Braised Chicken with Peppers and Tomatoes (Poulet Basquaise)

No, I haven't decided to make the blog bilingual or French. But this recipe is from a French cookbook. If your first thought about a French cookbook is that it's likely to be haughty, fussy, long-cooking, and insanely time-consuming, you might want to think again.

Sure, there are foods that ought to cook a long time, but this time the book is Instantly French by Ann Mah, and it's all about cooking French food in an electric pressure cooker. You know, like an Instant Pot. This time I'm cooking in my Breville Fast and Slow, but the brand shouldn't matter when you're making these recipes.

Like many books (and other things) that show up here, I got this book straight from the publisher at no cost to me. But let's not let that get in the way of dinner, okay?

The book is nicely arranged by categories, and I'll have to admit that I got stuck in the Chicken section. I love chicken cooked in the instant pot, and the recipes all sounded good. And homey. I picked the tomato and pepper recipe because I had almost everything I needed to make it, so it wasn't going to require a big list at the grocery store. Basically, I needed the chicken.

This was super simple. The prep took me about 30 minutes, if we're counting prep as the time before the pressure is put on.

I multi-tasked a bit during prep time. I had the chicken browning while I was cutting the peppers and onions, and I had everything else measured and ready to go before it was time to add them.

Then I cleaned up the kitchen and unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher while the vegetables were sauteing. So it's not like it was 30 minutes of actual kitchen work. Just 30 minutes before pressure was on and I could walk away completely.

On the other end of the recipe, my pressure cooker actually has a "reduce" button, so I used that instead of the saute button. I let it go on its own for the beginning of the reducing time and just checked on it and stirred when there was less liquid in the pot. The ingredients really don't require stirring - you just want to make sure that food doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot where it could burn.

Braised Chicken with Peppers and Tomatoes (Poulet Basquaise) 
Adapted from Instantly French By Ann Mah

2 tablespoons olive oil
6 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (about 5 ounces each)
1 medium onion, diced
1 pound red bell peppers, cut into 1/4 inch slices (for me, this was 2 large peppers)
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
3/4 cup canned whole tomatoes, lightly crushed by hand
1/2 teaspoon sugar, plus more as needed
1/2 teaspoon piment d'Espelette or sweet paprika, plus more as needed
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Cooked long-grain rise, for serving

Using the saute function, heat the olive oil in the pressure cooker. Dry the thighs with paper towels and add them to the pressure cooker. Cook until golden brown on all sides, about 7-8 minutes. You might want to do this in batches, since it's unlikely they'll all fit at the same time.

Remove the chicken and place on a plate or in a bowl. Juices will collect, so make sure the container will accommodate that.

Add the onion and bell pepper and cook until softened, 2-3 minutes, stirring and scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon. (Since my cooker has a nonstick pot, there was no scraping needed.) Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Turn off the saute function.

Add the tomatoes, sugar, and piment to the pressure cooker. Season lightly with salt and pepper and stir to combine.

Return the chicken to the pot, along with any juices, nestling the chicken skin-side down. Cook on high pressure for 25 minutes. (You might want to quickly hand-wash the plate or bowl to use it again when you're reducing the liquid at the end of cooking time.)

Release the steam manually, then transfer the chicken to a plate, leaving the juice and vegetables in the pot. Using the saute function (or, as I did, the reduce function), bring the cooking liquid to a boil. Cook, stirring as needed (you just want to make sure the food doesn't stick and burn), until most of the liquid has evaporated, about 10 minutes.

Taste and adjust the seasonings, adding more sugar, salt, piment, and/or black pepper, as needed.

Return the chicken to the pot, along with any juiced from the plate nestling it into the sauce, and let it heat through for serving.

Serve with long-grain white rice.

Pork Chops in a Dijon Pan Sauce from Weeknight Cooking with Your Instant Pot

When I found out that Kristy Bernardo, who blogs at The Wicked Noodle, had written a cookbook featuring recipes for the Instant Pot, I put it right in my Amazon cart.

The book, not the Instant Pot.

As soon as the book arrived, I pawed through it, looking for recipes I could make right away. Without going to the store.

You see, the title of the book is Weeknight Cooking with your Instant Pot, so I assumed the recipes would be doable without a whole lot of shopping. And ... I was right.

The first recipe I made was sesame chicken, since I happened to have some chicken thighs on hand. It was freaking delicious and really simple. Definitely something that could be made any old night after a busy day.

