Pan Seared Chicken with Vegetables

Last week was a bit cooler, gray, and rainy. It looked like fall outside. What a perfect opportunity for some comfort food! This dinner filled our apartment up with warm and familiar scents, and made us really feel like it was November.

I took this recipe out of the March 2008 issue of Gourmet, generously provided by my good friend, Sasha. Sasha and her fiancee, Phil, are both wonderful and avid cooks! The original title is "Chicken in Riesling", but we didn't feel much like buying a bottle of wine to just use one cup for cooking. I think the wine would have added more flavor, but it was just fine with out. When I was at the store, they only had packages of chicken breasts with the skin and rib meat, no whole chickens, thighs, or pick-of-the-chicks. The recipe calls for 1 whole chicken, and I think that would have worked out much better, since the breast meet gets a bit more dry than everything else. And finally, the recipe calls for you to skin the potatoes, but then you are throwing away flavor, color, and nutrients!

In general, this was pretty good. Very comforting, easy, and a bit different from just baking chicken (but just about as easy). I should have seared my skin sides a bit more, and I think next time I make this I might brine it the night before, just so the chicken stays nice and moist. Greg and I also think that the presentation is nice. It's a bit rustic since you can present everything in the same dish it has been cooked in, but I think that adds to its charm!

Recipe:

About 3.5 lbs of chicken with bone and skin
1 TBS extra virgin olive oil
3 TBS butter, divided
4 leaks chopped or 2 C. sweet onion chopped
4 Medium carrots, halved
6 asparagus sprigs, cut into half
1.5 lbs small redskin potatoes
2 TBS fresh chopped parsley
1/2 C. heavy cream
1/2 C. lemon juice


-Heat oven to 350 degrees
-Rub chicken with salt and pepper.
-Heat oil with 1 TBS of butter in a wide oven proof pot or cast iron.
-Brown chicken in 2 batches. Transfer to a plate.
-Pour off fat from chicken. Add 2 TBS butter, leaks/onion and salt. Stir until golden.
-Add chicken, skin side up. Add carrots and asparagus. Add 1 C. of water or wine, boil until the liquid is reduced by half (about 4 minutes)
-Cover the pot and bake until the chicken is cooked through, 20-25 minutes.
-While chicken is baking, clean and boil potatoes until they are just tender. Drain, sprinkle with parsley, salt and pepper.
-Stir in heavy cream to the chicken, add potatoes and lemon juice.

-Enjoy!!!

Asparagus and Chicken Pizza

I love pizza. If I didn't care much for my health or wallet, I could probably eat pizza at least once a week. One of the qualities I love so much about pizza is that anything goes. Literally, anything. You can eat pizza in just about any setting, too. It's nice stadium food, but it can be dressed up with goat cheese and roasted veggies and served with a glass of wine.

Making pizza is pretty great, too. Especially with the wide variety of pre-made crusts. I prefer the Jiffy mix (a whole whopping 49 cents for a box!), and add Italian herbs while I mix it. I think the crust gets a bit more firm than the chilled doughs, too. But that might be due to the directions; the box calls for you to pre-bake the crust, then add toppings. I'm sure this would work just fine for the roll out doughs.

Greg and I love chicken on our pizza, but it's often such an expensive item to add. It just makes more sense to make our own. Asparagus was on sale this week, so that prompted the Asparagus-Chicken combo. We also added the zest of 1/2 lemon. It turned out really well! It felt very summery because of the asparagus and lemon (it washed down great with a glass of fresca). I think the bright green is so pretty, too. All in all, I'm pleased with how this turned out. I think a bit of asiago cheese would compliment the stronger flavor of the asparagus, and next time I'll probably add a bit in.

Recipe:

1 box Jiffy pizza mix
1/2 tsp Tuscan spice blend (We really like Penzey's).
1/2 C. hot tap water
1/2 can of pizza sauce
8 oz. shredded mozzarella
1/4 C. parmesan, shredded or grated
3-5 sprigs of asparagus, depends on how thick they are
lemon zest to taste
3 chicken breast tenders
1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
1/8 tsp each of rosemary, basil, oregano
1 tbs corn meal

-Mix Pizza mix with Tuscan blend and water according to directions, let stand.

- Heat olive oil and spices in a pan. Cut chicken into bite size pieces. Add the chicken to the oil, stir fry until just about cooked.

-When the dough has risen, sprinkle corn meal onto a baking sheet. Spread the dough out into a rectangle. If you use the Jiffy Mix, I've found it very helpful to keep my hands wet to keep the dough from sticking to me. Pre-bake according to directions.

-Rinse asparagus and cut into 1 inch pieces. Cut width in half if needed.

-When pre-baked, add pizza sauce, shredded mozzarella, parmesan, asparagus and chicken. Add the zest of lemon on top.

-Bake as directed by pizza dough. Let cool.

-Enjoy!!!

Open Asparagus Sandwich

One word: Fantabulous. I first saw a picture of a very similar sandwich on Food Network's website. After seeing what looked like the perfect summer sandwich, I started browsing the web for other variations. More or less, each and every picture I found looked better than the one before, and I knew that we needed to try this sandwich.

Most pictures and recipes called for, or showed the sandwich on a traditional baguette; white bread. Greg and I adore good wheat bread, and found a nice multi-grain baguette at the grocery store (Meijer, actually!) and opted to use that instead. I also decided to use shredded mozzarella instead of a slice, because it seemed that a slice would take away from the flavors and add a lot of grease. I decided to brush my bread with a rosemary, black pepper and sea salt olive oil mix to spice things up a bit; I'm very glad I did. I described the sandwich to my mom and she suggested using provolone instead of mozzarella, and that she had seen an onion and rosemary loaf that would work really well, too. This just goes to show that it's a versatile sandwich as well.

Over all, this sandwich is indeed, fantabulous. I can't wait to have another one tonight with Greg, and to keep making them through out the rest of the summer!

For the recipe, I am giving the ingredient amounts for 1 sandwich, so it can easily be multiplied.

1 slice of French of Italian bread on a sharp angle.
2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1/8 (a dash) of crushed rosemary
a pinch of black pepper and sea salt
2 piece of asparagus
1/4 tsp lemon zest
2 slices of tomato
1 tbs mozzarella cheese
2 slices of ham

Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Combine olive oil, rosemary and sea salt in a bowl, set aside
Slice bread and brush each side with the olive oil mixture, place in heated oven
Cut each asparagus piece in half after trimming the ends
Place the asparagus and lemon zest in sauce pan with about a half inch of water, turn to boil and cook until tender crisp
Slice the tomato
Once the bread is crisp on the edges and the asparagus cooked (about 5 minutes max) remove the bread, keeping it on a baking sheet, and drain the asparagus.
Place the ham on the bread, then layer with tomato, asparagus, and mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle with a little black pepper.
Place back in the oven for about 2 minutes until the cheese melts.
Remove and let cool for a minute or so.

Enjoy!!!