Crunchy Garlic Chicken

Another fantastic recipe from Jamie’s Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals. I’ve already made half a dozen recipes from this book that have been great.

This came out really good but the crumb texture wasn’t quite what I expected, being a bit thick and globby because of the butter. I’m writing down what I did, as it is in the book, but I think next time I would just leave the butter out of the mix and maybe add a few more crackers. This was just enough for 4 chicken tenders, so served 2 of us plus lunch today for one of us.

• 1 clove of garlic, peeled
• zest of one lemon
• 6 (or more!) plain crackers or breadcrumbs or saltines, etc.
• 2 Tbs butter
• 4 sprigs fresh parsley (I used a bit more)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 large spoonfuls of flour
• 1 egg
• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts or 4 chicken tenders
• olive oil

Use your food process to mix up the breadcrumb mix: crackers, garlic, lemon zest and butter (although I’d leave that out next time),  parsley, salt and pepper.  Run the processor until it’s all mixed up and the crumbs are fine.

Put the flour on one plate or pie pan.  Put the raw egg into another plate or pan and stir together with a fork. Add the breadcrumb mix to a third.

Pound the chicken out until thinned a bit. You can lay a sheet of plastic wrap on the chicken and pound with a plate or the flat side of a meat tenderizer.

Heat a few spoonfuls of olive oil in a skillet.

Coat each side of the chicken with flour, then egg, then breadcrumb mix. Fry about 4-5 minutes on each side. Alternately you can bake in a 475 F oven for about 15 minutes.

Squeeze a bit of lemon over the chicken, then cut the pieces into strips and serve.

Simple Salad with Vinaigrette

I served with a very simple salad of watercress, sliced radishes and sliced cucumbers, plus some boxed stuffing mix, which I rarely use but was quite good.  We also had some really good asparagus, also a recipe from this book. Usually I just barbecue it or roast it but we both really liked this simple vinaigrette he dressed it with.

Chicken Curry and Vegetable Jalfrezi

I made some more great Indian curries the other night. The Patak curry pastes and cooking sauces are great! I used the Pataks Biryani Paste 10oz with this curry last night. Basic genesis of the recipe comes from Jamie’s Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals, one of my favorite new cookbooks. The chicken curry is pictured to the left here.

• 1 pound chicken tenders, cut into 1 inch pieces
• 2 onions, halved and thinly sliced
• 1 fresh green chili (I used a red one)
• a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, minced
• a small bunch of cilantro
• 1 15-oz can of garbanzo beans, drained
• 1-2 Tbs vegetable oil
• 1-2 Tbs butter
• 1/2 cup Pataks Biryani Paste
• 1 14-oz can coconut milk
• salt and pepper to taste
• plain yogurt at the table
• 1 lemon

Separate the cilantro stems from the leaves and mince the stems up. Chop the leaves and set aside for garnish.

Heat the oil and butter in a skillet. Add the onions, chili, ginger and cilantro stalks and cook for 10 minutes or so, stirring often, until golden and softened.

Add the curry paste, coconut milk, garbanzo beans and chicken. Stir well to coat everything, then add a 1/2 can of water and stir.  Bring to a boil, turn down to a simmer, cover and simmer 30 minutes or so. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

Squeeze some lemon juice on top, sprinkle the fresh cilantro leaves on top and serve with rice. Have a dish of plain yogurt on the table and some lemon wedges.

Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas

I’ve always loved chicken enchiladas with a green sauce at Mexican restaurants and was hoping this would be a good substitute!

I found them lacking something, although my children enjoyed them. I think it was onions I was missing. But if I’d added them that might have meant the children did not like them, as they’re not big fans.  So if you’re looking for a mild chicken enchilada type recipe, you might like this.  Personally, I liked these green enchiladas with the store-bought sauce better so I need to experiment a bit to find a good green sauce. I already have found a good red enchilada sauce recipe.

But if you tend to like blander foods, I think you’ll like it. I took the basis from The $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook: 200 Recipes for Quick, Delicious, and Nourishing Meals That Are Easy on the Budget and a Snap to Prepare and it was good, just not quite as “sharp” somehow as what I was thinking. Or maybe it need some tomatillo sauce.

I served this with rice and beans so cut her recipe in half  to try to fill a 9×9 pan instead of a 9×13.  This made 6 enchiladas but the last two were a bit stuffed so you could easily make it 8 I think and add a bit more cheese. Oh, I also put some cheese inside each one rather than having it all on the top.