I made the sesame chicken in my pressure cooker while I had rice in my rice cooker, and dinner was done with so little effort it was ridiculous. It would have taken more effort to pick up a phone and call for delivery.

This is the ideal meal for those days when I've not planned well and it's half-past hungry and there are no leftovers waiting for me. Because that happens around here way too often.

The great thing is that not only is the recipe fast and easy, but it's also a really nice meal. Not like graham crackers and peanut butter, which is what often happens when I haven't planned well.

The second time I made this recipe, I cooked some frozen broccoli (a freezer staple around here) to go with it. A perfect meal, really.

If you like spicy food, an easy adjustment here would be to have fun with red pepper flakes or a sliced jalapeno, or even a squirt of your favorite hot sauce.

The second recipe I made from the book was Pork Chops in a Dijon Pan Sauce. The sauce was totally awesome and completely the star of the dish. Not something I would have thought about, myself. Although I'm a huge fan of mustard, I don't think about cooking with it very often.

But ... I wasn't thrilled with my choice of pork chops. No matter how you cook them, pork chops can be a little finicky. Instant Pots (and other electric pressure cooker brands) cook so quickly that every minute of cooking is a big deal, so the wrong cut of pork can end up overcooked in the blink of an eye. I kind of blame the pig. Or perhaps the pork producers, who are raising leaner pigs than the ones from years ago.

Of course, some folks prefer their pork chops very well done. So there's that, too.

But I liked the sauce so much, I decided I had to make the recipe again, this time changing the type of chop. The second time, I used pork shoulder steaks, which work much better for braising or slow cooking, which also means they're more forgiving of overcooking. So I figured they'd be perfect for pressure cooking.

And to be honest, I like pork shoulder steaks more than other types of chops, anyway.

Meanwhile, I fiddled with the recipe a bit, adding onions and potatoes to the pot, so it was pretty much a whole meal. Okay, a salad or green vegetable would have been nice, too. But it was a good meat-and-potatoes recipe.

This one is definitely a keeper.

Pork Chops in a Dijon Pan Sauce
Adapted from Weeknight Cooking with your Instant Pot by Kristy Bernardo

2 pounds bone-in pork chops (I used two pork shoulder chops, but didn't weigh them)
1 teaspoon coarse salt, or to taste
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
2 teaspoons olive oil (I just eyeballed it here)
(I added 4 smallish red potatoes, quartered)
(I added 1 onion, cut in a large dice)
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup low sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
1/4 cup chopped parsley (mine was sad and wilty, so I skipped it)

Season the chops with salt and pepper. Press saute to preheat your Instant Pot (I actually used another brand of pressure cooker).

When the word HOT appears on the display, add the olive oil, then brown the chops on both sides. You'll probably need to do this in batches. It will take 3-4 minutes per side. Remove the chops and set them aside.

At this point, I added the onion and potato and cooked them until the onions were soft. The potatoes are kind of a wild card here. Bigger potatoes will need to be cut, while smaller ones should be left whole. It might take some trial and error to figure out exactly what size potatoes you need to be perfectly done at the same time as the meat.

Add the wine and stir to deglaze the pot. Allow the wine to reduce slightly, about two minutes. Add the chicken broth, then return the chops to the pot, along with any juices.

Close and lock the lid. Set it to high pressure for 6 minutes, making sure the vent knob is set to sealing.

When the time is up, allow the pot to release pressure naturally for 10 minutes, then release the remaining pressure manually.

Remove the chops from the pot and tent them with foil to keep them warm.

(If you have potatoes in that pot, test them for doneness. If they seem really soft, remove them from the pot, so they don't fall apart with more cooking.)

Press the saute button and allow the sauce to reduce by half, about 5-7 minutes. Stir in the Dijon. Add the butter two pieces at a time, stirring constantly until they are incorporated. This creates an emulsified sauce which is thick and luxurious.

Taste the sauce and add more salt or pepper, if desired.

Return the chops to the pot and toss them in the sauce to coat them and re-warm them if necessary.

Sprinkle parsley over the top as a garnish, if your parsley isn't all sad and wilty like mine was.

What's next?

I'm planning on making a stuffed pepper soup, which is kind of brilliant. Less fuss than making actual stuffed peppers, but the flavors are all there.

After that, maybe lemon risotto with peas, or perhaps one of the pasta dishes. Then again, there are also side dish recipes and desserts. Or maybe I'll go back to that sesame chicken, because it was brilliant.

Chai Chicken

Bhakti Chai is a local company, and I was recently treated to a tour of the facility thanks to Sprouts (a grocery store chain, if you're not familiar).

