Chicken | Healthy and Sane

Entertaining the family for dinner

July 21st, 2011

Hi y’all (apparently I’m turning Texan)! lol Thank you SO MUCH for all of your feedback on my clearing out the closet post. Going through it, combined with stress at work and the feelings e-course I’ve been taking, has put me in a bit of a funk for a few days. I tried going shopping too and wasn’t too successful. Nothing was looking quite right (and was several sizes larger than I was before) – it’s tough to embrace your “new body” when that happens.

Anyways, I’m cool now and I want to tell you about the dinner I cooked for my dad’s birthday last weekend (sticking to my 30 by 30 list and hosting dinner parties left and right. haha)! His birthday happens to be on my wedding anniversary. Adam and I celebrated the night, just the 2 of us, but I had plans to make it up to my dad soon enough.

When hosting a dinner party do you pick a theme or just go with delicious recipes?

I wanted to make sure this was really really delicious so for my main course I chose a recipe I’ve made (and loved!) before – chicken thighs on the grill (btw, I always tag my favorite recipes so you can find them easily… on the right hand side).

Next up were these lovely ravioli with prosciutto, sundried tomatoes, basil and mozzarella in Jamie Oliver’s The Naked Chef cookbook. The pictures have been enticing me for weeks and a special birthday dinner seemed like the right time to break out my pasta roller! [PS – you can find the entire recipe on this blog]

Seriously, such cuties! Smile

It appears that I had an Italian theme developing so I went with it! Doesn’t strawberry ricotta cake sound kind of Italian? [If you say ricottttte like Giada, it definitely will Winking smile ]

OH YEAH!

Add a few Russian cheesy profiterole-like puffs (recipe coming to Russian Bites next)…

Some green beans with wild mushrooms…

And we have dinner!!

My mom was a giant help with executing the menu. I got a little ambitious planning this… happens every time! Open-mouthed smile

I was hoping this would turn into delicious comfort food, fit for a hole in the wall restaurant. I don’t know if I hit the bar quite that high (I’m pretty critical of my own cooking) but every single item turned out absolutely delicious… I can tell you that!

Happy birthday, dad!!

[Ha, he was trying to make a funny face when I pulled out the camera… I say that worked!]

Hope your dreams all come true! Smile

The angel food cake meets Italian grandmother was so light and the perfect ending to our Italian feast. Adam asked that I add it to our rotation of desserts (which means I should start a rotation of desserts! Yessss). I’m adding more strawberries between each layer next time!

Have you entertained recently? Do you have go-to items for dinner parties?

Healthy and Sane in the kitchen: making pita bread

July 15th, 2011

I’m going through a major reorganization of my (hard copy) recipes (from various magazines and blog printouts). Major! I’ve logged in probably close to 20 hours and I’m not even half-way through. But it’s been fun… and addictive… and things are slowly but surely shaping up!

My favorite thing about the final product (which I guess is not even final yet) is that all the pretty food pictures of recipes that look appealing to me are right there, in the format that’s enjoyable to browse through (as opposed to before, where a few nice recipes were either buried between useless articles or worse – shoved into a big folder also known as the black hole for recipes).

So the other day, I was doing my thing, gluing away, and Adam spotted a picture of the spicy chicken shawarma recipe from Cooking Light… and said: “You need to make this asap!” The good wife that I am, I put it on next week’s menu… and decided to take it up a notch by making my own whole wheat pitas. Why not!

I used the whole wheat pita bread recipe from the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking cookbook, which looked easy enough.

I Red heart my Kitchen Aid.

My dough was seriously sticky. I think I added a bit more flour and definitely let the mixer go for longer than the book specified.

Eventually I stopped it and hoped that once the yeast does it’s thing, everything will turn out fine Smile

Why hello, Mr. Yeast… looks like you’ve been hungry!

The dough was still slightly goopy (see top right in the picture above) but a slight toss in some flour produced perfect little dough balls.

Hi cuties! [Ok, I really need to stop this whole talking-to-my-food thing.]

Roll ‘em out…

And into the oven (on a pizza stone) they go!

OMG, OMG, OMG – they’re actually ballooning up!!!! [Yes, I was that excited.]

Actually, most of them looked like the ones below – at best. Spraying some water into the oven seemed to help a bit (thanks, Emily for this tip on twitter… Btw, I changed my twitter handle to @elinaholbrook… follow me if you love me!!)

Dinner time!

