We recently went to the Greek Food Festival at St. Nicks Church and were inspired to go Greek as you will see reflected in a few dishes to come. This was simple, quick, and cheap! Some spices and fresh oregano, roast for about an hour, and you seem like a genius!
This turkey breast was a great buy and another installment of tarragon experimenting. Turned into a great classic dinner.
Posted in Turkey, Uncategorized
Tagged lemon, mashed potaters, mashed potatoes, peas, roasted, tarragon, turkey breast
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
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
For valentine’s day dinner we decided to make something we don’t eat often and make something that would be a special treat for us. We went with surf and turf, lobster and lamb.
We got two beautiful lobster tails from Harris Teeter.
We did not want to alter the natural flavor of the lobster and decided to steam them and serve them with melted butter for dipping. Greg put a little Old Bay on his, but my lobster tail went au naturale. Both were steamed in water that was infused with Old Bay and vinegar.
Talk about simplicity! Simple food, done well. The “surf” was a great way to kick things off.
Now on to the turf portion of the meal. We bought two racks of lamb from Whole Foods, that were conveniently frenched already. We have made lamb before, but never rack of lamb. We’ve learned that when making lamb at home it’s important to spend a little extra money and buy a nice cut. The cheaper cuts are grizzly and much more gamey in flavor, not good things. We tried two different recipes, so each rack had a different preparation, set of ingredients, and taste. Both sets were first seasoned with salt and pepper before going on their unique paths.
For the first rack we decided to tap into some Greek flavors, involving mint, lemon, and rosemary.
Greg combineded these ingredients with some olive oil to create a marinade.
Before actually baking this rack, we heated a glass dish in the oven for about half an hour. The rack was placed in the hot dish to sear it. Greg brushed on the marinade and baked it for about 15 minutes or so.
We made the second rack in a more traditional French way, using dijon mustard and bread crumbs.
We began by searing the rack in a pan with a little hot oil.
Once it was seared, we coated it with dijon mustard.
The next step was to cover the rack with bread crumbs (which had been mixed with oil).
Once it was well coated, it went back into the pan for the final leg of cooking. We covered the tips with tin foil so they did not burn.
It cooked for a few more minutes in the pan and then it was ready.
We tried both versions and they were both SO good. Very different from one another and it’s hard to say which one was better!
The bread crumb version is in the back, the lemon/rosemary/mint variety in the front.
This was a delicious meal and I love when we make two (or more) versions of things to try them out and then we also to get to eat a nice variety within the same meal. I really loved them both!
Tagged dinner ideas, French, garlic, Greek, lemon, lobster tail, low carb, mint, rack of lamb, rosemary, seafood
Starving Kitten 