Chicken, chickpea and chipotle soup

I keep seeing recipes for chickpea soup lately. I've never had it, so I gave it a shot. Yowza.

1 boneless skinless chicken breasts
Santa Maria seasoning
1 can chickpeas
2 chipotle in adobo, chopped
1/2 red onion, chopped small
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 lb linguica, chopped
1 cup chicken stock
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp cumin
1/4 cup dry sherry

Pour olive oil on the chicken then sprinkle with the seasoning. Throw it in the oven for 25 minutes. Pull it out, cool slightly and shred or chop up.

While the chicken is in the oven, add the onion and garlic to the pan and saute for a few minutes. Add the linguica and cook for two minutes. Add the oregano, paprika, cumin and chipotle and continue cooking for two minutes. Once everything gets all nice and brown, add the sherry and scrape up all the gunk from the bottom of the pot.

Once the sherry starts bubbling, add the chicken stock and the chickpeas. Let this boil for ten minutes. Add it the chicken and any accumulated juices and simmer together for at least ten minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Frankie's Crockpot Chile Verde

4 bone-in pork chops
1/2 yellow onion, big chunks
4 garlic cloves, big chunks
1 1/4 lbs tomatillos, stemmed, quartered
1/2 cup orange juice
1 lime
1 jalepeno, chopped
1 serrano, chopped

Season the chops with kosher salt and pepper. Brown them, then throw them in the crockpot. Add in onion, garlic, tomatillos, jalepeno and serrano. Pour in orange juice and juice from the lime. Throw half the lime in, too.

Cook on high for an hour, low for five or six.

Pork Stir Fry

Pork Stir Fry Marinade: 1/2 cup soy sauce 1/4 cup hoisin sauce 1/4 cup tahini 2 tbs vinegar 1 tsp black pepper 2 tsp garlic powder Use half on the meat, save half for the sauce Cut up two pork chops and marinate in half the marinade. Mince 1/2 inch of ginger, 2 cloves of garlic and one long green onion. Heat up oil in the pan. Quickly brown the pork on both sides, high heat and fast. Pull it out when it's browned. Throw in the veggies in order of cooking time. Carrots, snap peas, baby corn, mushrooms, broccoli, water chestnuts. Then throw the meat back in. Once you've got five minutes left, throw in the trinity. Pour in the sauce, toss. Throw this over slightly over dried rice.

London Broil with smashed potatoes and gravy

I cannot get enough of a good london broil. Fun fact: apparently, that is not an actual cut of meat, but a cooking technique for a certain kind of top round roast. And I have been slicing it wrong forever. I love the "Ask the Meat Man" site.

Damn, beef has been expensive lately. Whatever, I needed it today and the boyfriend was craving mashed potatoes and gravy. I usually marinate this overnight.

2 1/2 lb london broil marinade:
Lee & Perrin's worcestershire... so that's how you spell that
A few splashes of whiskey
A splash of liquid smoke
2 garlic cloves, pressed
Turmeric
Thyme
Black Pepper

I take a pyrex pan that is just bigger than the roast and throw the liquids in and squish the meat around in it. Then, rub around the pressed garlic, throw on the spices and rub everything in. Flip, repeat. Let sit for a day, flipping once part way through.

Heat the oven to 325F and pull the meat out of the fridge so it's not frigid when you throw it in. When you put it in the roasting pan, throw down a smidge of canola oil first. Salt the roast well with kosher salt on the top side, then drip dry, flip it over into the pan and salt the other side. I don't like doing the whole "dry first with a paper towel" thing on this since it pulls off some of the spices and garlic. While this is cooking (maybe 50 minutes?), boil some yukon gold potatoes to smash. I used three, added a few tbs butter and lots of salt and pepper while smashing. I skip the other dairy products, butter is good enough for me.

I felt like simple tonight, so I had this with some corn. I drained a can of corn and fried it with some garlic and butter, with a sprinkle of s/p.

Gravy. Fucking gravy. Beef gravy is my nemesis just like rice. I'll attempt it again tonight, hopefully it won't inspire they boyfriend to open (shudder) a can of store bought gravy, as he likes a nice thick gravy and I generally don't deliver.

Here's my latest effort. It will work eventually.

Combine:
1/2 cup beef broth
1/2 cup leftover marinade
1/2 cup red wine
Pan drippings

Throw the wine in the pan to loosen up the bits in the bottom. Use a wooden spoon if necessary, then throw it in a small pot with the rest. Boil this for at least five minutes, until it starts to reduce a bit. See earlier posts on evil marinade.

Combine 1 tbs of cornstarch with a small amount of liquid, either more broth, wine or water. Stir very well to combine and add to the liquid. Whisk, whisk, whisk! Season with lots of s/p and pray.

