My Madison Bistro » Main Course

Grilled Tuscan Chicken

Sara — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 00:26:09 +0000

I go through phases when it comes to grilling in the summer; I’m either grilling just about every meal, or I slip into sandwich/smoothie mode to escape the heat. I’m not sure if I’m heading back into full-blown grilling mode, but today I did have the urge to make a quick meal on the grill: Tuscan chicken and baby red potatoes.

For quick meals, I am a big fan of grilling chicken cutlets – if you can’t find chicken cutlets, you can cut boneless skinless chicken breasts in half horizontally, or pound them out between sheets of waxed paper to about ¼ inch thickness.

I always use a basic recipe for my marinade, tweaking the ingredients depending on my mood. I often don’t add lemon zest, sometimes I add extra garlic, and sometimes I will blend all of the marinade ingredients in the blender – it’s really easy to play around with the basic recipe to get different (and delicious) results.

Grilled Tuscan Chicken

2 ½ tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
¼ cup lemon juice
1 tablespoon thyme leaves
1 tablespoon chopped rosemary leaves
¾ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon lemon zest (optional)
1 ½ to 2 pounds chicken cutlets

Whisk first eight ingredients in a liquid measuring cup. Place the chicken in a large, sealable plastic bag and pour marinade over chicken; marinate at room temperature for 15-20 minutes.

Heat grill to medium. Grill chicken over flame about 2-3 minutes per side, let sit for 10 minutes before serving.

Chicken Pot Pie for Two

Sara — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 22:05:35 +0000

We recently experienced a cool spell, allowing me to escape the grill for a few days and stay inside with my oven. I’ve never really been able to figure out why I like to crank up the oven on a cool summer day, or fire up the grill in the middle of winter…but sometimes you just want a little bit of a change.

At some point during the past few years, chicken pot pie became my favorite comfort food. It’s quite remarkable, really, considering I refused to even try pot pie throughout childhood. I suppose because traditionally a pot pie contains peas (which I can’t bring myself to eat – I keep trying them, and I keep despising them), I simply avoided pot pie for years.

As an adult, it finally occurred to me that I could throw in whatever vegetables I wanted. When I have time, I usually blanche some carrots, green beans, and potatoes, but I have to confess to taking a really big shortcut most of the time: a bag of frozen vegetables. I like the broccoli, cauliflower, and carrot mix, which gives me a bit of a twist from the standard chicken pot pie. And frankly, this time saver allows me to make this meal whenever I want, especially when I have some cooked chicken hanging out in the fridge.

Chicken Pot Pie for Two

1 cooked chicken breast, diced
1 teaspoon olive oil
salt & pepper
1 cup chicken broth or stock
1 bouillon cube
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
½ medium onion, chopped
3 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon half and half
12 ounce bag frozen vegetables
1 teaspoon freshly chopped parsley
1 teaspoon thyme leaves
store-bought puff pastry
1 egg yolk mixed with ½ teaspoon water, for egg wash
coarse salt and pepper

In a small saucepan, heat the chicken broth over medium-high heat. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter and saute the onions over medium-low heat for 10 to 15 minutes, until translucent. Add the flour and cook over low heat, stirring frequently, for 2 minutes until the flour scent is gone, but the color hasn’t yet turned dark. Add the hot chicken broth to the sauce. Simmer over low heat for 1 more minute, whisking, until thick. Add salt and pepper to taste, stir in half and half. Add the cubed chicken, vegetables, thyme and parsley.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Divide the filling equally among 2 ovenproof bowls*. Cut two squares of puff pastry to fit over the top of the bowls. Brush the outside edges of each bowl with the egg wash, then place the dough on top. Crimp the dough to fold over the side, pressing it to make it stick. Brush the dough with egg wash and make 3-4 slits in the top. Sprinkle with sea salt and cracked pepper. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 35 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the filling is bubbling hot.
Allow to sit for a few minutes before serving.

*You can make the recipe ahead of time up to this point; cover and refrigerate the bowls up to 48 hours; bake 45-50 minutes until pastry is golden brown.

