glazing my thighs

No, I will never tire of post-title innuendo (in YOUR end-o!). Not even sorry.

Anywho.

I've been kind of obsessed with the half-stove-top, half-oven method of cooking chicken thighs lately. It's an easy and reliable way of getting super crisp skin on the thighs without having to coat them in something like panko or cornmeal. I'll admit, it's kind of messy if you don't have a splatter shield, but even so, it's totally worth an extra wipe-down of the stove-top, in my opinion.

When I was making up my menu last weekend and saw chicken thighs on sale again, I thought to myself, "Self...why couldn't we use the stove-top-then-oven method to make some super crisp chicken thighs, then stir up a little batch of the glaze we use on chicken wings and dump it over the thighs instead? Doesn't that seem like a good idea?" It DID seem like a good idea, so I rolled with it, and this is what I ended up with:

So crispy. Much nom.

For the glaze, I used a mixture of fresh grated garlic and ginger, some tamari, some honey, toasted sesame oil, and a splash of water. I always add the water thinking that the glaze needs to be thinned out, and I always regret having added the water when I go to taste the glaze and it tastes...watered down. Welcome to my life. In retrospect, I could have reduced the glaze down in a pan to cook some of the water back out, but that sounds like a lot of work.

I started the chicken thighs out in a hot pan with a little coconut oil in it (skin-side down, duh), and let them fizzle and splatter happily for about 8 minutes until the skin was good and crispy and brown. Then I flipped the thighs over in the pan, turned off the heat, and spooned my glaze mixture over the meat. The pan then went directly into a 425 degree oven (use an oven-proof pan, friends...I will not be held responsible for you melting the handles off your pans) for about 15 minutes until the thighs read 165-170 degrees, at which point they were done. Huzzah!

The veggies were very simple: I cut up carrots, onion, radishes (I had some hanging around I wanted to use up), and two broccoli crowns, and quickly stir-fried them in a very hot pan with a little coconut oil. The broccoli was being slightly uncooperative and didn't want to cook through as fast as everything else did, so I threw a lid on the pan and let it steam for a few minutes to finish it off.

This dish is gluten-free (as long as you use tamari rather than soy sauce), and if you wanted to be super-strict Paleo you could sub the tamari for coconut aminos and get extra, uhh...dinosaur points.

Get it? Paleo? Dinosaur? Nevermind...

lazy broccoli salad

I really like broccoli salad. You know, the kind with bacon and cranberries or raisins and nuts and bacon. Mmm, bacon.

What?

Oh, yeah. Salad.

So, broccoli salad is kind of a pain in the ass to make. There's a lot of chopping involved - more chopping than I want to do on most nights after work, frankly. I decided to try using a bag of shredded broccoli slaw instead, and it worked very well. Plus it took about a tenth as long to prepare.

Crunchy!

 

The rest of the plate is pretty self-explanatory - leftover chicken thighs and sliced tomato. Ta-da! Quick, lazy Whole30 compliant dinner (if you use olive oil mayo and make sure your dried cranberries don't have any added sugar, anyway).

pan-fried chicken thigh amazingness

Have you fully accepted the amazingness of chicken thighs into your life? If not, you should. Yes friends, I am here today to preach the gospel of chicken thighs. They are cheaper and more forgiving than your mom, and they taste better too.

Seriously, though. Chicken thighs are hardly ever more than $1.89 a pound at my local Hannaford. That's for the bone-in ones, mind you. The boneless ones are more pricey, and they also have the skin removed. In my opinion, there's no point in eating chicken if you can't have the crispy, delicious skin as well, so just buy the bone-in ones and be done with it. Unless you like sad chicken. You don't like sad chicken though, right? I didn't think so.

De-boning chicken thighs is actually really easy. I would have done a little picture tutorial for you, but I don't have a tripod for the camera and I don't want to get it all smegged up with chicken juice, so...yeah. Anyway - it's really easy. You just take a good sharp knife and zip down one side of the bone, then the other, pull the flesh away to the end and then give it a twist to remove. Tra-la-la, de-boned chicken thigh...with bonus skin! Well, not BONUS skin, because that would be weird..but you know. Sorry, I'm tired.

So, yes - what I did with these lovely chicken thighs after I de-boned them was as follows:

- pat dry with paper towel
- sprinkle with kosher salt
- put them in a hot pan SKIN SIDE DOWN for about ten minutes, then flipped and cooked on the other side until cooked through (took about another seven minutes for mine).

