Looking for an easy dinner entrée – worthy of serving to guests – that’s not all that difficult, AND can be made ahead one day? Try this one. If you don’t love broccoli, try asparagus instead.

Can you just tell by looking at that photo that this tastes good? I can’t always tell, sorry to say, unless I look at the list of ingredients. And sometimes, even then I’m wrong. Alas, what tastes good to one person doesn’t taste good to another. That’s what makes us human! But IF you like broccoli, bacon and cheddar (with some cream cheese in there to help hold it all together) you’ll really like this dish.

Once again, my hero, Phillis Carey, has created a chicken dish that is just delicious! Since I own her cookbooks, you’d think I don’t need to go to her cooking classes anymore. Wrong. She keeps coming up with new and innovative ways to cook and prepare chicken. This time it’s a method of oven browning that I’ve never tried. She’s just a wizard at it, I tell ‘ya!

What’s great about this one is that you can do most of the prep a day ahead of time. You will have to coat the chicken bundles in egg and bread crumbs, and bake them just before serving, but truly that won’t take that much time. If you prefer to keep the calories down, you can use low-fat cream cheese in this, and you can use less bacon. Or no bacon at all. If you’re not a fan of broccoli, Phillis suggested asparagus spears – precooked almost completely when you stuff it. The chicken breasts have to be pounded thinner than usual – to 1/4 inch thick. Carefully, so you don’t break them apart. That’s part of the secret to these – you have to pound the chicken thin enough to surround the filling.

And don’t forget this new method of getting the breaded chicken golden brown without frying – just by doing it in the oven. Phillis poured a little oil in the bottom of a large rimmed sheet pan and carefully laid the chicken bundles in the oil (after the pan and oil were heated up in the oven for several minutes), and 8 minutes later you turn them over to oven-brown the other side for 6-8 minutes (if using Convection/Bake, it’ll be closer to 6 minutes).

Once, years ago, an acquaintance of mine pounded chicken breasts out flat, filled each one with a wet, traditional bread stuffing mix, then pulled the edges up around the sides of the filling in a kind of cup shape, and used kitchen string to tie it in several places. After baking she clipped off the string, poured some chicken gravy over the top and served it with a green vegetable. It was kind of like eating Thanksgiving dinner in a single serving. I thought it was delicious. I didn’t really know this person well enough to ask for her recipe, so I had to do some trial and error. Mostly error and I gave up – it was always too dry. This method of Phillis’, though, is very similar. Maybe I’ll have to give that a try. I’m sure I baked these other cup-like chicken breasts too long and not in a hot enough oven, either. Here, at 1/4 inch thick (that’s really thin) they’re baked a total of 15 minutes at 425°. Hmmm. That has me thinking . . .

What I liked: just the overall flavor and texture. The broccoli. The bacon. The cream cheese. All yummy. Easy to make too – honest.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all. I suppose if I were making this for guests, I might consider drizzling the top with a light gravy, maybe, but it truly isn’t necessary.

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It was, most definitely, a cold salad kind of evening. In fact, it was still in the mid-80’s at 8 pm the other night after I fixed this. It was too hot to eat outside. But the recipe didn’t need me to heat the oven, although my DH did have to grill the peaches. That was the extent of the cooking. Right after dinner sat in the cool Jacuzzi for awhile, which was very refreshing.

My inbox on this particular day contained an email from one of the magazines I subscribe to – and it listed “25 peach recipes you can use today,” or some such advertising come-on. But I clicked over to look, and up popped this salad, which came from Southern Living in 2008. I had the fresh mozzarella. I had peaches. I had arugula. I had fresh cilantro. I was in business.

What intrigued me – besides the grilled peaches – was the salad dressing. It’s composed of a whole peach, the cilantro, honey (I used agave), lime zest and juice (and I augmented it with lemon juice since I didn’t have enough lime juice), ground cumin, chili powder, olive oil AND tequila. Tequila, I thought? Odd, but interesting.

There you can see the salad a little more clearly with the chicken around the edges. This salad did not include chicken in it, but I decided this should be a dinner entrée, so I used some of the leftover chicken from the perfect Roast Chicken I did a couple of nights ago. I whipped up the dressing in the food processor. Just know that you have to use the dressing in a couple of days. Cilantro, once it comes in constant contact with liquid, becomes a liquid. And not all that nice. I have a lot left over that I’m going to need to use asap. So you might try cutting down on the dressing quantity because I think it will dress a salad for more than 4 people. Next time I’ll make the dressing without the cilantro and just mince it up and add it as needed. That way I wouldn’t have a time limit on using it up.

