Crocktober: Chicken Breast with Swiss Cheese & Cranberry Stuffing

For a lot of people, when they think of crock pots, they think of a variety of weird canned goods bubbling away mysteriously in some big clunky ceramic jobber. Hopefully if you read this blog you already know that there is a huge variety of things you can cook in a crock pot. But sometimes the best solution to the question of "what sort of sauce will I cook this chicken in?" is one of those old-timey canned products. I did use low-sodium cream of celery, so I only feel slightly goofy about it. And can I just say, I had no idea that there were so many "condensed cream of xfood" options. The soup aisle was like one epiphany after another. Some were better than others. Cream of mushroom! Useful! Cream of... Shrimp? As a fan of seafood and an even bigger fan of any food that is not disgusting, I want to die.

This came out golden and juicy and deeelicious.

Ingredients:

1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, trimmed

2 tablespoons milk

1-2 tablespoon(s) butter, melted

1 10 3/4 oz. can condensed cream of celery soup (reduced sodium if possible; you could also use cream of chicken or mushroom)

1 cup whole wheat croutons (I made mine; if you make your own, you'll need about three slices of bread)

1/4 cup dried cranberries (I used Craisins infused with 100% pomegranate juice) 

1/4 cup chicken or veggie broth

1/4 cup Swiss cheese, shredded (or to your taste)

Salt and pepper

Cooking spray

Directions:

1. Spray or lightly oil your crock pot insert, and place chicken inside. Pour in broth, season with salt and pepper, and sprinkle with Swiss cheese.

2. In a mixing bowl, combine soup and milk, and pour mixture over chicken as evenly as possible.

3. Mix breadcrumbs with dried cranberries and add to crock.

4. Pour melted butter over everything, cover, and cook on low for 6-8 hours or on high for 4ish. (Check the temperature of the chicken to be sure). An hour or so before it is expected to finish, stir stuffing and leave lid off for last hour of cooking to reduce, on high heat. (In my 2-quart crock pot, mine cooked for 2 hours covered, and one hour uncovered, on high the whole time).

This isn't too much to look at, but it's super yummy.

 I have to admit, I messed this up a little. Not a lot, but I did. I forgot about the Swiss until the stuffing was in the crock, so I mixed it in with the breadcrumbs and cranberries instead of cheesing the chicken. This definitely changed things a bit, since I meant for the chicken to be cheesy rather than the stuffing, but I'm definitely not arguing with cheesy stuffing. It melted so completely that you just got sort of the "essence" of it without it be actually cheesy, which I consider a happy accident. 

This dish is definitely not the healthiest thing I've ever made, but it's super yummy and has a lot of homemade appeal. The recipe I've shared will definitely make more than one serving of stuffing. I seem to keep doing that. Oh well. 

Quote of the Day: Stupidity is the devil. Look in the eye of a chicken and you'll know. It's the most horrifying, nightmarish and cannibalistic creature in the world. ~ Werner Herzog (German film producer, director)

Cold Avocado Soup & Grilled Cumin Chicken with Grape Tomato Salad

Some of you may recall a recipe from the infancy of this blog that involved a rather fail-tastic creamy avocado salad dressing. Since the inspiration for that actually came from an avocado soup recipe I had seen about a week before, I am happy to say that I finally got around to making the chilled avocado soup that I have been longing for since then. And it's good. Really good.

I didn't change this recipe much at all, except making the executive decision that 1 1/2 avocados were needed, owing to their substandard size. I also used a small bit of onion instead of the shallot because somehow, between my grocery store and my home, I lost the darn thing. From Delish.com:

Ingredients:

1 medium avocado, peeled and pitted

1 shallot, peeled and chopped

1/2 seedless cucumber, chopped

2 Tablespoons plain yogurt (I used fat-free Greek-style)

2 Tablespoons fresh mint, plus 1 sprig

4 teaspoons lime juice

1 1/2 teaspoons salt - I used 1

1/4 teaspoon ground pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1 radish, chopped

1 cup cold water

Directions:

1. Place cucumber, avocado, shallot, yogurt, 2 tablespoons mint, lime juice, salt, pepper, cumin and cold water in a food processor and process until smooth.

2. Chill for at least one hour before serving. Serve garnished with radish and remaining mint leaves.

My mother recently treated me to some lovely new place mats under the promise that they would soon appear on this blog. I'm sorry, Mom - Next time! <3

 I was surprised at how pronounced the cumin was, but it was certainly not overbearing. You could cut it down a bit if you want to but I think it adds a lot to the soup. We had a soup course (fancy, right?) with some French bread followed by the chicken with a bit of tomato salad. This is one of my summer favorites: Just some grape tomatoes, cut in half, with some sliced green onion, olive oil, salt and pepper and a little white wine vinegar. So simple, summery, and yummy - with room temperature tomatoes, of course.

