All for 'chicken'

Chicken and Asparagus over Pasta with a Mustard "Cream" Sauce
Chicken Cordon Bleu with leftover lentil soup and moussaka
Miso Chicken over Bok Choy and Miso Soup
Grilled Chicken, Cauliflower and Apples
Balsamic Chicken with Pasta and Broccoli
Roasted Potatoes, Chicken Sausage and Peppers
Chicken Saltimbocca and Swiss Chard
Chicken Enchilada Soup
Asian Lettuce Wraps
Peanut Noodles, Cabbage, And Chicken Salad
Mediterranean Chicken Stew with Cinnamon Quinoa
Taquito Cupcakes
"Magic Dusted" Chicken, and Peas+lentils
Roasted Veggies with Chicken Sausage
Roasted Veggies and chicken sausage
Grilled Dijon Chicken and Graffiti Eggplant
Chicken and beets
Dijon Chicken and roasted Broccoli
Chicken Sausage and Roasted Veggies
Baked Chicken Thighs
Baked Chicken Thighs
Chicken Fajitas and Brussel Sprouts
Grilled Chicken and Brussel Sprouts
Buffalo Chicken and Veggie Stuffed Pepper
Slow-Cooked Curry Chicken Over Wheat Berries and Roasted Broccoli
Spaghetti Squash with Italian Chicken Sausage
Roasted Vegetables and Sausage
Broccoli and Chicken in a white wine sauce
Spicy Balsamic Broccoli with Chicken Sausage
Grilled Chicken and Salt & Vinegar Potatoes
Balsamic Broccoli Chicken
Chicken Hash with Radishes, Celery Root and Potato (Topped with "fried" eggs)
Sautéed Chicken and Edamame
Chicken Pasta with a "fried" egg
Broccoli Chicken
Cauliflower Fritters and Chicken Cordon Bleu
Roasted Potato Chips, Shishito Peppers, Dip and Chicken
Chicken and Broccoli in a White-Bean Bourbon "Cream" Sauce
Rutabaga Chicken Hash
Cajun Chicken
Chicken Saltimbocca
Lite(ish) Rotisserie Chicken Salad Sandwiches
Orange Chicken over Cauliflower Rice
Buffalo Chicken Cupcakes
Mini Chicken Pot Pies
Buffalo Stuffed Peppers
[Lighter] Chicken Pot-Pie
Rotisserie Chicken Lap Salad
Rotisserie Chicken Tortilla less Tortilla Soup
Chicken Pot Pie
Green Chile Chicken Pot Pie
Jerk Chicken Tacos
Salmon and Chicken Burgers
Bacon Guacamole Chicken
Cilantro Chicken (Sous-Vide) and Greek Kohlrabi Gratin
Romesco Chicken with Grilled Green Onions
Asian Style Salad & Cucumber Carrot Salad
Calabacitas Con Pollo
Sausage and Onions
Chicken Skewers and Kohlrabi Gratin
Grilled Pesto Chicken and Caprese
Jerk Chicken Tacos and Grilled Artichokes
Grilled Chicken Saltimbocca, Sides, and Grilled Strawberry Shortcake
Jerk Chicken Bowls
Greek Inspired, Spinach Stuffed Chicken with a Tomato-Artichoke Salad
Sheet Pan Chicken
Chicken with Mushrooms and Spinach
Christmas Style Chicken Enchilada Lasagna
Green Chile Chicken
Chicken Pot Pie
Rotisserie Chicken Green-Chile Enchilada Lasagna (style)
Chicken in Vodka Sauce over Zucchini Noodles with Broccolini
Green Chile Enchilada Lasagna
Chicken Cordon Bleu and Roasted Potatoes
Salsa Chicken with Shishitos
Fajita Lettuce Wraps
Whole30 Chicken Pot Pie
Chicken Piccata
Lasagna Soup
French Onion Soup with Sous Vide Chicken
Salsa Chicken Salad
Curry Chicken Salad and Broccoli
Chicken Fajitas
Grilled Spatchcocked Chicken

My goal was to cook at Meredith's without buying anything new and this was the end result. The main focus was the "cream" sauce. My original attempt was a bit of skim milk, water, and dry skim milk powder at a much higher concentration. Still getting used to gas, it boiled by accident so I had to try again but this time with just powder and water. I was fairly successful. After mixing the powder and water for a bit over medium-low, I added some whole wheat flour, some grated parmesan and then a lot of dijon mustard. Whisking it made it all come together nicely and I ended up with a fairly thick sauce. It was a bit gritty but that is to be expected. If I made a "cream" sauce again, I will use evaporated milk, but I didn't want to go and buy it.

The asparagus was cut into pieces and steamed. I sautéed the chicken with just salt and pepper.

The entire sauce as 7 points for the milk powder and 1 for the cheese. There was also some leftover so I will say 3/person. The chicken is 3-4 and the pasta is 3.

The chicken was the same basic recipe as last time except we used lite jarlsberg. It was much easier with that but I didn't like it as much. First of all, it leaked more and second of all, it congealed in it. Also, 2 of them were with Canadian bacon and not prosciutto because we ran out.

We also had the leftover moussaka from a while ago and leftover lentil soup from yesterday (it was so good).

The Miso chicken was roughly based off of this recipe except that I cooked it in the pan. It marinaded for about 8 hours which was really nice. Because the marinade was so salty, it was like brining the meat so it was also very moist. This was the best part of the meal but it was salty. It was served over garlic bok-choy based off of this. The bok choy was okay. Again, salty.

To add the salt fest that was this meal, we had miso soup. That was based off of this. It wasn't great. We may have used too much dashi or something, but either way, it was very fishy and very salty. I guess the saltiness was to be expected, but it was a bit much. We may try to find better recipes for all of the things in the future (if we decide to try them again).

I largely made up a marinade and I should have written down what I used. I was annoyed that all of the ones on the web had so much oil. This was has very little and by marinading in a bag, I didn't need much. I also used some water to add liquid. If I recall correctly, I put

We grilled the chicken thighs. Thankfully thighs are very forgiving because I am pretty sure we over cooked them. We also had cauliflower with curry powder. We did that in aluminum foil so it got more steamed than anything. It was still good but not like when we roasted them in the past

For dessert, I put apples with cinnamon, splenda, nutmeg and cardamom into aluminum foil and grilled that for a while. They were pretty good too.

I made a balsamic chicken marinade but it was a long time ago and I do not recall the recipe. I thought we had more chicken but I was wrong so to stretch the dish, we added whole wheat pasta and steamed broccoli. It was pretty good and the chicken came out pretty nicely. We had some leftover parmesan cheese which we put on too

This was inspired largely by the Gina's recipe below. The major changes were we used pre-cooked chicken sausage and I also added artichoke hearts. I also definitely used more rosemary than she called for. It made a lot but I was trying to use up potatoes before they went bad.

It was pretty good. I think maybe a bit too starchy alone for a meal. Not many veggies and a lot of potato. It may be better as a side in the future.

We made the chicken saltimbocca as we had here except we used black forrest ham instead of prosciutto to make it even healthier. It was pretty good but a bit overpowered by the sage. Less sage next time! I like dredging in flour and then sautéing. It gives the chicken a nice texture. We may make other "stuffed" chicken things like this.

We made the Crock Pot Enchilada soup basically following the recipe. Except, I kind of eye-balled it on the chipotles in adobo and I think I overdid it. The soup had a strong smoky taste and was pretty spicy. Not too much that you couldn't eat it but spicy.

The recipe says to cook on low for 4-6 hours. We let it cook on low for about 6.5, then on warm for about another 6. I checked the temp after being on warm and it was about 160 so I knew it was still safe to eat. I do not know what, if any, the affect of the longer cooking was but it worked out okay.

