Miscellaneous Chicken Dinner

Tonight I decided to concoct a totally random meal employing my fun and much-loved method of "what's around and needs to be used up or is leftover from other recipes?"  Having no idea what to call it, because I am guessing it's pretty unique, we'll just go with: Miscellaneous Chicken Dinner.

This will be a quick and dirty post, listing my steps as pictures, with what I was doing in the photo captions.  It was pretty straightforward and took about a half hour total.  Here we go....

First I minced 4 cloves of garlic, sliced a half of a large onion, and chopped about 6
or 7 dates.  I put it all in a pan with probably a tablespoon of safflower oil,
and some salt and pepper.  Then I started to cook it down over a medium flame.

Next, I tossed in a mostly full container of pre-sliced baby bella mushrooms,
and let it continue to cook down.

Then I took out the veggies, added another half tablespoon or so of oil,
and put in 6 chicken thighs.

I browned the thighs on both sides.

Now comes the wine, which had been sitting around in the fridge for a bit.

As you can see, by now the pan could use some serious deglazing.....

....which I accomplished by bringing the wine to a boil
and scraping the bottom of the pan with a whisk.

Once the pan was deglazed, I put the chicken back in....

....and dumped the previously cooked veggie right on top of the chicken.

Finally, I decided, why not throw in a sliced apple?

I stirred it in and let the whole thing simmer for somewhere around
10-15 minutes, until the chicken was cooked through,
at which point I uncovered the pan and let the sauce thicken a tad.

This is what it looked like all plated up on a bed of white rice.

It was pretty gosh darn yummy, although, I do think I could have used a bit more salt and pepper.  I will probably add that when I eat the leftovers for lunch later this week.

Coq au Vin

In the interest of getting our butts back in gear, cooking more at home, and ensuring leftovers for lunches (we've been spending an obscene amount of money in restaurants and on take-out lately), we recently selected this Coq au Vin recipe to try out, from Julia Child's beloved Savenor's Market.  Having never done a Coq au Vin before, I planned to stick to it as exactly as possible, but there did end up being a few small changes.  Here's how it went (our version, not theirs)....

INGREDIENTS

• ½ pound of sliced bacon, cut into quarter-inch pieces
• 40 frozen pearl onions
• 3 pounds of chicken thighs and legs, skin on
• 8 garlic cloves, peeled
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 2 cups homemade chicken stock
• 2 cups red wine (the original recipe called for pinot noir, burgundy or zinfandel -- I just used up what I had leftover, and honestly I have no idea what kind it was)
• Dried thyme
• Dried parsley
• ½ pound of button mushrooms, roughly chopped
• 2 Tablespoons of butter

PROCEDURE

First, I gathered up and prepared most of the ingredients (chicken, chicken stock, wine, bacon, onions, garlic, butter, and mushrooms).

Next, I decided to skip the step in the original recipe of blanching the bacon, and went straight into browning it on medium-high heat in a dutch oven that would be big enough to hold all the chicken.  This took about ten minutes.

Removing the crisped bacon (but not the rendered fat) from the pan, it was then time to work on the chicken.

I worked in two batches, heat still on medium-high, putting half of the chicken pieces and half of the onions right into the hot oil and leaving it for a few minutes to brown.

Then, I flipped it over, added half of the garlic, salt and pepper, and left it for a few more minutes to brown on the other side.

All of it (chicken, garlic and onions) was then removed from the pan.

I dumped the fat out of the pan, and added the chicken stock and wine to deglaze.  After which, the chicken, onions, garlic, and bacon were put back in, along with some parsley, thyme and two bay leaves.

I brought it to a boil, then reduced the heat and covered it, and let it simmer for 20 minutes.

Next, I took the chicken pieces out of the pan and set them aside, and it was time to work on the sauce.  I didn't remove the onions (as suggested by the original recipe) or any of the other stuff (garlic, bacon, etc).  The mushrooms were added to the pan, and the heat was turned up to full blast so that it could boil and reduce down.  At this point I also started a pot of white rice cooking, so that we could serve the chicken on top of that.

I let it boil for probably another 20 minutes, until the volume had reduced by approximately three quarters.

Then I removed the bay leaves, stirred in the butter....

....and added the chicken pieces back in to get re-warmed and coated in the sauce.

It was plated on top of a bed of rice, with a scoop or two of the mushroom-onion-bacon fortified sauce.

