Spicy Italian Chicken

Spicy Italian Chicken

3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breast (chunked up into large bite size pieces)

1-2 jars of roasted sweet red peppers

1-2 fresh tomatoes (cut up for easier processing)

Handful of fresh basil, one  garlic clove, and 1/2 cup of red wine

Garlic powder, dried oregano, crushed red pepper flakes and S&P.

In a food processor or blender, add roasted red peppers (semi drained of liquid), tomatoes, basil, S&P (lightly), pinch or two of red pepper flakes and chopped garlic.  Process until soupy.

In a bowl or on your cutting board, sprinkle chicken chunks with S&P, oregano and garlic powder (about a tablespoon), and mix together with hands, massaging spices into the chicken. 

In a large skillet, heated over medium/med. high heat (no oil), add about 6-8 chicken chunks (depending on size), and sear on all sides, take out and repeat until all chicken is seared off.  The point in doing a little bit of chicken at a time, is to get that crust on the bottom of the pan and to seal in the juices of the chicken. With all chicken out of the pan, turn stove down to medium, and add wine (stand back when doing this).  Scrape with spatula or spoon and get that flavor from the chicken off the bottom of the pan (deglazing).  Let it hard simmer for about 2 minutes, then add your processed veggies.  This will create your sauce.  Let it simmer for about 30 minutes or until it’s reduced down a little bit.  Add chicken back into sauce and simmer for another 5-10 minutes, just to cook the chicken through.

This is a gorgeous, colorful dish.  Vibrant reds from the peppers and tomatoes, with splashes of green from the basil.

Before I would have served this over rice, or pasta…..now I eat it on a bed of spinach and/or arugula.  I don’t even miss the rice or pasta! 

Herb Stuffed Leg of Lamb

HERB STUFFED LEG OF LAMB (CHUCK’S DAY OFF)

IN A MEDIUM BOWL –  COMBINE ALL THE BELOW WITH A GENEROUS AMOUNT OF SALT.  SET ASIDE

1 CARROT – DICED

1 CUP CELERY LEAVES

1 LEEK – THINLY SLICED

½ CUP CHIVES – CHOPPED

HANDFUL OF PARSLEY – CHOPPED

1 CUP OF CELERY ROOT – SHREDDED

THE LEG OF LAMB – USE A VERY SHARP BONING KNIFE OR FILLET KNIFE AND CUT THE BONE OUT OF THE MEAT, BUTTERFLYING THE LEG OF MEAT AS YOU CUT OUT THE BONE.

LAY IT OUT FLAT – SALT & PEPPER BOTH SIDES THEN STUFF WITH HERB STUFFING.  ROLL UP AND TIE WITH COOKING STRING.

DRIZZLE SOME EVOO OVER THE MEAT AND LET IN GET INTO THE CRACKS & CREVECES. 

HEAT A LARGE SKILLET OVER MEDIUM HIGH HEAT, AND BROWN LAMB ON ALL SIDES, ABOUT 3 MINUTES EACH SIDE.  POUR IN 4 CUPS OF STOCK, THE BONE (removed earlier) AND CUT ONE FULL HEAD OF GARLIC IN HALF AND ADD TO STOCK.  COOK UNCOVERED AT 350 DEGREES FOR ABOUT AN HOUR AND A HALF.  (cast iron skillets work best for this)

PULL LAMB OUT AND LET REST, COVER WITH FOIL.  THROW OUT BONE.  INTO A SAUCE PAN, SQUEEZE COOKED GARLIC THROUGH A FINE MESH STRAINER AND ADD JUICES FROM PAN, THRU STRAINER ALSO.  OVER MEDIUM HEAT COOK/SIMMER FOR ABOUT 15 MINUTES, THEN ADD 2 TBLSP OF BUTTER WITH A LITTLE SALT AND SOME PEPPER.

REMOVE STRING, AND CUT THICK SLICES OF LAMB.  LADLE SAUCE OVER SLICES OF LAMB AND SERVE.  BRUSSEL SPROUTS OR ASPARAGUS WOULD BE NICE WITH THIS.  I DID NOT ADD ONE OF THE HERBS THE ORGINAL RECIPE CALLED FOR, I COULDN'T FIND IT.  BUT I LOVED IT THIS WAY.

Snooky's Rich People Food Breakfast Cups

These are TOO cute!
Someone told Nicole she looked like she was eating rich people food. It cracked me up and a title was created. Here are her instructions:

You need either the rubber reuseable cupcake molds or a cupcake pan. Using deli meat as wrappers line eat cup with a slice of deli meat.

Preheat oven to 350

Chop onions, red bell pepper, and spinach into little 1/4-1/2 inch squares or bite size.

