Back to the Pioneer Woman's Recipes!

I saw this recipe a few weeks ago and had it on my "to do " list. It's fairly easy, doesn't take too long and is darn tasty. My choice for a Sunday dinner after working for 5 hours (yeah, I know, not long) was Chicken Parm.

I made a few changes to her recipe - but the heart of it was the same. Namely, I didn't use 1/2 cup olive oil! That's WAY too much. I only used the olive oil when cooking the chicken - instead of butter. I don't need no stinkin' butter (really, I love butter, but I definitely don't need to cook with that AND olive oil). Also, I used one BIG can of plum tomatoes. I got these at Trader Joes - they also had basil in them. They were whole tomatoes, yes, but I took out my immersion blender and pureed those puppies before putting them in the pan. What else... no parsley. Not a big fan. I used some Penzey's Tuscan Sunset in the sauce instead. It was AOK. Finally, last but not least, I didn't serve it with pasta. Don't hate me, I just didn't need to be weighed down with pasta. I just served it with some roasted broccoli (which, by the way, is great! Try roasting your fresh broccoli - a little olive oil, a little salt. Yum.).

I almost forgot my favorite part. Deglazing. I am in love with the smell from wine when deglazing. If I could deglaze every meal I would. Don't know what deglazing is ? It's takinga  liquid -- in this case wine -- and disolving all the lovely carmelized bits off the bottom of the pan to make a sauce. Try it. You'll love it.

Not serving with pasta did leave me with a lot of extra sauce, so I packed it up and put it in the freezer. I couldn't let all that beautiful sauce go to waste.

So, this was a winner. Definitely a future dinner. Both David and I had none left and we could have eaten more. the picture looks like the chicken is huge -- but no -- I serve my meals on small plates. I learned that your brain thinks you eat more when you have a full plate. It didn't work this time.

Pass it On

Tonight I made what I call a "Food Revolution" dinner. We got Jamie Olivers latest cookbook from the library and decided to make a meal from it. The reason this entry is called "pass it on" is that in the introduction of the book he talks about the various statistics - health related/food related - that he talks about on the show. About how people eat in, but they buy take out to eat in  and that he wants people to learn how to cook and then -- pass it on -- share the love and ability to cook with others. So that's what I am doing. I am passing it on.

I will admit that I have been an avid follower of the show ever since I saw his TED Talk. I do think he's on to something. His "Food Revolution" even came at a perfect time for me -- when I was also in the middle of this personally. So....anyway, I sat down with the cook book and my husband and my daughter  (I don't know where the boy was) and decided on what we would have. Better yet, my daughter would help me cook it!

We decided on 3 things

Mediterranean Chopped Salad (Page 123)
Broccoli with Asian Dressing (Page 220)
Crunchy Garlic Chicken (Page 241)

I will go over the recipes in order that I made them so that the pictures are in order! I -- of course -- always cook the things that take the longest 1st so that ideally, the whole meal is ready at the same time.


Crunch Garlic Chicken 

1 clove of garlic
1 lemon
6 crackers (probably more -- I used saltines because he referenced a british brand that I was unfamiliar with)
2 tbsp butter
4 sprigs of parsley
sea salt & black pepper
2 tablespoons heaped all purpose flour
1 large egg
2 skinless chicken breasts
olive oil

To Prepare the chicken - peel the garlic and zest the lemon. Put the crackers into a food processor with the butter, garlic, parsley, lemon zest and a pinch of salt & pepper. Mix until it is very fine and poor onto a plate. Sprinkle the flour on a 2nd plate. Crack the egg into a bowl and beat with a fork. Lightly score the undersides of the chicken. Put a piece of plastic wrap over each and "bash" a few times with the bottom of a pan (or something hard!) until they flatten out. Dip the chicken into the flour until coated, then dip into the egg and finally into the crumbs. Make sure the entire chicken breast is coated.

