One of my go-to quick, easy and healthy weekday meals. 

This post is from Sara:  I found the original recipe on Delish.com which is a favorite healthy recipe website for me.  I mostly plan my week’s meals out on Sunday and shop accordingly so that I don’t have to make several trips to the grocery store after work.  However, there are those days that I am not in the mood for my plan or life happens and dinner plans change.  This is one of the fast, easy and healthy recipes I love to make.  It’s a one-pan dish and I usually have everything on hand as it’s fairly common ingredients, at least in my household.  If I don’t have fresh basil, I almost always have pesto sauce that can be substituted.

I serve it with a salad and some balsamic vinaigrette that I add a tsp of pesto sauce to bring up the flavor.  You could also add pasta if you don’t have an aversion to carbs.  Or, like me, you have teenagers that need more calories.  I love this dish because of the fresh ingredients.  I always have grape tomatoes in my fridge as I eat them as a snack daily.  I used fresh mozzarella because I prefer it but regular mozzarella or provolone would work.

Having made this a few times, I found that I prefer to slice the chicken breasts horizontally into two thinner slices.  This keeps my portion size down and gives me leftovers for lunch the next day!  Another bonus of this recipe is to make enough for leftovers so I add the cold chicken cut up to a salad with tomatoes, fresh mozzarella bits and the pesto balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

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Oh so easy – chicken breasts, marinated in Italian salad dressing, then with an easy-to-put-together topping of canned artichoke hearts, Parm and mayo. So moist and flavorful.

My Northern California daughter, Dana, eats lots of chicken, and she occasionally finds a recipe that floats her boat. This is the one. When I drove up there a few weeks ago (for her 50th birthday – oh gosh – does that make me feel old!) she fixed this one night. She’d found the recipe on Pinterest, from a website called Plain Chicken. First you marinate the chicken (she used boneless, skinless breasts, but I’m sure you could use thighs) in some kind of Italian salad dressing. If you don’t have some on hand, make some. It probably wouldn’t take all that much dressing to be enough to marinate. Start on this a few hours ahead, or even overnight works.

Then, you pan sear the chicken on both sides, (Dana forgot to do that step, as you can see – raw chicken breasts there) put them out onto a foil-lined baking sheet and cover the tops with a mixture of canned and chopped artichoke hearts, grated Parm, mayo and some garlic powder. How easy is that? Into the oven it goes and bakes until perfectly juicy and tender.

When Dana made these, she used really big, thick chicken breasts, and we talked about it, that none of us could finish a whole half-breast, so if I were making it I’d cut the chicken breasts into 2 pieces and pound both pieces to an equal thickness (not super thin) and I’d pan sear the chicken only on one side. Then I’d put the artichoke mixture on the un-seared side and I’d watch the temp really closely once baking them. The recipe says 20-25 minutes. If you did the half of a half-breast, it might only take 12-15 minutes. Use an instant read thermometer, and take them out of the oven a few degrees shy of 165°F and tent the pan for just a few minutes and the temp will rise a little bit. Fix the rest of the dinner in those few minutes, then serve. The topping stays really – REALLY hot, just so you know. I think 2 or 3 of us burned the roof of our mouths on the topping. Thanks to the blog writer from Plain Chicken for this recipe.

What’s GOOD: great flavor – the salt in the topping tastes extra good (from the Parm and mayo) and it’s a perfect protection for the chicken breasts so they don’t get over done. Make a salad and you’ve got dinner.

What’s NOT: really nothing, although ideally you start this the day before and marinate them overnight.

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A lovely relish (or kind of like a salsa) to serve with grilled meat.

Presuming you read my post from yesterday, about the BBQ Chicken, South African Style, then you already know this relish is supposed to be served with that chicken. It came from a cooking show with Sarah Graham, who’s from South Africa. This side/relish is just so different – when I watched the show a couple of years ago I was intrigued with the ingredients . . .

It has some very standard things you’d expect in a relish – onion, a chile pepper, a bell pepper, garlic, even tomatoes. But a bit more unusual is a bunch of grated carrots, some chutney (I used apricot jam), a jot of ketchup. But this one also has a little bit of curry powder (but not really enough to taste it), AND it has a small can of BAKED BEANS in it.

