New Year’s Resolutions 2013

 

New Year’s resolutions sometimes get a bad rep. Sure, you can point and laugh at the people who sign up for a gym membership on January 1, and then stop going by Valentine’s Day. But I don’t laugh at those people.  After all, I made a New Year’s resolution in 2012 that actually stuck.  So when I see the unfamiliar faces at the gym at the beginning of January, I give them a nod of encouragement. You can do it!

What I do find makes keeping a healthy resolution is falling into a rut.  In trying to cook healthy all the time, I have a tendency to fall back to the same half dozen or so go-to recipes because I know that the taste good and are good for me too. But then my taste buds get bored after a while, making eating out and indulging all the more appealing. So to break from the routine (but not my resolutions), my resolution this year is to cook a new healthy recipe once a week.

First up – slow cooker chicken in chipotle sauce!

I had this recipe from Best Ever Recipes For Your Slow Cooker for years, but never made it because it called for dried chipotle peppers, which I never have on hand.  So last weekend, I trekked out in the pouring rain to my local Key Food supermarket, where I found the peppers quite easily.  (One of the advantages of living in such a diverse neighborhood – makes me wonder why it took me so long to make this!)

Though I had to laugh at the delightfully vague instructions:

Use to enhance the flavor of your favorite dish, eh? But how?

I reduced the amount of chicken and peppers the recipe called for, but forgot to reduce the amount of liquid, which made for a watery thin sauce as you can see in the picture above.  But that actually turned out to be a happy accident when I took the leftovers with me to work for lunch. The following morning, in my haste to get to work and not have to carry a lot of containers, I dumped about a half cup of brown rice into the broth and chicken mixture.  At the office, I reheated the stuff in the microwave.  Since I didn’t have a knife, I shredded the chicken with a fork, voila! I had an even tastier stew. 

 

I actually liked this better in stew form, so next time, I may just make it as a stew from the get-go. Sometimes, cooking mistakes mean making an even better recipe!

Slow Cooker Chicken in Chipotle Sauce (or Chipotle Chicken stew)

Adapted from Best Ever Recipes for Your Slow Cooker

Ingredients:

• 4 dried chipotle chilies (If you don’t want it to be too spicy, you can probably tone it down to 2-3 chilies)
• 2 cups boiling water
• 1 Tbs grapeseed oil
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• salt and pepper to taste
• fresh oregano for garnish
• Cooked Brown rice (optional for stew)

Method:

1. Boil water and pour boiling water over dried chilies.  Allow to sit for about 45 minutes or until soft.  Remove chilies, but save the soaking water.  Cut off the stem from each pepper and cut it open to remove the seeds with a knife. 
2. Chop the chilies and put in food processor or blender, along with soaking water. Process until smooth.
3. Heat oil in a frying pan.  Add onions and cook over medium heat until soft, about five minutes. Sprinkle some salt and pepper on the onions.
4. Place onions in the stoneware insert of the slow cooker.  Layer chicken breasts on top. Sprinkle some salt and pepper on the chicken.  Pour chili puree on top of chicken, making sure all the chicken is coated.  (I had to do this in layers because I have a small, 3 quart slow cooker.).  Cook on high for 3-4 hours.
5. Once fully cooked, you can serve the chicken breasts whole topped with generous spoonfuls of the sauce and oregano leaves.  To make the stew, simple shred the chicken into bite sized pieces with two forks.  Add brown rice, if desired.

Spicy Chicken Enchilada Chili

I made this last weekend when "Winter Storm Nemo" hit the tri-state area (apparently naming winter storms is now a thing...). Cold snowy whether always makes me want to cook up a hot soup or stew in the crockpot.  I've made this chili before, but I wanted to adapt it to make it spicier.  I chose to make my own enchilada sauce because the store bought ones usually have tons of sodium in it, and it really doesn't take that much longer to make the sauce.

