Spaghetti with chicken tenders in curried chicken broth

I'm culling the contents of the refrigerator and was delighted to discover a package of mushrooms that I previously opened and carefully re-packaged rolled in paper towel so that they'd be both aerated and protected from the, um, air.  Having forgotten them, I expected they'd be entirely turned to mush.  Not so, they were perfectly fresh.  Fresh as a daisy.  Fresh as a baby's bum.  Fresh as a ... as a ... as something that's totally fresh.  I also found half a small zucchini.  Well.  There you go.  My course of action was determined.

Leftover chicken tenders in curried chicken broth seasoned with a mix of two curries, which sounds like a lot but isn't because scant amounts of both were used. Plus pineapple because I'm also culling the freezer, and regular spaghetti this time instead of spinach spaghetti.  Over night in the refrigerator, the broth turned into sauce so I just left it like that.  Lifted the noodles out of their cooking water, rolled them in butter, then with Parmigiano Reggiano, then covered with reheated sauce.

This was so delicious, it's a shame it only comes around once in ever, if you know what I mean. It can never be duplicated exactly, although the careless idea can be recycled.

Spinach-spaghetti in curried chicken broth

Chimi-Churi is the Spice Boys way of spelling Chimichurri, a blend originating in Argentina and popular in Latin American countries. It's said to be derived from the name Jimmy McCurry, an Irishman living in Argentina. Other stories vying as authentic all involve the difficulty of Argentineans pronouncing an Irish name, or a similar Scottish name or yet another similar English name. The blend contains chopped parsley, garlic, vegetable oil, vinegar, pepper flakes, paprika, oregano, cumin, and bay, that is to say, pretty much anything, or not, in other words, a curry. Another explanation for the name is a distortion of the sound "Gim'e the curry."

So there's that, and that being insufficiently complex I added a smidge of proper Vindaloo curry. Satisfied the combination of curries would confuse my taste buds enough to keep them interested I added peanut butter and pineapple to seared chicken tenders. Homemade chicken broth thickened with corn starch slurry. Poured over spinach spaghetti pasta. Does that sound good or what? No? It's a bit hot. Here, have a look.

Chicken supremes a la meunier

Chicken tenders dusted with Madras curry flavored flour lightly sautéed in coconut oil. Coconut oil based chicken gravy flavored with poultry seasoning proprietary to Spice Boys, Denver. They're two blocks from my house, so what the heck.

I am love, love, love'n this Tropical Traditions Black Label® coconut oil. It's a keeper. Contrary to presumption, it does not make everything taste like coconut.

Mix curry powder with flour and S/P. Flatten chicken tenders with a pounder. Dust with flour mixture. Sauté in coconut oil.

Remove tenders from the pan, add a teaspoon of flour to excess oil and heat through to thoroughly cook the flour. Toss in three or so frozen cubes of homemade chicken broth. Stir until sauce forms and ice completely melts, about 2 minutes.

Dressing = olive oil +raspberry vinegar + S/P

Does it get any simpler than this? No! It doesn't.

Chicken tenders, salad

Chicken tenders dusted with flour and seasoning, a la meuniere, in the manner of the miller’s wife, because she was always most likely to have flour around given her husband is in the business.

I intend to eat mostly chicken and seafood for a while and to that aim I bought a metric ton of chicken tenders. ← possible exaggeration of 725%. It was really a 4LB bag or something like that, but it's huge I tell you. Chicken tenders, or supremes, are the lean tender strips found on the underside of the chicken breast. It’s a separate portion from the breast but attached to it with connective tissue. I suppose they’re analogous to tenderloin on beef or pork. I’ve never seen a whole bag of them before, much less a gigantic bag, so I bought them, instead of chicken breasts which sometimes are too big. They're frozen. They cook within minutes.

The tenders were cooked with the glowing warmth that I feel for the industrialists that bring battery chickens to our tables and sizzling butter on a medium hot stove top, but mostly with sizzling butter on a medium hot stove top.

Salad with the usual vinaigrette but with garlic and ginger powder added because I’m lazy tonight and didn’t feel like grating those things. I probably used a little too much rice vinegar and mustard. If this were a competition on Top Chef one of those guys would ding me for that. And you know what? That kind of pisses me off sometimes because those judges who are so judgmental in their judgements, not just on Top Chef, but on Chopped, Iron Chefs, various other challenges, you never see them cook anything. Maybe they run a magazine or wrote a book or two or ten, but damn, we never see their own mad cooking skillz in action so how are we to accept they're qualified as judges? Just say'n. Sometimes cooks we have seen in action become judges on occasion so they're not the ones I'm remarking on. Although, they've all had their own disasters. It's those snotty nose little know-it-all pissants saying what they like and what they don't like that get me. It's all so arbitrary. I'd be a terrible contestant, I'd be all, "Well, let me see you do it, Bitch." At home, I imitate their voices. I exaggerate their vocal foibles then imagine words they'd never actually say just to ridicule them unfairly. It's impulsive and if I did that within a competition, well, I'd never be asked back. Confirmation dog shows are completely arbitrary too. The biases present are astounding. The judges never ever pick a Belgian sheepdog for best of show even though there's always a Groenendale and a Tervuren right there in the ring, and often a Malinois or Laekenois, and they're always totally mind-blowingly awesome.