As soon as I sampled the product at the factory, I thought it would make a great marinade for chicken. Maybe I was just hungry.

Yeah, I know. it's a drink. It's not a marinade. But the ginger-forward flavor just wanted to be used in cooking. So ... we got to take some samples home, and after having a little pick-me-up, I decided to give Chai-Chai-Chai Chicken a try.

But, being me, I didn't actually do a marinade. Nope. I bought some boneless, skinless chicken breasts and I cooked them sous vide.

I know I post a LOT of sous vide recipes ... but that's because they're so easy and hands-off. Most of the time, I finish the recipe with a quick sear on the stove or maybe a broil in the oven, but that's all I have to do. With the chicken breasts, I just sliced and served.

Let me say here that sealing a sous vide bag that has a lot of liquid in it can be a little tricky. I didn't add a LOT of liquid, but if you're skeevy about having any liquid at all to deal with, just freeze some of your marinade mixture - in this case the chai - and put that into the sous vide bag.

If you've got a giant thick hockey puck of frozen stuff in your sous vide bag, you might want to extend the cooking time a little bit, but if you froze a 1/2 cup in a baggie so it's thin and flat, it's going to thaw pretty quickly. And seriously, you don't need a lot of marinade or sauce or whatever in the bag.

You can cook each chicken breast in its own bag (which is great if you're adjusting flavors to people's personal preferences) or cook them all together in one bag. Just make sure the breasts are in one layer in the bag, if you're doing a bunch of them together, so cooking is even.

Bhakti Chai Chicken Breasts

• Boneless, skinless chicken breasts

• Bhaki Chai Concentrate (I used the original version)

Let's assume we're doing just one chicken breast, okay?

If you've got those giant chicken breasts, one breast might be enough for two people, depending on what you're serving with it. If it's really huge, feel free to add another 15 minutes to the cooking time.

So, put the chicken breast in the sous vide bag and add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of the Bhakti Chai - depending on how comfy you are with dealing with wet ingredients in your sous vide bag. If you were smart enough to freeze some of the chai ahead of time, you're so much smarter than me.

Add a pinch of salt, if you like.

Vacuum carefully and seal. Use the wet sealing feature, if yours has that option. If you want to be extra sure you have a good seal, wipe the recently-sealed end of the bag to remove any moisture, and seal it again on the end.

All done? Good.

Set up the sous vide for 150 degrees. Chuck that chicken in there and set for 1 hour (or a little longer, if it's one of the huge breasts that they sell these days).

Now go and do something fun.

When the chicken is done, remove it from the bag. Slice and serve.

That's it. No muss, no fuss. I didn't even bother browning the breast afterwards, but you can do that if you like. This was also great cold ... try it on a salad with an Asian-style dressing and some bean sprouts and snow peas - or maybe some of crispy fried wonton skins. Yum!

About Bhakti Chai

Bhakit Chai is a great example of a small business started by one passionate person. The original Chai product still exists, but the company has expanded the product line to include more flavors, a ready-to-drink line, and some fizzy chai drinks as well.

The fizzy drinks might have been my favorite, since I'm a fan of ginger ale and similar fizzy drinks that are less sweet and more refreshing.

But that doesn't mean I didn't like the others. The ready-to-drink iced chai is perfect if you just want to grab one and go. That's them, in the photo on the right. Lots of options, including one coffee-chai drink.

The concentrate is what you need in the fridge for drinking at home. I've been making mine with about 1/3 chai concentrate and 2/3 with either milk or almond milk, but of course you can adjust that to your preference. And you can drink it hot or cold.

If you're me, you can also use the concentrate in recipes. I was thinking that rice with a little chai would be really really nice with a stir-fry dinner. And chai rice pudding is awesome. Simmered down to concentrate the flavor even more, it would be a nice sauce for either sweet or savory.

While you can find some of the Bhakti Chai products on Amazon, you probably want to just go look for them at the grocery store, since they're a perishable product. Like, you know, go to Sprouts and buy them there.

One of the best parts about going to tours of different companies is seeing how things are made. here's a super-short video of the bottling line at Bhakti Chai. It was cool watching it work. Yum, chai!

Thanks to Sprouts for sponsoring and arranging the tour and to Bhakti Chai for being such a great host (and for the samples!).

Chicken and Mushrooms

When I got the book Stacy Lyn's Harvest Cookbook, I saw a lot of recipes I wanted to make. But, like many books that celebrate harvests, it called for a lot of fresh ingredients that aren't particularly wonderful at the grocery store in February. While I probably could have bought strawberries, I know they would have been sub-par, and that's not fair to the recipe or to the rest of the ingredients.