Arabic yogurt chicken with tzatziki, hummus and cucumber tomato salad

I can't go long without some sort of middle eastern food. This is a simple chicken dish that is super tasty.

Chicken marinade:
1 cup greek yogurt
2 large garlic cloves, smashed
1 tbs red wine vinegar
1 tbs paprika
1 tbs oregano
1 tbs fresh sage, chopped
2 tbs fresh parsley, chopped
1 tbs cumin
1 tbs salt
2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp red pepper flakes

Mix it all together and marinade a few chicken breasts in it for at least an hour, hopefully longer. I usually cut each breast into a few strips. Shake off excess marinade and grill it up. If you're going to bake it instead, at least brown the chicken first. This is not pretty if you don't.

Tzatziki:
3 persian cucumbers, peeled
1 cup greek yogurt
Juice of 1/2 lemon
2 garlic cloves, chopped small
5 grinds black pepper
Kosher salt

Grate the cucumber into a strainer. Put about 2 tsp kosher salt on them and let them drain for at least half an hour. Squeeze out any excess moisture. Stir everything together, add salt to taste. Let this sit at least an hour to let the flavors blend.

The salad is close to one a friend of mine made for me years ago.

2 persian cucumbers, peeled, seeded and diced
3 roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
1/2 onion, small dice
2 large garlic cloves, smashed
Juice of 2 lemons
1 tsp sumac
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 bunch chopped parsley
Feta cheese

Chop the cucumbers and tomato, throw in a strainer with some kosher salt and drain. Combine everything in a bowl and toss

Hummus

1 can garbanzo beans
2 tbs tahini
2 cloves garlic
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt
Throw the beans in a pot and boil. Once this cools, add that and everything else into the food processor and blend.

I usually serve this with rice pilaf or maybe some roasted herbed potatoes.

Asada BBQ Dips - pico de gallo, guacamole and red salsa

Today we're having a family barbecue. I'm making a few dips to go with the carne asada.

Pico de gallo:
6 big roma tomatoes, seeded
1/2 big yellow onion
1 jalapeno
1/2 bunch cilantro
Juice of 1 lime
1 tbs kosher salt

This is the basic raw salsa that goes awesome with tortilla chips. I pulse everything in a food processor until it is very finely chopped but not a mush, a little at a time, then combine it. If you like it chunkier, you can just chop everything small.

I discovered a new trick today to make it less soupy. Chop the onion and tomato first and sprinkle it with the salt. After it sits for a bit, a lot of the moisture will come out and you can pour that off before adding the rest.

Guacamole:
3 large avocados
5 cloves garlic
1/3 large red onion
2 limes
Black Pepper
Kosher salt

Finely chop the garlic and onion and add the juice of the limes, pepper and salt. Mix. I like it to have some texture, so I do the avocados in two batches. Add two avocados and smash with a fork until well combined. Add the last avocado and smash it most of the way, leaving it a little chunky. Yum.

Red salsa:
6 big roma tomatoes
1/2 big yellow onion
2-3 serrano peppers
1 lime
1 tbs kosher salt
1/2 bunch cilantro

Chop the tomatoes and onions into quarters, and halve the peppers lengthwise. Throw some oil into a pan - I usually use canola but today safflower worked well - and cook the veggies in batches. You want them to brown a little but not completely blacken. Let them cool and then throw then in the food processor with the cilantro and salt. Add some water if it seems too thick. Add the juice of the lime then add more salt if needed.

And there you have it: the super simple trifecta of dips.

Chicken with pseudo tapenade

I love olives. I love tapenade too. Google insists I am spelling that wrong, but whatever. I got some fresh olives the other day for some salad jars and I had some left over. I also love chicken but seriously, how many times can you fry up some chicken breast the same way? Here's what I did:

Chicken:

2 chicken breasts
Kosher salt
Pepper
Usual spice (Equal parts paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper)
Olive oil

Pseudo tapenade:
10-12 kalamata olives
1 ripe tomato
A few stems of parsley
7 basil leaves
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tbs olive oil
1 pinch salt

To start, combine all the tapenade ingredients. Chop the tomato and olives very small and mix all together. Let this sit for a good while before serving, anything less than an hour doesn't do it justice.

For the chicken, when you're ready to eat, simply season each breast with a bit of the usual and more kosher salt and pepper, heat up the oil really hot and do a decent browning on each side. This is important - if you don't crisp it up now, it will get soggy under the tapenade. Throw it in the oven at 350 for about 10-15 to cook through.

Serve chicken covered by a spread of room temperature tapenade with some pilaf with a bit of feta. I'm thinking broccoli will go well with this. Yum.