Basil Orange Chicken

Back to real time blogging, this was dinner last night. Basil Orange Chicken. I found the recipe in the May 2010 edition of Good Housekeeping magazine.

Basil Orange Chicken

Serves 4

1 large navel orange

2 lemons

1/2 cup packed fresh basil leaves, chopped

2 tbsp olive oil

Salt and pepper

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (1 1/2 lbs)

1/2 tsp sugar

1 cup whole wheat couscous

8 oz stringless sugar snap peas

Grilled orange slices for garnish

1. From orange, grate 1 1/2 teaspoons peel and squeeze 4 tablespoons juice. From lemons, grate 1 1/2 teaspoons peel and squeeze 1/3 cup juice.

2. In medium bowl, combine 1 teaspoon of each peel and 1 tablespoon orange juice with half of basil, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper.

3. With flat side of meat mallet, pound chicken breasts (placed between 2 sheets of plastic wrap) to an even 1/2 inch thickness. Add chicken to citrus mixture, turning to coat,  set aside.

4. In a small pitcher or bowl, combine sugar, 1/8 teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, and remaining citrus peels, citrus juices, basil and oil; set aside. (Can be made to this point up to 8 hours ahead. Cover chicken and citrus sauce and refrigerate.)

5. Preheat large ridged grill pan or prepare outdoor grill for direct grilling on medium-high.

6. Meanwhile, prepare couscous as label directs. In 4 qt saucepan filled with 1/2 inch water, place a vegetable steamer. Heat to boiling on high.

7. Add chicken to hot grill pan or place on hot grill grate, cook 4 minutes. Turn chicken over and cook 3 to 4 minutes longer until no longer pink in center. 

8. While chicken is cooking on second side, add snap peas to steamer; cook 2 to 3 minutes or until tender-crisp. Fluff couscous and spoon onto larger platter; top with chicken and snap peas. Drizzle sauce over all. Garnish with citrus slices.

Each serving: about 400 calories, 46g protein, 33g carbohydrates, 9g total fat (1g saturated), 6g fiber, 99mg cholesterol, 365mg sodium.

Chicken and orange slices on the grill pan - first side.

Chicken and orange slices on the second side.

Citrus sauce

Final product

Very delicious. We didn't marinate this for hours - just the time it took to put everything else together. I think the meat would have been a lot more orange-flavored had we let it sit for several hours.

Great meal though, and pretty quick to make. Looking forward to my leftovers today for lunch!

Thanksgiving 2010

Continuing the 2010 catch-up, today's post is a recap of Thanksgiving.

Only the second time I've ever hosted turkey day, but the first time for Jim's family. I was certainly a lot less stressed about it than I usually am for Christmas - mostly because I felt comfortable with cooking all of the the Thanksgiving "regulars" and wasn't planning on anything new or fancy like I usually plan on for Christmas.

We were having 11 for dinner, and another 7 for dessert, and I was determined to get everyone at one table.

We have a large and oddly laid out kitchen, so were able to bring in our large outdoor table inside, as well as a smaller table on the end to make one super long table. It worked out great! Even had a tablecloth long enough!

The Menu:

Roasted Turkey

Homemade stuffing (inside the bird)

Homemade stuffing with sausage and sage (outside the bird)

Three kinds of mashed potatoes: plain, sweet, and garlic smashed red

Cranberry relish

Green beans

Corn

Corn muffins

Desserts:

Apple Pie

Pumpkin Pie

Maple Cupcakes

Banana Caramel Cake

Cream Puffs

As usual I worked on the floral centerpieces myself also.

Didn't get a shot of the turkey but he was perfect. Crispy skin, and juicy inside.

The mashed potatoes were so easy! I made them all from scratch in the morning - 3 different batches - and then just kept them warm in my fancy crock pot trio.

Plain mashed, mashed sweet potatoes (just butter, salt and pepper), and then garlic smashed red potatoes.

Whipped up a quick batch of corn muffins in the morning - they were a hit!

I never liked corn muffins until I made these from Martha this year. Recipe found HERE.

Too busy eating to take photos of the rest of dinner...

Desserts were yummy as usual.

Apple Pie made by my mother-in-law the day before. Classic recipe from Martha's Baking Handbook.

Pumpkin Pie also from Martha's baking handbook. I tried to get fancy with a twisted rope crust, but it was entirely too big and fell into the shell a bit when I was blind baking it. This meant a little less room for pumpkin filling, but apparently it still tasted good.

My fancy and new dessert for the occasion was a banana caramel cake. I didn't try it because I really don't like bananas, but everyone else seemed to enjoy it.

I think I'll post about this recipe tomorrow...

Then I also made maple cupcakes. Mostly for my pregnant sister-in-law who had a few the last time I made them and fell in love. They really are delicious.

Our aunt brought cream puffs that were equally delicious. You can't have just one!