Here’s what wikipedia has to say about it:

Chakalaka is a South African vegetable relish, usually spicy, that is traditionally served with bread, pap, samp, stews, or curries. Chakalaka may have originated in the townships of Johannesburg or on the gold mines surrounding Johannesburg, when Mozambican mineworkers coming off shift cooked tinned produce (tomatoes, beans) with chili to produce a spicy relish with a Portuguese flair to accompany pap. The many variations on how to make Chakalaka often depend on region and family tradition. Some versions include beans, cabbage and butternut. For example, a tin of baked beans, tin of tomatoes, onion, garlic, and some curry paste can be used to make the dish.

In case you’re interested, pap is a kind of cornmeal porridge, and samp is another kind of dried corn variant where the corn kernel shells are removed and then the inner meat made into a porridge type dish. Reading about the history of this dish, it makes so much sense that mine workers had to use canned foods and they discovered a way to make a spicy relish/side from canned tomatoes and baked beans.

The onion, chile, bell pepper and carrots are cooked a little bit (I cooked them VERY little as I wanted crunch) with the onions getting the most amount of cooking time, then you merely add in all the other ingredients. Since I made it I’ve had it alongside the leftover chicken, also some grilled sausages, and some fish. All good with it. I made part of mine without the beans (cuz I’m not eating beans on this diet I’m on), but I DID taste it, and thought the addition of the beans was really good. I was expecting it to not taste good, but it was. I gave away all of the bean relish and kept the part without beans and enjoyed it for a week or so afterwards.

What’s GOOD: it’s unusual, that’s for sure. Liked all the lively flavors in it – because I was having guests I used the lesser quantity of curry powder – I’d likely add more next time. Make ahead is fine, and it keeps for at least a week.

What’s NOT: nothing really . . . it was a really good addition to my potluck dinner to serve with the chicken.

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Just another grilled chicken recipe, but with a South African twist.

The picture at right is Sarah Graham. A cookbook author, writer, and a host of two seasons of a cooking show on the Cooking Channel. She lives in South Africa, and what I loved about her show was the location – she filmed outside and off in the distance behind her outdoor kitchen, were wild animals. You might still be able to find her shows on reruns if you look up Sarah Graham’s Food Safari. When I was watching her show, it was just before and just after I went to Africa and did a couple of weeks of safaris (loved it). I do enjoy listening to South Africans with their very different English accents. So it was with Sarah Graham.

A few recipes from her shows got saved to my to-try file (recipes are still available at the Cooking Channel, I would assume), and this is one of them.

This post is lagging a bit behind – – I made this over Labor Day weekend when I decided I was not going to be sitting home on the holiday Monday doing nothing. So I invited a group of friends over (all widows) and we did a potluck dinner. One friend brought lovely Dutch cheeses and crackers. Another brought a delicious apple crumble pie; yet another a green salad, another a rice, green chile and cheese casserole, and lastly a cold broccoli salad. And I did the main dish (chicken) on the grill. Along with a very unusual relish (that mound of red stuff on the right on the plate at top).

Here’s a photo of our group, from left: Annette, Judy, me, Judy and Mary Lou. Nancy took the photo. It was a gorgeous evening – we had been having lovely weather the last 2 weeks, gearing up, probably for blistering heat we usually have in September and October. I made strawberry gins – I should write up a post about that. My family (well, the ladies of my family) enjoyed them mostly in England, but we also found them in Paris and Florence also. So very refreshing. I found strawberry gin at my local “Total Wine,” but you might have to seek it out. You macerate a strawberry or two in a glass, add the strawberry gin, then top off with tonic. And lots of ice. Then wedge a strawberry on the rim of the glass, add a mint leaf and present!

So, back to the chicken. I’m going to post the relish tomorrow – so DO wait until you get that recipe before you make this. The relish is so unusual and different, but goes perfectly with the chicken. Anyway, the recipe indicates using a spatchcocked chicken (my Trader Joe’s has them fresh) or you can ask a butcher to cut it, or you can cut it yourself. You cut through the backbone (and remove it completely) and flatten out the bird so it can lay flat on the grill. You might have to nip a bit around the breast bone to get it to flatten out. I decided, actually, to cut the bird in half as I thought it would be easier for me to maneuver on the grill. It was a 5 pound bird I bought.

