Chicken Paprikash, Take Two

Part of the reason we bought the hot paprika at the Souks in Dubai was because I feel like I see a lot of recipes that call for it, but it's not necessarily easy to find back home, so I wanted to bring some back to play with!  Funny thing is, when I searched for recipes calling for Hot Paprika the first one that I found was mine - go figure!  Rather than try something different, I decided that I'd give Chicken Paprikash a second go-around.

Chicken Paprikash

With the chicken paprikash being of Eastern European decent, I decided to serve it with spaetzle - turns out there is a pretty delicious box version!

Parmesan Chicken and Roasted Romaine Salad

When looking for dinner inspiration, I turn to a lot of places.  Recently, however, Pinterest has been a serious go-to for me.  Good weeknight meals are sometimes tough to find, but when I saw this Parmesan Chicken with Caesar Roasted Romaine on Pinterest, I knew I found a good one.  

Roasted Chicken and Warm Romaine Salad

The Necessities (adapted from Bon Appetit)

At Least There Was Good Food....

In the wake of last night's depressing outcome, the one thing I will be focusing on is the delicious food Nick and I spent the day preparing.  One of the fun reasons to have some friends over for the Super Bowl is the excuse to prepare some dishes you probably would not otherwise prepare!  So, for the past two weeks I was trolling the internet looking for some inspiration dishes and came up with the following (forgive my Instagram obsession)...

First up was a Cheesey Pepperoni Pull Apart Bread that I adapted from Jen's Cheesey Mushroom Bread, as I have a friend who is not a mushroom fan.  This recipe was easy to pull together and very satisfying to put on the table with the "ooo's" and "ahh's" it received.  With its adaptability to almost anything this will quickly become a go-to appetizer.

Cheesey Pepperoni Pull Apart Bread

Next up was Megan's Buffalo Chicken Stromboli, adapted to add a lot more heat!  I doubled the amount of Frank's Red Hot and allowed the shredded chicken to sit in all of the sauce not taken up during the sauteing to make sure all the chicken was sufficiently ready to burn tongues!  If that were not enough, I picked up this great buffalo Cheddar at Whole Foods that even had bits of jalapenos added to it!  Needless to say the Stromboli had plenty of bite - good thing we had friends over who love spice as much as Nick and I do.

Chicken Sausage Pasta with a Semi-Homemade Sauce

Sometimes when it's my turn to cook there's really no recipe inspiration striking and I do not have time to troll the internet to find something that works.  On those nights, sometimes an easy pasta dinner is just what the doctor ordered.  However, jarred pasta sauce isn't always something I am interested in using - I like to pretend some legitimate effort was put into this meal!  Turns out, crushed tomatoes are the key.

Dinner!

Spaghetti Squash Dinner

In the final weeks of our CSA we were getting tons of squashes, one of which was spaghetti squash, the flesh of which basically turns into spaghetti when you start scraping it out.  With this, I let Nick be the guinea pig and figure out how to make this squash into a meal.  Using the ever popular Gojee, Nick found a recipe for "Mexi Squash" from the Sprouted Kitchen.

To being, Nick cut the squash in half, pulled out the seeds, placed the halves face down on a baking sheet and put it in a 375 degree oven for about 50 minutes.  Once tender, he allowed the squash to cool a bit.

Cooling Roasted Squash

While the squash was resting, Nick combined the juice of two limes, olive oil, 2 teaspoons of minced garlic, 1/2 teaspoon of cumin, a sprinkle of red pepper flakes, and some coriander in a small bowl.

Dressing!

Using a fork, Nick scraped out all the spaghetti goodnesss from the cooled squash into a large bowl.

Scraping out the spaghetti

Nick then added the sauce and a handful of feta crumbles to the bowl with the squash and combined.  You could also use a mexican cheese here, but since they didn't have any at the store that night, the recipe said feta would work just as well.

Dressed Squash

To beef up this dinner, Nick seasoned some chicken with the zest from the 2 limes, salt and pepper and put it on the Foreman Grill to cook through...

Some Seasoned Raw Chicken

...and then topped the mexi squash with the grilled chicken.

Dinner is ready!

Spaghetti squash is a really fun vegetable (well, technically, a really fun fruit,!) that offers the same concepts of a pasta but is way healthier.  With a crunchier texture, I liked the change up, but I will say, sometimes there really is no substitute for straight up pasta!

Spinach, Chicken, Feta and Almonds...

I know I have mentioned Gojee as a good source for recipes a number of times.  While I get really annoyed with daily emails, I still allow Gojee's because they have some good suggestions and it only comes once a week, so I don't get too inundated.  Recently they sent an newsletter that featured Chicken Stuffed with Spinach, Feta and Almonds, which looked and sounded delicious.  Since it had been awhile since I had done a wrapped chicken (I went through a phase, pre-blog) I figured I should give this a go.

