Pizza with Ground Chicken

Originally, the ground chicken was supposed to be used for chicken burgers. However, I had that sitting in my fridge as well as pizza dough that seemed to expand with each passing second. The pizza dough was supposed to be used for a grilled pizza with mozzarella and basil. Because both items had to be used, I improvised on the recipe. In fact, much of this recipe was improvised. I thought that we had enough tomatoes, however the husband used them all up while eating salads. No big deal. I went to our "pantry" (the term is used loosely since we don't have a real pantry, but merely some shelves in the mudroom) to grab canned diced tomatoes, oops out of luck again. The only thing we had was a 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes. I was hungry so I just went with it. The result was delicious.

1 (28 oz) can of crush tomatoes, partially drained
1.5 cups of grated mozzarella cheese (I grated fresh mozzarella cheese that I froze 30 minutes prior)
1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions
1/2 cup thinly sliced basil
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1 package of store bought pizza dough
cornmeal
1 pound ground chicken

1. Preheat oven to 425F.
   
2. Mix together first 7 ingredients in a medium bowl. Let tomato mixture stand 15 to 30 minutes at room temperature.
   
3. Cook ground chicken in a skillet until thoroughly cooked; drain. Add to tomato mixture.
   
4. Sprinkle cornmeal on cookie sheet and roll out pizza dough to the edges.
   
5. Pour tomato mixture on dough and place in oven for 20-25 minutes.
   

Potato, Chicken, and Fresh Pea Salad

Guess where this recipe came from? It is from the April 2009 issue of Cooking Light. The magazine just came in the mail the other day is chock full of recipes that I want to try.

This recipe is very easy and quick. It was definately a satisfying meal that would be great to make after work as it is very fast. The husband said that it was very oniony and garlicky, but I love food with garlic and onion.

The list of ingredients called for chicken from a store bought rotisserie chicken. I am sure that one could cook up the chicken in a skillet if they so desired. I went with the rotisserie, it is easy and tastes great. Also, it was on sale this week at the grocery store and in these times it is helpful to look through the grocery circular when planning out the weekly menus.

1 pound potatoes cut crosswise into 1 inch pieces (fingerling potatoes were listed, but I used extra Yukon gold that I had)
2 cups fresh sugar snap peas
2 cups chopped chicken breast
1/2 cup finely chopped red bell pepper
1/2 cup finely chopped red onion
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 minced garlic clove
*1 teaspoon minced fresh tarragon was listed, but I omitted it

1. Place potatoes in large saucepan; cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes or until almost tender. Add peas; cook 2 minutes or until peas are crisp-tender. Drain; place vegetables in a large bowl. Add chicken, bell pepper, and onion.
   
2. Combine oil and remaining ingredients, stirring with a whisk. Drizzle over salad; toss gently to combine.
   

Yield: 4 servings.

Chicken Enchilada Casserole

How not original of me...after promising some recipes that didn't come from Cooking Light, I went back to one of my Cooking Light cookbooks. Whatever, I like it. Cooking Light has great recipes that I don't feel guilty about after eating. The original recipe called for a 1/4 cup beer, but I didn't have any (read the paragraph below for an explanation). I felt like it turned out fine without it and will post the recipe without.

This one is a very time intensive project. I had originally intended to make this dish on Sunday. However, I was wiped out from the previous evening. We were up sooooo late. Saturday evening started off innocently enough with burritos from Anna's Taqueria. A full posting must be dedicated to the deliciousness that is Anna's, perhaps a guest blogger Browning or her husband who asked to be named as Tonto on the blog could write it? I would be honored if they did...Anyhow back to Saturday, we had burritos for dinner. The husband opened up a bottle of wine. Then we opened another bottle of wine, then another, a few beers, then I dragged the neighbors upstairs (we all know what can happen then). The next thing I knew, we were in the early morning hours of Sunday watching Browning Moonwalk.

While I felt completely fine on Sunday, due to drinking a lot of water with my wine and cutting myself off early, I was wiped out. I didn't feel like making dinner. I was going to opt out of this dish completely and do something else with the chicken. However, as I got home from the gym on Monday, the husband had already started to prep the recipe. It took a long time, but it was worth it. I love enchiladas but lack the skill of wrapping them well. A casserole is a great solution.

