For a couple of years we’ve been enjoying a single breakfast sausage most mornings. Trying to make it more healthy, but not giving up the pork aspect altogether, we’ve settled on a mixture of half ground pork and half ground turkey. Delish.

For the longest time we ate Costco’s all pork breakfast sausage, which comes from a distributor in San Diego. If you go outside of SoCal, you’ll find different branded sausage at Costco. I’ve been trying to find more healthy alternatives, though, and at first I tried making sausage patties with all ground turkey. We just didn’t get the flavor and texture we were looking for, so after going back to Costco’s sausage for some months I decided to give it another try. This time with the half and half mixture and more spices. I’ve been making this for about 3-4 months now, and we’re very happy with the results. One of these times I’m going to use slightly more turkey than pork.

The spice mixture started out as one from my friend Sue, who now lives in Colorado. Sue’s mild turkey breakfast sausage  had great flavor, so I went with her combination, but just used a bit more.

Here’s a little triptych at left of how I do it:

(1) all the meat goes into a big bowl

(2) the seasonings are sprinkled all over – do NOT just throw it into one little pile – it will never get mixed in well enough – trust me on this

(3) mix it up and separate those spices as much as possible

(4) use a cookie scoop (or a spoon) to make really large 2-tablespoon-sized balls, approximately, and roll them, then flatten carefully

(5) On a metal sheet lined with waxed paper (or foil) place the patties a hair’s breadth apart, stacking 2 layers with waxed paper in between layers

(6) place tray on a flat surface in the freezer and allow to freeze solidly for about 3-4 hours

(7) remove from freezer and gently pry the patties off the waxed paper and place in Ziploc freezer bags (the quart size will hold about 16 or so of them). Seal up and replace bags in the freezer.

Below is a photo of them during the freezing process. I balance the cookie sheet on several items in the freezer so they’re almost level – and not touching the top rack, obviously. Can you tell my freezer if pretty darned full? I make a double batch of these each time (2 pounds each of turkey and pork) and they keep just fine for a couple of months in the freezer.

When you’re ready to have some, remove the number you want from the freezer bag and slowly (on a low setting) microwave/defrost them for about a minute until they’re defrosted. Do not “cook” them in the microwave – once you actually start to cook them in a frying pan, they’ll cook unevenly if they were partially cooked in the microwave and will tend to dry out.

The only advice I have – don’t over cook them – if you make these you’ll learn how quickly these cook and to remove them just when they’re done. They go from tender and juicy to dry and firm (and not very tasty) in a jiffy.

What’s GOOD: we like everything about this combination. We feel a little bit healthier because we’ve cut out half the pork, but with some in it, it still has all the pork flavor I’m looking for. I really like the subtle mixture of spices – be sure to sprinkle the red chili flakes all over the bowl – they’re potently hot – I speak from the voice of experience here.
What’s NOT: nothing, really. It’s a bit of a nuisance to make, but you’ll have enough to last awhile. Or make a double batch like I do.

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This is a lesson in what to do with left over Artichoke Heart & Lemon Dip. The recipe, posted yesterday, made more than I’d expected – there was about a cup left over. It became the base for this fantastic pasta to which I added chicken cubes, more artichoke hearts (cut in quarters), broccoli and peas.

Perhaps you’ll recall reading the post yesterday about the artichoke lemon dip (picture at right) I made for a dinner party we had. Even so, I had a bunch left over. As I began thinking about it, pasta sounded like the best way to use it – my friend Darci suggested it – and I just started thinking about what would taste good with it – fresh broccoli florets, cubed chicken, more canned and quartered artichoke hearts and some frozen peas. It was cinchy easy to make.

First I got all the different additions ready – I steamed the broccoli in the microwave, and I prepped the artichokes too. I buy Trader Joe’s canned (not marinated) artichoke hearts. The two cans I opened (one for the dip and the next day another one for the pasta) had fairly large hearts, and the outer ends were quite tough to eat (I tested one), so on each heart I cut off about 1/2 inch and discarded it.

I put a big pot of water on the boil for the pasta, then got out a pretty large skillet (enough to hold the sauce and the pasta both) and gently began warming the dip. I added a bit of half and half to the dip to loosen it up some. I did not bring it to a boil but just below that. Then I added in the broccoli and artichoke hearts and warmed those through, then lastly I added the chicken and frozen peas, which took maybe 90 seconds to heat through. Once the pasta was done, I drained it and tossed it in with the sauce. Onto a plate, sprinkled it with freshly grated Pecorino cheese and dinner was done.

