Good ol fried chicken! This was made with the onion rings posted a while back in one great outdoor end of summer frying session with some friends. A first time try and success. Continue reading
Posted in Chicken, Uncategorized
Tagged cayenne, chicken, creamed spinach, flour, fried, garlic powder, hot sauce, onion rings
I got a package of tarragon for some inspired recipes so this will be one a of a few upcoming tarragon features.
Posted in Salads, Uncategorized
Tagged bacon, chicken, chicken salad, easy, lemon, lunch, quick, tarragon, whole slab
A friend was coming over and I wanted to make a little afternoon snack. It wasn’t too hot out so I didn’t mind baking something. I started by pan sauteing some cubed chicken breast with some salt and pepper and putting it in the crocks.
I started on the sauce by sauteing the aromatics in oil.
Browned garlic is the key for this one
I sauteed the aromatics a little longer than usual to really brown the garlic and get a deep almost smoky garlic taste.
Once the garlic was browned enough, I added some fresh basil for the last few minutes of sauteeing.
Then add the rest of the sauce ingredients which is basically an alfredo. The cheese was grated imported Romano which we got in the Strip District for $6.99 a pound. What the Strip provides is amazing and limitless!
Then pour the sauce over the chicken until covered.
Add a bit of mozzarella and throw into the oven at 350 for about 15-20 minutes or until browned.
Top with some fresh basil and chopped tomatoes.
Recipe for Garlic White Romano Sauce
Greg
Posted in Chicken, Uncategorized
Tagged alfredo sauce, basil, chicken, garlic, homemade, Italian, low carb, romano, tomato, white sauce
Honestly, this did not turn out great but I am posting it for the basic idea and vision and as some pointers for myself and the readers. The idea was to grill chicken thighs with a thick walnut pesto paste that was almost like a jerk sauce. The first step was the sauce and I started that by prepping some garlic to be roasted in foil.
In some foil with a little oil, salt, and pepper
Into the over for about 15-20 minutes.
After the oven
While the garlic was roasting, I harvested some fresh basil from the garden.
Yep, thats basil
Now it was time to combine all of the ingredients and blend them into the paste.
The base ingredients
All of the ingredients
A side view of the many layers. Like a middle school science project
The final blended product which was not so pretty
Once the paste was prepared, I was ready to apply it to the chicken. I got bone in thighs and took the skin off of about 2/3 of them and left it on the rest.
Dressed up
Then onto the grilling and this is where things started to go astray. A combination of the oil in the sauce, the fat of the thighs, and the skin of some of the thighs led to the grill seriously flaming up. I had to turn the gas off and move the chicken to the other side for a bit until the flames died down. A dirty grill also contributed to the problem. I was able to save most of the thighs, but some did get pretty scorched. They were still edible, but some were a bit too blackened for my usual liking. So I would suggest to use this recipe and bake the thighs instead. I don’t think it was a flawed recipe, but a flawed method.
These flames are nothing compared to what was to come!
I threw some veggies in the grill basket as a side
We dressed them up with some fresh chopped tomatoes and basil and a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. The meal was fine, but not one of our finest. As mentioned, I think that it would have been better prepared if it were baked and suggest trying that way instead of the grill.
My sister sent me this recipe for chicken piccata almost two years ago and Greg and I been loving it ever since. It ‘s certainly a basic version, but it’s a nice easy to follow recipe and tastes great. I’ve served it with different sides in the past, including pasta, rice and veggies. Rice is probably the best as it soaks up the delicious lemony sauce. For this go round however I served the chicken with some steamed broccoli (another good sauce absorber), squash and zucchini.
The ingredients include olive oil, chicken (of course), chicken stock, lemon juice, butter, capers and flour ( not pictured). I actually experimented a bit and substituted almond flour for traditional all-purpose flour. Almond flour/meal has more fiber and less carbohydrates than regular flour and worked pretty well in this dish.
I purchased chicken breasts that were already sliced thin. If you are using regular chicken breasts you can slice them in half and pound them out. This is a bit easier if the chicken is still semi-frozen or if you buy it fresh, you can put it in the freezer for a few minutes to make it easier to slice.
The next step is to coat each chicken piece with flour.
Then get your butter and olive oil going in a pan and begin to cook the chicken. Since the pieces are pretty thin they do not need much time, maybe 2-3 minutes per side.
