Chicken Marbella

It's funny how convoluted life can be.....all these twisty roads that somehow always bring us back to what we love to do the most. For me one of those things is cooking (the other is pool, which I happen to be starting back up tonight!!) So while we have a precious new addition in our family and schedules have changed dramatically, I am determined to keep doing the things I love so that I can stay a happy mama.

Lately the adventurous and time consuming meals have been far and few between, but I finally feel that I am slowly able to try new recipes while the little one is sleeping happily in her swing. Most of the work on this one is making the marinade the night before, and then a little basting while it cooks. I served it with a salad and roasted red potatoes. YUM!

I love the combination of sweet, salty and tangy in this chicken. I found it in People magazine touted as Matt Lauer's favorite recipe that he's eaten on the Today show. I really liked the subtle meditteranean flavors of the olives, capers and prunes mixed together with oregano and wine. Give it a try if you are feeling like something a little different!

Chicken Marbella

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken, 5 lbs. cut into 8 pieces
1/2 head of garlic, peeled and pureed

2 T. dried oregano

2 T. coarse salt

2 T. ground pepper

1/4 cup red-wine vinegar

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 cup pitted prunes

1/4 cup pitted green olives

1/4 cup capers with a bit of juice

1 bay leaves

1/2 cup white wine

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 T. fresh chopped parsley or cilantro

1. Combine chicken, garlic, oregano, salt, pepper, vinegar, olive oil, prunes olives, capers and bay leaves in a large bowl. Cover and marinate in fridge overnight.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

3. Place chicken in large, shallow pan and spoon marinade over it evenly.

4. Pour white wine over the chicken, and sprinkle with brown sugar.

5. Bake for 50-60 minutes, basting frequently with pan juices.

6. Transfer chicken, prunes olives and capers to serving platter with a slotted spoon. Moisten with pan juices and sprinkle with parsley or cilantro.

Chicken and Dumplings

All of us have colds here and I thought some old fashioned comfort food would hit the spot right about now. I remember visiting my grandma during my childhood and one of the dinners she would always make was Chicken and Dumplings.....the fluffy doughy biscuits floating at the top would try to melt away if I didn't gobble them up first. And then the thick stew filled with chicken and other tidbits would be next down the hatch. If there was any left, seconds were usually not out of the question. I remember her process was an all afternoon affair. She boiled the whole the chicken first while making her own stock, and then picked the meat off the bones for the soup. I'm sure that is what made it so special.

What's great about this recipe is that it takes literally 25 minutes tops and is so tasty and satisfying. I even had that flashback moment like in the movie Ratatouille, where Ego, the nasty food critic, tastes the dish and is sucked back in time to when he was a kid. Isn't that what food is about anyways? Making memories with your family and enjoying each other's company? It always amazes me what tastes and smells can bring me right back to being a kid.

Give this a try before the warm weather hits....you won't be disappointed and may even add it to your winter menu rotation like I am going to do!

Chicken and Dumplings by Rachael Ray

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds chicken breast, cut into small bite size pieces
1 tablespoon olive oil 1 turn of the pan
2 tablespoons butter
1 russet potato, peeled and diced
2 medium carrots, peeled and diced or thinly sliced
1 medium onion, chopped
1 rib celery, diced
1 bay leaf, fresh or dried
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning, (I also added 1/4 t. dried thyme)
2 tablespoons flour
1 quart chicken broth or stock, canned or paper container

2 cups Bisquick

1/2 cup milk
Handful flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1 cup frozen green peas

Directions

Dice tenders into bite size pieces and set aside. Wash hands.

Place a large pot on stove over medium high heat. Add oil, butter, vegetables and bay leaf and cook 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Season mixture with salt, pepper and poultry seasoning. Add flour to the pan and cook 2 minutes. Stir broth or stock to the pot and bring to a boil. Add chicken to the broth and stir.

Place biscuit mix in a bowl. Combine with 1/2 cup milk and parsley until a dough consistency forms. Drop tablespoonfuls of prepared mix into the pot, spacing dumplings evenly. Cover pot tightly and reduce heat to medium low. Steam dumplings 8 to 10 minutes. Remove cover and stir chicken and dumplings to thicken sauce a bit. Stir peas into the pan, remove chicken and dumplings from heat and serve in shallow bowls.

