Chicken Stuffed with Gorgonzola
I did a real hit-and-run shopping trip on Monday. Other than fresh produce, we just didn't need a lot. But as I was walking through the cheese section, I espied an Italian gorgonzola that really looked good. Very soft - almost runny - with a really subtle aroma. I picked up a piece with no idea what to do with it other than slather it on bread.
So... I decided to use it to stuff chicken breasts!
Traditionally, when stuffing chicken breasts, I make a slit in the thickest part of the breast, put a bit of stuffing in it, and close it up with either toothpicks or kitchen twine. If it's a cheesy stuffing, it all oozes out and it really doesn't hold all that to begin with. The other option is to pound the breast thin, put a scoop of stuffing in the center, and then fold and/or roll it up like a softball. Neither option was what I was looking for tonight.
Instead, I made my slit in the thickest part of the breast and then laid it open on its side. I filled the cavity with lots of filling, doused it liberally with panko bread crumbs, and then baked them off at 425° for about 25 minutes.
What a concept! No pounding, no tooth picks, and lots of stuffing!
Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Spinach, Walnuts, and Gorgonzola
- 2 chicken breasts
- 6 oz fresh spinach
- 1 shallot, chopped
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 3 oz gorgonzola
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
- salt and pepper, to taste
Wilt shallots in a hot skillet with a bit of olive oil. Add garlic, then spinach. Remove from heat when spinach is cooked and add gorgonzola. Mix well, add salt and pepper to taste, and refrigerate until cold. When chilled, add walnuts.
Make slit in chicken breasts, lay on side and open. Stuff with spinach and gorgonzola mixture.
Place panko bread crumbs on plate and carefully place each stuffed breast in the plate to coat the bottom with crumbs. Place on a well-oiled baking pan, and sprinkle liberally with additional panko.
Bake in a preheated 425° oven for about 25 minutes.
I wanted to make Israeli couscous with dinner tonight but - shock and horror - I was out! I did have the Sardinian couscous which worked out perfectly. (Note to self: Next shopping trip is not a hit-and-run!)
The Sardinian couscous cooks up pretty much the same was as the Israeli, but needs to be rinsed before cooking and can take a bit longer to cook. I also used up the last of the homemade chicken stock I had, but packaged broth will work just fine.
Couscous with Currants
- 1 cup Israeli or Sardinian couscous
- 1 shallot, minced
- 3 oz button mushrooms, quartered
- 2 cups chicken stock
- 1/4 cup currants
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tbsp minced Italian parsley
- salt and pepper, to taste
Wilt shallot in medium saucepan with a bit of olive oil. Add mushrooms and cook a minute or two. Add couscous, broth, currants, and garlic powder. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat, and cook 15 or so minutes until couscous is done.
Remove from heat, stir in minced parsley, and add salt and pepper, if desired.
This was one of those meals that looked - and tasted - like it took forever to prepare, but everything was done in less than an hour.
Dja'jeh Burd'aan b'Teen
What's in a name?!? In the middle east, dinner tonight was Dja'jeh Burd'aan b'Teen. In English, it translates to Orange Chicken with Golden Raisins and Figs.
A rather exotic-sounding and foreign dish made with common ingredients found in almost any home in America. Orange juice, potatoes, chicken, raisins. Figs. Who hasn't had a Fig Newton at least once in their lives?
I mention all of this because I am just so sick and tired of the hate spewing forth from people who are wrapping themselves in the flag and calling themselves Americans, yet have no concept of what America is, or what America is supposed to stand for. The emails I've been getting from people who really should know better read like Saturday Night Live skits except people are actually taking them seriously.
"Give me your tired, your poor,your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Unless you're a Mexican, or, worse yet, a Muslim.
The Crusades ended in 1292. And began, again, in 2010. Different location. Same hate and rhetoric.
What's sad is, just like the nine Crusades before it, this is based upon ignorance and being perpetrated by politicians who don't care about you, me, the real victims of the WTC attack, or anyone else but themselves and their power.