Mushroom and Goat Cheese Pizza

Sara — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 02:21:19 +0000

One of my favorite things about pizza is the endless combinations, though I generally don’t step outside the box when it comes to toppings. This particular pizza is no exception.

I first made this recipe several years ago after I saw a variation of this pizza in the June 2007 issue of Bon Appetit. I’ve made it several times since then, using whatever mushrooms I had on hand. I usually like to throw in some minced garlic when the mushrooms are sautéing, but unfortunately, today I was out of garlic.

I always use some shiitake mushrooms when making this pizza, and I usually add some cremini or buttons as well. The more variety in mushrooms, the more complex the flavor, but you’ll still get a great pizza if you just use one kind, like the shiitakes I used for this particular pie.

Mushroom and Goat Cheese Pizza
adapted from Bon Appetit, June 2007

6 ounces fresh assorted mushrooms, stems removed, quartered
3 thyme sprigs
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
4 ounces shredded whole milk mozzarella
soft fresh goat cheese
shaved parmesan
extra virgin olive oil
chives
pizza crust
salt
pepper

Heat butter in sauté pan over medium heat. Add mushrooms and thyme, season mushrooms with a dash of salt. Cook until mushrooms release their juices and are starting to brown.

Preheat oven to 450. Brush pizza crust with olive oil, top with mozzarella and some shaved parmesan. Top with mushrooms, then dot with crumbled goat cheese. Season with salt and pepper.

Bake for 7-10 minutes, or until the edges of the pizza have browned and the cheese starts to bubble. Top with chives and finish with extra virgin olive oil.

chicken & fruit salad

Sara — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 00:00:42 +0000

This is without a doubt my favorite summer salad, a salad that is so good it has had me looking forward to a Monday, just so I could have it for lunch. You dont even have to plan ahead for this salad when youre already grilling chicken breasts, simply make a couple of extra and youll have lunch or dinner later in the week.

The best part of this salad is its versatility simply use whatever fruit is in season at that point in the summer, whether its berries, stone fruit, tropical fruit whatever you have. Adding cheese and nuts rounds out the salad nicely, and again, just throw on whatever you have that you enjoy you wont regret it!

Chicken and Fruit Salad
Adapted from Eating Well, August 2008

Grilled Chicken Breast, sliced
Assorted Fruit (Melon, Berries, Pineapple, or Sliced Peaches & Plums)
Toasted Nuts
Crumbled Goat Cheese, Feta,or Blue Cheese
Mixed Salad Greens

Poppyseed Dressing
¼ cup sour cream
3 tablespoons raspberry vinegar
3 teaspoons sugar or honey
1 ½ teaspoons poppy seeds
salt
pepper

Whisk the sour cream, vinegar, sugar, and poppy seeds until smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Scatter salad greens on large dinner plates. Arrange slices of chicken in the middle and surround with fruit, nuts, and cheese. Drizzle with poppy seed dressing.

Simple Roasted Chicken

Sara — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:53:21 +0000

Yet again, I’m posting about how easy it is to perfectly roast a chicken. Why? Because so many people tell me they’re intimidated by the thought of roasting a whole chicken, and really, they don’t have to be.

I know I’ve said it before, but salting the bird beforehand results in a juicy, flavorful bird. And though the whole flipping of the bird can seem like a pain, it’s helping to cook the meat evenly, so don’t skip that step.

It also needs to be said that this roasted chicken is wonderful to transform into other dishes because it stays so moist: pot pies, enchiladas, sandwiches, salads . . . if you have a family, go ahead and roast a second bird for leftovers.

Simple Roasted Chicken

48 hours prior to roasting, sprinkle a 4 lb chicken inside and out with salt. (You can add pepper, herbs de provence, rotisserie seasoning, whatever else you want to flavor the bird.) Wrap the chicken tightly in plastic wrap and place in a pyrex dish. Refrigerate 48 hours.