So, on the recipe below, I’ve given you the ingredients for making HALF of the dip. You could make the full amount, serve part of it as an appetizer and use the balance for the pasta. I didn’t want you to have to go find and print the other recipe, so it’s all contained below.

What’s GOOD: gosh, it was delicious. The artichoke heart dip (made into a sauce) lends a nice, subtle artichoke flavor. It has a nice creaminess to it, of course and it sticks to the pasta very well. I liked the combo of veggies (broccoli and peas and more quartered artichoke hearts). Altogether good!
What’s NOT: nothing, really. It’s so easy to make if you have the ingredients on hand.

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You’ve heard me say it here before – if you trust my judgment – you’ve got to make this chicken dish. It was SO good. I love it when I find a recipe that combines some new flavor combination – who’d have thought corn and blueberries were a match – they are when you combine them with pecan and panko-crusted chicken.

The recipe has been in my to-try file for awhile. I found it over at Charmian Christie’s blog, now called The Messy Baker. I love the photo – the contrast of the dark blueberries and the bright yellow (white) corn. We have fresh corn in our markets now – probably comes from Latin America because I don’t believe local corn is big enough yet to harvest. The corner farm stand, where they grow corn every year is about 4 1/2 feet tall right now, but certainly no corn yet.

Charmian credits this dish, which is called a Milanesa (I changed it from Pecan Milanesa to Pecan Crusted Chicken Breasts, so you’d know from the get-go what it is). In Latin and South America a Milanesa just means a breaded cutlet. It’s not an Italian word, but of Austrian heritage (think: milanese, and weiner schnitzel). Anyway, the recipe comes from a new cookbook Charmian acquired called The New Southern-Latino Table: Recipes that Bring Together the Bold and Beloved Flavors of Latin America and the American South. Charmian gave the book some good kudos, with this recipe being one of the reasons she was loving it. I must be a sucker for salsas. Being raised in Southern California, salsa has been part of my cooking repertoire since I was young.

So here’s what’s involved. Pound the chicken to an even thickness, about 1/3 inch worked for me – don’t pound the thin ends as they’re already thin enough. Set out 3 plates – one for seasoned flour, one for eggs and water mixed up, and the third for finely minced pecans and panko crumbs. The original recipe called for dry bread crumbs – I didn’t have anything but panko and they seemed to work just fine. Dip the chicken in the flour, then eggs, then pecans and fry in a medium-hot pan with olive oil (or canola – I used olive this time because I wanted the flavor) just until browned on both sides. I put this in my toaster oven, actually, at 350° for 10 minutes. I lined the baking pan with foil.

Meanwhile, I mixed up the salsa – the recipe you see below serves 6. I made it to serve 2, so I ended up improvising a little bit on the proportions in the salsa, and I’ve made those minor changes in the recipe you see. I added a bit more sweet (I used agave nectar, not honey), more lime juice (what good is half a lime sitting around?), corn from one medium fresh corn cob, and probably a few more blueberries. I also added some slivered fresh basil – only because we have a thriving bush in our kitchen garden and it’s so flavorful right now. I made a green salad, and that was dinner!

What’s GOOD: everything – but particularly the salsa – bright and tangy from the lime juice (I drizzled all the juice over the top of the chicken breasts too – if you eat it right away it doesn’t make the breading soggy. Also liked the crunchy texture and taste of the pecan crust. The chicken was just perfectly cooked through – tender and so juicy! This is a definite make-again dish – it’ll be going onto my Favs list (see tab at top). It would also make a very good company dish – you just have to do the browning and baking at the last minute, though.
What’s NOT: nothing that I can think of. It’s a keeper.

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A very easy rendition of a French classic baked chicken. Every French home cook knows how to make one or more versions of this super-tender and juicy chicken dish, most often served on Sundays when the family typically gathers ‘round the table.

Have you ever been in Paris, or anywhere else in France for that matter, on a Sunday? They roll up the sidewalks in most places. It’s nearly impossible to find a restaurant open (except in hotels). Stores are closed. Businesses are closed, and most definitely cafes and restaurants are buttoned up tight. At home the matriarch is leisurely making a big lunch for the family, and often it’s this dish, or something similar.