This isn't about a community center in New York City, this is about politicians dividing and conquering us - again. It's about their power and the hell with our Constitution, our laws, and our religious freedom. Blaming all Muslims for the actions of Osama bin Laden is like blaming all Ugandans for Idi Amin or all Americans for Lindsay Lohan.
Give it a rest, folks.
Food. The great equalizer. It's amazing when you look at the cuisines of the world how similar they all are. But it's how the ingredients are put together than makes them unique. Just like people.
Through all of my years of cooking - and eating - I have really come to appreciate just how similar we all are. Universally, food is about family, community, and sharing. And, universally, people pretty much just want to live their lives as best they can. Unfortunately, we're constantly being driven apart with our differences instead of being brought together with our many - many - similarities.
Food. The common denominator.
Tonight's common denominator was anything but common. Slightly sweet and slightly spicy without being hot, it's one of my favorite flavor profiles.
It come from the book A Fistful of Lentils by Jennifer Felicia Abadi
I halved the recipe for two of us but added a lot of figs and served it over whole grain red rice cooked in chicken stock. I also used two boneless chicken breasts.
Here's the full recipe. Enjoy!
Orange Chicken with Golden Raisins and Figs
Sauce
- 1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped yellow onions
- 2 cups peeled and cubed white potatoes (any kind)
- 1/4 cup golden raisins
- 1/2 cup whole Black Mission figs or the larger, amber-colored Calimyrna figs, cut into halves
- 1 1/2 cups fresh orange juice, strained
- 4 1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce, (preferably Lea & Perrins, or another brand that lists tamarind as an ingredient
- 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
- 1/2 tablespoon soy sauce
Chicken
- 3 pounds chicken pieces (white and dark meat)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- Several grindings of black pepper
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 4 1/2 teaspoons olive oil
To Serve
1 recipe Basic Syrian Rice (recipe can be found in book)preparation
1. Prepare the sauce. Combine all the ingredients in a medium-size bowl and set aside.
2. Prepare the chicken. Rinse the chicken under cold running water and pat dry with paper towels. Place on a plate.
3. Combine the salt, pepper, garlic powder, allspice, and paprika in a small bowl. Rub the spices into the chicken skin.
4. Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. When the oil is very hot, add the chicken pieces and brown, cooking for 2 to 3 minutes on each side. Pour the sauce over the chicken and simmer, covered, over medium heat until the chicken is cooked through and very moist, 30 to 45 minutes.
5. Serve the chicken pieces over rice, with the sauce spooned on top.
Chicken Boursin
I really don't recall when I first had Boursin cheese. It seems as if it has always been around. It's one of those things that I like, but never really think about. I definitely don't go out of my way to buy it. But I really do like it.
I picked up a package of it a few days ago thinking I might use it in dinner, somehow - and then didn't. This morning, I knew exactly what I was going to do with it - it was going to become a sauce for chicken breasts!
The beauty of boursin is it mixes with anything. Into mashed potatoes, into casseroles, into dips, and into sauces.
Tonight, all I did was melt it in a small pot with a bit of milk. That's it. It doesn't get easier.
I marinated the chicken in a bit of olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning. I then seared it in a skillet and popped it into the oven for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, I had whole-grain brown rice in a pot with homemade chicken stock from a few days ago.
When the chicken was moments from being ready, I put a couple of thick slices of homegrown tomato on them and put them under the broiler. Then quickly cooked up a half-pound of arugula in a drizzle of olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper.
Arugula on the plate, the chicken with tomato atop it, and the boursin sauce on top of it all.
Real chickeny rice on the side.
And...
The last loaf of the latest batch of no-knead dough.
I made a walnut pie, too.
Pollo Sofrito
I could eat pasta like we had last night every night 'til the end of my days. Unfortunately, if I ate it every night, the end of my days would be here a lot quicker than I want.
Time to regroup.
This is a bit of a clean-out-the-fridge dinner. I had a couple ears of corn that needed using up, plus some fresh tomatoes and some fresh peppers from the yard that were calling to me. And poached chicken from Saturday.
Throw it all together with some sofrito sauce and chopped green chiles and dinner was served!
