There is comfort food, and there is Extreme Comfort Food. Comfort food includes things like pastina, and eggs with soldiers, and macaroni and cheese in any form. Extreme comfort food is what you make when times call for desperate measures. I'm talking shredded chicken. I'm talking buttered cream sauce. I'm talking pouring all of that over mashed potatoes and surrounding it with peas.
Extreme Comfort Food is what is called for when your teenager...the baby you birthed for hours on end, the toddler who called you Mama and held your hand when you crossed the street, the grade-schooler whose hair you fixed in pigtails and whose Pokeman lunchbox you filled with millions of pb&j sandwiches, the teenager who goes with you to get your nails done and who tells you when you are singing the wrong words to Single Ladies...when she gets The Envelope.
The envelope that basically says, in several short months she is going to pack her Harry Potter books and her green nail polish and her Batman Converse sneakers and LEAVE you to go FOURTEEN HOURS away to COLLEGE.
Ever since the Envelope arrived, she's been wearing this shirt a lot.
And painting her toes in the school colors....
And throwing her arms around me and saying, "I'm going to miss you SO much, Mommy." With a big old smile on her adorable face.
Anyway, desperate times call for desperate measures. Desperate times call for chicken that is shredded and cooked in a butter cream sauce served over mashed potatoes and surrounded by peas. I'm planning to make and eat this every day for the next six months, and then I am going to drop her off and hug and kiss her 1000 times, and then cry for the entire 14 hour car ride home, including any and all rest stops. The Southern husband is already mentally preparing himself.
I'm sorry, just because you are wearing a Clemson University dog collar, it doesn't mean you get to go. You are staying right here with me. Someone's gotta do it.
Send Kleenex please.
Butter Chicken, adapted from New York Cookbook: From Pelham Bay to Park Avenue, Firehouses to Four-Star Restaurants
1. Preheat oven to 375. Rub chicken with olive oil and season with salt and pepper, and roast for about 45-50 minutes or until done. Remove from oven and let cool. Remove meat from the bone, tearing into bite-sized pieces.
2. Melt butter in large skillet. Add lemon juice, lemon zest, chicken broth and pepper and simmer for about 5 minutes. Add cream and cook, without boiling, until sauce is hot. Add chicken and cook until warmed through.
3. Place a serving of mashed potatoes in the center of each plate and surround with a ring of peas. Spoon chicken and sauce on top, and garnish with parsley. Serve at once.
- 2 chicken breasts on the bone
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 2 tablespoons minced parsley
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- Grated zest of one lemon
- Fresh ground pepper
- 1/4 cup chicken broth
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
1. Preheat oven to 375. Rub chicken with olive oil and season with salt and pepper, and roast for about 45-50 minutes or until done. Remove from oven and let cool. Remove meat from the bone, tearing into bite-sized pieces.
2. Melt butter in large skillet. Add lemon juice, lemon zest, chicken broth and pepper and simmer for about 5 minutes. Add cream and cook, without boiling, until sauce is hot. Add chicken and cook until warmed through.
3. Place a serving of mashed potatoes in the center of each plate and surround with a ring of peas. Spoon chicken and sauce on top, and garnish with parsley. Serve at once.
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