Spiced Shredded Chicken

I know, I know, I know. I’ve been quite absent lately. I was powering through Wicked so I would have totally re-read it by this past Tuesday when Aaron and I went to see the Broadway musical at Keller Auditorium (it was really, really awesome, btw). And then the hubby and I started working on our guest bedroom and clearing out the closet filled with boxes that have been sitting since we moved in (2006). And I’ve been getting my stuff together for grad school. Oh, and the DS is charged again, so I’ve been playing games. In other words, sorry I haven’t been posting! I’ve been meaning to and I have been cooking!

So, the other night I decided I wanted nachos for dinner. This isn’t uncommon. If you know me, you know I am rather obsessed with nachos. Aaron has even made the joke that when I die and they do an autopsy, I will be filled with nothing but nachos. Anyway, I decided to split the plate with Aaron instead of selfishly hoarding them all to myself, as I have done in the past. Aaron loves meat on his nachos, so I decided to make up some shredded chicken. I mostly made this up as I went along, but I did try to keep track of what I was doing so a) I could do it again and b) so I could post it. See how nice I am?

Here’s what I did:

1 medium chicken breast
1 small lime
A few tablespoons of spices (cumin, a random mix my friend left over here. You can also use chili powder, red pepper flakes, Mexican oregano, whatever else you usually like in your Mexican food)
3-4 oz. vegetable stock (chicken stock would’ve been even better, but I used what I had. I froze some of my stock into ice cubes just for occasions such as this. It’s perfect. You should try it.)
Olive oil

Heat oil in a small pan over medium heat. Coat chicken breast in spices. Cook chicken on both sides until browned, about 5 minutes each. Squeeze in ½ of the lime juice and add stock. Cover and cook through over medium-low heat, about 10 minutes.





Remove from pan and let cool. When you can handle the chicken, shred it and return it to the pan. Add remaining lime juice and adjust spices to taste. Serve with your favorite Mexican dish, like tostadas or tacos. Or, you know, nachos.

You can make this ahead of time and use it later the same day or the following day. It’s very, very tasty and versatile.

Berry Galette

So while my Cheese and Sausage Galette was being consumed, this tasty dish was being baked. Unfortunately, time ran short and my husband and I had to take off for a movie (this one, in case you care. It was really good, btw). So it was cooled and stuck into the fridge. This morning it was gently reheated for about 20 minutes and was fantastic! I cannot wait to try different fruit combinations with this because it is so, so good. You have to try it. Do it now!

Berry Galette from Baking with Julia via my mom:

½ recipe galette dough, chilled
1½ c. mixed berries (I used a mix of frozen strawberries and frozen blackberries. You can also use a variety of cut up fruit instead or in addition.)
1 Tb. plus 1 tsp. sugar, separated
1 Tb. honey, optional (the sugar is enough on its own)
1 Tb. cold unsalted butter, cut into slivers and chilled
A cup of chilled water (for brushing the dough)

Follow prep for dough from the Cheese and Sausage Galette.






Spread the berries (or cut up fruit) over the dough, leaving a 2”-3” border. Sprinkle the tablespoon of sugar over the fruit and drizzle the honey if you are using it (really, though, you don’t need it). Scatter the slivers of butter on top of the fruit. Fold the uncovered border of dough up over the filling, allowing the dough to please as your lift (just like with the cheese and sausage one, but make the border thicker as fruit is runnier than cheese. Dip a pastry brush in the chilled water and give the edge of the crust a light coating and then sprinkle the fruit with the remaining teaspoon of sugar. Or put it on the fruit if you feel like it.

Bake just like the cheese and sausage galette. This is also done at about 35 minutes. Place baking sheet on cooling rack and let cool for about 20 minutes.



Serve warm or at room temperature.

It’s sweet and warm and yummy. And it looks so pretty too. I forgot to take a picture of the final product and my awesome pleating (way better than the savory one was as I followed all the steps correctly this time around), but you can see how nice the edge is on the single piece. It’s all gone now, but I will be making more soon!

Galette Dough and Cheese and Sausage Galette

My mom sent me this recipe from her Baking with Julia book awhile ago and dang, I wish I had done it sooner. It was such a snap to put together and so tasty. Aaron and I had a savory one for dinner and there’s a sweet one baking in the oven right now that I’ll post about later. This can be done in a food processor or by hand. Since my food processor is itty bitty, I did it by hand. As with all recipes from my mom, her notes are scattered throughout.

Galette Dough from Baking with Julia via my mom:

Makes enough for two 8-inch galettes

3 Tb. sour cream (or yogurt or buttermilk. I used sour cream because for once I had some in the house.)
1/3 c. approximately ice water
1 c. unbleached white flour
¼ c. cornmeal
1 tsp. sugar
½ tsp. salt
7 Tb. cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Sit in sour cream and 1/3 c. ice water together in a small bowl and set aside. Mom note – place in freezer along with your cut up butter while you get the flour thing going – it is important that these ingredients remain cold before adding. Okay back to the recipe.



