Arroz Con Pollo

I got a slow cooker recently, and one of the first things I made was arroz con pollo, which is a very tasty Cuban dish consisting of saffron rice with shredded chicken, peas, and red peppers. Slow cookers are very easy to use, because you just put all the ingredients in the pot and cook it for a long time.

Ingredients:
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
about a cup of frozen peas
1 (14 oz) can of chicken broth
1/2 a red pepper, cut into strips and sauteed lightly
1 (5 oz) packet of saffron rice
shredded cheese, to taste

Directions: Combine all ingredients in slow cooker (mine recommended using the 4-quart pot for this, but I found that the 2-quart pan was plenty big). Cook on high for 4 hours (I found that it only needed to be on high for about 3 hours and then I turned it down to low for an hour, although it was fully cooked after 3 hours on high. The most important thing is that the chicken be fully cooked.) Slow cookers naturally make the meat very tender, so after cooking you can easily shred the chicken using a fork or spoon, and then stir to combine before serving. If you like cheese, you can also stir in some shredded cheese before serving, and then you can season with salt, pepper, garlic, and paprika to suit your tastes. Note: If you want to cook this all day while you're at work, you can cook it on low for eight hours, but set it to cook on high for 1 hour before it switches to low. For food safety reasons, raw chicken needs to be cooked on high at first to kill bacteria, because it grows too fast when its cooked on low.

Cheesy Pesto Chicken

If you're a pesto freak like me, you're going to love this easy, tasty recipe.

The steps are incredibly simple and the total prep time takes about 10 minutes.
Melt some butter in a bowl (I find about half a stick works well for a pound of chicken).
Dip slices of boneless, skinless chicken breast in the butter and then cover in bread crumbs.
Place the breaded chicken slices in a buttered casserole dish.
Spread pesto on top of the chicken pieces, and top with your favorite cheese (I like fresh mozzarella).



The chicken ready to go in the oven.










Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes for thinly sliced chicken, even more for thicker chicken.
Cut into chicken to make sure it's done before serving, because ovens vary, and its hard to tell from the outside appearance if its fully cooked.


See? Totally simple, and totally delicious! The butter and the pesto keep the chicken nice and moist, and the pesto, cheese, and breading combine to give a delicious flavor!
This dish is really easy to make in large quantities, so its great for having friends over, or if you live alone (like me) to make on the weekend and then eat throughout the week.




Add some vegetables and bread for a very quick, very complete meal!

Panini!

For my birthday this past May, I received a panini press and I just recently got around to trying it out!
I decided to make one of my favorite sandwiches, a chicken/avocado/mozzarella combination.
The sandwich was simple to make and took less than 5 minutes with the panini press.

Directions:
Take two slices of bread, butter one side of each slice. Plug in the panini press, put one slice of bread on the press, butter side down. Top with pieces of chicken (previously cooked in whatever style you prefer, I baked it), one half of an avocado sliced up, and a few pieces of fresh mozzarella. Place the other piece of bread on top, butter side up. Shut the lid on the panini press and grill for a few minutes or until golden brown.















The photo does not do it justice, but it was really yummy! Obviously the same thing can be achieved in a frying pan, but the panini press makes it so much quicker and easier. And warm sandwiches with nice melty cheese are always preferable to cold sandwiches :)

Chicken Tikka Masala

(Please excuse the lousy picture, I kept getting too busy eating this dish!)

This is a dish all my non-Indian friends recognize from the Indian restaurant, and it's surprisingly easy to make, so, it's one of the first dishes I consider making for other people. It's actually not a dish from my region of India, so it's not something I grew up eating. Hence, I have to admit, I've adapted an online recipe :P My version is quite spicy, so if you like the milder restaurant version, replace the green chili with half a jalapeno, and halve the coriander-cumin powder, chili powder, and garam masala in the sauce.