I paged through the book until I saw the Chicken and Mushrooms over Cheesy Grits. It sounded good, and the ingredients all made sense at this time of year. But the grits. Sigh. I adore grits, but I had just made a batch of rice with saffron. So I skipped the grits (waaaah, I love grits) and I served the chicken with the rice.

I followed the recipe pretty closely except that when I grabbed the chicken stock, it was actually turkey stock. Oops.

Oh! And I used all crimini (aka baby bella) mushrooms. I'm not fond of shitaki mushrooms enough to want to buy them. So, instead of 1/2 pound of crimini, 1/4 of button, and 1/4 pound of shitaki, I used all crimini.

The other adjustment I made was that after the chicken was done, I thought the sauce was too thin, so I removed the chicken, removed the lid, and continued cooking the rest until the sauce was reduced and it had thickened more. The instructions called for cooking it "partially covered" which is open to interpretation. I guess mine was more covered than it should have been.

I think if I make it again, I'll cook uncovered at first and cover it if I think it needs to be covered. While it didn't look like it was going to be too liquidy when I first assembled it, the mushrooms exuded a lot of liquid during cooking. But some folks might prefer more liquid, so it's not a fault with the recipe, it's just a preference.

Chicken and Mushrooms
Adapted from Stacy Lyn's Harvest Cookbook by Stacy Lyn Harris

4 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
1/4 cup flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 large onions, cut into 1-inch pieces
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 large carrots cut into 1-inch pieces (I had small carrots, so I used 4)
1 pound crimini mushrooms
1 tablespoons rosemary, chopped
1 1/2 cups chicken stock

Combine the flour, salt, and pepper in a shallow dish, then coat the chicken with the flour. Save about 1 tablespoon of the flour remaining in the plate.

Put the oil in a large pot and heat over medium-high heat. When the oil is shimmering, add the chicken and cook until brown on all sides. Remove the chicken from the pan.

Reduce the heat to medium, add the onions, and cook for 2 minutes (I cooked mine a bit longer, until the onions were softened a bit). Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds, then add the flour and cook for one more minute, stirring.

Add the broth, carrots, mushrooms, and rosemary. Return the chicken to the pan, along with any juices that came out of the chicken. Bring the liquid to a boil, then partially cover the pot and lower the heat so it simmers. Cook for 25-30 minutes, or until the chicken is no longer pink in the middle and the vegetables are tender.

At this point, I removed the chicken so it wouldn't overcook, and I removed the lid and increased the heat to thicken and reduce the sauce. You might or might not need to do this.

Serve over rice, grits, or whatever you prefer.

About the book: There are a lot of recipes here that I'll try when there are more fresh fruits and vegetables in season. My one quibble about the book isn't the recipes, but the printing. It's a pretty book, no doubt, but a lot of the recipes are printed on pages that have colored, patterned backgrounds. It's certainly lovely to look at, but it makes the text harder to read. Not impossible, but not as easy to read at a glance as if the page had black ink on plain white paper.

I received the book from the publisher at no cost to me.

Herb and Butter Sous Vide Chicken Breast

AND ... besides an awesome recipe, I'm going to give you a bunch of reasons why you need a vacuum sealer.

I mean Christmas is coming, right?

Full disclosure: This post is sponsored by FoodSaver and they sent me a really slick new vacuum sealer to test.

But this is now my THIRD vacuum sealer made by them, so I knew I was going to be happy with it before I agreed to post.

My first FoodSaver suffered a tragic accident, so I replaced it. The second one is still here and functional. I bought both of those. And now I have a new one with some features I really like. More on that later, though.

There are a bunch of reasons I think a vacuum sealer is a great kitchen tool, in general.

First, it saves food from freezer burn. You'll see photos of what I mean.

Second, you can seal foods that are affected by oxygen and they'll last longer. Like guacamole. I have guacamole that's been in the freezer since last year, and it still looks perfect.

Third, you can vacuum seal things in ball jars, bottles, and canisters with the adapters. There are also vacuum bags with zip opening, so you could seal vacuum-seal things that you'll be using in portions, like lunch meat or cheese.

Fourth, you can marinate foods a lot faster.

Fifth, you can see what's in the bag when it's frozen.

Sixth, and this is a huuuuge one for me. You can cook foods sealed in the bag using sous vide.