Marinate the chicken overnight – I used a big Ziploc bag – first I added in all the marinade ingredients – oil, balsamic, pourable honey, lemon juice, paprika, dry cilantro, cinnamon, garlic, fresh red chile, and a little jot of ketchup. The next morning I turned the bag over and squished the marinade around (it doesn’t make all that much). About 45 minutes before grilling, take it out of the refrigerator and let it warm a little bit. Meanwhile, fire up the grill.

You might find this hard to believe, but truly I’m a novice or an apprentice (but without a teacher) at the grill. You read this here before, my DH Dave was the grill meister in our house, and I merely told him what I needed him to do – cook to what temp and what the internal temp needed to be. He loved everything about mastering the grill techniques. Me, not so much. Because I’m alone now, when I have to manage or monitor what’s on the grill, I have to leave my guests – although every one of my friends understood why I was up and down checking on the chicken. No way did I want it to overcook!

What’s GOOD: really liked the flavor, and it was super-moist and tender. I first grilled it over high heat, then turned it down to medium and kept checking the internal temp. The skin charred well (see photo at top) but the chicken just below it was juicy.  The relish that went with it was a hit – it’s very unusual. The marinade did give the chicken some flavor, and cooking it with the lid down on the grill gave it some smoky flavor too. Likely you could bake this in the oven easily enough too. Yes, I’d make it again.

What’s NOT: nothing other than needing to start this the day before, to marinate the chicken.

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Mouth watering going on here at my end – this was before I started on a carb-free diet, and I ate this with relish back a few months ago.

This diet I’m on (virtually carb-free) does have me wishing for some Mexican food now and then. I miss chile rellenos and tostadas. Even refried beans. Didn’t think I’d miss them! It’s the crunch of the tortillas I miss, too. But, oh well, I’m working off the pounds slowly without tortillas, potatoes, rice, grains, bread, beans, squashes, etc.

But, since you, my readers, aren’t following my diet – you can make this recipe with abandon and you’ll love it. At the cooking class with Phillis Carey, she made her own pico de gallo, and her own buttermilk garlic dressing for the salad. You can short cut by purchasing those things. But I’ll include them all in the recipe below. The tortillas are stacked with Jack cheese, cheddar, goat cheese, olives and chicken meat that’s been tossed with some barbecue sauce. You make 2 layers, using 3 tortillas total for each serving (so this recipe makes 3 of the layered pieces which are then cut into wedges to serve). The quesadillas are baked first (10-15 minutes) until the tops are browned and crispy, then you cut each into wedges, add the lettuce with dressing and some pico de gallo and lastly sprinkle on some fresh cilantro. Altogether easy – ideal if you have some leftover chicken, perhaps? This could be an appetizer or a dinner – it’s rich with all the cheeses in it, so maybe an adult could eat one full round.

What’s GOOD: this is easy to make if you have the cheeses on hand, and you have some chicken already made. Use ranch dressing as a stand-in, and some jarred salsa too. Really delicious – and different because of the way you make them – layered/stacked and with the BBQ sauce on the chicken.

What’s NOT: nothing, really.

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Can we ever have enough recipes for a weeknight chicken dish? Here’s another one, a new one for me, bright with leeks, lime juice and garlic.

As I clicked through recipe after recipe for some new way to fix chicken, I finally came across this one – I had chicken thighs to begin with, I had fresh garlic and I had a lime. Plus a leek, which needed using. As I read this one, it said I’d entered it into my recipe program years ago (in 2001), from Cooking Light. Wow, long time ago. The original recipe didn’t have leeks in it, but I decided to use them anyway, and they provided a nice topping (and a side dish as you can see on the plate). I had 2 leeks – one would have been ample.

