Cooking Experiment: Cranberry Tomato Chicken

Random Inspiration

So I was inspired to try something new recently. I was just walking around Wegman's and buying juice, when it dawned on me: Cranberry juice.

I grabbed a bottle and decided that I would use it for cooking later. A while ago, I was fascinated by a recipe that dictated the use of orange juice to flavor zucchini slices cooking in a pan.

Cut to now- where I'm in my kitchen and my girlfriend, Sarah, is asking me, "What do you want to do for dinner?" I decided then and there- I'm trying out my new idea.

The Process

Admittedly, I had no recipe. So I was just going to wing it as best as I could to make it taste not so horrible. All I had was a couple of guiding goals:

• put the taste of Cranberry into the chicken
• don't make it too sweet or tart

I realized also while writing this, I didn't exactly know what all of the cooking terminology was for the methods I had used. So I had to look it up!
I began by unconventionally quick braising the chicken in water to get it just to whiten slightly (without searing). Then emptied the pan prepared the Cranberry juice that I would eventually poach the chicken in. The amounts of each specific liquid used each time was purely arbitrary, but it was enough to cover the entire bottom of the pan without reducing to gunk during the cooking process. The idea was that I wanted to weaken the chicken flavor, and put in the Cranberry juice flavor. Heat is on very low, so I had time to figure out what to do next before putting the chicken back in.

I went ahead to put in some corn starch (in retrospect, it wasn't enough) to try and thicken the juice a little bit. Then I wanted to put in something fruity and flavorful that could go with the sweet Cranberry. So I chose something that we had lying around: Sweet Cherry Tomatoes. Chopped some up, and put them in the pan. If I could have a re-do button, I would have put in one less tomato.

After it sat in the pan for what seemed like an appropriate (arbitrarily determined timeframe of course), I put the chicken in. It poached for a while, until I felt like the insides were all cooked. At once point, I added some sugar, because I needed a way to hide the acidity of the sauce. I wasn't sure how to do this, but good old Google was kind enough to lend me the information.

The Results

Here's what they looked like in their "sauce" (if you could even call it a sauce):

Here's what it looked like with the rice and corn we had with it (corn was frozen and microwaved, rice was dry and rice-cooked in a rice cooker):


Post Analysis

Aside from the few unknowns (rather big ones like "how the heck is this going to taste?" and "what the heck am I doing?"), and the slight panic at reducing acidity, the dish itself came out very well.

• it came out looking very pretty; all soft, tender white chicken clearly covered with a pink~ish sauce
• the chicken was moist and cooked all the way through
• the chicken did indeed have a Cranberry juice taste
• amazingly, it was not too sweet, nor was the flavor lacking

My girlfriend was teasing me about not finishing it if it tasted horrible. To my surprised- she ended up eating the whole thing. I was quite proud of this experiment.

Android Netrunner: Introduction

What is Android Netrunner?

Android Netrunner from Fantasy Flight Games is a new and recent remake of an old Wizards of the Coast collectible card game called Netrunner. Originally designed by Richard Garfield himself (the creator of Magic the Gathering), this is a two player game that touts asymmetrical interaction in order to win. Basically what that means is: both sides have completely differing mechanics in order to achieve their own goals to win. The great appeal of this game to me is that the players have completely differing gameplay mechanics, but the axis of interaction is seemingly fair and balanced. Not only that, it makes so much sense in a flavorful way as to greatly support the theme and world in which this game takes place in.

World of Android Netrunner

The world of Android Netrunner takes place in a futuristic cyberpunk world. Paraphrasing from the instruction booklet:

It is the future. Enormous mega-corporations control the various aspects of humanity: food, entertainment, life choices, etc... through what is known as the network. Everyone is on the network, and the network is always moving, evolving and impossible to pinpoint or lockdown. The network is the backbone of civilization, and it is the only weakness that the corporations have. Whether it is the desire to express themselves, exploit for profit or expose the lies in the heart of the system: rogue individual specialists with the hardware resources and software talent all intersect with the motivating factor of digital independence from the network. These people are called Runners.

How I Got Started on This

So, the sole reason why I'm keen on this game- is because my gamer friend Jeremy. He is a huge fan of Netrunner, and has been a fan since the old days of Netrunner card game.

He told me that I would like this game, and over the course of 3 or 4 broken sessions, he finally taught me how to play the game. Since both sides are so different, it took me a few times of seeing both sides played before I really "got" it.

It leads up to a fateful day where he was hanging out with me while helping me with a spontaneous yard sale. We got bored towards the end of it and we decided to play a game of Netrunner. Needless to say, I was hooked after that. As and honorable mention of a milestone- it was the first time either of us had played Netrunner outside on a nice sunny day. It might have even been the first time I played any collectible card game outside.

Gameplay

Two players play against each other, one plays the role as the established Corporation trying to fulfill its own agendas, while the other player runs against the corporation and attempts to disrupt their agendas. Veterans will noticed that the gameplay mechanics are generally unchanged between the two versions, with minor (albeit good streamlined) changes.

