White Chocolate Mousse, Ideal for Filling Cakes & Pastries (No Relation to Bullwinkle)

This year, I decided to make my buche de noël even more decadent that it was before, and stuff it madly with a rich mousse. Indeed, a nice, rich white chocolate mousse with orange liqueur and coconut cream made its way into this year's yule log. And it is even naughtier than it sounds…but it does take a little planning ahead, especially as it comes to the coconut cream. You can work around it by substituting whole milk, but it will change both the flavor and the texture.

Any way you look at it, though, it's a very rich treat, and it holds up nicely in the refrigerator, and fills a buche de noël rather well. And, it's not overly complicated, as recipes go.

Plus, I had enough left over to spoil myself with a modest serving for lunch, today.

Christmas is good.

Fluffy, rich, and surrounded by dark chocolate bliss…decadence in all ways.

Very Naughty White Chocolate Mousse

Ingredients:

8 ounces (1 1/4 cup) good finishing (dipping/dessert quality) white chocolate
1/3 cup coconut cream* (NOT creme of coconut)

2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin powder (1 packet Knox gelatin)
1/4 cup water
2 Tablespoons orange liqueur (Triple Sec, Grand Marnier, or your own preference of brand)

2 Tablespoons confectioner's sugar
2 cups heavy cream

Directions:

In a microwave-safe bowl or the top of a double boiler, gently melt the white chocolate.

Meanwhile, in another microwave-safe bowl, sprinkle gelatin over water and let "bloom" by allowing to stand about 5 minutes.

Gently melt the gelatin in the microwave (do not boil!).

Heat the coconut cream to melt, and, whisking quickly,  mix in to the melted white chocolate until completely smooth. Add in the gelatin mixture and liqueur, and whisk until smooth.

In a stand mixer's bowl, combine powdered sugar and cream, and, using the whisk attachment, whip to form firm peaks.

Scoop about one-third of the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture and stir in to lighten the chocolate. When fully mixed, gently fold into the remaining whipped cream.

If using in cake or pastries, use immediately, or refrigerate until within an hour of serving time.

With darkly fudgy, gluten-free chocolate sponge cake with fudgy frosting for a sinful buche de noël…

If serving as straight mousse dessert, scoop into serving-sized dishes, cover with a sheet of plastic (to prevent crust from forming), and chill until serving time. Garnish with fresh raspberries or other fruit and light fruit syrup, or serve plain. It's pretty darned good, any way you take it.

*Coconut cream is the product of a can (or jar) of good-quality coconut milk. Place your container of coconut milk in the refrigerator at least overnight, in upside-down position. When ready to begin this recipe, open can from top without shaking or unduly agitating it, and drain away the watery stuff into another sealable container and re-refrigerate, for use in other recipe. Scoop out the thick, lumpy, hardened white stuff. That is the coconut cream you want to use in this recipe (you can have a little bit of the water in it, if you want, but you want to keep it as thick and "fatty" and flavorful as possible).

On a Moonlit Night... Turkish Delight

                     Just because…

Sometimes you feel like a nut…pistachio, today

Sometimes a batch of candy is a quick and easy prospect -- toss some chocolate into the microwave and nuke it up, or boil a little sugar and water, then add flavor and color....

In the pink…

This isn't one of those times. This is Turkish Delight. It takes a variety of ingredients not necessarily commonplace in a middle-American kitchen, and is, at minimum, a full-day or overnight project.

I have it on good authority there are "easy" ways to make fruit variations on this, but when it comes time to do the traditional rosewater recipe, I was sent to the experts at Epicurious. I decided there was no way I could improve on their recipe, so I provide the link here.  Seriously, this creates a tasty, aromatic, and tender confection, but plan on a long time over the stove, followed by a serious wait. And, as their lead-in suggests, read the whole recipe a couple of times to familiarize yourself with all the steps before you start, because there's a point at which you need to have it all set in your mind, or you'll miss something and crash and burn…or, possibly, literally, burn, anyway. 

