1 for each of us at about a half pound each which is a bit less meat than I would usually do because there is actually less fat than in a typical steak so the portion can be a bit smaller. Or, one of them sliced in strips makes for a terrific Chinese dinner cooked up in the wok.

So anyway, a couple of weeks ago, I pulled out a couple of loin chops. They’re great on the grill but I wanted to do something just a bit different. Usually I go real simple with just a light dusting of my basic spice blend or “sweet heat” blend. I decided to go with a bit of seasoning and a glaze.

Here’s what I came up with. Give it a try and enjoy.

Loin Chops and Orange Glaze
Ingredients:
2 thick cut pork loin chops
1 navel orange
2 tablespoons brown sugar
¼ cup chicken broth (or white wine)
Chipotle powder
Basic blend (garlic, black pepper, salt)

Sweet potato wedges

Directions:
Prep your grill and set up a 2 zone fire. One side hot, one side cool. Peel and section the orange. Chop orange sections into about ½” chunks & put in a sauté pan that you can put on the grill (I’ve got an old beater that I removed the handle from that I got for $1 at a thrift store). Add the brown sugar, chicken broth and some chipotle. (Notice I said “some” chipotle. You can always add more as you sample taste but once the spice is in, you can’t take it out). And, add a pinch of salt.

Lightly sprinkle the “basic blend” on both sides of the chops (also, I often will drizzle just a skosh of oil on the chop and spread it out with my fingertips then add the seasoning. I’m with Bobby Flay—oil the meat not the grill).

Then put the pan of glaze fixings on the cool side of the grill. Give it about 5 minutes before putting the chops down. If the glaze thickens first you can remove it from the grill to let the chops finish. I cook by time on the grill and turn about every 3-4 minutes. So, at 3 minutes check for grill marks and turn the meat. At 3 or so more minutes flip again. After another 3 minutes, flip again and then apply the glaze to the top of the chop—a nice, thick, chunky coat. In 3 minutes, remove the chops, they should be just done and still juicy. (You know your grill so adjust cooking times accordingly).


The glaze is going to give you a sweet and “acidy” taste at the same time. The cracked pepper and a hint of garlic will come through from underneath. Man, these are tasty.

Make up a batch of sweet potato wedges in the oven for the side, add a nice salad and you’ve got a great dinner.

Here’s the recipe for the potato/sweet potato wedges:
http://open.salon.com/blog/just-walt/2010/02/01/cheap_bastids_foodie_tuesday--taters_on_the_cheap

The Cheap Bastid Test: The chops cost $3.00 and the glaze cost about $.50. Add another $1 for the sweet potato wedges and you’ve got $4.50 for a really good dinner for 2. It’s a bit more than Cheap Bastid usually spends but this is a treat and we do it maybe once a month. Plus, this meal is easily $18-$20 in a restaurant—each.

It’s getting to be grilling season in most places now so give this a try and enjoy.

That’s the Cheap Bastid Way: Eat Good. Eat Cheap. Be Grateful!

Cheap Bastid's Chimichurri and Tri-Tip

Cheap Bastid got up this morning knowing that there was a post to write. But man, I’m pooped. The last 4 days have been long with most of them spent on my feet. My feet don’t hurt—but my glutes do. Which reminds me of beef. Which reminds me of today’s topic. Which reminds me that this is a tasty, delicious meal.

Originally I was going to do this as 2 posts but I’m rolling it all into one. What we’re doing today is Chimichurri and Santa Maria style Tri-Tip.

If you’re not familiar with Chimichurri, it’s arguably the Argentinean national dish. Chimichurri is an incredible flavorful sauce and marinade. You can use it on beef, pork, chicken but it’s most often associated with beef. You might have to first get past the idea of a green sauce on top of your beef, but once you taste it, you won’t have a problem dipping into it or slathering it on your food. (It might look a bit like a sinus infection but it tastes incredible!) We like it so much we use it for a chip dip.

I first learned about Chimichurri from a guy I used to sell cars with right next to the Mexican border in Chula Vista, CA. Jorge (J.C.) Carranza is Argentinean and a terrific car sales guy and we’d talk about our mutual love of good food during the frequent down time. Did I say “talk”? J.C. is like me and loves to debate and argue so some of our conversations would get pretty spirited.

