Prime Cuts

BRR! Who turned off Summer? I’m not sure how things are going across the REST of the country, but here on the East Coast? WOW.  Summer decided to run away like a scared kitten, leaving the first frosty traces of Fall to take charge.

While I am one of those “Summer People” (yes, I get cold when it’s 70 degrees outside, I would wear flip-flops 365 days a year, if I could, and I think that having sand between my toes is one of the greatest pleasures in life), there are lots of things about Autumn that make me blissfully happy:

The firestorm of color when the leaves begin to change.
Picking apples straight out da’ orchard.
Hoodies.
Jeans.
Kids being back in school.
Carving pumpkins (or turning them into pies!)
Snuggling underneath my down comforter.

and …

Homemade soup.

Ohhhh, MAN! Do I love soup! I’m a junkie for it. It’s one of those things that always makes me feel good. And when it’s homemade? There are few things that are better. Sadly, many people are daunted by the thought of making soup from scratch, which is more than a little unfortunate, as it almost always kicks the stuffing out of anything you can get from a can.

I’m gonna let you in on a little secret, though. *Psst! Come closer (I won’t hurt you)!*

Making soup … is easy. I mean, REALLY easy. All it takes is a little time (and, sometimes, not even all that much of it). Even if you think you can’t cook, I’d be willing to bet you can pull it off. As the nip of Fall creeps further into our lives, I’m sure to post more than a few of my favorite soup recipes, but I’m going to start with the one that gives the most bang for the buck, the most excellence for the effort.

I ask you: is there anything better than homemade chicken noodle soup?

Melissa’s Better-Than-Your-Mom’s Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

Ingredients

2 split, bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts**
Extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
Freshly-ground pepper
2 quarts chicken broth (use the low-sodium kind)
2 large ribs of celery, diced
3 large carrots, diced
1 cup wide egg noodles
1/2 minced fresh parsley (if you like)
**If you want to make this impossibly, nay CRIMINALLY, easy, get a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken from your grocery store, shred the meat and put it right into the pot.

Preparation

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Place the chicken breasts on a large baking sheet (one that has a good edge on it). Rub the pieces of chicken liberally with olive oil. Sprinkle generously with the Kosher salt and freshly-ground pepper. Roast in the oven til the skin is golden brown and the meat is cooked through (about 1/2 an hour or so). Remove from the oven and allow to cool (otherwise, you’ll burn the bejeezus out of your fingers; I speak from experience here).

Meanwhile, heat the chicken stock/broth over medium-high heat. Add the carrots and celery & allow to cook for about 20 minutes (until the veggies start to get tender, but not mushy). Remove the skin from the pieces of chicken, and dice (or just tear) the meat into chunks. Add the meat to the pot. Add the egg noodles and cook at a simmer or low boil for about 10 minutes. Add the parsley, and you’re ready to serve!

It’s true, it would be difficult to find a recipe that’s easier. It’s low on time-commitment, low on effort, easy on your bank account, and BIG on return. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

I think I’m gonna make a pot right now.

When she’s not getting her soup on for Prime Cuts, Melissa DelGaudio keeps things simmering over at Honeybee Consulting. Check her out there, or see what sort of stew she’s in on Twitter today!

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Photo by: pinprick

There is a special place in my heart for Thai food, sometimes I seriously wonder if I was born in the wrong place but then I remember how good thai food is in Los Angeles. During the summer I feel like I constantly battle between wanting to cook over the stove and wanting to grill every night of the week. Where I live it regularly gets to over 100 degrees during the summer so choosing which heat source to sweat over can be difficult. Enter my slow cooker. Honestly, they don’t get the love they deserve but I have found a renewed love for them this summer because they are so easy and you don’t have to sweat over them.

Saturday morning I was rifling through the freezer trying to use up piled frozen food in there as my constant food ADD forces me to abandon wise, planned food choices. I found a pack of chicken legs. Knowing that later in the day we would be having friends over I decided that the chicken legs would be perfect because they feed a lot of people and everyone likes them. So then I tried to think about how I could make these, immediately I went to something with stewed tomatoes but that idea was quickly deserted. Thai food came to mind, something with peanuts, I know, it’s very cliche but I love peanuts, chicken, and rice. I wanted to make something with a peanut sauce but also wanted it to be quick and easy. That’s when we turned to the slow cooker, peanut butter, soy sauce, and hot salsa. I know what you’re thinking, “Salsa, are you crazy? Do you even know how to cook?” The answer is yes I am crazy and as far as cooking, that’s debatable.

I quickly pulled out a mixing bowl and put in the salsa, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, crushed coriander, and some lime. As I turned to grab a spoon to stir my craziness I glanced out the window, the pool caught my eye. It was calling my name, it was 10:30 in the morning and it was already 93 degrees outside. My scurry turned into a blur of mixing, pouring, and throwing chicken legs into the slow cooker. I stopped dead in my tracks once I put the peanut butter in and mixed it. Now this is a moment where you just need to trust me because at this point none of it looks appetizing. Do you know what wet peanut butter looks like? Maybe I’ve said too much, I’ll let your mind do the talking for me.

Once I got everything in there I set it cook and almost ran through the sliding glass door before jumping in the pool. Fast forward six hours, the pool party was a success, all remnants of snack food was indistinguishable, the chicken was ready. My friend Nicolette made her fried rice while I tasted the chicken, the meat was literally falling off the bones; the taste was epic. We plated the rice, laid a stray piece of scallion, then set the chicken down on the pillowy rice. We sprinkled cilantro and chopped peanuts over it, now it was done and ready to eat. We finished setting the remaining plates with food, gathered around the table and shared in a great meal to pinnacle an amazing Saturday. Before the meal ended we already had made plans for next weekend and began discussing what we would make.