The Ingredients

Swiss Chard!

This week we had Swiss chard in our CSA, another veggie I am not really familiar with, and yet another reason we originally wanted to get the CSA.  Using Epicurious I tried to figure out what sounded good and practical to make for a weekday meal when I stumbled upon a delicious side dish recipe with Swiss chard, raisins and toasted almonds.

Ingredients

 The Necessities...

• 1/2 large onion, sliced lengthwise 1/4 inch thick (1 cup)
• 2 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
• 1/4 teaspoon Spanish smoked paprika
• 2 pounds Swiss chard, center ribs discarded and leaves coarsely chopped
• 1/2 cup golden raisins
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup coarsely chopped almonds with skins

To begin, I heated some olive oil in a large saute pan and tossed in my sliced onion.  This onion was another fantastic red onion from the CSA that is more like a red onion/scallion hybrid, but is delicious and pretty to cook with!  With the onion I tossed in the salt and allowed it to cooked until it softened, where I then added the paprika.

CSA Time - what to do with loads of Bok Choi?

This past week our CSA began and we got TONS of veggies - I mean, look at them all!  I was having trouble deciding where to start and what to do.

Fridge Full!

I pulled out a a couple things I thought would go together - 2 bags of peas and a whole lot of bok choi, plugged them into Epicurious and got back a bunch of results.  The one that peeked my interest was an Asian Chicken Salad with Snap Peas and Bok Choy, so I used that as a starting point. 

Yummy!

Chicken Gyro AND Homemade Pitas!

Wednesday was another snow day for Nick, so we get another edition of Nick cooks - lucky me!  I am spoiled, I really do know that.

As we are a household that is becoming a bit hummus crazy, homemade pitas seemed like the natural next step.  But, to make it a full on dinner, Nick made chicken gryos - complete with a variety of toppings. While he's usually a faithful Food Network follower, he actually found these recipes a while ago on the amazing Beantown Baker's blog. As you can see, the results were amazing!

Exactly what we would find in Greece!

Without further adieu, the homemade pitas (adapted from Beantown Baker who adapted it from The Fresh Loaf)...

The necessities:

3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 Tablespoon sugar or honey
1 packet yeast (or, if from bulk, 2 teaspoons yeast)
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups water, at room temperature
2 tablespoons olive oil, vegetable oil, butter, or shortening

Since we had instant dry yeast there was no activation step necessary, so all Nick had to do to get started was combine the yeast, salt, flour and sugar in a large bowl, then add olive oil and 1 1/4 cups of water and mix with a wooden spoon.  After a ball formed, he placed it on a work surface like a wooden cutting board (granite counter tops also work well) and kneaded the bread for about 10 minutes.  He then put the kneaded dough in a large bowl that has been coated with a bit of olive oil - enough so that the ball of dough could be rolled around completely coated.

Dough covered in olive oil

The bowl was covered with a damp kitchen towel and sat until it doubled in size - about 90 minutes.

Doubled Dough!

After the 90 minutes were up, he punched down the dough to release the trapped air and split it up into 8 even pieces, rolling them into individual dough balls.

Ready to become a pita

The dough balls were once again covered with a damp kitchen towel and allowed to rest for about 20 minutes.  During this time the oven and an upside-down baking sheet or cooking stone (whichever cooking surface you choose) were preheated to 400 degrees

Once the dough was fully rested, Nick flowered the work surface with a bit of flour and pressed the dough balls out into flat circular shapes, about an 1/8 and 1/4 of an inch.  If your dough is being temperamental, go ahead and cover it for another 5 to 10 minutes and try again later. 

2 pitas ready for the oven

Nick cooked these on an upside-down baking sheet and was limited to doing 2 at a time, but if your surface can hold more, go for it!  They really only need about 3 or 4 minutes in the oven to become fully baked and fluffy.  If you want yours a bit more toasted, you can bake them a bit longer - another 3-5 minutes.  After four rotations, we had some amazing looking pitas!

Homemade pitas!

Needless to say, after seeing the finished pitas I did not want to wait for the rest of the chicken gyro components to come together (I was patient, but there were definitely a few "is dinner ready?" shouts).

Using Beantown Baker's chicken gyro recipe that was adapted from Elly Says Opa, Nick got the chicken marinading.

The necessities...