So simple. So delicious. Thank you madam, may I have another!

They look small because they're far away, but trust me, they were not.

 The majesty that is pan-fried chicken thighs was complemented on this plate by slices of the best damn tomato I've had in YEARS, which came from just down the road at Long Wind Farm, and a variation on this salad - I say variation because her recipe calls for snap peas but I used green beans, and it calls for lemon juice but I used white wine vinegar. And I didn't measure anything. So it probably tasted totally different, but whatever, it was delicious and I never would have thought to put that combination of things together had I not read her recipe first.

"But the bones," you say..."what about the bones you took out of the chicken thighs?" You may not actually be saying that but I'm putting words in your mouth so that I can make a point. You could chuck the bones if you wanted. You could throw them out for the wild animals. You could string them onto a necklace and wear them as a fashion statement, but they'd probably get kind of rank after a couple days. What I do is put the bones in a freezer bag, scrawl the date on it, seal it up and stash it in the freezer. Later on, when it's not 2073 degrees outside and I feel like making soup, I use the bones to make stock. It's just a suggestion.

Also, for anyone playing along at home, this meal is Paleo compliant, Whole-30 compliant, gluten-free, and all kinds of tasty.

weekend cooking - chicken wings, all the cabbage and pork!

This weekend we had some pretty horrible weather here in Vermont. It was warm, for one thing. It's not supposed to be warm in January. Then it started raining. Then it didn't STOP raining for like an entire day. Needless to say, our driveway and lawn are now skating rinks with a nice layer of water on top, just for extra added terror when trying to walk around. Hurrah!

Combine epic bad weather with NFL play-offs, and it basically made for an entire weekend of cooking, eating, and sitting on our duffs. Hubs was jonesing for some football munchies but of course the standard junk food was out because of our Whole30. Instead, I decided to see if I could knock out some W30-compliant chicken wings. One batch ended up legit compliant - they were just rubbed with garam masala, salt and garlic powder. The other batch was...iffy. I made traditional Buffalo wings - the sauce is a combination of butter and Frank's Red Hot. Frank's, surprisingly, has nothing weird / crazy in it - just cayenne, vinegar, salt, garlic and water. The butter is dairy and therefore not technically compliant...but in the grand scheme of things, I decided that it was probably about the least detrimental cheat I could do. Plus it was yummy and worth it.

Buffalo wings

Garam Masala wings

Chicken wing feast with two dips - garlic aioli and curry mayo

The dips for the wings were a garlic aioli and a curry mayo, both made from a base of home-made olive oil mayo with a little bacon fat added in. If you've never tried making your own mayo (or never had it with bacon fat added in), you're TOTALLY missing out. So delicious.

Friday night I had made this pork with braised red cabbage and mustard sauce for dinner:

Braised red cabbage, pork with mustard sauce

Those are actually boneless pork ribs - I seared them in a hot pan with a little bacon fat, then cooked them through in the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes. They stayed very moist and tender, which was awesome. For the sauce, I just deglazed the pan I seared the meat in, using a little chicken stock. I whisked in some brown mustard, and a little sherry vinegar. The mustard played well with the sweet / sour flavors in the cabbage.

Anyway - I had a bunch of braised cabbage left over from Friday night's dinner, and I'd been slow-roasting a pork butt all day Saturday (seriously, all day - 250 degrees for eight hours), so for Sunday lunch we had MORE pork and MORE cabbage:

MORE pork and cabbage, you say?!

The funny (scary?) thing is, I could happily eat another plate of this pork and cabbage for dinner tonight, and probably some more for lunch tomorrow. It's that tasty. I used NomNomPaleo's recipe for Chez Panisse's braised red cabbage, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Also, for anyone looking specifically for Whole30-compliant recipes, this cabbage fits the bill, as do my pork recipes and the garam masala chicken wing recipe.

the squash chronicles: curry

Sometimes I throw random vegetables into my curry, just to see how it tastes. I've yet to do this and end up with something I didn't want to eat, which is a plus...but sometimes I hit on a combination that's not just edible but actually really tasty. This was one of those instances.

I had a bunch of kabocha squash hanging around that I needed to use up. It was all cleaned and sliced, but I only got around to roasting half of it last week, so I decided to chop it up and chuck it into my chicken curry. It makes sense, really - I often roast kabocha with all the same spices that are in my garam masala anyway.