We made asian lettuce wraps, I think using the recipe from here(in the comments). Meredith made them so I really do not know all the details. The bigger deal was how we shredded the chicken. Meredith baked the large chicken breast (I have no idea how long and at what temp), but then to shred it, we used the Kitchen Aide mixer with the beater blade. I do not remember where I first read it but it works really well. The trick is to make sure you are using warm chicken so it shreds easier (but I think that is true regardless of how you shred it).

It made quite a bit. We had enough for 1.5 lunches the next day! We also ate leftover soup from the night before.

This was based on the below recipe except we used the griddler to grill the chicken and then sliced it. We also added some sliced carrot to the cabbage part. Instead of Soba noodles, we used brown rice noodles (and 1/2 pound instead of 3/4). I also think we skipped the scallions but I may be wrong.

It was very good and I really enjoyed the peanut sauce, especially when we mixed it all with the cabbage. It made 4 servings (lunch!) so overall, I do not think the meal was too bad in calories either. We didn't have chicken for the lunch. ALso, we used olive oil and less

This is based on the recipe below. I pressure cooked some chicken breasts and shredded it instead of using rotisserie (obviously, much less chicken). Also, since I pressure cooked it, I used the broth from that instead of chicken broth (well, this is more real chicken broth). I skipped the olive and the lemon juice. Instead of couscous, I used quinoa (and again, less of it). I cooked the quinoa with chicken broth (not from the pressure cooker). I used the orange juice in the quinoa but skipped the lemon in the chicken.

Overall, I liked the meal a lot but there wasn't really any new flavors. It kind of reminded me of most other tomato-like meals. Though, I let it cook to be pretty dry which was different. Again, like yesterday, it had chickpeas which I am getting kind of tired of it now. So, good, but nothing too special.

I was originally going to make taquitos, but I decided to "cupcake" them instead. Basically, it was all the usual. To make the cupcakes, I put down a layer of wonton wrappers, added some cheese, then another layer of wonton wrapper, then more filling (much less than first layer) and then a bit more cheese.

The filling was pretty standard. I sautéd onions (with too much oil, see note below on points), Then I added about half a cup of frozen corn. I added about half a cup of hot salsa. I also used some soy sauce instead of salt and some hot sauce. I made the shredded chicken using my standard technique. That is, about 1/8-1/4 inch of water with seasoning in the pressure cooker then cook on high for about 10 minutes. Then, shred with the mixer. After it was all mixed, I kept adding some of the pressure cooker "broth" to moisten it and let it cook down. Finally, I added 2 softened laughing cow cheese wedges

It came out a bit high, but I used too much olive oil. I will go lighter on it next time to save a good number of points.

The main part of this meal was the chicken which I used with magic rub (recipe below). I tried to follow the recipe pretty closely but I had to make some changes. I didn't have kosher salt so I used half as much and just used regular. I also ran out of chili powder so I improvised. Also, I used mostly hot (but not smoked) paprika. The recipe called for doing it with pork but I used pounded out chicken.

On the note of pounded chicken, I found the easiest way to do it. I vacuum sealed the chicken and did it in there. No mess and it worked really well. Plus, I was able to reuse the bag to freeze the other pieces I wasn't using.

The chicken was pretty good. Nothing amazing, Despite cooking it on the hot pan, it didn't quite caramelize as much as I had hoped. I used the thermometer to check the temperature of the chicken, and I think I took it off at the exact right time. It wasn't overcooked or anything. The spices were a bit too heavy on cumin but not all together bad.

I made the similar thing that I first posted on 2011-10-24. Basically, it is just roasted potatoes except the addition of chicken sausage for the latter half of baking for some protein. I made a single portion so I just used two small potatoes. I also added beets (which died everything red), artichoke hearts, onion, green bell pepper and a jalapeño. I do not recall of the seasonings, but it was mainly rosemary, sage, TJ's 21 seasoning salute, salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder. I do not remember which type of sausage I used but I'll look it up when I get home.

It was so good. And it made the apartment smell really good. I like this meal. It is a lot of chopping but then you can set it and now worry about it until you have to add the sausage. I also rotated the racks when I added the sausage.

I made the roasted veggie thing with chicken sausage from here. I went light on the potatoes. I also put in some broccoli instead of using artichoke hearts. It came out pretty good!

Grilling FAILURE. I tried to grill again. It didn't go as well as last time, which says a lot since it didn't go very well then either. It took three tries to get the light I think I needed to pack it tighter. I also used more coals to get it to be hotter and hopefully stay lit longer.

Well, it started off really hot. I let the grill get a bit warmer, cleaned it, then put the chicken and eggplant on it. I used chicken thighs since it is hard to overcook them. Well, five minutes later, they were barely cooked. The grill went out again. I had the lower vent open so that wasn't the issue.

Anyway, I had to go to plan B. I fired up the broiler for the eggplant and the grill pan for the chicken. I am glad I used thighs since they should have been overcooked by this point but they held up well. Even though I thoroughly trimmed the fat off. I guess the meat itself is fattier.

They turned out fine as did the eggplant, but no thanks to the grill. I guess I need to learn more about how to use a charcoal grill. I just am not getting it so far.

I used the cast iron grill pan on flattened chicken breast. I think I used McCormick's chicken seasoning but I don't remember. I also made roasted beets

I used the leftover chicken from 2012-08-12 but I didn't even try to use the grill and just used the cast-iron grill pan. I ate both pieces since it wasn't really that much and the pieces are small. I also had roasted broccoli It is my favorite way to make it and its so easy as long as I do not need the oven

I baked chicken thighs using the notes on the recipe below (not that it is all that hard), It really only needed 20 minutes. I used Penzeys Sandwich Sprinkle on one and the rest of the "Magic Dust" from 2012-06-15. Both were very good, though I liked the sandwich one more. They shrunk a lot in cooking so I am glad that I made two (and I think the Weight Watcher's points is for cooked. I also trimmed all the fat I could). It was also very easy so I will certainly do it again. And since I lined the [small] pan with aluminum foil (and then used that to cover it), there was basically no cleanup

I wanted something quick and easy and I already had chicken thighs. I just baked them in the oven like 2012-11-29. I did one with a mix of rosemary, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and onion powder. The other one was Old Bay. The Old Bay was better.

I made chicken fajitas. I pounded out chicken, sprinkled chili powder on them, and cooked them on the cast iron. After they were fully cooked, I took them off and added french cut onions and lot of red pepper strips. I also added half a can of bean and a half of julienne cut zucchini. I probably let that go a bit too long since when I added the water-fajita seasoning mix, it was already pretty cooked down. It got a bit mushy with it all. Next time, I think I will make my own mix and let the flavor of the vegetables stand for themselves without the seasoning mix (which also adds lots of different flavors). I again also added garlic powder but I used sriracha instead of Dave's Insanity.

They were out of the tortillas I like to use (with 45 cal each) so I had to get the bigger ones that were higher too. I cut them in half so I could still make smaller fajitas.

I also had brussel sprouts where I use really high heat (with the pans warmed up in the oven). I think I will_not_use this method again. They get a bit too burned, and any loose leaves are totally charred. Next time, I am going with a lower temperature and longer cook times, Serious Eats be dammed! I don't have a picture of them since I forgot to start them earlier

I made grilled chicken and roasted brussel sprouts. I was playing with my new induction burner. I was able to heat up the cast iron pan in less than a minute. It cooked the chicken really well. I had just put some McCormick Montreal Chicken Seasoning. I took it off a little bit before it was at the right temp (I do not recall the number), but I let it sit in the hot pan for a while. The chicken was very good and moist.

After getting tired of the brussel sprouts at really high temp, I did them in the oven at 400 for 30-35 minutes (based on the WF link). They were very good. Maybe a bit mushy, but very flavorful. I will do them this way. I do not mind the mushy, but I didn't like the burned of the last few times.

