Recipe of the Week: Super Easy Sauteed or Grilled Chicken

This is my go to marinade for chicken and as a quick vinaigrette for salads, both green and pasta. I made it last week and added sliced almonds and dried cranberries to the rice and grilled the aspargus with a little salt, pepper and dried lemon peel.

Marinade:
Juice of two lemons
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon parsley
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper.

Mix everything together and whisk, stir or shake until everything is very well mixed.

Marinate chicken for at least 30 minutes and up to a couple hours. Place the chicken in a saute pan or on the grill and cook. Don't flip until the edges of the face side are starting to cook.

Note: Other options for the marinade could be rice vinegar instead of the lemons, chopped rosemary, sage, lemon zest, limes, limes zest. Play with the recipe and see what you like best. 

My Family's New Favorite Soup - Chicken Tortilla Soup

We have been eating a lot of soup lately. Mostly because I can double the recipe easily and freeze half. On those nights I don't feel like cooking, it's really easy to pull out some frozen soup and heat it up.
With all the snow on the ground there is nothing more comforting than hot soup. I made this twice in the last week it is so good. It takes about 45 minutes to make, you can double the recipe and freeze the soup too. And again, even my son Brian, who claims he dislikes chicken, loved it

INGREDIENTS:

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

4-6 chicken thighs (see note)

1 onion diced

1 jalepeno pepper, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 qt chicken broth

28oz can diced tomatoes

1 cup frozen corn

2 14oz cans black beans, rinsed

1/4 cup parsely and/or cilantro, chopped

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

3 soft tortillas, sliced thinly

1 lime quartered

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a large sauce pot brown chicken thighs until cooked through, remove from pot and let cool. Drain fat, leaving about 1 tablespoon.
2. add onion and garlic. Saute until the onion is translucent Add jalepeno pepper, saute for 30 seconds
3. Add the chicken broth, deglazing the pan and scraping any bits from the bottom of the pan.
4. Add tomatoes, corn, black beans, salt and pepper. Cover and simmer gently for 10 minutes
5. Meanwhile shred the chicken, and add back to the pot and simmer for 5-10 minutes
6. Heat a small sauted pan over medium-low heat. Add sliced tortilla strips and "saute" until the strips start to brown and become crisp.

TO SERVE:

Ladle soup into bowls, add a little parsley/cilantro and squeeze lime on top of soup. Garnish with tortilla strips. Serves 4-6 as a main dish.

NOTE:

You can substitute 2 chicken breast for the thighs if you like. I use thighs because I think they add better flavor. The chicken breast have less fat.

Dinner Ideas: What We Are Eating This Week

The holidays are over and we are getting back to our regular schedule. As I do every year, I endeavor to seek different things to try. This week is no different, most of what I'm cooking this week, I have never made before. I have chosen pretty simple meals during the week and a couple of more time consuming recipes this weekend. So, this is what we are eating:

Minestrone Soup with Quinoa: I found this in January issue of Clean Eating Magazine and it was amazing. It took a total of 30 minutes and even Brian who is rather particular went back for seconds. The recipe included tomatoes, carrots, cannelli beans, spinach, and of course the Quinoa (pronouced KEENwah) I added chicken broth and celery.

Stuffed Butternut Squash: Around Thanksgiving we saw an article about stuffed pumpkins and what to put in them. I have been planning to do something similar since then, but hadn't gotten to it. Tonight I stuffed butternut squash with wheatberries, sausage from one of the local farms, brown rice, leeks (I had these left over from something I made a couple days ago) dried cranberries, a couple mushrooms and chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper. I cut the squash in half, scooped out seeds and a little of the middle and spooned the wheatberry and rice mixture over. This was perfect tonight. It has been so cold and this warmed us all.

Chicken Pot Pie with a Twist: I'll be making this during the weekend. You can forget the standard peas and carrots here. This is a recipe from an old issue of Bon Appetite and has roasted red peppers, shitake mushrooms, and green beans. I bought a whole chicken so I'll probably make two and freeze one pie.

Coq Au Vin: Last weekend Garth and I watched Julie and Julia. Watching Meryl Streep as Julia Child inspired me to give one of Julia Child's recipes a try. I have never made coq au vin, which is a chicken stew made with red wine. I googled Julia's recipe and will be making this over the weekend too.  Here is the link to the recipe I will be making http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/recipe?id=7113750

Happy Cooking!!

Dinner Ideas - What we are eating this week:

It's the holidays so like everyone else the next several weeks are busy for my family. We are all going in different directions so I'm trying to keep most of our dinners short and sweet. That doesn't mean boring though. For the most part we eat as together every night.

Quesadillas: I use whatever I have for these. Since I will be getting home late from work it will probably be sauteed mushrooms, onions, shredded smoked mozzarella and black beans.

Pizza: Garth makes pizza every week and it is always something different. Maybe I can convince him to add a little feta and arugula to whatever he finds in the fridge. We have been buying fresh dough at the grocery store, but I think I have convinced him to try making our own. I let you know how that works out!

Chicken with Mushroom Duxelle, Wilted Greens and Baked Sweet Potatoes: Mushroon Duxelle is just finely ground mushrooms. I'm going to add a little parmesean and sun dried tomato pesto. I will slice the chicken breast in half, length-wise and add the duxelle, roll in to a pinwheel and bake. I'm nost sure what I will receive for steaming greens from our winter CSA, but I'll either steam or saute depending on what they end up being and my mood. as for the baked sweet potatoes, I will probably cube them, and toss some oil, salt, pepper and a few other things and bake them next to the chicken.