We’d purchased a whole chicken from a meat purveyor at one of our local farmers’ markets. It was grown in the old-fashioned natural way without hormones and not treated with antibiotics. She was a small bird – about 3 1/2 pounds. Since I’d recently purchased a lidded ceramic dish that is mostly made for this kind of meal, I wanted to do this birdie in the new pot. First I went to some of my French cookbooks and didn’t find much to help me. Then I pulled out Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours. Sure enough, she had several recipes and she told the same story I did above – about the Sunday chicken supper. She offers about 3-4 recipes for chicken done whole in either a ceramic pot (like I was using) or in a cast iron covered pan. One was made with Armagnac. Another was for lazy people, she said. It used a nice piece of bread set on the bottom underneath the bird, and that bread is her reward that she eats when the chicken is just done. That one used a whole head of garlic and was roasted dry. Yet another is called “hurry-up-and-wait roast chicken” – it’s roasted half the time on one side, turned over and roasted some more, and once removed from the oven you must impale the bird on something to allow the juices to gravitate to the breast. That sounded like too much trouble that evening since I was late starting dinner. But I do know, now, where to go for inspiration for more whole bird recipes to do in my pottery pot.

Here below is the chicken before baking. This recipe is loosely based on a recipe by the same name in Dorie’s group. It called for preserved lemon. I don’t have any of that, so I just improvised with several things in this recipe. I was ever-so pleased with the results. I had an orange-fleshed sweet potato, a Russet potato, some organic carrots, shallots, mushrooms, garlic and the fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme and parsley) in our kitchen garden. There above you can see the chickie in the pot – turned sideways. I’d browned her on several sides in a nonstick skillet first so she wouldn’t be pale. I nestled all the veggies and aromatics around the bird, added chicken broth and vermouth and on went the lid and it baked in a 450° oven for 55 minutes. I’m glad to know that the ceramic pot can withstand that kind of heat. In my naïveté, I’d have never thought to roast the chicken that hot – I’d probably have used my usual 350° oven. But  it was superb.

At right you can see the finished chicken. Not much difference in appearance, huh? The juices in the bottom were SO flavorful, so that’s why I served a piece of bread with it. Ideally it should have been toasted, but it was already 7:30 when I got dinner on the table, so I waived the need to toast. We dipped pieces of the bread in the juice in our individual bowls. I served the left overs in the same way. I’d removed all the chicken meat from the carcass and just piled a mixture of everything into the same bowls. It was just as good the 2nd time around.

What’s GOOD: every single, solitary thing about this was wonderful, including the soft morsels of garlic. There’s nothing quite like a eating a naturally-grown chicken with lots of simple ingredients.
What’s NOT: can’t think of a thing!

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Make this. Oh yes, make this! It’s healthy, relatively simple to prepare, and it’s just loaded with flavor. You need to like chiles, however, and spicy food.

Many years ago I must have gotten the original of this recipe from Phillis Carey. My old print-out says it’s hers, but I didn’t find the recipe in any of her 3 cookbooks. And actually, the original was for Cornish game hens, not chicken. But my notes about this recipe said it was really delicious, so I made some changes to it, decided to grill the chicken rather than bake it, and I changed-up the sauce to serve with it too. So let’s just say the recipe was inspired by Phillis!

The photo above shows a half of a chicken breast – bone in – in its finished form. The chicken was marinated for awhile in an orange juice, oil and chipotle mixture, seared on the grill, moved to indirect heat to cook through, then served with a quick sweet salsa at the end.  The salsa was the royal crown of the dish, I’d say. I bought fresh salsa and after melting a little bit of red jalapeno jelly on the range, and allowing it to cool, I added it to the chilled salsa and it was spooned over the top. I wanted to lick the plate – and it’s not that there’s anything so unusual in it – except that you don’t expect salsa to be sweet. Yet it is, and it’s just perfect on the chicken!

What’s GOOD: it’s a really different taste – the chicken is moist, since you take it off the grill when it just reaches 155°. And the salsa. Well, that’s the best part.

What’s NOT: nothing for me – I liked it, but you do need to appreciate a bit of heat and sweet with the chicken to enjoy it fully!

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Chicken breasts stuffed with Black Forest ham and Swiss cheese, rolled in a very light breading of crumbs, flour and Parm, plus seasonings. They’re baked (no browning required) then served with a really, really tasty mushroom lemon sauce. Love the sauce!

Looking for an easy chicken entrée that would be great for guests? This recipe absolutely works – it’s just boneless, skinless chicken breasts (use smaller sized breasts if you can find them), pounded thin, rolled up with the ham and cheese, gently rolled into the breading mixture and baked for about 30+ minutes. You can make the chicken rolls ahead of time (a few hours anyway) and have everything else ready to go. The sauce doesn’t require the browned bits from browning the chicken because you don’t HAVE to brown the chicken ahead of time (easy!) and the simple creamy lemon mushroom sauce gets spooned over the sliced chicken pieces. All of it relatively easy to make and it will come together quickly if you have everything prepped ahead. The sauce could even be made the day before, but I think it would be best made just before serving – that way the mushrooms will still have perfect texture.