This was the result:

chicken coconut milk curry with squash

I used half a can of coconut milk in the sauce so the color turned out a little less than spectacular, but the smell was divine and the end product was very yummy. And yes, we do in fact eat bowls of curry like stew around here! Every once in a great while we eat rice with it, but for the most part we choose not to have the extra starch.

Also, for anyone curious about whether this recipe is Paleo-compliant, the answer is yes! Ingredients were as follows: ghee, onion, garam masala, garlic, chicken breast, kabocha squash, tomatoes, coconut milk and a little water. This curry is full of healthy fats, protein, fiber and potassium!


 UPDATE 11/14/2013

I have been asked for an "actual recipe" for this - you guys and your wanting me to measure things and keep track of cooking times, sheesh!

Chicken Coconut Milk Curry with Squash
serves 4-6 in a stew-like application. Can easily be stretched for more servings if you eat it over rice.

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cups chopped kabocha (aka: buttercup) squash - NOTE: you could easily sub butternut or acorn here - if you use butternut, make sure you peel it. Acorn and kabocha don't need to be peeled
1 28-oz can of organic diced tomatoes, undrained
2 tbsp ghee or coconut oil
2 tbsp garam masala
1 cup coconut milk
1 cup water


1. Heat the ghee or coconut oil over medium-high and add chopped onion. Cook onion until golden with some dark spots / edges (you don't want it straight-up burnt, but a little charring is good).

2. Add garam masala to onion / fat mixture and stir. Let this cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds - 1 minute.

3. Add diced tomatoes WITH their juice, chicken, squash, coconut milk and water, stir well to combine.

4. Bring mixture to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer uncovered about 15 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through and squash is tender, then serve.

chicken thighs with tomato olive tapenade

Last week when chicken thighs were on sale, I bought a whole bunch and froze some. This week when I was menu-planning, I was trying to think of something quick and yummy to do with the chicken thighs and decided I'd try them with the tapenade that I usually make for fish. If it works for fish it ought to work for chicken, right?

Right.

tapenade-tastical!

 

It actually worked really well. The greens are braised collards, and the tapenade is my standard shallots / grape tomatoes / capers / kalamata olives / splash of balsamic vinegar mixture. For the chicken thighs, I wanted to try something different so I seasoned them with sea salt and then put them skin-side down in a pan with a little olive oil and let them sear for about 5 minutes until they were golden brown. I flipped the thighs over and gave them another 5 minutes or so in the pan, then put the whole pan (oven safe handle, yay!) into a 375 degree oven for another 20-ish minutes. When the thighs were done, I just added them to the beds of collards and spooned some tapenade over the top.

Easy, relatively quick, and delicious!

ginger-soy glazed chicken wings

The NFL is the center of our world on Sundays. Whether it's watching the Patriots play, obsessively checking our record in the picks pool, or flipping between games to cheer on our fantasy football teams (I have one, my husband has...a lot more), it's all football all the time.

Often times, I'll make a roast on Sunday because it generally takes very little attention (more time to devote to football!), and it's also good to have leftover meat hanging around for lunches or dinners. This week I wasn't really feeling the roast love though. I wanted something football-y, for lack of a better term - some kind of finger food that was fun and different. Typical football fare around these parts includes chicken wings, pizza, nachos and chili. Pizza and nachos were out (we don't need the grains), and since I'd already had a dose of chili at brunch with a friend, chicken wings were sounding like just the ticket.

Lo and behold, when I got to the grocery store they had fresh chicken wings on sale! Jackpot! I picked up a dozen and then spent some time obsessing over teriyaki sauces. They were all full of sugar, or worse, HFCS. Do not want! I know traditional teriyaki is supposed to have pineapple juice in it, but again...way too sweet, at least for me. I decided screw it - teriyaki minus the sweetness is just basically a combination of soy and ginger. I'd subscribe to my own personal motto of "how bad can it go?" and just wing it with a soy ginger marinade from scratch.

For the marinade, I used:

1 tsp dark sesame oil
1/4 cup tamari (wheat-free soy sauce)
1.5 tsp fresh grated ginger
1.5 tsp fresh grated garlic
1 tbsp white wine (I used some chardonnay I had lingering in the fridge - dry sherry would be really good here, too)
2 tsp dark brown sugar
3 scallions, green and white parts both, chopped

I whisked it all together and threw the chicken wings in to marinate for about 20 minutes. Yes, yes, I hear you screaming about how there's added sugar, but a) it's a SHITLOAD less sugar per serving than in all the bottled sauces I looked at, b) it's real sugar, not HFCS pseudo-sugar, and c) the sauce needed a little bit of sugar to cook down to a glaze-y consistency. Besides, I never said I wanted totally un-sweet wings - I said I didn't want gratuitous amounts of sugar or a sickly-sweet end product.