Slow Cooked Thai Chicken

Ingredients
2 1/2 pounds of chicken legs
1 cup HOT salsa
1/4 cup peanut butter
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 teaspoon garlic
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons crushed coriander
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
1/2 cup chopped peanuts
2 tablespoons cilantro

Preparation

1. Put chicken into slow cooker (just in case you forgot what you’re doing with it)
2. Mix salsa, peanut butter, lime juice, garlic, soy sauce, coriander, ginger; pour over chicken
3. Cover; cook on high for a few hours then switch to low for the last couple of hours.
4. Place chicken on plate or hand, pour sauce over chicken; sprinkle with peanuts and cilantro
5. Eat one before anyone else, you cooked it, be the first to enjoy it.

Here is a favorite spice rub of mine for chicken that is a great thing to do for summer barbeques.   I love to prepare this on the grill, but not really on the grill?!   I get my grill about medium hot (can hold hand over hottest part for at least 5 sec.) and place a thick cast iron skillet or thick metal tray, saute pan, or sizzle platter…directly on the grill.   Let this blackening plate heat thoroughly before you cook any food on it.  While waiting for the plate to heat up prepare your chicken by patting it thoroughly dry and preparing the spice rub, recipe follows.

Joe’s Bird Blackening Spice Rub

This spice rub should pack a lot of flavor without being too spicy.  I personally don’t care for food that is so spicy that the simple, natural flavors of the base food are masked.  This rub is full of flavor yet still mellow in terms of spiciness.

Ingredients

1/2 cup Spanish paprika
1/2 cup smoked paprika
1/4 cup chili powder
1/4 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup cumin
1/4 cup freshly/finely ground black pepper
1/8 cup cayenne pepper
1/8 cup garlic powder

Preparation

1. Mix all ingredients thoroughly with whisk, and store in an airtight container, taking out only as much as you need at a time.  Will keep fresh and flavorful for 1-2 months.

2. On a clean plate pour out enough spice rub mix to thoroughly coat both sides of however many chicken breasts you are cooking.

3. Place chicken directly on spice mix and pat down with spice to thoroughly coat all exposed surface of chicken breast.   This dry coating of spice rub mix will prevent the chicken from sticking to the blackening plate and become the outer crust of flavor that will keep the juices from the chicken locked in the meat.

4. Place the seasoned chickens directly on the hottest part of the blackening plate on the grill, turning every 5 minutes or so.  The chicken should develop a bit of char, but not as much as if you were to cook it directly on the grill bars.  If your chicken is blackening too much, remove it from the pan and relocate the blackening pan to a less hot part of the grill, giving ample time for the temperature to reduce before returning the chickens to the heat.  The even smoothness of the plate helps create the crust and keeps the crust on the chicken rather than sticking to the grill bars when you try to turn it.

5. Check for doneness by pushing down on the chicken with your index finger, when there is a strong bounce back and the chicken feels firm it is done.  Generally 20-30 minutes for medium to large chicken breasts, and it is always best to cook slow and long at low temperature than quickly at high temperature for foods that must be cooked thoroughly.  If you like, pound the thickest parts of the chicken breast prior to cooking to reduce cooking time.

Enjoy this chicken with a cool dipping sauce such as a chilled homemade ranch or chive sour creme.  These dipping sauces will contrast and refresh the palate against the smokey/spiciness of the blackening spice rub crust.

Enjoy!

P.S. This is great topped with some melted bleu cheese or Gorgonzola and put in a sandwich!

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Photo by: Chinkerfly

This week for Fresh Fridays we wanted to bring you a recipe that just about everyone loves, Chicken Marsala.  A common misconception is that it’s a hard recipe to prepare.  We both think a lot of that comes from the fact that the marsala sauce is homemade and sometimes making sauces from scratch can be daunting to some.  However, we promise that this recipe is simple and something you can whip at home with ease.  We’ve both spent years making marsala, especially Joe while he worked at his previous restaurant because they ran it as a special almost every weekend.

As always, we hope you try this out at home and enjoy with your friends or family!

Ingredients

1 large chicken breast
flour for dredging
1/4 cup chopped button mushrooms
1/4 cup sliced onion
1/4 cup Marsala wine
1/3 cup heavy creme
2 tbsp butter
salt and pepper to taste
vegetable oil

Linguini or fettuccini to serve over

Preparation

• Begin by  cutting the chicken breast in half butterfly style.
• Pound the two halves of chicken to create a uniform thickness.
• Dredge the chicken lightly in flour seasoned with salt and pepper, shake of excess.
• In a LARGE saute pan melt butter with a little bit of veg oil.
• Saute chicken till golden brown on both sides and slightly crisp on the edges but not yet fully cooked.
• Remove chicken from pan and set aside, add mushrooms, and saute for 3-4 minutes till they begin to soften.
• Add onions and saute till soft.
• Add Marsala wine to pan, and stand back as the alcohol will ignite, when the flame subsides, scrape pan with a wooden spoon to deglaze and mix all cooking bits into the sauce, these will flavor and thicken the final sauce.
• Reduce this down to a syrupy consistency with a rich brown color.
• Add heavy creme to pan, and reserved chicken breasts, reduce till the sauce has a light brown color and is thickened considerably, approximately 5-6 minutes.
• Check for taste and season with salt and pepper, serve over pasta,  Fresh fettuccini is my favorite for this, but many types work well with this sauce.

Remember this dish will only be as good as the Marsala wine you use to cook it with, so rather than buying a huge cheap bottle, try and find a small bottle of something decent.  If you tell your wine salesman that you are looking for wine for the purpose of cooking they will usually have a few bottles that are suited for just that purpose.

Enjoy!

You can download a PDF version of this Chicken Marsala Recipe.

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Photo by: Sea-turtle