Cooking on High: Artichoke Chicken

More than anything for this recipe I have photos. So take a photographic journey with me. 

For the side dish I made purple potatoes. They are very pretty but I didn't really notice any particular difference in flavor. They are all around fun and add some nice color to the plate. 

After a few minutes steaming to get them started, I pan fried them with some butter and garlic. 

This is a fairly simple chicken dish, you fry chicken in olive oil and then top it with this artichoke-cheese-stuff and finish it off under the broiler. 

The artichoke-cheese-stuff is a mixture of chopped artichoke hearts (I use the marinated in oil kind and chop them up with the Food Chopper), mayonnaise and Parmesan cheese. Now, if you know me, you know that I truly despise mayonnaise, I think it just tastes terrible and I don't like it at all. So I figured I've already ruined this stuff but I can always scrape it off later. 

How wrong I was! This was crazily delicious. Something happens during the broiling process that turns this weird looking stuff into the best thing that has happened to chicken since we figured out it tastes amazing fried. And everyone knows how delicious fried chicken is.

Frying the chicken in olive oil is easy. Flatten it to uniform thickness of about 1/2 inch with meat tenderizer (looks sort of like a mallet). 

Fry four minutes per side and it should be cooked through and still juicy and delicious. 

I seasoned with just salt and pepper to keep it simple since I was going to add the artichoke topping. 

Frying the second side and it already looks sooooo good! I love that nice crisp crust that you can only get from frying. I added a bit of rosemary at this point because rosemary is delicious and I can never let anything be. 

That's why I never do crock pot cooking, because I always want to mess with it: add stuff, stir, poke at it. It's also why I love 30-Minute recipes. 

I left the chicken in the pan and added the artichoke mixture to the top and spread it to cover the chicken. Then I put it under the broiler for about 5 minutes. This is a stainless steel pan so it's safe under the broiler. It gets VERY hot! I burned my finger taking it out of the oven. So be super careful and in addition to using a pot holder maybe use an oven mitt or something too. 

The finished product! It's stupidly delicious. I recommend this recipe to everyone! And I will definitely make it again. 

Smoky Mac 'N Cheese

I wanted to make mac 'n cheese, but I didn't feel like baking (baked mac 'n cheese is super yummy!) and I didn't want a regular alfredo sauce. So I thought I'd come up with something new. I started with boiling 2 cups of shells and dicing a chicken breast to saute. I seasoned the chicken with ground mustard and plenty of paprika (this is the main source of the smoky flavor).

For the cheese sauce I started with a basic kitchen glue recipe (2 T ea flour and butter + 1 cup milk + 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese) then I added 1 cup of chicken broth and 1 T of hickory bbq sauce. Then of course I mixed the chicken, shells and sauce.

I dished up a couple bowls for Shane and I and we sat down to eat. Shane proclaimed it delicious and then added cayenne hot sauce, and I did the same. The hot sauce really set off the smoky flavor.

This recipe was super fast and easy, especially if you've already mastered a basic Alfredo sauce. And you all know I love my whisk, so that's another reason I like this type of recipe, I get to whisk!

How Hard Cider Leads to Jambalaya

For what seemed like hours Shane and I debated what I should cook for dinner. I offered him two choices: leftover vegetable soup OR rice and chicken. And he responded with, "How about just chicken?" I said, "What will we have with it?" He said, "I don't know, just chicken?"

So we finally ended up settling on rice and chicken. I sent him to the man cave to play Little Big Planet while I created dinner out of 1.5 cups of leftover rice and a chicken breast.

I started by dicing the chicken and putting it in to fry with a little olive oil, lightly seasoned with coarsely ground black pepper and sea salt. I added marjoram for good measure, you can never over-marjoram chicken. (Use basil if you don't have marjoram, they are similar but not quite the same.)

I cooked the chicken for a few minutes, then stirred/flipped it to fully cook all sides. I was a little frustrated by the chicken flipping itself back over so I covered it in chicken broth and covered the pan to promote more even cooking. After a few more minutes I added the rice and pressed 2 cloves of garlic into it and stirred again.

About this time a nice Woodchuck Hard Cider sounded delicious, and I also thought about the recipe I had been meaning to make that I found on my Nintendo DS game Personal Trainer Cooking. You see, I was making rice and chicken which just happen to be a couple main ingredients in jambalaya. To the DS I did go, I found the recipe and decided I was not going to put squid or prawns into my rice and chicken, mostly because I didn't have them. I did add chopped bell pepper, vidalia onion and canned diced tomato, as the recipe called for. The recipe called for celery but I hate celery so I added celery seed, I know they are nothing alike and taste nothing alike, but I still add celery seed to recipes calling for celery. It makes me feel like I'm at least trying to follow along. I also threw in a bay leaf, it seemed like a good idea.

