Tag Archives: Chicken

Chicago, Chicago, That Toddlin’ Town

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Before I start, I just have to put this question out there….what on earth is a toddlin’ town?

All that aside, however, I felt as though I was in Chicago on Saturday. Bill and I spent the day at Arizona’s own Wrigleyville in Mesa.

The Cubs have been holding their spring training in Mesa for 50 years. For those 50 years, it has worked well, because half of the retired population of Illinois comes to Mesa during the winter. In fact, I think a full third of all of the people I complain about blocking the aisles in the grocery stores and holding up the lines in the restaurants are boasting Illinois license plates and Go Illini bumper stickers. And let’s just be really honest. Most of the people who live in Illinois are Cubs fans. A few die-hards that live on the south side of Chicago root for the White Sox, but during baseball season, everyone is a Cubs fan. They proudly wear their t-shirts that say 1908 World Champions.

However, a few years ago, in this day and age of big sports money, the Cubs organization gave the City of Mesa a real scare. Give us some big time tax dollars or we will move our spring training to Florida, who really, really wants us, they told the city fathers and mothers. Yikes.

So, with great foresight and even greater spending money, the city underwent a massive marketing campaign, asking the citizens of Mesa to approve a tax increase to fund a brand new facility that they refer to as Little Wrigleyville. The powers-that-be promised the city would benefit from more people coming to spend their hard-earned dollars in Mesa, and a great deal of urban beautification.

The citizens of Mesa, despite the trend towards turning down every single attempt at tax increases, passed this measure handily, and the new Wrigleyville is the result. Saturday was their grand opening – a free event to show the people of Mesa what their hard-earned tax dollars have built.

And it is beautiful.

Bill and I started off our day at Portillo’s – a well-known Chicago eatery that features hot dogs and Italian beef sandwiches and crispy onion rings and hot French fries and, as an afterthought, a few salads. The first Arizona Portillo’s opened a couple of years ago in Scottsdale, just north of the Salt River Stadium where the D-Backs and the Rockies have their spring training. A few months ago, they opened a second location near the Cubs facility. Brilllllllliant!

I think anyone who had ever even cut across the corner of Illinois was present on Saturday to see the new facility, Bill and me included of course. Our tummies full of hot dogs and Italian beef sandwiches, we walked around and saw the ball field, sat in the seats, tried out the restrooms, scoped out our seats for the games for which we have already gotten tickets – one in February, one in March. A full half of the people were dressed in Cubs shirts and/or hats. There were actual tailgaters, apparently getting into practice for the real spring training season that will be here before you know it. Brats and Old Style beer abounded.

The weather was perfect and the crowd was in a great mood. We had a great deal of fun and it got us in the mood for the spring training season.

Go Rockies! (But don’t tell the Cubs I said so.)

In honor of long-time Chicago Cubs announcer Harry Caray, here is his recipe for a good ol’ Chicago favorite.

Harry Caray’s Chicken Vesuvio

Ingredients
1 cup frozen peas
2 whole cleaned (4 pound) roasting chickens
1 cup olive oil
4 large Idaho potatoes
10 cloves whole garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon dry oregano
1 tablespoon granulated garlic
1/3 cup chopped parsley
1 1/2 cups dry white wine
1 1/2 cups chicken broth

Process
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Blanch the peas by putting them in boiling water 1 minute. Joint each chicken into 8 pieces. Peel the potatoes and cut them into quarters lengthwise. In a large roasting pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the potatoes and garlic cloves and sauté the potatoes until golden brown, stirring so they cook evenly. Remove the garlic cloves from the roasting pan and discard them. Remove the potatoes and set aside.

Add the chicken to the pan and sauté lightly on both sides of each piece until it is golden brown. Deglaze the pan with the wine and reduce by half.

