If that’s a banana in my curry, I’m plenty glad to see it.

This dish is called Voodoo Chicken because when I invented it, I was slogging through one of those dreadful snuffly colds that intensifies for weeks. I resolved to throw into one easy-to-make dish every health-inducing ingredient I could find in the kitchen. And I woke up the next morning with a bare minimum of symptoms.

Bet your chicken soup can’t say that!

It also fulfills the requirements of combining bananas and nutmeg for the January Improv Cooking Challenge at Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker.

The dish is an implausible mish-mash, which means its musical accompaniment is another implausible mish-mash that somehow works: The Caribbean (Facebook). The band’s most recent album, Discontinued Perfume (iTunes, Amazon), is a bizarre and wonderful fusion of rock, jazz, folk, lounge, and Brazilian music. Let’s preheat the oven to 350, regard some chicken breasts with a bleary eye, and check out “Mr. Let’s Find Out,” the track that’s earned the loudest critical plaudits.

Read the rest of this entry »

Froot Loop Chicken inaugurates a new series based around season 12 of American Idol. Once the show starts assigning themes in the live rounds, there’ll be recipes to match each theme… but in the mean time, look for one post a month profiling the new judges. (Because the show is culturally significant, and I feel like it, that’s why.)

Look right here for the first one. Nicki Minaj says her favorite food is Popeye’s Chicken, a recipe I won’t be making unless the economy gets so bad that I have no choice but to put on a silly uniform and run a fryer. However, there’s a niche craze for Captain Crunch Chicken, and I’m fairly confident that a variant can be made with Froot Loops. Nothing short of Froot Loops is worthy of Minaj’s brightly colored wigs and calculatedly wacky style.

Also, both the chicken and Minaj deserve recognition that it’s not random craziness we’re seeing: this is done on purpose and with brains behind it. So let’s preheat the oven to 350 and jump right into her most recent hit, “Beez In the Trap.” [Note: nothing that follows is worksafe or a good idea to teach to adorable three-year-olds.] Read the rest of this entry »

Oklahoma! Where the chicken-corn pudding comes sweeping off the plate!

Oklahoma has a state meal, and this isn’t it. The last time I contemplated the heart-attack potential of the state meal – black-eyed peas, chicken fried steak, cornbread, corn on the cob, okra, strawberries, sausage and gravy, barbeque pork, squash, biscuits, grits, pecan pie — I swallowed hard and made pecan pie muffins instead (last seen here with To Have Heroes). I should do this again, and so should you, as they were really good.

Only after my chicken-corn pudding was in the oven did it occur to me that I’d essentially averaged my two dishes from New Mexico (chicken enchiladas and corn pudding, last seen here with Breaking Blue), and I would argue that tackling a radically different pudding paradigm justifies the experiment. I found a band by accident: this very odd incident reminded me of the existence of the Starlight Mints, and it turns out that former mint Allan Vest is working on new projects (official site). We’re going to take a look at what those projects might be. But first, preheat your oven to 350. Read the rest of this entry »

Cincinnati is the city of kinky chili. There’s the 3-way, the 4-way… and for the bold, the 5-way.

There’s also the reputation that this chili gets spicy with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and sometimes chocolate.

Ohio is another state that Paste has already hit in its mission to enlighten the world on local band scenes and empty my bank account (right here). This makes it easy to plunge right in with Walk the Moon (official site) which is in roughly the vein of Young the Giant or the Kaiser Chiefs (and has toured with both). Pull out a big frying pan and check out “Anna Sun,” which is the band’s indie hit. (There’s an album with RCA due out in July.) Read the rest of this entry »

Eight is the average number of gigs played by a North Dakota band before it either splits up or moves to Minneapolis.

Hip hop is the dominant local music form, according to Reverbnation. The style is presumably dubbed Frozen North.

Consistent with my new theme of reducing the cuisine of great regional restaurants to home cooking, I took my inspiration from the Hotel Donaldson (menu). The entrée most amenable to simplification is the spring chicken, largely for the appeal of making bright green edamame hummus.

The rapper most amenable to my ear turned out to be Mylez (Reverbnation), for the orchestral good time that he builds into his mixes. Preheat the oven to 350 and let’s get down and dakotan. Read the rest of this entry »

North Carolina is a top producer of yams. It yam what it yam.

The further I get into the 50 states project, the tougher it becomes to find a new dish to tackle. Since I’d hoisted myself on my own poblano pepper trying to copy a favorite restaurant offering for New Mexico, I figured I’d do the same for North Carolina. This left me with a choice of:

1. Slow-roasting pulled pork while running the air conditioner due to outside temperatures being eleventy-one, thus destroying all my eco-friendly credentials; or

2. Eyeing the menu of Raleigh’s Bloomsbury Bistro (here).

Prolonged gazing led to the realization that some food is meant to be restaurant food, due to the number of ingredients, reductions, stuffings, ravioli in flavors not marketed by Buitoni, and items that I can neither identify nor pronounce. Nonetheless, I decided to be inspired by the last item on the list: some sort of pale protein with “smashed potatoes,” haricot verts, a sauce, and maybe a fish theme. To go along with this, Paste helpfully provides 12 North Carolina Bands You Should Listen To Now, though we will limit ourselves to three. First up: Wood Ear (Bandcamp). Is it a mushroom or a musical pun? Read the rest of this entry »

My urge to make green chile chicken enchiladas for New Mexico was driven by fond memories of El Patio de Albuquerque (Yelp), a funky little place near the University of New Mexico that serves a mean enchilada, as well as sopapillas that might reasonably cause a girl to swoon with delight.

