Cardamom - Rosemary - Chipolte Roast Chicken

This was either going to be great, or a total waste of a chicken.

I love a simple salt and pepper roasted chicken, but it's been grey and rainy out lately and I felt the need to spice things up a little bit.  There wasn't going to be a tango class on a Wednesday, and no friends were lined up at the door, so we spiced up the chicken instead.

With it's powerful, musky-sweet-exotic flavor, a little Cardamom goes a long way.  It's found in chai tea, Christmas cookies, Scandinavian dishes and middle-eastern cooking and I've always liked the savory-sweet combinations it stands up to, so we decided to try a few out on the chicken.

We rubbed equal amounts (about a 1/4 teaspoon) of cardamom and chipolte powder on the chicken, followed by salt and pepper.  Then we stuck a stalk of rosemary in the chicken's cavity (about 4 inches long) and stuck it in the oven.

After about an hour, it had reached 160* and smelled fantastic.  (4 lb chicken)

It's not often we get to serve up a yellow main course, is it?  Complemented by my Grandmother's knife and fork serving set - bakelite still has it's place at our table!  I'm curious now about what other typically sweet spices could be combined with savory or spicy to make interesting combinations or other ways to use cardamom.  Anyone have any ideas or recipes to share?

Chipolte Cheddar Biscuits from Baked

This is one of my sisters, taking on a new recipe with her niece.

She brought Baked: New Frontiers in Baking with her on vacation and they tried the chipolte cheddar biscuits out.  My sister began with a caveat "I'm not a calm cook like your mom, okay?"  Then proceeded to test my daughter's full range of skills, from measuring to mixing to grating. 

My son popped in for a few minutes to see how things were going, and to see my new favorite ingredient: chipolte pepper powder!  If you've ever had those leftover cans of chipolte peppers and sauce, this is for you!  I can never use an entire can, and I've frozen the leftovers for "later" but "later" is buried somewhere in the back of my freezer with those ziplocs!

They put together a huge batch of biscuits that didn't last much past the morning breakfast rush.

The chipolte powder made these flavorful without being too hot - even the kids enjoyed eating them.  In fact, my daughter's only complaint was that they had too much cheese in them.

We sampled a few other things from that cookbook, and when I got home, I had the local bookstore order me a copy!  Can't wait to make some more of those here.

Thanks, sis!