chicken

What we ate this past week…

~ nancyruth ~ 6 Comments

This past week I had not been terribly inspired to try new recipes or cook elaborate meals. But we do go to work, Hubby and I, and come home and need to eat. For the most part I am trying to eat better, and less, for health and well-being. I usually get two to three days into the week and BOOM!, I fall back into eating too much or having that extra glass of wine or sweet thing that sets off the indigestion or sets back the good efforts I have made.

That said, I have been making protein shakes for breakfast and taking a decent lunch with plenty of fruit for snacking at work. I have a bag of string cheese in the small fridge in my office for a healthy snack mid-morning. One morning I cooked up an egg with a piece of ham with a bit of frozen spinach for color. It took just a few minutes so I am not sure why I don’t do that more often.

Another hallmark of the week is that I have logged 10000 steps one of the days! I did this by walking to work (7/10th of a mile) and walking a mile on the treadmill during my lunch break. AND carrying my iPhone on my person to track the steps. A Fitbit would be easier but it’s just an extra bit of technology that duplicates the App on the smartphone. I do not walk to work everyday because I need to give my ankle a chance to rest and sometimes because I am just plain lazy!

So what did we eat?

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Monday was barbequed chicken baked in the oven. I used my homemade sauce (It’s different every time!). I baked the chicken and poured on the sauce after 30 minutes and then set it under the broiler after 20 more minutes to brown them. I served this with a spinach/romaine salad topped with strawberries, toasted pecans, and feta cheese, dressed with homemade Green Goddess dressing.

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Tuesday was a quinoa salad made with the two leftover pieces of chicken from Monday’s dinner. I found a fabulous quick cook quinoa/wild rice mix that cooks up in 10 minutes and there are no additives or spice mix in it. This is the multi-grain crunch salad from the back of the box. I forgot to use chicken broth to cook the quinoa and just used water. I did not measure the vegetables but added plenty along with my own addition of Craisins and walnuts.

  • make the equivalent of 1 1/2 to 2 cups quinoa/rice/grain mixture
  • add 1 cup cooked diced or shredded chicken
  • 1/3 cup chopped carrots (I used prepared shredded carrots and chopped them up further.)
  • 1/3 cup diced celery (I used 2 large stalks)
  • 1/3 cup diced red pepper (I used 6 mini peppers of varying sizes and added 2 yellow ones as well.)
  • 1/3 cup citrus vinaigrette (I made about 1/2 cup using 1/4 cup of the Persian Lime olive oil and the juice of one lemon. I chopped up fresh chives and thyme and parsley to make a few tablespoons, add a bit of kosher salt and pepper.)
  • 1/4 up Craisins and 1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Cook the quinoa, chop the vegetables, add the chicken, and toss with the dressing. Super simple and super delicious. And super good for you! I made double and was able to take some for lunches. It can be served warm or cold.

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Wednesday was a “BAD DAY”: Super Nachos! But served with guacamole for the vegetable! For these nachos I browned about 1/2 pound of ground beef seasoning it with 1/2 teaspoon cumin, 1/2 teaspoon paprika, 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder, a pinch of salt, and a few drops of hot sauce. Pile on cheese and jalapeno peppers and bake for 10 minutes. I make guacamole with garlic powder, diced tomato, lime juice, and a spoonful or so of sour cream. Oh yeah, don’t forget the avocado!

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Thursday was a re-run of the quinoa salad. For this supper I put fresh baby spinach leaves in the bowls and then piled on the salad. This is a great salad. One could switch it up and use rice or lentils or barley instead of quinoa for a nice summer supper.

Friday was the start of a camping weekend. We had our usual Subway grinders for Friday with chips. This lets us get to the campground, set up, and then have a supper ready to eat. For Saturday I had par-cooked (read that as “boiled the heck out of”) chicken leg quarters that we would finish cooking on the grill. I forgot that they were on the stove so they were more than par-cooked and turned out a tad dry but good enough with a Texas BBQ Rub. I did end up with a nice rich chicken stock out of it though! We made a foil packet of potatoes with butter, onions, and cheese as well.The best meal of the camping was the cheeseburgers for lunch. But here is a pic of our dinners:

So now it’s Sunday and were home again. What to cook this week?

