Cooking adventures with my new Dutch oven!

Second blog of the night, WOO! This one is all about food, food, food!

My parents got me a 6.5 qt Dutch oven for Christmas. I've been pining away for one for quite some time so I was pretty excited about unwrapping it Christmas Day. I might be a total geek for it, but I love cooking stuff. I have tons of cabinet space to fill in my kitchen!

Needless to say I was chomping at the bit to test it out. I went online Christmas night in search of recipes. I pinned a few to my Pinterest for later. I was on a roll!

My first dish was a bean stew. I found a recipe for a white bean stew with chicken sausage and kind of adapted it to what I had in the kitchen. My feeling with stews is you want to use what you already have on hand. That's exactly what I did.

One thing about recipes I make up...I rarely measure anything. I just kind of go with the flow and add stuff to taste. SORRY! :(

I decided to make a bean stew using the half bag of white northern beans and half bag of red kidney beans I had on hand. I put them in a bowl and soaked them overnight. The next night I put the Dutch oven on the burner and went to town!

I heated up the pan and put some olive oil in there. I tossed in some diced onion, green and red pepper and celery and got those to sweating. While those were cooking I roughly chopped up some baby carrots (like I said, I use what I have on hand lol.) I'd guess about....3 hand fulls. Baaha! I put those in with the rest of the veggies and let them saute for a bit. Once they started to soften up I put a little bit of salt & pepper in the veggies and stirred them up a bit. I also added a little bit of Goya Sofrito.

At this point I turned on the oven to preheat at 350.

The only sausage I had on hand was a Portuguese sausage. It looks kind of like kielbasa but mine was just one long piece. I split it down the middle length wise then split those halves down lengthwise as well. I chopped them up in little bits and tossed them in with the veggies. I stirred it around and cooked them until the sausage started to brown a little. I turned off the burner and did a final stir. I grabbed the bowl of beans and stirred them in to the pot. I used what I had left of a box of chicken stock (I'd say about 2 cups or so left in there) and filled the rest with water until the mixer in the pot was completely covered. I then put it in the oven for about 30 minutes.

This is what it looked like when it was done (and I stirred it up a little.)



It...is...DELICIOUS! Oh my...I ate two bowls! I never eat that much soup in one sitting! I have tons left over and am going to take some over to my Dad this weekend.








I was already in love with the Dutch oven at this point. I was so excited to try my next recipe! I decided I would do a No Knead Bread recipe I found online. It only has four ingredients and its little to no work. YES PLEASE!

I followed the recipe and it looked like a blob of goop when I was done but that's what the site said it would look like so I figured I was doing it right. I then put it on top of the fridge with a towel over it to proof for the 6-8 hours (I let it go overnight.)

Bread Blob of Doom

Guarded by a Scottie Dog and Cow on top of the fridge

The recipe says to turn the dough out on a cookie sheet sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. I took one of my silpats and sprayed that down, turned the blob on to it and formed it in to a loose ball. I then sprayed the top with the cooking spray like the directions said to. I used Butter Crisco spray for this step. I covered it up and let it rise again for the additional half hour. This is what it looked like when I removed the towel.

Once its doubled in size...and spread out!

Big old blob! I was a little scared at this point. I've never had bread dough look like this! I thought...what the hay. Nothing ventured nothing gained. The instructions said to preheat the Dutch oven with the oven, so when the preheat timer beeped I rolled that blob into the hot pan and put the lid on. I went about the house to do other things for the half hour it took to bake. I then came back and removed the lid for the additional 15 minutes for browning. This was what it looked like in the pot when I took it out of the oven and then what it looked like sliced.

This bread is so delicious! Eeee! And easy! I knew at that point I was going to try the other recipe from that site I pinned on Christmas...Braised French Onion Chicken with Gruyère.

I'm a bad girl and didn't follow these instructions to the letter, but I was close enough. I did as they suggested and used two skillets to cook the onions and brown the chicken before hand.

I put the butter in the pan and tossed the onions in and let them start browning. I love the smell of sauteed onions! Oh my word! I just used a little salt and pepper in with them to get some flavor in there. I let them go for about a half hour to get nice and caramelized. This picture was taken about halfway through the process. Once they were close to being done I tossed in some Herbes de Provence to go with the "French onion" theme. I didn't use the exact seasonings the recipe called for. Again, I kinda do my own thing when I cook.

Once they got nice and caramel coloured I added about a cup of chicken stock. I used my little spatula to scrape up any lovely brown bits and stir it in. I let it simmer for a little bit longer then poured the mixture into the Dutch oven.

Now while the onion party was happening on the stove I decided to clean up the boneless skinless chicken thighs I had. I trimmed off some fat, washed them and patted them dry. I put them in a dish and coated them with Hawaiian sea salt and some fresh ground pepper. I kind of massaged the seasoning into the chicken to make sure it was evenly covered. I then put another skillet on the stove and got that heated up. The recipe calls for browning the chicken on each side, so I did that.

Wee browning chickens! It took about 3 or 4 minutes on each side. I did three or four pieces at a time. I was able to tend to the onions at the same time so this process all went pretty quick for me. Once you are done browning the chicken you put the pieces on top of the onions in the Dutch oven. You then take an additional cup of stock and put it in the chicken pan making sure to scrape up any of the browned bits in to the stock and reduce it for a bit. You also add some balsamic vinegar and Dijon mustard to kind of thicken it up a bit.

Once you are done reducing the stock (I used Swanson no salt stock, I like to add my own seasonings to things so this was a nice find!) you pour it over the chicken and onions in the Dutch oven. It looks kind of like a watery mess when you put it in but you are braising the chicken...so the liquid is needed. You then put the lid on the sucker and stick it in the oven.

I took this time to clean up a bit then grate the cheese. The recipe calls for Gruyère. I can't remember if I'd ever tasted it before but I'd heard of it. Mom and I went on a mission to find some and I found some Boar's Head smoked Gruyère. Fine with me! I tasted it, kind of reminds me of smoked Gouda. It grated very easily. The recipe calls for 2 oz of the cheese but I used half of the block I had, which would make about 4 oz. I wrapped it in wax paper and put it in the fridge until I needed it.

The chicken cooked in the oven for about a half hour. I took it out of the oven and thought, ugh this looks so ugly! It smelled good though so I plucked the chicken out and set it on a plate and put the plate in the microwave to keep it warm.

At this point you are supposed to take it out of the pot then sprinkle the cheese on top and stick it back under the broiler for 5 minutes or until the cheese has melted a bit and browned.

My mouth started watering as soon as I took the melty cheesy oniony goodness out of the oven. I used a small ladle and dished out some of the soup into a bowl and added a small piece of chicken on top. I then sliced a chunk of the bread I made earlier in the day to eat with the soup. Here is the final product..

I was making all kinds of lip smacking sounds when I ate this. I know that's horrible to say but it was SO GOOD! The chicken was cooked perfectly. The flavours all melded together perfectly. The bread sopped up the soup nicely too. This is a definite do again recipe for me!


~Robin