 The chicken portion of this recipe is lifted from this recipe, which I originally served with grilled nectarine, blackberry-raspberry salsa and grilled polenta. What is it about the combination of cumin and grill-marks? Yum.

Quote of the Day: The avocado is a food without rival among the fruit, the veritable fruit of paradise. ~ David Fairchild

Also, I just learned that avocado pits, when thoroughly cleaned and dried, make excellent cat toys because of the irregular rolling motion caused by their lopsided shape. The more you know.

Edit: Despite the chicken, I've marked this as vegetarian due to the soup recipe.

How to Accidentally Make About 50 Chicken Potstickers

The first step - and this is very important - is to pay absolutely no attention to any recipe on the subject. The second step is to have no idea the tiny amount of filling that actually fits into a round wonton wrapper. The third step is to start cooking and the fourth step involves a great deal of "I can't believe we ate that many." (We didn't eat all of them, for the record.)

In reality, I basically followed this recipe from Food.com. This is a great way to use up leftover chicken, pork or beef, and its very likely that all you'll have to buy is the wrappers! You may even make a zillion on purpose so you can freeze some. I made a pan-full, and when we were done cooked up the stragglers for our lunches tomorrow. This made a lot more than I was expecting because I did not realize how little stuffing fits in each wrapper, and just how much filling I was making. I guess that's why the wrappers come in packages of 100.


Because we live in a grocery store dead-zone where apparently ground chicken isn't something that people want, I used just under a pound of chicken tenders, which I shredded. The slight chunkyness of the pieces made me skeptical that the meat could really cook through with this method, so I sauteed the chicken pieces in a sesame teriyaki sauce before assembling, and cut down the soy sauce by half. I also added a small carrot and a rib of celery, both finely chopped, and about a teaspoon of lime juice to the filling mixture. I was able to find round wraps (mine were made by NaSoya brand) so I used those instead of egg roll wraps. Egg roll wraps would make cute little packets, if you put all the the filling in the center and gathered the wrapper above it with the corners sticking up. But they would also be a fair bit bigger.


These aren't really all that different from the baked egg roll recipe I posted about in early May, at least in composition and procedure. Just don't go thinking that because you successfully rolled an egg roll that wrapping up a potsticker will be easy peasy. At least, it wasn't for me, and I ended up with a few sadly torn ones. Such is life. I'm sure that every person who has ever rolled an egg roll or wrapped a potsticker will tell you that their way is the right way, so I trust you will develop your own system. Just be gentle and take the time to figure out just how much filling your wraps can hold.

But now to the important part: These were yummy. I think the lime juice in the mixture made a big impact, and in the future I think I could use even more veggies - possibly even double, to about 2 ribs of celery, 2 carrots, and 4 green onions. Much like the egg rolls, these are much easier than they might seem, and will be ready in about the same amount of time it takes to get to the takeout place and back.


Quote of the Day: I prefer the Chinese method of eating....You can do anything at the table except arm wrestle. ~ Jeff Smith (The Frugal Gourmet)

Grilled Chicken & Polenta with Nectarine-Blackberry Salsa

"Grilled," in my case, means grilled in a grill pan on my stove, but if you're the outdoor-grilling kind, this would be equally tasty cooked al fresco.

I got this recipe from EatingWell.com, and except for cutting the whole thing in half, I really didn't change it. I just added a little green onion and upped the fruit ratio from two nectarines for four servings to two for two, and added about 6 or 8 raspberries, since they are one of my all-time favorite foods, and also a berry, so why not. I don't know what "coarsely chopped" means when it comes to berries, so I just sliced them in half vertically, and that worked out just dandy.

Yum.

I found the instructions from the original recipe to be written in kind of a confusing way, so here's my redo:

Ingredients:

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2 nectarines, halved and pitted

1/2 tube of plain prepared polenta

1/3 pint of blackberries, and a palm-full of raspberries

1 1/2 tsp. cumin

1 1/2 tsp. lime juice

about 1 tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro

1 green onion, white and light green parts only, thinly sliced

Hot sauce, to taste (I used 1/2 tsp Sriracha)

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

Directions:

1. Combine 1 tablespoon olive oil, cumin, and a bit of salt and pepper in a small bowl. Rub the mixture on polenta, and both sides of the chicken. Then cut the polenta into discs, about 1/2 inch thick, and rub a little olive oil on the cut side of the nectarines.

2. Place the chicken, polenta slices and nectarines on the grill, or in your grill pan. [If you are using a real-life grill, you should oil the grill rack before doing this.] Grill the polenta until hot and slightly charred, 3-4 minutes, then transfer it to a plate and tent it with tin foil to keep polenta warm. Grill the nectarines, turning occasionally, until tender, 6-8 minutes total. Grill the chicken until cooked and no longer pink inside, 6-8 minutes per side. Transfer chicken and nectarines to a cutting board. Coarsely chop the nectarines. Let the chicken rest for 5 minutes, then slice.