Spicy Chicken Enchilada Chili
Adapted from A Year of Slow Cooking

1 cup prepared enchilada sauce (recipe to follow)
3 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 large onion, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, removed from skins
1 can fire-roasted diced tomatoes
1 can low-sodium pinto beans
1 oz tomato paste (I bought a 6 oz can of tomato paste, so I used about 5 oz for the enchilada sauce, and used up the rest of the can for the chili)
1/4 cup low-sodium chicken broth
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp cumin
1 Tbs chopped pickled jalapenos
dash of cayenne pepper
dash of crushed red pepper flakes
2 skinless boneless chicken breasts

Throw in all the ingredients except for the chicken breasts in to the crockpot. The order doesn't really matter  Mix to combine.  Place chicken breasts on top.  Cook on low for about 6-8 hours.  When done, take out chicken breasts and shred into bite size pieces with two forks and mix back into the chili.  Serve with cheddar cheese, sour cream, or more pickled jalapenos, if desired.

Enchilada Sauce
(adapted from Emeril Lagasse)

1 1/2 Tbs vegetable oil
1/2 Tbs all-purpose flour
1/8 cup (about 2 Tbs chili powder)
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
About 5 oz tomato paste
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp dried oregano, crushed
1/2 tsp kosher salt
dash of cayenne pepper (to taste)

Heat vegetable oil on medium heat and stir in flour.  Cook for about a minute, stirring constantly.  Stir in chili powder, and cook for about 30 seconds more.  Add chicken broth, tomato paste, and remaining spices.  Stir to combine and bring to a boil.  Once boiling, lower the heat to low.  Cover and simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Adjust seasonings to taste.

Sriracha Garlic Chicken Stir-Fry

I know what you're thinking, "Another stir-fry post?"  Bear with me, though, because this one incorporates a few tricks I've learned to keep the meat juicy and tender, plus a spicy kick.  The trick is to add corn starch to the marinade.  I don't understand the science behind it, but some how the corn starch "seals" the meat and keeps it juicy and tender.  And the sriracha adds a spicy kick, which was good since I still had a cold when I made this and needed to clear the sinuses.

Sriracha Garlic Chicken Stir-Fry

Ingredients:

Marinade:

2 Tbs low-sodium soy sauce

1 Tbs sriracha sauce

1/2 tsp fresh grated garlic

2 small cloves of garlic, pressed through a garlic press (or minced)

1 Tbs sesame oil 

1/2 Tbs corn starch
Juice from half of a lime

1 large skinless boneless chicken breast, sliced into roughly pinky-sized pieces

1 bell pepper, chopped

1 stalk celery, thinly sliced on a diagonal

2 scallions chopped into 1-2 inch pieces

1 Tbs grapeseed oil

Method:

Combine marinade ingredients in a bowl.  Add chicken and toss to coat.  Marinate for about 15-20 minutes. 

In a large skillet, heat oil on medium-high heat.  Add pepper and celery, and cook for a few minutes until they start to soften.  Add marinated chicken breast and cook for about two minutes on each side or until fully cooked.  Add scallions and cook until the scallions are slightly wilted. Finish with a squeeze of fresh lime juice. Serve immediately with rice. 

Stay-at-home Chicken Noodle Soup

Last weekend, I caught a cold.  Fortunately, I did not get the flu, which apparently is an epidemic right now. Nonetheless, I still felt under the weather.  After several cups of honey and lemon tea, countless glasses of water, and two decongestant capsules, I felt well enough to make this soup.

Studies have shown the health benefits therapeutic effects of chicken soup.  Some would argue that its effects are psychosomatic.  As far as I was concerned though, it made me feel better. 

Stay-at-home Chicken Noodle Soup

Ingredients:

1 cup celery, chopped

1 cup carrots, chopped

1/2 onion, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, minced

5 thin slices of fresh ginger (optional, but ginger also has health benefits!) 