Put flour, cornmeal, sugar, and salt in a large bowl and stir with a fork to mix. Drop butter piece into bowl, tossing them once or twice to coat them with flour. With a pastry blender (I used my fingers, as always), work the butter into the flour, aiming for piece of butter that range from bread crumb to small peas. The smaller pieces will make the dough tender, the large ones will make it flaky. Mom note – aim for a smaller crumb size – you will be happier when it comes time to roll it out later.

Sprinkle the cold sour cream mixture over the dough one tablespoon at a time, tossing with a fork to evenly distribute it. After you’ve added all of the sour cream, the dough should be moist enough to stick together when pressed; if it is not, add additional cold water, one teaspoon at a time. With your hands, gather curds of dough together. You’ll have a soft, malleable dough, the kind you might want to overwork. Mom note – do not as this dough comes together quite easily.



Turn the dough out of the bowl and divide in half. Press each piece of dough into a disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. The dough can be kept in the refrigerator for a day or two, or it can be wrapped airtight and frozen for a month. Thaw, still wrapped, in the refrigerator. It is convenient to roll the dough into rounds, place parchment between each round and freeze them wrapped in plastic; this way you’ll need only about 20 minutes to defrost at room temperature before it can be filled, folded into a galette and baked.

I modified the Cheese and Tomato Galette from the same set of recipes my mom set for the following savory galette. It was so tasty and I wish I had more to eat right now. Yum, yum, yum.

Here’s what I did for a Cheese and Sausage Galette:

½ recipe galette dough, chilled
2 oz. Monterey jack cheese, shredded
2 oz. fresh mozzarella cheese, cut into chunks
½ c. yellow onion, sliced
2 Andouille chicken sausages, sliced (yay TJ’s!)
Olive oil

Heat a small saucepan over medium heat with a small amount of olive oil. Toss onions in oil and cook until soft and golden brown, about 8 minutes. Set aside.

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and heat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Put the dough on a lightly floured surface and roll it into an 11-inch circle that’s about 1/8 inch thick. Since the dough is soft, you’ll need to lift it now and then and toss some flour under it and over the top. Roll the dough up around your rolling pin and unroll onto a prepared baking sheet. I missed this step here and prepared mine on the counter and then had to move it. As a result, it looked much nicer on the counter. Oh well. It still turned out fine.



Mix cheeses and scatter over rolled-out dough, leaving a 2”-3” border. Scatter the onions over the cheese. Place the sliced sausage in concentric circles, one slice slightly overlapping the last, on top of the cheese and onion. Fold the uncovered border of dough up over the filling, allowing the dough to pleat as you lift it up and work your way around the galette.



(PS: Thanks Blogspot for turning this one sideways! You're a pal!)

Bake the galette for 35-40 minutes (35 was just about perfect for me, but you may want to start checking on it at 30), or until the pastry is golden and crisp and the cheese is bubbly. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the galette rest on the sheet for 15 minutes. Mom note – Slip a wide spatula or two smaller ones under the galette and gently place on your serving plate. Do this with careful determination. The galette will easily peel away from the parchment paper.



Serve warm or at room temperature.

The galette can be kept at room temperature for several hours and is best serve the day it is made.

We had ours with some mixed greens. It was such a tasty meal! The dough is crispy and light and just has a really, really good taste. Aaron compared the flavor to the crispy part of a croissant, which I think is a very apt description. I will most certainly be making the dough again and will try different types of savory galettes. It’s just so adaptable and wonderful.

Bolognese Pickled Onions

I love pickled onions. They’re on salads at McMenamin’s and I just adore it. When I got Marcella’s Italian Kitchen from my folks over Christmas and I saw this recipe in it, I was so excited. So over a month ago, I started it and daaaaang! So good. They perk up salads, they’re great in tacos, they’re awesome on sandwiches.

The only difference between the original recipe and mine is that I didn’t use small, white onions. Instead I use a similar weight of onion in sliced onion and I think it came out just fine.

Bolognese Pickled Onions from Marcella’s Italian Kitchen:

13 to 14 small, flat white onions, 1 to 1½ inches in diameter, about 6 oz.
1 quart water
2 Tb. salt (kosher)
Red-wine vinegar

Peel and wash onions. Slice if using a larger onion. Bring water to a boil and add the salt.



When the water returns to a boil, put in the onions. When the water begins to boil again - and make sure the heart is high enough so it doesn’t take too long - cook the onions from less than 1 minute, at most 50 seconds.

Drain the onions, pat them thoroughly dry with kitchen towels, and allow to cool completely.



Choose a glass jar with a tight closure. When the onions are cold, put them in the jar, adding enough vinegar to cover amply.





The onions are good within 48 hour of making, but they are even better after a month, when they are fully pickled. Mine are a little over a month old and they are awesome.



Here’s a salad I made earlier today with some delicious goat cheese, tomatoes, my croutons, and the pickled onions. I sprinkled it with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Perfect!