3. While the chicken rests, combine the lime juice, hot sauce, and a bit of salt in a large or medium bowl. Then add the chopped nectarines, blackberries, cilantro, and green onion. Gently combine.

4. Serve chicken and polenta on a platter with salsa over the top, or individually.

I have to be honest about a couple of things. For one, my nectarines were tiny jerks. They were definitely ripe. They were slightly soft to the squeeze, fragrant, colorful... ripe. But when it came to giving up those pits, they were totally unwilling. So I ended up quartering my nectarines, in favor of mushing them into a pulp trying to remove the pits. I can't imagine that this made much of a difference to the dish, but still. Full disclosure. Also, because I know my taste, I used more cilantro - maybe 1 3/4 tbs instead of 1. I served this dish with just a little bit of green salad, but with all the fruit, you almost don't really need it.

This fruit salsa was super, super delicious. The combination of sweet and just the tiniest bit spicy is a fantastic combination. I would make this again with a variety of other main dishes. Also, grilling nectarines is a brilliant idea! (It wasn't my idea, so I can say that). Sometime soon I will serve warm grilled nectarines with whipped cream. And someday I will try the salsa sans the Sriracha and onion over waffles for a weekend breakfast. (Wow, that's a really exciting idea...)

I know that a grill pan isn't the same as the real deal, but if you don't have access to a grill, you should really consider getting one of these pans. You can get those satisfying grill marks, create crispy skin on your chicken and blacken veggie kabobs with the best of them. For this dish, the pan made a huge difference. Happy grilling!

Quote of the Day: Grilling is like sunbathing. Everyone knows it is bad for you but no one ever stops doing it. ~ Laurie Colwin, 'Home Cooking' (1988)

Semi-Asian Slaw Salad & Chicken Kabobs

My Mom makes this super fab salad with a bag of broccoli slaw, Ramen noodles for crunch, and some kind of magical and mysterious dressing that is tangy, slightly salty, and sweet. It's a really good salad. Like eat-a-giant-bowl-of-it-in-front-of-the-TV-late-at-night good. It could almost take the place of popcorn, in that regard. But not quite.

For my dressing, I started with a sesame soy salad dressing. I also marinated the chicken for the kabobs in some of the same dressing. I used an all-natural one made by Olde Cape Cod, just because I couldn't stop myself from buying the bottle with the lighthouse on the label. And I regret nothing.

For the salad, I added a few other things to the dressing partially to thin it out, and to give it more of that tangy-sweet kick. You want the consistency to be quite thin so that it just barely coats all the slaw-ed veggies without being too heavy. I truly wish I'd had some sesame oil on hand, but since I didn't, I improvised. Just be sure to add each ingredient in small increments so you can get to exactly the flavor that you want.

Ingredients:

Dressing

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Apple cider vinegar or rice wine vinegar

Sesame/Ginger/Soy type salad dressing (For marinating the chicken and as a base for the salad dressing)

Honey

Chili oil - Just a few drops

Soy sauce

Salad

Sesame seeds

Slivered almonds

1 green onion, sliced

Crumbled Ramen noodles

1 small can mandarin orange slices, drained

1 bag broccoli slaw veggies. (For an easy egg roll recipe using the same veggies, try this. You could even use leftover slaw salad!)

Chicken

2 chicken breasts, cut into pieces and marinated in sesame dressing

Directions

1. Stick chicken onto bamboo or steel skewers and cook in a grill pan or skillet over medium-low heat until cooked through. (You could also use a George Foreman Grill, too).

2. Whisk dressing ingredients together in a small bowl until you are happy with the flavor.

3. In a large bowl, combine veggies, mandarin oranges, and sesame seeds. Drizzle with dressing and combine until ingredients are just coated.

4. Plate the salad, then sprinkle with slivered almonds, Ramen noodles, and green onion. Serve with kabobs.

To the dressing, you could also add fresh ginger, hot sauce, or some garlic, if you're in the mood.

For us, this made three servings, which to me is just about perfect. We had a yummy dinner and Brady will have a yummy lunch tomorrow. When I'm home during the day I enjoy my lunchtime meal experiments, so this works out well for everybody. 

In other news, tomorrow is my birthday! I suppose I'm not mentioning this for any particular reason other than to say that we will be having dinner at my very favorite Philadelphia restaurant, The White Dog Cafe, which I am very excited about. We don't go there often (I think I've been four times or so) but each time has been a fantastic experience. I can't wait!