The original plan was to make something like the buffalo chicken poblanos but I couldn't find poblanos and I only had a small piece of chicken. So I used green peppers and I made a filling with lots of vegetable fillers. First, I cut the pepper and baked it in the oven (425°F) while I was preppy the rest so it could pre-bake. I didn't time it but I'd say it was about 20 minutes. I made a filling with the following:

I used goat cheese instead of Laughing Cow wedges because I thought it would add more flavor. I didn't end up tasting it at all so I probably won't do that again. When this was all done, I filled the peppers, topped them with a bit more shredded cheese and baked them at 425 for half an hour.

It was very good but very wet. When I cut into the pepper, water basically poured everywhere. I ended up cutting it so it was basically like eating the filling with a bit more pepper. I still enjoyed it but I think I need to do a better job draining the drying the filling first. And maybe use fewer peppers in the filling so that the pepper shell's flavor didn't meld into it.

15 for two so figure 9 for last night (since I ate the extra filling) and 7 for lunch.

I made curry chicken and served it over wheat berries (instead of brown rice) with roasted broccoli. This was an interesting meal since I used both very slow cooking for the chicken and very fast [pressure] cooking for the wheat-berries.

I did the chicken in the slow-cooker. I made the sauce the night before.In a bit of oil, I lightly browned grated ginger, garlic (two cloves), curry powder, and a bunch of red-curry paste. I used 3 cups of almond-coconut milk with some ginger chuncks and a bit more curry powder. I also added salt and pepper. I cut the chicken into pieces and marinated in mix overnight then put the whole thing in the slow-cooker in the morning on low.

I do not understand what curdled in it since there was no dairy, but something did, as you can see. Overall, the chicken was overcooked. I think even with 3 cups of milk, there wasn't enough to fill the cooker so it was a bit too hot. And the whole thing wasn't incredibly flavorful as I had hoped.

For the wheat berries,I read a few different things but I finally just kind of made it up. I skipped the presoak as I had in the past which seemed fine. I mixed 1 cup of dry wheat berries with 2 or so cups of water. I pressure cooked it on high for 12-15 minutes and then released. They were cooked but a bit chewy. I drained the excess water.

I also roasted broccoli (425 for about 25-30 min, rotated once) which came out pretty good!

I was going to eat out when I remember I had a spaghetti squash I haven't eaten. I bought a pack of Italian chicken sausage at Target (2.2 points plus/link and 5 links/package). I also bought Classico Tomato Basil sauce (1 point plus/serving, 5 for the whole thing. Lowest one available). I halved the raw squash, deseeded it, lammed it, added salt and pepper, and microwaved it for 13 minutes. Pretty standard. I sliced the sausage into pieces and did it in the pan for a while. It was cooking too much on the bottom and not enough all around so I threw it in the broiler. Once the squash was done, I microwaved the sauce. Once it was all done, I mixed it all together with some parm cheese. It made two very large servings! It was also extremely good. I do not know if it was the sauce; the sausage or the mix, but I liked it a lot and very low points! ( (2.2+1)*5+(some for the cheese)=~18 total). So 9 points for each meal!

Standard roasted veggies with the addition of celery (since I had it) and something else (I don't recall. I'll come back and add it if I remember).

Pretty good though the celery was a bit strange. It is also very wet which I think impacted everything else.

I had this idea last week when I had italian food at a restaurant. It was supposed to be chicken in a sun dried tomato, white-wine sauce with broccoli over pasta. I asked for extra broccoli and it still had very little. And, I realized, I didn't really care about the pasta and I loved the broccoli. I always like it when it picks up the sauce. So I decided to try making a meal that was basically italian "pasta" dish but with broccoli instead.

I read a few things on white-wine sauce (Most notably Skinny Taste) and decided to follow her lead with replacing some of the wine with chicken broth. Here is my recipe/what I did. (Not copied, this is my writing it but that is also why it isn';t very specific)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Thinly slice or cut chicken into strips . Mix some flour with salt and pepper and dredge chicken. Cook in hot pan with oil spray only. Stir a lot and use white wine to deglaze as needed. When cooked, remove chicken and deglaze pan. Add pam, some Smart Balance, then put in shallots and tomatoes. Stir. Deglaze with wine as needed

Concurrently, slice broccoli into florets and cores, etc. Steam (I needed two batches) and do your best to halt cooking with cold water. Let drain.

After shallots are cooked, add garlic and crushed red pepper. After 30 seconds, add the chicken broth and wine. Add back the chicken and add the broccoli. Stir A LOT. Salt and pepper to taste. Let it cook down until thicker and/or you're out of patience. Top with (too much) parm cheese.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Overall, I liked it. It wasn't as good as I had hoped but I think my sauce could be better. I just generally really like this idea. I can try other sauces or even just buy a sauce. And since the calories only come from the sauce and the chicken (and I used very little chicken for TWO meals), I can even use a higher calorie sauce! I guess this is kind of the italian version of broccoli beef. This is italian broccoli chicken.

I again tried to make a balsamic broccoli (last time) concoction. I made a sauce with the base being fat free balsamic dressing. I used the Trader Joes one since it is not chemicals. It is basically different vinegars and some other stuff but all pretty basic.

I used the following ingredients. However, when it was all cooking, even as it cooked down, there was not enough liquid. I had to add more dressing (1/4 cup).

I mixed it all and let it sit for 2 hours. At the end, I added 1 tsp crushed red pepper (I would have added it sooner, but I didn't think of it). And then, as I note above, 1/4 cup additional dressing while it cooked.

I added the sausage and pepper, then the steamed broccoli once it was cooking. I then added the sauce, and a bit later, the extra dressing.

Overall, this was really good and I think it was closer to what I have been looking for. I would do it again pretty much the same way except I'd add more dressing (and more liquid all together). Plus, probably some more corn starch to match the additional liquid. Maybe an additional red pepper and/or some cherry peppers.

I made grilled chicken and salt and vinegar potatoes. For the chicken, I marinated chicken breasts (cut in half) in Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce and then cooked it on the grill. Nothing special. I did overcook them a bit, but I still enjoyed them. The sauce caramelized nicely.

I was originally going to make salt and vinegar butternut squash but my squash had gone bad so I used potatoes. I made lots of changes to the recipe. I used white potatoes instead of waxy, and I used apple cider vinegar since white wine vinegar was expensive. I assumed I could let it boil for less time since the potatoes were different so I only have them 3 minutes at a low boil and then turned off the heat. They were lacking a bit of the vinegar flavor so next time, I'll use a longer boil and maybe white vinegar instead. Since I suck at using a charcoal grill, some were more cooked than others. I had to move them to the center where it was noticeably hotter

I had two pieces of chicken for dinner and I ate the third for lunch on a multi-grain english muffin

It came out very good. I was a bit worried that I didn't have enough sauce but I kept stirring and really let it keep cooking all mixed it. That cause more liquid to come out of broccoli and I was able to get enough liquid.

As I note in the recipe, the dressing was thicker than last time. Also, it was less sweet than the Trader Joes ones but I think I liked this more. Saves calories and lets me control the sweetness more.

I don't think I would make any changes for next time. I just need to remember that more liquid will come out as it heats in the pan all mixed.

Into strips. Coat with flour as needed. Add just enough canola oil to the pan to coat most of it and then also use pan. When hot (set to about 8/10) add the chicken. Let it cook until mostly done. Add the broccoli and the sauce. Stir and let the broccoli cook more. Keep stirring as more liquid from the broccoli mixes. Reduce the heat to 4-5 and let it keep cooking down. Keep stirring until everything is well coated and most of the sauce is thick and mixed well.

