Recipe: Buttermilk Chicken Tenders with Roasted Haricots Verts and Potatoes

Prep Time: 30 Minutes // Cook Time: 30 Minutes // Serves: 4

Ingredients: 1 cup whole buttermilk // 2 Tbsp. minced garlic // 1.5 tsp. salt // 1 tsp. black pepper // 1.5 lb chicken breast tenders // 1 lb small red potatoes // 8 oz haricots verts (French green beans) // 1 jumbo shallot // 4 Tbsp EVOO // 1.5 cup plain Panko (Japanese style breadcrumbs) // 3 Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley // 3 Tbsp. butter

Step 1: Prepare Chicken

1. Preheat over to 425

2. Combine buttermilk, garlic, 1 tsp of the salt,  and 1/2 tsp. of the pepper in a large Ziplock bag

3. Add chicken to the bag, and let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes

Step 2: Prepare the Potatoes and Beans

1. Chop Potatoes into 1/2 inch thick wedge pieces

2. Slice Shallots

3. Spread potatoes, shallots, and green beans over a rimmed baking sheet

4. Cover vegetables with 2 Tbsp. EVOO, 1/2 tsp. salt, and 1/2 tsp. pepper

5. Stir to coat vegetables

6. Bake in oven at 425 for 20 minutes or until potatoes are golden, stirring once after 15 minutes

Step 3: Prepare Breading

1. Combine Panko and parsley in a shallow bowl

2. Take chicken out of butter milk mixture bag and place in Panko mix, pressing the chicken in to ensure it is completely covered

3. Discard excess butter milk mixture 

Step 4: Fry the Chicken

1. Heat 1 Tbsp. EVOO and 1.5 Tbsp. butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat

2. Add half the breaded chicken (keep some space in the skillet)

3. Cook on one side until golden brown (approx. 4 minutes)

4. Flip chicken on other side and cook approx 4 more minutes

5. Repeat cooking with remaining chicken

Step 5: Garnish and Serve

1. Add extra parsley and a slice of lemon

Bon Appetit! 

Holiday Recipe: Cranberry Brie Canapés

Prep Time: 10 minutes // Bake Time: 15 Minutes // Serves: 24

Step 1: Prepare the Ingredients

Ingredients: 1 Brie Wheel // 1 tube Crescent dough // 1/2 cup whole cranberry sauce // 1/4 cup chopped pecans // 6 sprigs rosemary // flour // cooking spray

1. Grease mini muffin pan with cooking spray
2. Lightly flour surface to roll out crescent dough

3. Roll the dough out flat on the surface, pinch the pre-cut seams, cut the the dough into 24 squares and place each into a slot in the muffin pan

4. Slice the Brie to cut thickness in half and then cut into small pieces and put one on top of each piece of dough  

5. Top Brie with a tablespoon of whole cranberry sauce
6. Sprinkle chopped pecans over each canapé
7. Top off with one little spring of rosemary 

Step 2: Bake and Garnish

1. Bake for 15 minutes at 375° or until crescent pasty is golden
2. Let cool for 10 minutes

3. Garnish with fresh cranberries and extra rosemary

Merry Christmas! Bon Appetit! 

An Afternoon at the Met

One could probably take three days to view all The Metropolitan Museum of Art has to offer. But I had only a Saturday afternoon to spend this time, and wanted to focus on European and American painting.
The Museum is $25 for all non-New York residents and photography is permitted. The building itself stands adjacent to Central Park and is a beautiful oasis in the middle of Manhattan.

European Paintings

Below are some highlights from my own photos and the full collection can be viewed here. 

I like to learn about the biographies of the artists as I think their lives are inextricable from their work. Sometimes - as with the case of Caravaggio of whom I was already a fan given his genius - I only love him more as I discover the details of his tumultuous and tragic life. He was most certainly a man with many demons but through his painting, I find much evidence that he struggled greatly and wanted to better himself. And in other cases - as with Jacques-Louis David - I have always loved his Neoclassical style and am in awe of his talent but I am not fond of the man himself. And it does make me look at his work differently.

