Mushroom, Bacon, & Spinach Crêpes with Chicken & Asparagus Risotto

I am so sorry for being absent the past week or two! I’ve been job hunting and also trying to get into shape, and with my cooking… You can’t really get fit with all the heavy crème, butter, and carbs I use ;}

It was recently my housemothers 57th birthday this past weekend! So my best friend Norah, who I live with, cooked her favorite meal. She only requested crêpes, but she also loves the risotto I make and I’ve been promising you guys that recipe for a while… So I thought why not kill two birds with one stone and give you two amazing recipes! Especially since I’ve been so inactive ;P We’ll start with the risotto, then lead into the crêpes.

Ingredients for risotto:

• 1.5 bushels of fresh asparagus
• 3 tenderized chicken breasts cut into cubes
• 4 to 5 garlic cloves, minced
• half a small onion
• half a stick of butter
• 2 cups of Arborio rice (very important that it’s Arborio!)
• dash of salt
• dash of pepper
• 2 lemon squeezes
• dash of balsamic vinegar
• 32 oz of organic chicken broth, or stock
• dash of heavy crème
• 1 to 2 cups of shredded Parmesan cheese (The good stuff! Not that imitation white powder crap, haha)

Now this recipe has the perfect balance of asparagus, chicken, and rice. It will also feed your whole family of 4 to 6 on it’s own! But this was a special occasion so we went a little overboard on the food front.

Cut your asparagus into 1-inch spears on the diagonal and set aside. Cube your chicken and cook with the garlic, onion, a squeeze of lemon, a dash of balsamic, salt, pepper, and a quarter stick of butter. Make sure the juices run clear, but also don’t overcook the chicken! It’s going to be thrown into the risotto the last ten minutes so any soft pinkness still in the chicken will surely cook out, don’t worry! Set that pan aside as well and make sure to not strain the juices, those are important!

Melt the rest of your butter in a very very big skillet or shallow pot. The one we use is easily 2 feet in diameter… So if you don’t have big enough kitchenware, maybe halve the recipe? Throw your two cups of rice into the simmering butter and cook for about 3 to 5 minutes, or until the grains start to turn translucent. You may need to add a little extra butter.

Throw in your asparagus and a cup or two of the chicken stock. You’re going to end up using all of it, but don’t add it all at once. As the rice absorbs it, slowly add more and pay attention. You have to constantly keep stirring this otherwise your rice will burn. It’s a little tedious but worth it I promise.

Once the asparagus is in with the rice, turn on your timer for 25 minutes. I’ve timed this out exactly, so you shouldn’t have any problems. Once the 25 minutes is up, you should be out of chicken stock; this is when you dump the rest of your precooked chicken and all its succulent juices into the mix! Stir, and then add a dash of heavy crème, 1 to 2 cups of grated Parmesan cheese and cook for an additional 10 minutes. Voila!



Ingredients for crêpes:

• 2 eggs + 1 egg yolk at room temperature
• .75 cup of milk
• .5 cup of water
• 1 cup of flour
• 3 tblsp melted butter
• dash of salt
• dash of pepper
• dash of oregano
• squeeze of lemon

Be very careful with this! We remade this better at least 3 times because of stupidity. Mix all your liquid ingredients together slowly, SLOWLY. You want to make as little air bubbles as possible. Do not whisk, I repeat… Do not whisk! This batter is very delicate and very liquid, so if you have a very low setting on your mixer use with caution. We stirred and folded by hand and strained the batter to get the lumps out which worked perfectly the third time around… Add the flour slowly, and afterwards cover it and let it stand for at least an hour for any bubbles you did form to release.

We had a trusty crepe maker that you just dip into the batter and it forms the perfect crepe, good luck to those of you with a skillet. All I can suggest is don’t use too much oil or butter to grease the pan and be careful!

