Chicken and Chilly days

I apologize for not writing sooner.  God must have read my last blog post about our light dusting of snow and decided to unleash winter's fury on us.  Last week we got a foot of snow, followed by an ice storm, and then to top it off a windstorm.  The snow was stunning, the ice was pretty.  Being without power for almost 6 days wasn't that nice.  It is hard to cook with no power.  But all is well now and we have power and I have been cooking up a storm lately.  Pun intended.

While the power was still out we sort of moved in with my in-laws.  They had heat and an espresso machine!  So to show our appreciation we cooked dinner for my mother-in-law.  I went with an old standby, Garlic-Parsley Chicken.  This recipe was originally from a healthy cookbook by Jacques Pepin.  But I've added several changes along with a lot more butter. :)

Garlic-Parsley Chicken, Couscous, and Swiss Chard in a Lemon Cream. 

Garlic Parsley Chicken:

Boneless, skinless, chicken, about a 1/4 to 1/2 lb per person.

1/2 cup Flour

2 tablespoons Seasoned Bread Crumbs

1/2 teaspoon Paprika

6-10 cloves of garlic

1/2 cup chopped parsley

3-5 tablespoons butter

Salt and Pepper to taste

Mince all the garlic cloves and parsley and place in a small bowl and set aside.  In a Ziploc bag add flour, bread crumbs, paprika and salt and pepper.  Mix and then place chicken in the flour mixture.  Coat chicken thoroughly.  I like to use a Ziploc bag because then I can just shake it all up in the bag and it just seems like more fun to shake and play with your food.  You can use chicken breasts or thighs, but thighs are higher in fat and therefore much better.  I've found that anything higher in fat tastes better.  I absolutely loath low fat variations on food, especially cheese, but that's another post altogether.

 

 In a large saute pan heat up a few tablespoons of good olive oil on medium heat.  When oil is hot, place floured chicken and let the chicken cook for about 5 minutes.  Make sure you are stirring and turning the chicken pieces frequently!  If the flour starts to suck up all of the oil, add a little more oil so a nice crust starts to form on the chicken.  At this stage add a tablespoon or two of butter, let it melt and then slowly add in all of the garlic and parsley. Your whole house will immediately start to smell like garlic, but I think that the dish is worth it!  Let the chicken finish cooking, which should only take a few more minutes.  Right before you are going to serve the chicken add at least another two tablespoons of butter, and when it melts dish up the chicken.  It is crunchy, buttery, full of garlic, and amazing.  And pretty simple to make.  I love to serve this dish with Swiss Chard and couscous.

Couscous

2 cups water

1 cup couscous

1 tablespoon butter

Salt and Pepper

Couscous is impossibly easy to make and it only takes 5 minutes.  Boil water, butter, salt and pepper in a sauce pan.  When the water is at a rolling boil, pour in couscous, place a lid on the pan and remove the pan from heat.  Let stand for 5 minutes and fluff with a fork.  It's really that easy.  The only thing I will say is that couscous can be a little bland so make sure you add salt and feel free to add different spices in the cooking process.  Or you can add pretty much any condiment or sauce at the table.  We cook it at least twice a week.

Swiss Chard in Lemon Cream 

1 bunch Swiss Chard

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/4 cup sour cream

2 Tablespoons olive oil

Another super easy and tasty recipe.  Chop the Swiss chard into one inch ribbons.  Heat a large saute pan to medium heat and put all of the Swiss chard into the pan.  It will look like a lot of greens, but trust me it will cook down.  In fact, if you are cooking for more than two people you probably want to get two bunches of chard.  The Swiss chard will begin to wilt immediately.  When it has reduced in size by about half add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice.  Fresh is always better, but in a pinch you can use the bottled stuff.  In a few more minutes the chard will be completely wilted and at this point add the remainder of the lemon juice, sour cream and salt and pepper to taste.  Once the cream coats all of the greens you are ready to serve.  I love veggies, but my husband does not and he loves this recipe.  So you might want to try this with people who aren't really veggie lovers.

I have so many more recipes to share, so I will try to post more frequently! 

MLK Day, Snow and Warm meals

First off, today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  And since I work in higher education I tend to see MLK day as a paid holiday, but he really should be remembered as someone who changed the world for the better.  My favorite quote by Dr.  King is,

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."

Words to live by, I think.  So thank you Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for all that you have done!

