Corn Soup with Chicken and Poblano

We enjoy soup often during the winter. Yes, I'm one of those people who would rather have soup on a cold day than in the middle of summer. 

Summer in north central Montana has arrived. The grass is green, the garden is growing, the lilacs are blooming, and I'm wearing flip-flops. It's beautiful.

Having said that, today's high was only 56. Still beautiful... the sun is shining and there's a slight breeze and it's not too hot for a bowl of soup!

Chicken with Capers

I Heart Cooking Clubs theme this week is from the earth and our Chef is Rick Bayless. I don't own any of Rick's cookbooks, so I went to our local library to check them out. Ahem. Our local library doesn't even have one of his books. So, I've been finding recipes on the internet and this one from Season 5, Mexico-One Plate at a Time sounded good. I thought about ordering one of his books, but really, the last thing I want to do is start collecting more of anything. 

Roast Chicken with Lemons

When I lived near a Costco, I used to buy the roasted chickens. They were $5.99 if I remember correctly. They were tender, moist, and huge! We'd have plenty for a few dinners and a big bowl of chicken and pasta salad. With the nearest Costco now three-and-a-half hours away, I've taken to roasting my own chickens. I thought I had found the perfect recipe, but have recently found one that I like better over at Mari's blog.

This is a method rather than a recipe, (and although we don't eat the skin), it will give you a beautiful crispy skin with moist, tender meat laced with a delicate lemon scent and flavor. Here is the link to the original recipe. In reading this recipe, I had to smile at what I thought was just a tad of hyperbole where it reads "Close up the opening with toothpicks or with trussing needle and string. Close it well, but don't make an absolutely airtight job of it because the chicken may burst". Really? An exploding chicken? I personally don't think you could truss a chicken up tight enough that it would burst, but then again, there's always a first for everything. If you haven't tried this method for roasting chicken, let it be a first for you. Oh, and if it explodes, be sure to let me know. 

PRINT RECIPE

Roast Chicken with Lemons adapted from here 

Ingredients:

One chicken (3-4#)

One large lemon (or two small)

Salt and Pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Wash the lemon. Roll lemon on counter until soft. This will make it jucier. With a paring knife or fork, pierce the lemon several times (up to 20).

3. Rinse chicken and dry thoroughly. Season with salt and pepper. Insert lemon(s) into cavity and secure opening with toothpicks. Tie the legs together with kitchen twine.

4. Cut a piece of parchment the size of your roasting pan and spray with cooking spray. Put parchment in bottom of pan.

5. Lay chicken breast side down in pan and cook for 30 minutes.

6. Turn chicken on its back and cook for 35 minutes. Discard parchment.

7. Turn oven to 400F and continue to cook for 30 minutes. 

8. Remove chicken from oven and let rest for 15-20 minutes before carving.

Paella

My gardener gets to choose the menu on his birthday and for his milestone birthday this year, (I'm not tellin'!) he chose Paella. 

My daughter had given me a paella pan, rice, and smoked paprika for Christmas, so all I needed were the ingredients.  I decided to do a mixed paella with shrimp, mussels, and chicken. The chicken thighs are the pasty white blobs you see in the above picture. I grilled them, but removed the skin when I added them to the pan. Next time I'll brown them first.

This was a really fun dish to make! I scoured the Internet for recipes and decided that making paella is more of a technique than a recipe. 

The basis for the paella is the sofrito, which is a tomato and onion sauce. I read that a really good paella takes at least two hours to make, so I started early and was glad I did. The whole process took about 2-1/2 hours. 

After the paella is cooked, the heat is turned to high until you smell the wonderful caramelized rice that is called soccarat. You can hear the crackle of the rice as it turns a beautiful brown color and ends with a nutty flavor. 


Here's a good tutorial for making paella. I won't be waiting for another birthday to make another version of paella. It's so good! 