6 cups of low-sodium chicken broth (I like Pacific Natural Foods and Trader Joe's)

2 cups broccoli florets, chopped (can substitute spinach or any other leafy green)

1 large skinless, boneless chicken breast
1 Tbs fresh oregano
2 dried bay leaves

About 2 Tbs of olive oil

About 1 cup pasta (I used whole wheat penne) 

Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Heat olive oil in a large heavy bottomed pot on medium.  Cook celery, carrots, and onion until they start soften (about three minutes or so).  Season lightly with salt and pepper. Stir in garlic and ginger slices.  Cook for about another minute or so.  Add chicken broth, bay leaves, and about half the oregano. Raise heat to high to bring to boil.  Once the broth is boiling, reduce heat to bring it to a simmer for about 15-20 minutes. 

Meanwhile, boil water for pasta in a separate pot with a pinch of salt.  Cook pasta according to the directions on the package.  Drain and rinse in cold water to stop the cooking process.  Set aside. 

Around the time the pasta is done cooking (about 15 -20 minutes), add the chicken breast to the soup pot and allow to cook for about 15-20 minutes, or until fully cooked.   Remove the chicken and shred into bite-size pieces with two forks or if cool enough, your fingers.

Add the broccoli and rest of the oregano to the soup pot and allow to cook for about 3 minutes or until the broccoli is tender.  Adjust seasonings to taste.  

Just before serving, stir in the shredded chicken.  If serving all at once, add all the cooked pasta.  If you plan on saving some for later, add the pasta to individual servings and save the rest in a separate container.  I find keeping the pasta separate from the soup prevents the pasta from absorbing all the broth and getting soggy.  

Chicken Tostadas

The first time I ever had tostadas was at a small Mexican restaurant in the Ironbound District of Newark. I haven't been there since moving to Bergen County, but I learned that they are not hard to make. The hardest part is eating them without making a mess! I learned this tip on eating tostadas from Simply Recipes... hold them with both hands and eat it like a slice of pizza. some of the toppings still might get away, but no one is perfect, right?

Chicken Tostadas

Adapted from Simply Recipes

This is a "recipe in a recipe" - meaning I am including recipes for the building blocks of the tostadas, but go ahead and used storebought stuff. I'm watching my sodium intake, so I'm avoiding as much prepared foods whenever I can.

lngredients

Vegetable oil or other high-smoke point oil

Corn tortillas

Refried beans (either canned or homemade - a quick version follows below.)

1 chicken breast

Shredded cheese (recommended: cheddar, monterrey jack, or pepper jack)

Shredded iceberg lettuce

Prepared guacamole (I made my own, it's easy, and doesn't take much time.)

Sour cream

Chopped tomatoes

Freshly squeezed lime juice

1) If you are making your refried beans and guac, prep them first:

Quick Refried Beans

For this you will need:
1 2/3 cup cooked red beans (about one can),
half an onion, chopped and
one clove of minced garlic)
Some water or chicken broth

about 1 tsp cumin

About 1 Tbs chili powder

salt and pepper to taste

a few dashes of hot sauce

Heat a small amount of oil in a large skillet. When hot, cook the onion and garlic until the onion is soft. Add beans. When the beans have warmed up a bit, you should be able to mash them with a potato masher or fork. Add spices and hot sauce. Add water or chicken broth when the mixture becomes dry. Simmer for about 10 minutes or so, adding a tablespoon of water at a time if it becomes dry. Adjust the seasonings as needed.

Quick Guacamole:

avocado
garlic powder
chili powder
salt and pepper
lime juice

Peel and remove pit from guacamole and place into a bowl. Add about a teaspoon of lime juice, garlic powder, chili powder, salt and pepper to taste. Mash with fork until reaches desired consistency.