Roasted Salsa and Cilantro Lime Chicken

Made this yummy recipe up, based on what was left in my fridge and the fact that the Cuisinart was sprung out from the depths of the garage for the salsa recipe (tiny kitchen=no storage). We really liked the south of the border zingy chicken BBQ'd this way.

Cilantro Lime Chicken

Throw the following in the food processor:

1/2 onion

4 cloves garlic

1 bunch cilantro

3 T. light olive oil

1 tsp. pepper

juice from 1 lime plus zest

I did not add salt because the chicken we had was "plumped" (you've seen the commercial) with some kind of saline solution. From now on, I will seek out the all natural chicken whenever I can because it was actually too salty without any added salt in the marinade. Scary.

Anyways, marinade 4 hours, poking the chicken a couple times with a fork violently to inject more flavor. While doing this, as tempting as it might be, avoid yelling "die, die, die" or else your significant other might have you committed.

Grill and eat. Easy Spanish rice recipe coming soon.

While you have the cuisinart out, here is another recipe that is pretty easy. Roasted salsa has a smoky mellow flavor and when you make your own, it's easy to control the heat or lack of it (if you are like me). The recipe I read here called for a whopping 20-25 serranos. Ummmm.....after tasting ONE bite of ONE serrano that was ALREADY ROASTED, I wanted to chug a whole gallon of milk to cool off my mouth, so I adjusted it down to a measly 3 peppers and it was still plenty hot!

Roasted Salsa

16 roma tomatoes, halved
2 onions, quartered
8-10 garlic cloves
3-5 serrano peppers
1 bunch cilantro
1 T. salt
lime juice to taste.

Preheat oven to 375. Lay tomatoes, onions, garlic and peppers out on cookie sheets and cook until the onions are soft and translucent, about 20-25 minutes.

Cool off a bit and pulse in a cuisinart with cilantro and salt. Add lime juice to taste.

Green Curry Chicken

Today I did a little demonstration for some friends and made Green Curry Chicken for lunch. I know for me, there is a world of difference between watching someone cook and trying to figure it out from a written recipe. I'm assuming that's the reason that the Food Network is wildly popular - most people prefer visual learning. But even with those shows, the measurements and cook times are vague or glossed over.

Luckily for us, vague is the best way to cook Thai food....you do it by taste, trying to find the right balance between the 4 S's -- salty, sweet, sour and spicy. Once you have the ingredients and understand their strengths, it is easy to do. For blog's sake, I've written out a recipe with precise ingredients for a guideline, but it's up to you what your palate prefers. Some people like spicier and others like sweeter. Make up your own veggie combination too...green beans, sweet potatoes, and summer squash are all fine additions. I've put my favorite brands in there too, in case you were curious.

Thank you to my enthusiastic tasters too....it was a fun afternoon!

Thai Green Curry with Chicken

Ingredients:
1 lb. chicken breast tender, cut into bite-sized chunks
2-3 tbs. green curry paste (Mae Ploy brand)
1 can coconut milk (Mae Ploy or Chaokoh brand)
3 kaffir lime leaves, split and thinly sliced
¼ to ½ cup chicken broth (optional)
1 tsp. fish sauce or to taste (Golden Boy or Three Crabs brand)
1 tbs. brown sugar or to taste
1 cup eggplant, cut in bite sized pieces
1 sliced red bell pepper
½ sliced onion
3 sliced carrots
½ lime
½ cup Thai basil leaves

Method:
1. Saute the chicken until just done, set aside.*
2. Do not shake the coconut milk before using, so that the cream stays on top. Scoop out ½ cup coconut cream into a pan over medium high heat until bubbly and the oil surfaces (3 mins). Add curry paste and fry it in the cream until fragrant (3 mins)
3. Add the remaining coconut milk, sugar and fish sauce. Add broth until you get a consistency and richness that you like. (If you like it super-rich, skip the broth.) Bring to a boil.
4. Add the veggies and simmer uncovered until they are tender (7-10 mins.)
5. Add the chicken back in and bring back to a simmer. Add the basil. Squeeze the lime juice in. Stir and remove from the heat. Serve over rice.

