Special friends, special meals, special treats

"When I was a kid." You know that line, don't you? We all use it. And here I go. It's a line that most of us have used : "when I was a kid, either you ate what was put on the table or you went hungry." You've heard and used some variation on that, haven't you?

Well, things change. For our last two dinner parties, we had guests who expressed openly that they did not eat/did not care for certain things that were on the menu. In fairness, I always try to give people an opportunity to express just that. Hospitality, in my view, means that you open yourself up to making changes for people. In return, you expect that someone is not going to say "I don't eat...." simply because she doesn't like the way it looks.

It does mean more work. For example, at our last dinner party, we served duck as the main course. One guest was vegetarian, which was new to me. Another eats chicken and turkey, but that's all. Now, both guests were very explicit: "don't worry about making something special, I'll be fine with what other things you're cooking."

Yes, but I wouldn't be. And a hospitable cook does try to honor this kind of request. It's a challenge, and what it can also lead to is having enough food left over so that you don't have to cook a few meals for the rest of the week, or you just have to make a few modifications and you have a really good dinner.

Even though our chicken eating guest had said he'd be fine, modifying my duck dish to chicken was actually so easy that it begged to be done. In fact, the chicken may very well have been better. It was sort of a "poor man's coq au vin," or "summer coq au vin," which I will explain below. And then I'm going to explain what I did to make a second meal.

I only needed one chicken leg for the portion of protein for our friend, but let's face it: is there anything more depressing than cooking ONE chicken leg? Well, yes , there are more depressing things (like our presidency), but in the kitchen, few things are. So I bought four of them. And then I took a recipe that I have from one of the Chez Panisse cookbooks, and modified it just a bit. I will tell you how I did too.

You will need four chicken legs - whole legs, drumstick and thigh. You will also need two carrots, sliced into coins, a large onion or two small ones, diced, a couple of bay leaves, a sprig or two of thyme, the rind of half of a lemon , in large pieces, salt, and pepper, and chicken stock and white wine. Also, some olive oil. While you're prepping all of your ingredients, preheat your oven to 450. If you have remembered to do so, salt the chicken the night before, with about a teaspoon of salt, and if you h aven't, do it before you start cooking.

I vary from the recipe that I learned, by heating up the olive oil and browning the chicken legs quickly. All in all, it takes about 8 minutes: 5 for the first side, and three for the other when you turn them. Don't move the legs around when you're browning them. When they're browned, move them to the side, and keep them warm. Now, eyeball the oil, and keep in mind you're going to cook vegetables. Do you have enough? Do you have too much? If your chicken was particularly fatty, you will probably have too much. If you buy an organic, pasture fed chicken, it may be just enough, or even too little, because the bird is lean. You have to make a judgement call here. In any event, what you've done is flavored your oil by cooking the chicken first. Now add your onions, and cook them for about three minutes, and then add the carrots, the bay leaf and the thyme, and cook for another three minutes.

Lay those vegetables down on a baking casserole, and put the chicken on top of it. Then add 2 parts of stock and one part white wine, to just come to the top of the chicken legs. Add the lemon peel at this time. Cover the pan with foil and put it in the oven. After fifteen minutes, lower the heat to 350 and cook for another 45 minutes. Finally, take the foil off, turn the chicken legs and cook for another fifteen minutes.

This last step is supposed to brown the chicken. When I did it without prebrowning the chicken, it never happened. That's why I brown them ahead of time. And it also allows me to add more flavor to the vegetables. The liquid will also evaporate during the cooking, and the vegetables will soften markedly. You can crush them into what little liquid is left and have a nice sauce for the chicken, for the first day. And that is exactly what we did.

Now, if you have left overs, you can do something like this. Let them cool. In fact, you can let the chicken cool and then refrigerate it, and work with it right out of the fridge, which may be easier. I say easier because the chicken will have fat on it from the cooking, and as the fat melts, it will get more and more slippery. Think in these terms: is it easier to handle a pat of butter, or a spoon of olive oil? So, however the temperature, tear, or cut the meat from the chicken in rough pieces. Don't toss the skin unless you're really feeling virtuous, and if you are, well, you're reading MY blog?

Then, take a look at the chicken you have there, and dice up an equal amount of summer squashes, in pieces about the same size. Pour a little olive oil into a big pan, and add the squash (it's high season now: buy different shapes and sizes and colors). Cook that squash for about five minutes, and don't stir it too much. Then, add the chicken. It's cooked already, and all you really need to do is warm it. If you happen to have some left over sauce from the first cooking, add that , too. If you don't, and you want a moister dish, add some chicken stock, or even water. I think you'll like it drier though. When the chicken has warmed through, you're done.

What you have now, is another, wonderful dish. You can serve this as is, or you can put it over chunky pasta, or on polenta, or rice or again, make a great sandwich. And you've accomplished two things. First, you've made a friend happy with a dish that was not that hard to do, and is quite tasty. Second, you've made a second delicious meal with what was left over, used seasonal ingredients, and that didn't take too much trouble at all, did it?

It IS the end of June, it can be very warm, and Annalena's kitchen is all about not too much trouble if it can be avoided.

If you don't have squash, use something else. I came very close to buying beautiful wild porcinis today, and simply forgot. At 40 bucks a pound ( a bargain, to be honest), it was probably good that I didn't. But had I done so, they would have worked with the chicken. Indeed, if we didn't have chicken, the sausage from yesterday would have worked with the squash as well.

Cooking is, very much an act of improvisation. Use what you have, and do the best with it. You can do it.