Happy Pi Day

Posted on March 15, 2015 by chatty

Filed under days we celebrate now that are just awesome. National Doughnut Day, Cupcake Day, Pancake Day, etc etc all days that, I guess were created by savvy marketers intent on getting Americans fatter (I mean, do they celebrate Pancake Day overseas?). But Pi Day, I mean, you can’t get upset with Pi Day, as it’s a math thing. It teaches you math. It forces parents who haven’t thought about the circumference of a circle for ages, to try to explain to a 6-year old pi, and radii, and circumferences and all that stuff (Here, watch me hand off this question to the husband!).

By now you know this particular Pi Day is a little more special than others, because not only was yesterday 3.14, it was 3.14.15. And at around 3.14.15, at approximately 9:26 and 53 seconds (yes, approximately), we were at the store. So I took this pic:

https://instagram.com/p/0NxBkFIuY4/

Much better than a previous Pi Day (way back in 2013)…

Empty shelves at Metropolitan Market!

The husband, fortunately prepared for this year’s momentous occasion and we had a slice of apple and a slice of chocolate cream, that we had a little bit of earlier in the day.

So I didn’t feel like doing a dessert pie, but felt like doing something. Quiche? Nah. I know! Chicken Pot Pie! Yes, of course.

It took a while to do, I study up on this stuff. Also, I used ingredients I’m not proud of. Those All-American processed foods that, I certainly wouldn’t be caught dead eating. You know, unless it’s Pi Day …

So here it is. I got tired near the end and, creative juices at its lowest, didn’t manage to make the actual pi sign. I even saved crust dough and everything, just didn’t get it done. Next time.

Happy Pi Day!

As the recipe was a combination of a few, I’m jotting them down here so I don’t forget:

Ingredients:

(1) 9-inch pie crust (I use this crust recipe. Make it easier with a ready-made crust, but I don’t have much success with those)
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 can (10z) “Cream of Chicken” condensed soup
Approx 2 oz cream cheese (more if you like that kind of stuff)
(1) 10z bag of mixed vegetables (peas, carrots, corn, green beans)
Seasoning: Italian seasoning, Salt, Pepper

Biscuit Topping (I guess yo could use another pie crust, but I don’t press my luck. One homemade pie crust is good, for me)

1 1/2 c Bisquick
1/2 c milk

Instructions:

Pre-heat oven, 400 degrees

Pie Crust. Make it, chill it. Roll it, Place it.

Filling: Cut chicken up into bite-sized chunks. Season with S&P. Heat olive oil in a pan, medium heat, add chicken and saute or whatever until fully cooked (Diced onion might be good here, too). Once cooked add Cream of Chicken can and mix well. Season again with your favorite herbs and spices. Add softened cream cheese and frozen vegetables and and continue stirring until the cheese is smooth and well-incorporated. Add all of this into the pie crust.

Topping: Combine the Bisquick and milk and mix until you get a nice sticky dough. Create a ball of dough and on a floured board knead 10 times (this is the biscuit directions on the box). Instead of making biscuits, roll it out into a nice circle to lay over the pie. Create holes/slits for venting. Lightly cover with aluminum foil

In the oven, for 20-25 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 10 minutes. Remove and let it rest for 5 minutes or so before cutting up.

Enjoy.

Discuss mathematical equations.

Grillin’ like a villain

Posted on August 3, 2014 by chatty

We were eating dinner on our deck one night and the husband said, “We need a new grill”.

“Yeah, we do,” I replied. Tried to play it casual, but inside I was like “YEAH, BABY!”

You see, while I like to post pictures of food and stuff that I bake and cook, it’s the husband that does the majority of the cooking in the household. And I’ve been dying to buy him a new grill as a birthday or father’s day gift, but I didn’t want it to come across as, “hey, here’s your new toy now go make me a steak”. It would be like the husband giving the wife a vacuum cleaner as a gift (let’s assume the wife was expecting something else).

Anyway. The husband got this sweet grill and has been having a blast playing with it. I want to take more photos of the foods he’s cooking up, but I tend to dig in and not care much about taking photos. Here are a couple where I wasted precious eating time …

1) Barbecued Chicken. Still tweaking the process, but the end result was the best-tasting chicken I’ve had in ages. Chicken is chicken. We eat it often because it is relativley inexpensive, easy to prepare, and the kid likes it. But then you make it this way and you WANT to eat the skin because it’s so darn crispy delicious. And just, yeah.