What I liked: the freshness of it – the peaches were just perfect specimens – they looked beautiful on the plate – the dressing gave a distinct flavor to everything, including the fresh Mozzarella. A delightful summer salad for sure.

What I didn’t like: nothing, really. Just remember my suggestion about the dressing – use it up, or make a bit less of it as it doesn’t keep.

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Oh my, yes! Juicy. Tender. Perfectly cooked. Easy. Hooray for Cook’s Illustrated. They finally figured out how to do it and have given us the technique. I don’t know about you, but I never seem to be able to get a roast chicken to look or taste like the ones you can buy from the rotisserie at the grocery store, or Costco. Those always seem to be golden brown and juicy (unless they’ve been sitting there too long).

The recipe came from the most recent issue of the magazine (Sept/Oct 2011). Unless you are a subscriber to the online version (a different fee from being a hard-copy subscriber as I am) you can’t access this recipe online. So I’m going to have to give you a synopsis.

The short story is: heat a 12-inch frying pan in a 450° oven. Dry, oil, salt & pepper a whole chicken. Set chicken in the hot frying pan breast side UP with meat thermometer. When breast meat reaches 120° or thigh at 135°, turn oven OFF (yes, really). Leave in oven until breast meat registers 160° or thigh 175°. Remove from oven, tent lightly 20 minutes. Carve and serve.

Every time I read an article in Cook’s Illustrated I’m astounded at the creativity of the staff. They come up with innovative ideas to solve cooking problems that I certainly can’t. In this case it’s all about having the thigh meat get a jump-start in the cooking process, since it usually takes longer to reach 175° than it does to get the breast meat cooked to 160°. As we all know, if we wait until the thigh is done, usually, the breast meat is past its peak and dry. Why didn’t I think about putting the thigh meat in contact with a hot frying pan surface?

The preparation is SO simple. The baking is easy, as long as you have a good meat thermometer – one that will beep at you when something reaches temperature. You don’t want to go beyond the temps or you’ll end up with overcooked chicken. I had a really large chicken, so the approximate timing was a little longer in both parts of the baking process, but the results were fantastic. I’m so happy!

What I liked: how easy it was; hot delicious it was – tender, juicy. No question, this is going to be my new method of roasting a chicken. The leftover meat was tender as could be, both breast meat and thigh.

What I didn’t like: well, it wasn’t quite as golden brown as I’d hoped. But overall, it was fantastic, so I don’t want to complain that the skin wasn’t quite as brown as I’d have liked. We don’t eat the skin anyway.

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I know, I know, what’s so special about a grilled chicken salad! Well, let’s just say it’s all about the dressing in this recipe. If you don’t care about the salad part, that’s fine, but you do need to try the dressing on a salad of your choice.

Wanting a cold salad for dinner in the summer is certainly standard fare around here. I dug out this recipe that I think came from a cooking class I went to in the mid-80’s. It’s that old. And the recipe for an artistic salad such as pictured above, was on the cutting edge at the time! My notes say this recipe came from Jean Francois Meteigner, at Cicada (an L.A. restaurant). At the time the restaurant was on Melrose. There is still a Cicada, but it’s in downtown L.A. and somebody else is the chef. Meteigner has moved on to another restaurant in Santa Monica. In any case, this is his recipe and it’s a good one.

I made the dressing an hour ahead and let it sit out at room temp so the garlic would infuse a bit more. Afterwards I refrigerated what was left and used it up within a few days. As for the salad, it’s a mixture of baby spinach, arugula and mixed salad greens. Then you add some cucumber, fennel, fresh corn cut off the cob (or use frozen if that’s all that’s available), toss the salad with the dressing, then add the decorative touches – fresh wedges of tomato, avocado, green onions and artichoke hearts, if you’d like. When I served this as a main dish salad I added the chicken. The next day I served a lovely green salad  (pictured above) with some crumbled blue cheese, some toasted pecans, and the dressing.

So, first is the salad dressing. As you can see from the ingredient list, it has some sweetness to it. Not too much, but enough that you know it’s sweet. The original recipe called for honey – I used agave nectar instead. Otherwise, I stuck to the recipe as written. It’s delicious. Several people asked me about it- they couldn’t tell what was in it – the sherry vinegar adds a different taste. And the lemon juice gives it a nice tartness, although the agave certainly balances it. Worth making.