Tender, sweet, rose-laden…

But, if you're feeling bold – and a little bit crazy – give the recipe a try.

…and more than a little nuts

And, if you still want to try one of the "easy" methods, here's a pretty entertaining one (nothing wild and crazy, just something to consider):

Christmas Cheery Cherry Rolls (Gluten-free)

Merry Christmas. Your plate of rolls is already half empty.

In my yoot (for those who are unfamiliar with "My Cousin Vinnie", go watch it and then come back to ask me about my yoot), Christmas breakfast was kind of a big deal. We didn't have one of those breakfast casseroles, either. The Bat would get up and close the doors to the living room, so we'd have to go those extra six steps the long way to the dining room, and we'd sit down to eat scrambled eggs with bacon, toasted homemade bread with butter, and, last but not least, the Swedish tea ring.

The tea ring was made with a sweetened bread dough, filled with cherries and chopped pecans, and lightly drizzled with a cinnamon/milk/powdered sugar glaze. As most of these things are, it was, in effect, as if one started making cinnamon rolls, and then changed one's mind before completely slicing off the sections, but instead just snipped partway through and curled the tube around itself. In The Bat's case, it was also slightly more than a cinnamon roll, because she added pie cherries into the mix, in a manner similar to this.  It made a pretty, cherry-and-gold sunburst of breadly goodness. She didn't even need to glaze it.

But now that I'm among the wheat-free, that simple and elegant treat seemed a dangerous option. After all, most gf breads are made using a dough which is so soft as to be mistaken for muffin batter.

Which brings me to this year.

The Bat will be making her favorite Christiana Campbell's Tavern Sweet Potato Muffins for supper, and we're going to try to adapt that recipe to GF, so I wondered to myself if I might convert the tea ring recipe to a muffin cup treat.

It appears that I am capable.

Next year, I may even be able to create an actual GF Swedish tea ring, using a pastry bag and a little creative mayhem.

But for now, I have a great way to adapt a package of Bob's Red Mill GF Homemade Bread Mix to make less sandwich-y and more Christmas-y. And kind of roll-y. Well, more than kind of, on that last one.

Oh, and I only just barely followed some of the directions on the package. Which is pretty much in keeping with the old rule of art class: never use paint straight from the tube.

For this you will need three standard 12-cup muffin pans (not the giant size or the muffin-top, and most definitely not the gem pans), 1 small microwave-safe mixing bowl, 1 small mixing bowl of any variety, 1 stand mixer and its large bowl with standard paddle (not a dough hook), a 1 1/2-inch cookie dough scoop, a rubber spatula, a cup of water and a teaspoon (of the stirring and eating sort, not the measuring kind), measuring cups and spoons. You will also need to drain your pie cherries, and, if they're frozen, they'll need thawing completely before starting this recipe. And, if you're like so many of us and you store your bread mixes in the freezer to keep the flours from going rancid, you'll want to take the mix out at least a half hour ahead of time to warm it up, too.

And then you get going and bake these treats with so much less guilt and pain!

Some come out looking a little lumpy. That's okay. They still taste great!

Christmas Cherry Rolls 

Ingredients: 

Filing: 

2 cups tart pie cherries, juices drained
1/2 cup dried tart cherries

1 1/2 cup pecans, coarsely chopped

5 Tablespoons brown sugar (or 3 Tbs brown sugar substitute)

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted

Bread:

1 12-ounce can of evaporated milk (NOT sweetened condensed!) plus enough regular milk to have 1 3/4 cups

3 Tablespoons honey

4 large eggs plus enough egg whites for 1 1/4 cups 

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1 package (for single loaf) gluten-free bread mix

Directions:

Generously butter the cups and around the rims of three non-stick 12-reservoir muffin pans and also generously butter three sheets of foil to fit over their tops. 

