Dining In: 40 Clove Garlic Chicken

Whole Chicken cut into 8 pieces (you can buy pre-cut and packaged)
Seasoned salt
Pepper
1 & 1/2 Tablespoons dried thyme
2-3 bulbs of peeled garlic cloves (depending on how big and how tired you get) Feel free to actually count out 40 cloves if you want to get anal about it.
Olive oil

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  Season chicken generously with seasoned salt and pepper.  Sear chicken on both sides on high heat on the stove top in an oven safe skillet with olive oil until golden brown.

Take skillet off heat.  Add an additional 1/3 cup olive oil, garlic cloves to skillet and sprinkle thyme over the chicken.  Cover the chicken with foil and slit a hole for it to vent. Then allow to bake in the oven until chicken reaches an internal temp of 165-170, about an hour. 
The olive oil combined with the drippings makes a great au jus. 

Goes great with garlic sautéed spinach, garlic mashed potatoes and dinner rolls for a special stinky night.

Tips:
Just so you know, for the most part, when it comes to meat and an oven, I don’t really rely on timers anymore.  Get a meat thermometer, it’ll be your best friend if you don’t have one already. Timers can’t really tell you when meat is done or over cooked. Thermometers can




Lightly smash garlic cloves with the flat end of a knife, it makes peeling easier.

Take some of the roasted garlic and au jus and blend it into your mashed potatoes.

Remember to come up for air while eating.

At Last Café–Long Beach, CA

I knew about this place from my friend Nicole who saw this on Food Network’s Diners Drive-ins and Dives.  The best way to describe this place is gourmet comfort food; food that is definitely familiar, but it feels like you’re eating at a fancy restaurant despite being a jeans and t-shirt kind of place.  The best part is that not only is the food fantastic, but everything is reasonably priced at about $10 per entrée and portions big enough to make two meals.  However, that most likely won’t happen because you’ll want to eat everything off your plate.  Lastly, you should know that three of the four dishes featured come with a gravy made from chicken bones, stock and tomatoes which sounds weird but trust me, it’s a part of what makes them famous.  It reminds me of a brown gravy but slightly thinner in consistency and goes with everything.  Everything I tried was so good, that it’ll make even  your burps taste good.

Stuffed Pork Chop: The chop is the most moist I’ve ever tasted, which is such an accomplishment considering pork can be dried up easily.  The stuffing is a cranberry apple stuffing that reminds me of Thanksgiving even though it’s pork and not turkey.  If Thanksgiving were revamped to serve this pork chop with this stuffing, it will change the course of Thanksgiving.

Meatloaf:  The meat has herbs and onions and stays clear away from the ketchup taste that traditional meat loaf made of.  Now I’m not sure if this actually has ketchup, it’s refreshing to bite into meat loaf that doesn’t have any hint of that ketchup flavor.  I think it has to due with the gravy.  As an added bonus, the loaf is put together and cooked so well that when you break off a piece, the meat doesn’t crumble.

Brick Chicken: Consists of a roasted half chicken, that’s right, half of a whole chicken.  Again, the meat is perfectly seasoned and moist with the skin having the perfect amount of crispness to it.  Plus look at the size of this thing, its bigger than a brick.  I honestly don’t know how this place makes any money.  There’s that gravy again.

Macaroni and cheese:  This mac and cheese is for adults, consisting of cheddar, Monterey Jack, Gouda and parmesan cheese, topped with ham and bread crumbs.  A mac and cheese that has been kicked up so much, you’ll never go back to blue boxes again, only for your kids.  I love how the cheeses compliment each other but it’s also nice that the gouda shines through.  More and more, gouda is becoming one of my favorite cheeses.  You would think that with the cheese and ham the dish becomes overly salty, but that is not the case at all. 

Rating: 5/5 Knives

Pricing: $ – It is about $10 per entree , give or take, but considering the generous portions, I’m going to rate it lower.

Make reservations!  The restaurant is cute and cozy but that doesn’t mean it isn’t packed.

Great find Nicole and Kevin, or is it Kevin and Nicole

http://www.jmchefcatering.com/

Dining In with Dessert First: Mom’s ChocoFlan

Finally, the first entry of the year.  My other half made this and I wanted to share because I’m particularly proud of his accomplishment.  He got the recipe from my mom and though the directions are not that difficult, it is a challenge in itself to be compared to Mom.  The recipe itself is a basic flan recipe baked with Devil’s Food cake.  I don’t know the science behind this, but baked, the layers do separate to create the perfect harmony.  The flan comes out perfect in consistency and the cake comes out super moist.  A must for parties and potlucks.  Sorry to say, but I’m not posting the recipe on the internet so freely.  You’ll have to message me if you want it.  This entry is mainly meant for eye-candy :)