Parmesan-Romano Croutons

I figured since I was talking about homemade croutons in my last post about vegetable chowder, I should mention how to make them. It’s very simple and a great way to use stale bread. Plus, everyone will think you’re fancy because you made your own croutons. It’s awesome!

Here’s what I do:

A bunch of bread, cut into cubes (I used no-knead last time)
¼ Parmesan Reggiano and Pecorino Romano, grated
Herbs if you feel like it (oregano, basil, rosemary are all good)
Olive oil

Heat oven to 400 degrees.



Toss cubes with olive oil and cheese or just sprinkle both over cubes on a baking sheet on all sides. Bake for about 5 minutes. Keep an eye on them as they can go from crunchy delicious to totally burnt in a short period of time.

Also, eat these quickly. They can get too tough and chewy within a few days.

Vegetable Chowder

Another day, another Moosewood recipe. I made this one for my friend Amy since she asked if I would cook for her while she was in town (based on her love for this blog! <3!) She ended up getting in to town a bit late, so she and her boyfriend had it the next day. I had it both times and it is great fresh and reheated the next day. Now that’s a good recipe!

I love soup, especially when it’s cold. Soup is one of those things that everyone has some sort of theory and idea about. For example, I love my soups full of chunky vegetables. This recipe had all the veggies minced or otherwise cut pretty small, which is not what I’m into. If I’m going to cook with broccoli (my fave veg), I want to see it and taste it. So everywhere it says diced below, you can assume I used a rougher, larger chop, except the garlic. Aaron, when it comes to chowder, likes it super thick. Although this one isn’t very thick, it could easily become Aaron’s ideal chowder. This one is also super easy to mess around with. I took out a bunch of ingredients and subbed in more broccoli. Did I mention I love soup?

Vegetable Chowder from The New Moosewood Cookbook:

Yield: 8 servings

1 Tb. butter
2 c. chopped onion
6 cloves garlic, minced (yup, I used 8. No surprise, right?)
2 tsp. salt (kosher)
½ tsp. thyme
2 tsp. basil
1 medium potato, diced (I used several smaller potatoes)
2 medium stalks celery, diced
2 medium carrots, diced (I only had one. Oops!)
2 c. chopped broccoli
2 c. chopped cauliflower (I took out the cauliflower and used about 5 c. chopped broccoli)
½ lb. mushrooms, chopped (I took this out altogether)
2 c. corn (frozen-defrosted fine)
Lots of fresh black pepper
1½ c. water (I used veggie stock instead)
1 quart milk (lowfat ok), heated





Melt the butter in a kettle or Dutch oven. Add onion, half the garlic, salt, thyme, and basil. Sauté over medium heat 5 minutes. Add potato, celery, carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower. Sauté another 5 to 8 minutes. Add mushrooms and corn, plus lots of black pepper. Sauté another 8 to 10 minutes.

Add water (or stock), cover, and simmer about 15 minutes, or until everything is tender. (Make sure potatoes are done.) This should be enough time.

Stir in hot milk and remaining garlic. Remove from heat until 10 minutes before serving time, then heat gently.



I served this the first night with pieces of no-knead bread. The second night I took the same bread, turned it into croutons, and served it in the soup with some shredded parmesan reggiano and pecorino romano cheese. My favorite new trick with these types of cheese is to use my zester to shred just a bit of cheese on top without having to bust out my shredder. I did overdo it on the pepper a bit, but otherwise, this soup was very tasty and everyone liked it. Yay!

Grilled Chicken with Grilled Pineapple, Apples, and Pineapple-Citrus Reduction

I love it when Aaron cooks. The other night, after a plethora of my vegetarian dishes, Aaron wanted some chicken and fruit. We used the apple recipe from this dish and invented the rest. One of my very favorite things in the world is pineapple. I could eat it all day long. While Aaron was prepping everything, I ate the rest of the pineapple rings from the can. Mmm. Now I wish I had more.

Anyway, this is what Aaron did:

2 chicken breasts
4 pineapple rings (reserve juice from can)
Favorite herb/chop rub for chicken (A used TJ’s Steak and Chop Mix)
Juice from lemon, lime and ½ tangelo (orange would be fine)
Zest from above three
Cooked pasta (with a bit of butter)
Apples from Chicken with Apples and Cider



Heat grill (we have any awesome Panini press that works for this, but Mr. Foreman’s grill and the like are also fine). Rub herb mix on both sides of chicken and place on grill with pineapple rings.



In the meantime, mix juice from lemon, lime, tangelo, and pineapple with zest and bring to a boil in a pot. Reduce to a simmer and cook until thick. We started this a little too late and as a result it was still a little liquidy. It was still very tasty though.



One chicken is cooked and pineapples are grilled, place chicken over pasta, cover with sauce, and surround with apples. Place grilled pineapple on top and enjoy.

I love the tropical flavor. Plus, an excuse to eat tons of pineapple? I’m in!