Notes: As noted above, this was much thicker dressing but I liked it. It is also worth noting that there aren't any chemicals, etc in it. It's all pretty natural

I made chicken hash basically using the recipe below with a few changes (some on purpose, some by accident). Instead of 22oz of potatoes, I used a mix of 6 1/8 oz Daikon Radish, 7 5/8 oz celery and 8 oz yukon gold potato. I let the celery root cook longer in the water than the rest of the things. Instead of 1 lbs on chicken, I used 1/2 lbs chicken breast and a tiny chicken thigh (~0.15 lbs).

I also forgot to use paprika and turmeric. I just used the za'atar, salt and pepper for the spices. However, where I really messed up is I added the chicken, broth and everything when I added the potatoes so they didn't get the extra time to brown under a drier heat. Instead they cooked with everything. That basically meant that it was a bit mushy with less crisp bits, etc. I also cooked the eggs entirely sans oil.

Overall, I liked it a lot. The only thing I really didn't like was that the celery root was still very stringy and often fibrous. I ended up spitting a lot of those chunks out. The potato and the daikon radish sere largely indistinguishable! I would definitely do it again and I'd look into additional potato alternatives. The harissa added some spice, though less than I expected when I tasted it alone.

This recipe (with minor changes and notes) is now included in my recipe book

I needed something really fast for dinner since it was late after bottling my beer. I had chicken ready to go so I cut it up into pieces, put it in a plastic container, added some flour, salt, and pepper and shook it. I then sautéd it with just pam. I flipped them and let them cook until a few were around 150-160. I cut the heat then and let them keep cooking. I figured they were various sizes so some may be overcooked but the rest should be fine. Sure enough, most were really good with some real juiciness (surprising!) and a mild, but nice flavor. I made 10 oz of chicken and saved half for lunch.

I quickly threw this dinner together because I was hungry but pretty exhausted from brewing all day. (I also totally goofed and forgot to take a picture before breaking the yolk). I cooked a bt under 1.5 servings of pasta. Meanwhile, I sautéd garlic then added two small cans of chicken and then canned green chili peppers (I had to slice them). I also added two wedges of laughing cow. I brought it together with the pasta, added a tiny bit of pasta water and put the lid on to melt the cheese. I "fried" an egg and topped it with that.

It was a fast but pretty good meal. Similar to what I did the other day. The nice thing about it is that I can keep everything I need for it (minus the egg) in the pantry and ready to go.

I made broccoli chicken using the broccoli beef recipe. Unlike last time where I used canned chicken, I used real, sliced chicken this time. I had a lot of broccoli so I steamed half normally and I steamed the other half in the microwave (~3 min worked well). The only problem was that I didn't think to drain it and I poured the leftover microwave-steaming water into the pan. As you could imagine, things got watered down. I also used liquid aminos in place of soy sauce

Overall, it was pretty good other than being a bit watery. I will be more careful of that next time. I liked doing it with_real_ chicken. It's not as good as beef but my original plan was to use seitan and I ran out of time. I had chicken defrosted for a different meal so I used that instead.

I made cauliflower fritters using my regular recipe/procedure. This was the first time I actually used feta and I liked it a lot. It gave a nice salty flavor and really made the fritters more interesting.

I also made something like chicken Cordon Bleu. I took chicken tenders and pounded them somewhat thin (though I should have gone thinner. I then laid a small slice (~1/3 oz) of swiss cheese and then a slice of ham. I folded it over and pressed it together. I tossed it in a bit of flour that had been salt and peppered. I then cooked them in the cast iron pan. I had a few problems with the pan. Most notably, I was unsure of how hot it was and I think it was still too cool when I added them.

Also, since my meat thermometer died, I was not able to check the temp. This led me to overcook them. Still, a combination of the gooeyness of the cheese and the saltiness of the ham made it pretty flavorful. I would do them again. Or something like it.

This was a big but not-too-difficult meal. I made roasted crispy potato chips (with some experimentation), Shishito / Twist Peppers (with dip) and a sautéed chicken breast.

Crispy Roasted Potato Chips

I have been trying to perfect roasted potato chips and I think this is the closest I have come. I was inspired by the technique for crispy roasted potatoes so that was the basis. I sliced a russet potato into 1/8" slices (second-smallest on the mandoline) and I put them into_rolling_ boiling water with a bit of vinegar and salt for 3.5 minutes. I wanted to make sure I was fully boiling since the time was pretty low. I drained the water, and rinsed them with cold water. I blotted them dry and placed half on parchment paper directly on the dray and half on a cooling rack (see photos below). I sprayed them with pam and the topped them with salt and pepper. I roasted them at 450 for 10 minutes, flipped them, and did another 10.

First of all, the ones right on the pan were crispier. For some reason, the ones on the cooling rack were crispy on the outside but less so in the middle. The chips in general were great! They were the best ones I have ever done in the oven. I wonder if a lower temperature for longer would be better next time? Some were a bit burned. And I wouldn't mind them drying out more. And next time, I'll skip the cooling rack

Shishito / Twist Peppers

Meredith and I have had shishitos before at a restaurant and really liked them. We finally found them at an asian supermarket and I brought some home. I roasted them following the directions from Love and Lemons. I did the following:

Layed them out on a tray with Aluminum foil. Sprayed them with pam and topped them with salt and pepper. I sealed it with more aluminum foil and roasted at 450 for 5-7 minutes (I did 7). Then I turned on the broiler, removed the aluminum foil and broiled them. The recipe calls for 2 minutes but they didn't seem done so I did them for 4. Next time, 3 would suffice.

They were pretty good though not as good as the restaurant. I have some left so I will experiment. Many web sites call for doing them in a cast-iron pan instead of the oven/broiler. I'll investigate that.

Pepper Dip

I threw together a dip with the ingredients you can see in the picture. The base was low fat mayo (which apparently has a "best by" of over 15 months ago. Oops. Oh Well...)

The dip was okay. Nothing too fancy but it served the purpose. I actually really liked it on the chips

Chicken

The chicken was pretty straight-forward. I flattened out a breast and I topped one side with salt, pepper and Trader Joes 21 Seasoning Salute. I cooked it in a frying pan, seasoning side down, and then seasoned the other side.

Nothing too fancy with it but it was surprisingly good. Not dry and it had enough flavor. I would do it again.

Photos

This page was converted from Wordpress with a custom script by Justin Winokur. Most links and images should still work. However, if any links are broken, see the HTML (or Markdown) source to try to deduce the intended destination.

I wanted to make broccoli and chicken in a "cream" sauce but I didn't want the calories. I decided to try to make a sauce with white beans to thicken. I also wanted to add a bit of bourbon to the sauce since I had a cream sauce earlier with dramboie which was really good. I read a bunch of different recipes and settled on doing the following for two servings:

I cooked it for a bit and moved it to a container and immersion blended it (It wasn't deep enough in the pan). I then added

*When I sliced the chicken, I found it was not as cooked as I thought so I sautéd it, sliced, in a separate pan to cook fully.

Overall, the flavor was a bit strange. It had a slight grittiness that could have been from the beans, though maybe form the corn starch. The coconut part of the almond-coconut milk gave it a slightly curry-esque flavor too. Overall, it was not amazing but not awful either. I would certainly try it again and try to improve upon it. I do really like the idea of the white-bean cream sauce since it give it a lot of protein without using real cream. And it is a very filling meal without a ton of calories. The color was also a bit strange but it is hard to see from the photo

I made chicken hash with rutabaga instead of potato. I followed the recipe pretty closely including the seasonings and timings. The only things I did differently was I added a bit of extra broth to the pan before the chicken went in because it was getting too hot and cooked. I also added a chopped tomato since I had it.

It came out really good. Lots of flavor and pretty easy to make. I should put this into more standard rotation.

