Chicken About Chicken

I'm not crazy about dealing with raw meat. It's one of those weird things, kind of like how I used to gag while washing dishes because I couldn't take the cold bits of someone else's uneaten congealed food on the plates. Motherhood cured me of that fear. I actually think my mom thought it was an act to get out of washing dishes but I tell you now, Mom, that was no act! I totally would have lost my pot roast in your Dawn dishwashing bubbly sink if you had made me do it. Thanks for not making me, love you mom. (xoxo) Note to kids: I emptied the dishwasher everyday instead.

So, birthing babies cures you of many of your irrational childlike fears (and sometimes makes new ones) but it did not cure me of my irrational fear of touching, smelling and dealing with raw meat. If I wasn't so lazy, I may have been a vegetarian. Raw chicken is the worst for me and I make my husband cut it. Always. I have probably had to deal with the stuff five times in our ten years of marriage. (love you too, honey...xoxo).

Last week I made two chicken recipes, Chicken Korma (pg.74) and Chicken Fajitas (pg. 38) For the Korma, I suffered through it, and it took forever. For the Fajitas, I made husband cut up the chicken. While standing at the island prepping for the fajitas, husband confesses that he had really hoped this little project would cure me of my fear of raw meat.

I hate to say it but, no such luck just yet.

That being said both the Chicken Korma and the Chicken Fajitas (recipe below) were fabulous!

Promise me you'll try it?

Recipes cooked: 66
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Days left: 137

Chicken Fajitas
Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
page 38

Ingredients
For the Fajitas:
-1 red pepper
-1 medium red onion
-2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
-1 teaspoon smoked paprika
-1 small pinch of ground cumin
-2 limes
-olive oil
-sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
-4 flour tortillas
-1/2 c sour cream or natural yogurt
-4 oz. cheddar cheese

For the Salsa:
-½ to 1 fresh red chili, to your taste
-15 ripe grape or cherry tomatoes
-1 small bunch fresh cilantro
-sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
-1 lime
-extra virgin olive oil


Directions

Put your grill pan on a high heat.

Halve and deseed your pepper and cut it into thin strips. Peel, halve and finely slice your onion. Slice your chicken lengthwise into long strips roughly the same size as your pepper strips.

Put the peppers, onion and chicken into a bowl with the paprika and cumin. Squeeze over the juice of half a lime, drizzle over a lug of olive oil, season with a good pinch of salt and pepper and mix well. Put it to one side to marinade for 5 minutes or so while you make your salsa.

Make the Salsa: Finely chop your chili. Roughly chop your tomatoes and the cilantro, stalks and all.

Put the chili and tomatoes into a second bowl with a good pinch of salt and pepper and the juice of 1 lime. Add a good lug of extra virgin olive oil, and then stir in your chopped cilantro. Set aside to use when the fajitas are done.

Use a pair of tongs to put all the pieces of pepper, onion and chicken into your preheated pan to cook for 6 to 8 minutes, until the chicken is golden and cooked through. As the pan will be really hot, keep turning the pieces of chicken and vegetables so they don't burn - you just want them to lightly chargrill to give you a lovely flavor. Give the pan a little love and attention and you'll be laughing. Halve your remaining lime and squeeze the juices over the sizzling pan.

Warm your tortillas in up the microwave or in a warm dry pan. Divide your warmed tortillas between your serving plates.

At the table, carefully help yourselves to the chicken and vegetables straight from the hot griddle pan. Just be sure to put it down on top of something that won’t burn, like a chopping board.

Serve with bowls of sour cream and guacamole alongside your cheddar and your lovely fresh salsa.

Another busy night, another omelette!

I was happy to whip these up one night when we had several places to be at once. Don't you love those nights? They truly test your mommy and daddy patience so there is no need to add unnecessary stress of something bubbling over on the stove. I must say I'm getting pretty good at these. Below is the great video again. This time I did the basic omelette and the hangover omelette (assume what you will) on pages 313 and 314, respectively, of Food Revolution.

http://www.jamieoliver.com/about/jamie-oliver-videos/ministry-of-food-omelettes

Recipes cooked: 64
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An Apple a Day...

You thought I gave up, didn't you? Nope! I'm still here. Just busy. Not too busy to cook, I've just been too busy to write.
So, let's get on with it.

Apples.
My last roommate before married life (let's call her JJ) and I would get serious apple cravings around this time of year. What was funny is that we never talked to the other one about the craving. Yet we would find ourselves in our oh-so-tiny kitchen after work with grocery bags full of red apples, green apples, apple cider, apple juice, caramel dip, anything to do with apples. Now this was normally a kitchen with no food in it. We were two girls working crazy hours, hardly ever home and living steps away from some of the city's best food. Not to mention that you could barely move in this remarkably small galley kitchen, so food preparation was very difficult. So each year we'd unknowingly both stop at the store on the way home from work, load up on apples and bump (literally) into each other in the kitchen at home. Then we'd feast on apples for days, probably only apples since funds were low. Still, every year at this time, I get that same apple craving and think of JJ. So, in honor of those days, I dedicate this recipe to her.

