That bourbon mustard sauce...

I woke up so miserable from this wretched barely-there cold that I called Bettina to bewail my misery.  She is very experienced in enduring never-ending colds.  After putting Vick's on my pillow (because I forget to use it), I took Amos outside to tend his business.  And then I tended to my part of his business, having neglected to clear the yard for far longer than I care to admit.

Once back inside, I decided that I was going to tackle my bourbon recipe, even though I really, really, really wanted to crawl back into bed and wait for this cold to be over.

Doesn't that just look amazing???  It has to marinate in the refrigerator for at least two hours, so I started a batch of Chipotle Chicken Chili.

In part, I had decided to make the chili because that would mean less chicken I had to put into ziploc bags after I "processed" the two large packages I purchased the other day.  My understanding of skinless definitely does not match that of chicken manufacturers.  Since I divide up the larger packages into smaller portions, I take the time to trim all the pieces.  It is rather tedious and messy, but makes for quicker cooking later.  By making the chili, I could just chop up four of the trimmed breasts instead of trying to get them into ziploc bags without getting raw chicken on the outside of the bag.

Before starting, I sharpened my boning knife.
I love Henckels.

When I was at the store the other day, knowing the chili was the lowest stock in my freezer, I briefly considered buying the three cans of beans, the can of tomatoes, and the can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce needed for the recipe.  But thinking that I like to keep an emergency set of those ingredients I decided against tossing those items into my cart.  That was a good decision.  Clearly those particular ingredients are part of my larder anxiety for I had three sets of them at home!

Once the chili was nearing completion and the chicken nearly finished marinating, I gave some thought to how I might make the parsnips that have been rather lonely in my refrigerator for some time.

I don't care if anyone else doesn't like these, but my Parsnips with Brown Butter Sage turned out rather tasty, in my opinion.  I liked that I came up with a way to incorporate some of the herbs from my raised bed and the same dark brown sugar that I used in the chicken recipe.  I had been wavering about just trying out a parsnips with sage cream recipe, but I thought the cream sauce might not go well with the bourbon mustard sauce.  My recipe, I think, is a good match.

Now, you can see that I am not really that much a believer in pounding chicken flat.  My boning knife makes quick work of creating two fillets from a single breast.  I think that it is better to just leave them as cut, if cut carefully.  I think that when you pound chicken, you take away some of its tenderness in the end result.

Once the chicken is cooked, you set it aside to rest and cook the marinade at a rapid boil to take care of the fact that raw meat was sitting in it.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!

I decided to put my Chicken with Mustard Bourbon Sauce and Parsnips with Brown Butter Sage on one of my special china plates to cheer me up a bit.  All that cooking was rather tiring.

Yes, the sauce was heavenly!

In the recipe, you had the option of making 4 servings or 6, by using either 2 or 3 chicken breasts.  As I note in the recipe, I am a sauce-a-holic.  By that I mean that, if I have sauce in a dish, I want that sauce on each and every bite.  So, to err on the side of a plethora of sauce, I made just 4 servings of the chicken.  However, on the recipe I wrote it for 6 servings.  Even for a sauce-a-holic, there would be plenty of sauce if you marinated and cooked two more fillets.  Of course, you would need to cook the chicken in a large sauteuse pan instead of the medium one I used.

I have one more bottle of moscato wine from that gifting of last year.  I wish I had remembered to chill it.  I think that would have rounded out my meal nicely.  However, I do have three more servings in the freezer to savor later.  Perhaps, for one of those meals, I will remember to open the wine.

The jars of chipotle chicken chili are in the basement freezer.  The containers of my two new recipes are in the kitchen freezer.  And the kitchen is all cleaned.  Needless to say, Amos and I are now languishing in the GREEN chair.  I am all tuckered out from cooking.  Amos is all tuckered out from missing me and pre-cleaning every dish possible.  In case you are wondering, Amos is also a fan of bourbon mustard sauce.

I am too weary for another fire tonight.  So, I will just have to savor one of the umpteen photos I took last night.  I was watching the bed of coals catch fire to the bottom of the fresh wood I put on the pile.  I never get tire of waiting for that burst of flame that follows the build-up of smoke.  Just when you think you need to add a bit of paper or something ... whoosh!  Older fires have such a lovely bed of coals radiating waves of comforting heat.

BLISS.