I wanted a fast and quick meal so all I did was top some chicken with Emril Essence and cook it on the pan. It was actually really good and flavorful. The only thing is that I must have missed the thickest part when I took a temperature reading since there was a part not really cooked enough. I threw it in the microwave (which of course, over cooked it all)

I threw together chicken saltimbocca (ish). I started with chicken breast flattened out pretty well (though need to do more next time) with some salt and pepper. I topped it with a slice of extra-lean ham and then sautéed spinach-kale mix. A few pieces of fresh sage and some cut of ham on top of that. I rolled them up as best I could and used a toothpick to secure them.

I dredged them in flour with salt and pepper then cooked them on a medium-heat pan for 2 minutes on all four sides. I then added some chicken stock and white wine (not sure how much), covered them, and let them steam for a bit. When they were cooked through, I put them over some spinach-kale plus arugula mix and made a sauce in the pan with more wine and stock.

They were really good. Pretty easy and certainly interesting. Also, pretty low in points. It was basically just the chicken (though I wish I could fine smaller breasts) and the ham (which was super low). The only bad thing was I think my piece had some undercooked chicken that I didn't realize until it was too late. I was too afraid of overcooking them that I messed up. (I didn't get sick though)

I made chicken salad using some rotisserie dark meat (hence the "ish" of "Lite(ish)"). I made the salad with non-fat Greek Yogurt instead of mayo (hence the "lite").

Again, it was all to taste but pretty good. I think using greek yogurt was fine and the rest of the flavors were a nice addition. We served it on some bread and also in lettuce cups.

Meredith and I made Orange Chicken from this Kitchn recipe (local). We actually followed the recipe pretty closely except used only 1 lbs of chicken (but kept the rest the same). It worked pretty well except needed, desperately, to have less corn-starch. Easily use 1/3-1/2 of what the recipe calls for.

Other than that, it was pretty easy. We actually juiced 3 oranges but next time, we may buy orange juice.

We served it over cauliflower rice. Roasted the cauliflower for 35 minutes but skipped adding any parmesan cheese. (I also updated that recipe to add the cooking times)

We like the meal a lot. It wasn't too hard and it was also pretty low in calories. Especially since we used the cauliflower rice. I would put this into some type of rotation.

Recipe

Chicken in Orange Sauce (From The Kitchn)
Local Copy (U: "guest", P: name of my dog, lower case)

I made buffalo chicken cupcakes using my cupcake method with the addition of a tiny bit of cheese on the bottom too.

They came out incredible. Probably the best ones I've had (though I haven't made them in ages). There was a good mix of cheesiness, flavor, buffalo, and other spices. However... I was a bit curious about the nutrition; especially with the amount of cheese I used in the end. It was bad!!! See below.

Recipe / Process

Nutrition

I made the mistake of calculating the nutrition. I assumed I used about 4 oz of cheddar based on the size of the package. Obviously, this does not include the veggies.

The full breakdown is here. For all 12, it was 42 points plus. That is 3.5/cupcake.

Next time:

Most of these are about what I think I could give up to make it a bit healthier. Probably the biggest thing is less cheese and butter. I could also use less chicken though if I do, I want to bulk it up with even more veggies.

Meredith and I made chicken pot pie using this Martha Stewart Recipe (local). It felt like we stayed pretty true to the recipe, but when I started to note all of the changes, it turns out we made a ton.

But, it was very good. Pretty simple and rather healthy (except for maybe the biscuits). And, using already-cut rotisserie chicken made it even easier! At first, we were worried that it was a bit too buffalo-saucey but it mellowed in the oven.

We again struggled to get the biscuits to rise. They did so well the first time but the last time we did them again¹, they didn't rise. We even let these ones fully defrost! Well, it seemed to be the case again. We baked it for a long time but never got it to really rise. They were still tasty, but this was frustrating.

Changes

Recipe

I do not remember exactly when we tried again. Meredith thinks it was using leftover filling and made the next day. ↩

Meredith and I made this together. We made buffalo chicken stuffed peppers like we did on 2015-04-13 using this recipe. We really just used the recipe as a guide and we did it with rotisserie chicken (~2/3 lbs).

We again made it with lots of filler including 1/2 head of cabbage and some zucchini. Not sure what else...

This was nearly a complete repeat of the chicken pot pie (recipe) from last time. I think we even kept most of the changes. We also added a shallot since I thought I was going to have to use them instead of onions but we ran out and got more onions.

I think the only real change from last time was that we used less Franks Red Hot and we actually had lemon juice this time.

I have to say, this recipe is so easy and really good. I think this will become a winter-time staple. I also want to try doing it with Seitan some time (and then I guess Osem to make it vegetarian)

Meredith made chicken lap for lunches. She used Costco rotisserie chicken (sold separately as just breast meat) and this recipe as a basis. In addition to the recipe, she added:

It worked out well. Petty low points and a nice size lunch. Only down side was that it gave us both onion (shallot?) breath for the rest of the day.

Meredith and I made "tortilla" (without any tortilla) soup since we wanted to keep using the rotisserie chicken. We decided to follow Aaron Sanchez' (Local).

With the additional spices, I think it came out pretty good. It still needed more salt though. While we did like it, I still think it kind of lacked flavor. I wouldn't say this is "our recipe" but may be a good jumping off point in the future.

We also made a (1.5-2x) batch of Spicy Spiralized Shoe String Jicama Fries. We probably went heavy on the seasonings. Also, since they were so wet and we had the space, we used two trays to allow them to crisp more. They were really good.

Meredith did most of this making our usual Chicken Pot Pie with the same usual changes from 2015-11-09

We had a few without any topping it with the biscuits. I had some on mine and they were undercooked since I did it from frozen.

We made our usual Chicken Pot Pie (which I have now made into it's own page). We did the recipe and added Green Chile. I skipped both the lemon juice and the franks red hot. I think that the acidity/brightness was missed. But the chile was pretty good. It was spicy but could have used more flavor.

We also topped it with toast which was fine. Not as good as real biscuits (or presumably the phyllo). Worth doing again in the future.

Meredith has been really wanting to make something like Torchy's Taco Brushfire. Their description is:

We shredded it with a bit of marinade paste (there was a lot). We made the tacos with heated corn tortillas, the chicken, sliced mango, cilantro, greek yogurt (instead of sour cream), and some bottled Diablo sauce from Torchy's. We actually made 6 chicken breasts and froze a ton of the chicken for another day.

The chicken was pretty good though not really anything like Torchy's. But the other toppings combined to make it at least resemble Torchy's (makes sense with the sauce).

Overall, I think we would do it again, but maybe with a different jerk chicken recipe (though we first have to use up these leftovers)

Quick and fast meal. A chicken burger with some vodka sauce and roasted red pepper and a salmon burger with a little bit of mayo and Diablo sauce on the bottom plus more red peppers on top.

I hate to admit it, but I am kind of a sucker for the video/gif recipes. I saw this one somewhere and it came from Buzzfeed (LOCAL w/ video copy). So we tried to make it.

We didn't use their guac recipe. Meredith just made her own normal one (main thing is cumin in there). We basically halved the recipe except we used the full amount of bacon to make it easier to wrap.

You can see the photos below. I followed the general idea of the recipe though I struggled to get all of the guac in there (though we kept it clean from the chicken so we could snack on it).

The biggest problem was the temperature out of the oven. I ended up doing it about 20+ minuted total (more than double). But other than that, it worked pretty well and was enough of a project for a weekend but too hard.

I would consider it again in the future, but I do not think this comes out a bit unhealthy (probably not too bad).

By the way, I also had the two chicken tenders which I wrapped in bacon and baked.

I have been continuing to have fun with the sous-vide cooker. It really just makes it so easy. Meredith made her cilantro dip. I took two pieces of chicken and scored it a bit with a knife and then put tons of the dip in the bag.

I followed the Serious Eats guide and did the chicken at 150°F for about 1.5 hours. True to what they said, it came out a lot like normal chicken texture but still really moist. Still, given the flexibility, Next time I think 145°F will be better (between this and Serious Eats' next temp range).

