Lemony Chicken infused with Herbs

I recently upgraded my phone and Verizon was running a special where you could get an Elipsis tablet for free with the phone purchase. Of course, the tablet is connected to a phone number, and they charge you $10 a month for access, but hey! I can take it anywhere, access my "What's in the Box?" blog, and keep on writing about good food. That's a win-win, huh? I hope : )   So anyway, I got two of them, one for me and one for the hub, who would have been monopolizing my tablet had I not gotten one for him.

The coolest thing about my tablet is the keyboard, which works on Bluetooth. Its the case and keyboard all in one. I can sit here on my bed and blog...heavenly! When I am done typing, I can pop the tablet out of the case and lie back and surf the internet. I would say this is going to be worth $10 a month.

Back to the point, today I am baking some chicken for our dinner tonight. I am doing it early, before the house gets too hot. I will be working nightshift tonight, so mine is going to be portable, while leaving some good stuff for the hub. We are trying to eat clean and exercise according to Bill Phillips Health for Life plan. Sensible eating: healthy carbs high in fiber, low fat, lean protein, no sugar. Eating carbs and protein in combination, like eggs and a cup of oatmeal. Twelve week program: Exercise six days a week with three strength training days and three cardio days. Today is the leg workout. I figured I would cook first, take a nap, and exercise this afternoon. Then I can come home, shower, and get ready for work. But for now, while the chicken bakes, I blog...

I first coated the four chicken breasts in olive oil, then squeezed in about 4 small lemons that our friend got from his tree. I added a Rancher's seasoning blend of salt, pepper, and garlic. I let it all marinate for about 20 minutes, then put the chicken into a glass baking dish. I left the lemon halves in the dish, added some sliced white onions, and layered the top with sliced garden tomatoes, springs of rosemary and basil. The tomatoes, rosemary, and corn all came in our box from SLO Veg. I know it sure smells good when baking!

I let it bake for 40 minutes in a 375 degree oven. I will take one of the small breasts in my tupperware container to work, along with some boiled corn-on-the-cob that I plan to cut off the cob, and some rice. I should have made brown rice, but I already had some left over white rice. Not quite on the plan, but I hate to throw out food. I think I will make a batch of brown rice and freeze it just to have on hand for lunches in the future.

Well, chicken is out and cooling, as is the corn. I think I will take my nap, then go get some exercise!

Chicken Chile Verde

Mild roasted chilies, chunks of chicken and white rice makes the best Chicken Chile Verde

Okay! Hands down, easiest yummy dinner ever! Chicken chile verde over rice. We got a variety of peppers in our SLO Veg box this week, so I decided to use them up in a fresh verde with tomatillos -- my favorite sauce ever!

You start with chilies: Poblano chilies (3), Anaheim chilies(2), maybe a jalapeno chile (1). Those get roasted until black over a gas flame, then cooled and placed in a plastic baggie until its time to mix up the sauce. (Tonight I wanted it to be on the mild side, so I didn't use any jalapenos).

Then you turn on the oven to 400 degrees and oven-roast the whole tomatillos (1 lb, husks off), onion (peeled and quartered), whole garlic cloves (3), and a couple of chicken breasts on one big baking sheet. Everything gets a splash of olive oil and salt. You can hit the chicken with your favorite seasoning blend, too. Let it bake for 30 minutes, until the tomatillos are soft and the chicken is cooked through.

The next step is to put all the peppers, onion and garlic into a blender, add a little bit of olive oil, salt, pepper and a couple teaspoons of lime juice, and give it a whirl. You can add a little bit of water, if you want. Taste for salt and adjust if necessary. 

Then dice the chicken into bite-sized pieces and mix it into the sauce. Spoon a couple of ladles of the chile verde over a bowl of rice and top with a dollop of sour cream. So good and flavorful, so fresh, and so darn easy!

For a quick recipe reference, check out Melissa d'Arabian's site on FoodNetwork.com

http://www.melissadarabian.net/recipes/tomatillo-sauce/

Tandoori Chicken & Roasted Cauliflower

I cut up my Tandoori chicken into bite-sized pieces to make it easier to dip into the spicy yogurt. SLO Veg cauliflower coated in olive oil and seasoned with turmeric complimented the chicken.

From Jody's cookbook, "Fifty Shades of Chicken"

My friend Jody posted a picture on Facebook the other day of a Chicken Mole she made and it looked so dang good, so several of us friends asked for the recipe. She posted it, along with another recipe for Tandoori Chicken. 

"Doesn't that call for Garam Masala?" I wondered. I had a whole bottle of that spice that I probably should use up, since I think I only used it in one recipe over a year ago. Yup, it called for it. Perfect. So I promptly took out some frozen chicken breasts and defrosted them in the microwave while I mixed the yogurt sauce for marinating. I let the chicken soak in the spicy yogurt for most of the day until it was time to bake it. The chicken went in at 6:30 followed by the cauliflower at 6:45 and we were eating by 7:15. Not too shabby.

I had blogged about the roasted cauliflower earlier, so just search for it on my blog page and you can find the recipe for that, too. Turmeric is a really handy spice to have on hand, as well as garam masala.

