Main Dishes

Main Dish Recipes

Greek Chicken Pitas

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These were so incredibly easy.  I have a 5 month old, so if I think they were a cinch to prepare, then you could probably do it with your eyes closed and one hand tied behind your back.  And because we didn’t eat until past 8 last night thanks to my sweet boy who would not go to sleep, I had to borrow this picture from this site. I cannot take good food pictures after the sun goes down.  It just doesn’t work.

I got the idea for this meal from the Tasty Kitchen blog.  Here is the link.

Since I am only cooking for the two of us, I used 3 small chicken breasts, and could have easily gotten away with 2.  We have enough leftover chicken for a few more pitas and plenty of sauce also.

For the tzatziki sauce I made just a few changes.  I could only find a ridiculously huge container of plain yogurt, and I just didn’t want to buy it.  So, I bought light sour cream instead.  When I mixed up the sauce I added a little milk to thin it out.  I also added some chopped parsley, which made this sauce incredible.  A little chopped mint with the parsley would have been extra special.  There’s something just plain wonderful about fresh herbs.

I filled the pita with the chicken and sauce, but adding some chopped tomatoes and feta cheese makes these even better.

For a side dish I made a tomato and cucumber salad with red onions and feta.  Simply toss chopped, seeded tomatoes, chopped cucumbers, thinly sliced red onion, a bit of olive oil, red wine vinegar, oregano, salt and pepper.  Oh my.  The perfect meal.  Enjoy.

Greek Chicken Pitas

Ingredients

Chicken

  • Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts (1 chicken breast per person)
  • Cavender’s All Purpose Greek Seasoning
  • Olive Oil
  • Pita breads
  • Crumbled feta

Tzatziki Sauce

  • 8 ounces light sour cream
  • 1-2 tablespoons milk
  • 1 whole Cucumber, Chopped
  • ½ whole Yellow Onion, Chopped
  • Lemon Juice, from 1/2 a large lemon
  • 1/4 cup chopped parsley
  • Salt
  • Pepper

Directions

  1. Rub chicken breasts with Cavender’s seasoning, then place in a plastic bag with some olive oil.  Let marinate in the fridge for a few hours.
  2. For the sauce: Mix sour cream and milk to desired consistency.  Add in vegetables, then seasonings.  Taste as you go and adjust to your liking.  Cover and let sit in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
  3. Heat grill (or skillet) and cook chicken, about 6-7 minutes per side, until cooked through.  Let sit for a few minutes, then slice.
  4. Open pita halves and fill with chicken and tzatziki sauce, and sprinkle with feta cheese.
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Pretzel Crusted Chicken

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The idea of covering a chicken breast in a pretzel crust is ingenious!  Add a mustard dill dipping sauce and this becomes an incredibly delicious meal.  This recipe is in the current issue of Fine Cooking, and can also be found here on their website.  Have I said before how much I love this magazine?  It is wonderful.

There isn’t a whole lot to say about this chicken other than that it is super tasty.  It’s simple to prepare.  It uses the same breading process as most breaded chicken recipes; flour, egg, then crust.  While I don’t mind handling raw meat, I do HATE the mess that is unavoidable when breading chicken, and the number of times I find myself washing my hands.

I prepped everything (including breading the chicken) earlier in the day to avoid trying to get it all done right before dinner, which is more of a challenge with a little one who is now requiring an earlier bedtime.  I put the chicken in the fridge for about an hour, then let it sit out for about 20 minutes to avoid putting totally cold chicken into the pan.  I had to cook the chicken in 4 batches, so I kept it warm and the crust nice and crispy in a 200° oven.

I served the chicken with roasted veggies (cauliflower, brussel sprouts, red onion and broccoli) and egg noodles tossed with butter and parmesan cheese.  The dipping sauce, which I served in a seperate bowl along side the chicken, was delicious.  It added a great flavor to the already tasty chicken.

