Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘spinach’

USING A WHOLE CHICKEN

Posted in French Flavors, General Food Topics, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

While there are endless possibilities of how to use a whole chicken, here are a few different things I tried last month. They’re hardly sophisticated dishes but rather me using up a few items in my kitchen.  You can easily start off with poaching a whole chicken in a large pot of water, or you can carve the chicken while raw. So using one whole chicken I made: 

For the tortellini and the potato bake, I used the two large chicken breasts which I carved from the raw, whole chicken. The remaining carcass and leg meat was used to make the stock, and the leg meat was shredded for the noodle soup. All of these dishes were whipped up spontaneously and I haven’t had a chance to make them again. However, I do have a couple suggestions on how to improve them in case anyone wants to try them out! 

First up is chicken and mushroom tortellini. I had an afternoon free the day I made this, so I was playing around a bit. I had originally wanted to make ravioli which I remember watching Giada de Laurentiis (Food Network) do with wonton wrappers a long time ago. Of course, I ended up with way more filling than necessary so I made tortellini to maximize the use of my wonton wrappers. Giada’s recipe for turkey-cranberry ravioli sounds quite good and I kind of worked off that. My ingredients included: 

  • Chicken breasts, ground up in a food processor
  • White button mushrooms, finely chopped
  • Eggs (1 for mix, 1 for egg wash)
  • Breadcrumbs
  • Garlic and onion, finely chopped
  • Parmesan cheese
  • Seasoning – salt, pepper, basil or thyme
  • Wonton wrappers 

Now my method was to just combine all the above ingredients and fill each wonton wrapper. However, like many others, my wonton raviolis came out a little watery after boiling them. I was able to correct it by tossing them with some butter, a few more sliced mushrooms, white truffle oil and more parmesan for garnish. But as I’m writing this, I have another thought… 

(CLICK FOR MORE…)

Read Full Post »

Cooking For One – Part 2

Posted in American Cuisine, Latin American Cuisine, Sandwiches, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 27, 2010 | 1 Comment »

This time around I decided to stop being redundant and put up my recipes first. This way on my posts you can look at the more important thing – the pictures :-)

Next up in my cooking for one was a spinach salad. Spinach just happen to be on sale the other day, so I bought two huge tubs of it and it lasted me more than a week. Basically I’ve been super loaded up with iron these days. But I never get tired of it somehow. I love it in a salad, or sandwich or sauteed. And I might just stop using frozen spinach if I can help it. The flavor just isn’t the same. Anywho – you can find the recipe here.

This time I tried something a little different and made my super basic balsamic vinaigrette with white wine vinegar instead. As you can see I’m not super creative when it comes to salad dressings. I stick with my basics because normally when I feel like a salad, it’s a last minute thing and I want it to be simple. I also used some of the leftover chicken I bought on sale (and used in the last post). Because I didn’t want to mess up my Dad’s grill, I decided to just quickly pan “grill” it. I pounded it thin since I find it cooks faster and I like to take little bites. Seasoned it with garlic salt, black pepper and chili flakes. After cooking, I sliced into strips, used some in my salad and saved the rest for another day.

Healthy chicken fajitas

Chris arrived the next day and because I had so much darn chicken I decided we were going to have fajitas! In the spirit of being healthy, I decided I would make my own seasoning since it’s pretty easy to look up online and allowed one less ‘store-bought’ thing in our meal. I didn’t really measure and kind of just threw in an assortment of ingredients I found in various recipes online (the basics really). Find the recipe here.

For veggies, I decided to go a slightly different route since I’ve been reading lots about how bell peppers give you heart burn (aka make you gassy, not exactly romantic). Even though it is a summer squash, I’ve recently read about the benefits of eating zucchini (or known in the UK as courgette). It’s low in calories and a good source of vitamin A.

Healthy, homemade chicken fajitas

I also used mushrooms since (1) Chris and I both love them, (2) they also have great health benefits like being low in calories and a good source of potassium, and (3) we were at Costco and decided to get a huge box of them.

As you can see, we had a corn salsa with our fajitas. I decided to omit the black beans and bell pepper this time to make it a little lighter.

(CLICK FOR MORE…)

Read Full Post »

Cooking For One – Part 1

Posted in Italian Cuisine, Sandwiches, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 18, 2010 | 1 Comment »

This past Tuesday, my parents headed out for a little trip down under and left me in charge of our three little dogs. Of course, I was very excited since this meant I had the kitchen all to myself for 10 days. It was only after they left that I realized I’d be cooking for one. This is quite a challenge, but I was determined to take advantage. I wanted to balance making things I’ve been craving and be healthy at the same time. Also since I’ve been eating loads of Vietnamese food recently, I absolutely had to feed my craving for Italian. Now my real craving for Italian would be Carbonara with homemade pasta at Mario Batali’s Otto Pizzeria at One Fifth or the gnocchi with marinara and roasted garlic cream sauce at Supper in the East Village (both in New York). Sadly, I couldn’t magically transport myself to NY and those dishes aren’t exactly healthy.  

First, I searched the kitchen to see what my parents left behind for me. It is SUCH a difference using a kitchen in a house versus a flat, especially my family’s house. The pantry never ends AND they have two refrigerators!  

Using just items in the kitchen, I was able to whip up a nice salad.  

While it doesn’t sound like the healthiest salad in the world, I was getting lots of dietary fiber and vitamin B with my beets, one of my five-a-day with the apple, and good monounsaturated fat with the avocado. * Note – my salad recipes will start going up in my Recipes section. 

Beet, Apple, Blue Cheese Salad

Next up for breakfast was fruit. As part of Tet, there was loads of fresh fruit around the house. Strangely, I realized I had never cut up a pineapple before. So I had a little fun trying to avoid poking myself. The smell of fresh pineapple is so delightful. We also had a fresh mango which usually makes my throat itch but I absolutely love. Since there was so much pineapple I figured I’d only add a little banana and orange juice then blend away!  

(CLICK FOR MORE…)

Read Full Post »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.