I have to say that at first, particularly as I was starting to reduce the sauce down, I though that maybe this recipe was too much trouble, and not worth all the effort.  But once we finally dove in and started eating it, I realized that I was wrong.  Very delicious!!

It only seemed complicated because it was my first time making this.  And it really didn't take very long (about an hour and a half start to finish).  I think I could easily do this one again, without even having to look at a recipe, now that I know the basic techniques involved in a classic Coq au Vin.

Spring Rolls

Have you ever wanted to try making your own spring rolls at home?  Well, we gave it a shot last week, and the results were very not bad.  Not difficult, either.  There isn't a hard and fast recipe here -- I just Googled and read a few different ones, and then we sort of winged it based on what I learned.  Here's what we did....

First we did the chopping, grinding, shredding and other ingredient gathering:

Chopped portabello mushrooms, chopped onion, shredded carrot, and shredded cabbage.

Ground chicken and chopped garlic.

Rice paper wrappers.

Then it was time to cook.  Hubby worked on dipping sauces (more on that below) while I moved over to the stove.  First into a frying pan (with a dab of peanut oil) went the chicken, onions, garlic and a little bit of salt and pepper....

....which got cooked until it was almost done, at which time the rest of the veggies were tossed in along with some rice wine vinegar, tamari (soy sauce) and sesame oil....

When it was all cooked together (just a couple of minutes this took), I followed the directions on the package of rice paper wrappers (soaking each one for 5 seconds in warm water), doled out portions of filling, and folded/wrapped each one up like a miniature burrito.

And presto, homemade spring rolls with two dipping sauces:

The brown sauce on the left contained garlic, chives, tamari, rice vinegar, and sesame oil.
The peanut sauce on the left was made from peanut butter, sriracha ("rooster sauce"), sesame oil, tamari, and a Rogan Josh spice mix.

Quick, easy, and yummy!  :)

* All photos courtesy of and copyright 457 Studios.

Chicken Mole

On Monday, we thawed out two chicken breasts with no plan of how we were going to turn them into dinner.  Unfortunately, Hubby went home from work sick early that day, so we didn't use them.  I ate leftovers.  On Tuesday, we ate other leftovers, because that's a night we go to martial arts class....just no time for real cooking.  I tasked Hubby with figuring out what we would do with the chicken tonight (Wednesday) and he came up with this recipe for chicken mole.  We, as usual, changed it a bit to suit our own tastes.  Here is how we did it....

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 2 boneless chicken breasts
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 pound of fresh tomatoes, seeded and chopped
• 2 teaspoons brown sugar
• 1 cup chicken broth, homemade
• 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Procedure

1.  Heat the vegetable oil in an enameled Dutch oven over medium-high heat.

2.  Cook the chicken pieces (we simply butterflied them - but you can chop if you like) in the hot oil until browned. Remove from the pan and set aside.

3.  Reduce heat to medium, and stir in the bay leaf and other dried spices until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the onion and garlic; cook and stir until the onion has softened and turned translucent, about 5 minutes.

4.  Stir in the tomatoes, brown sugar, and chicken broth, and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Once simmering, stir in the chocolate chips until melted.

5.  Remove the bay leaf, and puree the sauce.  Put the bay leaf back in.

6.  Return the chicken pieces to the pot. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until the chicken is tender and no longer pink, 15 to 20 minutes.

7.  Serve with homemade corn tortillas, and on my plate tonight, mashed peas with butter.  Mmmmm.

Review

This was pretty yummy.  Right before we ate it, though, we decided that it needed....something more, so we added additional chocolate and some salt (why the original recipe didn't ask for salt I am not sure).  I do think that if there was simply a bit more of each spice (especially the cloves) it would have been fantastic.  I also thought it was weird that the original recipe didn't call for the sauce to be blended, and I wonder how it got to be so smooth in the pictures online given the (textures of some of the) ingredients that went into it, so that's why we decided to blend it.  Finally, Hubby doesn't like raisins, so we left them out; I don't know if the final taste would have been better or worse with them.  We will definitely use this recipe again, perhaps making a couple small changes/additions next time.

Bonus

Today is 3/14, so of course we finished dinner with pie.  Get it, Pi (3.14)?  Lol.

Chocolate Cream Pie from our local supermarket.  Very good.

Roasted Chicken; Our First Ever.

For some unknown reason, Hubby and I have never roasted a whole bird other than a turkey on Thanksgiving.  So we decided a couple weeks ago to get a chicken and go for it.  Why the hell not, right?  It's been in the freezer since then, but this weekend, we finally thawed it out and gave it a go.  And I have to say, it was quite a success.