Poultry Pepper Pesto Pasta

~ nancyruth ~ 11 Comments

This dish is somewhat inspired by the cover of the April food network magazine. Also by Hubby! When I picked up the magazine at the checkout line I showed him the picture and we both thought that looked good. But Hubby is allergic to shrimp, so it would just be pesto and pasta or trade out the shrimp for chicken.

 

pesto pasta 001I did not even bother to read the recipe. Hubby suggests angel hair pasta. We have some leftover grilled chicken and away we go! I want to add roasted red peppers since I have an almost full jar open in the fridge. I have 3 quarter cup chunks of homemade pesto in the freezer. So Hubby starts naming the dish and it’s a “P” tongue twister so eventually we settle on the title. Hubby wants to add the mushrooms but I don’t want to. I have no way of knowing if the type of mushrooms name starts with a “P”!

  • 2 pieces of poultry thighs, already cooked, meat cut off the bone and diced
  • 1 jar of roasted red peppers, sliced and diced, save the juice/oil from the jar
  • 1/4 cup pesto
  • 4 nests of angel hair pasta nests
  • Pecorino Romano cheese for serving

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Chop the peppers and poultry. Put in skillet with a little bit of cooking oil or cooking spray. Stir in the pesto and juice from the pepper jar. Heat through. Cook the pasta according to the package.

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When pasta is done divide into two bowls. Top with the pesto-poultry mixture. Sprinkle on the grated cheese. Eat up.

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The aroma was wonderful as was the taste. The mushrooms would have fit in perfectly. Hubby thought it needed a bit of sauce. We put a dollop of sour cream in each bowl and that did the trick. Next time making a bit of a butter cream sauce should be made. This would be done by adding a bit of butter to the skillet and a bit of cream/milk/or half-and-half to get the consistency desired.

 

Plain cooking

~ nancyruth ~ 9 Comments

plain cooking 003Ever have one of those days that you are tired at the end of a work day, motivation to “create” dinner is just not there, there’s another tragedy in the news, and the weather forecast is early spring turning back into winter? I did not want to sit down and brood over the local tragedy so I made myself fix dinner. We have been using up what groceries are in the house so the fridge is on the empty side. Luckily the last of the meat (chicken thighs) was thawed in the fridge. And there was one lemon and a bit of sad looking parsley. I was trying to keep fresh herbs in cups of water in the fridge but I am not successful at that yet. They just don’t stay looking fresh. What am I doing wrong?

I have made a lemon chicken recipe before:  https://mykitchenmythoughts.com/2015/12/03/making-do-a-lesson-in-humility/. But this is slightly different and does not require marinading. I basically just layered chicken thighs, lemon slices, and garlic cloves in a baking pan. Squirted it all over with the lemon juice, sprinkled on some of the chopped sad looking parsley for a bit of color, and baked for 35 minutes at 350 F. I chopped up the last romaine heart, salvaged one carrot from a batch that were trying to sprout, and the remainder of the celery for a side salad. Now the fridge feels good and truly empty! But there is dinner…

The next day was a grocery shopping day. I was trying to think about what we needed only for the week otherwise I over buy. This is one reason I go to the discount grocery stores. More food for less money! But so much food can inhibit my creativity as well. There can be too much to choose from. This is often when I revert back to basic “non creative” cooking and baking such as throwing a roast in a pot, opening cans to make turkey chili, pre-breaded fish fillets, spaghetti and then leftover spaghetti, and sometimes scrambled eggs for dinner.

But now there is food in the house so we will see what this week brings!

 

 

Chicken Cordon Bleu

~ nancyruth ~ 2 Comments

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With a name like “cordon bleu” one would think this dish originated in France, perhaps at the famed cooking school. I went looking through my cookbooks to find the recipe to have some history to write this essay. I found that it was absolutely NOT in any of my “French” or “professional” cookbooks!

The only book I have with the recipe is Joy of Cooking. And Joy calls it a classic. So Hubby and I went looking on the internet and found that it is not French, nor very old. It was first seen in print in the NY Times in 1967. The veal recipes date back to the 1940s. The origin is thought to be Swiss. We learn something new every day!

Hubby has always talked about this as one of his specialty dishes. He had made it once before in our time together but not for years. He doesn’t use a recipe, just goes with what is there. His other specialty dish is a stuffed meatloaf. He doesn’t use a recipe for that either.