As the Corporation, you use your established R&D (draw deck), Archives (discard pile) and HQ (hand) to help you setup remote servers, defend dataforts, and advance your agendas. If you gain 7 Agenda points through advancement- you win.

As the runner, all you need to do is access corporate agendas to get them. Access 7 Agenda points, and you win.
I barely got a chance to play the old game, but with the new remake, it allows for great strategy and deck building diversity , yet have focused themes with new cards called "Identities". They give you a specific Corporation or Runner to play as (instead of previous general Corporations and Runners).

I'll be a little obsessed about this for a while- as I've been playing against myself for a while. There is a slight element of deception on the part of the Corporation. So playing against myself isn't quite the best way to test my skills.

Going Forward
Jeremy came up with this crazy idea to start writing review articles of specific matchups. Whether we do written article reviews, video tutorials or a podcast... this will not be the last that you hear of Android Netrunner.

Healthy Eating: Homemade Vegetarian Mac and Cheese Steak Sub!

Healthy Eating and Why I'm Doing It...

So this year, I've been trying to eat healthier. Since... February?
As a general confession, I had a doctor appointment last year in the spring of 2011.
They ran a series of tests. Being only the 26 years old, I assumed I was completely healthy.

I went on, completely forgetting about it. Unsuspectingly, the results got back to me about 6 weeks later. I didn't have any horrible diseases or anything, but I did have one thing wrong with me. I had borderline high cholesterol. This was a grand epiphany that didn't change my life, but really got me all worried about myself. Both of my grandfathers passed away, and I believe their deaths were health related to cholesterol (not 100% certain). It wasn't until months later- February 2012 when I watched the movie Forks Over Knives. It convinced me to actually make changes to my diet, almost immediately and almost overnight. I can discuss this movie, but that's an entirely different topic altogether that I can go on at length. Basic rundown is: whether it's 100% true or not, it's way more convincing a movie argument than other food and health movies I've seen.


Motivation


Part of it was reduction of red meat consumption, and then other meat in general. I still have meat maybe about 3-6 times a week, but it's a lot less than the twice a day I was doing in college.
So I needed something else to turn my appetite to. Various types of meats are typically a large source of cholesterol, and there are other benefits to reducing meat in my diet. So I figured that would be the best and easiest way to attack my problem. It's been a slow process, but I now eat salads at least 4 times a week (where before, it was none). It was tough, but I learned later that I was going about it the wrong way.

Apparently you don't have to "cold turkey" away from eating meat to achieve my goal, but just replace it with non-meat "meaty" substitutes or make very good vegetarian dishes. It's not all salads and grains. It can be (and should be) better than that. I've had some great recipes that friends have made (ratatouille for example). But I am not as well versed in cooking vegetables as they are. As of late, I've been experimenting with meat substitutes such as Morningstar Meat Crumbles. Here is my latest concoction attempt with this.

Homemade Vegetarian Mac and Cheese Steak Sub

I don't have a recipe because I basically just winged it with what I had. But I do have a list of ingredients.

• 1 box of macaroni shells
• 1/2 shredded block of Monterey Jack cheese
• 1/2 shredded block of Sharp Cheddar cheese
• green peppers (1 average sized one should be enough)
• 1 package of meat crumbles (I suppose you can use real ground beef instead for the meat version of this)
• salt
• black pepper
• sub roll(s)

I chopped the green peppers, made the pasta, cooked the meat crumbles (it's not real meat, but it needs to be warmed before consumption). I put in about half the peppers into the cooking pan with the "meat" and salted and peppered it (light on the salt, heavy on the black pepper). Mix in all the macaroni, cheese and "meat" mix together until thoroughly combined. Place a hearty amount of the mix into a sub roll... and consume.

The mix

The full sandwich

First bite (added extra peppers and some crushed red peppers too)

All done

Post Analysis

Overall, it was edible and fine. Admittedly, the sub itself wasn't that good. The mix by itself was actually better tasting than the addition of the sub roll. I surmise that this dish has several problems:

• Having both macaroni and a sub roll makes it too carby a dish
• Bread itself isn't flavorful and blocks the flavor from the overall taste from the mix
• typical Philly cheese steak subs are all greasy and dripping- so the bun absorbs the flavor
• next time I'd need to flavor the bread or somehow have it absorb more flavors
• The cheeses selected were good choice for taste, but not for texture
• didn't have the typical provolone flavor; expected, but not surprising
• didn't have any butter or cream mixed in, so it wasn't creamy or cheesy/melty
• No onions
• This one is a little selfish- Sarah and I aren't the biggest fans of onions, and I didn't want to chop any

On the upside:

• The mix tastes good by itself as a Mac 'n Cheese 'n "Beef" dish
• quick and easy to make
• much healthier than a real cheese steak sub
• got some creative food experimentation done