Our first Thanksgiving hosted as Mr. and Mrs. was a success! We even saw a little snow fall that afternoon...

Greek Couscous with Chicken & Feta

I'm back on track with planning ahead, making menus, and cooking what I plan for dinner. Our hectic lives forced us to spend less time on dinner each night and I just hate that.

So I went to my trusty pile of recipes I've ripped from the pages of the countless magazines I am given, and found some great new recipes to try. 

This one was quick, easy, and absolutely delicious! I'll definitely be making this one again!

Greek Couscous with Chicken & Feta.

(courtesy of Family Circle - Sept 2010)

Makes: 6 servings

Prep: 10 mins

Cook: 18 mins

1 tbsp olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 onion, chopped

3/4 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups Israeli couscous

1 1/4 cups low-sodium chicken broth

6 oz green beans, trimmed and halved

2 cups cooked, shredded chicken breast (I just took all the meat from one cooked chicken)

3 plum tomatoes, seeded and chopped

1 can artichoke hearts, drained and roughly chopped

1/2 cup crumbled reduced-fat feta

1/3 up kalamata olives, halved (I omitted these because I hate olives)

2 tbsp lemon juice

1. Heat oil in a medium nonstick saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook garlic 30 seconds, then stir in onion, oregano and 1/4 teaspoon salt; cook 4 minutes.

2. Stir in couscous and cook for 1 minute. Add chicken broth and 1 cup water to pot and bring to a boil; reduce heat to medium-low and cook, covered, for 12 minutes or until water is absorbed. Add green beans to pot for last 5 minutes of cooking.

3. Stir in remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, chicken, tomatoes, artichoke hearts, feta, olives, and lemon juice and serve immediately.

Per serving:

280 calories

6g fat (2g saturated)

16g protein

42g carbohydrate

6g fiber

968mg sodium

19mg cholesterol 

I sprinkled a little extra feta on each dish to garnish. 

DELICIOUS! Light, easy, healthy, and quick to make. Try it tonight!

Patrick's 13th Birthday dinner

Jim's (and my) cousin Patrick is also his godson. He turned the big 1-3 this weekend, and we volunteered to host the family birthday dinner at our house on Sunday.

Didn't get any photos of the main course, but the spread was delicious:

Mozzarella and Prosciutto Chicken on the grill

Prosciutto wrapped beef on the grill

Steamed veggies

Baked potatoes

Cheesy garlic bread

Chicken tenders for the kids, or the kids at heart :)

Dessert was simple:

Chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream icing

Vanilla cupcake cones with chocolate icing and magic shell chocolate sauce

My sister-in-law got me a few great cookbooks for my birthday - one of which was this "200 Barbeque Recipes" book - so I thought I'd try some new recipes

Great stuff in there! There I found the recipe for the chicken, the beef, and the cheesy bread. All easy. All delicious. The book does not come with my husband though - griller extraordinaire!

For the chicken, it said thighs but I used breasts. Pound them until somewhat thin. Season with salt and pepper. With the smooth side of the breast down, place a basil leaf or two on the breast. Then add half (they said quarter) of a bocconcini ball. Roll up the chicken, and wrap in a slice of prosciutto. Skewer it to keep it together, and grill until cooked through.

For the beef, it called for two eye round roasts (about 1 1/2 lbs each). Then make a rub with olive oil, lemon zest, fresh chopped thyme, salt, and freshly ground pepper. Rub all over the two cuts of beef. Then wrap the beef in about 6 slices of prosciutto each, and secure with bakers twine. Roast on indirect heat for 25 minutes, then wrap in a double layer of foil and rest until cooked to perfection - about 20 more minutes.

Cheesy bread was great. One small french loaf. Cut into about 20 slices, but not all the way through the bottom crust. Mix olive oil, crushed garlic and chopped fresh thyme and set aside. Then slice about 4oz of mozzarella thinly, and insert a slice in between each slice of bread. Then brush the entire olive oil mixture all over the bread. Wrap loosely in foil and grill on indirect heat for 5-10 mins until the cheese has melted.

For dessert...I used the old standby. Martha's One Bowl Chocolate Cake recipe. This time I used her chocolate version of the Swiss Meringue Buttercream. Why had I never tried this before?? It was TO DIE FOR! I guess I fell in love with the chocolate cake and original buttercream so long ago, that I never even considered making the chocolate buttercream. But Patrick likes chocolate cake so I thought I'd make it. YUM!

Just some large sprinkles around the edge and a quick royal icing to pipe. A little too runny, but oh well.

Martha's recipe recommends two 8" rounds when making this for a layer cake, but I think I am more comfortable with the 9" rounds. Makes for more manageable slices, and there is certainly enough buttercream to cover the larger cake. Even 10" would be fine.