After Googling and searching through FoodNetwork.com for ideas, we decided to go with something similar to this recipe by Ina Garten.  We didn't have all the ingredients on hand necessarily, or want to stick to the instructions exactly, so as usual made the recipe our own.

First, Hubby removed the giblets and chopped some other parts off, then he seasoned the cavity with salt and pepper before stuffing it with a chopped up lemon and an entire head of garlic which was cut in half.  Next, he brushed the bird with melted butter and added salt and pepper to the outside.

It was now time to tie it up so that the aromatics wouldn't fall out and the wings wouldn't burn during cooking.

After that, all we had to do was place the bird on top of the bed of vegetables that we had previously chopped (6 carrots, 2 potatoes and 1 large onion), and put her into the 425-degree oven.

About an hour and a half later, everything was golden brown and delicious:

We stood there and devoured the wings like animals (lol) while Hubby chopped up the rest of the bird for later consumption.  We ended up with enough chicken pieces and roasted veg for at least 4-6 meals, plus bones/carcass/giblet parts from which to make stock later on.  All of this for the price of one whole chicken (about $4.50), six carrots, two potatoes, an onion and a lemon. Score. :)

I think for our next roast chicken adventure, I will stuff it with my Magic Stuffing.  Yum!

Cook Yourself Thin - Cheezy Chicken Parmesan With Zucchini "Pasta"

This recipe comes from the Cook Yourself Thin cookbook and is a healthy take on a classic favorite: chicken parm.  It's called Cheezy Chicken Parmesan With Zucchini "Pasta"

Their original recipe can be seen on the Lifetime Network website.  What follows below is my exact modification....

For the tomato sauce and zucchini pappardelle

• 1.5 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 red onion, coarsely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, sliced thin
• one 28-ounce can Hunt’s No Salt Added Plum Tomatoes
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley
• Salt
• Pepper
• 2 large zucchini, thinly sliced, seed centers discarded

For the chicken

• 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus 2 tablespoons extra for serving
• 1/4 cup Progresso plain bread crumbs
• 1 large egg white, lightly beaten with a fork
• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, split in half
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1/4 cup part-skim ricotta cheese

Instructions

1. For the sauce, heat one-half tablespoon of the oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium-low heat. Add the onion, garlic and 1/8 teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring, 1 minute. Cover, reduce heat to very low and cook until vegetables are softened, about 5 minutes. (Check a few times during cooking; if vegetables begin to brown, add 2 teaspoons water and stir.) Add the tomatoes with juice, basil and another 1/8 teaspoon salt. Bring to a simmer, cover and simmer gently 5 minutes. Then simmer very gently, partially covered, until thickened, about 20 minutes. Season with pepper.
2. Meanwhile, using a vegetable peeler, slice the zucchini lengthwise into 1/8-inch-thick long pappardelle-like strips, turning the zucchini and slicing on 4 sides only until you see the center seeds. Discard the centers (or save them for making homemade stock).
3. Remove the tomato sauce to a bowl; no need to clean the skillet. Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil in the skillet over medium heat. Add the zucchini and 1/8 teaspoon salt. Cover and cook until wilted, tossing often with tongs for even cooking, 8 to 10 minutes. Return the tomato sauce to the pan, add a third of the parsley, and season with pepper; transfer to a bowl for holding, cover and set aside.
4. On a plate, combine the bread crumbs, 1/4 cup grated Parmesan, the remaining parsley, pepper and 1/8 teaspoon salt. Place the egg white on a second plate or in a shallow bowl. Dip the chicken into the egg whites, and then into the bread crumb mixture to coat completely.
5. Heat the same nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the chicken until lightly browned on one side, 2 to 3 minutes. Flip, and cook until chicken is firm, and lightly browned on the other side, 1 to 3 more minutes.
6. To serve, make a “twist” of zucchini pappardelle on each of 4 plates. Lean chicken cutlets against the side of zucchini. Scoop 1 tablespoon ricotta onto each plate.  To garnish each plate, sprinkle with a one-quarter of the remaining Parmesan.  (The only reason we didn't do the "drizzle with olive oil" from the original recipe was because we forgot....and really, we don't think the dish needed it -- so why not save some fat and calories.)

Makes 4 delicious servings.

• 364 calories
• 39 grams protein
• 24 grams carbs
• 12 grams fat
• 5 grams fiber
• 628 mg sodium