I'm back baby!

I found my camera!  I was sure it had been stolen on Mardi Gras because I couldn't find it anywhere, but it suddenly reappeared last week.  So apparently I was just careless.  At any rate, I have my camera again!

If you've been following along, I'm sure that you've noticed that I've been living a butter-rich lifestyle.  Well, as no one could have guessed, it took it's delicious toll.  So I'm on a diet and pretty serious workout schedule for the time being.  I may not be cooking as much for a bit, while I figure out how to cook healthy dinner via Cooking Light Recipes.  But I present to you an adapted version of this and an ice cream for the boyfriend, who got me this beautiful necklace for my birthday:

It's a little dark so you can't really see, but they're amethysts.  And yes, I'm still wearing my apron from making dinner.  At any rate, he deserved some ice cream!  But first, dinner:

Wine-Braised Chicken with Grapes

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

1/8 tsp. cinnamon

4-5 chicken thighs

2 Tbsp. butter

3/4 cup chopped onion

5 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup white wine (I used some Barefoot something or other)

1/3 cup chicken broth (low sodium, fat free)

1 Tbsp. apple juice (optional)

1/2 tsp. dried sage

  salt to taste

  pepper to taste

1 cup green grapes, halved

1. Combine salt, pepper, and cinnamon.
2. Heat pan over medium-high.  Melt butter.  When butter just begins to brown, it's ready.
3. Sprinkle seasoning on one side of chicken thigh and place in the pan, seasoning side down.  Repeat with all the other chicken thighs.  Sprinkle the remaining seasoning on the exposed side of the chicken.
4. Cook chicken until brown and crispy on both sides.  Remove to a plate and set aside.
5. Add onions to the pan.  Cook about 4-5 minutes or until soft and translucent.
6. Add garlic, cook 1-2 minutes or until fragrant.
7. Add wine and cook until reduced by about half (leaning in favor of more reduced).
8. Add sage, salt, and pepper (I like to put 7-8 turns of the grinder of each in at this stage).  Stir.  Add stock and juice.  Bring to a boil.
9. Return chicken to the pan (if you haven't removed the skin, put it in skin-side up).  Cover and cook 12 minutes.
10. Add grapes.  Recover and cook 8 minutes or until chicken is done.

Serving suggestion:  Chop a (smallish yukon gold) potato fairly small, like homestyle hash browns.  Heat a pan over medium (do this when you heat the pan for the chicken).  Spray with cooking spray.  Add potatoes.  Spray potatoes with cooking spray.  Sprinkle with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder.  Stir to distribute.  Cook almost the entire time the chicken is cooking, stirring periodically.  This should give you potatoes that are soft and crispy.

And for dessert...

Milk Chocolate Brownie Chip Ice Cream

300 ml whole milk

200 ml heavy cream

1/2 cup sugar, minus 1 Tbsp.

4 egg yolks

4 oz. milk chocolate, chopped

2 tsp. honey

1 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 tsp. coffee extract

     pinch fleur de sel

1/4 cup mini chocolate chips (semisweet)

6 mini brownies, chopped into smallish chunks (I used the Two Bite kind, but you could use the Entenmann's mini brownies if you can't find anything fresh.  Alternatively, use full-sized unfrosted brownies and just put in as much as you want.)

1. Heat milk and cream in a saucepan over medium until scalded.  Remove from heat.  Whisk in chocolate and honey until melted and fully incorporated.
2. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together egg yolks and sugar.
3. Temper the egg mixture by pouring in just a little bit of the cream mixture while whisking.  Bit by bit, add the cream mixture while whisking until everything is incorporated.  If you are at all unclear about how to do this watch an instructional video.  It is crucial.  Otherwise, you'll have a bowl of scrambled eggs.
4. Return the mixture to the saucepan over LOW heat.  I cannot emphasize this enough.  Cook the mixture, stirring constantly with a spatula-- be sure to scrape the bottom when you stir.  Cook until the mixture coats the back of a spoon, which looks like this.
5. Remove from heat immediately.  Whisk in vanilla, coffee extract, and fleur de sel.
6. Transfer to a small bowl.  Chill in the fridge 2-4 hours.  Alternatively, if you're impatient like me, put it in the freezer until it's noticeably chilled.  If you take the freezer route, make sure you stir it every 20 minutes or so, scraping the sides of the bowl.  When in doubt, let it chill longer.
7. When the custard is chilled, freeze according to your ice cream maker's directions.
8. When the custard has frozen almost to the desired consistency, add chocolate chips and brownie bits.  Let everything mix for about 5 minutes.
9. Transfer ice cream to an airtight container and freeze until set, a few hours.