Greens, Potatoes and Chicken

I was having one of those days, one of those weeks actually, where meal planning goes out the window and all your best intentions get wiped out once you hit the front door. Work has been very hectic lately, my husband has been ill, the kids have been in a mood, even the dog decided to wake me up every half hour on the hour last night. So as I drove home talking to my husband via cell phone he told me the closest he had gotten to starting dinner was defrosting some chicken thigh fillets. He offered to go pick something up for dinner.

As tempting as that was, we have been eating out way too much and that's not good for our health or our wallets. I knew I had some sad vegetables in the fridge that needed to be cooked or tossed STAT so I told him to meet me at home.

I started finishing the defrosting of the chicken in the microwave while I surveyed the vegetable situation. A 16 ounce bag of collards that had seen better days, several onions and a cereal bowl full of white creamer potatoes. I formulated a plan for a one pan meal that would hopefully feed my family of 4.

I rinsed and sorted through my sad collards, some of them were wilted beyond salvation, but most of it was fine. I put it in a sheet pan. To that I added one thinly sliced onion, and I halved lengthwise all of the creamer potatoes. I tossed them all with generous slugs of olive oil (maybe 1/4 C all together?) some sea salt and some black pepper.

When the chicken was good and defrosted I opened up each fillet and seasoned them on both sides with salt, pepper and paprika (mostly for color). I placed the chicken thighs on top of my oily, salty veggies and then placed aluminum foil over the whole thing and put it an oven set at 450 degrees. I let the chicken cook covered for 20 minutes. When that was up I checked the chicken and vegetables and decided to roast everything uncovered for another 20 minutes to get some color and finish cooking.

When I pulled the pan out of the oven everything was browned and crispy. Even some of the fronds of collard greens had turned crisp! I took the chicken and placed a piece or two on every plate, then I tossed the hot vegetables together in the pan one more time to coat everything in pan juices and served the green and potatoes alongside the chicken pieces.

Variations of recipe:

You could toss the vegetables with a mixture of olive oil and bacon fat if you had some on hand. You could even add bacon pieces to the pan and let it cook with the chicken.

You could add a 1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes to the greens as well for a nice kick of heat.

You could use a good baking potato cut up into one inch pieces in place of the creamer potatoes, or you could use turnip greens and turnip pieces in place of collards and potatoes.

Instead of using boneless, skinless chicken thighs you could use chicken leg quarters, but I'd separate the drumstick from the quarter and add more time for cooking. Maybe an additional 10 minutes?

Tuesday and Wednesday's Menus

When I finished my pot roast on Sunday I saved the beef broth from the pressure cooker in a separate container and saved the leftover beef and veggies as well. Yesterday I made a quick roux with butter and flour and then thinned it out with the reserved beef broth. I added my veggies to simmer and then cubed some of the leftover meat. When the veggies were warmed through and ready I added the cubed beef, heated through this made a quick and easy beef stew. I still had some beef leftover, so I wrapped it well in foil and put it in the freezer. I may use it later for another beef stew, or even shred it down and make BBQ beef, or some other reason. It was a super economical meal because I got two dinners out of the one roast plus 2 lunches and now I can even use it round out a third meal. It was also economical because I bought the roasts on a buy one get one sale at Winn Dixie, so I have another untouched roast in the freezer. I wasn't intending on buying beef that day but when I see a sale like that I have to jump on it.

For tonight's dinner I will be setting up my rotisserie and roasting a whole chicken. I will flavor it with lemon, salt, white pepper, and butter rubbed generously under the breast skin to keep things moist and flavorful. I am making a side of rice, some artichokes (just steamed with butter) and some yellow squash.

