Memorial Day Dinner

I hadn't planned a dinner tonight so before I went on my run late this afternoon I tossed a few individually wrapped chicken breasts into some water to thaw out and I would figure out the rest when it was time to cook.  To be honest, 9 out of 10 dinners here are made this way. I am horrible at planning ahead.

So 6pm I had chicken breasts. I looked around the kitchen and found: a head of garlic, a lemon, fresh thyme and bottle of white wine that I had opened up the night before.

I heated up the oil, sauteed the minced garlic until right before it started to brown and then I poured in about 3/4 cup of the white wine.  While that was simmering away I minced up the thyme, and seasoned the chicken with it as well as salt and pepper.  I then added the juice of the lemon to the pan and put the chicken it it.  Cooked it on medium high for about four minutes on each side. Perfect.  I was actually to busy barking orders at the kids to wash up and set the table that I forgot to snap a photo of the finished product.  It tasted great but it wasn't the prettiest of chicken breasts.

So then. Sides.  Peas. As I was steaming them I thought to add some of our fresh mint from the backyard. Mint and peas. SO AMAZING!  Cook the peas so barely soft, butter, fresh ground pepper, and a bunch of chopped fresh mint.  You must try this.

Finally, I didn't have lettuce so I just diced some avocado and cherry tomatoes..splash of balsamic salad dressing..summer yummy!

So nothing special about any of it but combined it was a great, pretty healthy, summer dinner.

very simple, very good

I normally would put about 2 tablespoons of chopped minced but I wasn't sure how it would go over with the kids so I only used a tablespoon..still good.

ignore the little brown spot, it was from the pit

Roasted Tomatoes on Balsamic Chicken

A few weeks ago I found The Pioneer Woman's recipe for "Bruschetta Chicken" and I wanted to try it but take it a bit farther.  My new favorite thing is to roast...everything!  It brings out so much flavor.  So after searching the web I came across Rachael Ray's "Roasted Tomato Bruschetta" recipe which is good but not exactly what I wanted.  I  wanted this to taste like the bruschetta I had recently enjoyed over at my friend Ann's house,  now as I type that it dawns on me that I could have just called her and asked for the recipe. But I digress. So taking inspiration from a few places I came up with dinner tonight and it was AWESOME! You must try this soon as possible.

Ingredients:

4 boneless chicken breasts
1 pint of grape tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic (Tim says it's not garlicky enough until there's too much garlic..??)
8 fresh basil leaves chopped
olive oil
salt and pepper
balsamic vinegar
1 avocado (optional)

Instructions:

Place thawed chicken breasts in a ziplock bag and pour in about 1 Tablespoon of olive oil, 3 Tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and pepper.  It's a marinade so it doesn't have to be precise.  Let the chicken sit in the fridge for an hour or two.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Mince the garlic. Halve the grape tomatoes, toss them with the garlic in some olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and lay it out on a cookie sheet.  Roast in the oven for 15 minutes if you like your tomatoes mushy (easier to bite into) or 10 minutes if you want the tomatoes more intact. When done let the tomatoes cool.  After cooling chop up fresh basil and mix into the tomatoes as well as a few splashes of balsamic vinegar.

Grill the chicken. Plate it and spread the tomatoes on top.  Enjoy it this way or go a little crazy and add diced avocado on top.  That tastes especially delicious!

I love getting the different colored tomatoes..adds a bit of drama to the plate

Don't you just love those colors..screams SUMMER!

Next time I will roast the tomatoes less but more for presentation sake because the taste was perfect

sadly the balsamic takes away some of the color but it adds so much to the taste!

my last minute decision to throw on the avocado was the right choice, it tasted amazing with the meal

Tuscan Chicken & Sausage Stew

This is a variation of a recipe I got out of the my Weight Watchers cook book.  For you who are dubious of Weight Watchers...IT'S NOT A DIET! I am not eating diet food. It's a lifestyle of better food choices.

This is sooo good. It called for chicken thighs, artichokes, and red pepper flakes.  I had chicken breasts, no artichokes, and my kids wouldn't eat anything spicy so I left out the flakes. So here is my version:

NOTE: USE CHICKEN THIGHS.  I've now done it twice with breast meat and twice with thigh meat...THIGH MEAT IS WAAAAYYY BETTER...but breast meat is good too if you don't know what your are missing.

6  chicken thighs
1 lbs (6 large links) of sweet or hot italian sausage (remove casings and break it up  a bit as it cooks with a wooden spoon)
2 cups of cremini mushrooms chopped
1 red onion chopped
1 bell pepper diced
3 garlic cloves minced
1 can of artichoke hearts
1 pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)
1 tsp of dried oregano
1 cup of chick broth/stock
pinch of salt & pepper


Because I didn't want to use more than one pot I cooked mine on low in a dutch oven for 4 hours. You could also cook it on high in a crock pot for 4-5 hrs or on low for 8-10.  You basically want the chicken falling apart with a fork easily and the veggies completely soft.

Brown chicken in a saute pan in a little olive oil and then transfer to crock pot.  Do the same with the sausage.  Add veggies, garlic, oregano, chicken broth, salt & pepper to the crock pot. Put on the lid and walk away.

three things my mom never was able to get me to eat growing up. 

I went the lazy route and browned everything at the same time because my dutch oven is big enough

so pretty

I will never be a hand model. Speaking of sausages and hands, my brother-in-law once described my hands to a jeweler as  "sausage fingers". I will never let him live that down...and he will probably never stop thinking that.

give it a nice big stir and walk away

Ta-da! This was so good and it smelled amazing.

