Why don't the French eat M&Ms?

They're too hard to peel. *rim shot*

OK, today's grub is Coq au Vin. Essentially, chicken cooked in wine.

First off, I can tell you, peeling 20 or so pearl onions is a pain in the ass. I missed the memo. There has to be a trick to this. Please advise. Thanks.

Other than that, this is a relatively easy bit to do. Easy, but it tastes unbelievable and the smell along the way is almost worth it on its own.

I used a recipe from Simply Recipes. Tweaked slightly (very slightly) by using some really good salt pork rather than bacon and using a mix of red, white and yellow pearl onions. For the wine, I used a Coppola zinfandel. Some folks don't like this particular wine. I don't know why. Well, maybe I do. If you told me you had it, I would have scoffed, but a pal of mine gave me a boat load of bottles a while back and I was forced to acknowledge that it isn't bad. Don't skimp on the cooking wine, kids. I'm not telling you to break the bank, but the Night Train isn't going to cut it.

Anywho, for the mushroom component, I used the Baby Bellas instead of Buttons. I think it worked out well. You can't tell me different. The chicken was tender, well flavored and really, really juicy. The sauce was nice, with the salt pork and mushroom, and the pearl onions were sweet and tasty. As mentioned in the recipe, blanching the bacon first was key to cutting down what could otherwise have been an overly salty result.

Very little actual work involved with this. Especially if you ask your meat maven to hack the chicken for you. The largest effort was in waiting for the sauce to reduce at the end. I was freakin' hungry.

On the side, a little potato dealio off the Food Network website. This potato mix was stunningly good. Shockingly so, since I really didn't pay any attention to it, fitting it in as I could during the chicken work. Fresh and light, the steamed potato and dill working with the creaminess and dash of salt and fresh ground pepper.