I added 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup hard cider (no wine, plenty of cider) and then since Shane has a cough and sore throat I omitted the chili peppers in favor of a few dashes of chili powder, 1 tsp of paprika and a healthy sprinkle of parsley. I tasted the rice and chicken turned jambalaya and added more black pepper and more hard cider, simmered about 10 minutes to reduce the liquid by more than half.

I tasted again, pronounced it delicious and called Shane for dinner. He burned his tongue, but loved it anyway! Even though I severely deviated from the recipe, what was in our bowls looked exactly like the picture, it was amazing.

By the way, I had an epic battle reattaching the v key in order to post this blog. I valiantly persevered to bring you this tale. Darn dirt under the keys, anyway!

This Sounds Good Rice

Sometimes when I cook I just add whatever sounds good and is at hand. I made rice this way a couple days ago.

I cooked the rice regularly and while it was steaming I got out some frozen chicken. I used my Micro-Cooker to thaw the chicken, I love that thing! I diced the chicken and then cooked it in a non-stick pan with pressed garlic - when it was fully cooked I added a splash of Pomegranate and Blood Orange Vinaigrette. It's light and fruity and goes wonderfully with many things, even if it does turn your chicken sort of purple.

When the rice was finished I mixed in the chicken. I melted a little butter in the pan that the chicken was in and then added back half the rice and chicken. I added soy sauce, Buffalo Rub (spicy!) and parmesan cheese and gave it a good frying. In the pot where I had steamed the rice I added more Pom Vin (I appreciate a nice abbreviation every now and then). When both were cooked to my satisfaction I mixed them together. It was amazing!

To this add any vegetables that sound especially delicious - onion, broccoli, carrots, green beans, I'm sure many others as well!

The lesson we learn here is that if it sounds good, most of the time it also tastes good. So experiment and make your own version of "This Sounds Good" rice :D

Peanut Chicken with Firecracker Green Beans

I'm wandering around the kitchen, trying to decide what to make. I ask Shane, "What do you want to eat?" And he says, "Oooh make that spicy peanut-y chicken!" So I did.

This is VERY easy to make. You need a non-stick pan and a spatula (NOT a turner) that will not melt. And tongs that won't damage your non-stick pan. And measuring spoons. Yeah, that's it for hardware.

So we start by heating less than 1 T of sesame oil with more than 1 tsp of crushed red pepper in the non-stick pan. Add the chicken and cook on low-med for about 5 minutes before flipping, don't fiddle with it and don't poke it and don't flip it early, it ruins the process. (By the way don't use frozen chicken, that's just silly.)

After your chicken has cooked on the second side for another 5 minutes, remove it from the pan and put in as many green beans as you feel like eating and cook them for about 5-6 minutes. They will absorb the flavor of the sesame oil and the crushed red pepper. Very yummy!

Now remove them from the pan and we shall make the peanut sauce! This is a basic sauce, so you won't have to do anything special. In the pan add 2 T each of sugar, peanut butter, water, and soy sauce. 1 T of your choice of oil (I use olive) and 1 clove of garlic crushed. Stir all this as you cook it over medium heat. The peanut butter will melt and then you need to let it cook unstirred until it starts to bubble (NOT boil) the sauce will look dark brown and thick like molasses. Give it another stir and then remove from heat. Add the chicken back to the pan and use the sauce to coat both sides. This is when you use that spatula by the way.

I serve this chicken on toasted buns with lettuce. That's it. It is so flavorful and delicious that any extras would be a distraction rather than a lovely addition. Of course, I have my green beans on the side :D

I have also diced the chicken and stirred it into white rice with this sauce, but for some reason that really brings out more of the peanut flavor. If you love that, it's amazing, if you do not, then just don't do it.

Curry Chicken Ramen

A friend emailed me a recipe, asked if I'd make it when he came over - it looked good and not too hard, and it called for curry (one of my favorite flavors) so I said sure! I then lost the recipe and half forgot about it. Yesterday we were facebook chatting and the recipe came up... had to find it, but luckily the email search feature came to my rescue, the recipe was found and the day was saved.

Of course, I didn't go shopping for any of the ingredients and I didn't even read the instructions until today, while I was writing down the recipe so I would know what to cook.