Into the skillet went 6 chopped roma tomatoes with 2 ears of corn cut from the cob and 4 hot peppers, chopped. I simmered it for a few and then added a heaping teaspoon of cumin, a half-cup of sofrito sauce, a can of tomato sauce, a can of diced green chiles, and a bit of salt and pepper.
To make it all even better, I cooked a whole-grain rice medley of brown, mahogany, and black rices mixed with wild rice. Not exactly Mexican, but... It's a great blend.
The peppers from the yard were much spicier than the first few we picked. It wasn't OMG hot but it had a good kick to it.
It was one of those meals that will probably never be replicated, but it worked well, tonight.
Chicken and Sweet Potatoes
I've been dreaming of Sweet Potatoes. They're one of my favorite foods - yet, like a lot of things, they tend to get overlooked. They're almost always in the house - and almost always just get popped into the oven and baked. Until tonight.
I actually peeled one, sliced it thin, and made a sort of galette out of it. I'm going to eventually fry some sweet potatoes, I know. But not tonight.
Sweet Potato Galette
- 1 large sweet potato
- 3 tbsp butter, divided
- 3 tbsp brown sugar
- 3 tbsp flour
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- salt and pepper, to taste
Peel potato and slice thin. Mix potatoes in bowl with brown sugar, spices, and flour. Mix well. Add 2 tbsp melted butter and mix.
Melt 1 tbsp butter in an 8" skillet and layer potatoes evenly, overlapping in concentric circles.
Press down, cover with foil, and place a 425° oven for about 45 minutes. Remove foil for last 15 minutes of cooking.
The cicken was marinated in olive oil, red wine, garlic, salt, pepper, and herbs d'Provence and then grilled over indirect heat for about 45 minutes.
I made the bean salad yesterday.
Fresh Bean Salad
- 1 1/2 cups shelled cranberry beans (or a can of beans of your choice, rinsed and drained)
- several ounces of fresh green beans, trimmed
- 1/2 red onion, sliced
- 3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- fresh basil
- fresh oregano
- salt and pepper, to taste
Cook beans until soft. Blanch green beans. Place both in ice water to stop cooking and quickly chill.
Drain. Mix in bowl with remaining ingredients. Serve chilled or at room temperature.
And I used up the last of the bread dough in the 'fridge for a fresh loaf of bread.
Time to mix up a new batch tomorrow!
Braised Chicken
Fresh tomatoes from the garden, zucchini from our neighbor down the street, fried peppers in the fridge, a chicken just waiting to be braised... A dinner was born!
I knew last night that I was making a braised chicken today. I even had the recipe pretty much figured out. Basic, throw-in-the-pot stuff.
I chopped an onion and sauteed it in a bit of olive oil. I added the cut-up chicken, garlic, and red wine and let it cook down a bit. I then added about 4 fresh-from-the-garden tomatoes, chopped, chunks of zucchini, and about a cup of hot and sweet fried peppers. On went the lid and into the oven for about 45 minutes.
I added some basil and oregano form the garden, salt, and pepper. That was pretty much it.
I cooked up some mini rigatoni and called it dinner.
And there were plenty of leftovers for Victor's lunch.
The peppers were really spicy and added a nice amount of heat without being overpowering. And I baked off the last loaf of the Olive Oil Bread .
It was a bit unseasonal, but we're still living under air conditioning.
I think tomorrow might be stuffed zucchini.
Moroccan Chicken on the Barbie
The temperature has dropped 30 degrees. It's almost bearable outside. Time to do some more grilling.
Earlier, when it was a mere 95° outside, I decided to do something Moroccan. It was feeling like the fringes of the Sahara outside... Well... a Sahara with a lot of humidity, that is. Time to visit Northern Africa.
I marinated the chicken in a Moroccan-inspired marinade...
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
- 1/2 cup water
- 3 tbsp cumin
- 1 1/2 tbsp ground coriander
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
And then grilled...
Side dishes were green rice and green peas with garlic and thyme. I'm doing the weekly shopping tomorrow so we're using up what's here...
But the semi-star of the show was a lovely loaf of bread.