Tasty Tuesday: roasted chicken, steamed broccoli, baby carrots

To roast a chicken: Rinse bird, remove innards if necessary, pat dry. Salt and pepper chicken all over including inside cavity. If you like rub some butter under the skin and over the breast meat. I usually insert a lemon, whole and pierced all over with a fork into the cavity before baking the chicken at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or until the thigh when pierced runs clear juices, the drumstick moves freely in the socket, or internal temperature reaches 165 degrees. That is my simplest version of roast chicken. You can dress this as up or down as much as you like, by using compound butter, adding fresh or dried rosemary to the salt and pepper or by adding a carrot and onion to the cavity of the chicken. You can cook the chicken on a rotisserie, on a roasting pan with a rack in the oven, or by placing the chicken into a pan on top of thick slices of onion.

I made quick work of the broccoli by chopping it from the stalks, rinsing it and placing the florets into a glass dish in the microwave with some butter and a few table spoons of water. I microwaved it for about 5 minutes, still bright green and crispy but definitely cooked. Add salt and pepper and you're done. Our other side dish was raw baby cut carrots with a side of Ranch dressing dipping sauce.

Dinner -- done.

Meatless Monday: Pressure Cooker Potato Corn Chowder

Dance class from 4:15 - 5:30, softball practice/game from 5:30 - 7:30; what's a busy Mama to do? Nights like these are why I love my pressure cooker.

This chowder was adapted from a stove top recipe I've made many times.

Pressure Cooker Potato Corn Chowder

Olive Oil
Chopped 1/2 Large onion
Chopped 2 cloves garlic
Chopped 4 large red skin potatoes
Tabasco (to taste)
2 C corn niblets (frozen)
1 qt. container of veggie broth (or chicken)
1 16 oz. container of sour cream
1 Tb of cornstarch dissolved in water
Salt/Pepper


Saute onions and garlic in the bottom of the pressure cooker in olive oil (if not meatless Monday, throw some bacon in there.) Stir and saute till fragrant and then add chopped potatoes (at least 4 cups of spuds). Season the potatoes with salt and pepper or favorite seasoning blend, add veggie broth. Put lid on pressure cooker and cook on high for 5 minutes and then release pressure. When potatoes are done mash some of them slightly with a potato masher to thicken broth, add cornstarch if necessary. Stir in sour cream and frozen corn niblets, allow to warm through but do not boil. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary, can be topped with shredded cheddar cheese and vegetarian Baco-Bits. I'd serve this soup with a nice salad and some whole wheat bread or biscuits for a complete meal.

Whoopsie Wednesday: Forgot to Post and Thursday's Dinner

Wednesday's dinner was a great success, I made a spicy black bean soup and my husband made some corn bread waffles. You can find corn bread waffle recipes online, but our recipe came from the KitchenAid Belgian Waffle Maker cookbook that came with our super-studly, mack-daddy, dual belgian waffle maker, (with chrome exhaust and V-8 engine). Seriously, it's an awesome waffle maker.

Basically you use flour, corn meal, eggs, milk, cheese and cayenne pepper and make a nice thick waffle batter. You cook each waffle for 3 minutes and 45 seconds and they are light and crispy and cheesy and delicious. It made a sort of nice quick bread to serve with the bean soup.

I rinsed, sorted and soaked my beans and set them aside. In the bottom of my pressure cooker I sweated some roughly chopped onions, garlic, yellow bell pepper, and 2 tsp of Emeril's Southwest Seasoning and 1 tsp of chili powder and a single bay leaf. I added the drained beans and stirred them all together and then added a partial container beef broth I had in my fridge that needed using up. You could use chicken or vegetable broth or a mixture if you are so inclined. I cooked the beans with the veggies for 25 minutes on high pressure and then did quick release after 10 minutes. We served everything with a nice green salad. I was so tired though that I fell asleep without remembering to post. So sorry!

Tonight (Thursday's) dinner was sort of a chaotic adventure. My oldest daughter came home today with an earache, which necessitated some phone calls to local doctors to see if anyone could see her before 5 and dosing her with tylenol. Then trying to get her sister to get dressed and both kids to find their shoes to get them in the car to the doctors. No sooner had I texted my friend (and Sarah's softball coach) that we couldn't make it to practice, (my husband is the assistant coach) I get a call from Coach's Wife (and also my friend) that their beloved Golden Retriever had JUST passed away suddenly and could we please go coach the other kids?