I'm a huge fan of sous vide cooking, and I've posted a lot of recipes here for foods I've cooked sous vide. I trust the thick bags that the Food Saver uses. I don't trust zipper plastic bags, particularly not for long-term cooking. If I've got an expensive hunk of meat or I'm investing a lot of time into a cooking operation, I'd be really mad if a zipper failed.

So anyway, the challenge from FoodSaver was to pick a food product and store one in the freezer for a month sealed in a FoodSaver bag, and have another one stored in the freezer in the usual way. I bought some chicken boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

For the "normal" method, I chose a zip-top bag and removed as much air from the bag as possible. The second one went into a Foodsaver bag.

A third breast got seasoned first with some spicy chipotle seasoning, before I froze it. This is actually a great idea if you want to have some food that's prepped and ready to go into the sous vide, you can add seasonings, butter, or whatever.

Adding different seasonings to different pieces of chicken (or other foods) could be quite handy of you have people in the house who like different flavors or different levels of spice. You can add the seasonings and label the bags, but you can still cook all the different flavors at one.

Just toss  as much chicken (or whatever) into the water, set the time, and walk away. If you're not sure what you're going to use the chicken for, then leave it unseasoned. It's easy enough to add that later.

After a month in the freezer, the FoodSaver chicken (the one on the bottom in the photo below) looked about the same as it did when it went into the freezer. It was solid, of course, but it looked pretty much like it did before. The one in the zip-top bag (the one on top) didn't fare quite as well. Where the plastic didn't freeze right against the chicken, freezer burn was already taking over. You can see it there on the right side, where it's turning white and there are ice crystals in the bag. UGH. It sure as heck didn't look pretty.

Normally, I'd trim off the freezer burn if it wasn't too bad. I mean, sometimes it's just too far gone and the whole thing needs to be tossed. But if it wasn't awful, I'd lop off the bad part and salvage the good part. But I decided to just go forth with my cooking plans since the freezer burn was just in one place. I was curious how bad it would be after cooking. I'm a risk-taker, huh?

So ... I opened the sealed FoodSaver bag and added a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of an all-purpose seasoning called Chef Shake. You could use pretty much anything you like ... Mexican, Cajun, Italian, Greek ... whatever flavors you like. Or your own custom mix. Whatever makes you happy. Olive oil would be okay, too, or leave the fat out entirely.

I put the zipper-bag-stored chicken into another FoodSaver bag and added the same seasonings. Those two, plus the pre-seasoned breast, went into the hot tub. I mean ... the sous vide.

Once they were cooked, it was hard to tell by looking at them in their bags that one of them had suffered freezer burn because of the spices milling about in the bag. But ... when I sliced into the one with freezer burn and tasted it (yes, I do these things for you) it was a little more obvious. I don't suggest you eat freezer-burned food.

So ... I removed that part and went on to bigger and better things.

Herb and Butter Sous Vide Chicken Breast

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts (one per serving, unless they're huge)
Butter
Your favorite seasoning mix (I used Chef Shake)
Salt (optional)

For individual servings, use one bag per breast. This is great if different people like different flavors. Otherwise, you can put several chicken breasts in a single bag. Keep them in an even layer rather than piling them on top of each other.

Add about a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of the seasoning to each bag. Please adjust the amount of seasoning to your taste and for the seasoning you use. If you're using something super-spicy and you only want it mildly spicy, cut back on the seasoning. If your seasoning is very mild or you want something flaming hot, add more.

If the seasoning doesn't have salt, add a pinch, or to taste. Much of today's chicken is brined, so it's a little salty. But a little pinch is fine.

Seal the bag using the FoodSaver. You can cook this right away, but let's assume you're prepping to cook later. So ... into the freezer they go!

When it's time to cook, set the sous vide for 146 degrees for 2 1/2 hours. Toss the still-frozen chicken into the sous vide.

Yup, you can cook it from its frozen state. It thaws really quickly even before the water had reached cooking temperature, and I started with hot tap water.

When the timer says it's done, remove the chicken.

You can slice and serve immediately. I used the chipotle-spiced chicken right away, in tacos.

For the more gently-spiced chicken, I opted to toss them into the refrigerator to chill. I used them the next day on a salad. You could also cook ahead and then gently reheat and serve. Or add the chicken at the last second to a stir fry - just long enough to heat it up.

Chicken breast cooked this way is always moist. Never dry. And it absorbs the flavor of the spices you add, so it's never just plain chicken. So freaking good!