Remove chicken from fridge and allow it to sit at room temperature for 60 minutes. Preheat oven to 425*F. Roast chicken breast side down on rack for 20 minutes, 20 minutes breast side up, and another 10 minutes breast side down. Check the temperature in the thigh at this point – you’re looking for 160-165*F (the temperature will continue to rise after the chicken has been removed from the oven). Remove chicken from rack to a platter, breast side down (so the juices settle into the breast meat) and cover tightly with foil. Allow it to rest for 20 minutes before carving.

Reserve the carcass for chicken stock. (If you can’t make the stock right away, just throw it in a plastic bag and give it a temporary home in the freezer until soup day arrives.)

Tomato & Goat Cheese Tarts

Sara — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:00:16 +0000

When I first received my copy of Back to Basics, I knew that someday I would make the goat cheese tart. I mean, it has some of my favorite components: puff pastry, goat cheese, caramelized onions, parmesan, thyme…add a glass of wine, and life is perfect.

I originally made this recipe last year for the Barefoot Bloggers, which I was eventually a drop-out of. Someday, I might rejoin, but I’ve made so many of Ina’s recipes already that I’ve had commitment issues.

If you haven’t tried these yet, do so! With a glass of crisp white wine, they are the perfect weekend lunch.

Tomato & Goat Cheese Tarts
adapted from Barefoot Contessa: Back to Basics

Ingredients
1 sheet puff pastry, defrosted
Olive oil
2 c thinly sliced onions (mixture of red & yellow)
3 large garlic cloves, sliced
Sea salt & black pepper
Dry White Wine
2 tsp thyme leaves
2 oz herb goat cheese
6 grape tomatoes, sliced in half length-wise
3 large basil leaves, cut in a chiffonade
8 shavings of Parmesan cheese

Instructions
1. Unfold the sheet of puff pastry and lightly flour each side. Roll the sheet into an 11×11 inch square. Using a 6 inch wide bowl, cut two circles from the pastry, reserving the rest for another use. Place the pastry on a sheet pan lined with parchment and refrigerate until ready to use.

2. Heat a drizzle of olive oil (about 1 tablespoon) in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add the onions and saute for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently, until the onions are limp and there is almost no moisture remaining in the skillet. Add the garlic and saute for about a minute or until fragrant. Add 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, and the thyme; stir to combine. Deglaze the pan with a splash of wine, scraping the bottom to loosen any brown bits.

3. Preheat oven to 425. Continue to cook the onions for another 10 minutes or until the onions are golden brown. Deglaze the pan one more time with a splash of wine to loosen any brown bits. Turn off the heat.

4. Using a sharp paring knife, score a 1/2 inch wide border around each pastry circle, but don’t cut through the pastry. Dock the pastry inside the border with a fork.

5. Place half the onion mixture on each circle, being careful to keep the onions inside the border. Crumble 1 ounce of goat cheese on each tart. Arrange tomato halves into a circle on top of the onions. Brush the tomatoes and onions lightly with extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle with basil, salt, and pepper. Top with parmesan shavings.

6. Bake for twenty minutes. Serve hot or warm.

Cut into fourths and serve.

Easy Pantry Lasagna

Sara — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:00:02 +0000

I generally don’t keep much food in my pantry, simply because I don’t have much storage space. But I always have on hand a few cans of assorted tomatoes, a few onions, garlic, and a box of no boil lasagna noodles. If you’ve never used the no boil noodles, try them! Assembling the lasagna used to be a bit of a chore, what with dealing with the sauce and boiling the noodles, but lasagna now resides on my list of quick and easy meals. Do the prep work over the weekend, and you can enjoy a hearty homemade dinner any night of the week. Round out the meal with a crisp salad and perhaps a glass of wine, and you’ll be dining well.

I made this particular recipe in a smaller pan because I’m not cooking for a family, I’m just cooking for me. This recipe will still feed a family, and you may still get some leftovers, depending on how large your family is and how hungry you are. I like to portion out some of the leftovers into small containers destined for the freezer, for those nights I simply don’t have the energy to cook. I think lasagna is one of the few pasta dishes that actually freezes well.