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Then, if you’d like to make the chicken salad part, with all the delicious fresh veggies that go along with it, here’s that part.

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Can you see those chicken breasts hiding underneath all those citrus slices? Grilled to perfection, moist and tender chicken breasts that were marinated in a nearly all-citrus mixture (orange juice, lemon juice and lime juice) along with some fresh chives, fresh mint, olive oil, and a little bitty glug of honey.

First, though, you need to remove the chicken tender(loins) for another use, then pound the chicken breasts (I used boneless, skinless) to a more uniform thickness . That assures they’ll cook evenly. The chicken breasts we had were really hefty ones, so I ended up cutting them in half to serve. Because once you pound them thinner, they’re really pretty darned big.

The poultry is marinated in a citrus juice mixture for about 1-4 hours (4 hours is better, obviously). You drain the chicken, pat it dry with paper towels, then grill them. Meanwhile, you’ve already sliced an orange, a lemon and a lime to grill (yes, really) toward the end of the cooking time. You do reserve a bit of the marinade – one to use for basting – another to pour over the chicken after it’s grilled. And if you really want to add some additional taste, calories and fat, take the 2nd amount of marinade, bring it to a boil, then add a couple of tablespoons of butter, a tablespoon at a time, then drizzle that over the chicken before you put all the citrus slices on top.

This rendition is a very healthy one. Assuming you use average-sized chicken breasts, it’s a little over 200 calories. Some people will eat the citrus slices (included in the nutrition count). And the nutrition calculator assumes you’re consuming the marinade, which you’re not. So, you see, the chicken is probably even less. And if you cut the chicken breast in half, it’d be even less!

What I liked: the bright, clean flavors from the citrus; the ease of marinating it; the pretty presentation with the slices all over; the mint.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all. Just be careful you don’t overcook the chicken – as you probably know already, that’s very easy to do.

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My DH said to me as I came home from a morning out, “Kerry’s wife is out of town, so I invited him over for dinner; hope that was okay!” Well, sure, it was, but I needed to scramble to figure out what to make. I defrosted chicken breasts and made a quick grocery list. DH went shopping for that as well as for all the food we’ll need this weekend for family coming to visit. I’m preparing all new stuff for that, with only one recipe I’ve ever made before, and it’s not on the blog. So a bunch of new recipes to come.

Digging through my files I came across one from a cooking class I took eons (like 20 years) ago, taught by Alan Greeley, a well-known chef/owner of The Golden Truffle. An institution in our part of the world. For whatever reason, we rarely go there. It’s a distance to drive (30 minutes), but their food is good, so don’t know why it’s not on our go-out-to-dinner radar.

First I found a quinoa recipe that sounded good, and to me, the grilled chicken was perfect to serve with it. The quinoa salad had a slightly Asian twist to it (recipe to come), so this chicken rendition, which also contained a squirt of soy sauce, was a perfect accompaniment. The chicken didn’t quite get to marinate the full 5 hours (recipe said up to 5 hours), but it got about 2 hours, and I used my handy-dandy vacuum container to help the chicken absorb some of it.

The sauce has a myriad of ingredients – jarred chile sauce, fresh lemon and lime juices, brown sugar, soy, garlic, coarse ground mustard, salt, Worcestershire, chipotle chile and balsamic vinegar. And you know that if a sauce like this has sugar in it, (there’s sugar in bottled chile sauce too) it will tend to burn and/or stick to the grill. Cooking at a lower heat is your secret to success. The sauce is piquant (one of my favorite words when something is both sweet and sour), which comes from the sugar and the citrus juices. The original recipe also called for the zest and juice of an orange, but I didn’t use that part. What makes this recipe Belizean is probably the use of the fresh citrus juices and the chipotle chile. The original recipe also called for some habanero, but I thought it was hot enough with just the chipotle. You can add a jalapeno chile if you’d like – mince it up and add at the beginning. What’s probably not Belizean is balsamic vinegar. But hey, it’s one of those great umami tastes, so why not?

Save a little bit of the barbecue sauce just after you make it, as it tastes good as a dollop on top of the chicken when it’s served. Do not serve any of the sauce that has been in contact with the raw chicken! Salmonella fast track there!

Grill the chicken as you normally would – don’t overcook it – the chicken breasts I used were relatively thin and didn’t need pounding, and they cooked through in about 3 minutes per side. Then I put a spoonful of the sauce on top and served it. I happened to have some fennel fronds on my chopping board (that went in the quinoa salad) so I put that on top. Cilantro would be the more obvious choice if you have it. I have leftover sauce (I made the full recipe, but only marinated 3 chicken breasts) so will make this again in the next week or so and try grilling the chicken on the outdoor grill; we’ll see how that works.