About the new FM5000 series FoodSaver:

So, the big benefit of this model over my old one (which is pretty old) is that it does the sealing closer to the end of the bag, so you're not using as much bag material.

This one has a different method for making bags, too. You make the first seal at the end of the roll, before you pull the bag material out. So, you pull a bag out, and that end has already been sealed from the previous operation. You flip a lever which seals and then you cut your bag loose. Again, you have a seal at the end of the roll.

The new bag, when you seal it, goes into a different slot, so that roll is never in the way.

Also, the roll stores where you can see it, which is nice. I wish there was space for two rolls, but I mostly use the widest ones, so it's not really a big deal.

Thanks to FoodSaver for sponsoring this post.

Chicken Schnitzel (and a different breading technique)

I'm rather fond of German food, including wiener schnitzel, which has nothing to do with hot dogs. Or any sausage, really. It's actually a veal cutlet that's pounded thin and breaded.

Chicken is pretty much my go-to substitution for veal, particularly in dishes like this. So I ended up with chicken schnitzel.

The spice mix I used came from Raw Spice Bar which is another subscriptions service. There are soooo many subscription services. This one is different because you get packets of different spice mixes, so it's not like you need a lot of space to store jars and bottles and bags. And the bags are sealed, so you don't need to use them all right away.

They sent me a couple different boxes. Well, envelopes, actually. You get packets of spices, not jars. One had a cocoa chili rub that I used on steak, a pizza seasoning that I used on chicken and a chipotle salt that I used on popcorn. The ones I got most recently included schnitzel seasoning; caraway, fennel, and anise seasoning; and mustard and horseradish seasoning.

So far, I've only used the schnitzel seasoning from the second batch. I haven't decided what I'll do with the others, but the mustard and horseradish might go into a salad dressing or dipping sauce, and the seedy one will probably go into a rye bread.

So, I decided to use the Schnitzel spice to make some chicken.

This uses my secret breading technique. I used to hate doing any kind of breading. It took three bowls or plates, for the flour, egg, and then the final breading mixture - sometimes bread crumbs, some times more flour.

And then it was messy.

Okay, my technique is still a little messy, but it only requires one bowl, so that's a huge plus. And the breading stays on better. Try it, you'll like it!

Chicken Schnitzel

1/2 cup flour
1 packet Raw Spice Bar schnitzel seasoning
1 large chicken breast or 2 small ones
Mayonnaise, as needed
Olive oil, for cooking

Combine the flour and seasoning. This makes it pretty spicy. If you don't want it as spicy, use half as much spice or twice as much flour.

If you're using the larger chicken breast (you know the ones I mean, right?), use a sharp knife to slice it in half to make two thinner pieces, then pound the two pieces until they're evenly thick and no more than 1/4 inch thick. If you're using smaller breasts, don't split them; just pound thin.

Coat the chicken pieces on both sides with a thin coat of mayonnaise. You don't need a lot. Not even like a sandwich. You can use a pastry brush, or just smear it on with your fingers.

Coat the chicken breasts with the seasoned flour. You can dip them in the flour, or you can sift or sprinkle the flour on.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a saute pan until hot. Fry the chicken on both sides until evenly brown and cooked through.

Serve hot.

Thanks to Raw Spice Bar for providing products for me to review; I wasn't required to write a recipe.

Crispy Garlic Paprika Chicken

Usually when I get a new cookbook, I browse through it, bookmark some pages, and then narrow things down to few recipes to see if I have the ingredients on hand or whether I need to go shopping.

When I got The Weeknight Dinner Cookbook by Mary Younkin the book opened itself up to a page that had a recipe for baked chicken thighs ... and I stopped right there.

Whoa. No need to look further. I didn't happen to have chicken thighs on hand, but I had the required spices (and seriously, most people would) so I didn't need to do any intense shopping. Just cruise through the meat section and grab some thighs - and that was it.

For a weeknight dinner cookbook, that's exactly what you need, right? A recipe that you can shop for without much thought, and one that you can cobble together quickly.

I didn't use an many chicken thighs as the recipe called for because I'm cooking for one, but that didn't really matter for this recipe. There's a spice mix that you put on the thighs, but it's pretty easy to sprinkle it on to taste.

Speaking of the spice mix - it's salt, paprika, garlic powder, and black pepper. While the recipe suggests mixing them, then sprinkling, you could sprinkle them on one at a time, or you could mix up a large batch of the seasoning and just sprinkle it on everything, everywhere.

Well, probably not on apple pie. But it would be just as good on pork, beef, or seafood as it is on chicken. Just call it your house-made seasoned salt.