1.25 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast
1.5 cups chopped onion
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 (28 oz) can whole tomatoes, drained and chopped
1/2 cup thinly sliced green onion
1 (2.25 oz sliced olives)
5 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
2 cups milk (the original recipe calls for 2%, I used skim and it was fine)
6 tablespoons egg substitute (or 2 large egg whites)
1.5 cups shredded Mexican cheese mix
6 (6 inch) corn tortillas cut in half
Sour cream and salsa to top

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
   
2. Brown chicken in a skillet. Cook 6 minutes on each side or until done. Remove chicken from pan; cool. Shred chicken with 2 forks (something I lack the patience for after the gym when I am hungry).
3. Add chopped onion and garlic to pan saute 5 minutes. Add shredded chicken, red pepper, and tomatoes. Cook until liquid from tomatoes almost evaporates. Reserve 1 tablespoon green onions and 1 tablespoon olives for garnish. Stir in remaining green onions and olives into chicken mixture.
   
4. Combine flour, salt, cumin, and coriander in a medium saucepan. Gradually add milk, stirring with a whisk until blended. Place over medium heat; cook 7 minutes or until thick, stirring occasionally. Gradually add milk mixture to egg whites, stirring constantly with a whisk.
   
5. Spread 1/2 cup white sauce in bottom of a 2.5 quart round casserole dish coated with cooking spray. Arrange 4 tortillas halves over sauce; top with 2 cups chicken mixture, 1/2 cup white sauce, and 1/2 cup cheese mixture. Repeat layers twice, ending with sauce. Set remaining cheese mixture aside.
6. Bake uncovered, at 350F for 40 minutes or until hot. Sprinkle with remaining cheese, reserved olives and green onions; bake an additional 5 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes to cool. Top with salsa, sour cream, and in my case jalapeno pepper slices (I omitted the green chili peppers for the husband).
   

Boston Restaurant Week - Tresca

Yay! It's time for Restaurant Week in Boston again. This weekend, my dear friend (and one of my favorite people) is visiting Boston. Browning is here to visit me and her friend, Jeslyn. She is Browning's best friend from school and someone that I am so fortunate enough to have cultivated a friendship with because of Browning. This visits will become much more frequent with her and her family's impending move to Western Mass. Just under two hours is a lot more doable for visits versus four hours. I am so excited to have Browning, her adorable daughter, and hilarious husband much closer to me.

Back to the food. Last night Browning, Jeslyn and I went to dinner in the North End. Earlier in the week, Jeslyn sent an e-mail with a few recommendations for dinner. In the end, she decided on Tresca. None of us had ever been before and were very pleased with Jeslyn's selection. We got to the restaurant about a half hour prior to our reservation and sat at the bar for a glass of wine. While sitting, we were offered a plate of calamari by one of the restaurant's regular patrons. At first, we declined but he insisted a few times. Due to my hunger, I took this gentleman up on his generous offer. The calamari was excellent. I liked the spicy aioli sauce with the calamari. In fact, I liked it so much that when we sat at our table, we ordered another plate of it.

During Restaurant Week, patrons are offered a limited prix fix menu. A three course dinner is available for $33.09. Despite the fact that the menu is limited, the dishes are all excellent. Had it not been for Lent, I would have had a very hard time choosing something to eat. The first course was the Insalata Campo. It was a very generous dish of greens that did not disappoint. My second course was a gnocchi course with wild mushrooms. The final course was haddock with an artichoke and potato puree. None of the courses disappointed. If I had to pick a favorite course, I would select the gnocchi. The portion was reasonable and the sauce was not too heavy. The gnocchi seemed to melt in my mouth.

We declined to get dessert at the restaurant and instead decided to head to Mike's Pastry so that I could pick up a little something sweet for the husband. I opted to get him a black and white cookie as well as a cannoli. The girls got a black and white cookie as well as a lemon cookie.

In summary, it was a great evening. The food was delicious and the company was fantastic. In retrospect, I am glad that Jeslyn picked a restaurant that was very busy and had a lot of background noise as we were laughing throughout dinner. These two woman are absolutely wonderful and hilarious.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I wore green today, though show off my Irishness through that pasty white skin that I have (there is no hope of a tan with this skin). The celebration of St. Patrick's Day started on Sunday when my neighborhood hosted the annual parade in the streets of Boston.

For tonight's dinner, I decided on Shepard's Pie, though it's origins are British. I really didn't want to have corned beef and cabbage. Can I say the use of mashed potatoes make it Irish?

I pulled this recipe off the Food Network website when I did a search for St. Patrick's Day recipes. I thought it was good, though it could have had a little more flavor.