Enchiladas in New Mexico are very mean. Salsa verde, done right, will blow the top of your head off and send your socks flying into next week. My discovery after two rounds of enchilada-making is that getting this right requires proper New Mexico chiles, which were not to be found at the Ultra-Luxe Kroger. So what we have here is an enjoyable and fairly easy enchilada recipe that will not frighten small children.

In the resulting mild and replete mood, let’s turn to Albuquerque’s Breaking Blue (Reverbnation), an Americana band whose members are probably feeling the burn at El Patio even as I type this. Read the rest of this entry »

Minnesota can only mean wild rice.

Minnesota can also mean snowy lonesome highways through the pine woods into the Iron Range, and for such occasions, we have Jamestown Story (official site), an acoustic band from Duluth.

In honor of Jamestown Story’s 2011 album, A Walk Through Time (buy from iTunes), let’s make a nice chicken-with-wild-rice that an indie band can afford, plus some bonus wild rice-blueberry-rye muffins. Read the rest of this entry »

Triumph of the Cornish game hen!

I finally succeeded in weaseling out of Jayelgee1 her secret to Cornish game hens. It turned out to be well worth a weasel, and I’d even throw in two ferrets and a mongoose to be named later. (Always take your time over naming mongeese. Get to know them first.)

Listening to what bands make of fans (raising the question of whether some musicians have ever been fans) left me with the urge to explore songs about strong and successful women. Don’t count on Google for help with this, as online list-makers apparently think women are “strong” only when we’re kicking dudes to the curb, which would imply that woman’s major challenge in life is finding and keeping a man. Um, hello, career? Family? Self-knowledge? Myriad temptations to which flesh is heir?

Fortunately, Ani DiFranco is here to get us moving. Let us take a game hen and a gander at what she has to say. Read the rest of this entry »

Behold the cure for a concert hangover!

No, not the chicken. The chicken helped by being easy to chew, but the answer is not the chicken and the chicken is not the answer.

Ordinarily, I go to shows the same way I drink wine: often, and frequently on the cheap. The experience is (usually) a delightful adjunct to whatever-it-is I do all day: relaxing, enlivening, fun, and a good source of obscure band t-shirts for signifying my place in the hipster hierarchy.

But sometimes a mind-blowing show (I’m looking at you, Foo Fighters!) combines with a very late night (I got to bed at 3 a.m. because I stayed up to read a novel after finishing my recap, then was up at 6:30 for work) to produce the Concert Hangover. We all know it: the exhilaration of having been to the most amazing show, combined with the letdown of no longer being at that show, filtered through a haze of sleeplessness. Might as well feed one’s brains directly to the zombies, with a nice raspberry-walnut vinaigrette dressing.

Then Mr. Josh A. Miller (Soundcloud) gave me the cure. Well, a cure. THE Cure is a band and can’t help you here. And depending on your musical tastes, this cure may or may not work for you; but the general idea is worth exploring. Come help me make some chicken and check it out. Read the rest of this entry »

Want to pull my pullet?

My Secret Recipe Club assignment for October was A Little Nosh, which is a site I’ve visited before for recipe ideas. Every one of Amy’s baking or breakfast projects looks mouthwatering… but if you’ve been following my State Fair entry extravaganza, you can guess how eager I am to bake right now. Fortunately, she also had the answer to a question that had been on my mind for almost a year: is it possible to make “pulled chicken” in the manner of pulled pork?

The answer is a resounding YES. Indeed, it’s easy, with her Pulled Chicken for Dummies instructions. Since she’s from somewhere on the Atlantic seaboard (yes, I feel vaguely like a stalker!) and I usually pair chicken with hip-hop or R&B, I thought Washington, D.C.’s Thievery Corporation (site) might be a fun and eclectic accompaniment. Read the rest of this entry »

There exists a fusion genre of country rap, sometimes called “hopry.” The potential of this music to thoroughly cheese off dedicated rock fans delights me.

So does my turkey-mushroom pesto, which is one of those “well, let’s throw ingredients around and see what works” recipes that… works.

Thanks to Wikipedia’s willingness to nuzzle up and nibble my ear, I’m equipped with a selection of hopry acts. So if one doesn’t please, the rest may be worth trying. Shall we marinate a mighty mushroom as we ponder how Bubba Sparxxx is a country boy but a playa too? Read the rest of this entry »

Why are “inspirational songs” always required to be about how great things are?