My first pita opened up so easily and perfectly, I was excited about “nailing it”!

The ones that followed definitely put up a fight (after this dinner I pretty much used them as flatbreads). They were really pillowy and doughy though so I enjoyed the texture.

I hate how store bought whole wheat pitas taste like cardboard so I’d love to find the perfect homemade (fool-proof) recipe that I can make over and over. It’d be cheaper too!

Have you ever made pitas? Any tips for me on technique, or maybe a link to a better recipe? Thanks!

PS – The chicken recipe was quick and easy but nothing earth shattering taste-wise. The pitas were definitely the highlight of the meal for me!

Healthy and Sane in the kitchen: making a week’s worth of meals in an hour

June 21st, 2011

Hi guys! Long time no “speak.” I seriously have no idea where the time went since my last post [feeling totally back to normal btw!]. I’m sure I was doing something seriously awesome. Definitely!

SO, I’m currently on the Amtrak train to NY, where I’ll be spending the rest of the week (let me know if you want to meet up on Friday at some point!!). I originally told Adam about this business trip and the fact that I was going to stay over my sister’s for the weekend and he didn’t seem to be fazed by it… until he realized he was going to have to feed himself for 6 days! Ha!

He’s currently trying to be healthy so in order for him to avoid feasting on takeout every night (not good for our budget or his health), I told him I’d prep some stuff for him. I ended up being really happy with my super easy “meal plan” and thought I’d share it with you. This is how you make a week’s worth of food in just over an hour!

To make it that quick, you’ll need help though from your grocery store (I originally was going to roast the chicken myself and make homemade tomato sauce but we all know by now from my frequent absence from this blog that time is not typically my friend).

This is the stuff I picked up for the week:

A roasted chicken from Whole Foods (just $9.99!!), broccoli, Applegate prosciutto, 1lb of 90% lean ground grass fed beef. I also had a jar of tomato sauce and a tube of polenta in the cupboards and some carrots, baby spinach and dying asparagus in the fridge. Wraps, burger buns, pasta, cheese and condiments are not shown here. We had them at home (you probably do too!) and they will come in handy during the “assembly stage” but not yet.

I started by roasting some veggies. They make great sides for just about any meal!

[Carrots were tossed with coconut oil, salt and pepper; asparagus and broccoli with EVOO, salt and pepper. 425* until nice and toasty… that’s about 15 mins for broccoli, 20 for asparagus and 30 for the carrots. Toss occasionally]

Then it was time to jazz up the tomato sauce. Jarred tomato sauce with extra red pepper flakes, baby spinach and roasted chicken – let the sauce simmer with the mix-ins for about 10 minutes.

I also made some chicken salad (see below) and grilled the polenta rounds. Lastly that ground beef was made into some burger patties (to be frozen) [1lb beef with 2T ketchup, 1T Worcestershire sauce and 1/4t salt is my go-to burger seasoning – it makes the patties moist and flavorful].

Here we go – all done!

Meal #1: Roasted chicken with roasted veggies and fried potatoes (from last night’s dinner)

Meal #2: Pasta with tomato, spinach and chicken sauce (Adam will cook the pasta)

Meal #3: Chicken salad [chicken, reduced fat mayo, light sour cream, pinch of cayenne pepper, lemon juice, s&p + carrots]

Mix in sliced toasted almonds right before eating, wrap with tomato and avocado slices.

Meal #4: Grilled polenta with tomato sauce and prosciutto

This idea comes straight from Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s Dinners cookbook. Actually the whole idea of repurposing a few ingredients for different meals (in this case chicken, tomato sauce and prosciutto) came from the book. Love Jamie and all his books!

Burger patties to be frozen and grilled on demand Smile

Other meals… that Adam can handle on his own Winking smile

Prosciutto panini
Chicken/avocado/tomato sandwich

Roasted veggies for sides

Snacks:

Baby carrots with hummus (Whole Foods jalapeno hummus is ~~our~~ my recent obsession)
Yogurt with homemade granola and organic blueberries (all washed, ready to eat)
Fruit (organic apples, pears and bananas in the living room platter)

Oh and if you’re wondering what’s sneaking behind there in the photos… that would be parmesan thyme biscuits and maple walnut shortbread cookies I made over the weekend. No big deal Winking smile

All together, ready for the fridge!

I had one happy husband on my hands! Now he has to report back on how everything was. I better not see greasy Chinese in his online food journal! Open-mouthed smile