2) Prepare the chicken
(I did this step while the beans were simmering)

Sprinkle the chicken with chili powder, garlic powder, and a pinch of salt. Cook in a George Forman grill for five minutes, or in a skillet over the stove for about 5-6 minutes per side (or until cooked through). Allow to cool. Then cut into bite-sized pieces and squeeze a bit of lime juice over it.

3) Cook the tortillas
I cook the tortillas last so that they are still warm when I add the toppings.

Pour enough oil so that there is about 1/4 inch of oil in the pan. Heat the oil on medium high heat until hot. Cook tortillas one at a time until golden brown on both sides. (About 30 seconds per side). Lay on paper towels to drain excess oil.

4) Assemble the tostadas
I find this method works best for me: Add the cheese on the hot tortillas so that it melts from the residual heat. Spread a dollop of refried beans so that it works as a "glue" for everything else. Add the chicken, lettuce, tomatoes, guac, and sour cream. Finish with a squeeze of lime juice.

Homemade Crockpot Chicken Stock

You may have noticed that many of my recent posts have been making a lot of things from scratch. See e.g. homemade pizza dough, this soup, and this soup, and sadly this attempt at roast chicken. For the past few months, upon the advice of my doctor, I have been watching my sodium intake. One of the ways I can control how much sodium I consume is by making foods from scratch and relying less on convenience foods. Plus it gives me a sense of accomplishment when I make something all by myself. And then there are also collateral reasons that might encourage some people to make their own food, such as being better for the environment, and the feeling of security by knowing exactly what is in your food.

So aside from my endeavor to make “grown-up” food when I attempted roast chicken, I had plans to make chicken stock from the leftover carcass. When I made the chicken, I deliberately only used a tiny pinch of salt, and relied on fresh herbs for flavor. Fresh herbs and aromatics are important when you can’t rely on salt to make food taste good. In this stock, I didn’t add any additional salt, but instead used fresh herbs, garlic cloves, and ginger. And personally, I think this stock tastes better than the stuff from the can. So all was not lost from my roast chicken disaster!

Homemade Crockpot Chicken Stock

Ingredients:
Carcass of a roast chicken, and any leftover bones
1 onion, quartered
2 carrots, chopped into 1-2 inch pieces
2 stalks of celery, chopped into 1-2 inch pieces
1 inch of fresh ginger root, sliced into 2 half inch coins
3 peeled garlic cloves
10 peppercorns
2 bay leaves
1 Tbs of fresh poultry herbs, roughly chopped (rosemary, thyme, sage)
6 cups of filtered water (I read that it is better to use filtered water so that you don’t have chlorine and fluoride in your stock, but if that doesn't bother you, then go ahead and use tap)

Method:
Dump everything into the crockpot. Cook on low for 10-12 hours. Allow to cool. Discard solids and strain the stock. Refrigerate the stock for a few hours, (I put it in overnight). Strain again to separate the fat that has congealed on the top. Store the stock into freezer bags or ice trays. (What I do is I freeze some into an ice tray so that I have stock in neat little ice cubes, which I transferred to a freezer bag. This makes it easy to portion it out, especially when you only need a little for a sauce. )

Impatience and Roast Chicken

Roasting a whole chicken always seems like one of those “grown-up” things to do. Most of the time when I cook chicken, I use packaged, boneless, skinless chicken breasts that cook quickly and can be easily divided for a weeknight dinner for one. A whole roast chicken is more social dish, for feeding a family of four, or for dinner parties with a group of good friends. But I’ve always have been a bit intimidated by any meat with bones, since I normally do not have the patience to allow them to cook long enough and fear food poisoning. Usually past attempts to make chicken drumsticks, bone-in pork chops, or anything with bones ended up with some parts tough and overcooked and some parts still raw. But since roasting a chicken is one of those grown-up things to do, right up there with filing your own taxes, and balancing your checkbook, I endeavored to learn to roast a good chicken. A chicken that will not give my future houseguests food poisoning. After all, I made a 13 lb turkey before, how hard can roasting a 4 lb chicken be?