*You could add the raw chicken in at the end of step 2, but after having a few batches curdle on me, I’ve decided it’s better just to sauté the chicken before.

Apricot Dijon Chicken

I was looking over my blog and realized that there are a lot of desserts and condiments and just not enough main dishes. Therefore, I will try to give you a few of my easy weeknight dinners in the next couple of posts. After a day of shopping, taxi-driving, baking, breaking up fights and picking up toys, it's really incredibly easy to order pizza. Believe me, I've been there....recently even.....ummm.....like last night.

This simple one is from a recent Family Circle magazine and the whole family really seemed to enjoy it. The kids preferred theirs without the nuts and parsley (eww...something GREEN?)

I know everyone has a similar recipe in their files, but if you don't, give it a try. Pair it with brown rice and a salad for a healthy dinner.

Apricot-Dijon Chicken

1/3 cup apricot preserves
2 T ketchup
1 T dijon mustard
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/4 cup chopped hazelnuts (I used walnuts)
1 box wild rice (I used brown rice)
1 T. olive oil (I omitted)

Make rice according to directions. Heat oven to 400. Spray baking dish with nonstick spray.

Whisk together apricot preserves, ketchup, mustard, ginger and garlic. Reserve 1/4 cup of mixture. Place chicken in dish and spread remaining apricot mixture over the tops. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until done.

To serve, lay one chicken breast on top of 1/2 cup rice, drizzle with a little extra sauce if desired. Sprinkle with chopped nuts and parsely, if you have any on hand.

Baked Chicken Nuggets

A book called The Omnivore's Dilemma states that there are 38 ingredients in a Chicken McNugget. Can you believe 56% of those ingredients are derived from corn? I thought the chicken percentage would have been a wee bit higher. Read more about it here.

Knowing that nugget of information (forgive the pun), I decided to make my own healthy version. It worked...the kids gobbled them up with the voracity of ants on a lollipop. For children who shun meat in most forms, this was like winning a key battle. And why didn't I think of it sooner??? Duh!

Baked Chicken Nuggets

3 chicken breasts, cut into pieces
1 cup milk
1 tsp. vinegar
1 cup breadcrumbs
1/4 cup Parmesan
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. dried basil
1/4 tsp. oregano
salt & pepper

Heat oven to 400. Put a rack inside of a cookie sheet or baking pan. This will allow more even crisping on the underside.

In a bowl, mix the milk with vinegar and throw in the chicken pieces (This would be a tenderizer kind of like buttermilk). Make the breading by mixing up the rest of the ingredients in another bowl. Roll the chicken pieces in breading until coated and put on the rack.

Cook for 15 minutes, then turn them over and turn the oven up to broil. Cook for 5 more minutes. Serve with dipping sauce of choice (we used marinara).

Yucatan Chicken Tacos with BBQ Chile-Peanut Sauce and Red Slaw

I wonder if everyone is impulsive like me when it comes to food. I do sometimes overindulge, but what I'm talking about is when you see something on a cooking show or in a magazine and immediately say, "I am making that tonight". You drop what you had planned for dinner. You ignore the tornado frenzy that are your children racing around your feet. You must recreate that recipe!

That's what happened here. The show was Throw Down with Bobby Flay and it was a challenge for "Puffy Tacos." It looked so easy on TV (doesn't it always?), but once I saw Bobby's recipe, I decided to simplify it just a bit....like ditching the puffy aspect. I used regular corn tortillas. And I didn't make the base BBQ sauce from scratch. And no peanut-cilantro relish. It was still OUTSTANDING. I loved the creamy peanut BBQ sauce with the tangy slaw. It wasn't your typical taco, but the flavors were so unique and addicting. If you have some extra time on a weekend or something, I say give this a whirl.

Step 1 - Marinate the chicken.

Step 2 - Make the BBQ sauce.

