You see last night we had bacon wrapped chicken with a side of salad. That's right folks, I served Ox salad...AND HE ATE IT ALL!
I'd like to thank the academy and all the little people that helped me in this win:
First of all - Balance Rock Farm - God bless you and the most amazing bacon on the planet. We picked this up at the local farmer's market last weekend and I've got to tell you I can't wait to taste the eggs we scored and the myriads of other face this amazing local farm offers. This bacon really sealed the deal. Since Balance Rock is so close I hope to go visit the farm one of these days to thank them personally!
Our second amazing players in this symphony of local flavors are the AMAZING greens. Olivia's Organics is an amazing local company that packages greens in such wonderful medleys of flavors that I find myself eating them without dressing, just to taste the amazingness. Which is IN FACT how I served it to Ox last night - just a handful of beautiful Olivia's Organics topped with the following leading character....
Golden Beets. Have you had them? I hadn't - they're perfection. Also one of our purchases from the farmer's market this weekend...these bad boys sliced up into such beautiful color and complemented the smokey goodness of the miracle bacon...it was truly a flavor symphony. I fear I've forgotten the name of the exact farm I got these from but click here for a list of most of the vendors at the local market I was at. I know Nagog Hill Farm was also there as I got some amazing Pears and Peaches from them too!
Anyway - the recipe I made was a twist off of an all recipes classic: Bacon Wrapped Chicken.
I opted instead to simplify and just cut the chicken breasts in half, wrap in the most amazing bacon ever and put them in cake pans (random, yes). I then emptied 1/2 a can of condensed cream of mushroom soup into each cake pan (count - 2) and then poured over it the glops (technical term) of soup to make a sauce to bake the chicken in. Then I popped these bad boys into the oven at 325F for an hour.
Once the chicken was good and cooked (after the hour) I removed the pans and used a slotted spoon to pull the chicken out of the sauce and put on a plate for later. The bacon smell was intoxicating, but I fought through. I combined the sauces into one cake pan, then I put that on a burner on the stove to reduce. I added about 2 tablespoons of cream to the sauce then put it at a simmer.
In the end, I plated the chicken, drizzled it with the sauce (remember the most amazing bacon cooked in this sauce...flavoring it perfectly) then had a handful of the greens topped with golden beet slices. Perfect. Meal.
I'm not only proud of this meal because Ox actually ate it and said it was good. But also because a lot of the players in this meal are local. Meaning - less fuel cost to get them to me, they're actually naturally in season - so picked recently and not rotting on trucks for weeks AND I'm supporting my local economy -- all while having a foodgasm. It doesn't get much better.
Currently, on the commute to work I'm reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - it probably inspired several of my comments above. In general, it promotes a local food culture and I'm buying in 100%. Funny enough - I've had the book for sometime and couldn't get into it. But once I moved out to the new digs, away from the city and into a community founded around farming it suddenly began speaking to me. It's a great read and certainly offers up a new view on why eating locally isn't just food snobbery, it's common-sense.
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