Three Things

A decadent cake, soup for a friend, a kitchen trend I'm loving

Greetings eaters and readers! We’re back from South Carolina and what better excuse is there than that to bake Odette Williams’s Chocolatey Chocolate Cake with Silky Marshmallow Icing? To answer my own question: ANY EXCUSE! Use any excuse AT ALL to make this tender, rich chocolate wonder topped with marshmallow icing that tastes like the world’s greatest Marshmallow Fluff, minus the nostalgia, but plus the sweet, silky, gooey excellence. In other news, we spent some QT with our college girls over spring break and one night ended up majorly down the rabbit hole on music they listened to when they were little. One album in particular got the lion’s share of love: The 1975 Johnny Cash Children's Album. Here is what Andy wrote about it in 2010, when the girls were 7 and 8 (sobbb!): “It’s one of those rare records that we can all agree on, pretty much all the way through. We’ve listened to it on road trips, we’ve played it during birthday parties, I’ve even been known to put it when it’s just me, and the dog, changing lightbulbs and emptying the dishwasher on a Saturday afternoon. It’s great, solid music and storytelling – performed by a variety-show-era, leather-jacketed Johnny Cash — and, seriously, what could ever be wrong with that?” I recommend starting with: “Call of the Wild,” “One and One Makes Two,” and “Nasty Dan.” (Songs and the album are available wherever you listen to music.) Welp, enough chit chat — here are Three Things I’d like you to know about this week…

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1. Two No-Recipe Recipes for Cooked Chicken

My dad has been trying to eat more protein lately, which means that when I visit him across the county, instead of bringing him the usual treats (baklava from our local Middle Eastern specialty shop, babka from Zabar’s, or literally anything that contains chocolate; he has an epic sweet tooth) I now walk into his house toting reusable plastic deli pints filled with chicken-loaded soups and salads. Before you bestow sainthood upon me, let me assure you the act of preparing these meals for him is not without its selfish benefits. I now find I always have some leftover cooked chicken in my own fridge, which means my weekday lunch or an easy dinner for two is halfway there. Here are two directions I’ve headed in recently that I’d recommend, even if your cooked chicken happens to be a rotisserie bird picked up from the supermarket:

-Lunch for One: Curried Chicken Salad with Apples and Shallots (Shown)

Creamy, crunchy, classic. You can also scoop this onto sandwich bread and, if you want to go dairy-free, swap out the plain yogurt for mayonnaise.

In a measuring cup or small bowl, mix together about 2 tablespoons plain yogurt (or mayonnaise) with 1 tablespoon madras curry powder (or regular curry powder), a squeeze of lime juice, kosher salt and pepper. Whisk in a few drizzles of water to get it to a salad-dressing consistency instead of a dip consistency. In another bowl, add as much shredded chicken as would fit on a regular size sandwich, a teaspoon or two of minced shallot, and 2 tablespoons of minced crisp apples (I like honeycrisp, unpeeled is fine). Drizzle in the sauce, and toss everything together until it reaches a desired coated level. Scoop into a green salad tossed with a simple oil-and-vinegar dressing.

-Dinner for Four: Hot Chicken Sandwiches with Caramelized Onions & Special Sauce

When I was little, a “hot chicken sandwich” was the official name for a dinner we had once a week: My mom would roast her own bird (this is pre-rotisserie days), top a piece of toasted Pepperidge Farm white sandwich bread with a few chicken slices, smother the whole thing in gravy, and serve open-face with a knife and a fork. (Boy, that was living!) My hot chicken sandwich these days is a little more slap-dash, but is just the thing for road trips or a quick dinner for the pre- or post-practice kid in your house.

STEP ONE: Make Special Sauce
Mix the following ingredients together:

1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon bread-and-butter pickles (or sweet relish)
salt and pepper to taste

STEP TWO: Caramelize Onion
Slice 2 medium-large onions. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to a skillet set over medium heat, and add onion slices. Saute as long as you can, hopefully long enough to caramelize, about 15-20 minutes.

STEP THREE: Slice Rotisserie Chicken
Slice your rotisserie chicken into large pieces that can lay flat on a sandwich.

STEP FOUR: Toast 8 slices of good white bread.

STEP FIVE: Assemble Sandwiches.
Spread special sauce on one side of toast (preferably while still warm) then top with chicken, onions, and toast.

2. Kitchen Trend Alert!

By “trend,” of course, I mean the pattern I’m picking up in my own instagram “saved” file, which is to say, photo after photo of colorful checkerboard kitchen floors. Some are created with alternating marble or ceramic tiles, some are painted with stencils right onto old wood floors, but all of them work with clean-lined cabinetry and counters, graphic wall art, and details to create the kitchen vibe I always fall for: Modern Classic. What do you think?

Top: @beataheuman; Left: @spoonflower; Right @chalkwhiterow.

3. Soup for a Friend

Reminder that a shoebox filled with soups in freezable bags in different size portions (serves 1, serves 2, etc) is always going to be appreciated by a friend going through a rough patch. My go-tos in this situation have been Spicy Lentils with Greens, Thai Broccoli, and the Chicken Orzo from Dinner: A Love Story, but your favorite soup, made with love and light in your own kitchen, is always going to be the best option. This seems like the right time to re-up some wisdom from Janet Reich Elsbach’s Extra Helping, about gestures made when she was grieving the death of her sister: “One beautifully liberating thing I can testify to is that the scale of the delivery is unimportant. The bar of chocolate in an envelope, the bowl of hand-arranged seeds festooned with flowers, the homemade gingerbread people and the store-bought bagels, the pocket-sized gestures and the trunk-loads of food all make indelible impressions. Each one was a strand that tethered me to the land of the living and together they eventually pulled me to my feet again, altered, but upright.”

Have a great week.

Jenny