Step 3 - Make the red cabbage slaw and finish the sauce.

Step 4 - Cook the taco shells and assemble.

So here is my version:

Yucatan Tacos with BBQ Chile-Peanut Sauce with Red Slaw

Chicken Marinade:
2 lbs. chicken cut into small chunks
2 T. honey
2 T. lime juice
2 T. rice wine vinegar
2 T. olive oil
2 t. minced garlic
1 minced chipotle pepper
salt/pepper

Mix everything together and let marinade while making the rest of this dish.

BBQ Sauce:
1 T. olive oil
1/2 red onion, chopped
2 inch chunk of fresh ginger, minced
1 tsp. minced garlic
1-2 chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, chopped
2 cups of your favorite BBQ sauce

Saute onion until soft, add ginger & garlic and saute another 2 minutes. Add BBQ sauce and chipolte and then simmer for about 10 minutes. Cool for a bit and then blend together in a blender until smooth.

Put sauce back in pan and add:
1 1/2 cups chicken broth

Increase heat to HIGH and cook until reduced by half.

Add:
2 T. soy sauce
3 T. creamy peanut butter

Cook another 5 minutes.

Red Slaw:
1/2 head red cabbage, finely shredded
1 small red onion, halved and thinly sliced
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1/4 cup canola oil
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 cup chopped cilantro leaves
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh mint leaves

Place cabbage and onion in a large bowl. Whisk together the vinegar, orange juice, oil and honey and pour over the cabbage. Add the cilantro and season with salt and pepper. Garnish with mint. Let sit at room temperature for 20 minutes before serving.

The last step...this is it, really.

Fry corn tortillas into taco shells - or let your partner do that while you stir fry the chicken. Grate some cheese. Assemble tacos - chicken, sauce, cheese and slaw.

Eat. Enjoy. Sneak one more taco than you anticipated. Come on, you worked for it!

Deanna's Chicken Pho

When I started this dish, I wasn't sure how it was going to end. Let me explain. Chicken thighs needed to be cooked....so I throw them in the crockpot. Hmmm...now what? Let's go Asian today. Okay so, in goes the onion, garlic, soy, fish sauce, water, ginger & lemongrass.

After about 4 hours, the chicken was done and a wonderful smell permeated the house. I tasted the remaining broth in the crock and determined that it was soup-worthy for sure. Then I started looking up some pho (I THINK you pronounce it "phuh") recipes to see if there were any other flavors missing: Yes, cinnamon and anise. I add a dash of each and voila! Perfect pho (for a beginner like me).

Chicken Pho
2 lbs. chicken thighs, skin removed
3 T. soy
3 T. water
1 T. fish sauce
1 tsp. Sriracha sauce
1/2 onion, chopped
1 inch chunk of ginger, peeled and smooshed
3 garlic cloves, smooshed
1 stalk of lemongrass, cut into 1 inch pieces and smooshed
1 cinnamon stick
1 star anise
(smooshed means hit with the back of a knife to release the aromas - don't bother chopping)

Throw everything into the crock and cook for about 4 hours or until chicken seems done. Remove chicken from pot and strain out the other solids, saving the broth. Here you can skim the fat off of the broth if you'd like (I did). Put broth back into crockpot. Add about 3 cups of water, a squeeze of lime juice and some rice stick noodles. Pick the chicken off the bones and put back into crock. Cook on low for another hour or until the noodles seem soft. Garnish with green onion, cilantro and slice chile peppers.

This was outstanding and flavorful. I'm not sure if it's a classic pho, but it was my version! Give it a try if you dare.

Crockpot Chicken Enchiladas

Okay, well I wasn't going to post this because it was an experiment for me (and I wasn't thrilled about the pictures). I cooked the chicken for my enchiladas in the crockpot from about 8 am to 12 noon and after shredding it, realized that maybe it would work for the actual enchiladas too. It was worth a try. Looking online, I found many recipes for enchiladas layered into a type of casserole instead of rolling them up like I did.

From 2 bone-in breasts, salsa, a can of black beans, some cheese and a small can of enchilada sauce, I ended up with about 3 layers of enchiladas.

