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Tag Archives: baked goods

I make! Beer can chicken edition

I have been embarking on this journey in which I try and use all the food that’s been stored in my freezer, fridge, or cupboard.  This past weekend, I used up this can of beer that’s been in the fridge for who knows how long, a chicken (fryer) that’s been in the freezer for who knows how long (actually, I think I have an idea of how long), and a bunch of green onions that’s been mouldering away in the crisper drawer (they weren’t moldy, but they were starting to wilt).  I also used up two cans of peaches, but that’s another post.  Anyway, I think I was rather successful in my battle with the overstuffed fridge this past weekend.  I’m terribly proud of myself.  Terribly.

So anyway, with these ingredients and some other things that I can normally find in my kitchen, I was able to make a…BEER CAN CHICKEN!

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It’s a roast chicken utilizing beer to keep things moist.  I more or less followed this recipe.  I omitted the powdered onion because I didn’t have any and the extra salt because I thought the season salt was enough.  Also, WTH?  A TABLESPOON of salt?  Blech.  That has to be a typo.  Also, the recipe is kind of confusing because the directions seem to refer to two different cans of beer but only says that you need one can.  I only used one.  I poured about half into the pan and the other half was in the chicken steaming away during cooking.  I did check halfway through cooking to see if I needed more liquid on the bottom of the pan.  It was ok.  Also, next time I think I’ll try and stick the dry rub under the skin of the chicken.  I don’t always eat the skin of the chicken and if you don’t following the recipe I linked above, the chicken doesn’t have a whole lot of flavor.

Now then, what did I do with all this chicken?  Well, it’s going to feed Yaris for six days (she gets a mix of fresh food with her kibble).  It’ll feed me for two because with one half of the chicken breast and some of the thigh meat and a bit of the skin, I made enough basil chicken salad for two meals.  I was trying to figure out what to do with the chicken and I opted for a basil chicken salad partly because my basil is going crazy and putting out leaves all over the place and has over doubled in size.  I’m going to have to make pesto or something soon.  Also, basil and chicken go together well.  The chicken salad had a mayo and plain yogurt base (I don’t like using all mayo when making stuff), about a cup of basil, two cloves of garlic, three packets of parmesan and two packets of red pepper flakes from zpizza, and salt and pepper to taste.  I blended all that together and dumped the chicken in (chopped of course) and mixed everything together.  Tada!  Basil chicken salad.

So, that takes care of all the meat.  With the bones, giblets, skin, and remaining beer in the can, I’m making chicken stock.  It’s still simmering down as I’m typing this.  It smells really good.  Along with the chicken carcass, I tossed in some furry carrots (as in they were sprouting and there were root hairs everywhere, not as in moldy, also I peeled them so they were fine).  The I’m depending on the spice rub on the skin of the chicken to season the stock so it worked out that all the seasoning was on the skin this time.

So, three things done with chicken!  Yaris will probably be the main beneficiary of all this chicken cooking!  Tada!

I decorate! Duncan cake edition

I just did something really ridiculous.  Even for me.  That’s saying something.  I mean, I think I have a very refined taste in ridiculous.  This was…very ridiculous.

So, what did I do?  I just decorated a cake.  In my hotel room.  Somewhat on a whim.  With a technique I’ve never used before.  With no preparation beforehand.

Yup.

You might wonder why I would have done something like this.  Well, it’s because Mr. Arachnid is leaving today.  For good.  It’s his last day on the project.  And yesterday, for some reason, I decided to look up images of Duncan.

Perhaps you have no idea who Duncan is.  I cannot blame you.  I did not know of Duncan’s existence until I was assigned to this project.  Duncan is a valve with eyes and arms and is the mascot, of sorts, of Emerson’s DeltaV, their distributed control system.  I have grown to quite dislike Duncan.  I see Duncan as the personification (valvification?) of DeltaV, a control system I very much dislike.  All of it is just…dumb.

But you cannot speak ill of Duncan, especially when he’s verifying your programming.  It’s bad luck.  Duncan will more than likely throw you an error.  Or several errors.  They may even be severe errors.  But he will not tell you what they are.  And then he will shut everything down and not save anything that you have done.  Duncan is kind of a jerk.  We all think this.

Now then, Mr. Arachnid and I have a fairly similar sense of humor.  When we were talking earlier in the week, we both somehow settled on Duncan being a type of Pokémon, we haven’t figured out what type, but he evolves from valve to actuator to controller.  And he always looks like he’s in the midst of a severe hangover.  And so I drew this hungover Duncan.  And then I somehow found that there are Duncan cakes.  And then I decided I HAVE to get one of these cakes to properly send Mr. Arachnid back home.

Of course, he’s leaving today and I had the idea only yesterday and bakeries generally require 48hr notice for custom designs even if it’s just decorating and not a custom cake and so I have to do this myself but I am in a hotel and not even a suite this time so I have no counter space at all nor do I have any kitchen appliances with me nor do I normally decorate cakes because I much prefer making the cake over decorating it but Mr. Arachnid absolutely needs a Duncan cake.  So what do?  Store bought cake and royal icing.

The cake I saw used buttercream, or something similar to frost.  But the cake itself was Duncan shaped and I didn’t have the luxury to make a Duncan shaped cake.  Also, I didn’t really like the spikiness of the frosting.

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This photo was from a graduating DeltaV class or something. Links to source.

I wanted something smoother and I didn’t want to make buttercream frosting.  Then, I remembered how they’ll often decorate cookies with royal icing.  People will use a thicker royal icing to outline a shape and then use a thinner royal icing to flood fill the outline.  I figured I could make a shape on parchment paper and then transfer it onto the cake after it had dried.  Also, royal icing is white, so it’s easy to dye different colors.

I had no previous experience with royal icing, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.  Having read this post on decorating with royal icing, I embarked on my plan to make a Duncan cake.

I quickly sketched out a hungover Duncan.

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and got to work making the icing.

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I made the icing entirely by hand.  I bought a small mixing bowl, a really dumb whisk, meringue powder, powdered sugar, and gel food coloring and made a half batch of icing and dyed it all the colors I needed.  I travel with plasticware, small plates/bowls, and ziploc bags so that helped.  I also normally buy a gallon of drinking water the first day, so I had that on hand too.  My arms are surprisingly not sore from beating icing.

Here’s my attempt at hungover Duncan.

WP_20130523_002I forgot to put the two black stripes on until after I took the photo.  I also got rid of the beer or whatever bottle because it was more work than I wanted to put in for that bit of brown.  So now, Duncan just looks sick for no reason.  I don’t mind.  Duncan should be sick.  He deserves it.

Icing Duncan got to dry overnight by the AC and I stuck him on the cake in the morning.  Tada!

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Royal icing, once it dries, is pretty brittle.  I, unfortunately, cracked his head in transport.  Duncan has a splitting headache.

One of the most ridiculous things I have ever done.

Oh, and the cake is an Artisan Tiramisu Cake from Vons that I smoothed out a little, mostly by picking off the whipped cream florets.  A ridiculous cake for a ridiculous exercise.