Thai curried chicken

This is a recipe I got from my Healthy Cooking magazine (love that magazine!) a while back and have saved for the kind of night when a warm crock pot recipe was warranted.  Tonight was that night - it's chilly, we're all tired, and I feel like I'm coming down with a cold.  Unfortunately, this dish lacked the kick I was hoping for.  The only real alteration I made was adding carrots to the crockpot for the last 20 minutes in order to make it an all in one meal.

• 2+ lbs chicken breast halves, ~ 6 breasts at 6oz each
• 1 1/4 tsp salt
• 14 oz. light coconut milk
• 1 tsp curry powder
• 1/2 tsp turmeric, ground
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 3 pieces green onions, sliced, divided
• 2 tbsp cornstarch
• 2 tbsp cold water
• 1-2 tbsp lime juice
• 3 cup hot cooked rice

Directions:
Sprinkle chicken with salt and brown both sides in a large nonstick skillet. Place in a 5qt slow cooker.
Combine the coconut milk, curry, turmeric and cayenne; pour over chicken. Sprinkle with half of the onions. Cover and cook on low for 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours or until chicken in tender.
Combine cornstarch and water until smooth; stir into slow cooker. Cover and cook on high for 30 minutes or until sauce is thickened. Stir in lime juice. Serve chicken and sauce over rice. Sprinkle with remaining onions.

Zuppa Tuscano

This original recipe comes from Epicurious.com, one of my favorite recipe sites.  I have made quite a few changes to the recipe, though, and the one I post here is my own version, but I'll try to mention some of the points at which I varied.

• 1lb mild ground Italian sausage
• ~2 medium potatoes cut into bite sized pieces
• ~1 medium onions, diced
• 2 large garlic cloves, minced
• 1 large bunch of kale, sliced with stems removed
• 32 oz. chicken stock
• 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream

Cook the sausage, garlic, and onions in a stock pot over medium heat until sausage is done, then remove from pot and set aside. To juices in pot add chicken base and potatoes and simmer until potatoes are done, then add sausage mixture back in along with kale and cream, stir well and simmer until kale has reduced in size (at least four minutes, though longer is certainly fine).  Like most soups, this is excellent reheated, too.  Serves 4 - 5

Now - I believe the original recipe calls for the use of 5 sausages instead of ground sausage (cooked and then sliced before adding back in later), several slices of bacon, sliced potatoes instead of chunks, minced garlic instead of fresh, only 3 cups of kale, and only 2T of stock (the remaining liquid being water).

No pictures this time - maybe I'll come back and add them in later.  Enjoy!

Spinach quiche

This is one of our favorite vegetarian meals.  I can't remember where I originally got the recipe, but it has evolved so much over the time I've been using it that I think I can almost call it my own. 

Prepare a pie crust (or you can use the pre-made frozen kind).  I use this no-roll pie crust recipe with whole wheat flour.

In a skillet melt 1/2 cup of butter, then add 3 cloves garlic (chopped) and 1 small onion (chopped) and sauté until tender.  At this point add spinach (I do this by sight.  I think the original recipe called for a 10oz package of frozen, but I use fresh and just eyeball it.  I'm sure I use more...), and a handful of mushrooms (sliced, and again, I eyeball this - it wasn't originally called for) and sauté until spinach has wilted and reduced in size.  To this mixture add 8oz of feta (I sometimes use 4oz feta and 4oz goat cheese) and 8 oz of shredded cheddar and season with salt, pepper, and Italian herbs to your liking.  Stir until melted, then spoon in to pie crust and spread out evenly.

In a separate bowl whisk together 4 eggs and 1 cup of milk, then pour this mixture over the contents in the pie crust.  Depending on how deep your pie crust is, this will be pretty full, so I usually do it on a cookie sheet.  Transfer pie to oven (on the cookie sheet is fine) and bake at 375 for 30 minutes, then sprinkle the more cheddar cheese over the top and cook an additional 20-30 minutes or until the center is set.  Allow to stand for 10 minutes before cutting (this is very important if you don't want to be serving goop).

Andouille and arugula penne pasta

I like saying arugula; it's just a funny word. Thankfully it's also a nice leafy green that has a tad of spice to it, which adds color and flavor to this tangy Italian dish that we recently discovered and added to our list of favorites. I found the original recipe, which calls for chicken andouille sausage, on allrecipes.com, but following is my own version of this yummy Mediterranean meal.

• 8 oz. penne pasta (we use Meijer brand whole wheat organic)
• 4 links spicy chicken andouille sausage (we used organic spinach chicken sausage from Arbor Farms)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic , minced
• 1/3 cup pesto (I make this from scratch with organic Basil, parsley, olive oil, pine nuts, Parmesan and Romano)
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 15 oz. cannellini beans, undrained (or aobut 1 cup beans rehydrated)
• 3 cups arugula leaves, torn
• 1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
• salt & pepper to taste
• 4 oz. goat cheese, crumbled

Prepare 8oz of penne pasta as directed by package

Meanwhile, in a heavy skillet over medium heat cook 4 links of chicken sausage. Remove from heat and allow to cool, then slice into bite sized pieces. (In our case the sausages were actually pre-cooked, so we skipped this step completely and just sliced the sausages and added them with the garlic in the next step)

After removing the sausage add 1-2T oil to the pan as necessary and cook garlic until browned (remember this is also where we added our pre-cooked sausages). Add sausage back in (if not already done so) along with pesto and white wine and cook until heated.  Add cannellini beans and arugula. Cook and stir until heated through and arugula is wilted. Just before serving add tomatoes and stir until warmed, then toss with pasta and top with goat cheese to serve. Yum!

Stuffed Portobellos

One of our goals in the new year is to make at least one meal each week a vegetarian meal. Not only will this be good for us physically, it is also good for the environment (it would be even better if we could also make it a locavore meal, but we'll work on that come better weather). So with every intention of starting the year right we ate spinach quiche last week and tonight we made stuffed portobellos. Yum. Here's what we did:

I bought eight medium sized organically grown Portobello mushroom tops (about 3-4" across) from our Meijer and gently washed them before removing the stems (they twist out easily, leaving a nice little divot).  When dry arrange mushroom caps in a glass backing dish.

In a small bowl I combine 1/3c each shredded mozzarella cheese, bread crumbs, walnuts (chopped), and onions (finely chopped), and 1/4t each salt and pepper.  In a separate dish combine 2T veggie broth (homemade is best - see our minimalism in the pantry post) with 1 egg and lightly beat the mixture with a fork.  Pour the egg mixture over the dry ingredients and stir gently until well blended.  Spoon mixture into mushroom caps and sprinkle with an additional 1/2 cup or so of mozzarella cheese.  Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes or until mushrooms are tender and cheese is melted and beginning to bubble and brown on top.  Yum.