I've been making the no-knead breads for a while now and finally got the book. There was one recipe that really jumped out at me - Olive Oil Bread. It's the exact same recipe - except it uses 1/4 cup olive oil for 1/4 cup of the water.
What A Difference!
I'm hooked. I now have a new go-to recipe that I'll be playing with and tweaking as time goes by.
The crumb is much more tender. It just made an overall better loaf in my never-humble opinion!.
Olive Oil Bread
- 2 3/4 cups lukewarm water
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 1/2 tbsp yeast (2 packets)
- 1 1/2 tbsp kosher salt
- 6 1/2 cups flour
Mix all ingredients. Let proof about 2 hours.
Refrigerate. (Dough is ready at this point but handles better when chilled.)
Preheat oven to 450°.
Form grapefruit-sized ball of dough into loaf.
Let rise about 30 minutes.
Bake for 25 minutes.
Cool before slicing.
I can see a lot of variations on this theme coming up!
Chicken Salads and Homemade Bread
When I cooked yesterday's chicken, I had tonight's dinner in mind. I knew I was going to make salads - I just wasn't sure what was going to be in (or on) them.
Cold chicken started me thinking about ham. Victor had boiled some eggs, so A Cobb-type salad was formulating. And then some ravioli, or tortellini, or something...
I settled on perline pasta mixed with a red pepper and eggplant dip I had in the cabinet. Quick and easy pasta salad.
The bread was a take on the no-knead breads I've been making for a while. I finally got a copy of the actual book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day. (It was a freebie using Zoom Panel points.)
Fun.
There was a recipe for a rustic bread using whole wheat and rye flour. Since I just happened to have both in the cabinet, I made a half-batch of the dough last night. When I got home today, I formed the loaf, put it outside into Mother Nature's proofing box, and in 30 minutes it was in the oven!
Half-Batch Rustic Bread
- 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
- 1-1/2 tbsp yeast (1 packet)
- 3/4 tbsp kosher salt salt
- 3 cups flour
- 1/4 cup rye flour
- 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
Mix all ingredients. Let proof about 2 hours.
Refrigerate. (Dough is ready at this point but handles better when chilled.)
Preheat oven to 450°.
Form grapefruit-sized ball of dough into loaf.
Let rise about 30 minutes.
Bake for 25 minutes.
Cool before slicing.
It was pretty good!
Chicken on the Barbie
We're home.
What a great and fantastic time we had. It was just non-stop laughter, fun, food, memories, and remembrances. Along with a few clarifications. I found out that my grandfather actually died of colon cancer when I was a mere 14 months old. I always thought it was a heart attack. And he was only a year older than I am, today. Rather young.
I'm working on finding out why they all moved from Omaha to San Francisco in the first place. I'm also finding out that facts can get fuzzy now and again. Families are fun.
Fun... as in.. I have been "Facebook Friends" with my cousin's wife's sister for quite a while, but we had never met in person. We convinced her to meet us at the end of our Sunday Dinner, and she took us and her sister for a little spin around the area in her bright red VW bug convertable. We did a little sightseeing and she said that Warren Buffet lived in the neighborhood. Next thing I know, we're driving up his driveway.
Mr Buffet has a really big, beefy security guard who was not amused.
Ooops!
But other than typically horrid airport and airplane experiences, it was a great time - and another is going to be planned for three years hence. Hopefully all the way out west.
So... we're home. Back to work and back to cooking. Life goes on...
I took a whole chicken and split it tonight, and then made a rub of salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, Hungarian and Spanish paprikas, French herbs, and a bit of poultry seasoning. I grilled the chicken with indirect heat for 45 minutes. I also grilled the potatoes, with the chicken above them so the chicken fat would flavor them. Spinach on the side.
Yum.
A Green Goddess and a Loose Loaf
A few days ago, a wonderful friend of ours commented that she had found Green Goddess salad dressing at her little corner grocer in her even smaller small town. For those of us with access to mega-supermarkets and specialty food stores, galore, finding a bottle of salad dressing probably wouldn't make the list of exciting things that happened, today. But I remember being up at the north shore of Tahoe back in the '70s and being held hostage to what the local Safeway had to offer. We actually did our big shopping down in Reno because the pickin's were so slim. And Reno was no gourmet metropolis.