Please note that kudos go to the husband. He started peeling the potatoes before I even got home from work. He also did the mashing to the potatoes.

2 pounds potatoes, such as russet, peeled and cubed
2 tablespoons sour cream
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup chicken broth (cream can be used, but I opted for the lighter option)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1.5 pounds ground turkey (ground beef or lamb was suggested, but I wasn't into that idea)
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup beef broth (I cheated on giving up red meat here)
2 teaspoons Worcestershire
1/2 cup frozen peas

1. Boil potatoes in salted water until tender, about 12 minutes. Drain potatoes and pour them into a bowl. Combine sour cream, egg yolk and cream. Add the cream mixture into potatoes and mash until potatoes are almost smooth. I added a bit of butter to give the potatoes a little more flavor.
   
2. While potatoes boil, preheat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add oil to hot pan with ground turkey. Season meat with salt and pepper. Brown and crumble meat for 3 or 4 minutes. If you are using lamb and the pan is fatty, spoon away some of the drippings. Add chopped carrot and onion to the meat. Cook veggies with meat 5 minutes, stirring frequently. In a second small skillet over medium heat cook butter and flour together 2 minutes. Whisk in broth and Worcestershire sauce. Thicken gravy 1 minute. Add gravy to meat and vegetables. Stir in peas.
3. Preheat broiler to high. Fill a small rectangular casserole with meat and vegetable mixture. Spoon potatoes over meat evenly. Top potatoes with paprika and broil 6 to 8 inches from the heat until potatoes are evenly browned. Top casserole dish with chopped parsley and serve.

Though this was not an Irish dish I did have a Guinness with dinner. Enjoy your St. Patrick's Day. Slainte!

White Pizza with Artichokes and Chicken Sausage

I promised that I would look for good recipes that came from other places other than Cooking Light. Success was found! I consulted my Good Housekeeping Best One Dish Meals cookbook in the hopes that I could find something easy, as the "one dish" descriptor would indicate.

As this was made after coming home from the gym after work, I had help from the husband who is an excellent sous chef. He is the one that rolled out the pizza dough and did the chopping. What a great guy!

We were both very happy with the results of this dish. Initially, this recipe was selected because it called for marinated artichokes and the husband is a big fan of artichokes. I liked that it called for chicken sausage (again, the road to going vegetarian will be a long, long, long road). I also liked that the prep time was listed as only 15 minutes with 15 minutes of baking time. Please note that was the listed time, prep took about 25 minutes and we kept the pizza in the oven for 20 minutes to make it crispy.

1 jar (6 ounces) marinated artichoke hearts
8 ounces sweet sausage links, casings removed (the recipe called for turkey, I used chicken instead)
1 chopped medium onion
4 ounces sliced mushrooms
1 pound pizza dough (because I knew this would be an after-work/after-gym recipe I used store bought dough)
6 ounces shredded pizza cheese (I used a Sargento mix of pizza cheese. The original recipe called for Swiss or Jarlsberg)
Cornmeal for sprinkling

1. Drain the artichoke hearts, reserving marinade; coarsely chop artichokes.
   
2. Heat 2 tablespoons marinade from artichokes over medium -high heat. Add sausage meat and onion and cook until lightly browned; transfer to bowl. In the same skillet, heat 2 more tablespoons of the marinade; cook mushrooms until lightly browned. Stir mushrooms and artichokes into sausage mixture.
   
3. Preheat oven to 425F. Sprinkle cornmeal on cookie sheet. Press dough into 15" by 10" rectangle. Sprinkle half of cheese over crust, top with sausage mixture, and then with remaining cheese. Bake on bottom rack rack in oven 15 minutes or until crust browns and cheese is bubbly.
   

Makes 4 servings.

Vegetarian? What gives?

A few postings ago, I wrote that I was trying to become a vegetarian. That is still the ultimate goal, however it is going to be an extremely slow process. I really like chicken and turkey. I think I want one more Thanksgiving with turkey and its fixings before I give up on meat completely.

In the meantime, I will be giving up red meat. This is shocking to some as I grew up in a household where steak is a cherished protein. It is quite tasty, but it isn't a healthy option by any means.

Who knows, I may go back to red meat at some point.

Smoked Salmon and Pasta

It was another Friday during Lent. For non-Catholics, it means no meat until Easter on Fridays. For the first Friday, I went with sushi takeout. As much as I would love to have sushi take out each week during Lent, it just isn't practical especially in this uncertain economic times. Therefore, I have been looking for fish recipes for Fridays. The challenge is that the husband and I do our grocery shopping on Saturdays, fresh fish should be eaten on the day it is purchased. I am going to have to get a bit creative with my Lenten Fridays.