ANYWAY.

The wings soaked for about 20 minutes, then I put them on a rack on a cookie sheet in a 375 degree oven for 20 minutes. When the 20 minutes was up, I turned the cookie sheet around to ensure even cooking and set the timer for another 15 minutes. I also took the leftover marinade and brought it to a boil for a few minutes, letting it reduce down to about 1/3 its original volume. This glaze then got spooned over the wings as they baked for their last ten minutes. I steamed some broccoli to go with, and when the wings were done it was time to eat!

Wings and football!

I was really pleased with how these turned out. I could have easily let them marinate for longer, and I think that starting them off in a hotter oven to crisp the skin up more would have been a plus, but the important part was that these had great flavor without the sickly sweetness of bottled teriyaki. A+, would nom again!

bacon-wrapped chicken thighs

I was flipping through "Practical Paleo" the other day, looking for inspiration for this week's menu, when I came across her recipe for bacon-wrapped chicken thighs. I say recipe...it involves wrapping chicken thighs in bacon and, uhhh...baking them. Not exactly complicated, which is fine by me. I cooked the thighs at 375 for about 35 minutes - they stayed juicy, but the bacon didn't crisp up how I wanted so I ended up blasting them at 475 for about 10 more minutes as well. It's times like this I wish I had a broiler! The bacon was still tasty though, don't get me wrong.

Wrap me in bacon and call me hungry.

That's actually kabocha squash there in the back. Normally I roast it in slices, but I wanted to try cooking it whole this time and mashing it, just to see if it would work. When it first came out of the oven, I was a little worried that I had created a disaster since the squash was quite dry and powdery, but the addition of a couple tablespoons of butter smoothed it right out. I had dusted the squash halves with garam masala before cooking so the resulting mash was not only nutty and slightly sweet but also had a nice spice to it.

The salad is just spring mix and halved grape tomatoes tossed with a simple vinaigrette of extra virgin olive oil, a little balsamic vinegar and about a teaspoon of stone-ground mustard.

morrocan hot plate

One of my favorite Paleo cookbooks is Well Fed by Melissa Joulwan. Along with lots of great stand-alone recipes, it also has a section on cooking things ahead and a system for sort of throwing together things quickly when you don't have tons of time to cook. Tonight's dinner was using one of those ideas, although I have to say that I didn't do any of the prep work ahead like the cookbook's author suggests, so this wasn't exactly a ten-minute dinner endeavor. All the same, it was tasty, filling and healthy.

Moroccan-y!

The "Moroccan" part of this comes from the spice mixture on the chicken (called Ras El Hanout - a mixture of cumin, coriander, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, salt, pepper and paprika), and the sauce  which is an olive oil and lemon juice based dressing with spices and loads of parsley and cilantro. It's kind of like an Eastern version of chimmichurri. It was especially good soaked into the cauliflower "rice".

oh hey, I made some chicken, did you want to see it?

Sorry I've been gone for almost a YEAR. Sheesh. My camera went to hell a while back and I didn't see much point in blogging about food that I couldn't show you, so...yeah. Hubs got me a new camera for our anniversary though, so I'm back in business...and business is TASTY! 

I found this recipe for "spicy crusted chicken" in an old Indian cookbook I picked up at the Five Colleges booksale last spring. The whole book seemed to be basically variations on a theme: brown some onions! Add these five or six spices! Add some meat! Serve with rice and or bread! Which, don't get me wrong - I love me some curry (and some rice), but a) I already know how to make curry and b) I try not to eat too much rice. This recipe caught my eye, though. It looked almost like Indian spiced Shake-n-Bake in the picture. The coating looked crunchy, and the ingredient list was totally Paleo-friendly aside from the yogurt it called for. And honestly, if I'm going to make concessions, yogurt is a very fair thing to make them for.

First thing the recipe has you do is brown an onion in 2/3 cup of oil. That's...a lot of oil. Especially for just one onion. Then you toast some ground almonds and unsweetened coconut in a hot pan. That made the most epic and mouth-watering smell imaginable! Then you take some yogurt and add garam masala and some salt to it, add the toasted almond and coconut, add the sauteed onions and give a good mix.