Two fantastic bio-documentaries I would recommend from the same "Power of Art" series:
Caravaggio - this one actually moved me to tears
Jacques-Louis David

Detail - Carle (Antoine Charles Horace) - The Triumph of Aemilius Paulus (1789)

Detail - Carle (Antoine Charles Horace) - The Triumph of Aemilius Paulus (1789)

Detail - Carle (Antoine Charles Horace) - The Triumph of Aemilius Paulus (1789)

Velázquez (Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez) - Portrait of a Man (1635)

Detail - Jusepe de Ribera (called Lo Spagnoletto) - The Holy Family with Saints Anne and Catherine of Alexandria (1648)

Detail - Jacques-Louis David, La Mort de Socrate (Death of Socrates) (1787)

Jacques-Louis David, La Mort de Socrate (Death of Socrates) (1787)

Jacques-Louis David’s masterpiece depicts the death of Socrates as recounted in Plato’s Phaedo as his mentor had been charged with corruption of the youth and sentenced to die by poison Hemlock. David signed the work in two places: once under Crito, the distraught young philosopher apprentice clutching his master’s thigh (signifying his identification with the subject) and once near Plato as a gesture of gratitude for the Phaedo which had inspired his painting. I wrote a bit more on the painting here.

Detail - Jacques-Louis David signature under Plato

Detail - Jacques-Louis David signature under Crito

Detail - Poison Hemlock

Bronze Coin - Leonello (Marquess of Este and Lord of Ferrara) c. 1443

Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre - The Death of Harmonia (1741)

Detail - Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre - The Death of Harmonia (1741)

Jean François de Troy - The Triumph of Mordecai (1736)

Botticelli - Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Medallion (1485)

Detail - Biagio d'Antonio - The Story of Joseph (c.1500)

Sebastiano del Piombo (Sebastiano Luciani) - Portrait of a Man, said to be Christopher Columbus (1519)

Corrado Giaquinto - The Penitent Magdalen (1750)

Detail - Peter Paul Rubens - The Wolf and Fox Hunt (1616)

Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi) - The Musicians (1597)

Caravaggio painted himself into the scene

Nicolas Poussin - The Abduction of the Sabine Women (1634)

The Rape of the Sabine Women is a historical scene depicted frequently in Western Art. I recently wrote about the mythology of the event as told by Livy and highlighted 15 of my favorite representations here. Poussin painted the Abduction scene twice; his other version resides in the Louvre.

Detail - Nicolas Poussin - The Abduction of the Sabine Women (1634)

Detail - Nicolas Poussin - The Abduction of the Sabine Women (1634)

Detail - Nicolas Poussin - Saints Peter and John Healing the Sick (1655)

Detail- Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) - Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuniga (1788)

El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos) - The Vision of St. John (1614)

Although I do not like the style of this piece by Domenikos Theotokopoulos (known as El Greco), my eyes were drawn to it immediately. In a gallery of Mannerist and Baroque paintings of the early 17th century, the Vision of St. John appeared to be a complete anachronism. It has been said El Greco's style was closer to Picasso and Cezanne who came nearly 300 years after the painter than to those of his contemporaries like Caravaggio. So although I am not a fan of Expressionism, this work is pretty remarkable. El Greco truly was three centuries ahead of his time. 

Courtyard inside the Museum

American Paintings and Sculpture

The full collection can be viewed here.
As already stated, one could probably spend two to three entire days exploring the museum and the collection of American Painting and Sculpture is one to which I would like to dedicate more time to viewing and learning. The Europeans are the undoubted masters but American Art is not given due recognition.

William Henry Rinehart - Latona and Her Children, Apollo and Diana (1874)

John Trumbull - George Washington (1780)

John Trumbull - The Sortie Made by the Garrison of Gibraltar (1789)

Emanuel Leutze - Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851)

This iconic Washington Crossing the Delaware Leutze masterpiece is really breathtaking at a size of 21' x 12.5'. Leutze painted three copies of this scene: one which hung in the White House until 2015 when it went on display in the Minnesota Marine Art Museum and the original which was housed in Germany and was destroyed in a bombing raid in WWII.

Thomas Handoven - The Last Moments of John Brown (1884)