I am REALLY REALLY proud of myself. I made jelly last night. Mason-type jars, two-part lids, boiling-water processed and all! And it set up! And it tastes wonderful! And I’m just so tickled!!

My grandmother canned like a fiend. She and my grandfather had a small farm — a few acres of fruits and vegetables grown mostly for personal use but they’d sell the surplus at a roadside stand. So everything got canned (my mouth still waters at the memory of her peach-peeling pies).

Home canning is something of a lost art these days. I know I am completely intimidated by the idea of poisoning my family and friends. But when I stumbled across a recipe for wine jelly over at America’s Test Kitchen Feed, I got to thinking, maybe I **can** do this (no pun intended). So I did a bunch of reading. I bought some jars, a canning kit, the Ball Blue Book. I lurked on the web. I identified a bottle of wine. And finally, last night, I carved out some time to Make Some Wine Jelly.

Which allowed me, this morning, to eat some with cornbread:

I’m imagining this spread on cream cheese on a bagel. Or served with bacon-and-blue-cheese biscuits. Or slathered on a round of warm brie. Oh my — sounds like I need to get baking!

This was my first batch, so consider this a brag post   I am such a newbie at this that I can’t in good conscience tell you HOW to do it, but the DEFINITIVE source for home canning instructions is the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning [this is the 2009 version — not sure if a newer one is available].

Yes, I like to cook things that are a stretch — some new ingredient or a new technique or something complicated that dirties up 10 pans. But Not Every Day. I have a full-time job and sometimes I work late. Sometimes I don’t get to the grocery store. Sometimes I eat cereal for dinner, or grab fast food on the way home, or order in pizza. I am NOT an ambitious cook 7 nights a week!

So what’s in an everyday meal? First of all, I try to keep my pantry well-stocked with non-perishable and slow-to-perish staples. I try to have some sort of long-life protein in the fridge (breakfast meats) or else in the freezer for quick thaw (shrimp) or overnight thaw (roasts). I also try to keep some versatile frozen veggies like broccoli or green beans. These plus pasta or rice makes up that American standard – meat + starch + veg, right?

So we recently returned from the West Coast on a red-eye. We went to bed immediately and slept until early afternoon. Nobody wanted to go to the store, so I looked to the pantry for inspiration. I had some diced pancetta, so that plus eggs, shallots, cheese, and olives yielded a simple but substantial fritatta. I had some cranberries and dates in the fridge, so those plus basic baking stuff became a not-too-sweet cranberry-date-nut bread (and I took half of the loaf to the lovely neighbors who picked up my mail because the post office screwed up and delivered it anyway).

Last night was Date Night, but since we’re about to go on travel again, pickin’s were slim. I had some baby bok choy, cilantro, and 1/3 of a red pepper left over from a very successful Filipino-inspired pancit earlier in the week. I had some corn tortillas in the pantry. And shrimp and some random pineapple in the freezer. So I quick-thawed about a pound of the shrimp and then marinated them for about an hour in the fridge in a tablespoon EACH of tequila, lime juice, and olive oil. The evening before (so SOME thinking ahead!), I had prepped a quick salsa with the pineapple (prob 1/2 cup crushed in its own juice), a small shallot, the last of that red pepper, some of the cilantro, lime juice, and SALT. So when ready to eat — preheat oven to 375F, throw the shrimp on a foil-lined pan and sprinkle with some taco seasoning, then roast off the shrimp for 5 to 8 minutes (more detailed instructions here). Warm your totillas in a dry skillet or the microwave. Dress them with thinly sliced bok choy (or cabbage or lettuce), shredded pepper jack cheese (or monterey or cheddar), the hot shrimp, the pineapple salsa (or bought salsa or hot sauce), and some cilantro (or not).

What a funny word, right? Spatchcock? No, I don’t rightly know where the word comes from. Sounds vaguely Olde English. In any case, it’s just a way of describing how you prepare a fowl (chicken, turkey, etc) for cooking by cutting out the backbone and flattening it out. Plus it makes people giggle.

Why spatchcock? Well, it can cut down on your cooking time when cooking a whole bird. It can be easier to flip/maneuver a whole (albeit large) piece of chicken rather than eight or more individual pieces. Also, it allows you to properly season the chicken both inside and out, because you now have full access to the interior of the chicken. Finally, this seems to be the way to cook a chicken so that the white and the dark get done at the SAME TIME!! I’m totally sold on the technique.

Spatchcock Chicken
Serves 4

1 whole chicken, 4 to 5 pounds
Olive oil
Lime juice
Kosher salt
Fresh ground pepper
Indian spice mix (I use Penzey’s Tandoori Seasoning)
Ground chile powder (I use ground chipotle)

Prepare your spice rub: Pour a couple of good glugs of olive oil in a small bowl. Add a couple of squirts of lime juice. Add a couple of teaspoons of kosher salt. Add a goodly amount of ground pepper. Add a tablespoon or two of Indian spice mix. Add a spare amount of chile powder — depends on your palate — could be 1/8 teaspoon to 1/2 teaspoon. Mix it all together — you are aiming for a gloppy paste. If it’s too thin, add a little more India spice mix. If it’s too thick, add a little more oil or lime juice.

On to the bird! Stick your hand up the chicken’s you know what and check for and remove the giblets. Put them aside. I’m a fan of the liver, the CGP likes the kidneys, and the dog gets the heart.

Turn the bird belly side down so the back is up. Using your poultry shears, cut up one side of the backbone, from arse to neck. I usually start up the right since I’m right-handed. Rotate the bird 180 degrees, and cut down the OTHER side of the backbone from neck to arse. Save that backbone for stock. Your bird should look something like the one to the right.

Now, put use your hands to open that chicken like a book. You should hear a slight crack on the underside, but you can open her up, flatten her out, and flip her over like the pictures below. Slather the spice rub all over, top and bottom. Loosen the skin over the breast and thighs and smear some spice paste under the skin too.

Wash your hands like crazy. Now’s the time to prep your grill and get it heating. Let the chicken hang out on the counter up to an hour. The rest time will help the seasonings do their thang.

Aim for 375F. Put the chicken skin side down on the grate. Shut the lid and ignore it for 20 minutes (except to make sure it didn’t get above 400F). Open the grill, flip the bird over, and walk away for another 20 minutes. Now’s the time to get your meat thermometer. You need to measure a thigh in it’s meatiest place — you are looking for 165F. Check the breast too — again — 165F. Check again at 5 or 10 minute intervals if the bird needs a little more time.

This was a particularly busty bird. The thighs hit 165F before the breasts were ready. I just pulled them off (the joints gave no resistance — just needed to trim the skin a bit with a small paring knife) and let the breasts go another 10 minutes. Served with char-grilled brocco-flower (drizzled with olive oil, salt, pepper, and tandoori seasoning) and some garlic naan from the freezer of my local Southeast Asian market.