• 8 ounces sour cream (I always use light)
• 1 6 oz can chopped green chilies
• 1/2 cup or so homemade chicken stock
• 1 cup shredded or diced cooked chicken
• salt and pepper to taste
• 6 corn tortillas
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese or a Mexican mix

In a skillet, heat the sour cream, chilies and 1/2 cup of chicken broth. Stir as you heat it. If it seems too thick, add a bit more chicken broth (or water if you used frozen broth and 1/2 cup is all you’ve got!).

Remove 1/2 cup or so of the sauce at this point and set aside to top the enchiladas.

Add the chicken and stir in, then simmer 15 minutes or so to blend the flavors.  Add salt and pepper to taste, which will depend heavily on how seasoned your broth was.

Preheat the oven to 350 F while your chicken mix is simmering.

When it’s close to the 15 minutes, heat your corn tortillas so they’ll be more pliable. I have a Styrofoam tortilla warmer that goes in the microwave that I picked up for $1 at the grocery store years ago.

Lay a tortilla on your cutting board or on a plate, place some of the chicken mix in the middle  in a row across the tortilla, then add a small bit of grated cheese, then roll the tortilla up and place seam side down in a small baking dish. Repeat until all the chicken sauce is used up. Top with the 1/2 cup of sauce that you pulled out earlier. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top.

Bake uncovered at 350F for 15-20 minutes.

In terms of timing, if you’re serving rice and beans, canned (or precooked) refried beans will take just a few minutes in the microwave so I would do those after the enchiladas come out of the oven.

If you’re cooking rice in a rice cooker, like my Zojirushi NS-ZCC10 5-1/2-Cup Neuro Fuzzy Rice Cooker and Warmer, Premium White, just start it when you first start dinner and the rice will be ready and waiting! I do love the rice cookers for that “keep warm” feature. In fact, today with a sick child at home, I made some rice at lunch because the doctor recommended plain white rice as her first solid food after the stomach flu. She ate some and I left the rest on the “keep warm” setting until dinner, 6 hours later. It was still perfect! If you cook rice on the stovetop, just allow about 30 minutes, so start it while the sauce is simmering.

Chicken was on sale here for 77 cents a pound, so I spent $4.70 for a chicken that made the broth and provided two or three times as much chicken as I used here in this recipe.   I’ll use up some of the rest in the next day or two and freeze the rest of the cooked chicken and broth (separately) for various dishes.  She calculated the cost for a double of this recipe as $4.75 total (to feed four people) but that included $1 for corn that I didn’t use, but would cover a can of refried beans easily enough. I’ve fed two of us and easily have another two servings so think that’s pretty accurate.  I haven’t ever calculated the average cost of rice per serving but will try to do that at some point.  For us, 1/3 cup of cooked rice per serving is adequate and that can’t add much.

• 1 Tbs oil
• 3-4 boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut in bite-sized pieces
• a smattering of taco seasoning
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 2 green onions, chopped
• 6-7 flour tortillas
• 1 Tbs butter, melted
• 2 cups grated Cheddar cheese (or a Mexican blend)
• salsa verde or tomato salsa at the table
• sour cream at the table (optional)

Cooking chicken for chimchangas

Heat the oil in a cast iron or other heavy skillet and add half the chopped chicken. Brown a bit, and sprinkle with some taco seasoning. Cook until done. When it’s done, you can easily cut a piece in half with a wooden spoon. Remove to a bowl, then add the other half of the chicken, season again with the taco seasoning and cook through. Put the first batch of chicken back in the pan, sprinkle with the cumin, garlic powder, salt, pepper and oregano, stirring to heat through and distribute the spices. Turn the heat off.

Rolling chicken chimichangas

Heat the flour tortillas in a microwave or over a dry cast iron skillet to make them more flexible. (This tip was NOT in the book but is something I always do or the tortillas tend to tear.)

Place a  tortilla on a plate or cutting board. Add some chicken, green onions and cheese.  Fold the ends over, then roll up the tortilla and place it seam side down in a lightly oiled baking dish.

Chicken Chimichangas

Melt the butter, brush across the tops of the tortillas and bake at 350 for 25 minutes or so. In the meantime, you can heat up a can of refried beans.

Serve with extra grated cheese, any leftover chopped green onions, red or green salsa and/or sour cream at the table.

These are lightly crispy, not like the fried version (and so much more healthy!).  We ate just one each with a side of refried beans but heartier eaters will want to. You could extend the meal with some Mexican Rice as well and/or a salad.