Paella 

2 medium onions, finely chopped

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 green bell pepper, diced

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 T fresh parsley, finely chopped

2 large tomatoes

4 T olive oil, divided use

2 tsp smoked paprika

1 ½ cups rice

8 oz clam juice

2 cups stock (vegetable or chicken), heated

Large pinch of saffron

1 ½ tsp salt

½ tsp black pepper

½ cup frozen peas

32 frozen shrimp (raw)

32 clams or mussels

1 can artichoke hearts (not marinated in oil)

4 cooked chicken thighs, bone-in

1.  Using a box grater, process the tomatoes and discard the skin.
2. Make the sofrito:  Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in paella pan, and over medium heat, cook the onion, parsley and garlic for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add tomatoes and smoked paprika. Cook until all the liquid from the tomatoes has evaporated and the sofrito is the consistency of jam. This may take 45 minutes to 1 hour. Put the sofrito into a small bowl. Wipe pan clean.
3. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in paella pan over medium heat. Cook red and green peppers for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Add the sofrito to the paella pan and rice. Stir to coat the rice.
5. Stir the salt and pepper into the hot stock and add a pinch of saffron. Stir to combine and bring to a medium-high simmer. Cook uncovered without stirring for 10 minutes.
6. Lower heat to a gentle simmer and cook for 15 minutes without stirring.
7.  After 15 minutes, scatter peas over the paella. Push shrimp, clams and mussels into the rice. Top with artichoke hearts, then cooked chicken thighs.
8. Turn up the heat to medium-high for a minute or two until you can smell the rice toasting at the bottom, then remove pan from heat. The toasted rice bottom of a paella is called socorrat.
9. Cover the pan with foil and let paella rest for 10 minutes.
10. Serve directly from the paella pan along with lemon wedges.

Friday Night Bistro Chicken

I got this recipe from Carol at Bunny's Warm Oven.  Bunny and her friends, Carol and Cyndy each contribute one of their recipes on each blog post.  In their last post, while Carol posted this recipe for Friday Night Bistro Chicken, Bunny made a Russian Chocolate Braid and Cyndy made a Cherry Cosmopolitan.  Check out the blog if you haven't already seen it!

I made this last night.  It wasn't Friday, but I'm a daredevil like that.  

This recipe calls first for browning boneless, skinless chicken breasts.  Shallots are sauteed and a can of diced tomatoes, condensed French Onion soup and some thyme are added.  It all goes into the oven until the chicken is cooked through then Swiss cheese is melted on top of the chicken.  (I forgot all about the cheese!)

Carol had mentioned in her post that there wasn't much sauce, so I added some white wine along with the tomatoes and soup.  I served this over white rice and there was plenty of sauce.  

This recipe was very good but on the mild side for our liking.  I'll make it again, but will add some heat in the way of cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes and of course, some garlic.  In fact, this is a good, basic recipe to which you can add or omit ingredients to adjust it to your taste. 

FRIDAY NIGHT BISTRO CHICKEN
(Source: adapted from Recipezaar....posted by Nancy_NJ on Taste of Home)

2 Tbsp. butter
1 Tbsp. olive oil
6 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
1 tsp. salt (I omit this)
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/2 c. chopped shallots (you can substitute chopped onion if you prefer)
1 (14.5 oz.) can diced tomatoes, with their juices
1-1 1/2 tsp. dried thyme leaves
1 (10 1/2 oz.) can condensed French Onion Soup
1 c. grated Swiss cheese

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees

In a 12-inch ovenproof skillet, melt butter in the olive oil over medium-high heat. Sprinkle chicken breasts with half of the salt and pepper, reserving the rest for the sauce. Pan-fry the chicken until both sides are golden but the chicken is not cooked through.

Remove chicken from skillet; set aside. (I place the chicken into a 13x9-inch baking dish that has been sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.)

Add shallots to skillet; cook, stirring, until softened, 3-4 minutes. Add tomatoes with their juice and thyme; cook until sauce has reduced a bit, 4-5 minutes. Add soup; cook another 4 minutes, seasoning with remaining salt and pepper.

Return chicken to skillet; place in preheated oven and bake, uncovered, for 18-20 minutes or until chicken is cooked through (I pour the sauce over the chicken in the baking dish and place in the oven to bake). Remove from oven; sprinkle chicken with Swiss cheese and return to oven 3-5 minutes more, or until cheese is melted. 6 servings.

Chicken Wings

My gardener doesn't watch much football, but he does enjoy watching the Super Bowl.  I came in at halftime on Sunday and we had two-person Super Bowl party!