Bake or pan fry. For baking - heat the oven to 475' and bake for about 15 mins.










 Broccoli with Asian Dressing

Steam about 1 1/4 lbs of broccoli. While it is cooking prepare the dressing. Grate a thumb size piece of ginger and finely chop a clove of garlic and place in a bowl. Add one fresh red chile. Stir in 1 tbsp sesame oil, 3 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp soy sauce, juice from one lime and drizzle in a teaspoon of balsamic. Whisk together. Serve over broccoli just before serving.








Chopped Mediterranean Salad

Handful of black olives
1/2 red onion
1 red chile
3 firm ripe tomatoes
1 romaine lettuce
fresh basil
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Balsamic Vinegar
sea salt & fresh black pepper

Get a large chopping board and a large sharp knife. Take out the olive pits if they were not already pitted by pressing down on the olives with the knife.

Start chopping the harder crunchier veggies first -- peel and slice your onion, chop the chile. Chope the olives and tomatoes and bring it all to the center of the cutting bard. Continue chopping and mixing together. Add the lettuce and basic and chop well. Once everything is well chopped you'll have a big mound of salad on the board. Make a well in the middle and add 6 tbsp olive oil (I only added 4, 6 seemed like a lot!), 2tbsp balsamic and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Mix it all up and serve straight from the board or put in a bowl.



As you can see, I had my daughter helping me. She did a great job. She zested lemons and "bashed" the chicken. It was great fun. Best of all, she ate like ALL her broccoli  - and I think it's because she had a hand in making it. Sadly, the meal did not go over well with the boy. I tried to choose veggies that he'd like, instead he wouldn't try it. Oh well... next time I will cook with him and see how it goes.

So... how was everything? My favorite was the salad. I could have eaten it all. Loved it. I see more chopped salads in our future. The broccoli was pretty darn good too. My least favorite was the chicken. I wasn't overly impressed with it. It was ok, but nothing spectacular by any means. So now, go cook one of these things yourself!

Creamy Broccoli Dal

Trust me, it tastes better than it looks. Last night Rob and I made Creamy Broccoli Dal from the Vegan Yum Yum cookbook. Dal is the Indian word for lentils with curry. Yum is right.

I adore red lentils. Mix those little lovelies with spices like: turmeric, red pepper, garam masala, mustard seeds and cumin and yowsah! Double the recipe if you're like me and prefer a healthy dose of leftovers for next-day lunch.

I love Peanut Sauce

But unfortunately, not everyone in my family loves it. Seriously, cover just about anything in peanut sauce and I will eat it. I love it.

I am making an effort to cook vegetarian meals this weekend so we all can eat the same thing. I thought this would be perfect. My son loves peanut butter. He should love peanut sauce right? No. This didn't pass the test with him. Oh well, we'll try something else.

I liked it. It could have been a little better. I improvised a lot. I used a recipe I found using my Dinner Spinner App on my iPod Touch. It's a great App. I haven't used it tons, but I did find this gem. It also works better if you have a phone, so when you are at the grocery store that doesn't have Wi Fi, you can find your ingredients. Not that this has happened to me or anything...

So this is the recipe I based my meal on - Peanut Noodles at Allrecipes.com . I improvised by using Ketjep Manis instead of soy sauce. I also used Sambel Oelek instead of red pepper flakes. Both are Indonesian seasonings that I use when I make Indonesian food - which has a dutch influence (see my previous post about Gouda for why I cook dutch food). I also used a little more peanut butter. This might be why it wasn't as good. It was a thick sauce. I should have used more water or ketjep to help make it thinner. Also... I added more veggies - broccoli, onions, snow peas. For the pasta, I used an organic whole wheat pasta that I bought at Costco. I have 7 packages of this pasta now, so you can expect to see it often.

It wasn't incredible, but it was decent. My son had expressed doubts in my creations, so I reserved some pasta and some veggies without sauce for just such an occasion - which was needed.