1.25 lbs. chicken pieces
4 cloves garlic, smashed
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tsp. red wine vinegar
2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 heaping Tbsp. plain yogurt
1 Tbsp. dried oregano
salt and pepper

He mixed up some minced garlic, the lemon juice, vinegar, oil, yogurt and oregano in a big Zip-lock bag.  Nick really likes using the zest from citrus fruit, so he also zested the lemon rind into the marinade as well.  When the marinade came together, he dropped in the salted and peppered chicken, mixed it all up, and put it in the fridge for an hour.

Ready for the fridge

The cafeteria at Nick's office sells a chicken gyro during lunch that is advertised as coming with caramelized onions but really just comes with regular cooked onions  He wanted to see what actual caramelized onions would be like in the final product, so he went ahead and did the slow and low cooking strategy to 2 large sweet onions in a little bit of olive oil for what seemed like forever.

Caramelizing...

Recently, I have become more sensitive to the slicing of onions.  I have no idea why, but every time I slice them I look as though I have just received the worst news ever.  And if you follow my blog at all, you'd see that I slice a whole lot of onions!  Now, imagine whatever part of the onion that gets me in the kitchen is now permeating through the entire 576 square feet of the apartment.  Needless to say, I was all teary for over an hour!  The results, however, were completely worth it.

Truly caramelized onions

These onions were so soft and sweet and totally made my quickly sauteed onions not cut it anymore!

When the time consuming aspects were done, Nick went ahead and sauteed the marinated chicken in the fry pan with a bit of olive oil in it.

Cooking chicken

He cubed up the cooked chicken into pieces that fit in the gyros nicely - about 3/4 inch.  He also sliced up some cucumbers.  Rather than making the tzatziki that was recommended in the Beantown Baker recipe, we just used the rest of the plain yogurt that we needed for the chicken marinade.  For a bit of extra spice we added some Tabasco to the mix.  The pitas had just come out of the oven, so there was no need to warm them up!

The Spread

As you can see this was an impressive spread that I took full advantage of.  I just piled it all onto the pita, folded and ate.  Note: we forgot to put out the feta, but I can only imagine that would have made it even better.

The final result!

These were delicious!!!  The star was really the pitas, and after having homemade pitas, I do not know if I could ever go back to the regular store bought variety.  If you attempt to make the pitas, I would double or even triple the recipe because you will definitely want some for later.  I am planning to have some with some hummus for a savory snack or spread some Nutella on there for a sweet treat.  Either way, I am hooked.

Obviously, if you already had the pitas of any type on hand and do not need fully caramelized onions, this dish would be a lot faster to whip up for a week night dinner.  Having been able to taste the rewards of waiting, it was completely worth the extra effort.  Nick Cooks strikes again!

Chicken Paprikash - who knew there was a spicy paprika!

I started following Martha Stewart's everyday food blog, which has lots of great recipes, and found this chicken paprikash recipe.  It seem relatively simple and also used a lot paprika, which is not a spice I generally utilize, and I thought it would add a new flavor to the kitchen.
The necessities...

* 4 chicken leg quarters, cut in half at joint (about 3 pounds total)

* Coarse salt and ground pepper
* 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
* 1 large yellow onion, halved and thinly sliced lengthwise
* 3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
* 2 tablespoons sweet paprika
* 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 1 3/4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
* 1 can (14 ounces) diced tomatoes
* 1/2 pound wide egg noodles
* 1/2 cup sour cream or thick plain yogurt

To begin, I chopped up my onion and and the garlic.

Chopped Onion

Chicken, Green Bean, Corn, Cous Cous Salad with Goat Cheese

Tonight I was in charge of dinner.  I knew I had two chicken breasts at home to work with so I found a recipe online.  Before I go any further, I should say I am relatively new to cooking.  Baking I have down, but cooking is a whole different experience that requires more concentration and the ability to coordinate the different components of the meal.  When I cook, things take a lot longer than expected and generally, there is at least one story that goes along with anything I make. 

So all that being said, another adventure in cooking began...

The recipe was the following from Epicurious:

• 1/2 cup semi-pearled farro* or spelt berries
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
• 8 ounces skinless boneless chicken breast halves
• 12 ounces green beans, trimmed, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
• 2 cups fresh yellow corn kernels (cut from 2 to 3 ears of corn)
• 3 green onions, thinly sliced (about 3/4 cup)
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh marjoram
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons minced shallot
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 4 ounces fresh goat cheese, crumbled (about 1 1/4 cups)

While the recipe called for farro (whatever that is!) I had Israeli cous cous in the cupboard that I wanted to use so I made that substitution.  Also, when I went to Whole Foods to grab all the ingredients it was absolutely crazy, it being the Eve of Christmas Eve and all, so I did not even bother venturing around to find the farro...cous cous it was!  Another random thing was marjoram - I had never heard of it before but turns out it a green clover looking herb with a pine and citrus flavor.