This past weekend he had the opportunity to make this dish as we had two chicken breasts in the freezer and had gotten them out to thaw. These things are huge! He ends up using only one of the breasts for this dish. He pounds the meat after sandwiching it between two sheets of plastic wrap. And here you can see the flattened chicken breast next to its counterpart.

Hubby then layers this with sliced ham and sliced cheese. The “recipe” for cordon bleu would use Swiss or Gruyere but we have Provolone available and use that. He rolls this up jelly-roll style before placing it in the dish.

We have switched out the square pyrex dish for a smaller casserole pan for the cordon bleu. I cover the extra breast with foil and bake it along side. Hubby then beats an egg and pours that on top. I hand him the bread crumbs, and he chooses the spices he wants. He sprinkles on the crumbs and then the spices. All in between he is washing his hands and the cutting boards to wash away the chicken juice! He puts this in the oven at 350 F and we let this bake for about an hour. I check it with a thermometer to be sure it has reached 160 F internal temperature.

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The cheese is melted nicely and the meat is tender. I served this with a green salad and we had a nice meal. And the bonus is that I also have a spare chicken breast already cooked to make chicken salad or pot pie or soup for later in the week.

Bon appetit!

 

 

Coffee Molasses Marinade

~ nancyruth ~ 4 Comments

ice cream 002As I write this I have been back at work less than a week. Two immediate challenges this brings to me are “what shoe will fit with this ankle air cast?” and the bit of pain from stuffing my foot into a shoe all day long! But let’s be real: there are worse things, much worse and many, that one could have to contend with so I count my blessings and am grateful to my God for my lot in life!

That said, when it comes to food and preparing dinner, I must think about and prepare in a more planful way. I no longer have the afternoon to bake bread or the morning to make a cake or get to forage around the pantry and fridge for ingredients throughout the day. This is when I will use my crock pot more frequently and do make ahead meals with leftovers. I am sure most of you have been there, done that!

I am still not walking up and down my basement steps so must ask Hubby to bring up meat from the freezer. He found three pieces of steak: made his day! So he may grill some steak this week and I might make a Beef Bourguignon. And we have some chicken. Chicken thighs are what I chose to marinate and then bake/roast for our supper.

This marinade is from Alton Brown. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/alton-browns-molasses-and-coffee-pork-chops-recipe.html

I have always used this with chicken and have yet to try with pork chops. And because I am using chicken the marinade will need to be discarded and not used to make a nice sauce/gravy (put frown-y face here). I am proud of myself for saving a cup of coffee from the morning brew as well as thawing the chicken ahead of time so that it marinates in an unfrozen state of being. The ingredients are a slight adaptation of the original recipe. Here is what I use:

  • 1 cup brewed coffee
  • 3/4 cup molasses
  • 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon whole grain mustard
  • 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

I put the chicken thighs in a bucket. This is a bucket leftover from when we used to buy large amounts of ice cream at the Sam’s Club store. (I also use a bucket like this for Artisan Bread dough that stores in the fridge.) Pour on the marinade and swirl the chicken around. I let this stay in fridge for 24 hours. I swirled it around several times, mostly at night before I went to bed, and then in the morning before I went to work. This then gets broiled for about 20 minutes in the oven.

Oops! I left it too close to the flame! If I turn them over maybe nobody will notice? Just peel back the skin. The chicken is full of flavor from the overnight marinading.

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Serve this with frozen peas and carrots and leftover salad and we eat a real meal, on plates, at the table. Hubby put jazz on the stereo and we try to solve the world’s problems while eating our dinner.

Notes: I think I could make half the amount of marinade and put it with chicken in a crock pot and let it cook for the day. I could try that with pork chops as well. That way a gravy could be made with the liquid. That would be good with mashed potatoes or rice! Don’t forget the vegetable.

 

 

Chicken Piccata

~ nancyruth ~ 3 Comments

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Chicken thighs were brought up from the freezer to the fridge to thaw for supper. I went to my newly organized recipe notebook looking for a coffee marinade (I had a bit of leftover coffee from the morning) and came across a page I had saved from a 1991 Woman’s Day magazine on how to prepare chicken multiple ways using a basic starter of chicken thighs or breasts.chicken piccata 001 Add a different sauce and different vegetables and you have different dinners all week. I looked at it pretty thoroughly and found that I had all the ingredients for “chicken picante with green beans“. Even the white wine. Reading through the recipe I had the unique thought that I could actually follow this recipe exactly. Well, not exactly exactly. I would use fresh green beans instead of frozen, and I had a few mini orange peppers instead of a red bell pepper. It seemed exact enough to me!