I somehow neglected to take a picture after they were baked but both my girls liked them and one is looking forward to taking one for lunch tomorrow. I frozen the leftovers so I could pull one out at a time.  Family Feasts says put one in the microwave for 2 minutes to reheat.  Sounds like a good freezer stash to me!

NOTE: If you have already cooked chicken in the freezer, just heat it up with a bit of water and the seasonings. You could also leave out the taco seasoning OR the other spices for a plainer version. You could also put salsa into the chimichangas before rolling but my girls prefer to have the salsa outside and it’s easy enough for me to dump it on top so that’s how I made them.  You could also easily substitute ground beef for the chicken.

Chicken Cutlets

I’m just guessing but I’m thinking Chicken Parmesan came about when someone like me made too many chicken cutlets.  You can turn them into pretty good chicken sandwiches (why else would they sell frozen breaded chicken patties?) and even Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches.

But I think the classic dish for leftover chicken cutlets has to be Chicken Parmesan. A while back I had made too many chicken cutlets and froze the extras.

Chicken Parmesan from Leftover Chicken Cutlets

Tonight I used up the last with some fantastic Chicken Parmesan. I thawed the leftovers just enough to separate them, then laid them in a shallow baking dish. I put a slice of mozzarella cheese on top of most of them, poured some reheated marinara sauce from the freezer on top, like this or this.  I topped with some grated Parmesan cheese and baked at 350 F for 25-30 minutes.

During that time, I made a small Caesar salad and cooked up some angel hair pasta.  A perfect combo and a great way to use up some of my frozen assets.

Ginger Chicken with Cornn and Peas

I promised my daughter I’d only do one new Asian dish this week and since I have more time to explore new things on weekends, tonight was it! I made this gingery spiced chicken from Washoku: Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen. Of course, she LOVED it! I made this then served it over rice for a Three-Colored Dish, but tried to expand it a little. The recipe I saw called for peas and corn but my youngest doesn’t like corn, so I made up some simple carrots for her. (I just steamed them, then put a dash of mirin, sake, and soy sauce plus sprinkled some seasame seeds. Idea from Easy Japanese Cooking: Bento Love, a fun book with lightly detailed recipes aimed at Bento lunches.)

Leftovers would definitely be great in a Bento lunch!

So start the rice in the rice cooker. I put the carrot slices in to steam once it hit the Warm stage and that seemed to work out well and let me get away with one less dirty dish.

Ginger Chicken with Carrots

The original recipe called for 12 ounces of ground chicken but my store only sells it in 1 pound packages so I just increased the seasonings by 1/3 roughly.   This should make about 4 servings.

• 1 pound ground chicken
• 2 Tbs sake
• 1 Tbs sugar
• 3 Tbs soy sauce
• 1 + tsp ginger juice

(For ginger juice, grate the fresh ginger and then squeeze the pulp to make the juice.)

Put the ground chicken in the frying pan and then add the sake and sugar. Stir and break up the clumps and then cook over medium heat, stirring and breaking up the meat, for a few minutes, until the meat turns white.  Add the soy sauce and simmer a few more minutes, stirring, another 2-3 minutes, then add the ginger jiuce and cook, stirring, another minute or so.

This freezes well, apparently, although I’ve not tried it yet. And you can use it to top rice or to stuff in a rice ball / omusubi, although I’ve not done that either.  I just served it over fresh steamed rice, with about half the rice covered with the ginger spiced chicken and 1/4 with peas and 1/4 with corn or carrots.   I added a few halved grape tomatoes and some nori (seasoned seaweed).

This was really good and a very mild way to introduce some Japanese flavors I think, if your kids are resistant.

New discovery tonight: Apparently the dogs love nori!

Molly with Nori

Kayden with Nori

This chicken was from HapaBento’s 5 Spice Baked Chicken. I don’t pack proper Bentos but love the idea and enjoy the generally quick and easy recipes  and the philosophy of eating multiple colors at each meal. (As an example of my not proper Bentos, today’s lunch was leftover cheese pizza, grape tomatoes, and sliced apple. I said “We need something green” and youngest said “How about green M&Ms?”  I acquiesced! We have a ton of leftover red and green M&Ms from our gingerbread house day.)

This was perfect to make for dinner tonight, cooking a few extra pieces of chicken for lunch tomorrow or the next day.  I used chicken legs, because that’s what I had in the freezer. I marinated less than her hour so poked the chicken legs with a fork a few times to help the marinade penetrate.