Saute onions, red bell pepper with a pad (1 Tbls. or so) of butter or olive oil.
Toss the spinach in the onion an pepper mix the last minute or two with 1/4 or small spoonful of minced garlic.

Let the mix cool and in a separate bowl whisk eggs. Once the mix has cooled some whisk the veggies in with the eggs.

Pour egg mix in ham lined cups almost to the top. Note: the mix isn't like cake mix so there's no rising you have to worry about. You may have to hold the "wrappers" back with one hand so you can get the mix in the cups.

Put in oven and bake 20-25 minutes or until eggs have cooked.

 

The amount of everything kinda depends on how many cupcakes you plan to make. I'll make them again next week and try to measure out how much of each thing I used. If you get to filling your cups and you dont have enough mix which has happened to me I just whisk another egg or two and spoon out some veggies from the other egg cups.

Snooky's Fudge Babies. WARNING: Addictive

Snooky made a few versions of these. One of them was the fudge and one had coconut. BOTH were unreal and tasted completely sinful.  I've grown to find that Dates are nature's candy. I love them in the LaraBar recipes I use and when she mentioned that these were mainly Dates and Cocoa I was super excited.

Original Fudge Babies

(Serves… depends on how good bad non-existent your self-control is)

• 1 c walnuts (120 grams)
• 1 and 1/3 cups pitted dates (230 grams) (If you want a sweeter result, up the proportion of dates.) (If you’re unsure as to what dates to use, see fudge baby FAQ post)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3-4 tablespoons cocoa powder, depending on how chocolatey you want the balls to be (I used 4T extra dark)

1. Chop/blend all the ingredients, using a food processor, Magic Bullet, etc.  (No need to blend the dates first; I just blend everything all at once.)
2. Roll into cutey-pie little balls.  (Use plastic wrap if you wish.) Or, if you want true brownies, shape the dough into bars!

Hot Cocoa Fudge Babies

I’ve been toying around with the original recipe.  Here is my newest-favorite variation:
30 grams cashews, 80 grams dates, 5 grams (1T) dark cocoa powder.
Blend.  Even fudgier than the original!
(Add mint extract + cacao nibs and you’re in Wild Bar territory.
And if you leave out the cocoa powder, you have a homemade cashew cookie Larabar!)

Original Site from Katie.

Matt and Courtney's Allegro Jerky

I've tried several jerky recipes and haven't found one that's really blown me away. I was told to try this one -which is by far the easiest version I've seen yet!  I'll post the link below.  I placed a top round in the freezer for an hour to make slicing easier. Then I placed the strips of meat into a large baking dish with the Hickory Smoke Allegro Marinade overnight. I have a dehydrator, but its a small one so I place the strips (not touching each other) on a foil-covered cookie sheet in the oven on the lowest setting (170 is my lowest setting). I wod up a ball of tin foil and stick in the oven door to allow some moisture out and cook for about 10 hours.  Make sure to cut out ALL fat, or feed those pieces to your lovely dog. My boxer loves this part. ( ;  The fat will not keep, but the reset of the jerky will keep for about, oh..100 years.  It's not 100% good for you, organic, sugar-free, or whatever - but it's a GREAT alternative to the millions of lesser choices out there.  Oh ya, and it tastes amazing.

Allegro Recipe

Avocado & Spinach Salad

Salad –

1 avocado peeled and diced

1 cup spinach – chopped

¼ of onion  - small dice

Half a cucumber – cut up

Cherry tomatoes

Grape seed oil and lemon juice – both to taste

Combine all together in a bowl.  I also added a little black pepper to taste.

Lamb Patties

1 pound organic ground lamb

1 organic egg

½ cup freshly shredded aged asiago cheese

Seasonings – red pepper flakes, garlic powder, oregano, S&P.

Combine together in a bowl and then form little mini patties.  I cooked then in some bacon grease heated in a cast iron skillet.  I only cooked a few at a time, allowing them to form a nice crust on the outside, but remaining juicy and tender inside.

This was my mother's day dinner to myself.  I drank a chilled Chardonnay with it.  It was delicious!!!

Spinach Salad

If you saw the beautiful pictures in past posts of Small's garden, you know that I've been living it up with some fresh baby spinach.  It is THE best spinach I've ever had. I don't have a picture, but lately I've been on a kick with this salad: Spinach, Plain Walnuts, Strawberries (Thank you summer!), Feta Cheese, and this Newman's Own Salad Dressing.  It's a cranberry walnut dressing with 70 calories in 2 Tbls. Warning: Obviously not TrUe primal. Click the link to see the ingredients, but it has me eating spinach salad like its going out of style. Yay Newman!

Oh - Sometimes I chop up a hard boiled egg or two for some added protein, or some bacon crumbles.