Now - I did something fairly wrong here. I used a good stiff Greek yogurt (Fage 2%) because that's what I had in stock...but I think I would have better results with a non-strained yogurt. My spice crust mixture basically came out the consistency of Play-Doh. The recipe was all "pour this fragrant mixture of loveliness over the skinned chicken!" and I was like "Ain't no pouring this, Sandeep."  I schmeared the stuff onto the chicken instead. I molded it. I...may have made a couple into vaguely X-rated shapes. Anyway - I got it all on eventually and baked the chicken in a 325 degree oven for about 35 minutes. The chicken was cooked through but not crispy at all at that point, so I cranked the oven up to 475 and let it sizzle for 10 more minutes. The topping was starting to get a little crispy at that point, but I think it was just too thick and wet to really get crunchy. It still tasted REALLY good, though.

Next time i clearly need to use a thinner yogurt. Also, I'm going to marinate the chicken in the yogurt and spice mixture for a while, then roll it in the toasted coconut / almond mixture right before cooking. I think that will not only infuse the chicken with more spice flavor, but will also make the coating more crunchy. Definitely going to cut waaaaay down on the oil I cook the onion in because that was just silly. I might even skip the oil and just cook it in ghee to add another layer of flavor. Finally, I think I'll add more garam masala than the 1.5 tsp the recipe called for, because it just wasn't aggressive enough for my tastes. It was kind of like "indian" instead of "INDIAN!!", if you see what I mean.

Even with all the clunky parts and mistakes, it was still really damn tasty, though.

Tastes like chicken!

chicken piccata

Pretty much what it says on the tin:

As you can see, I over-parsley'ed the sauce a bit, but it was none the worse for wear from it. I was being lazy and just rough chopped the parsley rather than mincing it. It's Friday, sue me.

Chicken piccata is dead easy to make - just split a couple chicken breasts into cutlets (you can pound them thin if you want, but I didn't bother and it came out just fine), brown them up in some butter and oil, then add some more butter, wine, lemon juice, parsley and capers to the pan to make a sauce, and you're ready to roll! It seriously takes longer to prep everything than it does to cook it. I paired the piccata with asparagus because it's in season, and because asparagus plays nicely with the flavors of white wine and lemon. It worked out very nicely.

Chicken Piccata
(serves 3 hungry adults)

3 boneless skinless chicken breast halves, split horizontally into cutlets
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil (regular - don't use extra virgin)
4 tablespoons dry white wine (I used chardonnay)
2 tablespoons jarred capers, drained, rinsed well and chopped
1/2 a cup (or so...haha) minced parsley
2 bunches of small-diameter asparagus (mine was mostly pencil-sized), steamed to your liking

Split the chicken breasts horizontally into cutlets and lightly season with salt and pepper. In a heavy skillet over medium-high heat, heat oil and 1 tablespoon of butter until butter stops foaming. Carefully add chicken to pan. Cook, working in batches if necessary, for 1-2 minutes per side until just cooked through. Remove chicken to platter (I put mine in a preheated 200 degree oven with foil over while I finished the rest of the chicken and made the sauce). Pour fat out of skillet, then add the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, the wine and the lemon juice. Let come to a boil, stirring to loosen brown bits from bottom of pan. Stir in the capers, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste, and remove from heat. Serve chicken over bed of steamed asparagus, with sauce spooned over.

If you're a starch eater, this would be good with pasta, rice pilaf, or even some garlicky mashed potatoes.

chicken curry with cauliflower "rice"

This is SO good, and it's super easy, trust me. This dish took me 30 minutes, start to finish, and that was with nothing prepped ahead of time (because, frankly, that's usually how I roll). Lightly mashed cauliflower actually makes a really nice rice substitute, and it's really not much more work than actual rice. The key is to get the cauliflower going before you do anything else, because it takes the longest to cook.

See? Looks like rice!

Chicken Curry with Cauliflower "Rice"
6-8 servings

1 large head cauliflower
1 can coconut milk
2lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs
1 tsp coconut or olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, grated or minced
2 tablespoons ginger, grated or minced
1 tablespoon garam masala
1 28oz can diced tomatoes (I use the no-salt-added organic ones)


1. Put a large pot of water to boil on high heat. Add a pinch of sea salt. While waiting for water to heat, trim and rinse cauliflower, and chop roughly. It doesn't need to be chopped fine, just chunk it up into pieces that are all roughly the same size. Put chopped cauliflower into boiling water, turn heat down to medium, cover. Allow to boil for around 10 minutes. You want it fork-tender, not mushy. Alternatively, you could steam the cauliflower if you've got the set-up for it.