Here is the result: As I suspected, dishing it up and making it look good would prove difficult. Those first enchiladas were beautiful. Underneath was a complete mess. But hey, it all tasted the same...pretty darn good.

My recipe is usually about the same, with variations depending on what I have on hand.

Crockpot Chicken Enchiladas

Place chicken breasts and a cup of salsa in the crockpot. Cook on high for 4 hours. Shred meat and add some minced garlic and black beans (olives, corn and onions would also work well at this point). Stir until uniform.

Grate some cheese. Spray each corn tortilla with Pam and stack them up on a paper towel. Cover and microwave for about 45 seconds, until they are soft and warm.

Put a spoonful of enchilada sauce on the bottom of crockpot. Place chicken mixture and cheese on tortilla, roll up and place in crock. Continue this until you have the layer complete. Cover with sauce. Another layer and more sauce. Keep this up until you have enough enchiladas stacked up to feed your family.

Cook on low for a 2 hours or so.

Crockpot Lemon Chicken

Another crockpot recipe, you ask? You could say I'm just a little giddy with my new cooking device. I'm trying to find my crock-legs, if you will. And the fact that I don't have to turn on my oven on an 85 degree day is a bonus!

I found the bone-in chicken breasts on deep sale at the store last week, and was looking for something easy to do while I was out all day. My inspiration was the lemon-pepper rotisserie chicken from Raley's. My version turned out moist and flavorful, and because I took the skin off before cooking, it is very healthy too. I know that you can probably do this recipe without first browning the chicken, but I prefer the nice browned skin the extra step adds.

Crockpot Lemon Chicken

4 bone-in chicken breasts
flour to dredge
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup chicken stock
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp oregano
3 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp salt
2 tsp pepper
Veggies for bottom of crock (peppers, carrots, onions, mushrooms, etc)

Dredge chicken in flour and brown in a big skillet. Put any veggies you want in the crock and top with the browned chicken. Mix the remaining ingredients and pour over chicken. Cook on high for 4 hours or low for 6, and then check for doneness. Mine went for 5 hours on high and was a tad overdone. The taste was still perfection!

I seem to have a problem figuring out the timing on cooking in my crockpot. My friend Louanne said that older crockpots aren't as hot and therefore, less likely to overcook your meat. It's true - I'm going to start cooking my stuff on low and check the meat after 4 hours. I have three settings on my machine. High, Low and Warm. I wonder if "warm" would actually cook something. Is it worth a try?

Honey Baked Chicken

This is a fairly new recipe to me, but it will probably be put on the rotation for sure. There is some curry in it, which gives it a delicately sweet Indian flavor (and I am no expert on Indian cuisine; in fact, I'm embarrassed to admit that I've only had it twice - please don't hold it against me!)

I served it this time with boneless skinless thighs, which were on sale, but the breasts also work great, especially if you cut up each one into 2-3 pieces. It is best served drizzled with the sauce over rice and a nice healthy green side like my sauteed red chard spiked with fresh garlic.

I know some of you may not appreciate the amount of honey and butter, but really, if you keep your drizzling to a minimum, its not THAT bad for you. I bet you could also play with the amounts to give it an acceptable level of health for your diet. Trust me when I say that this is worth a try and super easy to boot.

Honey Baked Chicken

2-3 lbs boneless skinless chicken parts

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup melted butter

1/4 cup brown mustard

1 tsp. curry powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp minced garlic

Mix ingredients in your baking dish (save a bowl) and add the chicken parts. Poke holes in the chicken with a fork and move around so they are coated with sauce. Let sit for about an hour in the fridge. Pop into a 350 oven, covered in foil for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 30 minutes, basting with the sauce every so often.

Curry Chicken Salad Wrap

Tasty lunch today, using veggies starting to wilt and pantry chicken. This is entirely influenced by the Piadini that we always order at Tomatina in Walnut Creek. (Theirs is a salad on flatbread which is smeared with roasted garlic paste - OMG). And although this lacks the homemade rustic breadiness, I felt like I would actually pay cold hard cash for a lunch like this. It was simple yet satisfying and a thumbs up from the tall man living here. Here are the ingredients below:

Chopped veggies or fruit (I used yellow bells, cucumbers and cranberries), can o' chicken, 1/2 tsp. curry, 3 T. light mayo. Apples, grapes, red onions or walnuts would make a great addition. This is another one of those "use what you have" type of recipes.