Easy Pantry Lasagna

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
¾ pounds ground round
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup red wine
14 ounce can diced tomatoes
6 ounce can tomato paste
bay leaf
6 sprigs of thyme, tied with kitchen twine
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
8 ounces shredded mozzarella
6 no boil lasagna noodles
Salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the onion and sauté until softened, about five minutes. Sprinkle salt and pepper on the beef. Spread the onion to the edges of the pan and add the beef. Brown each side, then break up the meat to further brown. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about a minute. Deglaze the pan with the wine. Add the tomatoes and tomato paste, stir to combine. Add the bay leaf and thyme and simmer on medium-low heat for 30 minutes. Taste and correct seasoning. Remove the bay leaf and thyme and discard. Add the parsley and cook for five minutes. Remove from heat.

Spray a 7×11 baking dish with cooking spray. Spoon a small amount of meat sauce in the baking dish to just cover the bottom. Top with 3 lasagna sheets, breaking up the sheets as needed to fit the pan. Top with a layer of meat sauce and a sprinkle of mozzarella cheese. Top with the remaining layer of noodles, the rest of the meat sauce, and the rest of the cheese. If not baking immediately, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate up to two days.

Heat oven to 375*F. Remove plastic wrap and cover the baking dish with foil. Bake for 30 (50 if the lasagna was refrigerated) minutes, then remove foil and bake until cheese is melted and golden around the edges. Let stand for five minutes before cutting and serving.

Armenian Apricot Soup

Sara — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:00:00 +0000

I’ve tried to like lentils. I really have. I even started my lentil adventures with soups, figuring lentils blended with other flavors might appeal to me more than just a dish of cooked lentils.

Or not.

In defense of lentils, it’s really the texture that I can’t handle more than the flavor, though I suspect I have some issues with the flavor as well, based on my soup experiments. For the record, I don’t like beans either, and that is based on 99% texture, 1% flavor.

But for all of you out there who do like lentils, this post is for you. This soup is gorgeous to look at, and it’s perfect for seasonal transitions: in early fall, when the weather cools but you’re still hanging onto the days of summer, this soup will comfort you; in spring, the vivid apricot color will hint of warmer days to come.

Armenian Apricot Soup
adapted from The Soup Peddler via 101 Cookbooks

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 onions, diced
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon ground cumin
3 cups red lentils, rinsed
10 cups water
12 ounces dried apricots, chopped (I used half Turkish and half California apricots)
salt

Heat oil over medium heat in a dutch oven or large soup pot. Add the onions and carrots and saute for 10 minutes. Add the cumin and stir. Lower the heat, cover, and let the vegetables sweat for 10 minutes.

Add the lentils and add enough water to cover. Bring to a simmer, then reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 20-25 minutes, or until the lentils and carrots are tender. Add more water as needed during the cooking.

Remove from heat and add the apricots. Blend with an immersion blender until smooth (or use a regular blender and blend in batches); season with salt to taste.

Serves 8-10

Project Chicken: Chicken Enchiladas

Sara — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:00:06 +0000

The next installment of Project Chicken involved using up the leg and thigh meat. These are by no means traditional enchiladas, but they’re fast & easy, and you can assemble everything the night before and just bake them for dinner. Served on top of a bed of lettuce, and you have a nice meal. Add a margarita, and you can even invite people over for dinner.

Chicken Enchiladas

Leftover leg and thigh meat from Easy Roasted Chicken, shredded
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
8 ounces salsa, divided
1 poblano pepper
1 small onion
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon chili powder
salt
2-4 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded
2-4 ounces monterey jack cheese, shredded
4-6 flour or corn tortillas

Heat a small skillet with olive oil over medium heat. Dice the onion and poblano, add to skillet. Season with chili powder and a dash of salt. Saute until soft, about 10-15 minutes. Remove from heat.