2. Heat a large pan over medium-high heat and add olive or coconut oil. Working in batches, sear chicken thighs for about 2 minutes per side, then remove to a plate and set aside. Don't worry, the chicken will finish cooking in the sauce in a few minutes.

3. Once chicken has been seared, add chopped onion to pan. Cook, stirring frequently, until onion becomes golden. Add in garlic, ginger and garam masala, stir well to coat. Cook this for about a minute, or until the spices become fragrant.

4. Add chopped tomatoes and coconut milk, stir well to combine. Roughly chop up the chicken thighs into 1"-ish pieces and add to sauce. Stir, then turn heat to medium-low and allow to simmer while you prepare cauliflower.

5. Carefully drain cauliflower and return to pot. Mash into small bit - I use a standard-issue potato masher for this. Just remember that you want a rice-like consistency. You'll know it when you see it:

6. When the chicken has no visible pink left, the sauce is done. Scoop some cauliflower "rice" into a bowl, spoon some sauce and chicken chunks over it, and enjoy!

So there you go. Flavorful chicken curry that's quick, easy, pretty cheap, low-carb, and really very tasty.

lemony chicken stirfry

I went grocery shopping at a different store than usual on Saturday. The place I went had a more extensive produce department than I'm used to, so I had fun picking out some things I don't usually cook with. I also made an impulse purchase: a bag of 8 Meyer lemons for $2.99! Nevermind that I've never used a Meyer lemon in my life...I had to have them. On the back of the bag of lemons, there was a recipe for a meat marinade. I had all the other ingredients on hand anyway, and half a package of chicken thighs to use up, so things worked out nicely!

The marinade consisted of lemon juice and zest, garlic, ginger, sugar (I used agave nectar instead), salt, black pepper and olive oil. I mixed up the marinade and put my chicken thighs in it for 4 hours or so. When it was time to cook, I put the chicken thighs in a hot pan and let them brown up. Meanwhile, I sliced up a head of bok choy, a red bell pepper and half a head of cauliflower. I tossed them into a big pan with some coconut oil, toasted sesame oil and soy sauce. Once the veggies were crisp-tender, I pushed them to the sides of the pan and added a cup of water (I had no stock!) with a tablespoon of corn starch dissolved in it. I let that cook until it was thick and bubbly, then tossed my veggies in it and turned the heat off. I roughly chopped the chicken into bite-sized bits and tossed them into the veggie mixture. I spooned it over some left-over jasmine rice that I'd reheated in the microwave. Yum!

stuffed chicken breast with shallot pan sauce

On the way home tonight, whilst wracking my brain to come up with some idea for dinner, it dawned on me that we hadn't had chicken breast in a while. This is quite likely because I find chicken breast pretty freaking tasteless and therefore don't enjoy eating it or cooking it. I started thinking about how I could make chicken breast not suck so much. Clearly it needed some kind of sauce, and it might not hurt to bury a little tasty treasure in it, as well. Something to give it a salty little zip.

Something like...prosciutto. I mean, really. Is there anything that cured pork products do NOT improve?

No. The answer is no.

I took four boneless, skinless chicken breasts and cut deep pockets into them, then stuffed them each with a slice of prosciutto, about a tablespoon of chopped roasted red pepper, and about an ounce of fresh mozzarella cheese. I tied each piece of chicken around the middle with kitchen twine so that the goodies wouldn't fall out, then seared them each side, two at a time, in a hot pan with olive oil and a little butter. Once seared, they went into a 450 degree oven for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I decided to make some sauce! I was totally making this up as I went along, mind you. I had an idea of what I wanted it to taste like, but I wasn't exactly sure how to get there. What I ended up doing worked, so yay for that! What I did was take the pan I'd seared the chicken in and put it on medium-low heat, then added a tablespoon of sherry vinegar. I let it steam and fizzle until it was almost cooked away, then added half a cup of water (I didn't have any stock! Kitchen fail!), and scraped the good bits up off the bottom. I added a pinch of salt, a tablespoon of butter, and big shallot which I'd minced. I turned the heat down and let it all cook down for about 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes. I tasted it and lo, it was too salty! I added a little more of everything else - water, butter and vinegar, and let it cook for a few more minutes, then tasted again. And lo, it was TASTY! Wicked tasty, in fact. The chicken was done at that point, so I plated it and then added the lovely chicken juices from the baking pan into the sauce as well. I spooned a little of the sauce over each piece of chicken and served it with roasted cauliflower and spring greens with balsamic vinaigrette.