What I liked: how easy it was to make the sauce (simmered for about 20 minutes). It’s a different kind of sauce – not your typical barbecue sauce – much of the flavor comes from the jarred chile sauce, a tomato-based one. Tasting the sauce by itself it’s hard to pick out what is in it. It was great – not necessarily the most flavorful I’ve ever made, but it was very good.

What I didn’t like: how quickly you can burn the chicken (because of the sugar in the sauce), so do use a low temp.

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Periodically I mix up a batch of turkey sausage – the breakfast sausage type. When I want to feel a bit more virtuous. When I want to watch calories and fat. Usually I freeze them, 4 little patties to a package wrapped in plastic wrap, with plastic in between the layers. Will I say they taste just like pork sausage? Well no, they don’t. But they’re good enough, and certainly better for us. My DH and I have one little patty each with our breakfast of yogurt and fruit and a half a piece of whole grain toast.

They’re really simple to make – it’s just some fresh ground turkey (do use some dark meat otherwise the sausage will be very, very dry) – and add in the herbs. A couple of years ago I posted a recipe for some very spicy turkey breakfast sausages. They’re really highly seasoned with not only herbs but a lot of heat-spice too. These are different – they’re quite mild – similar to the kind of spice you’d find in store-bought pork breakfast sausage. My friend Sue made these for us when we visited her recently. A friend of hers had given her the recipe. It’s a good one.

My only advice is that when you sprinkle in the herbs, sprinkle them all over the meat. Turkey meat is harder to mix up (like when you’re making meatloaf with ground beef) and you may end up with one part of the meat with all the herbs. Form into patties and fry up them or freeze as I mentioned above. The photo at top is the raw patties.

What I liked: that it’s turkey, not pork; that it’s lower in fat; and the mild seasonings in it.

What I didn’t like: nothing really. Just know that it’s not trying to substitute for pork.

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Two years ago: Plums – everything you want to know about them
Three years ago: Summer Shrimp Salad
Four years ago: Green Beans with Shallots and Balsamic Vinegar

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If you are looking for an easy dinner for a warm, summer night, this is your ticket. It’s so tasty, delicious, and low calorie as well. Although don’t tell anybody that – they won’t know the difference. When we were on our recent trip to Colorado, Sue served this our last night there. It was a warm night – so warm that we ate inside with air conditioning. And it was so refreshing.

As soon as we got home and I needed a simple dinner for our friends Bud & Cherrie, I remembered Sue’s salad. The base recipe comes from Colorado Collage, the well-known Denver Junior League cookbook. A cookbook I already owned, but definitely hadn’t tried this recipe! Cherrie wanted the recipe – they both enjoyed it very much. Cherrie also owns MasterCook, the recipe software program we both use. Which is why I am now going to include – a MasterCook downloadable file (an MX2 file) at the bottom of every post (next to the PDF file). This is the first time I’ve done this, so if any of you use MC, would you please email me and let me know if it worked? Did the photo download (I’m not certain it will, but you can copy and paste it from the post)? I sent the file to Cherrie the other day and she was so surprised when she clicked on it in my email to her, MC came up and the recipe was complete. She was astounded!

The recipe is quite easy to make, although I made a few changes. I thought the buttermilk dressing would be enhanced with a bit of amp-up with some chipotle chile added in. I also added some citrus zest (I had kumquat, but you could use orange or lemon) and a small garlic clove too. There is no oil in the buttermilk drizzle that’s used over the chicken. The chicken breasts are pounded evenly, then dipped in cornmeal/flour, in egg, then again in the cornmeal/flour before sautéing in a bit of canola oil. Because they’re pounded, they don’t take long to cook – about 6-8 minutes maximum (total, not per side). Sue had used her electric skillet (brilliant idea) – because you want to serve these warm. She cooked them an hour or so ahead (so did I when I made them), then turned the electric frypan temp down to “warm.” An hour later they were still perfectly done and hadn’t dried out at all. That’s a win-win in my book. I put the lid on, but slightly ajar – you don’t want the crispy chicken coating to get soggy.

