Tag: dinner

Friday is a good day for Roast Chicken Dinner 

Here is the link to a Simple Roast Chicken recipe I posted in January! The house always smells wonderful when a whole chicken is roasting in the oven! We usually have chicken on Friday nights & this is one of our favorites! 

 https://marilyndishes.com/2017/02/03/simple-roast-chicken/

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Dinner tonight 

I think I want to make a recipe that I posted awhile ago. My mom’s Honey Mustard Chicken with Curry.  It has snowed in Edmonton & unbelievable is still snowing… so I just don’t feel like going out! I have everything I need to make this dish for dinner… just have to defrost some chicken that I have in the freezer . Rice & a salad will be perfect with it!  The seasoning for this chicken would be excellent on salmon as well I think! 

Here is the link to my previous post

https://marilyndishes.com/2017/01/06/leahs-honey-mustard-chicken-with-curry//

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Apricot Chicken

There are variations of this recipe everywhere.  I make mine a little bit different then the other recipes I have seen ‘out there” & I think it is because when my sister Edith gave me this recipe, probably 36 years ago when I was first married, I misunderstood the directions!

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Mom’s Yummy Chicken

Yes…that is the name of this recipe…from my moms recipe box…yummy chicken! So the question of course was..Is it yummy? I had to give it a try & it was! ! Simple ingredients which is always good. The original recipe called for chicken pieces & apple juice. I used bone-in chicken thighs & orange juice since I didn’t have any apple juice..the orange juice was leftover from the Glazed Orange Cake. I recommend you give this chicken a try.

Here is the recipe

Mom’s Yummy Chicken

1/4 cup flour

2 tsp salt *** seems like a lot of salt but it isn’t too salty!

1/4 tsp pepper

3-4 pounds chicken pieces ***I used 8 bone-in chicken thighs

4 green onions, chopped

2 Tbsp lemon juice *** I used fresh but my mom used the bottled lemon juice!

1 can of sliced mushrooms, drained

1 tsp sugar

1/3 cup orange juice *** original recipe calls for apple juice

oil

Method

  1. Mix the flour, salt & pepper together in a bowl big enough to coat the chicken pieces in
  2. Dip the chicken in the flour mixture , making sure all of the chicken is coated in the flour
  3. Heat some oil in a frying pan, and brown the chicken pieces on all sides
  4. Transfer the browned chicken to a baking dish
  5. Saute the green onions & sliced mushrooms. Add to the chicken
  6. Mix the sugar & orange juice together & pour over the chicken
  7. Bake at 325f until throughly cooked & brown  *** Baste often

Enjoy!

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Halloumi Cheese with Spinach Salad

I love Halloumi cheese. We had some the other night, pan seared & a spinach salad dressed with a greek salad dressing. We had some salmon burgers & homemade tzatziki  as well.

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Zahatar Baked Chicken Thighs

Boneless chicken thighs are very economical & extremely tasty. They are easy to cook & the meat is tender & moist, unless you really overcook it!! I like mine nice & brown so I always cook them longer then any recipe suggests.  I had some tabbouleh in the fridge & knew that a middle eastern themed chicken would go nicely. This is a very simple way to prepare the chicken thighs & doesn’t really need a ‘recipe’ but here it is.***I wasn’t going to write this up as a blog post but it was very good so I decided to. I think you can find Zahatar in most grocery stores now, but if not I looked up a recipe online. I haven’t tried this but this recipe is from TheSpruce.com.

Here is the link

https://www.thespruce.com/zaatar-middle-eastern-spice-mixture-2355844

 

Zahatar Baked Chicken Thighs

Ingredients

8 skinless & boneless chicken thighs

salt & pepper

3 tbsp Zahatar Seasoning

2 tbsp olive oil

juice of 1/2 lemon

 

Method

  1. Put the chicken things in a single layer in a baking pan , so that they are snug but not overlapping. fI used a pyrex dish
  2. Season all over with some salt & pepper
  3. Sprinkle the Zahatar Seasoning all over the chicken pieces
  4. Pour the olive oil all over. Using a pastry brush, spread the olive oil all over the chicken pieces making sure you coat all of it. Add more olive oil if needed but you don’t want it swimming in olive oil!
  5. Bake at 350f for 3o minutes…basting often
  6. Then pour the lemon juice all over the chicken. Continue cooking for another 15 minutes or until completely cooked and as brown as you would like them!

