Citrusy Chicken and Green Bean Salad

Now that the holiday season is over and we are into the new year, it's time to lighten up some recipes. While the champagne chicken was delish (and I can't wait to make it again for Valentine's Day and possibly our anniversary in the spring), the husband and I need to move away from heavy cream, butter, and loads of cheese.

What a sad prospect. I feel like that Julia Child quote, "If you're afraid of butter, use cream!" is so true sometimes. There is just something to be said for going whole hog and using those great tasting fats.

But then my jeans get tighter and my belly gets rounder and I start to wonder if butter is really worth it after all. However, lightening up dinner does not have to mean throwing out flavor. Heck no! Squeeze some lemon juice into a dish, add in palmfuls of fresh or dried herbs, and you have just as tasty a meal, without all the fat.

In light of this decision to eat some healthier meals (I said some...I still intend to make pizza, and Mexican, and ice cream with whole milk on occasion), I picked up the newest issue of Martha Stewart's Every Day Food recipe booklet. The cover enticed me with its promise of lighter, yet tasty meals and so far it has not disappointed.

I heavily adapted this recipe from Every Day food; the original called for cucumbers (omitted), only 1 tablespoon of lemon juice (upped to 2 lemons), and 1 tablespoon of basil (upped to 2, plus some dried rosemary). Also, I doubled the recipe, but decided not to double the amount of oil, in an effort to continue the healthyness.

The husband, who doesn't really like lemon, thoroughly enjoyed this and requested that it be added to "the rotation."

Citrusy Chicken and Green Bean Salad
Source: Adapted from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food
Printable Recipe

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts, poached
8-10 ounces green beans, steamed
2 tablespoons basil, finely chopped
1 tablespoon parsley, finely chopped
1-2 teaspoons dried rosemary
1 tablespoon olive oil

juice of 2 lemons

2 tablespoons sliced almonds, toasted
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
In a large bowl, whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, basil, parsley, and dried rosemary.

Cut the chicken into chunks and add to the dressing, along with the steamed green beans. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Toss the chicken and beans to fully coat with dressing. Sprinkle with the toasted almonds and serve.

Royal Icing

As I mentioned in my sugar cookie post, Annie's Eats has been a great inspiration to me and my cooking. She has especially fueled my desire to decorate sugar cookies with royal icing. Having never used royal icing, I turned to her tutorial and read through the steps several times before embarking on my first cookie decorating adventure. I highly suggest you check out Annie's tutorial if this is your first time working with royal icing. It is pretty easy to do, although messy, but her tips helped out quite a bit.

Also, I bought the meringue powder at Michael's, using a 40% off coupon. I recommend you do the same; that stuff is pricey!

Royal Icing
Source: Annie's Eats
Printable Recipe

Ingredients
4 cups powdered sugar, sifted
2 tablespoons meringue powder
5 tablespoons water


Materials
gel food coloring in desired colors
disposable pastry bags (one per icing color)
1 coupler per bag
1 size 2 or 3 decorating tip per bag
1 squirt bottle per icing color

Directions
Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.

Mix on low speed until the icing has a matte appearance, about 7-10 minutes. Make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl to fully incorporate all the powdered sugar.

Transfer the contents of the mixing bowl to an air-tight container. The icing should be stiff, but it will be too stiff to use for decorating. Add a small amount of water at a time (I added about 1/4 of a tablespoon) and stir until fully incorporated. The icing should still be slightly stiff, but be able to be piped. You don't want it to be super thin at this point though.

Mix in the gel icing coloring, a little at a time, until you have reached your desired color.

Fit a disposable pastry bag with a coupler and a size 2 or 3 tip. Using a steady hand, outline each cookie with icing. If you are having any difficulty piping, the icing is still too thick. Add a little more liquid, mix well, and try piping again. Let stand so the icing will set, about one hour (I stuck my outlined cookies in the freezer for about 30 minutes to speed up the hardening process, which worked really well).

Be sure to keep the remaining icing covered to prevent it from hardening.

Once all the cookies have been outlined, squeeze the remaining icing back into the air tight container. Add a small amount of water at a time (about 1/2 a tablespoon) and mix well, to thin the icing. The icing should run off the back of a spoon and completely incorporate back into the rest of the icing in about 5 seconds. Once you think you've added enough water, add a little bit more. If the icing is too thick, it will be difficult to flood and decorate the cookies.

Once the icing has reached the desired consistency, pour it into to a squeeze bottle (or a plastic bag with a hole in one corner), and flood the area surrounded by the piping on each cookie. Carefully spread the icing into the corner with a toothpick.

Allow the cookies to set until the frosting is completely hardened.

Use the remaining to pipe on an additional decorations. If the icing is too thin, add more powdered sugar, mixing well.