So, mix it all up. Heat a tortilla on the gas burner until hot, add some greens and top with the chicken salad. You can either roll it or fold in half to eat. It beats a PB&J by a mile.

Bacon Wrapped Chicken

Got this idea from another blog (gosh, now I can't remember which one) and tried it to the best of my memory. These are chicken thighs with bone in, because they were on sale, but I would rather use boneless. Anyways, I did 2 thighs each in a foil packet on top of some onions, peppers and carrots, but ended up leaving the chicken in the oven for so long to get the bacon crispy that the veggies turned to mush. So I ditched the veggie sludge and served them on lightly steamed spinach.

Bacon Wrapped Chicken Thighs

8 chicken thighs
pepper
dijon
rosemary (not much)
8 pieces of bacon

Season chicken with pepper and spread a tiny amount of dijon on each. Sprinkle with a little rosemary and wrap each one with a piece of bacon. Cook in foil packets or in a baking dish. If you use the foil, be sure to open it up during the last 20 minutes of cooking. I baked in a 400 oven for an hour, but you could probably cut that back to about 40 min. (yes, I am squirmish about getting my chicken totally cooked, hah!) Serve over yummy wilted spinach if you want to be like me. C'mon, you know you do! Serves 4.

Chicken Piccata

Did you catch the season premiere of Top Chef last week? It seems that the producers are trying hard to create drama by picking contestants that are completely wacky. This guy Andrew is a loudmouth whiner drops the F bomb every chance he gets. And there is the obligatory heavily tatooed bald guy with a scowl. Don't forget the chemist chef who brings all kinds of gizmos and prefers to cook with liquid nitrogen. There are also 4 contestants from San Francisco, two of whom are a lesbian couple (Jen and Zoi). Again, drama.

Anyways, my point was that their first elimination challenge was to prepare a classic dish, two people each doing one of 8 dishes. The person who made the better classic dish was exempt from elimination. Their choices were Lasagne, Duck ala Orange, Crab Cakes, Chicken Piccata, Eggs Benedict, Steak Au Poivre, Shrimp Scampi, Souffle.

Ryan, who claims to have started cooking in a restaurant at age 11 is chosen to do the Chicken Piccata and on his shopping spree, he loses his notebook and picks up breadcrumbs and tomatoes!! He gets harped upon by the judges for making Chicken Milanese, and they are amazed that he doesn't even know how to make the Piccata. In my mind, I was like...haha haaa, even little ole me can cook up that dish. Now, if I had to do a souffle, that would be a different story!

Anyways, here is my tried and true recipe, which I got out of a magazine called "Cuisine at Home" a couple years ago. I also use their Italian meatball recipe, which I will post some other time.

Chicken Piccata

Season:

4 chicken cutlets with salt and pepper, then dust with flour

Saute in:

2T. oil, 2-3 min per side. Remove from pan and

Deglaze with:

1/4 c. white wine and 1 clove minced garlic

Add:

1/2 cup chicken broth

2T fresh lemon juice

1T capers

Sauteed cutlets

Finish with:

1 T. butter and fresh lemon slices

Garnish with:

Chopped fresh parsley

Mediterranean Chicken Roulade

Mediterranean Chicken Roulade

2 chicken breasts

1/4 cup feta

8 quartered cherry tomatoes

squeeze of lemon juice

chopped herbs (mint & cilantro, etc)

salt, pepper, garlic powder to taste

Cut the breasts horizontally, so you have 4 thin pieces. You can pound them out a little if they are still too thick. Season with salt, pepper and garlic. Sprinkle the remaining ingredients on the chicken, and roll up and secure with toothpicks. I like to brown them on the stovetop, then pop the pan into the oven to finish up the cooking. 8 minutes on med-high heat, then 350 oven for another 10.