As each piece of chicken finishes cooking just set them aside. Once all of the chicken is cooked and removed from the pan, add the chicken broth and lemon juice to make your sauce. Let the sauce get up to a boil, then turn it down to simmer and reduce. Once the sauce is nearly finished you can add capers (this was not part of the original recipe) if you’d like. Then dip each piece of chicken into the sauce, coating it completely. Plate the chicken and pour sauce over top or serve in a gravy boat.
Some pre-sauce shots:
and after the saucing… (I covered the veggies in the sauce too!)
I hope your enjoy this one!
Recipe for Chicken Piccata (courtesy of my sister)
Posted in Chicken
Tagged almond flour, butter, chicken, chicken piccata, dinner ideas, easy, good leftovers, homemade, Italian, lemon, low carb, olive oil
In certain circles, dark meat gets a bad reputation. I don’t really get it. Dark meat is much more juicy and flavorful than it’s white meat counterpart. A boneless, skinless chicken breast (about 4 ounces) has about 2.5 grams of fat and 110 calories. A 4 ounce thigh, with the bone and skin removed, has 4 grams of fat and also 110 calories. (Nutritional info courtesy of a great website). So why not live on the wild side and make chicken thighs for dinner? Ok. done. Oh, and chicken thighs are also a LOT cheaper than breasts.
We bought a nice big tray of chicken thighs from Giant. These did have bones and skin on them, both which keep in a lot of flavor and natural juices. We started off by making a braising liquid, using the shallots, jalapenos, lemon and wine (unfortunately we only had red wine, which is why the chicken is purple/red hue).
we seasoned the thighs and sprinkled them with some ground rosemary (I used the bullet for this).
and in they went
just a few minutes on each side and into a baking dish
Now on to the roasted cauliflower. We first discovered roasted cauliflower from our friend Candace and it was love at first bite! We’ve made it several times now and usually marinate it in something different each time.
The marinade this time consisted of oil, hot sauce, lots of seasonings and some mustard.
The cauliflower roasted in the oven along with the chicken.
I like it really roasted, on the border between cooked and almost burned! It’s amazingly flavorful.
Tagged cauliflower, chicken, chicken thighs, dinner ideas, good leftovers, homemade, lemon, low carb, rosemary
I have become slightly obsessed with peanut butter lately! So when we were wondering what to do with some leftover chicken the other night it only made sense to have it with said new obsession. We stir fried some broccoli and chicken in an Asian inspired peanut sauce. We topped it over some jasmine rice and garnished it with some (more!) chopped peanuts and green onion, mmm. We made it rather spicy by adding a diced jalapeno, but the spice level you desire is completely up to you.
Unfortunately, we did not take many pictures of the cooking process. Here is a shot of the peanut sauce, which is comprised of 2 types of oil, vinegar, soy sauce, peanut butter, and some chicken broth.
We added broccoli- actually cooking it in the sauce and some already cooked chicken.
This was an easy recipe that took very little time. It was a great way to utilize the leftover chicken to make an awesome new dish. I highly recommend this one!
I have been making this dish for several years now and it’s always been a big hit. I have made it with different fillings, different sauces, different tortillas- but all in all, I am almost always happy with the way it turns out. For this go-round, I decided to stick with the basics, chicken and cheese with easy, store-bought sauce and lots of cheddar cheese. I did experiment with one thing though- the tortillas. I made half of the enchiladas with whole wheat, low-carb tortillas (5 grams of carbs per tortilla) and half with regular tortillas. I was really happy with the low-carb tortillas and did not feel that the dish suffered at all with them and whole wheat is always a good alternative!
I started off by poaching the chicken in water and chipotle seasoning. I boiled the whole package of chicken breasts (one of those large packages from Giant) and saved about half of them for tomorrow’s dinner. I shredded the remaining chicken for the filling. You could also chop them, but shredding is more palatable for this dish and is not that much more labor intensive than chopping.
I filled a 13×9 dish with shredded chicken.
Also, I cut up some fresh jalapeno for the filling as well. I considered sauteing the jalapeno first to soften the texture and pull out some of the heat- but didn’t end up doing it.
When making enchiladas, I find it a good practice to be prepared and ready to make them all at once. It’s messy and you will probably need a helping hand if one is available. There really is no other way to do this other than rolling them by hand. You want the dish to be saucy so don’t be hesitant to get down and dirty for this! It will be worth it, trust me!