Is it any surprise that I left the dinner in the oven? When I got home I was able to salvage the now somewhat sad and shriveled pork loins I had prepared by putting some barbecue sauce on them, but I still felt bad.

These are delicious when prepared correctly, but pretty good even if you leave them in about 30 minutes longer than you should have.

Take both pieces of a pork loin and lay them in a lidded dutch oven or large oven safe lidded pot; mine is an enamel over cast iron piece from the Martha Stewart collection. Sprinkle the loins all over with your favorite BBQ rub or rib rub. Drizzle the meat with a combination of liquid smoke, worcestershire sauce, apple juice and a splash of mojo marinade. (If you lack mojo you can sub in some citrus juices, lemon, lime, orange etc.) I put some large hunks of onion and a quartered apple around the meat to cook down and add moisture and flavor. They did help keep the meat somewhat moist as well.

After I pulled the meat out I took some pre-steamed green beans and put them in a pan with hot bacon fat and let them sit and sizzle till they were golden brown, then I peppered them and turned them and let them get brown on the other side. While those were cooking over medium heat I added some butter to a smaller pan and put that on low. Then I sliced an un-peeled apple into many nice thin slices and fried them in butter. When they were brown and soft on both sides I added the apples to a bowl with a goodly dash of cinnamon. Then I added some frozen corn to a microwave safe bowl and cooked the corn niblets with salt, pepper and butter. You could also add a bit of cream or sour cream after they are heated through to make a sort of "creamed corn" that is also very good.

Orange chicken, curry pineapple rice, steamed haricot vert

So tonight I made sort of a citrusy-fruity themed dinner and it was pretty tasty! Here are the recipes.

Orange Chicken Breasts

Squeeze the juice of 2 clementine oranges and half a lemon and add a bit of orange zest to the juice mix. Salt and pepper the chicken breasts. Turn a heavy bottomed skillet onto medium high heat and coat the bottom of the pan in olive oil. When hot, place the chicken breasts dow in the pan and let get a lovely brown color, about 3 minutes per side. Pour in the juice mixture and let the breasts steam to finish cooking about 5 minutes. Remove the breasts from the pan and reduce juice mixture by half, then add the breasts back in and coat in thickened reduced juice.

Curry Pineapple Rice

Take (1) 20 oz. can of pineapple rings or bits (packed in juice, not syrup) and drain into a measuring cup. Fill measuring cup the rest of the way with water or broth according to package directions. For my brown rice I required 2 1/4 C of liquid and I got about 1 C of juice from the can. I used another 1 1/4 of chicken broth to make up the difference. Saute a bit of finely chopped onion (and garlic if desired) in a large pan with olive oil. Add the rice, the liquid, 1 tsp of curry powder and salt according to package directions and cook for appropriate amount of time. (On the stove top brown rice takes about 45 minutes.) When rice is done stir pineapple pieces into hot rice along with a handful of pine nuts or a small can of drained water chestnuts.

Hubby got some lovely tiny green beans (haricot vert) at Costco, super yummy and skinny they cook very quickly. I steamed them in a bit of butter and water and then simply seasoned them with sea salt. Took about 5 minutes in the microwave.

Some of those sweet delicious Hawaiian rolls would be good with this!

I'm baaaaaack!

I needed to spend some more time with BFF. It was great to spend a lot of time with her, even if our kids were acting like crazed wildebeests most of the time. When someone suffers a great and sudden loss there isn't much you can do except be there and I was honored and pleased to be there for my friend and her family. Shout-out to my other BFF KC who spent the whole week with our mutual BFF in between my two weekend visits.