In a medium bowl, mix the cream cheese and 4 ounces of the salsa. Add the cooked onions and poblano peppers, stir to combine. Stir in the shredded chicken.

Spray a 7×11 glass baking dish with cooking spray. If baking now, preheat oven to 400*F.

Place a generous spoonful of the chicken in the center of each tortilla. Roll the tortilla up and place seam side down in the baking dish. Repeat with remaining tortillas until all of the chicken is gone. (If baking immediately, proceed with the recipe. Otherwise, cover the baking dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate up to 24 hours.) Top the tortillas with remaining salsa and shredded cheese.

Bake for 20 minutes or until cheese is bubbly.

If baking the next day, remove plastic wrap from the baking dish and top the tortillas with the remaining salsa and shredded cheese. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 400*F for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake until the cheese is bubbly, about 10 minutes.

Project Chicken: The Easiest Roasted Chicken Ever

Sara — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 17:30:48 +0000

I can be a bit scattered at times. I also have some commitment issues. As much as I love this blog, I keep getting ideas for other “formats” for a cooking or baking blog. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve either started, or considered starting, other blogging projects, all revolving around food. And then I usually just ask myself, why not just consolidate? Why do you need 99 blogs?

This particular grouping of posts came from one of those other projects. But, the thought of keeping that project going and going just took too much of my time. Plus, with daylight hours dwindling, I simply don’t have the ability to snap photos of my dinner every night anymore. As it is, some of the photos from this series of posts will have used the flash, a big no-no when it comes to food photography (unless you have a super-expensive flash or lights, which I don’t have the budget for right now. If you really want to see my dinner everynight, I accept gifts. )

So are you wondering what on earth I’m talking about yet?

Well, here goes. Most of the time, I just cook for myself. So when I roast a whole chicken, that results in a lot of leftovers that I have to figure out what to do with. Some of the leftover chicken gets earmarked for salads for lunches, but there’s still a lot of meat left. Especially when you accidentally buy a five pound chicken from the butcher, and you usually go for a three pound chicken.

So with this series of posts, I’m going to show you what I did with the leftovers. I used every piece of that chicken, including the carcass. I like to get my money’s worth.

Night #1 – The Easiest Roasted Chicken Ever

5 pound chicken
salt
herbs de provence

2 large sweet potatoes
1 pound carrots
1 medium red onion
1 medium white onion
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon herbs de provence

Two days ahead: salt the inside and outside of the chicken and place in a pyrex dish. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

The day of: take the chicken out of the refrigerator one hour before starting prep work, to bring the bird closer to room temperature (this ensures even cooking).

Preheat the oven to 425*F.

Peel and slice the sweet potatoes into 1/2 inch pieces. Cut the very large slices in half. Peel and cut the carrots into 2 inch pieces. Peel the onions, cut in half, and then cut each half into fourths. Place all vegetables in a roasting pan and drizzle with the olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and herbs de provence, and give them all a toss with your hands to distribute the oil and seasonings.

Position the rack about the vegetables. Place the chicken breast-side up on the rack. Roast for 20 minutes, then flip the chicken over, with the breast-side down.

Roast for 30 minutes and flip the chicken back to being breast-side up. Roast until the chicken is cooked through (thermometer registers 175*F when inserted in the thigh) – this took about seven more minutes. Remove chicken from rack to a platter, breast-side down (this allows juices to “run down” into the breast, resulting in moist meat), for 10-15 minutes.

Stir the vegetables and return to the oven for 10 minutes to crisp them up.

Carve the chicken and serve with the vegetables.

After dinner, I shredded the remaining chicken and divided the breast meat and thigh/leg meat – each got their own container.

Stay tuned to see what happens to the leftovers!

************

Whatever you do, do NOT skip the step of salting the chicken ahead of time. This lends flavor to the bird, as well as keeps it moist.

Save the carcass for chicken stock! If you can’t make it that night, throw the carcass in a plastic bag and freeze it. Continue adding chicken bones to the bag until you have a day where you can make stock.