Chicken Tikka Masala (Yield: 6 servings)

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1inch cubes

Marinade:
1 c. plain yogurt
2 Tbsp. lime juice
2 tsp. cumin-coriander powder
2 tsp. red chili powder
2 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ginger paste

Sauce:
1 Tbsp. unsalted butter
2 tsp. garlic paste
1 green chili pepper, sliced
3 tsp. cumin-coriander powder
1 tsp. red chili powder
1 tsp. garam masala
1/2 tsp. salt
6 medium tomatoes, chopped and blended in a food processor
2 c. half and half

Veggies-I like potatoes and bell peppers, but many others will work too, e.g. green beans, peas, etc.

First, combine all marinade ingredients, and then mix chicken cubes in. Allow to marinate for 2 hrs.

While the chicken is marinating, melt the butter on medium high heat in a pot. Add garlic and chili pepper and cook 1 minute. Stir in dry spices and salt. Stir in tomatoes and other veggies. Simmer 15 minutes. Remove green chili so that no one eats it accidentally! Stir in half and half and simmer to thicken--about another 5 minutes.

Remove chicken from marinade and broil until cooked through. Add to the sauce and simmer another 5 minutes. Serve with brown basmati rice or naan.

Stuffed Chicken Breasts

I was bored of the same old chicken recipes and came across a new way to use chicken on use real butter. I don't understand fancy cheese and all that stuff though, so I made it very simple.

Time: 1:00
Serves: 1

Ingredients
1 chicken breast
1/2 cup fresh spinach
salt, pepper, seasoning to taste
oil
a couple toothpicks
a dollop sour cream (optional)

1. Butterfly the chicken breast. Pound it if desired; I personally prefer using the back of my cleaver to give it a few good thwacks. Season as you normally would - I put salt on all sides and a mixture of cayenne pepper & oregano on the inside. While you let the seasonings seep into the chicken a little, wash the spinach, dry it as best you can, and dice it up.
2. Oil the bottom of a pyrex baking pan, or whatever pan you happen to have. Preheat oven to 350F.
3. Stuff the spinach into the butterflied chicken breast. Roll up the chicken and secure with toothpicks. Place onto the baking pan with the open side up. Bake at 350F for 40min or until the chicken is done. Remove the toothpicks and slice into 1/2in thick pieces. Serve with a dollop of sour cream for garnish.

Chicken Marsala

We moved to a new house so I tried making something new, especially because we now have an awesome kitchen with gas burners. I decided to try a chicken marsala based off smitten kitchen's recipe. I thought I'd try using chicken thighs instead of breasts just to see what the changes were - I rather liked it, though there was a lot of fat to remove. I also only had white wine on hand so I used that instead of marsala - I'm not sure I liked that as much. The color definitely didn't turn out as great as with red wine.

Time: 0:45
Serves: 4

Ingredients
1.5lb boneless chicken thighs
salt & pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup white wine (or marsala, which would actually be chicken marsala :P)
1 cup chicken stock
8oz mushrooms, thinly sliced
1/2 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced

1. If the chicken has skin/bone/fat on it, remove them as best you can. I left a little of the fat on and reduced the amount of oil used in the dish itself instead. Salt & pepper.
2. In a large non-stick skillet on medium-high heat, heat the olive oil and brown the chicken in batches on each side, then set aside on a dish.
3. In the same skillet (don't wash in between), cook the onions and mushroom until the released liquid has evaporated. Make sure not to burn the onions.
4. Add the wine and chicken stock and cook until there's about 1/2 cup liquid left. If you'd like, add some flour or corn starch to thicken the sauce.
5. Return the chicken to the skillet, removing any oil/grease that has dripped onto the plate. Simmer over medium low-heat until cooked thoroughly, turning once.
6. Serve with pasta or bread. Garnish with parsley if you like. The bread featured here is also home made and will be featured in another post some other time. :)

update 8/9/09: I found Marsala wine at Trader Joe's and tried it again - it's sooooo much better. :)

Homemade Bertucci's Silano Pizza!