Baked Apples, page 343 of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/home-cooking-skills/baked-apples

Recipes cooked: 62
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Yummy Salmon, Mushy Veggies

Asian-Style Steamed Salmon. MMMMMmmmmm! I've been dying to try this one folks! It looked so good in the book its been on my "must-cook soon" list for awhile. It turned out great except next time I would definitely put the salmon on bottom (maybe sitting on the water chestnuts) and the veggies on top. The veggies got a bit too done for me and the rest of the family. This dressing is tasty and I think I'd make this to go with other things too.
Recipes cooked: 61
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Jamie Oliver's Asian-style Steamed Salmon
Food Revolution pg. 250

serves 2
a large handful of broccolini or broccoli rabe
1 x 8-oz can of water chestnuts
a large handful of sugar snap peas
2 salmon fillets, skin on, scaled and bones removed (about 7-oz each, though I used more vegetables and only about 100 g fish)

a thumb-sized piece of ginger root
1 clove of garlic
1/2 a fresh red chile
1 scallion
2 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp olive oil
1 lemon

To prepare the salmon:
If you have a steamer basket, add water to a saucepan just below the level of the basket. If you don't but have a metal colander, add water about half way up a saucepan that will hold it. Put water on high heat to boil. Trim the ends off the broccolini. Drain water chestnuts in a colander or through the steamer basket. Add washed sugar snap peas. Lay the salmon fillets, skin side down, on top of them, then scatter the broccoli over. Cover the colander with aluminum foil and scrunch tightly around the edges to seal the steam in.

To cook your salmon and make your dressing:
Put the colander or steamer basket (with lid) over your pan of boiling water and let it steam for 8 to 10 minutes. While that's happening, peel and grate the ginger and half the clove of garlic into a small bowl. Finely slice your chile and scallion and add them to the bowl with the soy sauce and olive oil. Squeeze the juice from half a lemon into the bowl. Mix together with a spoon and set aside. After your salmon and vegetables have been steaming for 8 minutes, peel back the foil to check the fish it cooked through, it should flake apart.

To serve your salmon:
Divide the salmon, water chestnuts, and veggies between your plates or bowls. Give the dressing a quick stir and drizzle it over. Serve with the remaining lemon half, cut into wedges, for squeezing over.

Fall Arrives

Its kind of funny that my LAST "summer" ingredient is my FIRST "fall" ingredient! If someone had told me a year ago, when I was buying my favorite Trader Joe's Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato soup, that this year I would be making tomato soup (pg.133) I would have said you were crazy! Now this doesn't mean that I haven't already stocked up on one of my favorites at TJ's but I was really nervous to try to make one of my fall favorites. Who can resist hot tomato soup on a chilly fall day? So, I picked up the ingredients at the store without thinking about how intimidated I felt and got to work. Could I really make a smooth flavorful soup? Now when you put all of the ingredients in the pot (pre-mashing) it looks like the Stone Soup my daughter made it kindergarten. It smelled great but it looked awful! I also thought this was going to be one of those time consuming recipes that would take all day but it was ready in about a half hour. Baby boy was all situated in his chair with his hands over his ears humming a few rounds of Old MacDonald while I blended it with gadget #4 (really just an attachment to my hand mixer) and to my amazement tomato soup, hot creamy soup just as I imagined, appeared before my very eyes!
Victory!
Recipes cooked: 60
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The Fried Egg Like I Never Imagined It

Okay. I can fry an egg. I may not have been a genius in the kitchen and I may not have been able to successfully boil water or make rice before this began but I could fry an egg. Now I was a bit out of practice since our kids were born and husband took over breakfast making duties about 8 years ago but I can still fry a good egg. I thought this recipe would be a walk in the park, a piece of cake and frankly an easy check off my list...And then I read Jamie's recipe (pg.309). Jamie's preferred method of frying eggs is to do so in 1/2 inch of olive oil on a medium-low heat. Huh? I must have reread this recipe a dozen times. And I put it off for quite a while but one day last week, when we had some very fresh eggs in the fridge, I decided to give it a go. I would say I was not terribly confident going into this but got less and less so as I went. So, I got my olive oil and panicked a bit as I poured the very expensive stuff into my pan. The next thing you're suppose to do is put all 4 eggs in together. I was chicken (ha! ha! Get it?) and only put in two. Now the eggs did what he said they'd do and they changed color to white and when this happened I spooned some oil on top. Here's where I screwed up. I just couldn't imagine how they could possible cooking in all of that oil on medium/low heat and I tried to flip one over. It broke apart into what seemed like a million pieces so I decided to stick with the directions on the second one. Then came the hard part, you take them out of the oil with a slotted spoon. Well, I completely destroyed the second one then! I saved the pieces so we could taste test but I knew I needed to start over and the troops were getting restless so I did them MY way. But wouldn't you know, when we tasted the failed egg, it was quite good! Maybe some day (when I have an abundance of olive oil) I'll try this again!
Recipes cooked: 59
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