Menu for the Week:

Meatless Monday -- Asparagus and white bean puree soup
Tuesday-- Meatloaf cupcakes, pressure cooker garlic mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli
Wacky Wednesday -- White bean and asparagus lasagna
Thursday -- Baked chicken breasts in a orange demi-glaze, pineapple brown rice, sauteed bell peppers and onion
Fish Friday -- Got to put in an order with my fish guy (plus an interview with the Fish Guy coming soon!)

Got home late on Monday night and the Hubby had made an AMAZING white bean and asparagus soup that he found on the blog Lisa's Kitchen. It was super tasty and just the thing you wanted after a 5 hour car trip, light but hearty, filling but not heavy. My husband actually kind of hates asparagus but has recently come around on accepting them when they are mixed in with other things. It was great to see him buy and prepare the asparagus on his own. Moms of fussy eaters take note, sometimes they DO come around, even if it is 37 years later. You laid the ground work, their spouses will thank you.

Tonight's dinner was supposed to be a super fast meal due to softball practice, but softball practice was cancelled. But here is a really fast way to make meatloaf nonetheless. Mix up 1 pound of ground meat (your choice of turkey, beef, chicken, pork or any combo you like) with half a cup of oatmeal, chopped fresh tomato, chopped half of bell pepper (any color), chopped half an onion, 1 grated zucchini, 1 egg, 2 tsp of House Blend, and enough of any ketchup, BBQ sauce, A-1 sauce, worcestershire sauce you like (your choice) to get ingredients nice and flavorful. Mix well in a mixing bowl and then take individual 1/4 C scoops of the meat mixture and place them in a lightly greased muffin tin. This makes 1 dozen mini-meatloaves. REALLY pack the mixture into the measuring cup, leaving no air pockets, so that meat stays together when serving. Cook at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until cooked through.

Meanwhile, chop and steam broccoli in the microwave by placing florets in a glass bowl, adding 1 TB of butter, 2 TB of water, and some salt to the florets and steaming until softened but still bright green. I usually cook them for about 3-5 minutes depending on amount of broccoli.

I made the garlic mashed potatoes in my Cuisinart brand pressure cooker by slicing Yukon Gold potatoes into slices, plus peeling 6 cloves of garlic, adding 2 C of chicken broth (I had an open container of broth that needed using up) and 1 TB of salt and 1 tsp of white vinegar (to keep color bright). I cooked the potatoes and garlic on high pressure for 7 minutes and then immediately released the pressure. I drained the potatoes and added them to a pan on the stove with milk, half and half and butter and mashed them. I added salt, pepper and Italian spices to taste.

This is a really fast meal, if you have defrosted meat you can make everything in the time it takes the meatloaves to bake, so a true 30 minute meal! Everything tasted great too and the kids even had seconds on their broccoli.

Chicken Sausage in Red Sauce over Penne Pasta

Tonight's recipe is from my friend K, a super easy week night meal full of flavor and vegetables.

Chicken sausage
1 TB olive oil
1 green bell pepper
1/2 large onion
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1 can of tomatoes (or tomato sauce)
Italian herbs
1 box of penne pasta

Saute the vegetables in the olive oil, add the chicken sausage (removed from casing). When those items are browned add the can of tomatoes or sauce and about 1 tsp of Italian herbs. Let the sauce simmer. Meanwhile, make the pasta according to package directions. When pasta is done you can add it to the sauce directly and mix together. Can be topped with a bit of grated parmesan cheese. K's tips are to only make 1/2 of a 1 pound box of pasta so that you have equal amounts of sauce and pasta, a little less carby that way and a nice balance of sauce to pasta, and to always add salt to your pasta boiling water.

This can be a one dish meal or you can make a green salad or a nice side of steamed and seasoned zucchini.