Oh, and if you're wondering about the author, she blogs at Barefeet in the Kitchen, which is a pretty awesome blog. Check it out!

Crispy Garlic Paprika Chicken
Adapted from The Weeknight Dinner Cookbook by Mary Younkin

8-10 small bone-in chicken thighs (I had four)
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
3/4 teaspoon paprika
3/4 teaspoon granulated garlic or garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil

Heat the oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment, foil, or a silicone mat for easly cleanup. Put a rack on the sheet.

Sprinkle the seasoning on the underside of the thighs, then drizzle the skin with the olive oil and sprinkle the skin side with the seasoning.

Place the thighs on the rack and roast for about 50 minutes or until the skin is crisp and the chicken is cooked through. Let the chicken rest for 10 minutes before serving.

More about the book:

I may have chosen the simplest recipe in the book, but it was darned good and well worth making. It's also a good representation of what you'll find in the book. Homey, tasty recipes that you can make with very normal ingredients that are probably in your pantry - spices, mustard, vinegars, oils - and other things that are probably hanging around, too like lemons, garlic, and potatoes.

But the book isn't ALL dinners, because dessert can be important, too. The peanut butter mousse is on my must-try list, for sure. I've made plenty of chocolate mousses, but I've never made one with peanut butter.

Honestly, there aren't a lot of recipes here I don't want to make. Some of them are similar to things I already make and some sound like recipes I could have thought of. But it's darned nice that someone has already made them so I don't have to think to hard about it.

I have to make one comment about the book itself. This has a binding that allows the book to lie flat on the counter which is pretty awesome for a cookbook.

Overall, I like this book a lot. Definitely recommended.

I received this book at no cost.

Technique: The anti-trussed poultry

I grew up with a mom who tended to overcook poultry. Or she overcooked the breast. The dark meat was usually fine. But here's the thing. Dark meat can handle being cooked longer and to a higher temperature. It doesn't mind at all. That's why you'll find thighs in recipes that require braising, and you'll find breasts in recipes that cook quickly.

The problem is that the breast is right there, up-top, where it gets the most oven heat. Meanwhile, the joint between the thigh and body is tucked away, protected from all the heat.

And then recipes tell you to truss the bird. Tie its legs together. This is somehow supposed to protect the breast from overcooking. I don't know about you, but I've never seen a chicken that had legs that covered the breast that well. Meanwhile, that thigh joint is still tucked away, right?

A while back, I was working on a chicken recipe where I was stuffing things under the chicken skin, and with all that fussing, the skin tore and the thighs spread away from the breasts and I decided to just go ahead and cook it that way. It wasn't a pretty, round, neat chicken. It looked messy. Lazy. Sort of ... ugly, if I'm being honest.

But here's the thing. That thigh joint was exposed to oven heat, and the chicken cooked much more evenly.

I had forgotten about that chicken until recently. I don't roast a lot of whole chickens. I cook a lot of chicken pieces. But I was cooking a recipe from Sheet Pan Suppers and I saw the words "truss the chicken" and I said "Oh no. I want to anti-truss it." Instead of trying to protect the breast so it would cook slower, I wanted to expose the thighs so they'd cook faster.

And ... it worked! The only downside was that the skin on the thighs didn't get crisp. If the chicken had been cooking on a rack, the thighs would have gotten some air, but the chicken was sitting on a bed of vegetables, so the skin was kind of flabby.

In the photo, the chicken isn't quite done yet, but it's almost there. You can see how the meat in that body-thigh joint is still a little pink. It would have been a LOT more pink if that joint had been protected.

The good news is that breast wasn't overcooked by the time the dark meat was completely done. It was a sloppy looking chicken, but if you serve your chicken cut up, it doesn't really matter, does it? I'm calling it a win. I'm also calling it dinner, and sandwiches, and soup.

Next time, I might remove the leg-and-thigh sections completely so I can roast them skin-up. I mean, seriously. What would you rather have, a chicken that looks pretty, or one that's cooked correctly?

Cuban-Spiced Chicken

I almost said "no" when I was offered a copy of The Six O'Clock Scramble by Aviva Goldfarb. The book is from The American Diabetes Association, which is a fine organization. But I don't review a lot of books based on special diets.

But I knew someone who was a recipe tester for this book (small world!) and she absolutely raved about it. I asked if it had any weird ingredients like fake sugars or .... just odd stuff. And she said no, it's normal food that's okay for diabetics.

So I decided to give it a try.

She was right. The recipes were normal.