Our dinner was accompanied by a green salad using Curly Leaf lettuce from our SLO Veg box. I topped it with mushrooms, kalamata olives, grape tomatoes, dried cranberries and parmesan cheese. I used a balsamic vinaigrette that I had mixed up this morning for the dressing.

Chicken with Red Curry Peanut Sauce

Red Thai curry paste...that's the key to a good homemade Thai curry sauce. It comes in a little jar, and a tablespoonful is all you need.

I found a recipe from Sandra Lee that had just what I was looking for: coconut milk, red curry paste, chicken, green beans and bell pepper. I had previously frozen some vegetables from our SLO Veg boxes, so I searched through the freezer for those tri-colored string beans and bell peppers. I also took out a chicken breast which had been defrosted earlier today, so I was ready to get cooking. 

First thing is to cut the chicken into bite-sized chunks and brown it in some coconut oil. Then the semi-frozen green beans and bell peppers went into the big skillet. I let it cook until the chicken was no longer pink. I mixed up the sauce ingredients like Sandra said to, except for the red curry paste. That I held out and did something different. I made a little well in the middle of the chicken and vegies and put a scoop of red curry paste right into the pan. It sizzled and heated up the paste, releasing all those spicy flavors which I then stirred around to mix into the chicken. Then I poured in the rest of the sauce ingredients after I had whisked them together in a large measuring cup.

I served this chicken curry over a mound of hot spaghetti squash. Lotsa vegies here without all the starch!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/sandra-lee/chicken-with-peanut-curry-sauce-recipe/index.html#!

Ingredients
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 1/2 pounds chicken breast, cut in 1-inch pieces
Salt and pepper
8 ounces frozen cut green beans, thawed  

8 ounces frozen pepper strips, thawed

1 tablespoon red curry paste

For sauce:
1 1/2 cups light coconut milk
1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth,
1/3 cup chunky peanut butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons lime juice, plus wedges for garnishing
Cilantro sprigs for garnishing

Directions
Heat oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add cut up chicken, season and saute until cooked through stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Add green beans and pepper strips and continue cooking for 3 minutes. Make a well in the center and add a tablespoon of red curry paste. As it melts down, blend into the chicken and vegetable mixture.

While chicken cooks, start the peanut curry sauce. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together all ingredients for the sauce. Pour sauce into a frying pan over the chicken and vegetables, stir to combine. Turn heat up to high and bring to boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat and simmer until sauce thickens slightly, about 6 to 8 minutes. Serve over steamed rice or noodles (or spaghetti squash).

Chicken Spaghetti with Tri-Colored Green Beans

I love Pioneer Woman! I just got her first book, "The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl" and I am reading it from cover to cover. I actually took the slip cover off because it is so beautiful and I don't want to wrinkle it up. She is fun and funny and makes fun of herself and her family, too. I like that...kind of feels like our home. 

I needed to make something for dinner that the boys could heat up and that I could pack for my dinner at work. My supply of SLO Veg vegetables was slimming down to just some beets, some lettuce, a green bell pepper and those pretty, tri-colored green beans. Originally I had been thinking of making a Thai dish with the chicken and green beans, but as I didn't have any coconut milk on hand and I really hate to make extra trips to the grocery store during my work week, I resisted. Anyway, back to the stuff on hand: the beets will keep and maybe I will use the lettuce tomorrow, but for today its going to have to be green beans and bell peppers. 

The other night I had seen a recipe in my new cookbook that looked promising: Chicken Spaghetti. It had Cream of Mushroom soup and lots and lots of cheddar cheese...a casserole staple and a sure winner! I checked my pantry. Score! I had mushroom soup, golden mushroom soup and cream of chicken soup...any of which would work here, AND I had spaghetti. I started a pot of water boiling. Ree used the broth from her chicken to cook her spaghetti in, but I had leftover chicken legs that I plucked the meat from and no broth, so I just used regular old tap water for the spaghetti. I saved out two cups of that when it came time to drain the spaghetti and added it back into my soup mixture.

I had all these green beans that I had not gotten to yet from last week's delivery, so I decided they would make a great addition to this casserole. Kind of a shame to hide them in a soupy casserole, because tri-colored beans are so pretty. Sigh! First I needed to cook them, because they were raw. If I didn't have fresh green beans on hand and had to use canned ones, I would just simply open the can and drain them. I have two Campbell's Soup recipe books that I used extensively while my three children were growing up and about half the recipes call for canned green beans. I trimmed up the beans and put them in a shallow pot to boil for five minutes or so. Meanwhile, I diced a half an onion and a half a bell pepper into small pieces, then I sauteed them in butter for a few minutes, throwing in some minced garlic right at the end. Ree didn't do this sauteing step in her casserole, but I thought it would add a nice touch. Also, I didn't have any pimentos in my pantry, so I left them out. Its a trade-off. I added the diced leftover chicken, about two cups worth, a can of Golden Mushroom soup and a can of Cream of Chicken soup, and gave it a stir. What next? Oh yes, seasonings! I add some seasoned salt that I had mixed up from a Lawry's Season Salt knock-off recipe. I make that by the pints around here. I put in a teaspoon of the seasoned salt, gave it a twirl of black pepper and measured out 1/4 tsp of cayenne. The last thing I added was the shredded cheese blend. I happened to have a Mexican cheese blend on hand, so that's what I used.

