Today’s menu: Chicken Saltimbocca with pasta and marinara sauce.
This recipe features chicken tenders pounded flat and topped with prosciutto, spinach and shredded cheese, all rolled up and pan cooked in olive oil. The pasta was laced with broccoli and the leftover spinach.
Outstanding!
Beautiful! The chili is made using two shredded chicken breasts, 4 large tomatillos, 2 Anaheim chilis, 1 cup broccoli florettes, 1 cubed potato, 2 celery sticks, ½ brown onion, 2 cloves garlic, 2 14 oz. cans chicken broth and a tablespoon of flower. It’s seasoned with salt, pepper, a teaspoonful of ancho chili powder, a bay leaf and a tablespoonful of cumin. Garnish with avocado slices.
Start out with a couple of large boneless skinless chicken breasts. Cover the chicken with chicken broth in a pan and poach for about 30 minutes or until well done. Remove and set the chicken aside to cool. Put four large tomatillos (or enough for about a half-pound) into the hot broth and cook for about 10 minutes. The tomatillos will be done when the skins become translucent – you can tell by the change in color.
Put the two Anaheim chili peppers directly on a burner set to low heat on the stove top. Turn the peppers as the outer skin becomes singed to blacken all sides. After the skin is singed, cut the peppers lengthwise into several slices. Scrape out the seeds and discard. Take a table knife and remove the singed skins and discard. Chop the remaining chili pepper flesh into half-inch squares.
Next, shred the chicken with a couple of forks. Season with salt, pepper and ancho chili powder. Put into the crock pot with diced potatoes, broccoli florettes, coarsely chopped celery, chopped onion, the chili pepper squares and a couple cloves of minced garlic. Transfer the chicken broth and the tomatillos into a blender and puree. Add pureed tomatillos to the crockpot. Add enough additional chicken broth to cover the ingredients along with a tablespoon of flour. Cover the crockpot and cook on high for about four hours. Serve in bowls and garnish with freshly sliced avocado slices. Season to taste.
Delicious and waistline friendly. Serves four to six. Click on the image to enlarge.
What a great Sunday! After a nice outing to the shooting range, we came home and prepared our annual Superbowl Barbecue. The game is great (still watching it as I type), and the meal was outstanding. The chili had been cooking all day in the crockpot and was ready by the time the hamburgers and hot dogs went on the grill. The menu consisted of oven-baked potato wedges, chili dogs and chili-cheese-avocado burgers. Very filling – we took our walk while the Weirdos were performing at halftime. I think that was the name of the group.
Damsel took these photos of the food.
Here’s a recipe suggestion for Kini, who commented yesterday about fixing something other than chili in the crockpot.
This meal was adapted from a Rachael Ray recipe, with Andouille sausage, cubed chicken and shrimp. The original recipe calls to cook some of the ingredients in a skillet, but we toss everything in the pot and cook on low for six or seven hours. Everything cooks in the broth and the results are essentially the same. We don’t toss in the pre-cooked frozen, cleaned shrimp until about 20 minutes before serving time. We prepare the rice per the package instructions and serve the jambalaya over a scoop of rice in a bowl. Oh yeah, I forgot – we always chop up a couple cloves of garlic since the original recipe left it out for some reason.
A couple weekends ago, we broke in our new crockpot. Today, we’re breaking in a new steamer. We have prepared this particular dinner several times since we saw the recipe on The Food Network by Chef Tyler Florence. It’s called Steamed Soy-Marinated Chicken. In the past, we used a traditional bamboo steamer over a wok filled with water just to the bottom of the bamboo.
A couple of years ago, we got this counter-top steamer from Mom and Dad. We almost forgot about it until the other day when Damsel ran across it in our storage closet.
Right: Steamer all loaded and ready to go. (Click for a close-up)
Here’s the recipe that we used:
1 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon peanut oil
½ lime, juiced
1 (1-inch) piece ginger, sliced thick
1 cloves garlic, sliced
1 handful cilantro, chopped
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 head savoy cabbageInto a large, re-sealable plastic bag add the soy sauce, sesame oil, peanut oil, lime juice, ginger, garlic, and cilantro. Seal the bag and shake it to mix the ingredients. Add the chicken breasts and shake it again. Let the chicken marinate in the refrigerator for at least 1/2 hour or up to overnight.
Pour about 1-inch of water into a wok and bring it to a boil over high heat. Line the bottom of a bamboo steamer with a layer of cabbage leaves. Place the marinated chicken on top of the leaves. Cover the steamer and put it into the wok. Steam the chicken until it is cooked through, about 10 to 15 minutes.
And here’s the delectable result: Steamed soy chicken with baby spinach, bok choi (grown in our garden and harvested yesterday) and savoy cabbage with saffron rice. The greens had a wonderful Chinese dressing with soy sauce, sesame oil, honey and rice wine vinegar.
Feast your eyes on these beautiful shish kebabs as they cook on the grill. When we finished grocery shopping this morning, we came home and cut up a tri-tip (bottom sirloin) roast into chunks, removed the stems from some fresh mushrooms and put them in a marinade consisting of extra-virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, chopped rosemary leaves and minced garlic.
We also boiled up some red bliss potatoes, Brussels sprouts and diced acorn squash chunks. We only boiled them until the potatoes were just barely fork-tender. These were drained and set aside to cool.
While the vegetables were cooling and the meat marinated in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, we watched some football and visited with the family at a nearby eatery. We didn’t order any food, though, since nothing on their menu could possibly compete with what we were planning to have for dinner.
At the left, you can see the meat and veggies on the skewers before we put them on the grill. Notice the rich deep-brown color of the marinated beef and mushrooms.
Click on either picture to see a closer view.
On the side, Damsel prepared a pasta salad with orzo, cherry tomatoes, broccoli, olives and artichoke hearts. I have to tell you, this was a great meal – and certainly better than anything on the menu at the eatery where the family gathered.
One of the keys to enjoying our weekly trip to the firing range is to have a good Sunday brunch beforehand. This is a nice ham, cheese and avocado omelet (low cholesterol version with egg substitute and just a trace of cheese), hash brown potatoes and a whole grain English muffin. On the side, a S&W 686 .357 magnum revolver with a Glock 26 9mm pistol. Tasty.