This recipe came from a cooking class with Phillis Carey, and she mentioned that the sauce is also really good on salmon and even on left over chicken. I think the sauce would be good on a whole LOT of things – I just loved the lemony flavor in it.

What’s GOOD: how easy it is. How moist the chicken is and ever-so tasty with the mushroom lemon sauce. Lovely company meal – looks pretty besides having great taste.

What’s NOT: nothing at all. Just do the prep ahead of time.

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A bit more complex than some slap-together kinds of dinners. The mushrooms need to be cleaned, chopped, cooked, then mixed with Gorgonzola cheese, shallots, wine. Most of it goes in the pocket in the chicken breast. If you have extra mushrooms they can be added in the simple pan sauce.

When I got down to it, I had forgotten to buy fresh basil, and it’s a fairly major ingredient in this recipe. I substituted fresh thyme instead, but it not only lost some of that unique flavor that basil brings to just about anything, but I also lost the beauty of tendrils of basil to garnish the top. So, if you make this, do as I tell you, not as I did! Buy basil!

The crimini mushrooms were cleaned and chopped, then cooked with garlic and shallot. Then some wine is added and reduced down before you add the cheese and some basil. The chicken breasts are carefully slit along the side to create a nice-enough pocket, the mushroom mixture is stuffed in there and you try to seal it back up. Carefully sauté the breasts in olive oil, just to brown them (all the cooking through happens in the oven), then they go onto a baking sheet and are roasted for about 12-15 minutes. Meanwhile, fix the rest of your dinner and make the sauce (wine, cream, red pepper flakes and more fresh basil). Serve quickly with the sauce spooned over the top. I had more mushrooms that I could fit inside the chicken breasts, so I added them to the sauce.

Dinner took me about an hour to make, start to finish. The chicken breasts I had were large, so I ended up cutting each breast in half. Thankfully the filling stayed put when I did that. The picture above is one breast and would make a really large serving for a hungry person. The recipe came from a cooking class with Phillis Carey last month. If you don’t like Gorgonzola, you can use goat cheese or Feta.

What’s good: the chicken is very moist and cooked through – pan browning, then baking them assures they’re cooked just enough, but not enough to dry them out. Love crimini mushrooms. And the sauce. Yum. Ideally I’d have served this with some kind of white carb like potatoes or rice, but we had roasted vegetables on the side instead. Mashed potatoes would have been lovely, especially if there was ample sauce to go on top of them.

What’s not: not a thing unless you don’t like making or eating a delicious mushroom cream sauce!

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Not to be mistaken for chile rellenos, a vegetarian dish using green chiles stuffed with cheese – this, however, is chicken breasts, stuffed with a mixture of cilantro pesto and some soft goat cheese, dipped in flour, then in beaten eggs, sautéed until golden brown, then baked for about 10 minutes until ready to serve,THEN with some fresh salsa that’s heated and poured over the top. I did my best to keep the filling from oozing out as it cooked. Mostly I was successful!

Chicken is such a frequent visitor to our dinner table that my DH has begun to ask me not to serve it, yet again. I do love chicken and figure that it’s about as healthy as I can make dinner other than fish or vegetarian. I like all the various ways you can fix chicken. Mostly I buy chicken breasts, although occasionally I’ll buy boneless, skinless thighs.

Phillis Carey has so many different ways to fix chicken, and as I’ve mentioned before, she’s written an entire cookbook about chicken. And I’ve attended umpteen cooking classes where she’s demonstrated more variations on the theme. This recipe was made to serve to guests (along with a wild rice salad – that wasn’t very memorable – and a green salad – and lemon mousse). It’s kind of fancy, but it’s not wicked in fat (goat cheese inside, but not all that much and it is sautéed in a bit of olive oil and butter – oh, and the chicken is dipped in egg). First you cut a slim pocket in the side of each chicken breast. Using a narrow and thin knife you enlarge it a little bit, even resorting to pulling with your finger to make it a large enough little cave to stuff the cilantro pesto into, then the chunks of soft goat cheese. The breasts were sautéed until golden brown, then whisked into a hot oven to cook through. When I served them I heated some fresh tomato salsa to a low simmer and spooned it over the top of all those chicken breasts. Once you cut into the chicken you discover all the delicious cilantro pesto and the melted goat cheese inside.