I found this one when I was perusing, a Cooking Light cookbook. I recognize that I am starting to sound like a broken record with these recipes. I will try to look through other sources, but I am not promising anything.

1/2 pound pasta (pappardelle was suggested, but use whatever you feel like)
1 teaspoon butter
2 cups chopped onion (I opted to thinly slice mine vs. chopping)
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup cream cheese, cubed (I ignored CL's 1/3 less fat cream cheese and went full fat)
1/2 cup chopped plum tomatoes
1 (10 ounce) package of frozen peas, thawed
1 (4 ounce) smoked salmon fillet cut into small pieces (I opted to use a package of lox)
salt and pepper to taste

1. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and keep warm.
2. Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion, saute until tender. Add broth and cheese, stir until cheese melts; stirring frequently. Add tomato, peas, and salmon, cook 3 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Add salt and pepper.
   
3. Combine pasta and salmon mixture in a large bowl, toss gently.
   

Yield: 4 servings.

Mediterranean Chicken Breast

It's another slow cooker recipe. I am liking going back to the gym and have easily fallen back in love with yoga and spinning classes. The downside is that I am not doing this in the morning anymore. I am going to the gym across the street from work and go after work. This gets me home from work anytime between 6:45 and 8:00 pm depending on whether or not I went at lunch. The upside is that my slow cooker has been getting a lot use.

I enjoyed all the flavors of this dish, while the husband said it was a bit too salty for his liking. To cut back on the salt aspect, I would suggest adding more lemon juice than what is suggested. I will recap the original recipe. Please make your own modifications if you want to cut back on the salt.

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 cup wild rice (I used plain old white rice)
10 cloves of garlic, smashed (I like to do this chef style)
1/2 cup oil-packed or sun-dried tomatoes
1/2 cup capers
2 cups water
1/2 cup lemon juice (fresh or bottled, whatever you have time for)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Place chicken in slow cooker. Add rice, garlic, tomatoes, and capers; stir well.
   
2. Mix water, lemon juice, and oil in small mixing bowl. Pour mixture over rice and chicken. Stir once to coat chicken. Cover; cook on Low 8 hours.
   

Tex-Mex Calzones

I made this dish a few weeks ago and am finally getting around to posting. This is another semi-guilt free recipe from Cooking Light. I say semi-guilt free as I don't necessarily follow all the instructions from CL. I added extra cheese and used full fat sour cream to top of the calzones.

This is a relatively easy recipe to make. It does involve rolling out pizza dough, rolling out any sort of dough is not my favorite activity. Those close to me know that I lack patience. I get easily frustrated when the dough breaks apart and I have to start over. To relieve this stress, the husband was great sous chef and rolled out the dough for our dinner.

I was quite pleased with how this dish turned out. It was full of flavor from the peppers, spices, and salsa. It withstood the leftover test and tasted great at work the following day. I had so much fun with these calzones that I see a variety of calzones in the future.

8 ounces ground turkey breast
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped green pepper
1/2 cup chopped red pepper
3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground chili powder (I omitted this per the husband's request)
2 minced garlic cloves
1/2 cup salsa verde (I used store bought)
1 (11 ounce) can of refrigerated pizza dough (I used a bag of pizza dough from my trusty Stop & Shop)
3/4 cup pre-shredded Mexican blend cheese (I probably used more)
1/4 cup sour cream (I didn't measure this out)

1. Pre-heat the oven to 425F.
2. Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Add ground turkey to pan; cook 3 minutes, stirring to crumble. Add onion and next 5 ingredients (through garlic) to pan; cook 4 minutes or until vegetables are crisp-tender, stirring mixture occasionally. Remove turkey mixture from heat; stir in salsa.
   
3. Unroll dough; divide into 4 equal portions. Roll each portion into a 6x4 inch rectangle. working with one rectangle at a time, spoon about 1/2 cup turkey mixture on one side of dough. Top with cheese (to your liking, CL suggests 3 tablespoons of cheese); fold dough over turkey mixture, and press edges together with a fork to seal. Place on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Repeat procedure with remaining dough and turkey mixture. Bake at 425 for 12 minutes or until browned. Serve with sour cream.
   

This is 4 servings.

Also, it is husband approved.