I had some chicken wings in the freezer, so I knew I wanted to make those, but in the few weeks leading up to Super Bowl Sunday there were so many different recipes for wings, I couldn't decide which to use.  They all looked and sounded so good!

I ended up going with Peter's recipe from his blog Kalofagas (Kalofagas means "gourmet", in Greek).  He has a beautiful blog with all things Greek.  You'll find scrumptious looking food, gorgeous pictures, background stories on food and festivals, and much information about Greece.  He takes us with him on his vacations to Greece and tell us about the country, the food, the people.  I suspect that many of you have already discovered Peter's blog, but if you haven't, you're in for a treat!

The marinade for these wings include garlic, onion, lemon juice, cinnamon, smoked paprika, allspice, black pepper and thyme.  It was a perfect combination of flavors and we enjoyed these very much.  I would have preferred to grill these outside, but the cold Montana weather kept me from doing that.  They turned out just fine in the oven, although I think they'd have better color and crispness done on the grill.  Oh, I can't wait for summer!  

Chicken Marengo (Poulet á la Marengo)

Apparently Napoleon (Bonaparte… yes, that’s the one) liked to fight on an empty stomach.  (No eating before fighting!)  In 1800, when Napoleon’s army won the Battle of Marengo, he had his personal chef whip up a victory dinner. 

The chef fried up a chicken along with some tomatoes, garlic and onions.  He added some crayfish and a shot of cognac and put that on a big piece of bread.  He topped the now-famous dish with a fried egg, and voilá, Chicken Marengo was born!

The dish really hit the spot with Napoleon.  He considered it his lucky charm (because after all, he had just won the Battle of Marengo) and had his chef make it again and again.

I found several recipe variations for this dish.  Some recipes called for black olives, some for green olives, or no olives at all.  Some called for prawns or shrimp.  Some recipes had you brown the chicken first and others called for braising it… no browning allowed. 

I figured pretty much anything goes (and Napoleon isn't around to argue with me).  Here this is my version of Chicken Marengo… based on several recipes I found on the interwebs.


PRINT RECIPE HERE


 

Portuguese Stewed Chicken with Rice

As a child, I always loved eating my grandmother's chicken and rice. She had no recipe for it, of course, but after looking through many recipes and trying to imagine how the end result would taste, I think I found it with this simple recipe.

Chopped onion, tomato, paprika, and garlic are sauteed in olive oil. A bay leaf, white wine and one chicken (cut-up) are added to the pot with enough water to cover. The chicken is simmered until done, then long-grained white rice is added. 20 minutes later, real comfort food!

You can PRINT THE RECIPE here.

I've been in California visiting my daughter and her family for the last several weeks. I did a lot of cooking, but I was too busy being Gramma to this angel to take pictures of food and keep up with my blog!

Flattened Chicken with Herbs & Sticky Lemon

The population of Holtville, California, when I lived there around 1996, was about 5,500. The Holtville Tribune was the local weekly newspaper and as you can imagine, most of the time the newspaper staff had to work mighty hard to dig up "news" for this quiet town.

There was a police beat column that listed all of the calls the small police department had during the week. I picked up the paper one evening and noticed there was only one entry that came from the police logs that week: "Officers reported a flat cat at 6th and Walnut."

Thankfully, I didn't have to wait for a chicken to cross the road for this recipe. Flattened... butterflied... spatchcocked... it's all the same thing and it refers to removing the backbone and breastbone (keel bone) from a chicken. This allows the chicken to lay flat, and speeds up the cooking time a little, too.

Because it's difficult to butterfly a chicken and take pictures at the same time, I found this jovial fellow on YouTube who does a good job of making this look easy.

It is easy! After I butterflied the chicken I cut it in half and marinated it in white wine overnight in the refrigerator.

Rosemary, thyme and garlic cloves go into the pan that will hold the chicken.
The chicken is set over the herbs and then is sprinkled with salt and pepper. This goes into a 400F oven for 20 minutes.

In the meantime, thinly slice one lemon. Also, mix up some honey and chipotle pepper sauce... we'll use this to baste the chicken later.
After 20 minutes in the oven, 1/4 cup of sherry vinegar is poured over the chicken and it's back into the oven for another 15 minutes. The aroma of the rosemary and thyme was intoxicating!
Lay the sliced lemon over the chicken, then baste with the honey and chipotle mixture. This goes back into the oven for an additional 10-15 minutes.

