What I did for the Fourth of July

In short, I cooked.
I Love to cook. In this case, the Hostess wanted a less meat-centric meal. No, I don't know why either, but I love cooking so this gave me something to stretch a rusty knowledgebase.

They had some chicken breasts all ready, so I thought waaaayyyyy back to the terrible year of 2002. Around that time I had a dinner with my girlfriend at the times' family. Her mother made some chicken roll things that were fantastic. So that was going to be the meat portion of the meal.

Next was the vegetable dish. Less than a month ago her neighbor's daughter had graduated high school and she had a small barbeque get together to celebrate. I was fortunate enough to be invited and I got to sample a dish of simmered vegetables that was quite delicious. So that's the vegetables accounted for.

Finally, for the filling portion of the meal we decided on a staple. Mashed potatoes. I am quite adept at mashed potatoes.

I'll walk you through what I did, as I added some twists to the original recipes.

First the vegetables. The original mix was cabbage, onion, potato, and mushroom. Mushrooms aren't popular at this house, so those are out, cabbage I generally don't deal with, and the potatoes were spoken for. The vegetable mix we had was carrots, green beans, and onions.

Now, one of my philosophies regarding vegetables is that for cooking, you should try to cut them so that they're all of uniform length, width, and thickness. This philosophy comes entirely from a anime I watched back in 2001 called Master Cooking Boy. I rarely manage to do this, but by setting it as a rule of thumb my vegetables end up evenly cooked.

Picture series:

Carrots

Green Beans

Onions

Final Mix

Vegetable mix in pouch and ready to go

So in each of the pouches, aside from the vegetable mix, is a tablespoon of bacon fat, a teaspoon of salt, and a teaspoon of black pepper. As two of the three vegetables end up rather sweet after cooking that covers the sweetness flavor. Salt was added for of course salty flavor. Black pepper covered the spicy flavor which is particularly good to have in hot and humid environments (thanks again Master Cooking Boy!). For savory we have bacon fat. I wish I had my shaker of MSG so that I could have added the umami flavor, but four out of five ain't bad.

They will be cooked in the oven along with the meat dish.

Next, I'll do a short walk through of the mashed potatoes. I think most people already know how to make these, so just a couple pics and a block of text after.

Guess I took less pictures than I thought

So I cut those guys into cubes (leaving the skins on. Usually I Peel those off first, but not when I use red potatoes) and put them in the pot. I filled the pot with cold water and mixed them around by hand until the water was cloudy. Then I drained that water and refilled with cold water. I added a tablespoon of salt and brought the pot to a rolling boil on high, then reduced the heat until the water was between a simmer and a boil. Cooked for about fifteen minutes, and the cubes passed the fork test (where you stab at a chunk of potato and if the fork goes all the way through, they're done). I drained the potatoes, and in a mixing bowl I added a half pound of butter, a ¼cup of whole milk, and the potatoes. Using a hand mixer I blended them until smooth with an even consistency.

Mashed Potatoes
These came out perfectly. They were thick and filling, very buttery, and made a fantastic staple

Vegetable Medley
These were a little undercooked. Just a bit too crispy really. Another 15 minutes in the oven would've probably fixed that. The flavor was on point though.

The chicken rolls:
First I cut the chicken widthwise, you want thin chicken for this, as it makes it easier to roll later.

These were still a little thick, but still manageable.

Then layer it with cheese, try to cover the chicken evenly.

Add a leaf of basil in the middle of the cheese. I forgot this step while cooking today.

Add one slice of bacon across the entire length.

Then trim off the bacon that extends past the chicken.

Roll them up, and hold in place with toothpicks. Place on the pan so that the exposed tail is face down or else they'll uncurl as they cook. If you have a grill or slotted sheet that will allow the liquid to drain off you should use it. They still turn out OK if you don't have that though.

I preheated the oven to 375°F and put in the vegetables and chicken rolls. They cooked for about 45 minutes, at which point the rolls were done. I also removed the vegetables at this point, but they came out a little too firm. I would recommend you leave them in for an extra 15 minutes.

Chicken Rolls
These were good. Not as great as I remembered, and that's my fault. I forgot to use basil. I should've popped out to her garden and gotten a couple large leaves and put one between the bacon and cheese in each of them. Would've added a lightness to the flavor, which as it was, was kinda savory heavy.

So that's what I did for the fourth of July this year.

This post was drafted and posted through eSteem. An app by @good-karma. That made it really easy to catch the various errors I made before I posted it.