Quinoa Creation!

I came across this blog, "Iowa Girl Eats", and she has some great recipes. One recently was for "Sweet Corn &Quinoa with Honey Lemon Vinaigrette" and it sounded good but not quite hardy enough for dinner. Plus, I only had red quinoa. So I added in some grilled chicken and avocados...SO GOOD! It was delish!

Here is my combination recipe:

Ingredients:

1 cup dry quinoa

2 cups water

2 Tablespoons butter

2 green onions, sliced

2 ears sweet corn (or one can of sweet corn drained)

1 avocado diced

3 chicken breasts grilled and cubed

salt & pepper

Cook the one cup of quinoa in the two cups of water until the water evaporates. I toasts my red quinoa in a little olive oil before adding the water. Saute corn in the butter for a couple of minutes. Add the cooked quinoa, green onions and cooked/cubed chicken breasts. Pour the vinaigrette over the meal in the pan...toss.  After transferring the meal into a dish add the diced avocados...you don't want the warm.  

Vinaigrette:

1 Tablespoon lemon zest

2 Tablespoons lemon juice

1 garlic clove, microplaned or finely minced

1 Tablespoon honey

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Curried Chicken Salad

My mom made this for me a few years ago and I have no idea where she got the recipe but it's delicious.

Curried Chicken Salad

1 1/2 lb skinless boneless chicken breast
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup plain yogurt
5 teaspoons curry powder
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 medium red onion, chopped (1 cup)
1 firm-ripe mango (3/4 pound), peeled, pitted, and chopped
1 cup  seedless grapes (5 ounces), halved
1/2 cup salted roasted cashews or walnuts, coarsely chopped


Bake seasoned chicken in oven. Transfer chicken to a plate and cool 10 minutes. Chop into 1/2-inch pieces.
While chicken is cooling, whisk together mayonnaise, yogurt, curry, lime juice, honey, ginger, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Add chicken, onion, mango, grapes, and nuts and stir gently to combine.

mayo

yogurt

lime juice

Herb Roasted Chicken with Chive Oil Zucchini

I found Pastor Ryan's Herb Roasted Chicken over at The Pioneer Woman and decided to give it a shot. It was the perfect chicken...tasted amazing and very moist.  All done in an hour.  The whole cooking a whole chicken in an hour isn't new to me.  The first recipe my mom emailed to me when I got home from my honeymoon was "Blasted Chicken".  A working lady can still make her man a whole roasted chicken for dinner even after coming home from a long day at work.  Just crank the oven up and sit back with cocktails.  This worked great for the first month of our marriage until I discovered pregnancy and raw meat, especially chicken did not mix well.  Poor Tim went hungry for the next 4.5 months, because nothing mixed well with pregnancy.


The Pioneer Woman documents the cooking of the chicken so beautifully I didn't bother, but here are my  before and after.


Before:

After:

Herb Roasted Chicken

3-4 lb whole chicken

aromatics for stuffing inside the chicken: lemon, garlic, onion

kosher salt

fresh ground pepper

fresh herbs: rosemary, thyme, and sage (2 Tablespoons chopped)

preheat oven to 450 degrees

combine chopped herbs with 1 Tblsp of kosher salt and 1 tsp of fresh ground pepper. pour 3 Tblsp of canola oil into the mixture.  after patting the chicken dry and stuffing the aromatics inside, smather the herb oil mixture all over the chicken.  put in the oven for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes.

Yum!!

Once again I turned to Fine Cooking and found a recipe for Grilled Chive Oiled Zucchini.  It sounded delightful but I wasn't taking down my food processor and adding more to the mess I needed to clean up. Instead of pureeing the chives and pushing them through a strainer to make the perfect chive oil, I just chopped them up finely, and mixed them with the seasoning and oil.  I think it tasted great, even though none of my kids would eat them.  If I'm ever making a bib batch of zucchini I will make the proper chive oil.

Grilled Zucchini with Chive Oil

3/4 oz. chives, thinly sliced (about 6 Tbs.) 
1/3 cup plus 2 Tbs. walnut oil 
1 lb. small zucchini (3 to 4), cut on a sharp angle into 1/2-inch-thick ovals 
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 

---

Put all but 1 Tbs. of the chives in a blender. Begin to blend while slowly pouring 1/3 cup of the walnut oil through the feed hole of the blender lid. Continue to blend for 1 minute. Stop to scrape down the sides of the blender with a rubber spatula. Blend for another minute. Set aside for 30 minutes to 1 hour to let the flavors infuse.

Strain the oil through a fine sieve into a bowl, pressing the pureed chives with a rubber spatula or the back of a spoon to extract any remaining oil.

Prepare a medium-high charcoal or gas grill fire.

In a medium bowl, toss the zucchini with the remaining 2 Tbs. oil, 1/2 tsp. salt, and a few grinds of pepper.

Set the zucchini ovals at an angle on the grill grates and cook until the zucchini has developed rich brown grill marks, about 3 minutes. Turn the zucchini with tongs and cook until the other sides have rich brown grill marks and the zucchini is tender, about 3 minutes. Transfer to a small serving dish or platter.

Drizzle 3 to 4 tsp. of the chive oil over the zucchini and sprinkle with the reserved 1 Tbs. chives.