Oh yeah. He also tried grilling these vegetables, too.

2) Pork chop. Ripping the meat off the bone kind of thing. The kiddo asked to have a piece with a bone, so we shared this and split half of another chop that was more like a loin? or a rib? As the husband explained the one not pictured, was similar to a rib-eye steak (only it’s pork, of course). Whatever it was, it was amazing.

Sweet grill marks!

A new grill. Like a gift that keeps on giving.

(the above pic was taken by my assistant, Kiddo).

Chicken stir fry with shredded cauliflower

Posted on March 31, 2014 by chatty

Here’s the key to cauliflower “rice” … don’t call it rice. These paleo hacks always disappoint me when I so just want a bowl of the real thing and can’t have it. The thing is, I will never be 100% paleo 100% of the time, and I’d rather just stick it out for a few weeks and then enjoy the real thing every now and then as opposed to pretending I’m enjoying something that is good, but clearly not rice. There I said it.
So, having said all that, here’s the recipe I cribbed for the “rice”, which henceforth I shall be calling shredded cauliflower. The real key is to season the heck out of it. Let it cook for many more minutes than you think, as cauliflower, I’ve learned this week, holds a lot of water. Let that steam out.

Now, here’s the basic instructions for how I do the stir fry (in the pic above you can see the cauliflower peeking out). This is one of the dishes I’ve been doing forever. Hard to mess up, but I have messed up before. I can’t give you exact directions, I play everything by ear, every time. There is an order of tasks I do every time, though, which I’ll go through here.
First, marinate the chicken pieces. I used coconut aminos, grated ginger, salt and garlic, and a dash of sesame oil. I let it chill for the time it take me to chop up the veggies.
Use a wok. Cook the chicken first, set aside, wipe down the wok, add more oil for the veggies. Seasoning the oil is the same: garlic and ginger.
Start with sautéing the onions. Then, add in the veggies in order by how long it takes for them to cook, so I add broccoli and carrots in early, and mushrooms last. I add in the chicken near the end, and add a little but not a lot of aminos into the wok itself. I tend to keep it light in seasoning, though. Husband often adds teriyaki sauce to his mixture, and we’re both happy.
It was weird for some reason, sitting down to this meal, without a grain in site. I honestly felt like something was missing. The stir fry over the shredded cauliflower was a good combo. It just wasn’t, you know, rice.

Baked spaghetti-like squash casserole

Posted on March 24, 2014 by chatty

File this under “tastes way better than it looks.” For this casserole dish I heavily cribbed from PaleOMG’s Almost 5 ingredient pizza spaghetti pie. What caught my eye was the pizza part of the name. But the taste most definitely reminded me of a baked spaghetti/pasta dish (yes, I know I just ranted about how this squash doesn’t taste like pasta … baked like this I need to rethink my original declaration). The kiddo, upon further investigation of her plate, actually asked, “Mom, is this… spaghetti?”

Now, what a decision point. Do I lie and say yes, with the hope that she’ll eat it? I mean, I’ve already committed a lie of omission by not mentioning the chopped onion. Do I dare test the karmic waters?

“It’s spaghetti… squash!” I exclaimed. Couldn’t do it. Eventually she would figure it out and then would use it against me, I’m sure. And fortunately for us she still ate most of her portion.

So, this is a baked casserole, made with our favorite pizza ingredients: sausage, mushrooms, onions. Rather than repeat PaleOMG’s recipe, I’m going to send you all there, and list out the tweaks I made here:
Instead of ground pork sausage, I used two Mild Italian Chicken Sausage links (approx 3/4 lb) from Whole Foods, which I cooked/browned then sliced before adding into the sauce mix.
I added sliced mushrooms to the sautéed onions, and used Italian Seasoning instead of dried basil.
I beat two eggs with 3 tbsp of liquid egg whites.
I also grated a small amount of Parm-Reg on top while it rested, which I easily could have done without. I’m playing to a mixed audience, here.