Flavor wise, this was ok. I really like the dip but the chicken could have been brined or something to get more flavor inside it. And/or, it may have been better with a longer (or any) marinate time. We were going to marinate it for a bit but based on the timing, we decided to just let it cook longer (the beauty of Sous Vide).

We also had Kohlrabi we needed to use up. I was going to stir fry it but Meredith wanted to do something different so she decided to Kohlrabi Gratin from this NYTimes recipe (local).

It was pretty good. It was very reminiscent of other greek pie dishes. That is probably from the feta and dill. We would make it again.

Greek-Style Kohlrabi Pie or Gratin With Dill and Feta (from NYTimes)
Local Copy (U: guest, P: name of my dog, lower case)

Additional Photos

We made a meal heavily inspired by this Serious Eats Recipe (local), though we really didn't follow it at all except (sort-of) for the onions.

We used rotisserie chicken breast instead of cooking chicken. I just chopped it up into small pieces and then sautéed it a bit with some smoked paprika and garlic powder. Nothing special

Meredith made her regular Romesco Sauce¹ except she made her life much easier and used canned roasted peppers. Honestly, when they are in the sauce, you can't tell a difference and these were so much less work!

And for the onions, we did them on a sauté pan and seared them since they didn't fit on the grill pan. Other than being a bit hard to chew, they were really good.

Note to self, I should make the romesco it's own recipe page ↩

Our original plan was to make fresh/spring rolls, but we spent much of the night packing and just didn't feel like dealing with the rolls. So we made this into a salad.

Like I said, the plan was to roll it up but we decided to turn the sauce into dressing and make it a salad. Much easier and very good.

Meredith made the dressing inspired by The Food Network though we really only used that as inspiration so I am not copying it locally.

Cucumber Carrot Salad

We also made a cucumber salad with this Will Cook For Friends recipe (local). Meredith has done this before and it was good so she did it again. The only real change was the use the vegetable peeler on the carrots instead of the spiralizer. Also, she went on the light side of the honey.

Additional Photos

First meal in the new house! We needed something quick, easy, and healthy. We bought a Costco thing of rotisserie chicken earlier in the day and Smiths had a thing of 3 zucchini + 3 anaheim¹ peppers on sale since it was getting old. We did those plus another zucchini.

We did what has become our regular calabacita trick: butter. We used 2-3 Tbsp butter (but it made 4 servings) plus some adobo powder, salt, and garlic powder.

It came out really good. Not a ton of food since we divided it into 4 but it was enough. Also, this was our first time getting to test both the new kitchen and also the new cast iron pan.

This is a guess! They kind of looked like very long and smooth banana peppers. But they were also old. We're really not sure ↩

We made another quick meal. Just sautéed some onions and peppers in a bit of butter. We did this in the cast iron to get it nicely cooked. Then added chopped up Trader Joes' Spinach, Fontina, and Roasted Garlic Chicken sausage.

We had bought some pre-assembled chicken skewers for the night before and didn't end up needing them so we had them for dinner. They were Chicken Teriyaki. We just baked them for about 25 minutes at 375 with the Kohlrabi Gratin.

We did the same Kohlrabi Gratin as last time with most of the same changes except we actually had the Kohlrabi greens. It was, again, pretty good. We like this and will do it again.

We again used the grill but went on the easy side. We bought the Trader Joe's Genovese Pesto Chicken:

Sure, this was a bit cheating, but it was also a nice compromise between time and prep work. We followed rough the Weber suggested timings and did about 5-6 minutes per side over direct medium heat. (Meredith wouldn't let me use the meat thermometer so we went by feel. Haven't gotten sick yet!... yet...)

We actually didn't love the sauce. It was too lemony and tangy. I do like the idea, but we will try a different one next time. It was easy though.

Meredith also made caprese salad. We used fresh tomatoes and also some she made into "tomato confit". They had been getting super old and shrived but tasted fine. She halved them, added some salt, (maybe pepper), some fresh oregano¹ plus olive oil. She baked it for around 2.5-3 hours at 270°F. They were more like oven dried tomatoes, though they were already pretty dry.

For the caprese, she mixed that plus mini mozzarella balls, salt, pepper, some balsamic vinegar, and olive oil. Finally, she topped it with some (garden) basil and more oregano.

We think it is oregano. It may be marjoram ↩

We made jerk chicken tacos. Actually, we made about 4+ pounds of chicken froze 4 servings.

We used the same recipe as last time with about the same changes. Except this time we went heavy on the peppers. We used 8 peppers and only took out the seeds of some. It was HOT!

I marinated all of it for about 2 hours (there was more than enough sauce for all of the chicken). Then I grilled it on medium / medium-high. Actually, I ran out of propane right around the time I put it on, so I had to pull it off, change the tank, pre-heat, and then I grilled it. I was actually pretty sure I over-cooked it based on the temperatures, but it was super moist. I guess the marinate/brine did the trick!

I also made grilled artichokes mostly following this Simply Recipes] (Local ¹) version. They were smaller ones so we made a bunch. I also did not do anything wit the stems. But I basically followed it otherwise. They were pretty good. I probably didn't get too much "meat" off the them and I barely used the dipping sauce (leftover tzatziki) but I liked the flavor.

This was also just an intense meal since, besides grilling extra chicken, I grilled food for other meals this week. But it was worth it and I was really happy with it.

Additional Photos

2016-08-08 Update

We had frozen a good bit of the chicken. We reheated it in a pan with a little of water to keep it from drying out. It worked out pretty well. Maybe a bit more dry and chewy than when fresh, but still pretty good (and spicy). Also it was super easy to make and cook. If we have mango around, it is a great quick meal.

U: guest, P: name of my dog, all lower case ↩

We had friends over and wanted to make a nice meal. They were bringing sides so we focused on dinner and dessert (and eggplant).

Dinner: Chicken and Sides

We made Chicken Saltimbocca. All of the chicken breasts at the store were too big so we went with chicken tenders. I pounded them out a bit and then made a marinade of:

I let it marinate for a few hours. I then dried them off and laid down a layer of prosciutto and some fresh sage. I closed it up in half, put a toothpick through (the long way from the front to the fold), and dredged it with some flour (with a bit of salt and pepper).

I grilled them for about 6 minuted per side. They worked out pretty well. I think I a toothpick of two¹. But other than that, they were good. I do not know if I really got the wine though.

We also grilled some eggplant. Our friends brought a caprese salad and some cauliflower-broccoli salad. I really liked them both. We didn't make it, but they told us they reduced the balsamic first. I think I would try that in the future! It coated the stuff better and had a nice sweetness.

Dessert: Grilled Strawberry Shortcake

We also added a bunch of chopped lemon thyme from Meredith's garden and the usual heavy on the vanilla.

We planned to reduce the time. I do not know if the oven wasn't hot enough or I forgot convection (really not sure). But it took a lot longer. I eventually had to cover the top to not burn it and let the rest cook through.

After it was cool, I off four slices (8 total). I grilled them with the heat really low and coasted with melted butter (instead of oil). After I flipped them, I turned on the other burners on low and turn off the direct one while Meredith finished the strawberries. She macerated them with some additional lemon thyme and also lemon zest (and just a Tbsp of sugar). We did less sugar for the whipped cream (and a more soft-peak).

I forgot to take the final picture, but it was pretty good. The cake had a bit of crisp. It wasn't as heavy as a normal pound cake but I liked it a lot still. And the lines looked really fancy (even though it didn't make much difference).

It was also nicely moist (a concern for Albuquerque) but pound cake is pretty forgiving.

OOPS!!! ↩
U: guest, P: name of my dog, all lower case ↩

A quick meal. We quickly defrosted (pan with some water) frozen jerk chicken from 2016-07-31. We made cauliflower rice and then sautéed peppers and onions with some butter. Finally, we topped it with Diablo Sauce.