“Line” the baking dish with a 1/8 inch thick layer of sauce.
You also want to put a layer of sauce down on a plate. You will be dipping each tortilla into the sauce first, before filling and rolling. This is to prevent the tortilla from cracking and it will keep them moist when they cook. You don’t want to soak up too much sauce, but just a little dunk on each side is all you need.
Then you just fill each one with the amount of filling you like. I try to really stuff them as full as possible.
Roll ’em tightly and place in the baking dish. One after the next, until the baking dish is full.
Cover with the remaining sauce and cheese.
Ok now it’s time to bake! It needs about 20 minutes in the oven and then another 5 under the broiler.
Let it sit for 5 minutes (or longer- I have no patience when it comes to this!) before you cut it.
Top with some green onion and serve with sour cream.
Try this dish- it is SO good and everyone always likes it!
Wahoo! Super Bowl Sunday has finally arrived! This is one of my favorite days of the year. It’s really a holiday to me, complete with it’s own traditions, foods, and drinking privileges. For the past few years we have made homemade chicken wings in the classic buffalo style with homemade blue cheese dressing for dipping. This year we did the same, but added a second variety of wings to the mix- garlic parmesan.
The first question is whether to use fresh or frozen wings. There are arguments for both of course, but we have found that either will be just fine and to get whatever is on sale or the cheaper one. With the frozen ones the most important thing is to make sure the wings are completely thawed. With the fresh wings, you may have to cut off the wing tips, which is not for the faint of heart. Either way you go, the first step is to rinse the wings well and make sure they are dry. If there is any moisture on them, it will pop in the oil and splatter.
The next step is heating the oil. Heat to 350 degrees.
(or 351.5 degrees, who’s counting)
We would have much preferred to have done this deep frying outside but were unable due to the massive amounts of snow. Things get pretty rowdy once the wings go in.
Once the wings are fried, set them aside.
For the classic buffalo sauce, it couldn’t get much easier (or fattening). Hot sauce and butter.
for transport and to keep them warm, we put the cooked and sauced up wings into a crock pot
For the garlic parmesan it’s essentially the same process, just with a different sauce.
Add now for the blue cheese dressing… because I mean what’s eating a chicken wing that’s been deep fried and soaked in a butter based sauce without some seriously creamy, cheesy sauce to dip it in? We are American. It’s our right.
Well, some good food for a good game! The Saints ended up winning, which I am really happy about. Greg picked Indy on the spread and the over and I took the opposite of his picks because that was my only chance in our playoff pool, as I was down by 2. We ended up in a tie and I won the tiebreaker! Kind of shady because I took the opposites and didn’t make my own picks. Anyway, at some point when we don’t need a snow mobile to get around, we will go to our celebratory dinner to Black Market Bistro. Can’t wait!
Recipe for Classic Buffalo Wings
Recipe for Garlic Parmesan Wings
Recipe for Blue Cheese Dressing
Posted in Chicken
Tagged bar food, blue cheese, chicken, dinner ideas, football, garlic, homemade, low carb
For lunch I decided to make chicken salad. We had a leftover rotisserie chicken in the fridge and some leftover thyme that needed to be used. I decided to try to make a healthier version of chicken salad and used nonfat Greek yogurt and light mayonnaise instead of using tons of full fat mayo. Also, I included some pungent spices to supplement that lack of flavor that could have come from the lack of fat in this recipe. I placed the finished salad into a “cup” of cabbage leaves and it was ready for me to grab in the morning to take to work.
The recipe made about three servings and it came out really good. I ran out of curry powder, which is why it’s not super yellow. However, the flavor was still very present. The cabbage leaves provided a nice crunchy base and I used them like I would a tortilla or cracker. I also discovered that the plain Greek yogurt tasted a lot like sour cream and may be a good substitute for that down the road.
Starving Kitten 
![Pin it!](http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fstarvingkitten.com%2F2010%2F02%2F09%2Fwings-2-ways%2F&media=http%3A%2F%2Fstarvingkitten.files.wordpress.com%2F2010%2F02%2Fimg_0680.jpg&description=homemade%20garlic%20parm%20wings" class="pin-it-button" count-layout="horizontal">Pin It</a>){kind=link}