As for the salad – the recipe has you serve the chicken on top of a mixed tender green salad with some slivers of red bell pepper. I tossed the salad in a very light canola oil and sherry vinegar dressing – just enough to give it a tiny bit of flavor. I also added a bunch of fresh herbs from my garden (use your own mix of herbs to suit your taste) to the salad, and some cherry tomatoes and avocado too. I saved a few of the herbs to sprinkle on top of the chicken also. The photo at top is Sue’s (original) version, which is just fine, as is. But if you want to zip it up some, use some of my additions. Thanks, Sue, for preparing this for us – this will become part of my regular summer rotation!

What I liked: the ease of it all – and the make ahead part. The dressing with no oil – so it’s the low calorie and fat aspect, but you’d never know that. Liked the crispy coating – but it’s not thick at all – that I liked a lot.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all. A great dish, particular for summer.

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Two years ago: Tomato, Blue Cheese and Saffron Vinaigrette
Four years ago: Asian Slaw (one of my favorites – great for a summer barbecue)

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During a recent cooking class with Phillis Carey, she began the introduction to this dish by saying that this is one of her very favorite dishes. And that she makes it very frequently for herself and has never tired of the combination of flavors. I scribbled notes on my recipe in a hurry there – I always listen closely when Phillis tells us it’s a favorite of hers because I’ve never not liked any of her favorites. And she mentioned that yes, making risotto is a bit of a nuisance, what with all that constant stirring for 30-35 minutes. But she assured us that we’d be glad when we tasted it. And indeed we were. We heard “mmmmm” all around the classroom. My mmmm included! I nearly licked the plate. For risotto. It was so gosh-darned delicious.

It’s a traditional risotto in how it’s made – nothing different about the preparation or the stirring, or keeping the chicken stock hot. It was the combination of the sausage, the leeks, the corn. And the prettiness of the added spinach. And the red of the tomatoes. Well, just all of it.

I made the dish a few nights later, as I said, with the identical ingredients (except I used pork Italian sausage) and my DH and I nearly licked the plate. Don’t skimp on the Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Or the butter – that’s an important addition at the end. Do use fresh, baby spinach too. If you have some fresh basil, sprinkle a bit of that on top as you serve it.

So, how’d we like it? Well, I’d had it at the cooking class, so I knew I’d enjoy it. My DH was so busy eating it he couldn’t even look up to say anything. Meaning that he loved it. We both did. It did take about 45 minutes to make, but I didn’t have to stir it every second. I was close by to stir it around every 30 seconds or so and add more broth as I chopped up the tomatoes, cut the fresh corn off the cob. I made it last week for our friends in Colorado too, and they both thought it was delicious.

What I liked: I loved it all. The texture of the arborio rice – it came out perfectly. The sausage added some great taste, but wasn’t overwhelming. The color with the spinach and tomatoes. The cheese. Oh goodness yes, it was all good. And this is now going onto my “favorites” list if that’s any indication of how delicious it is!
What I didn’t like: well, I suppose the stirring gets a little tedious, but that’s it.

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When I served this to my hubby the other night, he announced that it was the best chicken breast dish I’d ever made. Well, I don’t know that I’d quite go that far, but it was really, really good. It had just plain good chicken taste, it had texture from the bread crumb and Parmesan crust, and it had this tart citrusy butter drizzle on top with some tarragon thrown in. The recipe came from my new favorite cookbook (are you getting tired of hearing about this cookbook yet?), The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century? I’ve been slowly reading my way through the cookbook – I mean, it’s over 1000 pages long, so it’s going to take awhile. I hadn’t gotten to the chicken chapter yet. But according to the index there aren’t all that many recipes for boneless, skinless chicken breasts. The original recipe appeared in the New York Times in 1987 – a Pierre Franey recipe from a column called “60 Minute Gourmet.”

First I pounded the chicken breasts to an even thickness. I’ve learned over the years, that I have to do that, so the chicken cooks evenly. That part isn’t in the recipe, but I added it in. Otherwise I stuck to the recipe exactly. Oops, well, I used some home made garlic croutons (crushed up) as the breading instead of the fresh bread suggested in the recipe. The chicken gets dipped in flour, then in a seasoned egg mixture, then in the combination of grated Parm and the bread crumbs. The pieces are sautéed in oil, only a few minutes per side (the chicken tenders required little more than a flash in the pan). Once removed you add a tablespoon or two of butter and some freshly chopped tarragon and drizzle that over the top. Done. Absolutely wonderful.

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A year ago: A photo of my citrus press – my favorite universal one
Two years ago: Grilled Lamb Chops with Herb Rub
Three  years ago: Flank Steak with Orange Marinade
Four years ago: A real favorite – Roasted Poblano Asiago Soup

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