In other news, it is snowing in Olympia, WA.  It is snowing in pretty much all of western Washington.  It snows about twice a year here and people freak out.  They close schools, close roads, have breaking news reports about the weather.  And it is usually only about 2-4 inches of snow.  It's kind of insane, but I love the look of the snow.  It makes everything look so pretty and clean.  But I don't have any hills nearby to sled on, and there really isn't enough snow to build a snowman.  So I thought I would tell you about a warming, delicious, tasty, and easy meal that I tried while visitng Peru. 

I love to travel and I will eat pretty much anything, but that is another post!  In March 2011 my husband and I traveled to Peru for our One year anniversary/Honeymoon.  We went to Machu Pichu, Pisac, Ollantaytambo, and Cusco.  If you get the chance to travel to Peru then do it!   Although I really haven't traveled anywhere I wouldn't recommend. 

Anyway, I fell in love with a lot of different foods in Peru.  Alpaca meat is amazing, but it seems to be hard to find in the United States.  One of flavors that we feel in love with was Aji Amarillo chile sauce.  

Here is the Aji sauce paired with Alpaca steak and elderberries that we enjoyed in Pisac, Peru. 

Soo unbelievably fantastic!!

You can also get this delicious sauce as an appetizer, known as Papa a la Huancaina.  It is the Aji Amarillo sauce with potatoes and a hard boiled egg.  It is good thing that we were hiking around ruins and walking everywhere because I ate my weight in Aji Amarillo sauce.  Daily.   

When we returned home we tried to hunt down the ingredients to this recipe.  It turns out that the Aji Amarillo pepper is hard to find in a town the size of Olympia.  There are over a 100,000 people that live in my county, but apparently none of our great local stores had ever heard of this Peruvian spice.  We ended up driving to Seattle to get the Aji Sauce.  You can buy it in a jar as a paste or powdered.  The paste is better though.  You can buy it online as well if you cannot find the spice locally or you aren't crazy enough to drive an hour to get some spices. 

We tried for a few months to make the recipe perfect, but it was just a little off.  And then a few days ago I was watching Giada (the Food Network is my favorite channel) and she was making this recipe.  And then I saw my missing ingredient.  Walnuts.  She added her Italian flavor with a couple of other ingredients, but here is my take on Papa a la Huancaina with green peppers and shredded beef.

1 shallot or 1/4 onion

2 cloves of garlic

1 piece of bread (whole wheat, white, whatever, or even unseasoned stuffing bread while work)

3/4 cup half and half or cream

1 heaping tablespoon Aji Amarillo paste

1 cup chicken broth

1/2 of a round of queso fresco or half a block of feta or another cheese with a similar texture.

1/2 cup walnuts

Finely chop garlic and shallots and saute in a pan with a little oil until they are tender.  This takes about five minutes.  And although I love olive oil on pretty much everything, it does have a distinct flavor so I would probably use vegetable oil in this recipe. 

In a food processor or blender combine all the remaining ingredients.  Blend until all ingredients are combined.  Then add the shallots and garlic and blend until fairly smooth.  Pour sauce back into the pan you used to saute and cook on medium-low heat until the sauce turns a darker yellow, which takes about 10 minutes.  And you are ready to enjoy.  We paired our sauce with some simple boiled Yukon potatoes, some hard boiled eggs, a green pepper I simply cut in half because I felt like we needed something green on our plates, and leftover pot roast. 

I know my recipe doesn't look quite as good as the dish we got in Peru, but I was pretty proud of how it turned out. 

My husband and I ate the entire recipe.  In less than an hour.  We did not have any queso fresco (because I will eat it all in one sitting so I try not to buy it unless I have a dish planned) so I put the feta cheese in expecting it to be way too salty, but it was actually really good.  And I was surprised at how easy the recipe was to make.  And the sauce is warm, rich, and thick.  Perfect for cold winter days.  You can really add this sauce to anything, veggies, chicken or pork.  I think it would even be great with tofu.

Keep Tasting,

My first attempt at blogging

Hey Everyone,
This is my first attempt at blogging.  I could tell you all about my life, the highs, the lows, etc.  But to be honest I want to talk to you about what I love.  Food.  I know food has become very popular lately, everyone wants to be a chef, and there is even a show about competitive cupcake making!  I admit, I've watched it.  I hope my blog wont be too cliche, but lately I've been feeling like life is short, my health is precious, and I've felt compelled to at least try and get myself out there in the food world.  I'm a little nervous, but I am excited to share some of my cooking with you!  So here goes...