BBQ Chicken Pizza

Around July 4th, you're supposed to inhale copious amounts of BBQ. Well mine has arrived in the form of pizzaaaaaa! Yes we're at it again - another pizza cooking adventure! This time a riff off of California Pizza Kitchen's world famous BBQ Chicken Pizza. (Who doesn't love this CPK treasure?!?!) I've been eating it for as long as I can remember. Lucky for me B is a big fan of it too. 

Anyways this was such an easy meal to whip up especially since I had a treasured Trader Joe's pizza dough in the freezer. (Note it comes refrigerated but I bought a few during my last visit for the sole purpose of freezing to see how they freeze. Still perfect after a defrost!) We made this pizza without a real amount of cheese but you can easily add that in. B wanted a little bit of cheese so our compromise was to sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top once it was baked. The BBQ sauce, caramelized onions and chicken really have a lot of flavor so the traditional amount of cheese was not missed. Try it out today!

Chicken and Broccoli Quinoa Stir Fry

This dish is exactly what I was looking for the other night - it was simple, I had all the ingredients already and allowed me to use that bunch of broccoli purchased earlier in the week. But more importantly, it gave me an excuse to cook with Hoisin sauce! I don't really know what the sauce is made of, but I don't care because its tasty and makes Chinese meals delicious!

Chicken Fajita Spinach Salad

This chicken fajita spinach salad with guacamole and salsa is my go to dinner salad.  Seeing that I'm not that big a fan of salad, I need new ways to trick myself in to eating any plate full of greenery. Since spinach leaves are my favorite greenery, I chose it as my base, filled it with sliced carrots, sauteed chicken and bell peppers and topped it with fresh avocado slices and a great salsa. I made this salad for my mom when she was here and she loved it - especially the salsa as a salad dressing idea!

Quick Pad Thai

Honestly, sometimes I come with the wackiest ideas that don't end well! But my latest random idea has resulted in a new favorite dish. Not wanting to go to the grocery store because of pure laziness coupled with a desire to not be wasteful, I decided I would not grocery shop until I used every food item in my cupboards, refrigerator and freezer. So I was forced to use items I've thought of using but never have - first up in the experiment thai rice noodles and thai red curry sauce. My end result, a quick pad thai with sauteed chicken and a variety of vegetables. Deliciously easy!

Chipotle Roast Chicken Tacos & Guacamole

Like I said, I was in Columbus for a few days and I wanted to make something new that I would likely not make back home, would take a lot of time and essentially be like a Sunday dinner, which I'm a big fan of. Or maybe I'm just a fan of family (however its defined) dinners despite the random/drama/humor/oh my god they did not just say that that inevitably comes with it.

So to set the scene and get a glimpse into one of these dinners: one moment I was more than pleased to have my niece setting the table and my mom perfecting the guacamole; the next we banished my dad to the family room until it was ready because I couldn't take hearing anymore about how much I bought; then I'm debating how to get out of the convo on "do you believe in global warming because you know some people do not?" question from my somewhat republican leaning older aunt; followed by me wanting to drop kick one of my brother's who commented that was "a lot of work for some tacos!" But all was right with the world, once the kitchen was returned to cleanliness and there were very little leftovers. It might have been a lot of work for some tacos, but call me crazy, it was worth it if it meant getting people around the same table for an hour or more.

Mild warning once cooked, this chicken has a little kick! But for those that can't take the heat, just give them a piece with less of the seasoning. (Now my family can take the heat, so I actually served some of the chipotle peppers in adobo sauce on the side as a type of salsa - it was HOT!)

Chipotle Roast Chicken Tacos
(This recipe comes Bon Appetite, April 2010, but of course I had to edit it, take a few steps out and add some things. The original full recipe can be found here.)

Ingredients:
butter (1/2 stick, softened)
cilantro (fresh, chopped, 2 tbsp)

oregano leaves (fresh, chopped, 2 tbsp)
rosemary leaves (fresh, chopped, 2 tbsp)
chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (canned and mince 4 tsp)
roasting chicken (1 5lb; I used 2 5lbs and it was just right)
onions (2 large, each cut into wedges)
garlic (minced)
chicken broth (1 small can)
white wine (1/4 cup, I used Chardonnay)
corn tortillas
guacamole (recipe follows)

Chop all of the herbs. In a bowl combine, the softened butter and herbs. 

Next dice the chipotle peppers in the adobo sauce. (Note: this was a little hard to find in the grocery but I finally did, hidden on a random shelf in the ethnic food aisle.) Mix the butter/herb mixture with the chipotle peppers and season with salt and pepper.

Heat oven to 400°F and clean and pat dry the chicken.

Place chicken, breast side up, in large roasting pan or on a broiler pan. This is the icky part! - slide fingers under the skin to and spread half of the seasoned butter mixture under the skin of the chicken. Rub the remaining butter on over outside of chicken and sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Place and handful of the chopped herbs inside the chicken, place the wedges of onion around the chicken and scatter garlic around it all.

