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

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