Shining Stars

I recently introduced my friend and co-worker Michelle to the blog Annie's Eats and we are both semi-obsessed with all of the recipes and beautiful photos Annie posts on her blog. So much so, that Michelle emails me pics so we can both cry over our lack of awesome photography skills (and a DSLR camera). Having recently bought a set of star-shaped cookie cutters, I invited Michelle over to make some shining star cookies with me. We found the perfect excuse to make a ton of cookies: frost them in our school's colors and bring them to our "shining star" co-workers!



By the time we got to 7th grade lunch there were only two cookies left! All the teachers and office staff we work with were very appreciative of the sweet bite of school spirit we brought in.
Since the dough needs to be chilled before it's cooked, and then chilled before frosting, and the frosting outline has to harden for an hour before the flood icing, I decided to make the cookies a day in advance and just have them ready for Michelle to help frost--otherwise she would be stuck at my house until midnight! :) As it was, it still took us forever to frost all the cookies, but it made for a fun afternoon with a new friend.



I've blogged the royal icing in a separate blog post. Annie has a great tutorial with tons of helpful pictures on her site for using royal icing. I read it several times before attempting decorating my cookies for the first time.

Sugar Cookies
Source: Annie's Eats, of course!
Printable Recipe

Ingredients
1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened or room temp
1 cup powdered sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 ½ teaspoons almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
2 ½ cups flour, sifted (I measured the flour, then sifted it right into the mixing bowl)

Directions
Cream butter. Once creamed, add the powdered sugar.

Mix in the beaten egg, almond extract, vanilla extract, salt and flour.

Chill dough until firm (I put my dough in a Ziplock bag and chilled it overnight).

Roll to ¼” thickness on well-floured surface. Cut shapes with cookie cutters.

Place on greased cookie sheets and bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 min. Cookies should not brown.

Cool cookies completely before frosting.

Salsa Burgers

I wanted tacos for dinner, but the husband requested burgers, so I defrosted a package of ground turkey in the fridge. Turkey burgers are a quick, standby recipe in this house, but sometimes I get bored with them. While the meat was thawing in the microwave, I scoured the fridge, looking for flavor inspirations.

I usually add plain yogurt to ground turkey to increase the moisture (I find ground turkey to be really dry otherwise), but we were out, so I settled on light sour cream. That, combine with my craving for Mexican food, pushed me towards the salsa jar. Slowly, I began pulling out ingredients for a spicy, Mexican-flavored burger.

The husband doesn't like spicy food as much as I do...in fact, he even commented that I put salsa on all my food and wondered when I will create a salsa cake! So I divided the meat in half and only added the salsa to my half of the ground turkey (the recipe below calls for the salsa to be added to the entire pound of meat). If you are like the husband, use a mild salsa and omit the cayenne. You'll still have a flavorful burger, but without all the heat I like. If you like a lot of heat, use a hot salsa and up the cayenne and chili powder. That is the great thing about this recipe, it is easily adaptable to your tastes.

Salsa Burgers
Source: me
Printable Recipe

Ingredients
1 pound ground turkey
2 Tablespoons chunky salsa
2 Tablespoons light sour cream
1-2 teaspoons cayenne
2 teaspoons pepper
sprinkle garlic salt
heavy dash chili powder
4 small cubes pepper jack cheese

Directions
Light a charcoal grill or plug in your George Foreman grill (my method of choice here).

Mix all ingredients, except the cheese, together until fully incorporated.

Form the meat into four patties. Push a cube of cheese into the center of each patty and seal.

Cook the meat until your desired level of doneness. Serve on your favorite bun (we used toasted sandwich thins) with additional salsa.

Pineapple Teriyaki Chicken

I found a bottle of Soy Vey Island Teriyaki at Fresh and Easy recently and decided to pick it up in place of my usual Soy Vey Veri Veri Teriyaki sauce, which I use for Soyaki Chicken.

The husband loves everything pineapple and I knew this would make a great foundation for pineapple chicken. Add some crushed pineapple to the sauce, then add a few pineapple rings to the chicken at the end of cooking, and you have a quick, easy, weeknight dinner. Turn your rice cooker on 15 minutes or so before cooking the chicken and it's a complete meal!

Pineapple Teriyaki Chicken
Source: me
Printable Recipe

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts
1/4-1/2 cup pineapple teriyaki sauce (regular teriyaki sauce will work too)
2 pineapple rings, plus one ring, diced OR 2 pineapple rings and 1 tablespoon crushed pineapple

Directions
Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Spray a small casserole dish or pie pan with non-stick spray. Place the chicken breasts in the pan. Pierce the chicken breasts with a fork in a few places, to better absorb the sauce.

If you're using crushed pineapple, mix it with the teriyaki sauce. If you are using whole pineapple rings, mix the diced pineapple with the teriyaki sauce. Pour the sauce over the chicken breasts.

Bake uncovered for 25-30 minutes. Lay one pineapple slice over each chicken breast during the last 10 minutes of cooking.