In small plain mixing bowl, combine both varieties of cherries, cinnamon, brown sugar, chopped pecans, and 1/4 cup melted butter. Stir well and allow to sit & steep in the juices this will make.

Meanwhile, in small microwave-safe mixing bowl, gently warm milk and honey in microwave (nuke it at half temp for about 90 seconds, check it to see if it's warmed. If not, pop it back in for another 30 seconds at a time until it's about 95º F). Remove from microwave oven, gently sprinkle contents of yeast packet onto the top of the milk mixture. Allow to stand on counter until the yeast begins to foam (about 5-7 minutes).

Pour flour part of bread mix into the bowl of a stand mixer, and, using the paddle (NOT the dough hook), begin to mix in the eggs, butter, and the milk/yeast/honey mixture.

Once the ingredients are mixed, allow mixer to work the thick batter at medium speed for three minutes, occasionally using a spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl, as needed.

Using the 1 1/2-inch scoop, fill the bottom of each muffin cup with one level scoop of the thin dough. When all the cups have rough dough balls in their bottoms, take a spoon, dip it in warm water, and create a depression in the middle of each, pressing the dough around the edges of the muffin cup at the same time.

Fill each dough reservoir with a heaping Tablespoon of the cherry mixture, and then top each with a small amount (about a teaspoon) of the remaining dough, until it is all used up. With a wet spoon or wetted fingers, spread and smooth the dough over the top of the cherries.

Cover with buttered foil and allow to rise in a warm place about 20-30 minutes, until the dough comes almost level with the top of each cup. During the rising time, preheat the oven to 375º F.

When dough is risen, place muffin tins in middle of oven and bake 10 minutes. Cover with foil (to prevent rolls from becoming too dark) and bake another 10 minutes.

Remove from oven, remove from pans, and allow to cool on rack. If you like the crust of your rolls to be tender, wrap the rolls in airtight packaging before they are completely cool. For a crustier roll, allow to cool completely, about 1 hour, before storing.

If you prepare these the night before Christmas (or other occasion for serving), reheat in oven – not microwave – by covering in foil and baking at 225º – 250º F for about 10 minutes.

MMMM it's smiling at you! This is a merry Christmas!

Butter Pecan Custard Pie (or, a Favorite Ice Cream Without the "Ice" Part)

Butter. Pecan. Custard. Pie. That is all I have to say. 

Did you ever want your favorite flavor of ice cream, but figured the season was just too cold to mess with a frozen dessert?

Me, neither.

But when I told my friends and family I wanted butter pecan ice cream, I got the old familiar looks ("Have you checked your meds, dear?"). Needless to say, I had to find a way to get away with it, and gather support for my efforts, to boot.

Enter Pop and the Friday Supper Group. This is not an organized club, or anything. It's just that our best friends come over nearly every Friday evening for a meal and decompression at the end of their very busy week. And, most Fridays, they bring a pie, as their contribution to the repast.

Well, this time, I finally got myself ready ahead of time and let them know we planned an easy meal (The Bat fixed a big pot of chili & I started a smaller pot of chicken soup, because...well, winter). This meant no reason for guilt about not bringing something to the party, which, in turn, meant I had the good excuse to provide one of my own desserts, so that I would not be shoveling pie all by my lonesome... that would undermine my year-long efforts to drop some of my excess poundage.

Long story short [too late!], I got to make a butter pecan pie, and share it with others. Merry Christmas!

It's totally gluten-free, but beyond that, it's outrageously naughty. I dug up one of the eggiest custard pie recipes I could find, and made sure it would accommodate fatty dairy products, as well (yes! real whipping cream! and butter galore!). 

The crust is nuts – literally. If you're going to make butter pecan pie, make it pecans all the way down.  