Now, let’s talk tri-tip for a bit. This is a terrific cut of meat. It’s from the bottom sirloin and is triangular in shape. It’s flavorful and cooked properly is tender and juicy. Santa Maria style tri-tip is usually cooked coated in a seasoning blend of black pepper, garlic and coarse salt and is a fantastic way to prepare the meat. This time, I used Chimichurri as a marinade as well as a sauce. “True” Santa Maria Tri-tip is served with a salsa but who says the salsa has to be red! And, Santa Maria style is also a cooking technique where the meat generally is seared over a red oak fire then cooked indirectly by raising the grill surface until the desired “doneness” is achieved.

OK, so my mouth is now watering with the memory of this tasty dinner I made recently. So, now it’s time to share these 2 simple recipes with you.

Chimichurri


4-6 garlic cloves peeled and minced (I used jarred Gilroy garlic)
1-2 jalapenos seeded
1 “bunch” parsley
1 “bunch” cilantro
¼ cup (appx) chopped onion
2 tbsp lime juice (fresh squeezed is best—add some of the zest too)
¼ cup (appx.) Red wine vinegar
1 cup oil (EVOO or Canola)
Salt & pepper to taste
Heat (Tabasco, cayenne, chipotle, habenero) to taste (optional)

Get out your food processer. Strip the leaves from the cilantro and parsley (you don’t have to be perfect just make sure that the larger stems at the bottom are pulled free or chopped off) and put into the processer. Add about a tablespoon of oil to start and run the processer to chop up the leaves. Add more oil as needed then add the jalapenos, onion, garlic, salt & pepper and process some more. Taste, taste, taste! If you want some more heat, add some Tabasco, cayenne, etc. to taste. This will make a couple of cups or so. You want your Chimichurri to be able to be poured—not too thick but not runny either—just a nice viscous sauce.

Santa Maria Style Tri-Tip
1 lb Tri-tip (they’re usually 2 ½ to 3 lbs)
Chimichurri

Put the Tri-tip in a large plastic freezer bag with about 1 cup or so of the Chimichurri. Shake & squeeze until the Tri-tip is well coated. Put the bag of Tri-tip in the refrigerator on a plate for about 4-6 hours (or even overnight) to marinade.

Set up your grill with a 2-zone fire (hotter on one side than the other). You can do this on a multiple burner gas grill by having one side on high and the other either on low or off depending on the heat your grill throws off. If you’re using charcoal put all the coals on one side. Take the Tri-tip out of the bag and scrape off some most of the marinade with your finger (don’t worry, you can wash your hand—you have to get “intimate” with your food as you cook).

Put the roast on the hottest part of the grill. Sear it for about 4 minutes per side then move it over to the cool side. It’ll be medium rare in about 12 minutes and well done in about 25. (You know your grill and how long stuff takes. This is about a 3 inch thick cut so you have to be a bit patient). I have learned that cooking based on time works best for me on the grill. Flip your meat about every 5-6 minutes for even cooking. Use tongs! Don’t peek, poke or jab between flips. Let it cook.

When done, remove from the grill and let rest for at least 5 minutes and preferably 10. Then slice, put on a platter or plate and drizzle Chimichurri over it—and have some available “on the side” for dipping.

(At the request of Mrs. Cheap Bastid, here's what I would do if I didn't have a grill and were going to do it in the oven--put the marinaded, "scraped" roast in a skillet on the stove top heated to medium high. Sear on each side for about 2 minutes until you get a bit of a crust. Then transfer to a roasting pan (preferrably on a rack & I use foil disposable pans) and put into the oven at 350 degrees. Check at 45 minutes and then every 15 minutes after until you're half a notch from your desired doneness. Remove and let rest at least 10 minutes before slicing).

Have a side of “frijoles” and a salad and some French bread along with it and you’ve got some fantastic eating “Santa Maria style”.

Cheap Bastid Test: You have to look for specials on your meat! The last Tri-tips I bought were on special for $1.99/lb and I got the 2 biggest ones they had. The fixings for Chimichurri are cheap. A bunch of cilantro or parsley is about $.50 each and the other ingredients should be on hand. Total for the whole thing was about $5 for the meat and $1.50 for the Chimichurri sauce. It’s fantastic eating and will feed 4 easily. Assuming 4 for dinner, the cost of this is about $1.75 per person. And we had left-overs for sandwiches too!