French Style Stove-top Chicken

2 chicken breasts cut in half (vertically)
1 TB oil
1 head of garlic, broken into individual cloves
1/2 tsp of oregano
1 tsp of basil or marjoram
salt/pepper
1/2 C of broth or water
1/2 C of white wine
1 TB lemon juice

Pound chicken breast pieces into a uniform thickness so that they cook evenly. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium high heat, season chicken breast pieces with salt and pepper, place in pan with individual cloves of garlic. Cook chicken for 2-3 minutes on each side. Then pour over it liquid ingredients, herbs and lemon juice. Bring the liquid up to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and cook on low heat for6- 8 minutes more (or until chicken is no longer pink). While chicken is cooking place an oven proof plate or serving dish into the oven on warm. When chicken is cooked through remove the chicken and garlic and put it on warmed plate in the oven. Stir a slurry of a TB of cornstarch and 2-3 TB of water (or white wine or more broth) into the pan juices and bring up to a boil and cook for at least a minute as it thickens. Serve over rice (I made brown rice in the pressure cooker.) and spoon sauce over all. A nice side dish would be steamed green beans or broccoli.

Don't be a Mexican't, be a Mexi-CAN! (I am Mexican BTW)

I am not a food snob. I think I proved that yesterday by cooking with Coca-Cola. I will try anything at least once and more if I like it. Sure, I was forcibly held down in a teppanyaki place by my two best friends (Hi Kayla and Kat!) and forced to try sushi while I literally cried. But I was only 18 and when I tasted it I could only think, "Hey! Delicious!" but I've come a long way since then. I've learned to appreciate many different flavors and textures. Heck, I'll even eat raw tomatoes now thanks to working one summer in a Lebanese restaurant (Hi Milad and Rosie!) and I wouldn't touch them when I was a kid.

But today I was forced to confront my one area of food superiority complex... today I was forced to make genuine Mexican food and stuff it in a Pillsbury crescent roll. My husband had found this recipe online and wanted me to make it.

Let that sink in, will you? I lovingly prepared homemade taco meat only to have it desecrated by being wrapped in the whitest of all white breads. Somewhere off in the distance, I heard insane high pitched giggling as if from an unbaked demon being repeatedly poked in the belly. Surely all of my Mexican ancestors were looking down on me in horror and confusion!

I have cooked with crescent rolls before, in fact they are excellent wrapped around some good chocolate and a dash of cinnamon and then baked; makes a fast and impressive dessert or even breakfast pastry. Or my favorite hearty appetizer "Beggar's Purses" where you take the triangles of dough and press them together into a rectangle and then stuff them with a Mini-Babybel cheese a dab of grainy mustard and a few chopped walnuts. Pull the dough together to close and bake according to package directions. Fabulous! See? Not a snob. But this recipe called for me to take ground beef and mix it with taco seasoning. Blasphemy! I made my own taco meat recipe, simply sautee together a small onion, 1 pound of ground beef, 1/4 of a green pepper (chopped) and season it all with ground cumin, adobo seasoning and a bit of chili powder. I drained it well and added it to the croissants. The croissant dough itself had to be made to stretch to fit all of the meat. I had read the recipe wrong and only gotten 1 can of dough, it required 2. You basically take two triangles and lay them together with long points facing away from each other, then you pinch the seam well so the two parts don't fall apart. Add the taco meat and the cheese to the center, close and bake. Well, the other thing was the recipe called for me to add everything you would put on a taco... including lettuce. Yeah, no dice. I just added meat and cheese and served the lettuce, salsa, and sour cream on the side. Not all of the meat fit, but that could also be served on the side or even on top. The taco-croissants or croissantos as we took to calling them were done in 15 minutes.

My husband and kids devoured them and I have to admit they were very tasty, but I don't think I will be giving up tamales any time soon! :)

Choose Your Own Adventure

I forgot I had a PTO meeting tonight, plus darling girl had basketball practice. Tonight was a choose your own adventure (dinner) night! Some of us had sliced pot roast over romaine lettuce and broccoli slaw, some of us had peanut butter crackers and apples, some of us had leftover hummus and carrot sticks. It was a free for all!