Presented with a salad and steamed broccoli.

The verdict was three thumbs up. Husband went for thirds. I probably ate more than I intended to. Reheated the next day for lunch, still great-tasting.

Chicken tenders, paleo-style

Posted on March 16, 2014 by chatty

Lots of recipes online for a paleo chicken fingers, and what I love about bloggers and the interwebs is with every version of a recipe, other users comment on how to make it better. It leaves you with tons of ways to go about it. Hopefully everyone is civil about it but hey, it is the interwebs…

At Trader Joes in the spice section they have this thing called “Everyday Seasonings“. It’s a bunch of the same spices you always use, in a bottle with its own grinder so you can grind and use as needed. I am a big fan, and used it with the flour in addition to the other spices, as you’ll see below.

Almond-Crusted Chicken
1 lb boneless chicken breast, or a pkg of 2 breasts
2 eggs
Juice of 1 lemon
1-1.5 c almond flour
1 tsp cumin seeds, 1 tsp coriander seeds, ground with the mortar and pestle.
1 tsp TJ’s Everyday Seasoning
Paprika, for the chicken.

Preheat oven to 425. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil, and spray that with nonstick cooking spray.
In a bowl beat eggs with lemon.
On a plate combine the flour and seasonings well.
Slice up the chicken into even pieces. Tip 1: one blogging chef suggested sticking the chicken in the freezer for 30 minutes to firm it up and make it easier to slice. Each breast gave me 6 or 7 pieces.
Season the chicken with salt and paprika.
Dredge the chicken in the egg mixture, then roll it into the almond flour, place on the sheet. Dredge, roll, place. Season the crusted pieces before throwing into oven.
Bake for 25 minutes, turning once.
I’m anal when cooking chicken, so I always use a meat thermometer to check for doneness. 180 degrees.

The chicken was good, not great. A tad dry. Might want to brine the chicken next time around.
Other notes: on a few of these I double dipped (dredged and rolled twice before sending to the baking sheet) though I’m not sure I could tell the difference between those and the single dunk ones.
For the non-paleo eaters in the house, I used the microplane and grated parm-reg on a few. I used a paleo BBQ sauce as a dipper. Husband used sweet rays BBQ sauce.
Served on the side, “crunchy” green beans, ( i.e. stir-fried, seasoned with lemon zest, ginger and garlic.)
I also had a garden salad with olive oil and vinegar. Husband and kid had a side of onion rings. Must be nice.

Breakdown on the #Whole30 highway

Posted on February 23, 2014 by chatty

… And 209 hours after I started the Whole30, I had a slice of sausage mushroom pizza from Pagliacci. I wish I could say it was the best tasting pizza ever, but it was a little too hot and eaten too quickly to be enjoyed. The next day I had 2 Manny’s Pale Ales and a dinner of breads hummus, nachos, and you get the gist. But this post isn’t about my downfall. That’s the next one. This one is about the highs before the lows. It’s about winter squash.

Last week the kid and I ventured out to the U-District Farmers Market and came home with squash. One spaghetti, one acorn and one pumpkin, at least I think it was a pumpkin. The pumpkin was something the kid wanted, but didn’t want to eat, and which I found in her room getting mushy and threw out.

The acorn I used to make 4 Ingredient Acorn Squash Candy as a side to this chicken dinner from last Sunday. For the chicken I decided to try to “roast” in the slow cooker (just Bing “slow cooker roast chicken” and you will run into a handful of recipes). Probably won’t do that again, but it was handy because it left the oven free for squash experiments.

The experiment being the acorn squash. I don’t think I like acorn squash. Maybe a lot of butter and sugar make it taste better, but the bacon I added didn’t do the trick (and Paleomg repeatedly said it would taste like candy. It did not.)

This is the plating of the slow-cooker roasted chicken, squash and green beans. The chicken could have used a little more flavoring, or some basting throughout. But uncovering to baste defeats the “let it be” philosophy of the slow cooker, and requires you to add more time in the cooker, which I didn’t have.
The spaghetti squash was used for lunch, and was the best tasting of the different things I made that day. And was easy peasy. Squash + marinara sauce + leftover chicken breast = lunch for a week.