The chicken is mixed with lime juice and garlic. I let that sit while I sweated the leek in olive oil. Then I added the chicken thighs to the pan along with more lime juice, a little tiny bit of low-sodium chicken broth and white vinegar. That was brought up to a boil and baked for about 20 minutes – or until the middle of the chicken reaches 165°F. If you use bone-in meat, it’ll take a bit longer, just so you know . . .

The chicken and leeks were removed, then I boiled down the juices in the pan (on the stovetop), and that was spooned over the chicken. If you remember, serve with lime wedges and some chopped cilantro on top. Done. I’d roasted some broccoli and onions and served that alongside. One thigh was enough for me, but my son-in-law who was visiting, ate two of them.

What’s GOOD: the chicken was perfectly done – still moist, yet tender. Loved the sauce on it – you’ll want to scrape your bite of chicken through whatever is lingering on your plate. Leeks were tender and delicious too. Altogether nice dish, albeit with a bit more work than some.

What’s NOT: nothing, really.

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See that ooey-gooey cheese seeping out of the middle of the chicken? My fork just made a mad dash to slick up that stuff. The only thing I’d add to the plate would be a small mound of buttered pasta. Not lots, but just enough to be flavored by the marinara sauce underneath the chicken.

My guess is that the #1 animal protein sold these days is chicken breasts. They come in mostly the same shape, but they can be small – these are chicken breast halves I’m talking about – (3-4 ounces) or huge (8-10 ounces) depending on whose label you purchase. Organic chicken breasts are smaller (because the chickies are not fed antibiotics, hormones or grain/corn – no GMO anything). If you buy regular ones, they’ve been treated with antibiotics and hormones to enhance their ability to plump up with all the fat in the grains and GMO corn they consume in the last week or two of their lives. Those latter were what I used to buy. Now I seek out organic and if I can find it, pasture raised. I watched a TV program recently where someone in the food science industry visited a poultry farm and categorically said if you ever visit one of those places, you’ll never eat another chicken in your life. I also read very recently that poultry farmers pretty much make up their own rules to describe their chickens as organic or pasture-raised. One example I read – a poultry farmer called his chicken meat “pasture-raised” if the 500+ chickens in the barn are given a 6 inch square opening to the outdoors once a day for 5 minutes. How many of those chickens ever get OUT the door that’s 6 inches square? And they just get there and they’re herded back into the smelly barn enclosure. Probably artificially lighted, is my guess. Supposedly, poultry farmers submit paperwork explaining how/why they call their birds organic and pasture-raised, and someone in Washington reads it (maybe) and says okay. Doesn’t make sense to me. But I’m certain there is a very powerful chicken lobby working on their behalf in Washington.

But I do still eat chicken. I like chicken, but my preferred cut is thigh meat, even though it’s higher in fat. I think the flavor is better, AND you run a lot less risk of overcooking it. But today I’m talking about chicken breasts. White meat for sure. Plump, juicy and tender. And really, I must admit, that if you cook a plain chicken breast with little or no enhancing flavor on it, the chicken meat is rather tasteless. Dull, flat. The chicken breast contains the least amount of fat of any meat on the bird, hence it’s tasteless characteristic. Salt helps. For me, though, you have to DO something to a chicken breast to make it interesting. I love chicken piccata. Funny, I don’t even have a recipe for that here on my blog. I don’t make it for myself – I order it out usually. It’s something I could have on my current diet as long as I didn’t overwhelm the sauce with butter.

Anyway, medium-thick chicken breast halves are what you want for this recipe – thick enough that you can cut a pocket into it (from the thicker side). Big enough to salt and pepper the inside just a little, and big enough that you can stick a long wedge of fresh mozzarella cheese in it. Do buy fresh mozzarella – this is not a dish to use the ubiquitous ball of Mozzarella you’d use in lasagna. No, use fresh. Some markets now have sliced fresh mozzarella cheese – that’s what you’ll want if you can find it. Otherwise, buy the medium-sized balls of fresh mozzarella floating in water. Cut it as best you can into rounds and stuff about 2 slices into each breast. You may have to cut off one side of each piece of cheese to make it fit. Once the cheese is nestled inside, do your best to kind of stretch the chicken so the 2 sides of the pocket hold together. The sticky consistency of the raw chicken helps the two edges to adhere a little bit. You don’t want any cheese sticking out of the pocket or ALL the cheese will ooze out during the baking.