Sadly though, despite my previous handsome rewards of patience, this time I was not so patient. I prepared the chicken and potatoes from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything exactly from the recipe. Except for this step:

“[...] roast until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh reads 160 to 165 F. Total roasting time will be 50 to 70 minutes.”

I don’t have an instant-read thermometer, so I stuck my regular probe thermometer into the chicken. I had no idea where the “thickest part of the thigh” was so I stuck it somewhere in the middle of what I thought was the thigh. And since my oven door does not have a window, the only way for me to check the temperature was to keep opening and closing the oven, losing some of the precious heat. This probably slowed down the cooking time, and any ounce patience that I had left. After nearly 80 minutes of cooking time, ten minutes more than the suggested time, I saw that the thermometer hit exactly 160 degrees. Hungry and excited to take a bite of the fruits of my labor, I pulled the bird out of the oven. I let the chicken rest for a few minutes and poked it with a knife to make sure the juices ran clear. I’ve finally done it, I thought, I’ve finally made a roast chicken. I am now a grown-up.

Until I actually tried to carve the bird and found that the juices inside were still painfully red.

I put the chicken back into the oven for another fifteen minutes.

I pulled the bird out again, let it rest for a couple minutes, and attempted to cut it again. Chicken breast was plump and juicy, but the legs and thighs were still a bit raw.

So I hacked up the chicken into the pieces and nuked the legs and thighs in the microwave for two minutes, until the juices were no longer red, but the meat was rubbery and dry.

Roast chicken, you have eluded me once again.

Next time, I will roast until the temperature is a bit higher, maybe to 165 degrees to ensure doneness. But all is not lost, after I salvaged the still juicy parts of the bird, I used the carcass to make chicken stock in my crock-pot, which is now simmering away. More on that later this week.

Panko-crusted chicken with teriyaki sauce

After several days of Thanksgiving leftovers, I was looking something different, with a zingy, tangy taste. Granted, if I really wanted a change from Thanksgiving, I probably should have moved away from poultry all together. But not having the foresight that I might be sick of poultry after Thanksgiving, I bought two pounds of chicken breasts (they were buy one get one free!) on the day before Thanksgiving.

So I turned to Jaden Hair's Steamy Kitchen cookbook, since Asian flavors were about as far as I could think of from Thanksgiving. I am an avid reader of Jaden's blog, and was delighted to get her book as a gift last Christmas. What Jaden has done in this book is great because she memorializes Asian recipes in writing. And from what I know from experience, written Asian recipes are hard to come by! All of my grandmother's cooking was simply her tossing in ingredients and seasonings based on her experience and taste. Growing up in my house, we never even had measuring cups in our kitchen! So you can imagine, it is difficult and maybe even impossible to re-create my grandmother's dishes in my kitchen.

What I especially like about this book is that at the beginning there is a section that gives the low-down on Asian ingredients and cooking techniques in a way that easy for my Americanized brain to understand. I found this book has helped me learn more about Asian flavors and get an approximation to what I remember from my grandmother's cooking.

The following recipe is adapted, barely, from Jaden's book. As usual, I made adjustments based on my tastes and availability of ingredients. I reduced the whole recipe to only make one serving for myself. I also reduced the amount of sugar the sauce called for, since I didn't want it to be overly sweet, and I omitted the sake, simply because I didn't have any. If I were to do this again, I would add more orange juice because it is supposed to by a citrusy sauce, but I didn't taste much of the citrus. Another thing I might try next time in cooking the chicken is pan frying it first to get the nice golden brown crust, rather than simply spraying cooking spray and putting it in the oven. (Although, admittedly, this would make the recipe less healthy).