You will need a few basic pieces of equipment: a jelly roll pan (cookie sheet with sides), a small-ish microwave-safe mixing bowl, a food processor (or a blender and a bit of patience and attention), a 9- or 10-inch pie pan, a stand mixer, a small (1 quart is a good size) saucepan, measuring cups and measuring spoons. If you use a smaller pie pan, you may also need a few greased custard cups and a water bath for them… this filling is abundant!

The nice thing about this pie is, you don't need to serve it with anything else, like ice cream, or whipped cream. But, if you feel as though you can't just serve a pie all by itself, it's perfectly acceptable to top it with fresh raspberries or some other fruit. Excess is nice, once in a great while. Nevertheless, the pie, on its own, is all one really requires in order to thoroughly misbehave.

But then, I feel that way about all pie.

I am, after all, my father's daughter.

Butter Pecan Custard Pie

Crust Ingredients: 

2 heaping cups pecan halves, divided

3 Tablespoons unsalted butter, divided

1 teaspoon sweetener (optional)

Crust Directions: 

Preheat oven to 375º F

In a medium microwave-safe bowl or a medium-small saucepan, melt 2 Tablespoons butter. Stir the pecans into the butter, coating them completely. 

Spread pecans out to a single layer's depth in the jelly roll pan. Place on middle rack of oven for about 8-10 minutes, until you begin to smell the butter browning. Remove from oven, allow to cool in the pan. When it is cool to the touch, place the entire sheet into freezer, allow to chill for at least an hour.

Before removing nuts from freezer, melt the remaining tablespoon of butter. 

Place 1 2/3 cups of those toasted pecans and (optional) sweetener in food processor and chop coarsely. Continue to chop, pouring in melted butter, chopping until it has the texture of coarse meal (you're not making nut butter, just a crust).

Remove from food processor bowl and press evenly into pie pan. Refrigerate until the custard filling is ready. 

Custard Filling Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups whole milk

1 cup whipping cream

4 Tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

5 large eggs, at room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon real vanilla extract

Custard Filling Directions:

Preheat oven to 400º F.

In a small saucepan, heat milk and cream to scald (hot enough to form tiny bubbles around the edge of the pan, but not to boil). Remove from heat, put butter in to melt.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat eggs well, one at a time. Gradually add in the sugar until it is well-mixed. Pour in milk/butter mixture and mix well. Then add in the vanilla. 

Place the crust-filled pie pan in a clean jelly-roll pan or, if you have it, a pie ring (one of those metal dinguses designed to catch overflow but not block heat from reaching the bottom of the pie), on the middle rack of the oven. Pour the custard filling into the crust until it is mostly filled, then scatter the remaining 1/3 cup of buttered pecans over the top of the custard before sliding the whole thing into the oven.

If you have extra filling, pour into custard cups in a water bath (a pan in which the cups sit with hot water at least halfway up the sides), and place alongside the pie. (You may wish to add a few of the reserved pecans to the custard cups, as well, but if you opt against it, you will have a nice, simple custard alongside the pie.)

Bake at 400º F for 10 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 300º F and continue to bake for another 30 minutes. If you are also baking cups of custard, check them after 15 minutes by inserting a thin knife into the center of one. If the knife comes out clean, the custard is cooked, even though it may look jiggly. This same practice should be applied to checking the pie at the end of its 30 minutes. 

Remove from oven, cool on rack. Serve at room temperature, or refrigerate overnight and serve chilled.

The last slice. Woe is me, for what will tomorrow bring?

A Date to the Ball: a Little Sweet, a Little Spicy, and a Little Nutty Date Balls

It's a date!

Long years ago, when I was still in pigtails (well, not literally. The Bat cut my hair short in first grade so she didn't have to fight the tangles my feral conduct created. But I digress), I took a home economics class. We all did. It was part of the mandatory education program for all young ladies, that, while we were learning to be good future wives by accepting training in sewing, cooking, and cleaning (ecch!), the boys took shop classes. For two short weeks, though, we switched around, so the boy had a clue what was supposed to go on in the kitchen, and we girls got to use a bandsaw, grinder, and buffer to make cheesy plastic jewelry.