For the cupcakes, this was a collaboration between my sister-in-law (check out her blog) and I. She made the cupcakes - but baked them right inside the ice cream cones. Yummy already, right? She used a light and airy vanilla recipe from Magnolia Bakery. Then she brought them over to my house, where we topped each one with real chocolate ice cream. We immediately doused them in magic shell chocolate sauce and sprinkles. YUM! Then we popped them in the freezer until ready to serve.

LESSON LEARNED: Make room in the freezer ahead of time AND put the cones in some kind of container that will keep them upright in the freezer. You can probably guess that we did not do the above steps - hence the "lesson learned". And that's why you can see choclately fingerprints all over the cones in the photos. Oh well. They were DELICIOUS!

Happy 13th Birthday, Patrick!

Father's Day Dinner

Yesterday morning Jim got up VERY early to golf with his dad, brothers, cousin, and uncle. I got up a little bit later :) to prep for the father's day dinner we were hosting. 10 people for dinner - my in-laws and my in-law's in-laws. Good times.

My plan to have dinner under our big beautiful walnut tree was ruined by the humidity, so I was forced to set up inside. We still all fit at one big table :)

Dinner menu:

Buttermilk chicken on the grill

Grilled kielbasa

Skewered vegetables

Grilled corn on the cob

Potato Salad

Pasta Salad

Corn Muffins

Dessert:

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Shoo-fly Pie

Old Fashioned Berry Layer Cake

The buttermilk chicken was found in the June 2010 edition of Martha Stewart Living. We had the cut-up chickens marinating in buttermilk, garlic cloves, and rosemary for about 18 hours. It was so moist and delicious!

Photo: Martha Stewart

Recipe HERE

Grilled kielbasa doesn't really require a recipe - just cut it up and stick it on the grill. Yummy. Slice it lengthwise and then on the diagonal to make it look pretty.

Skewered vegetables: I used what I like - red and green bell peppers, vidalia onions, mushrooms, eggplant and zucchini.

Grilled corn on the cob. If you still boil your corn in water, please stop immediately! Put it on the grill. You'll thank me later.

Potato Salad. This one is my mother's recipe, and I haven't decided if I will share it on my blog. Not yet at least. It's kind of my secret weapon :) I make it all the time, and everyone loves it. It's kind of a big deal - the potato salad, that is. I mean, I hate mayonnaise, and I LOVE this potato salad - that's how good it is. We'll see - I won't post it yet, but one day I might :)

Pasta salad. I'm no pro, but I basically use the following: some kind of veggie or whole-wheat pasta. Recently I have been using Wacky Mac. Cook the pasta, and let it cool. Chop up your favorite veggies - I use red and green bell peppers, broccoli (this time I used Trader Joe's broccoli slaw - so easy!), shredded carrots, english cucumber, and some celery. Then I just use whatever oil-based italian dressing I happen to enjoy at that time of year. Yesterday I used my old standby - the Good Seasonings italian salad dressing mix that comes in the packet that you mix up yourself. Done.

Corn Muffins. Thank you again, Martha. This one came from the July edition of Living that showed up in my mailbox last week. They were delicious. I only just acquired the taste for corn muffins. These were yummy.

I'll link to the recipe when she puts it on her website. Or if you have the magazine it's on page 115.

Desserts were quick and easy, but oh-so delicious. In fact, I will post the recipes this week.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie. I've made this one at least 4 or 5 times now, and every time people rave about it. Serve with vanilla bean ice cream. YUM.

Shoo-fly Pie. The recipe I found for this is amazing. I tweaked the cooking time a bit and love it.

Old Fashioned Berry Layer Cake. It's on the cover of Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook and I've been wanting to make it for years. Finally did. So worth it. With raspberries from our garden, no less!

Recipes tomorrow!

LOST. A cake and a finale review.

I had been wanting to have a LOST finale watch party for almost as long as I have wanted to see Rose and Bernard for one last time. Last night both those wishes were granted.

Just a few dedicated fans over for dinner and dessert last night - we started at 6pm with general discussions of how we thought it would all end, sharing our hopes that we would be left with a satisfying conclusion, and praying that we wouldn't be left with a disappointing finale ala The Sopranos or Seinfeld.

Had I had more time, I would have converted the house into a Dharma station complete with a pantry stocked with Dharma food, equipped our guests with Dharma jump suits, hidden "the numbers" in anything and everything, and somehow would have gotten a 50 ft three-toed statue placed in our front yard.

Instead, all I had time for was a tribute to the Dharma Initiative and the black-and-white/good-and-evil show theme via a Dharma cake and black and white dessert table.

Dinner was assemble-your-own-burritos, and we did manage to create our own smoke monster while searing the carne asada on the grill pan.