• 3 Tbs soy sauce
• 1 -2 Tbs olive oil
• 2 tsp Chinese 5 spice powder
• 1 tsp minced ginger
• 1 tsp minced garlic

I was marinating 6 chicken legs rather than the 2 chicken breasts or thighs HapaBento used, so I added a bit more oil. Ideally, marinate this for an hour, turning the chicken now and then. Or you can cheat like I did and poke some holes in your chicken with a fork and marinate however long you’ve got (half an hour for me!).  Turn the pieces every now and then.

Preheat the broiler.

Spray a pan with some cooking spray or grease with Crisco or something, then lay the chicken out on it. Broil about 15 minutes, turning every 5 minutes or so.  Then turn the heat down to 350 (and I moved the chicken down an oven rack to the middle of the oven) and bake another 15 minutes or so, until done. 15 minutes was perfect for my chicken legs!

Went great with some steamed rice and steamed snow peas plus this totally delicious Spicy Coconut Rice Noodles and Chicken Soup. (I would have just made that for dinner other than youngest complaining about “just soup” and my needing some lunch packing material!)

We started with a miso soup, very close to this soup with daikon, tofu and shitake mushrooms, but I added a bit of miso to it at the end and used the fried tofu rather than the firm tofu.

I served some rice, the grilled chicken skewers, and this spinach steeped in broth.

No pictures, sorry. It’s always harder to stop and take them when we have guests!

Turkey enchiladas with red sauce

When you’re tired of turkey hash and turkey soup and turkey sandwiches, make these turkey enchiladas!  Totally not “leftovers” but just a great Mexican-oriented meal.  I made half green sauce and half red sauce enchiladas. The green sauce was store-bought, the red sauce was this enchilada sauce recipe.

For the enchiladas, chop up a bunch of turkey. Sorry, no measurements, maybe 2-3 cups for a dozen enchiladas. It depends on how stuffed you like your enchiladas. Any leftover chopped turkey can go into this turkey sandwich spread or be used for many other leftover turkey recipes.

Grate some Cheddar cheese or use a Mexican cheese blend. (2-3 cups for a dozen enchiladas)

Turkey Enchiladas with Green Sauce

Heat some corn tortillas in the microwave in a tortilla warmer.

Use about 15 ounces sauce for each half dozen enchiladas.

Pour a bit of sauce into the bottom of  a shallow baking dish. Roll up the tortillas with some turkey and cheese inside and place seam side down. Top the enchiladas with the rest of the sauce, sprinkle some more cheese on top, and bake at 350 for 30 minutes or so.

The Thai chicken curry in coconut milk I’ve made many times and is basically from the back of the jar of Thai green curry paste. This Thai dinner is salad from The Everything Thai Cookbook: From Pad Thai to Lemongrass Chicken Skewers–300 Tasty, Tempting Thai Dishes You Can Make at Home (Everything Series).

I’ve made curry in coconut milk many, many times and vary the vegetables and protein depending on what I have on hand. Sometimes it’s chicken, sometimes it’s tofu based. Vegetables have been some combination of bamboo shoots, peas, red peppers, green peppers, tomatoes, and baby corn.  I usually pick 2 or 3 of those, aiming for variety of color.  Tonight the curry was with chicken, red and green peppers, a diced tomato and some frozen peas.  After I’d finished the salad, I actually dumped the rest of the dressing into the curry. Mmmm.

Thai Salad Dressing

• 2 Tbs fish sauce
• 1 Tbs lemon juice
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 Tbs water
• 3/4 tsp rice wine vinegar
• pinch of red pepper flakes

This was how I mixed it up. As I said, it was a bit salty for my taste.  I did use rice vinegar and not rice wine vinegar. Would that make a difference?  I will definitely make this again, but perhaps with just half the fish sauce.

Thai Dinner Salad

This is what I put in the salad. I’m not giving proportions because it can totally vary depending on what you feel like. I used red leaf lettuce because that’s what I had. The original recipe called for some chopped unsalted peanuts to top the salad but I didn’t have any so left it out.  Serves 2-4.

• 1 small head Romaine or Bibb or other lettuce, torn into pieces
• 1 carrot, peeled and grated
• 1/2 a cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
• 1/4 cup chopped mint (I didn’t have any so left this out)
• some chopped unsalted peanuts (I left this out)

As Kotylo suggests in the cookbook, you could easily add some protein to make this a main dish salad.  Use chicken, tofu or shrimp.

See Thai Chicken Curry