This handy dandy recipe chart has four parts to each dish: the chicken, the vegetables, the liquid, and the finishing touch.

The first is of course the chicken. One trims the visible fat (I do a half-hearted effort at this) and coat the pieces with seasoned bread crumbs. Well, I have a package of Panko bread crumbs and that will have to do. The recipe calls for 1 1/2 pounds of chicken parts. I have thawed a 3 pound package so that will have to do as well. I’ll plan for leftovers this way. I put my breadcrumbs in a ziploc bag to toss with the chicken, one piece at a time.

  • 6 large chicken thighs, thawed. These could have the skins removed for a more calorie conscious meal.
  • 4 tablespoons Panko bread crumbs
  • 2 tablespoons canola oil for the skillet

Heat the oil in a large skillet with sides and cook the crumb coated chicken pieces for about 6-8 minutes, turning once.

Meanwhile prepare the vegetables:chicken piccata 006

  • 4 mini peppers or a red bell pepper, diced (any pepper or combination of colorful peppers would work here, red, orange or yellow will provide a nice contrast to the green beans)
  • fresh green beans, trimmed, about a pound (or 10 ounces frozen green beans)

chicken piccata 008Prepare the liquid:

  • 1 cup white wine
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
  • 1 tablespoon drained capers
  • 1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper
  • 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

When the chicken is nicely browned, add the vegetables and the liquid to the pan, cover and let simmer for 30 minutes.

The finishing touch is to sprinkle with Romano cheese.

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I make a bowl of couscous to serve with this. I set the table and wait for hubby to arrive.  I remove the chicken and vegetables to platter and plates. I sprinkle about 2 tablespoons of flour into the sauce in the pan and bring it to a boil to thicken. This takes just a few minutes. We sit down to a nice meal (after saying the blessing). We are having a nice conversation sitting at the table for our meal when he informs me this is a Piccata, not a picante, when I tell him about the recipe. A piccata is a white wine sauce with capers. Hubby used to work in high end restaurants and has hobnobbed with real chefs so he should know. Oh, I’m sure I have had this dish at restaurants before but did not connect the ingredients in this recipe to the misnomer by the magazine.

I wonder if it was just an oversight by the food editor?  I know of Picante as a Mexican hot sauce. I was just going by the name given by the Woman’s Day magazine people. Points scored by hubby for his culinary knowledge. I am not surprised. This is the man who lent me his copy of Gastronomique and The Professional Chef when we started dating! He used to quiz me on the Five Mother Sauces! I guessed at them; I’m just a home cook raised in the Midwest. I just make gravy!

Can you name the Five Mother Sauces?

Making Do! A lesson in humility

~ nancyruth ~ 3 Comments

I interrupt my next planned blog on birthday cake to write about unplanned, unwanted events. First of all “It could be worse.” I am on the first full day of hobbling around on crutches with an air-boot on my right foot. afterThanksgivingCakeHumility 020This is my driving foot so I am housebound and dependent on others to get out of the house. I am very blessed to have the world’s best hubby to watch over and take care of me. However I am not used to relying on others and this is an ongoing life lesson for me.

I am not feeling sorry for myself. People have much worse events and conditions to live with, some for all their lives. So, I have to harness my Mom’s “make do” spirit and make do!

To explain, I fell. I busted (is that the proper word?) my upper lip and chin and broke my ankle. It happened very quickly and I was not able to catch myself before hitting my face.

So now I have learned what a fat lip looks and feels like. When my coworkers looked at my face they saw what I only saw looking in the mirror, which I don’t do often. Went and got the medical care needed and here I sit. When the pain lessens I hobble around the house on crutches; I go up and down the stairs on my butt like a two year old, and I wheel myself around the house on my sewing machine chair which has wheels. I am grateful that I have hardwood floors as maneuvering in the chair would be much harder on carpet.