Because I was making this for guests, I got everything ready beforehand. I made the pesto, cut the goat cheese, stuffed the chicken breasts and kept them chilled until ready to start cooking. I dipped the chicken into the flour, then in the egg mixture (yes, that’s the order as you want the egg on the outside so it gets a bit light and puffy when it cooks, like chile rellenos from hence the name comes). The chicken was browned over medium heat, then they went into the oven to bake for about 10 minutes. The chicken breasts I used were large, so I knew they’d need a full 10 minutes to finish cooking through. That 10 minutes gave me ample time to finish up the rest of the dinner (toss the salad, pour water, light candles on the dining room table, refresh the wine glasses) and serve. Meanwhile I’d heated up the fresh salsa and spooned it over the top of the breasts. Not only did it add color, but a nice taste contrast. I could have sprinkled some additional cilantro on the top too.

What’s good: the oozy cheesy filling – oh gosh – it was delicious. Loved the cilantro pesto too. The chicken was just cooked perfectly – not too much. Also liked the salsa on top. You can use jarred salsa (which is what Phillis Carey suggested) but I wanted to use fresh.
What’s not: this dish is a bit labor intensive, but much of it can be done ahead. Other than that, it’s a great dinner entrée.

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Somehow this post got lost in my “to-post” file from last year! But it makes no never-mind, as that saying goes, because it’s a darned good salad. It’s from a salad class with Phillis Carey. This one just hit-the-spot for me – not only was it a bit healthier with the use of grilled chicken, but it was loaded with flavor from the blue cheese, the pine nuts, the mint, avocados and the bacon. All kinds of goodies that I just l-o-v-e! All tossed together into this delicious salad.

The chicken is quickly grilled after tossing it in a very light mayo-mustard-based dressing, then diced up in bite-sized pieces. The salad dressing has sherry vinegar in it, some lemon zest and garlic. Then the salad itself is tossed with all those goodies I already mentioned. You could eliminate some if you like, but if it’s to be a Cobb-type, then it’s got to have the blue-type cheese, the bacon, the avocados and tomatoes. Makes for a very pretty presentation too.

Phillis used Point Reyes Original Blue (pronounced rays by Anglos, probably ray-ess by Latinos), which is an intensely creamy cheese made here in California near Point Reyes (uh, yeah!), a hub of land north of San Francisco that’s particularly prone to all-day fogs. There’s nothing quite like Point Reyes blue. It’s pricey. It’s special. And it’s very, very tasty. Usually I don’t cook with it because the cheese could just get lost in the recipe, but in a salad, with nice-sized chunks of it, there’s no way you could miss it! Seek out the cheese if you can find it. Whole Foods usually carries it. Trader Joe’s does not.

What I liked: all the different flavors and textures of this salad. But then, I really enjoy entrée green salads in almost any form. It’s rich tasting (from the cheese and bacon) and flavors just explode in your mouth as you eat it. Very satisfying.

What I didn’t like: nothing, really. Taste the salad as you dress it to get just the right proportion of dressing. Serving an under-dressed salad is grievous! Serving an over-dressed salad is also!

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Yet another (good) recipe for grilled chicken. Can’t ever have enough. This one is marinated with a variety of things (nothing difficult or odd) and a few tablespoons of Grand Marnier, then it’s grilled. Done. Easy.

Making this chicken was kind of an afterthought. I had decided I was going to make the Summer Grilled Panzanella Salad. But I knew we needed something else with it – some protein. So I opened up one of my favorite cookbooks, Hugh Carpenter’s Hot Barbecue. This recipe popped out at me. Although the orange flavoring didn’t exactly fit with the panzanella bread salad, I decided it was good enough. I had all of the ingredients on hand (goody!) so it was simple to combine the marinade and let it chill out for awhile before grilling.

It was altogether easy to make. The marinade ingredients are combined, divided in half (you marinate the chicken in half and glaze the grilling chicken with the other half and pour any left over marinade on the chicken when it’s served) and then you let the chicken chill for 1-8 hours. The chicken is grilled at a medium heat (350°) for 12 minutes per side, then you just keep grilling it until it reaches 160° on an instant read thermometer. I think it took about 30 minutes altogether. Serve it right away. I’d purchased drumsticks and thighs (you could do breasts, but it will take less time on the grill, and I think I’d turn down the heat a little after the initial grill-mark marking).

What I liked: the marinade gave the chicken a very nice, mellow orange flavor – I liked it. A lot. I’d make it again for sure with no changes to the recipe at all. It’s also EASY.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all.

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