Also, a note about roasted cauliflower: I love it. Even if you're not a fan of cauliflower, you should try it. Roasting it with olive oil gives it a wonderful nutty depth of flavor. Yum!

herbed chicken breast and sauteed kale

Pretty simple, really. I took boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, rubbed them with a little olive oil and sprinkled them with black pepper, dried rosemary, and dried thyme. They went into a 425 degree oven for about 25 minutes. Meanwhile, I washed a big bunch of kale, trimmed the stems off and cut into bite-sized pieces. In a large pot, I browned a little bit of chopped bacon. Once it was crisp, I removed it and added a chopped Vidalia onion. The onion cooked until it was softened somewhat, then I removed it and set it aside, and added the kale, tossing well to coat. I added about a half cup of low-sodium chicken stock, covered the pot and let the kale cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes. When the kale was almost tender, I added the onion and bacon back in and cooked for another couple of minutes, then removed from heat and tossed with a splash of apple cider vinegar before serving.

thai green curry with chicken

I picked up a little jar of green curry paste a few weeks ago and then pretty much forgot about it until yesterday afternoon when I was pondering what to make for dinner that would use up some lime I had hanging around. I'd never made green curry before, so I figured it was worth a try!

Here's the actual recipe I used:

Thai Green Curry with Chicken
Serves 4

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3/4 cup sliced shallots (about 5 large)
1 3/4 teaspoons Thai green curry paste
1 14-ounce can unsweetened coconut milk
2 teaspoons fish sauce
1 pound skinless boneless chicken breast halves, cut into thin strips
1 large red bell pepper, cut into strips
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice plus wedges for garnish


Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Add shallots and curry paste. Stir until shallots soften, about 2 minutes. Add coconut milk and fish sauce; bring to boil. Add chicken and bell pepper; stir until chicken is just cooked through. Stir in chopped basil and lime juice. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Divide curry among bowls. Garnish with basil sprigs and lime wedges.

It was super yummy! Normally you would serve it over rice, but we don't eat rice so we just scooped the curry into bowls and ate it like stew.

chicken cashew stirfry

I had a bunch of chicken thighs I needed to use up tonight, and I needed something quick as it was laundry night. I decided a stir-fry was in order. I was poking around Epicurious and found this recipe, which sounded pretty good, so I gave it a try!

Chicken Cashew Stir-Fry
4 servings

1 bunch scallions
1 lb skinless boneless chicken thighs
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 red bell pepper, chopped
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped peeled fresh ginger
1/4 tsp dried red pepper flakes
3/4 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup salted roasted cashews

Chop scallions, separating white and green parts. Pat chicken dry, then cut into 3/4-inch pieces and toss with salt and pepper. Heat a wok or 12-inch heavy skillet (not non-stick) over moderately high heat until a drop of water evaporates immediately. Add oil, swirling to coat, then stir-fry chicken until golden in places and just cooked through, 4-5 minutes. Transfer to a plate with a slotted spoon. Add bell pepper, garlic, ginger, red pepper flakes, and scallion whites to pan and stir-fry until peppers are just tender, 5 to 6 minutes. Stir together broth, soy sauce, cornstarch, and sugar, then stir into vegetables in pan. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in cashews, scallion greens and chicken along with any accumulated juices.

*****

I omitted the salt to season the chicken with at the beginning, omitted the hot red pepper flakes, and I substituted yellow bell pepper for half of the red bell pepper called for. The finished product tasted awesome, but I have to admit I was skeptical all during cooking because the chicken really stuck to the bottom of the pan and then the garlic and ginger did, too. I think probably I didn't use enough oil (one of these days I'll learn to measure). Happily, nothing that stuck to the pan actually burnt, and when I added the liquid and gave it a good stir it all came up and added a lot of flavor to the sauce.