One of my favorite pizzas in the whole world is the Silano from Bertucci's, so I decided to try to make it at home the other day. For those who aren't familiar with it, the pizza is a white pizza - it doesn't have tomato sauce and instead is broccoli and chicken and mozzarella cheese in a lemon-cream white sauce.

I cheated and bought a refrigerated pizza crust, but other than that I made it from scratch. Here's what I used...
1 refrigerated pizza crust
1 medium head of broccoli, chopped and steamed until not quite tender.
8 oz of fresh mozzarella cheese, cut into 1/2 inch slices
1/3 lb of chicken, cooked and chopped
1/2 cup of ricotta cheese
1 cup whipping cream
1/3 cup lemon juice
pepper
several tablespoonfuls of grated parmesan

I spread the pizza dough on the greased cookie sheet as directed, and then mixed together the whipping cream, lemon juice, pepper and parmesan cheese to make the white sauce. I spread half the white sauce on the pizza and then added the broccoli, chicken, mozzarella and ricotta (which I dropped in tablespoonfuls on the pizza) and then poured the rest of the white sauce over the top of the pizza. I then baked it according to the directions on the package, until the crust was golden brown. I think it took about 15 minutes at 400 degrees.

Here's my Silano pizza! It came out really well and tasted surprisingly like the Bertuccis version, minus the brick-oven crust of course, but that's hard to do at home.
The next time I make the recipe I'll make a few changes - first, I won't use any ricotta. I mostly used it because I had it on hand and I wanted to get rid of it (Bertuccis version doesn't have ricotta, I don't believe). It didn't really add anything to the pizza, anyway. Second, I wouldn't make as much white sauce and I definitely wouldn't use as much lemon juice (the lemon flavor was a little, um, overpowering). I would probably use 1/2 cup - 2/3 cup cream and only a couple tablespoonfuls of lemon juice. Other than that I thought it came out pretty well. And definitely use fresh mozzarella instead of the shredded stuff...it tastes soooo much better!

Revised ingredient list:
1 refrigerated pizza crust
1 medium head of broccoli, chopped and steamed until not quite tender.
8 oz of fresh mozzarella cheese, cut into 1/2 inch slices
1/3 - 1/2 lb of chicken, cooked and chopped
1/2 - 2/3 cup whipping cream
several tablespoonfuls of lemon juice
dash of pepper
several tablespoonfuls of grated parmesean

Mild Thai Chicken Curry

I have very little experience coooking Asian food, but lately I have really developed a taste for Thai food, particularly curries and pad thai. This is a mild Thai chicken curry that I modified from a recipe I originally found on epicurious, and it's very easy to make.

Ingredients:
1 14-oz can of coconut milk
1/2 T of red curry paste
1/2 red pepper, sliced into 1/3 in wide strips
1/2-1 small head of broccoli, chopped
1 T brown sugar
1 T fish sauce
1/2 lb. cooked chicken, cut up into bite size pieces.
1 cup rice, prepared according to package directions (with water and butter)

Directions: Cook curry paste and coconut milk in a skillet over medium low heat for a couple of minutes. Add vegetables, brown sugar, and fish sauce and cook for 5 minutes. Add (cooked) chicken, mix together and cook for a couple more minutes. Serve over rice. Makes 3-4 servings.
This recipe is very mild. I don't have much of a taste for spicy food, and even I found myself wishing it were spicier. If I made it again I would probably use an entire tablespoon of curry paste. Even as is, however, the recipe certainly has flavor. This recipe is also easy to modify - the original recipe called for onion and red pepper, but I substituted broccoli to fit my tastes. It would also be easy to cook the chicken in the skillet with the coconut milk, if it's added at the beginning. I would imagine it would also be easy to substitute a different kind of meat. The core of the recipe is of course the coconut milk and curry paste, and the brown sugar and fish sauce give it a Thai flavor. Epicurious commentators suggested adding some garlic or peanut butter, so I might try that the next time I make it.
A note on the Thai ingredients - I was able to find all of them in the International aisle of my local grocery store, but if they're not available in the general grocery store they can be found at an Asian supermarket.