The chicken is dipped in flour, eggs, then panko crumbs (mixed with some Parm, garlic powder and dried oregano). Then the chicken breasts are lightly sautéed in a big nonstick skillet with about 1/4” of olive oil heated in it. You’ll brown the chicken breasts on both side about 4 minutes per side. Then the chicken goes into a large glass or ceramic baking dish. Jarred marinara sauce (have you tried the Victoria brand from Costco?) is poured around the chicken (not on top), fresh basil is added to the sauce and the chicken is baked in a 425°F oven for about 14-16 minutes (depending on thickness). The dish is removed and allowed to sit for 4-5 minutes, then you garnish with parsley and serve.

What’s GOOD: it’s a lovely presentation, whether you make some pasta on the side or not. Really good flavor, but enhanced with the cheese that slightly oozes from the pocket. DO salt and pepper the interior pocket, however, as fresh mozzarella doesn’t taste like much either unless it has something on it. Delicious.

What’s NOT: well, there IS some prep to this dish, but not all that much. If you buy a good jarred marinara, really the steps are quite simple.

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No, don’t be confused – my last post was DUCK with shallots and grapes. I adapted it to chicken. So good.

Don’t get me wrong – I like duck, but whenever I cook it, or eat it, I don’t want to look at the calorie and fat count. Those darned ducks store up fat like nobody’s business! So, after having the duck prepared this way – and after reading in the recipe that it could be made with chicken, a-ha! Chicken it is.

The duck was cooked with high heat and long. I knew chicken, with much, much less fat to render, would be a dried out mess, so I researched some braised chicken recipes and came up with a formula that worked. The timing I used was from Judy Rodgers.

What I want you to get from this recipe is the succulent sauce – I love chicken – but this recipe is so enhanced by the use of shallots and grapes. Serve it with some rice or mashed potatoes (or maybe some disguised mashed cauliflower?). And for sure serve some crusty bread along side to dip into those fabulous juices.

The making of this is VERY easy. Add seedless grapes (a pound) and about 12-15 shallots (yes, that’s a lot, but trust me), pour in some red wine and chicken broth, some aromatics, nestle the chicken right in on top and into the oven it goes for about 30 minutes at 375°F. Covered. Then you reduce the temp to 200°F, remove the lid and bake for another hour. THEN, you turn up the heat to 400°F and get it juicy brown in 15 minutes. Remove, put the chicken out on a cutting board, tent for 10 minutes while you finish getting everything else together, then slice and serve. Meanwhile, pour the pan juices into a fat separator, let it sit for 5 minutes, return to the pan and continue to reduce it some if you’d like.

What you then have is a great platter of tasty chicken with shallots and grapes to eat on the side. And some delicious sauce to serve on the side, or drizzle on top of the chicken. Do eat the shallots and grapes – they’re to die for (if you can get that excited about an onion or a grape, that is). My taste buds were singing.

What’s GOOD: how easy this was to make. No browning, just braising, really, with some varied ingredients. And the taste – well the grapes and shallots add a fragrant and tasty sweetness to the mix; the juice is out of this world, so don’t waste it!

What’s NOT: nary a thing, really. Takes a couple of hours; that’s it!

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You know the word unctuous? Not a word I use very often, and it doesn’t pertain to every dish you might prepare that delivered delicious results.

Having used that word, I decided to look it up. Unctuous, in relating to food, is only used in conjunction with greasy. Well. That brought me up short. This duck, well, yes, I suppose it did have a generous amount of fat in the pan, but it definitely was not greasy. So maybe unctuous isn’t the right word. I thought it had a more generous description/definition meaning soothing, rounded flavor. Which this duck was. So, if you’re turned off by the word unctuous, please disregard!

What this duck was, was EASY to make, and it was just bursting with flavor. My friends, Bud & Cherrie, invited me for dinner one night, and Bud, having read an article in Saveur about duck, decided to make this dish. Every once in awhile he gets a bug in his ear and decides to cook. So Cherrie took the back seat and made sides. I brought dessert.