Since I was leaving for work in a few hours, I decided to use ramekins as the baking vessels for this Chicken Spaghetti. That way I could cook my portion now and the boys could heat their's up when they got home later tonight. Everyone would enjoy that hot, bubbly cheesy deliciousness without having to heat and reheat the same old casserole or warm it in the microwave, which is never quite the same. I received a text from the Hub later that evening while I was at work that read: "Dinner was horrible, by the way. NEVER MAKE IT AGAIN!", which in our household is code for "We loved it!" I guess I can put this one on the favorites list. 

Now it's the next day, and I have taken one of the two leftover casserole portions that I had put into plastic storage bowls and put it in a ramekin and baked it for my late afternoon lunch. I ate it while I blogged and watched my DVR'd cooking shows. Right now I am watching Trisha's Southern Kitchen espisode, "It's All About Me" and she is cooking her favorite things with her sister. They are laughing and mocking each other and making some delicious strawberry shortcake. I hope I get more strawberries in the box this week. I have been using them in smoothies mostly, but I am really hankering for some strawberry shortcake on a doughy biscuit cake. Just like Trisha made. Yum!

*I am listing Ree's recipe, but I put an asterisk on my alterations and the directions will have my variations, using leftover chicken, adding garlic and green beans and omitting pimentos. If you wanat her exact recipe, click on the link below:

CHICKEN SPAGHETTI

(AKA Mexican Chicken per Mr. Drummond)

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/?s=chicken+spaghetti&submit=

2 C diced leftover chicken*

1 pound spaghetti, broken into 2" pieces

1 4-oz jar diced pimentos, drained

1 small onion, diced

1/4 C green bell pepper, finely diced

2 cloves minced garlic*

2 Tbs butter

2 C cooked green beans*

2 cans Cream of Mushroom Soup

2 C grated cheddar cheese

1 tsp seasoned salt, such as Lawry's

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1/8 to 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, to taste

Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook the spaghetti pieces for 6-8 minutes, until al dente. Reserve 2 cups spaghetti water and drain off the rest.  While the spaghetti is cooking, dice your bell pepper and onion and saute them in butter for two or three minutes. Add in the minced garlic for the last minute. In a large bowl or your now-empty spaghetti pot, mix the sauteed vegetables, the green beans, the chicken, the soup, the seasonings and the water. Then stir in the cooked spaghetti and the shredded cheese. Pour into a casserole or individual ramekins. Bake for 35 minutes until bubbly. **Ree adds more cheese to the top prior to baking, but I thought it was cheesy enough and didn't top mine with more cheese.

Chicken in Orange Sauce with Tomato-Squash Strata

I put together a quick baked Chicken in Orange Sauce the other day before I layed down to take a nap before work. I needed something something that would literally cook all by itself so I could could awaken to a hot meal, spend that quality 15-20 minutes with the family, and still get to work on time. So this is a chicken dish you can do in your sleep!

I made two casseroles, one with chicken and one with vegetables. They each required different cooking times, but they would be okay cooking at the same temperature. My chicken dish was simply chicken thighs coated in avocado oil, drizzled with orange juice and seasoned with garlic salt and black pepper. I put the orange rinds in with the chicken and sprinkled it with chopped green onions. I covered the dish with foil and put it into the frig until baking time. This one would need about an hour of baking.

Then I assembled the vegetable casserole. It couldn't get any easier...I just chopped onions to cover the bottom of the square baking dish, drizzled in avocado oil and then layered rows of alternating zucchini, tomato and yellow squash that all came in the box from SLO Veg. More avocado oil drizzled on top, then seasonings: coarse salt, fresh ground black pepper and dried thyme and marjoram. A handful of parmesan cheese on top completed the prep, then the dish was covered and into the frig it went. 

I let my husband have the honors of putting the chicken in the oven to bake about two hours before I needed to leave for work. I asked him to put the vegetable casserole in 30 minutes after the chicken. He is pretty good at following directions, so I had complete confidence in him. When I woke up, I checked on the progress. The dishes just needed some browning, so I removed the foil covers and cranked the oven temp up to 375° for 15 more minutes. During that time I showered and got dressed for work. Then we sat down together and ate dinner and chatted before I had to leave. The dishes, of course, were left for Lee to take care of.  With a full stomach, he didn't mind a bit. 

Recipe:

4 chicken thighs or breasts

Avocado or olive oil

Juice from 2 oranges

garlic salt and fresh ground black pepper

Thyme and marjoram

Put chicken in a glass baking dish and coat with oil. Squeeze orange juice all over chicken. Season with salt, pepper, thyme and marjoram. Cover with foil and bake for one hour at 350°. Remove foil and increase oven temperature to 375°. Bake for 15 more minutes until chicken is browned.