Panko-crusted Chicken with Teriyaki sauce
Adapted from Jaden Hair, Steamy Kitchen

Ingredients:

For the chicken:
1 chicken breast, flattened to about 1/3 to 1/2 inch thickness
1/4 cup panko crumbs
1/4 cup flour
1 egg, beaten
salt and pepper to taste

For the dipping sauce:
3 Tbs soy sace
3 Tbs orange juice
3 Tbs mirin
1 Tbs sugar


Preheat oven for 475 degrees. Combine flour with a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Dredge the chicken in the flour mixture and then dip into the egg. Shake off any excess egg and dredge the chicken into the panko crumbs. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray and both sides of the chicken. Place chicken in the pan and bake for about 15-20 minutes at 475 degrees.

While the chicken is baking, combing the sauce ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a simmer for about 3-5 minutes.

(Note for next time I try this recipe: try frying chicken in oil for a few minutes on each side to get the nice golden brown crust. This time, I didn't quite get the golden brown crust, even after raising the temperature to 500 degrees for an extra five minutes. Perhaps the chicken was not thin enough, or perhaps my oven is finicky, but it just wasn't meant to be.)

Serves 1 person with white rice.

Chicken Stir-Fry

This dish was one of my go-to meals back in college, which I adapted from "The College Cookbook," (which, by the way, is a great reference for beginner cooks, in college or not.) The original recipe was only vegetables, but I wanted to add chicken so I could have nice one-dish meal that includes my protein and veggies. In college, though, I had problems with the method. The chicken would always end up either too dry and tough, and the vegetables mushy or tough and undercooked. It wasn't until I began avidly watching professional cooks on the Food Network and reading food blogs that I finally figured it out the perfect method. The trick is to cook your ingredients separately, so that each retains its own flavor. I also got some help from Jaden Hair's The Steamy Kitchen, with great tips on stir-frying meat on this page. Another trick I learned is to parboil the tougher vegetables, such as broccoli or carrots first, before adding to the stir fry, so that they won't be tough and undercooked at the end.

So the method below is basically a compendium of different techniques that I've garnered after many attempts and mushy vegetables.

Chicken Stir-Fry

Ingredients:
Note: The ingredients are quite flexible and you can use whatever meat or vegetables you have on hand. Below is what I happened to have handy:

Chicken breast, cut into bite-size pieces
Broccoli
Red pepper
Button mushrooms (canned or fresh, I used canned)
Other vegetables that would be good: Carrots, snow peas, onions if you like them, etc., just chop everything into bite-size pieces.
1 clove of garlic, minced or 1/2 teaspoon of the minced garlic in the jar
Salt and pepper to taste
Oil


For the sauce:
A couple tablespoons of soy sauce
1 teaspoon of corn starch dissolved into a couple of tablespoons of cold water

Method:

1. Start by boiling water for cooking tough vegetables like broccoli or carrots. Boil these vegetables for about five minutes, drain and set aside.
2. While the water is boiling, sprinkle salt and pepper on the chicken, and heat a few tablespoons of oil (I recommend olive oil) on medium-high heat.
3. Once the pan is hot, (test it by flicking a drop of water on to it. If it sizzles right away, that means it's hot enough), cook the chicken, a few minutes on each side (until lightly browned). Be careful not to overcrowd the pan, even if this means that you have to cook the chicken in batches. (click here for more stir-fry tips). Set chicken aside.
4. Add garlic to the pan. Once it start sizzling, add remaining vegetables and cook for 2-3 minutes.
5. Stir in broccoli and carrots and chicken.
6. Prepare the sauce by stirring corn starch into cold water and soy sauce. Slowly stir in the mixture over the chicken and vegetables so that it evenly coats everything. Allow it to cook for about a minute, until the sauce turns shiny and translucent.
7. Serve over rice.

Baked Sesame Chicken

This was one of my favorite ways to make chicken back in college. The recipe can be found here. The veggies next to it are simply red and green peppers and carrots stir-fried in garlic with sesame seeds for garnish. And of course, rice. (I did the neat bowl trick, found in the post on fried rice.)