Quick, simple, and pretty flavorful. The chicken was a bit tough (and cold for some pieces) so I should be more careful with that next time, but the rest was really good.

Meredith and I made a really good meal. I had suggested a stuffed chicken of some kind and Meredith suggested a greek-spinach type stuffing.

I read a few things on how to prep it but there was a lot of mixed methods. I attempted to mostly-butterfly the chicken and then pound it out. Sadly, the cut was too deep on the first one. But the other was fine and I pounded it out pretty well.

We started by sautéing onions with some salt, dill, and oregano. Once they were ready, we wilted down some spinach. We added more of the seasonings then a bunch of chopped up lite feta. Afterward, we deglazed with white wine. As that simmered down, I added a tiny bit of half-and half. I let that cook down for a few minutes.

After we stuffed the chicken, we dredged it in flour. Again, different recipes suggested different ideas, but I decided to cook it on the stovetop for 2 minutes, flipped it for another minute. Then added a bit of white wine and put the whole pan right in the oven at 350. We tested it every once in a while until we felt it was cooked, about 15 minutes.

Meredith also made a tomato-artichoke salad. She mixed a diced tomato with artichoke hearts and seasoned it with salt, pepper, oregano, and red-wine vinegar. She also served hers with olives.

I really liked the chicken. There was a nice creaminess from the tiny bit of half-and-half. The chicken was cooked well (enough) and the flavors were pretty spot on. I need to work on cutting and flattening and stuffing chicken but I'll get better at it.

We followed this The Kitchn Recipe (Local Copy ¹) to make sheet pan chicken. The idea is pretty simple, you just cook everything in the sheet pan. We even decided to do it with skin-on chicken thighs (though we got ones with bones by accident).

We followed the recipe pretty closely except we also added some fresh (lemon?) thyme from the garden. We heated the pan in the oven as they suggested, and putting the chicken skin-down made quite a sizzle, it still was kind of mushy in the end! And since the skin was kind of mushy, we didn't eat that and therefore really lost all of the flavor.

The vegetables were fine. They didn't get too much more flavor than just salt. I think next time, they could use a bit more oil to get better texture and more flavor. (Though I dumped a thing of unground-salt on them but we were mostly able to avoid it). And we also did extra broccoli on the side.

So next time, I would either do a better treatment of the skin or just use skinless (and boneless). And maybe some more oil and seasoning on the vegetables.

U: guest, P: name of my dog, all lower case ↩

Meredith and I made something like chicken marsala but with sherry and we didn't really follow a recipe.

The veggies were based on 2016-06-14. Basically just sautéed onions with some salt and butter, then add mushrooms and let it cook down. Finally add a some garlic powder, a pinch of dried thyme and sherry. Spinach added at the end.

For the chicken, I pounded down some chicken. Not too flat but thinner. I let it sit with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. I then sautéed it in the cast iron for about 5-8 minutes on each side. Towards the end, both to add flavor and cook it more, I deglazed with sherry and put a lid on it.

It came out really great! Lots of flavor and easy to make. This recipe is a really great weekday meal.

I made Christmas (New Mexican for green and red chiles) enchilada casserole. I didn't really follow a recipe or anything since none of them sounded like what I wanted. Furthermore, my original plan was just green chile but the green chile sauce we had went bad so I had to improvise (and we did have some red).

So, I made the chicken part with frozen green chile and I used the remaining red sauce. I made the filling with an onion, a red pepper, a jalapeño, and some diced onions. In the mean time, I poached chicken breasts with some salt, pepper, and garlic powder. I then shredded them in the mixer. I combined it all, added some salt and pepper (plus what I used as I went along).

I decided to go lasagna style. I put some corn tortillas on the bottom and then layered the chicken mixture, red sauce, and (low-fat) cheese. I baked it at 350 for 15 minutes. I would have like to go longer but the low-fat cheese can dry out easily.

It was much less cheesy than, say, a restaurant style (good) but also less saucy (bad). And it did have a kick; probably from the frozen chiles. But I did still like it a lot! It also made pretty big portions! (I could have cut them down...).

I still want to do fully-green chile enchiladas sometime, but these were good too!

This was a super fast meal since we didn't really feel like cooking. I made green chile chicken by flattening and cutting two chicken breasts into pieces. I topped them with some salt and cumin. I then sautéed them and then added some white wine and a bit more cumin. After that cooked down, I added a ton of chopped of roasted green chile and (too much) lite cheese. That was really about all.

Super easy and really good. Maybe a bit too much cheese (and probably too much chicken). But other than that, and easy!

I made the pretty standard chicken pot pie with only a few modifications. We had a few extra leaks leftover so I used them along with a packet of green chile. Since there was already the green chile, I skipped the Franks and added some apple-cider vinegar (we were out of lemons). Finally, I added a bit of worcestershire sauce for more savory flavors.

I think that is about it. It was really good as usual. Served it some sliced bread to make it a really nice meal.

Meredith and I teamed up to make chicken enchilada "lasagna" similar to last time. Meredith started it with half an onion and two red bell peppers plus cumin¹, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

We had to take a break in the middle because of a dog emergency. When we got back, I finished it by adding mushrooms, chicken (around 1 pound) and green chile.

I added a bunch of canned green chile (505 Brand -- and not the sauce, just chile). I added some to the mix of chicken and stuff and then when I was layering it, I added a very thin layer. The layers were two corn tortillas, chicken mix, green chile (again, light on it) and then lite cheese. I made two of them.

I liked this though I think I liked the flavors more last time (though Meredith disagrees). It was also a bit spicy!

Meredith was in charge. That means lots of cumin ↩

This was a quick meal. Meredith had the idea to use up the rest of the vodka sauce. We had some chicken tenders so we cut them up, tossed them in some flour (with salt and pepper). I heated up some oil with a little bit of butter and sautéed it for a bit. When it was close to being finished, I tossed in the rest of the sauce and some zucchini noodles (there wasn't much left but it was enough). I let that simmer for a bit

We also roasted some Broccolini with just salt and pepper and roasted at 400°F for about 18 minutes.

I liked it enough. I think we should have used a bit more salt on the chicken and maybe a little less sauce.

I made green chile enchilada lasagna similar to 2016-11-01 and 2016-10-12. I still think the latter was my favorite (with a mix of red and green) but this was certainly better than last time. I used a whole onion and then added a thing of frozen bell peppers and onions. They let out a lot of water which was kind of annoying. I did use that as an excuse to add some better than bouillon. I also used salt, pepper, garlic powder, and cumin (just for Meredith). Finally, I added a ton of 505 Green Chile (not sauce, just the peppers) and some lite cheese

I also steamed about 1-1/2 lbs of chicken tenders (with a bit of salt and pepper) for 8 minutes and then shredded them. I added it to the onion mixture.

I layered it as tortilla, chicken mix, more green chile, and some lite cheese. I did two of these. Another change was that I covered it so it didn't get as dried out. I baked it at 350°F for ~18 minutes.

Meredith and I wanted to make a dinner that was a bit nicer than something we would do during the week but also not go too crazy. I did a bit of googleing and we came up with making Chicken Cordon Bleu and roasted potatoes.

Chicken

For the chicken, I very loosely followed this Betty Crocker recipe (Local ¹). We bought 2 breast for about 1.25 pounds of chicken² and flattened it out as best I could. I did some salt and pepper on both sides. I then spread some dijon mustard on followed by lacy (low fat) swiss and (low sodium) ham. As seen in the pictures below, we then added fresh chives (forgot before) but we ended up moving them down to the mustard layer.

I rolled them up as best I could and used a toothpick to hold it. We made an egg wash of 1 whole egg and a bit of water. I then took panko bread crumbs and broke it up and bit before adding salt, pepper, and hot-but-not-smoked paprika.