I am supposed to be making a birthday cake for granddaughter’s birthday party this weekend. My kitchen is not scaled to chair level but I can stand with the crutches. Maybe I’ll tackle that tomorrow.

Hubby set out chicken thighs to thaw for dinner tonight. I saw a chicken recipe on the Food Network site, http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/melissa-darabian/roasted-garlic-clove-chicken-recipe.html ,that looked tasty as well as on another blogger’s site. https://cookingforthetimechallenged.wordpress.com/2015/12/03/grilled-chicken-cutlets/

This is my adaptation/combination/inspiration from these two recipes.

I’ve got 6 chicken thighs, mostly without skin. I juice and zest ½ lemon. This is my favorite old time citrus juicer. It is from my Mom. It is a WearEver Aluminum, made in the U.S.A.

I use ¼ cup canola oil, and about a teaspoon of Herbs de Provence. Oh, and a clove of garlic. Swirl that all together with ¼ chopped onion and pour in the Ziploc bag with the chicken. Fiddle around with it to get the marinade all around the chicken.afterThanksgivingCakeHumility 026 Place back in fridge and wait for dinner time. I will cook these in my 10 inch cast iron skillet. The rest of dinner will be baked sweet potatoes, and green beans.

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And dinner is served.

 

I can do all of this from my “wheeled” chair and crutches! That’s called Making Do!

Crock Pot Meal

~ nancyruth ~ 2 Comments

I like cooking in the crock pot. Meals are ready when evening comes. It is convenient and simple. Slow cooking meat this way is a way to turn tougher cuts into tender meals. I usually cook chicken in the crockpot although I have cooked beef. I would like to use it more but to be honest the texture of the meal is similar regardless of what I’ve cooked. It seems to be all “stew-like.” But this does not stop me from preparing meals this way. It is rather an assembled meal and not necessarily really a recipe meal.

It is convenient. I do not necessarily need the convenience in that I have 1 ½ hours at home alone before my husband arrives home from work. I have 45 minutes to an hour in the morning as well. I REFUSE to feel guilty that I have arranged my work to be so close to home. I do recognize that some may call this a luxury and that not everyone can arrange life like this. But I did and I really enjoy it. Work is work but this change saved my sanity from my previous job!

So we had a huge grocery shopping trip this week. And I say “we” because my husband makes it a practice to go shopping with me. Now this is a luxury! Lots of chicken was purchased at my discount grocery store. I have a 10 pound bag of chicken leg quarters. These work nicely in the crockpot. I have every intention of making my own barbeque sauce and barbeque rubs. I have not done so yet. Well, that is not true. I made one sauce and used it over chicken but it would be better over pork. I am not sure that I like it; it is made without ketchup. My plan is to make a simple sauce in the morning before work. This does not happen. I have about ½ cup tomato  soup leftover and will use that instead.

Here is an assembly of ingredients that make a meal: chicken parts, potatoes, carrots, onions, tomato soup, spice rub, liquid smoke.

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I put all that in the crockpot and cooked it on low for 8 hours then kept it on warm.

Maine weekend and crockpot meal 056And then there are muffins. I thought at first that I would make corn muffins but the KAF 200th Anniversary Cookbook had a wheatgerm muffin and I have wheatgerm in my fridge. So that is what I made. Page 76.

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And then I make pie! Dough from Emily RPCV referenced in previous blog (Savory Pie). And the pumpkin pie from the KAF cookbook. My standard pumpkin pie recipe is from the Betty Crocker cookbook. But I am trying to keep to my goal of baking through this one cookbook.

So I had gone to the grocery to buy a few more items that we forgot at the big grocery shopping trip. I come home and bake and bake. I feed my husband and we have a nice dinner. I make the pie after supper and then need to clean up. He says he is not doing dishes until the morning. Well, I did the dishes this morning since they needed to be done. I am sweeping up the kitchen floor and slightly seething, very slightly, not even seething, more like minor brooding trying not to brood, while my husband is trying to get his iPhone to find local pool halls. I have made his favorite pie! I bring this to his attention and he tells me he works hard enough and he is not going to work at home this evening after working hard all day! And he sometimes feels like Cinderella! This is true for both of us. I just wanted a bit of help cleaning up the kitchen. But it is done and we can relax and wait for the pie to cool down so we can have a slice.

Pie makes everything right. Happy autumn!