Hot Gringas' Sweet Chili Chicken

We've all done it. Make a chicken for dinner and you have plenty of leftovers. But the next night you think that it would be great to use the meat in a different way. But what? Sure, you could make chicken salad, but that sounds more like lunch than dinner. And the chicken is already cooked, so you don't want to cook it even longer in a casserole of some kind.

I know a few people who say they don't like leftovers, but that's usually because their mom reheated the same meal in the same way night after night until the meat was dry and the vegetables were mush. What might have been a wonderful meal on the first night was less than appealing on the third night.

That's one way to treat leftovers. The other way to treat them is to consider them as ingredients in a new dish. Instead of serving the same thing for three days straight, you can use the same ingredients to make three different meals.

In this case, I used a poached chicken breast that I had left over from another dish, you you could use roast chicken instead. Or even cooked pork. The point it that you add the meat at the very end of cooking, just long enough to heat it, and then you serve. Voila! New meal.

Of course, you could skip the whole "leftover" idea and cook the chicken specifically for this dish.

The Sweet Chili Sauce from Hot Gringas' packs a nice amount of heat, but it's also a little bit sweet, so it adds several dimensions of flavor to this dish. And since it's a condiment all on its own, you can hold back on the amount in the dish itself (in case you've got heat-squeamish diners) and pass more sauce at the table for those who want to amp up the flavor even more.

I served mine over rice, but this would be great as a filling for a taco, if that's your preference. And since this is loaded with vegetables, one chicken breast - with the rice - was more than enough to feed two people. Guess what I'm having for lunch?

Hot Gringas Sweet Chili Chicken

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, quartered and sliced
1 bell pepper*, cored, seeded and sliced
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 chicken breast**, cooked, sliced into strips
2 tablespoons Hot Gringas' Sweet Chili Sauce

Heat the olive oil in a saute pan until it just begins to shimmer - you don't want it smoking hot. Add the onion and cook until it begins to soften. Add the bell pepper, salt and pepper. Continue cooking until the vegetables are your desired doneness.

Add the chicken breast and Hot Gringas' sauce and cook, stirring, until the chicken is heated through.

Serve over rice or as a filling for tacos. Make sure to bring the jar to the table, for those who want more sauce.

* I buy bell peppers when they're on sale and clean and freeze them, so I used green, yellow, and red bell peppers. You can use whatever color you like, or a mix. And if you really like peppers, add more.

** I used a poached chicken breast, but you can use any part you have on hand. Roasted or rotisserie chicken will work really well.

For more information on my partnership with Fooducopia, see the tab at the top.

Whole Foods Friday: Fish en Papillote and more!

Fish en Papillote sounds so fancy and so complicated, but it's actually very simple. Fish is enclosed in parchment along with some flavorings and a bit of liquid. The fish cooks gently and is infused with the flavors.

And it cooks quickly. And unattended. No need for poking or prodding or flipping. This time, I cooked the fish in the oven, but I've also done this in the microwave.

I know, cooking meat in a microwave seems so wrong, but I saw a Good Eats episode where Alton Brown did just that, and I tried it. The reason it works is that the microwave heats the liquid which turns to steam, and that steam does most of the cooking.

This recipe is just as good for one or two people as it is for a crowd. And, if you've got a few people with particular food requirements, you can customize the individual servings. The parchment packets keep everyone's food separate, so onion-haters won't find stray onions on their plates.

Cooking time will vary a bit, depending on how thick the fish is, so it's not a bad idea to have an extra serving that you can open and peek into. When choosing a fish for this cooking method, ask the fishmonger what he has and what he recommends. I used sole fillets.

You can serve these in the parchment, or remove them and plate them. Another bonus of this cooking method is that the parchment package hold the heat in, so it gives you a little extra wiggle room between cooking and serving.

Since these are assembled per person, you can make as many - or as few - as you need. The recipe is for one portion.

Since the fish was so pale, I chose a bright and festive side dish.

Fish en Papillote

1 fish fillet
3 thin slices lemon (or meyer lemon)
Several thin slices of onion
Salt and pepper, to taste
Sprinkle of herbs (optional)  - I used thyme, but dill is classic.
1 teaspoon olive oil or butter
1 tablespoon white wine or dry sherry

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Fold a piece of parchment paper in half, and cut it in a heart shape.

Open it, and put the fish on one side of the open heart. Scatter the sliced onions on on the fish and put the sliced lemon on top. Sprinkle on salt, pepper, and your choice of herbs. Add the oil or butter, and drizzle on the wine or sherry.

Fold the empty half of the heart over the fish.

Beginning with the non-pointy side of the heart, begin making small overlapping folds along the edge of the heart, continuing all the way to the pointed end. This seals the packet.

Place the packet on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees until the fish is cooked through, about 15 minutes.

Serve in the parchment packets or plate the fish, if you prefer.

Note: the packets are full of steam, so it's a good idea to wait a minute or two before opening them, and be cautious of the escaping steam.

Endive Boats

Since the fish was pale, I decided it needed a bright accompaniment. These endive boats are easy to prepare and offer bright color and a variety of tastes and textures. I used pickled beets from MMLocal.

Endive leaves vary in size - choose some that aren't so big that they're a taco, but large enough to hold the three bite-sized components.

Endive Boats

Endive leaves
Pickled beets
Chevre
Blood orange segments or supremes

Separate the endive into leaves and clean them. Trim the bottom so it looks nice.

Cut the beets into bite-sized pieces that will fit inside the endive comfortably. Pat them dry to help prevent the color from migrating everywhere.

Arrange a piece of pickled beet, a small dollop of chevre, and a segment (or supreme, if prefer on each endive leaf. Serve.

This post was sponsored by Whole Foods. For more info see the Whole Foods Friday tab at the top.

It's what's for breakfast: Scrambled Eggs and Avocado

BEFORE WE GET STARTED ...

I am giving away a dozen amazing avocados on this post. You might want to go there are leave a comment if you love avocados. But come back!


I now return you to your regularly scheduled delicious recipe. Since I had lots of avocados from SoCal Avocados to work with, I started throwing them into everything. Okay, some went directly into my mouth. But there were recipes, too,

I like sliced avocado next to scrambled eggs. But then I started thinking about it ... and, well, in some dishes, avocado can substitute for eggs. So why not combine the two?

I considered mashing the avocado completely, but then decided to leave it mostly chunky. Since the avocado was very ripe, some of it did melt into the eggs a bit, while there were chunks as well.

This isn't much of a recipe, but maybe it will inspire you to have some fun with eggs. Besides being a breakfast, this would make a great filling for breakfast burritos.

Salsa instead of the red peppers would be great as well.

Scrambled Eggs and Avocado

1 tablespoon butter
2 eggs
1/2 avocado
Pinch of salt
Ground whit pepper, to taste
Roasted red peppers, for garnixh

Melt the butter in a nonstick skillet.

Crack the eggs in a small bowl. Scoop the flesh out of the avocado and add it to the eggs. Add the salt and pepper. Mix, breaking up the avocado a bit and beating the eggs a bit.

Cook the eggs in the buttered pan, to you liking. Serve garnished with roasted red peppers.