Skillet Chicken Tamale Pie

Yes, you read that right - Skillet Chicken Tamale Pie was FINALLY on the menu for dinner this week.  (I mean, it has been on the menu for, like, weeks now, but I FINALLY made it this week!)  This all started when a friend of mine shared some of her family's Easter tamales with us and my oldest claimed that tamales are her favorite food. (My youngest daughter then regaled us with the claim that she does NOT like tamales, but that is neither here nor there...for this post at least.  Obviously, we have to have some kind of intervention for her, because - WHO doesn't like tamales?!)  Anyway, the tamales were amazing - clearly homemade with a meat filling that practically fell apart and masa that was perfectly seasoned and moist.  We enjoyed them.  Thoroughly.  Of course, that brought up the question, again from my oldest: "Mommy, why don't you ever make tamales?"  I tried explaining to her the time consuming factor of making tamales, among other issues, then, when my excuses continued to fall upon deaf nine-year-old-tamale-craving ears, I took a look at one of my favorite cookbooks, "America's Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook".  Lo and behold, there was an "easy" recipe for Skillet Chicken Tamale Pie.  She seemed excited about this new recipe and a twist on traditional tamales, so I thought we would give it a try.

Now, I put the word easy in quotations for a reason: ATK recipes are typically not what I would classify as "easy", especially for a weeknight, family meal.  They typically involve ALOT of extra steps (and thus ALOT of extra dishes), so I tend to distill their recipes down into a more manageable and efficient procedure.  This recipe was no different - the intention is obviously to make this a one pot/skillet meal, but, if you are like me and forgot (AGAIN) to defrost the meat the night before, it becomes necessary to accomplish this in a different series of steps. 

The original recipe says to heat a skillet in a 400 degree oven until it is smoking hot and then to sear the chicken thighs in the skillet, thus quickly rendering their fat.  You then use part of the rendered fat to saute the vegetables, returning the meat to the sauce at the end to finish cooking in more of a braise method.  Like I said, I was defrosting my chicken thighs in a sinkful of water at 5 pm that day and I needed dinner on the table no later than 6:15 pm, so I changed things up a bit.  While said chicken was defrosting, I chopped all the veggies (onions from my garden, and the manky old poblano chiles - hey!  They did not have mold on them!  Don't judge. - plus garlic and cilantro to add towards the end of the cooking process.) I sauteed them in a scant tablespoon of olive oil until they started to soften, then added a bag of frozen, organic corn.  (Another substitution - the original recipe calls for fresh corn or for defrosted and patted dry frozen corn.  Duh - I didn't have time to pat the freaking corn dry.)  I then sprinkled about a tablespoon of flour over the top, cooked it for about 30 seconds and, once I had some nice color on the corn, I added the garlic, cooked until fragrant, then added the cilantro, a can of chopped green chiles, a can of white hominy (drained and rinsed) and about a cup and a half of chicken stock.  I brought all of that to a low simmer, thickened the sauce, then added about a cup of medium cheddar cheese, off the heat.  I poured all of that into a 9 x 13 inch casserole dish and stuck it in my microwave to keep warm until I was ready for it.  I wiped out the skillet, added a tiny bit of olive oil and sauteed the chicken thighs, which were, by this time, partially defrosted.  I rendered the fat of the skin and browned it on all sides before sticking it in the microwave (after removing my casserole dish) to finish cooking it (really to nuke the crap out of it - I don't mess around with undercooked chicken by any means).  While that was cooking, I made the "masa" topping - 3/4 cup each of flour and cornmeal, 3 tablespoons of sugar, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 3/4 cup buttermilk, 1 egg and 1 tablespoon of butter, melted and cooled.  I shredded the nuclear chicken, mixed it in with the corn/pepper mixture in the casserole dish, dolloped the masa topping, spread it out and baked that sucker in the oven at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes, until bubbly and nicely golden brown. 

The result: pretty tasty!  I definitely made it more complicated than the original recipe was supposed to be, but it worked.  It was very slightly spicy and the heat was more than tempered by the sweet corn bread topping.  The chicken was chewier than it should have been - especially considering that it was mostly supposed to be braised - but what are you going to do?  I had the leftovers for lunch the next day and I have to say - the flavors continued to develop and meld.  I think it might have been better the next day than it was the first time around.  I don't know if I will make the recipe again, especially since my tamale lover was not completely blown away by it, but it was a decent Wednesday night meal.  Everybody ate it, so, as you well know - that's a winner in my book! 