However the refrigerator is very, very clean, so BONUS!

Tomorrow is Fish Friday, I have to call my fisherman and put in an order. Oh yeah, my commercial fisherman delivers... to my house, super fresh fish that had been swimming only hours before. It's pretty sweet! Of course I am now spoiled for anything else!

Step Outside Your Comfort Zone

My husband has been home sick from work, tonight he was scheduled to be the assistant coach for our daughter's basketball team. I have to tell you my first thought was "Cancel it, we're all skipping practice!" but then I thought better of it. We made a commitment as a family to get our kid to practice and to help coach the team. It was time for me to step out of my comfort zone. I decided to fill in as assistant coach.

A little background; I was a nerd in school. An uncoordinated, clutzy, asthmatic mess. I took a sort of perverse pride in always being the last picked for any team. I went to high school football games to hang out with my friends in the brass section and never watched a single play. Unathletic might be too mild a word for it, perhaps "sports-phobic" might come closer to the mark. However in junior high school I did notice I had a weird sort of gift. On PE days where we had blessed opportunities for "free play" I could join a game of "horse" the only basketball game I liked. One simply had to make baskets and avoid spelling out "H-O-R-S-E" by missing shots. I was brilliant at this. Unlike a real basketball game there was no running, there was no one playing defense on the basket to distract me, there was no confusing a person for being on your team and embarrassingly passing to the opposition. You dribbled in place and took your shot. I was sinking them from all over the key, dribble dribble dribble, shoot, swish. The PE coach noticed me doing this and watched me for a few moments and said, just as I was taking my shot, "You should come out for the girl's JV team." Flustered, my hands slipped, air-ball. The other girl playing with me gleefully hooted "H!" and rebounded the ball. The coach sort of looked pityingly at me and said, "Well, maybe not." So ended my basketball career, I stuck to twirling the jump rope for endless lines of double-dutchers after that.

So tonight I went out in my sneakers and my high performance work out shirt and I coached my little heart out. I know basically nothing about basketball, and I haven;t even held a ball in maybe 15 years. It was very strange. We had the kids running a drill where one would shoot a basket, the other kid would rebound, and the rebound kid would pass to the next kid and that id would take a shot. These kids are only ages 6-8 so as you can imagine there were many, many missed shots, and bad passes that caused the balls to go careering out of bound and towards people on other courts. It was very strange to chase the ball down and bounce pass to the next kid, or to stretch out my hand almost effortlessly and stop the ball from going out of bounds in the first place. I felt all those little incidental muscles getting used and my hand-eye coordination (which had always been pretty good) coming back. It was sort of... fun. And while I may not know much about the game, I do know about kids. We have one little showboat on the team, he is amazingly talented for such a little guy, but he knows he's good. He tries to take his own rebounds and ball-hog and take two shots when you are to take one. I shut him down. I made him pass politely. I made him apologize for calling other players names. Because even to a sports-phobic like me I do know it doesn't really matter how many points you score it is how you play the game.

Dinner tonight? Spaghetti with sausage and vegetable red sauce. Green pepper, onion, celery, garlic, mushrooms and a slug of red wine and we were good to go. Have a good night and sweet hoop dreams!

Italian Wedding Soup

Maybe inspired by my friend's brilliant testimony about her marriage, tonight I made Italian Wedding Soup. The recipe is mostly Ina Garten's and you can find it here. I used pre-made and frozen meatballs, and I used ABC pasta instead of stars. Also my broth was a combination of mushroom water, plain water and beef stock to suit the beef meatballs. I was also out of spinach so I used chopped, slender French green beans instead.

The soup was a good choice for tonight because after bravely shepherding me and my younger daughter through our various illnesses over the last week and a half, my poor husband came down with a cold today. He came home from work early which he never does, so some nice fragrant hot soup is always a good choice to cut through the funk in your head.

I hope your family, all families, stay well and happy tonight. Thanks for coming by!