Put the chicken on a plate and sprinkle with chopped parsley and toasted sliced almonds. The honey and chipotle sauce made a perfect balance of sweet and smoky and the roasted herbs gave a wonderful aroma to the chicken. I'll make this again and will also use the honey/chipotle basting sauce for chicken on the grill!

This recipe is from National Chicken Cooking Contest Pacific Region winner Elsie Lalor of Issaquah, Washington. If you love chicken and are looking for a recipe that's good enough for company, this one's for you!

Chicken Piccata

I'm not a big fan of food with a strong lemon flavor. My gardener isn't a big fan of foods with a vinegary flavor. So why did I choose to make Chicken Piccata where the main ingredients are lemon and capers? Because I like vinegary things and he likes lemon! This dish was a trade-off between the two. I got this recipe from Epicurious and you can find it here.

I butterflied two boneless, skinless chicken breasts and pounded them to about 1/4" thick.
Season some flour with salt and pepper, dredge the chicken and fry in olive oil until browned and cooked through. Remove chicken from the pan and bring wine, lemon juice and chicken broth to a boil. Whisk in a butter-flour mixture to thicken, stir in the capers, parsley and more butter!

The recipe called for 1/4 cup lemon juice, but I used only 3 tablespoons. The recipe also called for 1/4 cup capers - I only used a few tablespoons and rinsed them before adding them to the sauce to get rid of most of the vinegar taste.

I served the chicken with orzo and the result was perfect for us - a light lemon-flavored sauce with just a slight tang from the capers. If you've never had chicken piccata, give this a try - I'm sure you'll like it!

Coq au Vin - Barefoot Bloggers

Bethany of this little piggy went to market... chose Ina's Coq Au Vin as one of the Barefoot Blogger recipes for December. Take a look here to see the other Barefoot Blogger results for this recipe.

With all the goings-on the in the last week while visiting my daughter, I just got around to making this last night. I've always thought that Coq au Vin was such a fancy, complicated recipe but I was amazed at how easy Ina's recipe was to put together and it turned out just delicious! The aroma of the vegetables, wine, cognac, and garlic coming from the oven was wonderful! I was a little concerned about making this for my daughter and son-in-law as they aren't big on the taste or smell of wine, but it was a big hit! I made some risotto to go with this.

Oh, I had "help" in the kitchen while I was preparing this recipe (my granddaughter) and as a result, this is the only picture I ended up with!

Mexican Chicken Soup - Barefoot Bloggers

Barefoot Bloggers is a group that cooks all things Ina. Judy from Judy's Gross Eats chose this recipe. Thanks, Judy... we love having soup often since the cold weather has set in!

Chop onions, celery and carrots and saute.
Cut up some corn tortillas, a seeded jalapeno and dice some garlic.

Add tomatoes, tortillas, garlic, jalapenos and chicken broth. The corn tortillas disappeared into the soup and thickened it to just the right consistency.

Serve with sour cream, shredded cheese and broken tortilla chips. I've had chicken tortilla soup in the past and remember not caring for it much, but this was very good and hearty soup, and a recipe I'll make again! You can find Ina's recipe for this Mexican Chicken Soup here.

Chicken Cacciatore

You could Google recipes for Chicken Cacciatore and get 185,000 results in 0.11 seconds, or you could do what I do and wing it.

I haven't made this dish in a while, so I was glad to be reminded of it when I saw that Kevin from Closet Cooking gave us his recipe a few days ago.

Here's how I winged it (wunged it? wanged it?) Fry chicken thighs in olive oil until they're browned. Remove them from the pan. That takes care of the chicken part of this dish - for a while, anyway. Easy, eh?

Put an anchovy in the same pan. Smoosh it up with a spoon as it melts away. You won't be able to taste the anchovy when the gravy is done, but you'll know there's something delicious about this gravy... I promise!

When the anchovy has melted, add some coarsley chopped onions. I like to use lots of onions in my Italian gravy. Add some red pepper flakes, three cloves of minced garlic, a sprinkle of granulated garlic, black pepper, and some dried parsley, rosemary, and oregno. Sometimes I add mushrooms or zucchini.

