.chicken marengo.

Tonight's dinner was inspired by a little dish posted on the Whole Foods website, here. I made their recipe a few months ago and the Man and I devoured it. It's savory, rich, hearty and delicious.

While trying to decide what to make with my thawed chicken breasts tonight I thought back to this meal. I made some adjustments based on what I had in the pantry and what came out of it was a healthy, filling, super tasty meal.

Sara's Chicken Marengo serves 6
1.5 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup flour
1 large onion, diced
1 (15-ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 (15-ounce) can black beans (I used low sodium)
1 cup chicken broth (again, I used low sodium)
1 package button mushrooms, thinly sliced
Salt, pepper, garlic salt and red pepper flakes to taste

Heat 1/4 of the oil in a large pot or saute pan over medium heat. Mix the flour and desired seasonings together. Dredge the chicken in the flour and add half of the chicken to the pan. You can do all of the chicken if you have a big enough pan, just use 1/2 of the oil. Stir occasionally until browned. Remove and place on a plate.

Add 1/4 of the oil to the pan. Saute the onion until softened. Add the tomatoes, black beans, chicken broth and browned chicken to the pan. Simmer, covered, for 45 minutes.

While this is simmering saute the mushrooms in a separate pan with the remaining 1/4 of the oil until they are golden brown. After the 45 minutes is up add the mushrooms to the other pan.

This dish is great served by itself but we put it over brown rice tonight (with a glass of red wine!) and it was so good.

XO

.daring cooks challenge: may.

Our May hostess, Denise, of There’s a Newf in My Soup!, challenged The Daring Cooks to make Gumbo! She provided us with all the recipes we’d need, from creole spices, homemade stock, and Louisiana white rice, to Drew’s Chicken & Smoked Sausage Gumbo and Seafood Gumbo from My New Orleans: The Cookbook, by John Besh.

Now, as delicious as I'm sure those recipes are there is no possible way they could compare with my family's recipe. So, that is what I will be sharing with y'all. It's really not that different from many gumbo recipes. You have a roux, you have some protein, some okra, a few various other ingredients. What makes it stand apart, and what is it's real secret ingredient, is time. No, not thyme, really, time. Lots and lots of time. This is very much a Sunday kind of meal. Or an unemployed housewife all by herself for 3 weeks while her husband is at a training class kind of meal. Yeah. I'm making a huge pot of gumbo all for myself. It's probably best though as this was my first attempt at cooking it! I usually leave it to the pros, my step-mother or Grammy.

There's a chicken in there, I swear

If making a seafood gumbo this would be a one day sort of process since you would add the seafood (shrimp, crab, etc) towards the end of the cooking time (unless you wanted to make your own stock, then give it two days), but I decided I wanted to make chicken gumbo, which is more of a two day thing. On the first day I boiled a whole chicken. Bones, skin, everything. Just boil it in seasoned water. As for the seasoning I used salt and Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning (y'all know I love that stuff!). After the chicken is fall off the bone tender I took it off the heat, let it cool quite a bit, then took all the meat off the bones. This was probably the worst part cause, well... it was icky. Next time I may go the wuss route and just use some chicken breasts instead of the whole thing. I placed the meat in a covered bowl in the fridge and then I placed the liquid from cooking in another bowl, also in the fridge.

Day two is when it really gets fun. You start by making a roux. I used a 1/2 cup of vegetable oil and a little over a 1/2 cup of flour. Put the oil in a large pot (I used my dutch oven) and heat on high until shimmering. Then quickly reduce the heat to low and add the flour, whisk. Make sure to not let the flour burn. Whisk continuously for about 30 minutes, or until the roux is as dark as you want it (but not darker than a mohagony color). Season the roux while stirring. I used more Tony Chachere's and a little bit of salt. I almost thought I had messed the roux up. I gave it a taste, expecting it to... well, taste good. Let me tell y'all, it does not. It tastes like crap. Flour crap. But I kept at it and I must have done something right cause the gumbo turned out absolutely divine!

Chicken and onions!

Then add the liquid from the the day before. You will have to scrape off the layer of solids from the top first. Keep your whisk handy for this, the cold liquid coming in contact with the roux will immediately cause it to start bubbling. Add as much liquid as you like, I added about 10 cups. Keep any liquid that's left, as you might want to add more later. Let this boil, then lower the heat again and let it simmer for 30 minutes.

Add 1 to 2 onions, chopped, to the liquid. Let this cook for another 30 minutes. Season with your choice of seasoning. Now add the chicken. I added all of the chicken, and it really filled up the pot. You could use less if you would like, but I like lots of chicken. I also added an extra cup and a half of liquid here, as it was becoming quite thick. Let this cook for another 30 minutes.