Plate the chicken, spooning sauce over the top of each breast, and serve with brown rice (spoon some of the teriyaki chicken juices over the rice for extra flavor).

Onion and Rosemary Foccacia

I recently posted a recipe for champagne chicken, courtesy of The Rookie Chef. I knew I was going to need a chunk of bread to sop up all that sauce, so I turned to my trusty copy of Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, and found this recipe for foccaccia bread.

I already had a batch of olive oil dough on hand; I like to keep it around for when the urge to make pizza or a loaf of bread strikes. I added some rosemary to the bread to tie the flavors into the rosemary in the champagne cream sauce; this was the perfect accompaniment. It later went well with a hearty bowl of chicken noodle soup on my first day back to work after a 2 week vacation.


Onion and Rosemary Foccacia
Source: Adapted from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day
Printable Recipe

Ingredients
1 pound of olive oil dough
1/2 medium onion (yellow or white), thinly sliced
2 tablespoons, extra virgin olive oil, plus one teaspoon for drizzling
1 teaspoon dried rosemary leaves
course salt and ground pepper for sprinkling on top
oil to grease the cookie sheet

Directions

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees, with a metal broiler tray on the lowest shelf. You will be pouring water into this tray once the dough is in the oven, so give yourself some room between the broiler tray and the rack you cook your dough on.

Saute the onion slices in the olive oil until softened, but not browned. If you brown the onions they will burn in the oven.

Grease a cookie sheet with a little bit of olive oil, or line with a piece of parchment paper (I recommend this option: easier clean up and no worry about the bread sticking). Dust the dough with some flour (I also recommend dusting your hands with flour as this is a wet dough) and shape the dough into a ball by stretching it out.

Place the dough on the cookie sheet and spoon half of the onions onto the dough (spread them out in one layer). Fold the dough over itself, covering the onions, and reshape it so the onions are inside the dough.

Flatten the dough to 1/2"-3/4" of an inch thick. Spread the remaining onions over the top of the dough. Do not completely cover the surface of the dough or it won't brown correctly (you may have leftover onions). Sprinkle the surface with the rosemary, salt, and pepper. Lightly drizzle with the teaspoon olive oil.

Allow the foccacia to rest and rise, uncovered, for 20 minutes.

Place the cookie sheet in the oven and pour 1 cup of hot water into the metal broiler tray. Quickly shut the oven door, trapping the steam in the oven. Do not open the oven door for at least the first 15 minutes, or the steam will escape, affecting the crust.

Bake for 25 minutes, or until the foccacia is medium brown. Cut into wedges and serve warm.

This is a great bread for dipping in soups and sopping up sauces; I served it with champagne chicken and it was a perfect accompaniment to the creamy sauce.

Oven Roasted Broccoli

As a kid, I disliked many vegetables, but I think none more so than broccoli. I absolutely detested the vile green vegetable and couldn't agree more when President George H. Bush proclaimed his hatred towards this menace of a plant in the 90's.

Whenever broccoli made an appearance on my dinner plate, I knew it was going to be a long night for me. I usually had to stay at the dinner table until I ate all of my vegetables....and sometimes they made a reappearance at breakfast if I didn't choke them down by bedtime. As I got older I devised new ways of making the despised veggie disappear; I often hid florets in my napkin, balled up under the edge of my plate. I even went so far as to drop them in my milk glass, which would then be poured down the sink or in the toilet when no one was looking. I never was very good at dropping food on the floor for the dog, mainly because the dog always sat under my brother's chair on the other side of the table.

As an adult, I still dislike broccoli. The husband on the other hand looooooooves it. Ugh. I am forced to pick it out of stir fry and eat around it when it makes an appearance in other dishes. With two stalks of the green menace in the crisper....organic broccoli at that...I decided to try a new method of cooking. I enjoy oven-roasted cauliflower and asparagus (two other veggies I wouldn't eat as a kid), so I gave oven-roasted broccoli a try.

This recipe, with a nice sprinkle of parm cheese, made me rethink my hatred of broccoli. While I still won't be offering to eat broccoli on a regular basis, this was really good and I found myself eating a second helping.

Oven Roasted Broccoli
Source: Food Network
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

1 pound broccoli, rinsed and trimmed
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup panko bread crumbs
1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan or sharp Cheddar

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Cut the broccoli florets into bite size pieces. Cut the stalk into 1/8-inch thick, round slices (I just used the florets and discarded the stems). Place the broccoli into a mixing bowl and toss with the olive oil, garlic, kosher salt and pepper and set aside.

Spread the panko into a 13 by 9-inch pan and place into the oven for 2 minutes or until lightly toasted. Remove the panko from the oven and add to the bowl with the broccoli mixture. Toss to combine.

Return the broccoli mixture to the pan, place in the oven and roast just until the broccoli is tender, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, toss in the cheese and serve immediately.