I put it in the oven at 375°F (+convection) originally for 27 minutes but ended up adding another 20 (47 total) since I kept getting some low temp readings (as well as high-temp ones. I was confused). In the end, I think it was fully cooked and wasn't too dried out. We cut them in half and saved two servings for lunches. The flavors were really good though. And, one of them came out really pretty as you can see in the photo below.

I also really liked having the mustard it in there. I am glad I read that addition.

Potatoes

At Thanksgiving, my mom made super delicious potatoes. They had a great texture with a crisp outside and a creamy center. It turns out she used canned potatoes. I was a bit surprised, but I think that was really the key. They were essentially par-cooked already.

I decided that I am comfortable using canned tomatoes all the time; why not canned potatoes. We used two cans of whole potatoes and tossed them with 1.5 Tbsp of melted butter. We used some Emril's Cajun Essence and Penzeys' Roasted garlic powder. I originally was going to do 40 min at 375°F (+convection) but since I had to let the chicken keep going, I ended up at an hour. I had tossed them every once in a while to keep them from burning.

They came out really good. Maybe not as good as my Mom's but still had a nice texture. And I want to explore using canned potatoes for other things.

Additional Photos

U: guest, P: name of my dog, all lower case ↩
The recipe says 4 breasts for 1-1/2 pounds. You really cannot find chicken breasts that small these days ↩

I had originally made three salsa chicken breasts to prep ahead but we decided to eat them tonight. I pounded out the chicken breasts and then topped them with salt, pepper, and Pace Salsa (Whole30 Compliant). I baked it at 375°F for 25-30 minutes until it was done. (actually, I went a bit too long).

I also made Shishito pepper using my recipe. I used some extra ranch dressing from the Cobb Salad we made (but didn't really write up, recipe here. Same as used for the Buffalo Chicken Casserole.

Update: Salad

We used the leftover chicken and sliced it up to be chicken on a salad. We made a dressing by mixing Pace Salsa with the Cilantro Sauce. It worked surprisingly well as a salad dressing.

This was a prep-ahead meal since Meredith needed to be out the door quickly. So all of the work was done on Sunday afternoon. This is to. be dinner and lunches for two people.

For the fajitas, I sautéed 1 large onion and 3 sliced (on the thin side) red bell peppers in ghee. I added some salt, garlic powder, and Penzeys' Mural of Flavor (see below).

For the chicken, I pounded it out just to be even and then put on some salt, pepper, garlic powder, and even more Penzeys' Mural of Flavor. I got the grill really hot to sear the chicken and then turned the heat to medium and did it for 4-6 min per side.

It came out really good. I liked the seasoning on both the chicken and the vegetables, though it was especially good on the chicken.

I also made a quick stir fry for just broccoli. I stir fried the broccoli and added salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. I then added a bunch (too much) coconut aminos. It was ok with the stir-fry. Maybe a bit too sweet.

Mural of Flavor

We tried to make a Whole30 version of our Chicken Pot Pie. We also wanted to make a larger thing of it to have lunch.

To bulk it up, we also added half of a spaghetti squash. And since we couldn't have Better Than Bouillon, we used chicken broth for some of the milk and for any extra liquid. We also used coconut flour. We obviously skipped the peas. Also, the carrots were from Meredith's garden.

Overall, it was not amazing. I am not really sure why. I suspect it was the spaghetti squash or the flour, but I really not sure.

We made Chicken Piccata using the same recipe as the first time. Last time we had to pan a bit too hot but it came out okay. This time, it was more of a train wreck. The walnuts didn't stick. Maybe they were too large pieces or because they were frozen. But they didn't work well.

Then they started to burn a bit more so we had to pull it off and get it in the oven. Also, when making the sauce, it was (a) burned and (b) a bit sour because of getting a bit too much caper juice.

I think this gave it a bad taste. I would certainly make it again since it was so good before, but this was not a good example of the recipe.

We made our standard Lasagna Soup again with the sauce mentioned on that post. I do not think we really did many other changes. We didn't end up using any kind of starch such as pasta or potatoes. We also just used some sliced mozzarella cheese and no parmesan

I had planned to make French Onion Soup a few days ago but didn't get to it until now. I caramelized onions a the night before I was supposed to make it but they ended up sitting in the fridge for a bit.

I heated them up but decided not to do the flour. I did however save the liquid from the 72-hour brisket. I used this as my beef broth, though it was less. The rest was chicken broth plus the wine.

On the chicken, I followed 2016-06-28 and did the chicken with a bit of butter, garlic, salt, pepper, roasted garlic powder, and Mural of Flavor. I let that sous-vide for 90ish minutes (probably more). I finally seared it on the pan for about 60 seconds per side.

I then made a bit of a pan-sauce from the liquid in the sous-vide bags. I liked the chicken a lot. A nice amount of flavor and (obviously) not overcooked.

The soup was fine. I thought it was maybe a bit too salty but that is pretty typical of soups.

I made salsa chicken salad as Meredith and I had done a bunch during Whole30. Meredith was kind of tired of it, but I liked it and she was out of town.

I baked a thinned piece of chicken, covered with Salsa, for about 23 minutes at 375°F. I then sliced it up and made a dressing like Meredith had done on 2017-02-09 (now Recipe Book). I think I used too much mayo but it was fine otherwise.

I also topped it with an egg and some chopped peppers. Again, too much mayo but I really liked it otherwise!

Meredith made a big batch of curry chicken salad with rotisserie chicken and made it about 6x the amount it calls for.

She followed the recipe pretty generally but accidentally used too much turmeric. It still worked pretty well. It had some spice from the cayenne and she used walnuts instead of cashews. Also, as usual used non-fat Greek Yogurt for the mayo.

Not too much else, but it was good as usual. And we have a ton of food for lunch for the next few days!

We also made broccoli with leftover tahini sauce from 2017-02-26. The broccoli was a bit overcooked and the sauce was old but it was fine.

This was a pretty straightforward meal. I sliced up an onion and a half and sautéed it with three bell peppers. I added salt, Penzeys Mural of Flavor, and some cumin as I went.

I pounded out about 1.4 lbs of chicken and topped it with the same seasonings and did it in the grill pa (It wasn't very nice outside, otherwise I would have done it on the grill itself).

We served it wit some low-fat sour cream. Nothing super fancy or complex (our tortillas went bad) but it worked fine. The flavor was pretty good and we got lunch out of it too!

I followed the Serious Eats recipe (Local¹) but with a 6.31 lbs chicken (Free range, organic, and on sale!). I watched some videos on how to spatchcocked it which was surprisingly easy!

I liberally spread on olive oil and seasoned it with lots of salt and pepper. Nothing else!.

I tried to also use the smoker boxes. I didn't put them under the grate since I knew I would have to flip it out later, but it should have worked. Maybe I soaked the pecan wood chips too long, or maybe they needed more heat, but I never saw it smoke and I certainly didn't taste it. I will read up on using these boxes later.

You're supposed to cook it on indirect heat for most of the time and then flip it onto the skin and cook on direct heat for the rest. However, it says at the bottom:

Well, two things went wrong here. First, in the actual recipe says to go to 110°F. I was aiming for 140°Fish due to the first instruction.

Well, when I checked on it the first time, it was about 110°F but I didn't realize that was done so I let it go longer. When I check again, it was easily >160°F. Oops! I flipped it to the hot side, reduced the heat, and just did it for 10 minutes.

Actually, being that it was with the skin and bone, it was perfectly fine cooked! Juicy and fairly flavorful. There wasn't much flavor other than chicken, but that is fine for not having brined it or even really seasoned it. However, I didn't taste a single bit of smoke.

I think next time I would be more adventurous with the seasonings. And maybe do some reading on those smoker boxes to get more flavor. And be more careful with the temperatures (though again, it was fine)

Photos