Ingredients for filling:

• 1 box of frozen spinach, squeezed and patted dry
• half a small onion
• quarter stick of butter
• 2 large portabello mushroom heads, sliced thin
• 6 strips of cooked bacon, crumpled
• 1 cup of heavy crème
• dash of milk
• dash of chives
• dash of dill
• dash of salt
• dash of pepper
• squeeze of lemon
• 1 or 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• dash of Parmesan cheese, grated
• dash of flour

Start caramelizing your onions and then browning your mushrooms extra butter and remember not to overcrowd them! If there’s one thing that movie about Julia Child taught me, it was that! Throw in everything except for the milk and Parmesan and stir. Slowly add just a little bit of milk and then add the Parmesan. Cook for about 15 minutes more on low heat. If it’s not thickening up, add a little bit of flour slowly but surely and that should do the trick.

Spoon the filling into the crêpes, fold and set on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper. Sprinkle extra Parmesan or provolone on top and broil for about 3 to 5 minutes on low, watching very carefully so they don’t burn! As you can see from my photos, I was almost a second too late with those edges haha.
Phewf, what a long post! Sorry about all that rambling guys, but I hope you enjoy it! And I’ll try to be more active.

Later Food Lovers,
Justin Francis Kane
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Pasta Carbonara

This recipe is great if you want something really delicious in a short period of time, well… Shorter than most of my recipes, haha. My friends once again, say they will never let me leave because they demand I cook for them every evening.

Ingredients:

• 1 box of bowtie pasta
• 2 cups of thawed frozen peas
• .5 a package of bacon, or one of the mini packages
• .5 of a yellow onion
• 4 cups of heavy crème
• 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cleaned and cut into cubes
• .5 stick of butter
• a few cloves of garlic
• dash of salt
• dash of pepper
• dash of oregano
• squeeze of lemon

Start off boiling the pasta, cause that always seems to take forever. Look right at the directions on the back of the box, they’re always right. So just set a timer and there you have it. Always make sure to rinse with cold water; otherwise the pasta will continue to cook even if it’s not in the boiling water anymore! Duh, and throw a tablespoon of olive oil on them and swish them around so they don’t stick together.

Cook your bacon how you normally would, let it dry and cool on a paper towel to remove the access oil. Once it’s cool enough to touch, chop your bacon into bacon bits! NO, you may not substitute bacon with bacon bits. We do not live in a double wide… Well, you might. In which case I empathize. My mom downgraded once I left for college, not a pretty site.

Next you’re going to take your onion and garlic and caramelize them in the butter. Your chicken should already be cleaned, tenderized, and cut by now. So you’ll throw all of that into the pot with the onions and garlic and simmer, stirring occasionally. Once you see that all the juices have really left the chicken, [I always just scoop out an extra piece to be sure it’s not pink in the middle] you can add the crème , peas, and crispy bacon to your chicken.

Add the spices slowly but surely, tasting occasionally to see if it needs more of one thing over another. You shouldn’t need too much salt because the bacon is really salty already.

The thing that’s great about heavy crème is that it doesn’t curdle when it touches heat, and it’s way easier than making a béchamel sauce from scratch. I’ve made quite a few mistakes where I thought just throwing in flour and milk would make this beautiful fancy white sauce, WRONG. It curdles and ruins everything, it’s very frustrating and takes a lot more consideration. So just stick to the heavy crème okay simpletons? Hahaha ;}

I had one too many glasses of champagne last night… Ugh. How is everyone elses day going? Anyone want to ask me to make something specific? I’d love a challenge tonight!

Yours forever Food Lovers,
Justin Francis Kane
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New Blog, yey!

So I didn't quite know what to do as far as transferring my posts... Should I do it all at once? Or should I do it slowly and surely and eventually get all of my recipes here? I guess we'll see, but I'll start off with just doing this post and then another for my own peace of mind.

I'm loving the freedom over here at Blogger though, it seems much more sophisticated and professional as far as platforms go. Lets hope this is a good start to a long lasting relationship.

Later Food Lovers!

Justin Francis Kane

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