Enjoy!

 

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Spaghetti Squash Puttanesca

Wow! I was actually surprised that this dish was as delicious as it was! The recipe is from epicurious.com. I really wasn’t sure about it but I decided to give it a try. I had some left over salmon from the night before that Murray could have with this dish since I wasn’t sure he would just want vegetables for supper! Well, he really liked this & his review is that it doesn’t taste like only vegetables! That’s funny because that’s all it is! The original recipe has the option of adding anchovies but I did not add that….not my favourite thing! The flavour of this dish is rich & complex. I have made spaghetti puttanesca before and found the taste to be on the mild side, but this didn’t have that issue. I might use this recipe with the pasta if I want pasta instead of the spaghetti squash.One other nice thing, other than the taste…is that you can eat a lot of it & not feel quilty is you are inclined to feel quilty about what you eat!

Here is the link to the recipe from epicurious.com

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/sheet-pan-spaghetti-squash-puttanesca-56390005

 

Spaghetti Squash Puttanesca

 

Ingredients

1 large spaghetti squash

salt & pepper

1 clove garlic, minced

2 cups of cherry tomatoes

1 1/2 cups cremini mushrooms, cleaned & cut in 8ths if big or 4ths if small

1/4 cup pitted kalamata olives, cut in half

1 tbsp drained capers

1/2 tsp dried red pepper flakes

3 tbsp olive oil….divided…2 tbsp + 1 tbsp

1/4 cup pine nuts

1/4 cup chopped fresh basil, divided

1/4 cup chopped parsley, divided

3/4 cup ricotta cheese ***approximatley

 

Method

Pre-heat oven to 375f

Line 2 baking sheets with foil1 Spray the foil on the baking sheets with cooking spray

  1. Cut the spaghetti squash in half, remove the seeds & season the flesh with salt & pepper. Put the spaghetti squash flesh side down on the sprayed foil & bake for 45-60 minutes
  2. Combine the minced garlic, cherry tomatoes, olives, capers, red pepper flakes, & 2 tbsp of olive oil in a bowl, then put on the second foil liked baking sheet
  3. After the 30 minutes, put the baking sheet with the tomato mixture in the same oven as the spaghetti squash & bake for 15-30 minutes.***the original recipe calls for this tomato mixture to be baked for 15 minutes, but mine was not cooked enough so I kept the squash & the tomato mixture in the oven for another 15 minuts. Just check after the 15 & decide if it is cooked enough
  4. Toast the pine nuts in a dry pan over medium heat, stirring occacionaly for even toasting. When done remove from the hot pan right away & put in a bowl or on a plate
  5. Remove the cooked squash & tomato mixture from the oven once cooked
  6. With an oven mitt on, hold the squash & scrape out the flesh crosswise & put into a large bowl.
  7. Using a potato masher, or fork, squish the tomatoes so that they release thier juices.
  8. Put the tomato mixture & the juices from the pan into the bowl with the scraped squash
  9. Add the remaining 1 tbsp olive oil, the toasted pine nuts, & half of the minced parsley & basil. Mix well
  10. Serve with the ricotta cheese scooped on top & garnished with the left over basil & parsley

Enjoy!