Dinner Tonight

Dinner tonight is likely to be a very low-key affair.  Remember a couple of weeks ago, I said I was going to try a new recipe (http://makingeverydaygourmet.blogspot.com/2013/04/is-it-spring-yet.html)?  Skillet Chicken Tamale Pie?  Yeah, that didn't happen and God bless my ever ambitious little chef's heart, I have had some of the ingredients sitting in my fridge since then.  (I really hope poblano chiles don't rot super fast.  Oh, geez.  I just looked back at the date I wrote that post.  Dang, that really WAS a couple of weeks ago.)  Ok, so the goal is to get that meal fixed and obviously to use up some way overdue chiles.  Will that goal be met?  Ummm....I think it is a good bet either way at this point.  I am super busy right now: I have a wedding for 250 people that I am making a cake for (right on schedule with that) on Saturday and I am in the throes of coordinating Teacher Appreciation Week for my older kids' elementary school next week.  [Side note: this whole experience is either going to make me lose my faith in humanity - specifically the parental humanity that populates our school - or bolster it in unexpected ways.  It is as much of a crap shoot as what I will be able to get on the table for dinner tonight.] So, we will see if those poblanos will continue to languish in my crisper drawer for another....ewww.  No.  If I don't cook those things tonight, I think they are probably destined for the compost bin.  Even I have my limits as to how far I will go to avoid wasting food. 

Judge-y Lithography

Well, if that title doesn't draw you in....on a food blog....I don't know what will!  Several months ago (perhaps almost a year even), my sister passed along four fun little prints that she bought online to hang in her kitchen.  My sister is blessed with the interior design gene (I, sadly, am not) and decided, once she had the prints in hand, that they did not "go" with the other colors gracing her cooking space.  They did, however, "go" with mine, so she offered to them to me.  I framed them and hung them in a fairly prominent space in my kitchen; I see them every time I walk into that room and I find something new to love every time I look at them.  Each of the prints is different, but all are done in the style of the 1940's Victory Garden propaganda, extolling all Americans to "do their duty" and grow their own food.  The fun thing about these prints is that they are very vintage looking, but they tell you to, "Eat Local Greens", "Plant an Urban Farm Garden" and "Grow Food on an Organic Farm".  Out of the four, my favorite is a picture of a spoon and fork, standing behind a still life of vegetables (tomato, cucumber, onion, etc.) and a mason jar of what I can only assume are some kind of peas or beans.  Above this little tableau are the words, "Eat Real Food".

"Eat Real Food".  That is such a simple statement, but has become such an expansive movement recently in our culture.  There is so much that this one little sentence applies to: GMO's, the whole Monsanto fiasco, the potential for artificial sweetener in milk...it seems like this "real food", or rather, lack thereof, issue is in my face all of the time and honestly, I do get kind of tired of it.  There are times that I just want to say, "@#$% it!  I've had enough!"  I had one of those moments the other night as I was trying to muster the energy to cook dinner for our family.  The menu that night was scheduled to be: "chicken thighs, marinated in a mojo of freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice, olive oil and garlic, grilled to perfection, served alongside fresh, crisp-grilled asparagus and a salad of Campari tomato slices, topped with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper".  I had, however, forgotten to take the chicken out to thaw in the refrigerator the night before, so while it was [sort of] thawing in a sink full of cold water, I sat down....and promptly fell asleep.

Fortunately, my husband had come home early that afternoon, so my little cat-nap didn't impact my whole "caring for my children" thing, but snoozing did delay our dinner a bit.  I woke up groggy and grouchy and I seriously considered giving the thawing chicken a "@#$% it" by scrapping my original menu plans.  I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do for our evening meal, but right at that moment, cooking seemed like a huge hassle that I was willing to trade for sending my husband out to bring back burgers and boiling the barely thawed meat off for another day.  Blearily, I cast my eyes about my kitchen, trying to make up my mind.  My attention was caught by my new pictures on the wall and I read the words again, "Eat Real Food".  I thought, "Geez.  Even that damn print is judging me!"  No.  Really and truly, I thought, "yes.  Yes, we will."  I shook off my fatigue and made do with what I had: half frozen chicken thighs that took a heck of a lot longer to cook on the grill than they would have, had I defrosted them properly, and which lacked the lemony freshness that a proper marinade would have given them, but my menu came off well and it was good.  And real.  And real good.  Everyone ate it - my oldest had seconds and thirds of the chicken, my youngest had seconds and thirds of the "[s]ticks" (asparagus) and "mmmargh" (tomatoes) and my middle child ate just what was put on her plate and no more. 

So my new, judge-y lithograph saved our dinner the other night.  I am glad I have it hanging on the wall to remind me what is important to me.  Yes, I get frustrated with our food culture and yes, I get frustrated with simply having to cook ALL the time, but I also realize that feeding my family well is one of my top priorities.  I actually like seeing them enjoy a good meal and I really like knowing that I cooked it.  Real food - sometimes it doesn't have to be all that hard; it just takes a little bit of an effort.