Chicken Salad

For Debbie:

2 Chicken Breasts
Salt, Thyme, Lemon Peel
Mixed Greens (in this case, Boston Lettuce and Spinach)
1 Cucumber
2 Tomatoes
Dressing (in this case, Green Goddess)

The interesting stuff here is primarily in the dressing. We used the Penzey's Spices Green Goddess dressing base and mixed it up ourselves. I also used homemade mayonnaise (from How to Cook Everything, but recipes are pretty easy to find. Basically just egg, lemon juice, oil, and some spices). Any good herby dressing or vinagarette would work well, though. Then I put a little salt, thyme, and grated lemon peel on a cutting board and chopped it finely. Rub that on the chicken and let it stand for 10 minutes or so. Preheat the broiler and set the rack close to the heat. Brush the chicken with olive oil, and broil for about 4-5 minutes/side, or however long it takes to get done. Cut it into strips. The rub can be varied however you like, and can be omitted (at least salt and pepper the chicken, though).

Toss the greens and vegetables, serve in bowls with dressing and chicken strips on top.

Winter Stew

I made this stew on Sunday but we didn't eat it until Monday, as I could let the flavors spend a day diffusing. This is another dish where I was taking advantage of the new dutch over. We had some chicken thighs in the freezer, so I thawed them out, and decided to build a stew around them and some winter veggies (my measurements here are very inexact):

1-2 lbs. Chicken thighs
Salt and Pepper to season
1 lb (approx) Parsnips (chopped 1/4-1/2 in. thick)
1 lb (approx) Sweet Potatoes (chopped 1/4-1/2 in. thick)
2-3 cups Kale (chopped)
5-6 cloves garlic
1 onion, sliced
1 TB tomato paste
1 beer (stout)
Chicken stock
1/4 cup flour

Set oven to 300. Season the chicken and brown it in the dutch oven, medium high, set aside. Heat oil and sautee onion and garlic with the tomato paste, medium low, for 3-5 minutes. Add flour and sautee briefly. Add parsnips and potatoes, chicken, and pour the beer into the pot. Add chicken stock to bring the liquid level up to cover the ingredients halfway. Stir and put the pot, covered, in the oven. After half an hour, add kale. Cook an additional half an hour.

This turned out really well. I think maybe the stout was a bit too strongly flavored—next time I'd consider either a slighly lighter beer, or even some white wine. Some herbs might have flavored it a bit more, as well. A. thinks maybe kale and parsnips are too much, that one or the other would be a better choice, and have a more neutral veggie instead (or beans, since I know kale and white beans is a fairly classic combo). I did like, in this combo, the visual aspect of it—it looked like a basic stew, but the potatoes were actually parsnips and the carrots were actually sweet potatoes. We've got probably 4 servings left over.

There's a basic stew template in the Jan/Feb Cooks Illustrated that was indispensable for this, as it provides a good chart of times for various meats and veggies. This is the best basis for variation I've seen.

Chicken in a Pot

So, I got this great enameled cast iron dutch oven on Friday and wanted to try it out. So I went for the basic Chicken in a Pot, with a variation of cabbage and sour sauce (this particular one was from How to Cook Everything, but there's a recipe for it in pretty much any book). This was my first whole chicken, but it was pretty easy to manage. Not much to say about it, really, except that it's sort of time-consuming on the prep side. It made lots of leftovers and has lots of possibility for variation.

Orange Chicken

A. made dinner in the slow cooker from this recipe from Real Simple, and was not at all happy with how it turned out. The cook time is off quite a bit, and we ended up with cooked chicken, vegetables still raw, and the cooking liquid was separated. Basically the whole thing didn't have time to come together. I'm no expert in slow cooking, so I'm not sure what could be done to improve it - maybe chopping the potatoes, browning the chicken, and cooking on low for 8 hours would be a place to start. We've got a lot left over, so I've been thinking of how to salvage it. I'm going to try putting it in a stock pot, adding a little more liquid, and simmering it, covered, for the better part of an hour. It needs a lot more flavor to it, too, so I'll add a bunch of salt.

Chicken Pot Pie

Adapted from Joy of Cooking and the comments at Chow.com... It was basically successful, but a little too runny and needed quite a bit more seasoning.

3 Chicken breasts (about 1.3 lb)
1 Onion
2 Garlic Cloves
2 Potatoes (Yukon Gold, but only because the red potatoes at the grocery store were sprouting)
1/2 lb Green Beans
2 large Carrots
2 1/2 Cups Chicken Stock
1/2 Cup Flour
3 TB dry Marsala (I had a choice between sweet sherry and dry marsala... dry sherry would likely be the optimal choice)
6 TB butter
1 Sheet Puff Pastry
1 Egg

Began by poaching the the Chicken in the stock + water. Chop the potatoes and parboil them briefly. Sautee the onion and garlic in butter, add flour. Pour in 2 cups of Poaching liquid, strained. Add the veggies and the Marsala and cook briefly. Pour into baking dish, cover with Puff Pastry, brush with beaten egg and bake @ 400 for approx. 30 minutes. We had about 4 servings remaining for leftovers.

Note: Check the size of pastry with the size of dish before you get too far along... Maybe use more flour to keep it slightly thicker; cornstarch also might help. It filled out the dish pretty well, could maybe have added a cup or two additional veggies and still be manageable.