Roast chicken and onions 30 minutes. Add 1/4 cup broth to roasting pan. Continue to roast chicken until instant-read thermometer inserted into thickest part of thigh registers 170°F, basting occasionally with pan juices and adding more broth by 1/4 cupfuls as needed to maintain juices in roasting pan, about 1.5 hours.

Next, remove roasting pan from oven. Tilt chicken, draining juices from cavity into pan. Transfer chicken, onions, and garlic to platter. Tent with foil to keep warm. Add 1/4 cup broth and wine to pan. Place over 2 burners and bring juices to boil, scraping up browned bits. Strain juices into bowl. Discard fat from top of juices.

Cut meat from chicken and drizzle with pan juices.

Serve, making tacos with warm tortillas, chicken, onions, guacamole and whatever taco toppings you want!

Now this was a lot for some tacos, but this could be done for a regular roast chicken meal. and then any leftovers could be for tacos the next day.

Guacamole
All you need for guacamole is avocado, onion, lemon juice, salt and tomato. Simply peel and cut the avocado and discard its core.

Depending on how smooth you like your guacamole, you can either mix it in a bowl or use a blender. Since my mom and my niece prefer it the Chiptole way, we used the blender to make it extra smooth. Add the chopped avocado, chopped onion (as much or as little as you want), a few squirts of lemon juice and a little salt.

Once its to your liking (keep tasting to make sure its the flavor you want), pour into a bowl and add some chopped tomato and lightly stir.

Sorry this picture is no good but it's all I had in my camera!

Roast Chicken

The stocker (or stalker) in the meat section at Harris Tetter jumped in my face to tell me the day's specials. I wasn't even there to buy meat, I was simply walking through the store and smiled at the man on my way to a different spot in the store. He was eager and I realized I needed something to make for my dinner guest. So while I only went to the store to get wine, I left with a whole chicken (for a great price!) and a desire to cook it better than the popular rotissere chicken that populates the front of every grocery store I've ever been in.

What you need: 1 whole chicken, olive oil, lemon juice, cinnamon, honey salt and pepper.

Preheat oven to 400. For those that are squeamy about uncooked meat you might want to hand this step off to someone who isnt. Rinse/wash the chicken off. Since its a whole chicken, you have to get in there and pull out the weird pieces in the cavity of the chicken. Once thats cleaned out, I rinse it like crazy and through in some lemon juice. Rub the chicken with a mixture of olive oil (1-2 tbsp), some lemon juice, cinnamon, salt and pepper. Put the chicken breast side down in a roasting dish.
Place in the oven and cook for 1.5 hours. Half way thorugh flip the chicken and brush it with honey and continue to cook until its done and brown. (Test it by cutting into a thigh - the jucies should be clear and not pink).
Carve the chicken and serve with whatever you want. This is the part that I am no good at (see my first attempt below) so I will let someone else do that part - its a sweet deal. I cook and all you have to do is carve the thing. Enjoy!

Chicken Pot Pie

I channeled my father today and almost burned down my kitchen. For those you that don't know, back when I was in 7th grade, my dad was cooking, fell asleep while some greens were on the stove, a fire started, the fire department came and I returned home to find a note that read "there was a fire. we're not here." Our kitchen was 'effed and we ended up living in a hotel for a few months while the kitchen was remodeled. Lucky for the other residents of my apt building, the fire alarms are quite sensitive so we all weren't forced to relocate.

Chicken pot pie is one of those old-fashioned, comfort foods that I sometimes crave. When I do I really want it and a frozen version will not do because we all know that I am weird about meat and I especially don't trust any meat flash-frozen in some random factory in the Midwest. So this brings me to today, I've seen various recipes in all kinds of cookbooks, so the following is based on a combination of recipes from the Joy of Cooking, The Food You Crave and what I want.

Ingredients

boneless, skinless chicken breasts
salt/pepper
olive oil
leeks (1 bunch)
celery (2 stalks)
white potatoes (3)
fresh green beans (1/2lb)
minced garlic
milk (1.5 cups)
all purpose flour (1/3 cup)
chicken broth (2cups)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 and spray 4 individual size baking dishes (or 1 large baking dish) with cooking spray. 
2. Dice up the chicken into chunks, heat some olive oil in a large skillet, add chicken and cook for about 5 minutes. Transfer chicken to a plate. 
3. Dice up the leeks (bottom white part only) and celery and add to the pan to cook. After about 4 minutes, add in the diced up potatoes, green beans, garlic and cook for a few minutes. Add chicken to the mixture and then add the milk. 
4. In a separate bowl, stir the flour into the broth until dissolved and add to the pan. Once it begins to boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
5. Spoon the mixture into the baking dishes. (p.s. the cause of the fire alarm freaking out was simply me overfilling the individual baking dishes so be careful!) Depending in if you use already made biscuit dough, phyllo dough or whatever other kind of dough, you can either drop it on top of the mixture or roll it across the top of the mixture.
6. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 20-30 minutes.