When the onions are soft, put in 1/2 cup red wine, a can of tomato sauce and a can of stewed tomatoes. Stir that all around then return the chicken thighs to the pan. Cook on a medium simmer for about 30 minutes.

This will be some of the best Italian gravy you've ever had (even if I do say so myself).

I usually serve this over pasta (spaghetti, to be exact) but while I was reading Kevin's recipe, I saw that he served his Chicken Cacciatore over Risotto! I would never have thought of that, so we'll give it a try. Here's Kevin's recipe for cheesey risotto here. And here's our finished dish of Chicken Cacciatore over Risotto. It was so good for dinner last night that I had it again for breakfast. Really!

Chicken Fajitas

I hear you... "Do these people eat anything other than chicken?"

"Roast chicken, chicken tacos, chicken quesadillas, chicken marsala... now chicken fajitas??"

All I can say is "cluck, cluck"!
Put some olive oil in a big frying pan. Slice up one good sized onion and throw it in there. Put some red pepper flakes in there (as many as you want... or none at all). You're the boss! Press 5 garlic cloves (or more, or less - it's whatever you want).
(See the pressed garlic on the bottom left?) Coarsely chop three tomatoes.

At this point I would tell you to slice up a few green bell peppers, but this ole gal wasn't going to pay $1.98 for a bell pepper, no way, no how! I used some canned, whole green chiles and sliced them for these fajitas.
Now slice one or two chicken breasts... as thin as you can get them. I seasoned them with black pepper, parsley, Old Bay Seasoning, and McCormick's Fajita Seasoning.
When the onions have cooked some, add the sliced green chiles. If you have the dough and want to use bell peppers, go ahead, but be sure to leave me a comment. I don't have any rich friends, and well, maybe we could get to know each other a little better.
Add the chopped tomatoes...
Now, push all the veggies over to the side of the pan. Put the sliced chicken on the other side of the pan and cook until done.

I like to use a huge pan for this, but you could easily use two pans... one to cook the veggies and one to cook the chicken. Just combine them in the end.
Open a jar of this good stuff...
... and put a good amount over the chicken.
Stir everything together until hot.

I heat up my cast iron skillet and put the fajitas on it to bring to the table. It's just more fun that way.

Now heat up some flour tortillas and wrap them around some of this yummy stuff and chow down! If you're really hungry, make up some beans and rice to go with this!

I promise we're not going to have chicken again for another week! (Or at least a couple of days.)

Chicken Marsala

We've eaten so much chicken over the last several days, I thought we'd have it again. :P

Marsala is an inexpensive fortified sweet wine that just makes this dish one of my favorites!

I was going to use The Frugal Gourmet's recipe but it calls for onions, which I didn't want to use, and it doesn't call for mushrooms, which I did want to use!

So, I kind of combined The Frugal Gourmet's recipe, and Emeril's Chicken Marsala recipe and came up with this:
Slice as many button mushrooms as you want. I had about 3 cups, because my gardener and I love mushrooms! Put a couple tablespoons of butter in a frying pan, add a little olive oil and cook the mushrooms until they are a little brown and give up their juices. I don't know... maybe 10-15 minutes.

You wondered when I was going to get to the good stuff, didn't you? You'll need about 3/4 c Marsala and 1 cup white wine.
Add the Marsala and white wine to the mushrooms and let them simmer until the liquid has reduced. (This is what's going to make the yummy sauce!)

Now you need some flour to dredge the chicken in. I used about a cup of flour, some dried parsley, red pepper flakes, freshly ground pepper, Old Bay Seasoning, and paprika. Mix this all together because we're going to use it in a minute.

Put the chicken breasts in a Ziplock bag and pound them fairly thin with one of these meat pounders. Just whack, whack, whack until somebody tells you to quit making so much noise.

Dredge the chicken breasts in the flour mixture...

...and fry over rather high heat. They're so thin, they won't take long, and you'll be surprised at how tender they are. You won't need a knife for this chicken, no siree bob! (My Dad used to say that a lot.)

Here are the mushrooms after the liquid has reduced some. Mmm!

Wow, this was delicious! I steamed some zuchinni and we had a really tasty meal!

Don't forget to light the candles!

You are eating by candlelight, aren't you?