If everything’s nifty keen, presumably we could all go home, put our feet up, pour a glass of wine, and read a good novel. Certainly, what’s inspiring me to tackle yet another round of ground turkey is not the Greatness of Stuff so much as the Deficiency of Budget, the Heart-Health of Not Getting All One’s Protein from Sausage Pizza, and the Reality That Woman Cannot Live by Pecan Pie Muffins Alone.

Let’s tackle a turkey meatloaf with a tunnel of lemon-zested spring vegetables, along with some inspirational songs that do not run heavily to flowers and sunshine. Read the rest of this entry »

Cinco de Mayo calls for tacos, right?

Okay, Cinco de Mayo calls for tequila, but I don’t keep that in the house and can’t rely on it for dinner. We’ll make tacos.

The mere thought of knocking back tequila in a moody manner made it the right night for the advance stream of Christina Perri’s first full album, Lovestrong (here for the nonce). I loved her EP The Ocean Way Sessions (discussed here, with sticky rolls). I loved her live show in Tucson in December (discussed here). So we have a sure win, right? And since her home state is big on the Italian sandwiches, we’ll make Italian tacos. Read the rest of this entry »

So thoroughly did I hate spinach in childhood that, when as an adult I became quite fond of it, I never stopped to think that Chicken Florentine is essentially my favorite spinach pesto suspended in a cream sauce and wrapped in poultry.

Being essentially lazy, I decided to try the same effect as a pasta dish. Spoiler: I want to eat this for dinner every night.

What better musical accompaniment than the Great Lake Swimmers, who’ve managed to release more-or-less the same record four times in three years? (I’m not kidding, and I don’t mean an iTunes edition and an Amazon edition with one track different. I mean: normal album, live iTunes Sessions EP, deluxe album, different live sessions EP at different venue.) But let’s just give ‘em a listen. Read the rest of this entry »

Look! More boneless, skinless chicken! (I initially typed this as “chinless chicken.” Do we doubt?)

My original intent was to use the can of coconut milk in my cupboard to make this lime-coconut chicken from A Perfect Bite. Then I read the calorie count on coconut milk. When I came to… other things happened.

This also seemed like the evening to reconsider my reluctance to embrace Adele. Having read seemingly every music source on the planet raving over how amazelating 21 is… it’s tough to approach that kind of album with an open mind. So I skittered up to it crabwise, plucking a few tunes from Youtube, starting with this one. Read the rest of this entry »

After my encounter with a bleu cheese-bacon burger on Sunday afternoon, I swore there was salad in my future. Indeed, my threats to gnaw on frozen lettuce leaves were only slightly exaggerated.

To go with my foray into dinner salad, it seems appropriate to go with a more pleasant surprise from Sunday. Uh Huh Her (listen — or not, as there will be vids) played at the Phoenix Gay Pride Festival, which was near enough to the residence of the pals I was hanging with that we got a free loud concert without the trouble of paying admission. I was charmed. Read the rest of this entry »

The second half of the 1-lb package of boneless, skinless, tasteless chicken strips is always the challenging one.

I frankly played Iron Chef Too Much Chicken by wandering through Kroger’s produce section and buying whatever was on sale. Since Chicken Rochambeau was ever so vaguely on my mind — and Iron Chef Too Much Chicken is clearly a competitive sport — the resulting dish has to be named Rock Scissors Chicken. Rock breaks scissors. Scissors cut chicken. Chicken swallows rock because chickens need pebbles in their gullets for their digestion.

To match the randomness of my chicken-assembly process, I plucked a music choice from Metacritic’s list of albums dropping this week and made the enticing discovery of Joan As Police Woman (listen — or not, as there will be vids) and her current album, The Deep Field. She’s an indie pop type with a strange and compelling voice. Read the rest of this entry »

Cee Lo Green wrote an entire album to go with that song in which he gives his former lover and her new swain the middle finger.

Who knew?

The Lady Killer (some excerpts are here) is musically scintillating and lyrically bizarre. Listening to it brought on an inexplicable craving for Moroccan chicken — the sort that would be tagine chicken if one had a tagine, but one doesn’t. (It turns out that a tagine is a clay pot, not a citrus fruit. Life is full of these shocks to the system.) Read the rest of this entry »

Feeling daunted by prospect of dividing a pound of ground turkey into tidy quarter pounds and coming up with four distinct ways to make it taste like something other than a fowl form of excelsior, I decided to make a Thanksgiving-themed meat loaf.

While contemplating this project, I wandered back to AOL Listening Party, where my eye was caught by breathless prose about a remastered debut album from one Kina Grannis (listen if you like, though there will be vids).

It turns out that Grannis won a Doritos-sponsored contest to have a self-penned song performed during the 2008 Super Bowl, along with a record contract with Interscope. The song she won it with — Message from Your Heart, which should be “Don’t eat those Doritos, have a carrot stick!” — strikes me as musically banal, yet lyrically interesting enough to take a listen to what other body parts she’s been chatting with. Read the rest of this entry »