Now... we all know that the odds of me buying a bottle of salad dressing today are between slim and none. But that Green Goddess kept calling to me. I honestly couldn't tell you the last time I had Green Goddess dressing. It may have been out of a bottle in Tahoe.
I had to make some.
It's a really basic, simple dressing - mayonnaise based - that anyone can whip up in a minute or two. And I have to tell ya. This one just rocked.
I took a couple of liberties with the recipe - how unusual - but I didn't have tarragon vinegar or chives. I used white wine vinegar and a whole green onion with all the green top. And dried tarragon.
We get anchovy paste in a tube and keep it in the 'fridge for those few times when I need one or two anchovies. But canned anchovies in oil will keep indefinitely in a little tupperware container.
Here ya go:
Green Goddess Dressing
- 1 cup mayonnaise
- 2 anchovy fillets
- 1/2 green onion
- 1 tsp parsley
- 1 tsp chives
- 1-1/2 tsp tarragon vinegar
- 1/2 tsp fresh tarragon
Place everything in the bowl of a small food processor or blender. Mix well.
This would also work great as a dip!
Yum.
I put it on iceberg lettuce salads with grilled chicken breasts. I marinated the chicken in a bit of olive oil and herbs d' Provence since I was using the tarragon in the dressing.
Oh... and for all of you who eschew iceberg lettuce because it's so common and low on the nutrition scale but buy romaine hearts, butter lettuce, greenleaf, etc?!? Guess what?!? None of those have any nutritional value, either. Sorry to burst your bubble.
And then I baked the last loaf of bread from the most recent batch of no-knead dough. I do not know what was up with this batch, but it was the wettest dough I have ever made. I even added an extra cup of flour to no avail. It was just l-o-o-s-e.
This loaf glued itself to the peel and refused to come off. Half-in and half-out of the oven, I just scraped it off with my hands and piled it on top of itself.
It came out tasting great!
Chicken Soup for the Soul
Ah... ah... ah... AH-CHOO! {{sniffle::sniffle}}
Victor has come down with it, now... I'm in the waning mode while he is waxing. I guess it's nice that we weren't both down and out at the same time, but this just drags it on. And on. And on... Yuck.
So... It's time for some Jewish Penicillin. Chicken Noodle Soup. There's just nothing better.
I do have to admit that I cheated. I used boxed chicken broth, but my not even remotely Jewish Mother would have approved. A boy's gotta do what a boy's gotta do.
I'm actually feeling pretty good. Still hacking a bit, but I feel okay. Victor is in the early feels-like-hell stage.
This, too, shall pass.
In the meantime, we're drinking our gallons of fluid and doing all the right things. Back to normal in 7-10 days.
Grilled Chicken on French
Crusty bread, melted cheese, and grilled chicken. What could be better?!? Well... Adding some of Sarah's Caribbean Sea Salt definitely brought it all up a notch tonight!
As a rule, I don't use flavored salts because... well... they're salty. I don't mind salt, I have a bowl of kosher salt on the counter right next to the stove that I dip my fingers into while cooking all the time. But I can control that salt - I can't control the salt mixed with whatever spices or flavorings. What I found out about the Sarah-Salt, though, is the spices are powerful, so a minimal amount is needed for maximum flavor. It worked well going onto a chicken breast going onto the grill without being over-salty.
We have house-guests {{YEAH DORRIE!!}} coming down from Boston for the holiday weekend, so we've been busy working out what to eat for the next three days. Minor panic and running around like crazy before people show up makes everything just look so spontaneous and simple. It really is an art form...
Fortunately, Dorrie's a 30-year-friend so we only have to dust a little bit. There's nothing worse than actually having to clean for people.
So right now, the plan is burgers on the barbie tomorrow, potato salad, baked beans, all that sort of stuff..... Victor will do an Italian Feast on Saturday and I'll bake some bread when I get home from work, and Sunday will be our Chinese Fourth of July. We're doing Chinese food in honor of the Chinese inventing fireworks.
Perfectly planned spontaneity!
I love holidays!