My Road To Happiness

As mentioned in a previous post, Dusty and I plan to cook our way through her regional Spanish cookbook as a way to both prepare for and quench our desire to travel to Spain. The first attempt was really successful, if I do say so myself.

She prepared a nice fresh little Gazpacho (though we both agreed we may have to wait until late July or early August for the best tomatoes) and marinated the Amish raised chicken a day ahead of time. When she arrived late in the afternoon on Saturday it was just right and ready to go.

The chicken is officially “Chicken on a Spit” or “Frango no Espeto”. We didn’t prepare it in the traditional method, on a spit, but that didn’t effect how good it was. The Marinade is called Piri-Piri, essentially an oil/red hot chilli pepper mix. The name comes from the region of Portugal that the peppers traditionally used, come from. That makes sense because the entire recipe is from the Extremadura region of Spain, on the south east corner, near the Portugal-Spanish border. Here’s a link to an inexpensive restaurant called Bonjardim where the NYT suggested you order this dish (the house specialty) when you are visiting the Lisbon area.

For my part, I put together the sides. They were from Weight Watchers new “Hit the Spot” cookbook. I highly recommend getting it even if you’re not on the program. The food is restaurant quality inventive and chic while being short on required ingredients and cook time.

1. Cumin scented sweet potato fries (baked of course)
2. Snap Pea & Radishes with Goat Cheese
3. Fresh Corn Salad with Heirloom Tomato and Lime
4. Almost Instant Apple Crumble a la Mode

I have very few pictures to share with you because we ate the whole lot up before I could take any snaps. What pictures you do see here are from a) the remaining raw chicken I grilled Monday night and b) the left over salad.

The hands-down favorite was the Apple Crumble. Not just for taste but simplicity and quickness. Here’s what you do: Peel and core two Granny Smith Apples. Slice them, put them in a microwave safe bowl and sprinkle on Apple Pie Spice (cinnamon/all spice/ground cloves). Losely cover with platic wrap and leave one corner open to vent. Cook on high for 3 minutes (stirring half way through) and then remove the plastic wrap and cook another minute.

Meanwhile crumble a fat-free oatmeal raisen cookie and take out your fat free, frozen vanilla yogurt. When the apples are done, spoon them evenly between two serving dishes. Sprinkle the evenly divided cookie over the apples and top with a dollup of yogurt. Finally, for looks and flair, stick a cinnamon stick into the whole lot, leaning a bit for effect. It’s so good and easy you feel like you just punched Martha Stewart in the gut.

Running a close second, the Fresh Corn Salad. Corn is *just right* this month so the taste was amazing. I added some cut up avocado the next day and it was even MORE delicious. The recipie includes one diced jalepeno and the addition of the avocado really mellows that out and makes it a more well rounded salad.

The cumin scented snap peas were not my favorite when I served it. I thought it might have needed to sit a bit longer to absorb the flavor but sitting 2 days in the fridge didn’t help, it just made the radish soggy. I think it would have helped to add more goat cheese. I was trying to be conservative with the calories but you really need the tart cheese to act in concert with the sweet of the peas and the spicy of the radish.

The Sweet Potato Fries were good, but a little uneven as I seem to be unable to cut consistently sized wedges. If anyone out there has a trick to cutting potato wedges, I welcome your input. Also I would add more salt to both the fries and the snap pea salad.

Finally, I shared a hidden film gem and Dusty loved it as much as I did. If you’ve never seen “Larger than Life” and you love Bill Murray movies, rent it. Rent it, now. This came out after he did a few “serious” films but before his success in “Lost in Translation”. I think it was an attempt to return to form of the more successful formula films he’s known for. It didn’t get much support from the studio and I don’t even remember when it was in theaters. Watch it for the run away truck scene alone. It had the two of us screaming with laughter and I’d already scene it twice!

This Fourth of July there were no exciting trips to a seaside resort or big neighborhood BBQ parties or impressive fireworks shows. I was happier this holiday than any I can remember in the last few years. There was simple friendship, wonderful food and laughter. You can’t buy that.

Tags: chicken, fourth of july, friendship, spain, weight watchers