It was during this brief interstice that I was introduced to…no, not the Love of Lucite, but The Date. The seventh grade boys got to make a non-sugary candy made from dates and coconut, and then they were encouraged to share their efforts with us guuurrrulls. I got my first and only date ever with the cute boy whose birthday I shared.

I was smitten.

With the food.

(Although, I admit, the boy was nothing to sneeze at. I saw him at our class reunion not too long ago, and he's still tall and handsome. But, again, I digress.)

This is about the medjool variety of dates, not the steady variety.

The delight in this recipe was that the boys did not need to heat up any stovetops, there was no risk that they'd set a pan of sugar on fire and fill the school with smoke. The other blessing was, it was, we were told later, good for us. There was no added sugar, and plenty of nuts, so we got protein and roughage all in a tasty little lump. (Egad! but our home economics teacher was a sly one!)

Well, I finally ran across a variation on that old recipe, after seeing dozens – if not hundreds – of versions requiring loads of sugar and/or corn syrup and boiling and processing half to putty, and decided it was time for me to give the simple recipe a whirl for myself.

And it is amazingly uncomplicated. It's pretty much equal parts dates and nuts, and a little bit of cardamom. And, if you like, a little unsweetened, finely shredded coconut.

The necessities

It does call for a good, sturdy food processor (those little mini ones just won't cut it), or a serious grinder and a good nut-chopper, and then, beyond that, it's just a matter of patience shaping the little balls and rolling them in their coating. I used a 1-inch scoop to help with keeping the balls all the same size, but if you don't have one of those, you can scoop the "dough" with your fingertips and shape just as easily.

Seriously. The shaping thing, you can let tots do.

So give these a try, sometime.

Super-Easy Date-Nut Balls*

Ingredients:
2 cups pistachios without shells (salted ones are acceptable), divided
2 8-ounce packages whole medjool dates, pitted
1/2 teaspoon (or less, depending on your tastes) cardamom
4 Tablespoons finely chopped unsweetened coconut (optional)

Directions:

Place the pistachios in the food processor with basic chopping blade, and pulse for several seconds, then continue to run on low speed until the nuts are finely chopped. Remove from bowl, set aside.

Beginning with a half bag of dates, chop coarsely at low speed, adding a few more dates at a time, until you have created a sticky ball of date. Pulse in the cardamom and 1 1/2 cups chopped pistachios.

Continue to pulse until well-mixed. It should be loosely combined to resemble – dare I say it? – cat kibble (pellets about 3 mm in diameter at the largest). If you want it to be pureed, I suppose you can keep going, but I like to get a little burst of flavor and faint crunch in each bite, so I stop before it's gluey. Besides, you're likely to need to add water to the mixture if you want to get it pureed any more than this, and that means letting the balls dry out longer before they're ready to eat, and…waiting is not my strong point. Is it yours? No? So, let it appear crumbly.

Sorry about the photo quality. Kibble reference notwithstanding, this is moist and crumbly

Place your remaining 1/2 cup of finely chopped pistachios in a small bowl, and your coconut in another bowl nearby.

Take the blade out of the processor bowl and, using a scoop, a spoon, or just your fingertips, begin forming the dough into little 1-inch balls, rolling each one in either the pistachio crumbs or the coconut. Place on a tray and allow to dry a little bit before covering (about 20-30 minutes)

Makes about 60 1-inch balls.



*Yes, I know exactly how naughty that can sound. You have a dirty mind, and I appreciate that.


Update: The Bat is not a big fan of dates, but she approves this recipe – "It's not sickly-sweet!" was her shocked response when I forced her to sample one, this evening. High praise, from her!