Spaghetti squash, for anyone that doesn’t know, doesn’t taste like spaghetti. It tastes like squash. You know what tastes like spaghetti? Spaghetti does. So keep this in mind when you make yourself this plate and you’ll do just fine.

So. Whole30 is more or less over, though my kitchen is full of paleo ingredients, and there are still more paleo recipes to come on the blog. And a few kinda sorta paleo recipes as well.

Slow cooker diaries: Morrocan Chicken

Posted on February 10, 2014 by chatty

I’ve made this one before, and even made the comment that it wouldn’t take much to Paleo-ize the recipe. And so, here it is:

Morrocan Chicken

chopped red pepper
red onion
1 can diced tomatoes, drained
1 can (more or less) tomato paste
1.5-2 lbs chicken thighs
raisins
Cauliflower florets
1-2 tsp cumin seeds (I mashed them with my mortar and pestle first. How awesome is it that I am using our mortar and pestle)
Pinch of paprika
Almond nut butter

Combine them all but almond butter with chicken on top in your slow cooker. I start with a half the tomato paste, then add the second half later on in the cooking process. I like my sauce/gravy thick. Cooked on high for the first hour, then low for 5 – 6 hours. Instant thermometer read 180 degrees before I decided it was ready. At that point I swirled in a big fat tbsp of almond butter.

Husband served it to little one with delicious, fresh, wonderful Parpadelle noodles that I did without. Mmmm … noodles.

So, this was my dress rehearsal to my Whole30 experiment. I bought myself a “last-supper” piece of chocolate to enjoy as my swan song … which I forgot to eat last night. Grrr.

Recipe adapted from NYMSCC.

Slow cooker diaries: Curry chicken (again?)

Posted on November 1, 2013 by chatty

I thought I’d try a coconut curry, bought the coconut milk, all was well. But, not enough room in the SC for the milk. Oops. The chicken was fine, but both the husband and I was visualizing something more creamy. More coconutty. And instead we got plain ol’ tomatoey curry. Oh well.

For leftovers, I added in the milk and was somewhat appeased. Somewhat.

Slow cooker diaries: Chicken Edition

Posted on October 6, 2013 by chatty

Salsa Chicken: File this under easy-peasy. Chicken thighs and chicken breasts. Jar of salsa (our go-to is Newman’s Own Pineapple salsa, medium). On high for a few hours, 4-ish. This was what I made when I was supposed to be juice-fasting. For family members not fasting there was guacamole, shredded cheese wrapped in a tortilla.

Chicken with Lemon and Mushrooms: Last week, I did enjoy this. Whole chicken, lemon and spices shoved into the cavity. Mushrooms covering above. 4.5 hours on high. Instead of steaming I roasted some cauliflower and broccoli. We steam our veggies 95% of the time. Sometimes you gotta change it up. I love the making the whole chicken because we have leftovers for days.

Chicken isn’t always a favorite but it usually takes less time to cook, and it could be considered “lighter” fare compared to the heavier, beefier dishes I’ve done in the past. I make extra for leftovers but sometimes certain family members overindulge then pay for it. Happens less with poultry. But, some non-chicken posts coming up.

Both of these, with more detail and ingredients, courtesy of Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook.

Slow cooker diaries: Grain-free dinner

Posted on August 24, 2013 by chatty

A repeat of Moroccan Chicken. What could be a wonderful paleo dish, were it not for the can of garbanzo beans that goes in first.
Chick peas, diced tomatoes, 1.5 lbs chicken thighs, half can of tomato paste, raisins and crushed coriander seed. It calls for ground but all I have are seeds. I think I did high for 1-2 hours, added I another big spoonful of tomato paste, turned to low. Three hours later, chopped red pepper, a big spoonful of almond butter plus the rest of the paste. Gets it nice and thick.
On the side, some mashed cauliflower and a mixed green salad.

Dessert. Apparently Grandma (Gaga) has a blueberry bush in the yard. We picked some. I experimented with a crumble. Or a crisp. Whatever it was, it was an attempt at Paleo and it failed (coconut oil, coconut flour, agave syrup mixture on top. maybe a few chocolate chips). Only some blackberry ice cream could save it.

Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes it rains.

Chatty Cha

dessert first

Category Archives: chicken