We ate during the two hour pre-show recap, and enjoyed it immensely. No inside answers, no profound moments of truth. But we laughed with Michael Emerson when he talked about Ben being the most beat-up character in television history, and laughed even harder when Ben was once again punched in the face during the finale. The pre-show revealed the joy and admiration the actors had for their characters and for the show, bringing our worlds together as we waited in anticipation for the final chapter.

I couldn't have been more satisfied with the end. Already having guessed weeks ago that the show would end with Jack's eye closing, and having guessed two weeks into the show starting that this was all some kind of purgatory-like limbo - the ending couldn't have been more surprising, and yet satisfyingly simple at the same time. 

For someone who had wasted one too many hours on Lostpedia, called the Oceanic 1-800 number, and spent too long trying to find something more within the Hanso Corporation website - the season finale that really answered none of the questions I had been so obsessed with for so long, was profound enough to make me forget about those other details and appreciate the show for what it really was all about. Much like the realization Jack came to know in the final meeting with his father. None of that mattered, and yet it did.

The finale succinctly tied together the viewpoints of faith vs science, good vs evil; but in a way that was peaceful, satisfying, and I think respectful of all spiritual beliefs. Notice the symbology in the stained glass of the room where Jack met his father? The show quietly respected the idea that life and death is what you make of it, without pushing one religious viewpoint of the afterlife down our throats.

The joyful reunions of the true loves, facilitated by the man with, in my opinion, the greatest love story on the show - Desmond - were immensely happy and appropriate reunions that brought a tear to my eye each time. (As a side note, when Penny and Desmond were reunited back in whatever season that was - I hadn't cried that much at a tv show since Dr. Green's final episode on ER. I LOVE Desmond and Penny!)

What I have loved about the show and what I continue to love about the show is that while I am ultimately satisfied, and happy, with the ending and how I have interpreted that ending, I can still enjoy conversations exploring the different interpretations of the storyline. 

This show, in its final moments of bringing the characters together in one place managed to do the same with the audience. It has brought viewers together as one - just as it did in the very first episode - the episode that captivated audiences across the globe and started a following of this wonderful journey. Those followers were shepherded through a unique television experience that ultimately ended with a calm and tranquil ending that I think audiences will agree, was unexpected and yet expected, but satisfying and enjoyable at the same time.

Back at the finale party, the cake was just as big of a hit as the show. Martha's one bowl chocolate cupcake recipe made into one layer of an eight inch square pan, topped with a layer of Martha's white cake recipe, covered in swiss meringue buttercream and homemade fondant. Extra cake batter was made into mini cupcakes. Chocolate cupcakes were topped with white buttercream, and the white cupcakes were topped with black buttercream. Yogurt covered raisins and chocolate covered cranberries in bowls on the dessert table was another tribute to the symbolism in the show. 

As I posted on facebook after last night's finale: 

Thank you, LOST writers...it was worth the wait.

Welcome home Jim! - Savory Bread Pudding

Jim left me in the snowy northeast this week while he was enjoying sunny San Diego in flip-flops for a work trip. Am I bitter? Only a little :)

Well to welcome him back I thought I'd try something new for dinner last night. He LOVES bread pudding, and this is a delicious variation of that. Savory Bread Pudding. YUM.

My mother-in-law gets about 650 magazines a month, which she then passes onto my sister-in-law, who then gives them to me (in addition to the 350 magazines I get a month!). Several months after receiving a huge tote filled with Good Housekeeping, Southern Living, BH&G, etc, etc, I eventually get around to flipping through them and tearing out the pages of things I want to buy, things that inspire new home ideas, and recipes that I want to try. This was one of those recipes, but I made a few minor changes.

The original recipe can be found HERE or in the September '09 issue of Southern Living.

Here's my version - I think it makes more than the original, but was definitely delicious. I used it as a side dish to some lightly panko breaded, oven fried pork chops. It could easily hold up on its own for an easy vegetarian meal. You can use any vegetables you have on hand, and really you can also use any bread you have.

Savory Bread Pudding

6 large eggs
1 cup milk
2 tsp stone ground mustard
1 1/4 tsp kosher salt
3/4 tsp black pepper
2/3 loaf of challah bread (try to cut the crust off), cubed into 1" chunks (day old bread preferred)
1 1/2 cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese, divided
12-16oz fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 cup julienned carrots
3/4 lb baby spinach
2 tbsp olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 350°. 

2. Whisk together eggs and next 4 ingredients in a large bowl; stir in bread and half of cheese.

3. Sauté mushrooms and next 3 ingredients in hot oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat 8 minutes. Stir in spinach, and sauté 2 minutes or just enough until the spinach begins to wilt. 

4. Fold vegetable mixture into egg mixture. 

5. Pour into a lightly greased 11- x 7-inch baking dish. Sprinkle with remaining cheese.

6. Bake at 350° for 35 to 40 minutes or until center is set. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.