Turkey Chipotle Chili

Posted By under Main Courses, Main Ingredient, Poultry, Recipes

There are probably as many different chili recipes as there are reasons for people’s differing opinions as to whether or not chili should have beans in it.  For the record, we do not put beans in our traditional (award-winning!) chili because Texas Chili does not have beans in it.  Apparently someone even wrote a song about it:  “If You Know Beans About Chili, You Know That Chili Has No Beans.”  We make an exception to this rule for white chili, which is a lighter alternative to the red meat version.  We’ve made white chili before and enjoyed it, but felt that it lacked the flavor “wow factor” of our beef chili recipe.  Enter the chipotle and the tomatillo.  The idea of adding these ingredients came from this recipe and took the white chili to a whole new level, flavor-wise.  The spicy/smoky chipotle and sweet/tart tomatillo give a much needed boost to the otherwise potentially bland flavor combination of white beans and ground turkey.  This is a dish that even a Texas-chili-purist can love, beans and all.

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Baked Panko Fish Sticks

Posted By under Main Courses, Main Ingredient, Recipes, Seafood

Anybody else remember eating fish sticks as a kid?  The pre-breaded kind that you buy frozen and re-heat on a cookie sheet in the oven?  I feel a strange fondness thinking back about those perfectly formed, mostly tasteless, little breaded logs of mystery fish meat — most likely because they remind me of Friday nights during Lent, which makes me happy for two reasons:  Fridays signal the Weekend (favorite time of the week) and Lent signals Spring (favorite season.)  Fondness aside, the fish sticks of our childhood didn’t have much going for them in the flavor department.  And I’m pretty sure that their exact uniform shapes were not the result of a chef’s precise knife skills preparing the fish for breading, freezing, packaging and shipment.  Makes me think of this great commercial, featuring a little girl’s indignation at being fed “minced” fish sticks:  “What is this, ‘minced?’  You feed me ‘minced?’  You ever catch a minced fish?!?”  We’re pretty sure that Martha Stewart never fed anyone minced fish, so we decided to try her recipe for fish sticks made from tilapia fillets as a modern version of this childhood classic.  With just a few ingredients — tilapia, an egg, panko, olive oil and Old Bay seasoning — and an elegant dipping sauce made with mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, horseradish, lemon juice and parsley, the fish stick is all grown up.

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Wilted Kale and Roasted-Potato Winter Salad

Posted By under Main Ingredient, Recipes, Side Dishes, Vegetable

Despite the fact that Spring seems to have sprung (at least around these parts — temps in the high 70s here this week!), it’s not too late to try this hearty and healthy winter salad recipe, found on the Epicurious website.  This is our second attempt at cooking with kale, and we think it turned out just as good as our first.  We’re fans of roasted potatoes already and liked the idea of incorporating one of the healthiest vegetables on the planet for a “super food” side dish.  Kale is rich in vitamins K, C and A and contains tons of health-boosting nutrients that do things like help with diet and digestion, provide antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties, prevent cancer and lower cholesterol.  Seriously, what doesn’t this leafy green do?  If you’ve never tried kale, this potato salad is a good introduction to it.  The salty, Parmesan-crusted potatoes complement the slightly bitter kale, and the lemon-tahini dressing brings it all together with rich, bright flavor.  Surprisingly good!

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Shredded Chicken Tacos

Posted By under Main Courses, Main Ingredient, Poultry, Recipes

If you like chicken tacos even just a little bit, we’re going to have to insist that you make these tacos, adapted from this recipe.  While we always respect people’s varying palates and food preferences, we can’t say enough good things about these tacos and really want everyone to try them.  If we could invite you all over for dinner and make them for you, we would.  They’re that good.  They’re also pretty easy to make — just simmer a couple of chicken breasts in a sauce made with tomato sauce, white vinegar, garlic, a chipotle pepper, ancho chile powder, ground cumin, oregano and sugar.  Then shred the chicken, add it back to the sauce, and fill a couple of tortillas with the tender, spicy and tangy chicken mixture.  Garnish with chopped white onion, cilantro, and a squeeze of lime, and enjoy your new favorite tacos!

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Quinoa, Avocado & Edamame Salad

Posted By under Main Ingredient, Recipes, Side Dishes, Vegetable

Regular readers may recall this post back in May, when we wrote about a side dish involving a “new-to-us” ingredient:  quinoa.  We liked the dish and the flavor of the quinoa, although the texture of this tiny grain is somewhat unusual and takes a bit of getting used to.  So, eight months later, we decided to make it again and maybe try to get used to it.  For me, understanding the health benefits of quinoa helped outweigh my issue with the texture.  Quinoa is a complete source of protein, since it provides the full spectrum of nine essential amino acids.  Quinoa is also high in magnesium (for cardiovascular health), copper and manganese (for a healthy immune system) and fiber (for digestive health.)  Who cares if it seems like you’re picking little seed remnants out of your teeth for days after eating it — think of it as saving some of the healthy for later!  I’m kidding of course — the texture isn’t that bad.  And quinoa’s health benefits are no joke, so it’s worthwhile to find a way you like to eat it.  I found Chef Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipe in InStyle magazine (Feb. 2012 issue) and figured it would be a good vehicle for giving  quinoa another shot.  In addition to the quinoa, the ingredients are all things we already like:  edamame (could also use fava beans), lemon, avocado, garlic, radishes, basil, cumin, red pepper flakes and olive oil.  Combining lots of different textures enhanced the overall consistency of the finished dish.  Quinoa will likely never be my favorite side, but we enjoyed this salad and will make it again (sooner than eight months from now.)

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Pork Chops with Italian Relish

Posted By under Main Courses, Main Ingredient, Pork, Recipes

With its warm and rich flavors of tomato, basil, oregano and garlic, Italian “relish” has a way of transforming a protein into comfort food — sort of like Sunday Sauce without the pasta (and carbs.)  We’ve had Italian relish on fish and steak, but never really thought about putting it on pork, until we found this recipe on the Epicurious website.  Adding the relish is an easy way to liven up weeknight pork chops with just a few simple ingredients:  tomatoes, onion, red wine vinegar, olive oil, garlic, basil and oregano.  We also added olives to ours, since we’ve never met an olive we didn’t like.  Buon Appetito!

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