 

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Baked Spaghetti Squash
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Tomato, mushrooms etc ready for the oven
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Roasted!
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Cooked spaghetti squash…shredded
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Mashed tomatoes
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Toasted pine nuts
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Add the tomato mixture to the shredded squash
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Adding the olive oil
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Adding the pine nuts
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Chopped parsley
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Chopped basil
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Mix it all together
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Done
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Yum!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Wine-Braised Brisket

My wonderful daughter-in-law bought me this fabulous cookbook, THE GEFILTE MANEFESTO by JEFFREY YOSKOWITZ & LIZ ALPERN. I plan on trying to make as much of these recipes as I can. They all look very interesting and delicious. The first one I have tried is the WINE-BRAISED BRISKET WITH BUTTERNUT SQUASH. It uses a whole bottle of white wine which adds a lovely flavour. There is a lot of liquid in this recipe & the brisket is submerged in it the entire cooking time. This leads to kind of a ‘boiled’ soft brisket which we quite enjoyed. I had frozen butternut so I used that instead of a fresh one, also chicken broth instead of beef. We found the brisket had a subtle flavor, so different from the usual brisket recipes that I make.  I was looking for a link to the recipe and found one on Epicurious.com so I will include the link & also a link to THE GEFILTE MANEFESTO on Amazon. I hope you give this recipe a try!

Here is the link to the recipe on Epicurious.com

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/white-wine-braised-brisket-butternut-squash-gefilte-manifesto-recipe

Here is the link to the cookbook on Amazon.ca  

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I am not sure why my brisket isn’t as brown as the picture in the recipe, but it was good!

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Black Bean, Corn & Cheese Enchiladas

This recipe is from November 2014 from the website MyRecipes.com. It was in my vegetarian mailbox where I have many recipes that I want to try! I will put the link to the original recipe here but I changed it up quite a bit! There were a few issues that I found with the original recipe, not to be critical, and perhaps it was something I did … the recipe instructed the sauce  to be cooked until thick about 8 minutes but it never really did thicken up., I boiled it for approx. 10 minutes. I used it as is, but it might just be too runny… The changes I made were the following, I added some corn niblets to the black beans & cheese and all of the green onions that the recipe called for, I didn’t have the peppers so I added chili powder & garlic powder instead of fresh garlic (which I was out of) & dried oregano. I will write down the recipe as I made it.

Here is the link to the original recipe

http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/black-bean-cheese-enchiladas

Here is my recipe

Black bean, corn & Cheese Enchiladas

2 tsp olive oil

1 onion, chopped

2 cups vegetable broth

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp cumin

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 can black beans, drained

1 can corn niblets, drained

3 green onions, finely chopped

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, divided

6 large white corn tortillas

sour cream, guacamole & salsa  for serving if desired

Method

Preheat oven to 400F

Grease a 9 x 13 baking dish

  1. Sauté the chopped onions in the oil until starting to brown.
  2. Add the broth, oregano, garlic, chili powder & cumin, cook for approximately 10 minutes, hopefully it will start to get thick! *** my advice here is to follow the recipe and see how it goes. I must have done something incorrect. I did add an extra cup of water to the blender which would have been from the hot peppers…I left it out of my recipe because the sauce did not need the extra water. So the total liquid I think should be the 2 cups of broth…but try the original recipe…
  3. Pour the onion mixture into a blender, be careful it is hot. Take the centre piece out of the lid so the steam escapes & use a dish towel over the hole in the lid so the liquid doesn’t spray out of blender all over the place! I also put on an oven mitt to hold the towel with. Puree until smooth. Add the lemon juice. mix again briefly.
  4. In a bowl,mix the black beans, corn niblets, chopped green onion & 1 cup of cheese together
  5. Warm the tortillas up so that they are pliable, it will say on the package how to do this. I just put the ones I used onto some paper towel in the microwave and warmed them up for 1 minute. If that isn’t enough, warm them up for longer but be careful not to over-heat them in the microwave or they will get too hard.
  6. Pour half of the sauce in the bottom of a greased 9 x 13 baking dish.
  7. Fill each tortilla with about 5 spoonfuls of the filling. Roll up & put into the baking dish. I had left-over filling, so I just put it on top and around the rolled up tortillas!
  8. Top the tortillas with the rest of the sauce & grated cheese
  9. Bake for 25 minutes or until hot, bubbly & the cheese is melty and a bit brown
  10. Serve with sour cream & guacamole & salsa if desired