Feeling Like a Toff with Buttery Toffee

Christmas just isn't Christmas around our house without at least one big batch of English Toffee.  Fortunately, this is not a great challenge. It's relatively inexpensive, and takes less than an hour to put together (it takes a little longer to cool, and, really, that's the part with the greatest hardship – you see it sitting there for hours, looking all chocolatey and nutty and buttery, and you don't dare dig into it for fear you'll cover yourself in melted chocolate and be caught in the act). It's also very easy to make. All you need for equipment is a jelly roll pan (a nice 13"x18" cookie sheet with sides), a regular flat cookie sheet, a heavy-duty 6-quart saucepan, a candy thermometer, and a stirring tool, such as a wooden spoon. Cooling racks are useful, too, but I've been known to set my jelly roll pan on a folded towel, in the past, when my cooling racks were filled with cookies. The rack isn't all that special, just an aid to making the process work a little faster. And you'll need a nice, big spatula and a nice, big knife.

Also, if you're fussy, you may want a small bowl of water, and, either a pastry brush or a paper towel handy, so that you can damp-brush the crystallized stuff off the sides of the pan and back into the mix as it boils, and it won't make the candy grainy. Otherwise,  if you opt out of that, when you stir, just be sure you don't scrape the pan's sides. The bottom, lots of times, but not the sides.

Anyway. That's all the equipment you need.

Beyond the gear, though, the ingredients are also simple and few: sugar, butter, water, chocolate chips, and pecans. It's easy-peasy; if you keep a gluten-free kitchen, it's also safe for friends on that special-needs diet. However, if your friend is on a low-carb diet, he or she is SOL, as they say.

Whatever the circumstances, with a little bit of focus, you can impress the heck out of your friends who may be still intimidated by hot stoves and sharp objects. 

Shoo, sweetie. This chubby leg is not providing you a lap just now.

Since you're working with boiling sugar, I don't recommend you invite your small people into the kitchen to help with the initial work (they can help when you apply the chocolate and nuts, and beyond). If your small people are of the furry variety, though, I suggest you bribe them to stay in the other room for the entire duration (closed and locked doors may be necessary). After all, without opposable digits, they can't stir very well, and, well…nobody likes bits of whisker and floof in their candies. 

Just set yourself up for an hour without that help.

Then get going. Make a big batch.

English toffee

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar

2 cups (1 lb.) butter

6 Tablespoons water (I used bottled water because our tap water still tastes like licking a cave floor)

2 cups chocolate chips or your favorite dark chocolate, chopped

1 1/2 cups pecans, coarsely chopped (the original recipe The Bat found calls for finely chopped, but we like recognizable elements where we can include them. Or, as The Bat has said often over the years, "It's good to see and know the nuts in our house." But I digress.)

Directions:

Prepare a jelly roll pan by lightly buttering it. Set aside.

Chop your pecans. Set aside, along with the chocolate chips.

In a heavy-duty saucepan, combine sugar, butter, and water. 

Just a reminder: this is NOT a low-fat, low-carb food

Over medium-high heat, set to boil, stirring frequently. 

Double, double, not much trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble

You'll want to continue to keep an eye on this, stirring more frequently as the temperature rises above 225º F. It will begin to darken, and, if you don't stir carefully during its last stages, it will burn on the bottom of the pan. Your nose will tell you if that happens. Don't force your nose to have that responsibility. Stir. Stir. Stir. Figure eight, big circle, sweep-across, infinity, big circle, sweep across. Cover the whole bottom of the pan with your wooden spoon.

When your candy thermometer indicates the mixture has reached 300º F (just 2º shy of hard crack stage), remove from heat and pour into prepared jelly roll pan.

Let the chips fall where they may

Sprinkle your chocolate onto the hot toffee, and allow a minute or so for the chips to melt.

Covered in chocolate…is this heaven?

Using an offset spatula, or even a silicone mixing spatula, spread the chocolate across the top of the toffee, covering it all.

Sprinkle your chopped pecans over that.