And the okra joins the party!

Once the time is up from the last step add your okra. You could use a bag of frozen okra or fresh okra if you have it. Let this cook for another 30 minutes. Depending on what type of rice you are going to use you will probably want to start cooking it when you put the okra in the gumbo, or even sooner if it takes longer than 30 minutes. Once everything is done taste and adjust the seasoning as you prefer.

Steaming hot and ready to eat!

Pour the finished gumbo over the rice and enjoy! Even though the rice provides a carb for the meal I also really like rolls or biscuits with gumbo as well. An added bonus is that gumbo freezes excellently! So I popped a couple of servings into tupperware and into the freezer for the next couple of weeks.

I loved this challenge because it finally got me motivated to learn to make a great family favorite! I was also super proud of how it turned out. Completely delicious! I probably won't make this much in the next few months since Georgia will be hot as balls (that's a technical term) but as soon as fall and winter weather come back this will be on the menu much more often.

XO

.making progress.

But not just for progress sake, right Hermione?

Big news in the .baking and wine. kitchen tonight folks. I cooked some chicken. Yeah! Back on the meat bandwagon. It was delicious chicken too. Very easy and didn't make me sick at all. I added it to a huge salad the man and I ate for dinner. Also for the salad, I made my first homemade raspberry vinaigrette. Rawr. It was really exciting to make my own dressing. I totally see why people do this, and I will now be one of those people.

No exact recipe for today's meal but I will tell you how I bake my chicken, the basic premise of the vinaigrette, and the other delicious things I added to the salad.

First, chicken. I didn't cook chicken for the longest time because I was so terrified of under-cooking it. Nothing like some salmonella to ruin a dinner, eh? Once I figured out how truly easy it was to bake a perfect chicken breast though I made them all the time. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Place your chicken breast in a baking dish, season to your liking (I always put Tony Chachere's on it) then drizzle with olive oil. I also rub the olive oil on both sides. Cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake for 40-45 minutes. Perfect chicken breast, not even kidding.

One thing I've been able to eat without fail has been fruit. I've been craving it like a crazy woman. When walking through the produce section earlier this week I saw a package of raspberries, which I never buy, but I thought it would be really nice to do something with them so I grabbed said fruit and a bag of salad. Now, the vinaigrette. Wow. The color alone was stunning! Also, the measurements I used provided more than enough dressing for 4 huge salads, and could easily be for 8 smaller salads as well. I found a recipe for the vinaigrette that consisted of 1/2 cup raspberries, 1/4 cup olive oil, 2 tablespoons lemon juice and 1 tablespoon honey all blended together. This is what I used but I will be trying something different next time. The dressing was good but there was just a little something missing. Some small component wasn't there. I would love to hear any ideas as to what to change!

I took the chicken, the greens, and the vinaigrette, added slivered almonds, a few whole raspberries, and an avocado and pretty much made like Captain Planet.

With these powers combined I am huge, giant, delicious, dinner salad! I served it with an equally delicious sparkling organic pear juice.

The man said it was one of the best things I've ever made.... not sure how I feel about a salad being one of the best things but I'll take it!

XO

.a little help from pre-made.

So, I like to cook things from scratch. I like to involve sauces of my own making. I dig that kind of stuff.

Sometimes though, it's nice to have things that you can just throw into a pot and make a delicious meal with. Sometimes I don't want to spend an extra 20 minutes making pesto.

This recipe is great for those times. My aunt made it for me once and gave me the recipe and tonight is a perfect night to use it. I'm still kind of on vacay mode. Plus, my cute little basil plant, that my awesome mother-in-law gave to me, is kind of... um.... dying a little bit..... Sorry Chris! My green thumb needs a lot of work.... and by that I mean probably a brand new green thumb cause I don't have one at all. Is there such thing as basil cpr?



Pesto Ravioli with Chicken serves 4
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed
1 tbsp olive oil
1 zucchini
1 red bell pepper
5 button mushrooms
1-2 cups chicken broth
9 ounces frozen ravioli
4 ounces pesto (basil or sun-dried tomato)

Heat oil in a large saute pan. Add chicken, cook for 4 minutes. Add zucchini, red bell pepper and mushrooms, cook for another 4 minutes. Remove from the skillet. Place ravioli and chicken broth in skillet, bring to boil then simmer for 4 minutes. Add chicken and vegetables back to skillet for 3 minutes. Remove from heat, mix with pesto.

I think I just love anything with pesto but this dish is super flavorful. Another really good thing about it is the fact that it's a one dish meal, with an added bowl to hold the cooked chicken and veggies.

Cook on!