***the sauce cooked off in the oven and this dish is delicious!!

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Lemon Chicken Piccata

This recipe was posted on Facebook from 99easyrecipes.com. The directions were very easy to follow. I had all of the ingredients available, but if you don’t they are easy to get. The chicken I used was schnitzel so it was very thin. I did not warm a serving platter as directed in the recipe. I was making this for later so didn’t need a warmed serving dish. I did put the chicken in the oven, just in a pie plate,  while the sauce was being made. I had the oven at 325F so that it didn’t get dried out! The other change I made was that I did not use butter as directed  in the recipe. I added some vegan margarine. This dish would be very good served with a nice rice dish to soak up some of the delicious sauce. Murray thought it was a bit too ‘lemony’ for him, which is funny because it is a lemon chicken piccata, but he just ate the chicken without a lot of sauce and it was just fine for him! If you don’t like lemony chicken this recipe might not be for you, but if you do it is delicious!

Here is the link to the recipe

http://99easyrecipes.com/lemon-chicken-piccata/

 

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Burger Bar for 2!

Homemade burgers are great! Made in a skillet…isusally I use my cast iron pan but Murray had sautéed the mushrooms with some chives in the skillet so why dirty another pan? I put in a small amount of oil, swirled it around and gently placed the patties in. I left them sizzling on the one side until I could see that they were about half way cooked through… flipped them over & then finished cooking them on side 2. Meanwhile I went into the fridge and pulled out some toppings … cut up a tomato, prepared some head lettuce..my personal favorite in a burger …mixed up a sauce … and away we went.  Oh.. and the buns.. we are trying to watch out carbs a bit ( have to make room for cookies etc!) so I scooped out the bready part of the top half of the bun ! The lettuce nestled in there quite nicely !

So this is what I did! 

Ingredients

Sliced mushrooms.***Murray bought the mushrooms so I do not know how much he bought but remember that they shrink down when cooked

Oil

Salt

A handful of chopped chives

1 lb hamburger meat , mine was lean

1 tomato, sliced thickly *** I got 4 nice slices from one tomato

From the fridge: 

Relish

Sauerkraut

Homemade sauce:

4 tbsp mayonnaise

2 tbsp BBQ sauce

1 tsp Siracha sauce
Method:

1.Slice & saute the mushrooms in about 2 tbsp oil.Sprinkle with a bit of salt.   Once the moisture is released and the mushrooms are starting to brown, throw in the chopped chives ***if you don’t have chives just the mushrooms are great. Stir the mushrooms often to make sure they are evenly cooked

2. Meanwhile, take the toppings you want to use out of the fridge so they aren’t going to be cold on your hot burger!

3. Once the mushrooms are finished cooking to your desired doneness…remove from the pan and reserve in a bowl

4. Heat the sauté pan before adding the beef.  If your pan is non-stick I don’t think you will need oil.. if you are using a stainless steel pan, add a couple of tablespoons of oil and swirl it around to coat the entire bottom of the pan.

5. Divide the ground beef into 4 & form into patties. Place carefully into the hot sauté pan

6. Let them cook undisturbed until they look halfway cooked.. you can tell by looking at the side of the patties…then flip them over & finish cooking

*** if your pan is too hot the meat will burn before cooking through, if the pan is not hot enough the meat will not sear, so watch the heat .. I have a gas cook-top & use medium high heat.

7. While the burgers are cooking, mix up the sauce by combining the mayonnaise, BBQ sauce and the siracha sauce … which adds a bit of heat to the sauce.

8. Once the burgers are cooked, you are ready to put your burgers together

10 We put the lettuce and tomato on the top half, nestled in the space we made when we scopped out the bready part,  then on the bottom half first went the sauce, then the relish and sauerkraut ( or whatever you are using) and then a bunch of the sautéed mushrooms, then the juicy burger! Topped it and added a pick to hold it all together!

Dig in and enjoy!!  Make sure you have napkins handy!

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