Great Lakes Foodie » Chicken

Chicken with Pancetta and Figs

Great Lakes Foodie — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:43:23 +0000

For dinner tonight, I made a wonderful chicken dish. After spending a great week with our friends in San Francisco, we’re still in low-cal mode. This dish, from Cooking Light, is quite flavorful while not breaking the calorie budget. I’ve placed an image of the dish below as well as included the recipe. The only recommendation that I would have is to reduce the sauce a bit so that it is a more thick, velvety sauce than a broth. Flavors were great, I think they would be that much better concentrated.

Technorati Tags: Basmati Rice, Chicken, Mission Figs

Fresh and Quick Chicken Soup

Great Lakes Foodie — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 02:00:23 +0000

After a nice long drive along Lake Michigan this afternoon, we got home around 6:00PM. Thank you Daylight Savings Time!!! I had bought a couple of chickens at Pick ‘n Save yesterday. Earlier, I indicated that I was entering recipes into my Living Cookbook application. I finished that this afternoon and pulled up the chicken soup recipe I had planned on making. Part of the reason for our later afternoon drive was this fast and tasty dish. The recipe is Chicken-Vegetable soup. The recipe is below. Click on the recipe to be taken to the Cooking Light source version.

I was a bit nervous when the recipe suggested that I boil the chicken. I’ve been warned for years from every book and cooking show that boiling chicken will create a cloudy broth. I lucked out and have a beautiful clear broth that has a really great, fresh taste. I think the parsnip adds not only a sweet tone, but the great fresh taste in this soup. Be sure to taste for proper salt flavor. I had to add some additional salt for proper seasoning.

Technorati Tags: Chicken, soup

Adobo Chicken

Great Lakes Foodie — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 01:11:38 +0000

Talk about a winner. This recipe turned out great! I had purchased a family pack of chicken thighs a few weeks ago. I split the package up into two smaller ones. I thawed out 8 thighs today with the intention of prepping up some leftovers for the upcoming workweek. The recipe starts off with browning the chicken in a non-stick pan with a little canola oil. I chose to use my enameled cast iron pot. I love the way it browns food and think it’s the best covered pot for this type of preparation. I don’t like to read reviews of recipes beforehand. Not that I don’t trust others. However, I want to make sure that I give a recipe an honest shot without bias. I read on myrecipes.com tonight several very positive reviews. Two weren’t so good. The reader made this recipe with chicken breast and found the sauce had disappeared quickly. Another reader wound up with burnt sauce. Though she didn’t indicate whether or not she was using chicken breast, my guess is that she was. Recipes that call for chicken thighs are usually looking for flavor, lengthy cooking times, etc. You’ll want to use chicken thighs for recipes that braise, stew, boil the chicken meat. Thighs will maintain a tender, juicy consistency.

Click on the recipe image for a link to source recipe.

Technorati Tags: Chicken, Cooking Light

Chicken and Dumplings

Great Lakes Foodie — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:18:03 +0000

As of late, I’ve been writing about being bored cooking. Last week, I decided to work on my preparation and knife skills. As no one should consider themselves at the top of their game, there is always something that we can examine and improve upon in our lives. I like to think I’m a wiz with a knife. In reality, I’m average. Beef and Barley soup worked on those skills a bit. I learned very quickly that cutting meat is something that I have quite a road for improvement. Though the final product was delicious, looking at the pile of chopped meat there were varying shapes and sizes. I’d definitely get a C- from Anne Burrell!!!

Along side my Beef and Barley soup last Sunday, I started working on a chicken stock to make Chicken and Dumplings. This recipe came from the newer “The Enlightened Cook” section of Cooking Light magazine. I made the stock using bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs from a frozen state. Admittedly, I was a bit nervous starting at a frozen state. The final product turned out just fine. Getting back to knife skills, I found that my produce cutting skills are much more advanced. I still have a lot of work to do on my consistency. However, the general output has been quite successful and comes with more speed than meat cutting. I think I’m going to read further which knives should be used for which preparation…after I sharpen my knives. I’ve been naughty and dropping them in the top shelf of the dishwasher. I know, shame on me!!! No more, I promise!

One commentary on the Chicken and Dumplings. I was fairly unimpressed with the dumplings. Using a very solid cast iron stock pot, the amount of heat generated using even simmer was too high for the delicate dumplings this recipe called for. I found that these dumplings quickly melted into the stock. To combat this issue and save the dish, I skipped the thickening process called for in the recipe as the disintegrated dumplings were enough to thicken the stock. I made some egg-based dumplings which held up quite well. We had the last of the leftovers for dinner last night. Just as good reheated!!!

Technorati Tags: Chicken, Chicken Stock, Knife Skills

Quick chicken dinner needs a kick

Great Lakes Foodie — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 01:36:58 +0000

Tonight I made Asian Noodles with Chicken and Scallions. The recipe came from Gourmet Magazine (Dec 2006). A very quick dish, I have to say I should have saved this for a weeknight meal. I was able to make this with one pot on the stove and one bowl on the side. I was looking for an Asian-style dinner tonight and that’s exactly what I got. (Stress the “style” part.)

If you make this recipe, I would encourage tasting all the way through and possibly adding some additional oyster sauce or hoisin sauce. It was a bit on the bland side. I added a good squirt of sriracha sauce to my plate. That definitely perked things up!

What brought me to this meal this week is the largest bottle of oyster sauce I ever bought. I opened the fridge door this weekend thinking of what I should use as an ingredient starting point and found this bottle. I had purchased it in early December and forgotten about it over the holidays. In an effort not to waste food, I built my grocery list around oyster sauce this week. Looking forward to some good food this week!

Technorati Tags: Chicken, Gourmet Magazine, Oyster Sauce