Quote of the Day: “Maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you've had, and what you've learned from them, and less to do with how many birthdays you've celebrated.” ~ Anonymous

Veggie Stir-Fry with Chicken & Brown Rice

I've shared this idea before, but it has everything to do with this post, so I'm sharing it again:

As a kid, I used to watch The Frugal Gourmet on TV with my Dad fairly often. I recently read a quote from the chef on the show, Jeff Smith: “Please understand the reason why Chinese vegetables taste so good. It is simple. The Chinese do not cook them, they just threaten them!"

When it comes to anything Asian-ish that involves vegetables, this seems to be the key. Even with Indian dishes like vegetable curry, I find the more al dente versions much more satisfying. So tonight I tried to keep this in mind while I was putting together a super-tasty stir fry.

Of course, the sauce is also of huge importance to the success of your stir fry, so you could say that I sort of cheated. I used a couple tablespoons of plum dipping sauce that I had left over from these fabulous baked egg rolls that I made last week. (I know, there's lots of sugar in it, but I'm careful with sugar so I'm okay with that). I added a drizzle of soy sauce, a little sesame oil, and a tiny splash each of apple cider vinegar and hot chili oil. To thin it out just a tad, I added a splash of water (just a second under the tap) and about 1/2 teaspoon of cornstarch. I know, I just said I was trying to thin it out - but the cornstarch will let the sauce evenly coat your veggies before thickening back up into a delicious sauce. Since I didn't really "make" the sauce, I'll leave that bit up to you, and focus on the yummy veggies. We had ours with brown rice, which you'll cook according to the package directions.

Ingredients:

3 carrots, peeled and cut on the bias

3 stalks of celery, cut on the bias

1 green or red pepper, or some of each, sliced

1 handful bean sprouts

1/2 onion, sliced

2 cloves garlic, smashed

1-2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into strips (ours came from an extremely well-endowed chicken, so I used just one)

sesame oil

olive oil

Directions:

1. Heat sesame oil, olive oil and garlic until it just starts to crackle. Add chicken and saute until just cooked through, about 5 minutes. Set chicken pieces aside and cover, leaving juices in the pan.

2. Add chopped vegetables, except for the sprouts. Over medium heat, stir-fry the veggies for about 4-5 minutes, or until JUST tender. Test a piece of carrot if you're not sure.

3. Add stir-fry sauce to the veggies, mix in the sprouts, and cook for about one more minute, or just long enough for the sauce to thicken a bit.

4. On each plate, add a scoop of brown rice, and put veggies on top. Then add the chicken, and drizzle remaining hot stir-fry sauce over it. Dinnertime!

You could use shrimp or sliced pork tenderloin instead of chicken, or make it vegetarian by skipping the meat and adding a handful of cashews to your veggies while they're cooking. To be honest, I was surprised at just how juicy the chicken was. In this case I think the sesame oil is the key to keeping thinly-sliced chicken moist and tasty.

Stir-fry is a staple quick, easy, and relatively healthy dinner. With brown rice, you have everything you need. Yes, as a student I have considered making stir-fry veggies with a side of Ramen noodles in the past, but when the cost-per-serving of brown rice is so low, I can't justify all the empty white carbs that Ramen brings to the table. (Get it?) ... (Sorry.)

My only real regret is that I didn't have any ginger, fresh or dry, on hand to add to the sauce. I definitely recommend adding about 1 tsp fresh grated ginger root for a little kick. We both added a little Sriracha at the table.

Quote of the Day: "This country isn't a melting pot. Think of this country as a stir fry. That's what this country should be. A place where people are appreciated for who they are." ~ Jane Elliott 

Last Night's Dinner: Arugula & Romaine Salad, Chicken Kabobs, Feta & Whole Wheat Pita

Since I began this blog yesterday, it seems only fitting that I should share what I made for dinner last night! To a fairly simple arugula & romaine salad with cucumber and celery, I added red grapes - which Brady and I both love - and sunflower seeds, which he was not so sure about at first. In the end, we were both quite pleased with it.

I am increasingly curious and cautious about the true nutritional value of cheese, but in the case of feta, my policy is this: If feta is wrong, I don't want to be right. The End.

The chicken kabobs were a little bit of an afterthought, really. I had a massive chicken breast that was waiting to be used so I kabob-ed it and cooked them in my George Foreman Grill. And at the risk of sounding like an infomercial, I love that freakin' thing. It's so easy to use and easy to clean, and it perfectly cooks meat so much faster than... Anything, really. I also use it for grilled sandwiches, but that's a topic for a different post. I am also a fan of the kabob format because in my experience, it makes a smaller (really, more reasonable) serving of meat look and feel as satisfying as a larger one. Who doesn't love eating grilled tastiness off a stick?

Do not ask about the pink wine. Big mistake.


I am not ashamed to admit that my kitchen is not the most beautiful. More unfortunately, it is rather cramped, and suffers from poor lighting, so my photog skills will need a little time to catch up. Good luck to me!