I'll definitely make this one again. Next time I'll make rice to catch all the lovely sauce as well.

chicken asparagus linguine

This smelled good, looked good, and the idea of it seemed good...but it was really bland. I took chicken breast tenders and cooked them in some olive oil, white wine, and garlic. I added the asparagus, turned the heat down and covered the pan so that the asparagus would steam. When the asparagus was bright green, I took it and the chicken out of the pan and tossed it with some ricotta cheese and cooked linguine. It's not even that it tasted BAD...it was just bland, bland, bland. I'm not sure what I was aiming for, but I didn't hit the mark.

chicken tikka masala

I was flipping through a cookbook this afternoon, trying to plan a list for our grocery run, when I came across a recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala that looked fairly un-daunting and sounded really yummy. I decided that since I had plenty of chicken in the fridge, I'd give it a try.

The first challenge I ran into was finding the pre-made garam masala spice mix that the recipe called for. I had no luck at three different groceries stores, even though I SWEAR I've seen it at one of them several times. I decided that all was not lost, as I knew I had the majority of the spices that usually go into garam masala in my kitchen, anyway. I figured I'd just come home, look up a recipe for garam masala, and be on my merry way.

Well.

If you're at all familiar with Indian cooking, you realize the problem with finding a recipe for something like garam masala. There are...a LOT of them. And they're all different. I eventually settled on the one that I had the most components for. The only thing I was missing was cardamom. I happily put on my boots and went back out into the night on a quest to find cardamom.

You probably know by now that I live in Vermont...RURAL Vermont, no less (there isn't really much un-rural Vermont, to be fair). Now, given that I was unable to find garam masala at any of the three grocery stores within a 20 minute drive of my house, I don't know WHAT made me think I'd be able to find cardamom. Undaunted, I traipsed through a snow storm to all three stores and found...no cardamom. I was starting to think my chicken tikka masala might not happen tonight after all.

I got back home from my fruitless cardamom quest and stood there in front of my spice rack, thinking. There's a million bajillion different versions of garam masala out there, so really, one without cardamom would just be like...a custom blend all my own, right? Right? SURE, why not! So, off I went on my Indian cooking adventure.

The recipe called for boneless, skinless chicken breast to be rubbed with a spice-and-salt mixture and then allowed to sit for 30-60 minutes to marinate. This gives the meat time to absorb the flavors, but it also gives the salt time to tenderize the meat a bit.

Once the meat had marinated, it was coated in a mixture of yogurt with some oil, grated ginger, and minced garlic mixed into it, then put into a 500-degree oven. The recipe called for cooking the chicken on a wire rack set into a pan but I don't have a wire rack, so instead what I did was take some tin foil and twist it into three long, thin-ish "sticks". I coated them with a quick blast of cooking spray and then laid them out lengthwise in the pan so that the chicken had something to separate it from the surface of the pan a little.

While the chicken cooked, I made the sauce. I started with a minced yellow onion, and sauteed it in some canola oil until it was golden brown. I added a tablespoon of tomato paste, two minced cloves of garlic, about two teaspoons of grated ginger, and a tablespoon of my newly-made garam masala mixture, which ended up looking like this:

1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

The onion-tomato-spice mixture cooked for 3-4 minutes, then I added a 28oz can of crushed tomatoes, some sugar and some salt. This simmered for about 15 minutes while the chicken finished cooking. After 15 minutes, I shut the heat off under the sauce and let it cool a little, then added half a cup of heavy cream and mixed it in.

When the chicken was done, I pulled it out of the oven and let it rest for 5 minutes, then cut it up into bite-sized pieces and added it to the sauce. I spooned it over some nice fluffy jasmine rice. It was YUMMY, and aside from the quest for spices I probably didn't even really need, quite easy. I'll definitely make this again.

thai peanut noodles with chicken

So. Yummy!

I made a sauce of peanut butter, soy sauce, a little honey, garlic, grated fresh ginger, Sriracha (I only used a teaspoon of it because Mark can't eat really hot stuff), and chicken stock. I let it thicken a little while I cooked some linguine noodles (I couldn't find udon) in salted water. My husband insists on meat in most dinners, so I very thinly sliced some chicken breast and stir-fried it in some canola oil quickly. I drained the noodles, then tossed them with the sauce and chicken, and topped them with chopped peanuts, cilantro, green onions, and lime wedges. We squeezed the lime over the noodles and mixed it all up before eating it. It was really quick, very tasty, and relatively healthy. And, more importantly, it was something very different from what we usually have. I'll definitely make this again, especially now that I have the Sriracha hanging around in the fridge.