Bacon Wrapped BBQ Water Chestnuts

Greetings to my 4 subscribers!

Friday night here in the convent and that can mean only one thing...time to do a little experimental cooking!

Tonight I whipped up a scrumptious hors d'oeuvre from scratch. A long time ago I remember having a water chestnut appetizer wrapped in bacon and covered in BBQ sauce. So, this evening I tried my best to recreate it...success(for the most part)!

The recipe was simple enough:

2 cans whole water chestnuts
1 lb bacon
Favorite BBQ sauce (Sweet Baby Rays...of course)

Today's lesson/word is: Preparation

One would think I would understand this word fully. An Eagle Scout is always prepared...but I guess I missed that day of boy scouts. When you prepare bacon wrapped water chestnuts it is essential to have a way to bind them together, lest they fall apart while you are brushing the sauce on them. However, I forgot the simplest ingredient to make these treats: toothpicks.

No problem, one would think, everyone has toothpicks in a house. Nope. Convents don't come pre-stocked with toothpicks (or normal cookware for that matter(post about cooking pancakes in a pot to come)). Luckily, I play jazz and know how to improvise. I found some skewers and a pair of scissors and started cutting until I had enough to assemble my 20 bite-sized morsels of goodness. [Note to self...buy the toothpicks next time]

I preheated the oven to 350 and baked the bacon-wrapped water chestnuts covered in sauce for 45 minutes. The cooking time was just about perfect; however, if I were to do this again, I would reapply BBQ sauce during cooking to make sure they are fully coated.

The hors d'oeuvres turned out great and will surely be made again in the future!

If you have any crafty ideas for hors d'oeuvres, post them in the comment section and I'll make them in the future.

Chipotle Style Chicken Burritos

Greetings food lovers and people I suckered into looking at my blog. Within these hallowed confines of the world of blogging I will submit to you, the customers, my valuable experiences in learning to cook things that are actually edible and tasty. Sometimes I succeed and the food I prepare is fit for serving to others; however, with every success there is a failure. I will write about both here for your reading pleasure.

Tonight I dabbled in making chicken burritos; however, these aren't just any chicken burritos, these are SUPPOSED to taste like everyone's favorite burrito stand...Chipotle. The recipe seemed simple (read: how could I screw this up) and in the end I should have ended up with farm-fresh chipotle chicken....not so much.

The recipe called for the following ingredients to be processed together into a marinade for the chicken.
1 (2 ounce) package dried ancho chiles
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons cumin powder
2 tablespoons fresh oregano, chopped
6 cloves garlic
1/2 red onion, quartered
1/4 cup vegetable oil

Problem #1: Normal stores don't carry packages of dried ancho chiles. So I substituted some diced peppers in a can.

The paste turned out fine, didn't smell like I screwed it up, and sufficiently covered the chicken: time to wait a few hours for it to soak in.

Time to cook.

After marinading I prepared the griddle for cooking.
Items needed:

Flipper: ✓

Vegetable oil: ✓

Brick wrapped in foil: WTF?

Apparently you are supposed to cook the chicken and flatten it out at the same time. SOOOOO I put on my shoes and go searching in the backyard for a brick to wrap in foil. Our once pristine back yard has been slowly turned into a wasteland of broken chairs and a random assortment of other items people have left outside. On top of that, there is currently 8 inches of snow outside. Yes, you read correctly, Baltimore (which was 70 and sunny as recently as last Friday) has snow. Miraculously I found a brick...to wrap in foil...to flatten the chicken.

Now, the recipe said I should use happy, organic chicken instead of the chickens who were cooped up their entire lives...when my chicken starts complaining about how it was treated, then I'll know it has had too many chemicals, but until that day I'll continue using the cheapest chicken money can buy.

So I cooked the chicken and...it was O.K.. Not too bad, but not like Chipotle either. It had a nice flavor, but it couldn't hold a candle to the real deal. Maybe it was my lack of ancho chiles, or my refusal to use organic chicken....but, in all actuality, it was probably just a poor attempt on my part. In the future, I will prepare the marinade the night before so that more of the flavor soaks in.

All in all it was pretty good. I didn't screw it up (aside from the lime-rice recipe which is also on the website)and will attempt this again in the future. For more Chipotle-esque recipes see the link below.

Chipotle Recipes