That’s the Cheap Bastid Way: Eat Good, Eat Cheap, Be Grateful!

Cheap Bastid's Foodie Tuesday: Chocolate Covered BACON!

I love chocolate. (Who doesn’t). And, I love bacon. (Who doesn’t)? Not long ago I came across a post about combining these 2 delectable flavors and it instantly made my mouth water. I checked it out online and found a source:

Mo’s Bacon Bar by Vosge’s. It’s $7.50 for a 1 oz bar online.

So I got looking some more and came up with other places which do this delicacy like Marini’s Chocolate Covered Bacon in Santa Cruz, CA. Look at the photo below and notice that it’s $4.50 for a quarter pound. That comes out to $18 a pound! Wow!

So I told myself, “Self, you can do this yourself!” And yesterday I did. And it’s both easy and GOOOOOOOOOOD! Cheap Bastid did it and had never worked with chocolate before!!

Chocolate Covered Bacon
Bacon
Chocolate (I used semi-sweet chips but you can also use a chopped up bar or baking chocolate)

How much? First, however much bacon you want. A half pound; a full pound, whatever. Whatever kind of bacon you like. Thick sliced works better and smoked bacon gives the best taste. But my $2.00 pound “store brand” bacon did just fine for a first attempt.

And then start off with about a cup of chocolate for a half pound, maybe a cup and a half for a full pound. (If you’re using chocolate chips you can start a bit low and then add more).

Cut the bacon strips in half. Fry the bacon either in a skillet where you can keep it flat or on a cookie sheet and parchment paper in the oven at about 375. Get it as well done as you want although you might want to avoid the level of crispiness where it shatters. Drain and cool on paper towels.

Set up a double boiler—I used a small metal mixing bowl in a sauce pan of simmering water. Put in the chocolate and let it melt stirring as it softens. Or, you could melt it in the microwave.

I used a silicone basting brush to “paint” the chocolate on the bacon. If I were doing a half pound or more I would put the melted chocolate in a flat bottom dish and dip the bacon into it. Put the bacon either on parchment paper or, I used a cooling rack with a silicone mat underneath.

Transfer the chocolate coated bacon to the fridge for about a half hour. Then enjoy the smokey, chocolaty, sweet, salty goodness that caresses your palate and makes your mouth happy!

It’s that easy. And, it'll cost about $3.50 to do half a pound of bacon. Cheap Bastid wins again!

BONUS for Foodie Tuesday!!!

Keeping Your Grill Clean

This weekend is the 4th of July. Many of us will be grilling. This morning I saw a commercial for using “Pam” spray on a grill. Please don’t waste your Pam that way. The vast majority of what you spray will just go up in the air or into the grilling area not on the grill itself. Here are a couple of options:

Start with a clean grill! Use a brush on a hot grill to get the crud off it (brass bristle that you can buy in the paint department of Home Depot, Lowe’s or WalMart works great and is cheaper).

If you want to oil your grill, take a paper towel and fold it into 4ths, drizzle a couple of teaspoons of oil on it, fold it one more time and then use your long handled brush to rub the oiled paper towel rapidly over the grill. (Be quick, I’ve burned up a bunch of oily paper towels in my day). Then let your grill continue to heat and start cooking.

Or, one of the things that Bobby Flay says constantly is to oil the food not the grill. Rub a thin skim of oil onto your food with your fingers or a brush.

Or, just make sure that your grill is hot and clean. The main reason people oil their grill is to keep food from sticking. If your food is sticking, it’s because it’s not ready to be turned yet. Wait another 30 seconds or minute and try again. When it’s ready to turn, it will release! I can’t tell you the number of hamburgers I’ve demolished trying to flip them too soon until I learned to just wait another 30 seconds to minute and try again. (If it’s burned when you flip it that means you’re using too much heat).

Have a fantastic 4th of July. And if you get the chance, listen to Jimmy Buffett’s “The Night They Painted the Sky” a ballad about fireworks on the 4th of July.
http://mog.com/music/Jimmy_Buffett/Barometer_Soup/The_Night_I_Painted_the_Sky