With a large knife, score the candy deeply while still hot, to measure out the size of pieces you'd like to have it break into (I like them about 1 1/2 inches square. The Bat likes them slightly larger). Pretend they're candy bars – do you want them bite-sized, or jumbo, or something in between? Go for it.

Now comes the hard part: letting it cool and then giving most of it away

Allow to cool completely. You want that chocolate completely firm before you try to take the candy from the pan, because what you'll need to do is place a flat cookie sheet over the top of your candy pan and then flip the whole thing, flexing the jelly roll pan to break loose the candy. It will land upside-down on the cookie sheet, and you'll need to handle it, to put it right-side up.

If any of it sticks to the jelly roll pan, peel it away with a fine metal spatula and don't worry if it doesn't come off smoothly and squarely.

Candy, little girl?…

Random degrees of decadence

As you may have noticed, some pieces broke apart into random shapes. This is a good thing. The squared ones are for people who have problems with that random element (squares, themselves, IMHO). The bits-and-pieces ones allow us to pick and choose from tiny, small, medium, and large-ish bits, depending upon how naughty we feel at that moment. Think of them as the toffee cousin to brittle – when was the last time you saw squares of peanut brittle? Just grab a bite and live a little! 

Or, throw them in a little parchment-lined gift box, put an arty bow on it, and try not to cry as it all leaves your house.

Buttermilk-Dill Chicken Pot Roast

I like twice-roasted taters. It's not something I get very often, because everybody in our house likes those spuds plenty when they're on the table the first time, so there aren't usually enough leftovers to send them to the oven for a second time.

But we bought some monster tubers last month so I'd be able to make tasty fries, and, with the next meal, in the long habit we have of cooking one potato per person (even though each spud was clearly enough to serve two very hungry people), I ended up with a full two servings of buttermilk-dill-roasted wedges (with sweet pepper slices) to spare.

Enter: the chicken.

And other stuff.

The chicken was in the form of pair of breasts languishing in the freezer until last night. I brought it out, thawed it, and gave it a honey-buttermilk brining.

From there, it was a matter of filling in the gaps and tossing it all into the oven to roast for an hour, keeping my fingers crossed.

So, here are the basic ingredients, in their order of play (not as if you were building on leftovers):

The chicken:
2 medium chicken breasts, in basic brine with 2 Tablespoons powdered buttermilk and a teaspoon of dill weed added. Allow to stand in refrigerator while assembling potatoes, etc.

Roasted potatoes:
1 very large potato, cleaned but not peeled, then cut in half crosswise and sliced into wedges about 1 cm at their thickest (should be about 3 cups)
1/2 sweet bell pepper, sliced into strips
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon canola or other mild-flavored cooking oil
1 Tablespoon dill weed
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1 tsp kosher salt

Preheat oven to 400º F.
In a quart (or larger) zipper bag, combine all ingredients and shake vigorously.
Spread potatoes out, skin sides down, on a well-greased, foil-lined baking pan, pouring the liquids evenly over all the potato wedges.
Roast until tops turn golden brown (about 35-40 minutes).

Reduce oven temperature to 325º F.

The rest of it:
8 ounces cremini (baby bella) mushrooms, sliced thickly
1 Tablespoon butter
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
2 Tablespoons corn starch
4 ounces neufchatel (light cream cheese)
1 cup green beans, fresh, or frozen, thawed
1 small onion, cut into wedges
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large oven-safe frying pan, melt the butter over high temperature, and stir-fry the mushrooms until they brown and begin to turn crisp at the edges. Remove from heat, add onion, green beans, and potatoes.

In a small saucepan, mix the starch and chicken stock. With heat at medium, allow the stock to come to a simmer and thicken. Add in neufchatel cheese and allow to melt and mix in completely. Pour over vegetables, stir well.

Place chicken on top of the vegetables, cover with foil, and place in oven at 325º for about 25-30 minutes, until chicken is fully cooked.

Allow dish to cool 5 minutes before eating.

Serve with salad.