The book is arranged by season, but I have to say that the ingredients for the majority of the recipes are probably available all year long. And if not, there are options. For example, in a recipe that calls for corn kernels, its says that fresh, canned, or frozen would be fine.

Still, there are some recipes that make sense for serving at specific times of the year. Hearty soups and stews are great for winter, for example.

The Cuban-spiced chicken that I made was in the summer section, but it would work at any time of the year. There are instructions for baking (which I did) and an option for slow-cooking, which is nice in warm weather.

The spices should also be great on chicken that you put on the grill. Or other a pork roast. Or steak.

Cuban-Spiced Chicken
Adapted from The Six O'Clock Scramble by Aviva Goldfarb

2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
Juice from 1/2 lime
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
15-ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed (I didn't do this - I made a bean and pepper salad instead)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees unless you're going to marinate the chicken first. Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat, parchment, or spray with cooking spray.

In a small bowl, combine the paprika, cumin, garlic powder, black pepper, thyme, oregano, and salt.

Toss the chicken with the lime juice, then coat with the spices. you can continue cooking from here, or let the chicken marinate in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours.

Transfer the chicken to the baking sheet and bake, uncovered, for 30-40 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through in the center of the largest piece.

When the chicken is almost done, warm the beans. Serve immediately.

Easy Cheesy Jalfrezi Chicken

I got a really positive response to my last quick 'n easy chicken recipe (or at least no one skewered me for using *gasp* a can of soup), so I figured I'd post this one too.

This time around, I used a jar of Seeds of Change jalfrezi cooking sauce. I got some samples from them a while back, but I've gone back and bought more of the jalfrezi. The best way I can describe it is that it's curry for people who aren't sure they like curry. It's got a teeny bit of heat and hints of typical Indian flavors, but it's not in-your-face.

What it is, though, is really, really tasty. Flavorful. Scrumptious.

And then I added a can of (gasp!) cheddar cheese soup.

My first experience with canned cheddar cheese soup was when my mom invite me over for dinner and she was giggling with delight about her new cheese sauce recipe that she used on the broccoli.

Prior to that, she generally didn't put cheese sauce on vegetables. Sometimes she'd sprinkle a little cheese on top of hot broccoli or cauliflower and let it melt, but she never made a sauce.

Until this one time. She gloated. She cooed. She rubbed her hands with glee. She was over-the-moon about her recipe and she waited until dinner was over and she asked me to guess what was in the sauce. And finally she announced that it was nothing but undiluted canned cheddar cheese soup.

Well, how about that.

Once I wrapped my head around the fact that it was nothing but canned soup, I had to admit that it totally worked.

These days, I don't use a lot of canned soup, but lately I've been using it in some slow cooker recipes. Because ... hey, why not?

Easy Cheesy Jalfrezi Chicken

1 tablespoon olive oil
8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (about 4 pounds)
1 onion, diced or chopped
1 orange or red bell pepper, cored, and diced or chopped
1 jar Seeds of Change Jalfrezi sauce
1 can cheddar cheese soup
1 teaspoon salt*
1 bag frozen broccoli florets (about 14 ounces, depending on brand)

If you have a slow cooker with a browning feature, heat the olive oil in the cooker and brown the chicken, skin-side down. You might need to do this in batches. If your slow cooker doesn't have a browning feature, brown the chicken in a pan on the stove, then transfer to the slow cooker. If there's a lot of fat in the slow cooker, drain most of it before continuing.

Add the onion and bell pepper and cook for a few minutes in the pan or slow cooker, stirring as needed.

Add the  jalfrezi sauce, cheese soup, and salt. Stir to mix it all together. If you like, you can mix them prior to added to the slow cooker - depending on whether you think washing a bowl is easier, or trying to stir stuff in a fairly full slow cooker.

Cook on high heat until the chicken and vegetables are cooked through - 2-3 hours on high, depending on your slow cooker. Add the broccoli, stir to combine, and continue cooking until the broccoli is done to your liking. It will be crisp-tender and warm in about 15 minutes. If you prefer it cooked until tender, plan for another 15 minutes.

Serve hot. I served it with rice to soak up the sauce.

*Before you point out that canned soup is salty, I totally agree. It's salty - for soup. But for my taste, it's not quite salty enough for 4 pounds of chicken and another pound or so of vegetables. If you don't believe me (which is fine - I don't always believe me!) then leave the salt out until the chicken is cooked and give it a taste. Keep in mind that the broccoli is going in the pool, too. And adjust the saltiness to your taste.