The recipe called for potatoes, carrots, turnips, parsnips and other similar vegetables. I had carrots only so I sliced a couple handfuls of baby carrots and put them on the boil for 4 minutes. The recipe didn't call for onions, but I put onions in almost everything, so I chopped half of one and set it aside. Then I diced the chicken and put it in my large skillet with olive oil, 1 clove garlic (pressed with my trusty garlic press! I use that thing almost every day, if there is one thing every kitchen needs it is a garlic press!), and 1 tsp each chili powder, crushed rosemary, curry (I used red), and "grainy" mustard (I used a stoneground which had a bunch of whole seeds still in it, very tart and very nice). After a minute or two when the chicken was no longer pink on the outside I added the onion and drained carrots, stirred and covered.

(On a side note I used dried rosemary leaves that I crushed using my marble mortar and pestle. A mortar and pestle is not a standard kitchen object, but I think it should be. I may not use it every week or even every month, but there are some things that just don't turn out right if you don't have a set! I could have tossed my leaves into my herb grinder [i.e. our 2nd coffee grinder] but they would have gone too powdery. I could have crushed them by hand, but then they would have been too hard. In the end it was my mortar and pestle which gave me the consistency I was looking for.)

Then I started to rummage through my cupboard looking for something fast that would go well with this chicken. Pasta didn't sound right and neither did egg noodles. Rice and barley would take too long and I didn't have minute rice or anything like that. Then I found in the back of the cupboard a food I didn't remember we even had - ramen noodles. And I thought, why not? I can make them on the side and if they're terrible when I taste them together, I can throw them out, they cost 25 cents so it's not a big deal.

I boiled the noodles for 5 minutes and before draining, I reserved 1 ladle of the water. Then I added the seasoning packet and the ladle of water to the noodles and stirred, tasted, and of course they tasted like bland but too salty ramen noodles. My chicken called for 1/4 cup creme fraiche, which I did not have, and I did not have any suitable substitute, so I decided I was going to use milk and this recipe was just going to have to turn out anyway!

I stirred the milk in with the ramen noodles and tasted them again... you would never believe it but adding milk to ramen noodles makes them taste edible, even good! It was amazing, so I stirred them in with the chicken let it sizzle a moment and tasted this culinary concoction, to my amazement and delight it tasted pretty good! Next time I will probably add more curry, because I LOVE curry, but most people would probably prefer it with the current amount of curry.

I seriously deviated from the recipe on this one, but I think it turned out better than what the recipe would have. And I didn't feel like baking, which is what the recipe wanted me to do with the chicken and potatoes.

Warm Lemon Pepper Chicken Salad

I finally made my calendar recipe from March! I admit, that I didn't follow the directions, but I did use the same ingredients, except that I omitted the artichoke hearts, because I couldn't find any marinated artichoke hearts. I think I should have checked Meijer, but I didn't, so I didn't get them.

I started by making a layer of pea pods on the bottom of my saute pan, and I added less than 1/4 cup water, just enough to cover the bottom and get them wet. I don't like boiling vegetables unless they are potatoes, which are tubers and don't count. So I turned that on to cook off the water and steam the pea pods. In the mean time I took some potatoes that Shane had crinkle cut for me with the Ultimate Mandoline (that's what it's called, and it is pretty cool, so don't knock its name :D) and put them in my large Micro Cooker with 4 cups of water for 15 minutes (which turned out to be too long).

While the peas and potatoes were cooking I chopped 1/3 of one large green bell pepper and 1/3 of one huge red onion. The onion I added right to the peas, along with 1 clove garlic pressed and 1 T olive oil and half of 1 lemon freshly juiced (the water had cooked off by this point). I gave that a nice stir and drained the potatoes and chopped the breast from a rotisserie chicken (so yum!)

In my small size Batter Bowl, which is a large measuring cup that is big enough to mix and make and bake in, I whisked together just under 1/4 olive oil and the other half of that lemon. When it was done it looked sort of like whisked egg yolk, so that was cool and odd. I added some cracked black pepper and added that along with the potatoes to the peas and other things.

When I stirred that all together, the potatoes crumbled and became a mashed potato coating for the other food. Upon tasting this dish, I remembered that I hate lemons and everything that tastes like lemons... I think picture was so pretty I convinced myself that it wouldn't be that lemon-y. I was wrong, it was VERY lemony. I added a pile of salt and that helped (and if you know me you know I don't like salt either). If I make this dish again it is not going to involve lemons. I am considering an orange. And I could use rice or perhaps cook the potatoes less.