When Dan purchased his smoker for one of the Charcutepalooza challenges, my first thought was that it would be yet another cooking gadget that he would use a couple of times before getting bored with it.  Happily, I could not have been more wrong.  He uses the smoker a lot, for such smoked delights as ribs, game hen and tri-tip.  He also occasionally uses the smoker as a charcoal grill, for that old-school grill flavor.  What I had originally thought was bought on a whim has turned out to be a very worthwhile purchase that has allowed Dan to expand his grilling repertoire.  It doesn’t hurt that the smoker is incredibly easy to use and has achieved near-perfect results each time we’ve used it.  If you grill often, enjoy smoky flavor and have the room and budget for it, the Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker is a great investment that we definitely recommend (in a non-sponsored way.) Continue reading “Smoked Turkey Breast”

Ina Garten has a way with chicken and lemons.  We previously tried another of Ina’s recipes using lemons and chicken, and we really liked it.  So we figured we would probably also enjoy this “Lemon Chicken with Croutons” recipe from her “Barefoot in Paris” cookbook.  We were even more interested in this dish because it uses a whole chicken (great to have for leftovers), and Ina refers to it as “the essence of French country cooking.”  Adding homemade croutons and roasted onions to the mix doesn’t hurt either.

Continue reading “Lemon Chicken with Croutons”

This is yet another recipe from our much-loved “Best 30-Minute Recipe” cookbook.  We mention the cookbook often because we use it All. The. Time.  In addition to all of its other wonderful cooking tips and taste offerings, the book has an entire chapter called “Mix and Match Stir-Fries” with several different stir-fry recipes and sauces to cook in various combinations — genius.  As much as we enjoy ordering take-out from our favorite local Chinese restaurant, we also find it very satisfying (and probably a tad more healthy) to cook an authentic-tasting Asian meal at home.

Continue reading “Stir-Fried Chicken and Vegetables with Spicy Thai Basil Sauce”

As with most casserole dishes, there are many variations of King Ranch.  No matter the recipe, the key components seem to be poultry, tortillas, cheese and a creamy sauce.  All good things in our book.  Looking at several different recipes, we put together this King Ranch with the following ingredients:  leftover cooked turkey (most recipes use chicken, but we had previously grilled a turkey breast and had tons leftover), onion, red bell pepper, garlic, tortillas, chicken broth, cream of mushroom soup, cream of chicken soup, Rotel, green chiles, jalapeno and cheddar cheese seasoned with chili powder. Continue reading “King Ranch Casserole (with leftover turkey)”

Earlier this fall, when we had lemons from our Meyer lemon tree, we experimented with recipes using lemons as one of the main ingredients.  We consulted one of our cooking heroes’ most recent cookbooks — the Barefoot Contessa’s “How Easy is that?” and found a recipe that was as easy as it was lemony and delicious.  (Bonus — the link to the recipe includes video of the Barefoot Contessa on the Today Show.)  The original recipe calls for chicken breasts, but we usually prefer chicken thighs over breasts because we like the flavor better and thighs are almost impossible to overcook.  Considering how the chicken got crispy on the outside without drying out on the inside, we may try this recipe with chicken breasts next time.   Continue reading “Lemon Chicken”

One of the great things about enjoying food and cooking as much as we do is that we often get cool cooking-related tools and gadgets as gifts.   For Dan’s birthday this year, his brother and sister-in-law gave him a “mattone chicken press” (thanks Jerry and Cary!)  The mattone is a terra-cotta press used to cook Tuscan-style chicken that is crispy outside and juicy on the inside.  Pressing the chicken down while it cooks also helps it to cook evenly.  We had never cooked with a mattone before and were excited to try it.  For our first attempt, we decided to do a game hen in the oven, although the mattone can also be used on the grill or the stove.  The game hen was delicious, and the mattone was really easy to use.  Next time we’re going to try a chicken on the grill!

Continue reading ““Pressed” Game Hen”

We love a good slow-cooker recipe during an especially busy week, and this is one of our favorites.  It’s so easy, I can actually make it by myself.  And it’s so delicious that we usually try to make a big enough batch to ensure we have extra to freeze some for another time.  (It thaws and re-heats really nicely.)   This recipe is pretty much everything we look for in a dinner-time soup. The ingredients are very simple:   chicken breasts, crushed tomatoes, enchilada sauce, chopped green chiles, garlic, onion, chicken broth, jalapenos, cumin, chili powder, bay leaf, salt & pepper.  When I made this soup, I put all the ingredients together in the slow-cooker that morning.  But one of the great things about this recipe is that you can mix together all the ingredients (other than the chicken) the night before and refrigerate the mixture overnight, if you want to save even more time.   Just don’t add the chicken until the morning you are going to cook the soup (we’re probably overly cautious when it comes to bacteria and proteins, but better safe than food poisoned!  Especially if I’m the one doing the cooking…) Continue reading “Slow-Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup”

We created this recipe based on a dish I had years ago at a local restaurant.  “Paillard” refers to the technique of pounding the chicken flat before cooking it so that it cooks faster and more evenly.  One of the reasons we love this recipe is that it incorporates the main course and side into a single dish, making it easy to prepare during a busy week.  The recipe is also a good one because it uses fresh spinach, which is a “superfood.”   And we balance out the healthy with a little bit of bacon, which of course makes everything better. Continue reading “Chicken Paillard with Spinach”

This is delicious “comfort food” recipe that we found in Cook’s Illustrated Italian Classics, when we were looking for a way to use sage from our garden.  This recipe isn’t as quick as some of our weeknight dishes, but you could easily make it on a weekend and have the leftovers (if there are any) the following week.  We weren’t really sure if we would like this recipe the first time we made it, since we (I) aren’t huge fans of stew-like dishes, but we were pleasantly surprised.  It has just the right amount of stew type ingredients (meat, tomatoes and mushrooms), and we love just about any recipe that includes chicken thighs. Continue reading “Chicken Cacciatore”