Return the potatoes to the pan. Season the potatoes and chicken with the salt, pepper, oregano, granulated garlic, and parsley. Add the chicken broth and transfer the pan to the oven for 45 minutes or until the chicken reaches an internal temperature of 155 degrees.
Place the chicken on a serving plate and arrange the potatoes around the chicken. Pour the sauce from the pan over the chicken and sprinkle the peas on top.

Nana’s Notes: I use chicken thighs, and cut the recipe by at least half. I leave out the peas Bill is not a big fan of the pea, and they really are mainly for color. Giada De Laurentis suggests artichoke hearts or lima beans, but I think either of those would just be showing off, so I leave out a vegetable. I prepare the dish in an oven-safe skillet to roast, or prepare the dish in the skillet and then move it to a roasting pan to finish.

Third Born

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I’m a middle child. There are four of us in our family –three sisters and, finally, to our dad’s great relief, a son. I am second born.

There are numerous studies that indicate that birth order impacts each child uniquely. First-born children, for example, are ambitious and feel responsible for solving all of the problems in the family (maybe even the world?). Second-borns want to please everyone. Third-borns, well, they just fight for what they get, and mostly they get what’s left.

Our middle son has four kids, ages 10, 8, 7, and 5 – girl, boy, girl, girl. Because of the sheer number of kids, and because our son and daughter-in-law are determined that their children appreciate all that they have, there are lots of hand-me-downs. It’s just inevitable, especially with all those girls. This photo, by the way, is missing the youngest who was likely in the warming hut with Mom.

Recently the kids tried on their ski clothing and equipment to see what fit, what didn’t, and what needed to be bought. As it turns out, the littlest one hadn’t grown a bit (she’s a wee bit of a thing), but the others were all in need of at least some sort of new clothing and/or equipment. But, unfortunately for the third-born, her brother’s old clothes and equipment fit her perfectly. Her mom told me that little Miss Third-Born wept real tears when she learned that she was going to have to wear her brother’s old clothes and equipment on the slopes this winter. Boy’s clothes. With her brother and older sister sporting shiny new duds. Argh. The unfairness of being a third-born.

Of course, when Mom told Nana, I wanted to weep real tears as well. Instead, I headed to the sporting goods store to buy Dagny some bright pink ski mittens. A girl has to have some pride.

Now I know absolutely nothing about ski duds, not being a skier myself. I was studying my choices when a nice young man came over and asked if I needed help. I proceeded to begin to tell him the story of these four grandkids and their ski clothes and how my poor little 7-year-old was getting the short end of the stick because she was going to have to wear her brother’s clothes and yada, yada, yada. I suspect I went into a bit too much detail because, though I have heard the phrase used before, this time I literally saw this young man’s eyes glaze over. He couldn’t possibly have cared less that my granddaughter had to wear her brother’s clothes, except for the fact that it might mean he could sell me a new pair of ski mittens. It made me laugh at myself.

Dagny got her pink mittens, and some socks to boot.

Today’s fall dinner offering:

Coq Au Vin

Ingredients
4 slices of bacon
1 whole chicken, cut into pieces
Salt and pepper to taste
1 medium onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. butter
1 lb. mushrooms, sliced
2 c. red wine

Process
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Fry the bacon in a large skillet until crisp. Remove from the pan, crumble it, and let it drain.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper, then place the chicken pieces fat side down into the skillet and cook in the bacon grease until brown. Turn over and cook the other side. Remove from pan and set aside in a baking dish, skin side up.

Sauté the onion, carrots and garlic in the skillet with the bacon grease until onions are translucent and garlic is fragrant, about 3 minutes. Remove from pan and add to the baking dish with the chicken. Add 2 T. butter to the skillet and cook the mushrooms until golden. Add to the baking dish with the chicken and the onion/carrot/garlic mix.

Drain grease from the skillet, then place over medium heat. Pour in 2 c. of red wine, using a wire whisk to loosen all the goodies from the bottom of the pan. Salt the liquid and cook for three minutes to allow wine to decrease. Pour the wine over the chicken and vegetables in the baking pan. Cover and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Serve over buttered noodles or mashed potatoes.