Once I got home I looked up the recipe, and read that it could also be made with chicken, so my next recipe in a few days, will be this same recipe, but with chicken. As I’m writing this, I’ve just finished using up all of the chicken left over from making it (and  used the last of it in a soup). But this post is about duck.

The duck is only prepped with some salt. In a large Dutch oven you layer in the flavors – a pound of red seedless grapes and a boat load of shallots. A lot of them – at least 12 if not more if they’re small. You add some low-sodium chicken broth and an equal quantity of good red wine, add some bay leaves and fresh thyme, and you’re in business. The duck gets laid in on top of all that stuff and put into a HOT oven for about 2 hours, give or take, with some of it covered, and some not. By that time, the duck is just about falling apart, but it’s absorbed some of the wonderful flavors of the grapes, shallots and red wine.

When Bud removed it from the pot it still held together – barely – and he put it out on that platter (above), gently cut it into pieces and we helped ourselves. It was so moist and tender. We all dunked bread into the luscious juices too. That may have been the best part! When I made this with chicken, I poured the juices through a fat separator, used some for left overs, then used the remaining in a delicious soup I made.

What’s GOOD: first off, it’s EASY. That’s the part that I liked best. The flavor was full – you got a hint of the shallots and red wine and grapes. A domestic-raised duck will feed 4 people. If they’re smaller, you might need 2 ducks. As you likely know, they’re expensive (unless you have them on your property). Altogether wonderful meal; worth making for sure. And yes, unctuous still is the word I’d use, even if it might be wrong!

What’s NOT: the only thing I’d mention is the length of time it took to prep the shallots. Buy big ones, so you can use fewer of them, and they’re easier to peel. Overall, nothing at all wrong with this dish – well maybe the fat content. I didn’t want to know . . . and by the way, the nutrition count you’ll see at the end of the recipe assumes you’re going to eat all the skin and (greasy) juices, which you probably won’t do.

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I’m really enjoying these sheetpan dinners. So EASY and tasty. This one is no exception.

It’s been awhile (at least 6 weeks ago) that I made this, but it was so good, and worth it, that I didn’t want to NOT post it. I had a recipe to start from, but I was a bit creative with it, adding a few extras, just because.

The original recipe was in Sunset Magazine in the December/January issue, but because my cousin Gary doesn’t like brussels sprouts, and because I had a sweet potato on hand, I changed up some of the ingredients, but kept to the main idea of the Sunset recipe. I added broccoli, more onion and I had multicolored small bell peppers. I bought some really good quality chicken sausages at a butcher shop first, then embellished with all the other ingredients. EVOO (or avocado oil) is used at the beginning and then tossed with all the raw veggies and into the oven it goes for about 30 minutes. The Fuji apple is a game-changer – it adds a lovely bit of sweetness to it all. Loved that part.

I think the original recipe started with pre-cooked sausages. Not me – mine were raw, and I just made sure they were cooked through before serving (they were). The vegetables were perfectly cooked and the sweet potatoes slightly crispy on a few edges, and the onions were certainly cooked through too. I served it right from the pan, with aged balsamic drizzled over the top. I think I probably used more than a tablespoon – probably 1 1/2 T at least so that nearly every item had a bit of the vinegar. I like aged balsamic (you do NOT want to use regular grocery shelf quality balsamic on this as it’s way too acidic – you need the syrupy style of aged balsamic to do this justice). My cousin who was visiting doesn’t much like balsamic (I didn’t know that or I’d have drizzled it on half of the pan) so he was a bit put off by it, but me? Loved it. Would have been happy to drizzle a bit more over it, except for the fact that aged balsamic is quite dear and not something to lavish on one sheet pan dinner! If you don’t have aged balsamic, might I suggest you use a fruit balsamic (I have several – – pomegranate, strawberry that I recall) because the ordinary/cheap stuff wouldn’t be good.

What’s GOOD: overall healthy, tasty and EASY. Love that last part. I ate the left overs about 5 days later and enjoyed it almost as much as the first time around. If you want to make it more original, use Brussels sprouts and no yellow squash or sweet potato. I loved the apple in the mix.

What’s NOT: nothing that I can think of. So easy!

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