Maybe one day I will get smart about the amount of dinner I prepare for just the two of us.  Sometimes I find great uses for leftovers, and other times I end up throwing food away, which I absolutely hate doing.  I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get Ben to eat the leftover chicken.  The crust would just never be the same!  I ended up making sandwiches using a loaf of Italian flat bread that were pretty good. I used the mustard as a spread on both sides of the bread, topped it with a chicken piece then sprinkled some mozzarella cheese on top.  I wrapped each sandwich in foil and put them in the oven for about 25 minutes.

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Freezer Meals

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With baby countdown at 2 weeks and 1 day I felt it necessary to make some freezer meals for those days (of which I’m sure there will be many) that I don’t have time to cook a real meal.  I searched quite a few websites for recipes that would freeze and reheat well.  I cannot attest to their post-freezer goodness , but I did some taste testing along the way and I was pleased with the flavors and a little upset that I wasn’t going to be able to enjoy the food for dinner that night.

I didn’t want to make typical freezer meals.  Lasagna, chili and casseroles that use cans of cream of whatever soup were just not the kind of meals I was looking for.  Yes, I like to make things difficult for myself.  Yes, I am a bit of a food snob.  Ask me a year from now, and I think my love of convenience foods will have grown.  But since I have the time now, why not make something extra good?

Here is what I ended up with in my freezer.  Click on the meal for a link to the recipe.  The pastitsio and shepherd’s pie include freezing instructions.  I added my own for the chicken pasta.

Pastitsio – a layered Greek noodle dish with ground beef, tomatoes and bechamel sauce.  The beef layer is spiced with olives, oregano, cinnamon and oregano.

Chicken Florentine Artichoke Bake – a bowtie pasta casserole with chicken, artichokes, spinach, sun-dried tomatoes and cheese.

Shepherd’s Pie – Turkey, tomato, peas, corn and mushrooms topped with mashed carrots and potatoes.

These are not the quickest meals to get prepped for the freezer.  But the time you spend now will be time you save in a few weeks or a couple months when you go to enjoy the results of your hard work.  I made the pastitsio the other afternooon, I think it took me about an hour and a half to cook and clean up.  I made the chicken pasta and shepherd’s pie Saturday morning, and I think my total chopping, cooking, boiling, packaging and cleaning time was 3 hours.  Here’s my kitchen during its worst moment on Saturday.

I know some of you have now decided that I am crazy to have spent that much of my Saturday morning on this project, but it’s something I’d planned to do…and so I had to do it.  I also kind of like spending that time in the kitchen and having something to show for it.  It makes me feel productive, and it’s a lot more fun that organizing the stacks of paper on the desk in the office.  And look at my fully stocked freezer!  Two 9×13 pans and two 8×8 pans of food waiting patiently to be eaten.  Why does this kind of thing make me happy?

Here are a few quick notes and changes on these recipes.  Some changes were made because of personal preferences, others because I forgot to or chose not to buy an ingredient.  I am becoming more and more comfortable with improvising in the kitchen.  It makes life so much easier, and it saves money too.  A jar of sun-dried tomatoes was going to set me back $5.99…so I used some sun-dried tomato pesto that I already had.  It makes me feel so resourceful when I can do things like that.

Pastitsio:

  • Left out the red wine
  • Used green olives instead of Kalamata
  • Used only 4 tablespoons of butter, 1 cup of milk and 1 egg in the pasta mixture
  • Use a LARGE and DEEP pan, I did not have room in a regular 9×13 to fit all the sauce.  It broke my heart to pour that creamy bechamel down the drain.

Chicken Florentine Artichoke Pasta

  • Cooked 2 chicken breasts in a skillet and chopped it up to make 2 cups
  • Used a 12 ounce package of pasta instead of 8 ounce
  • Used 2 tablespoons of sun dried tomato pesto instead of the chopped sun dried tomatoes
  • Freezer Instructions: Bake without bread crumbs for 15 minutes, then with bread crumbs for 5 minutes.  Let cool completely, then cover with plastic wrap and a couple layers of foil.  When ready to bake, let it thaw in the fridge overnight, then bake @ 350 F covered with foil for 20 minutes and without foil for 15-20 minutes or until nicely brown on top.

Shepherd’s Pie

  • Used 6 carrots and 4 large baking potatoes which was enough to top 2 8-inch pans
  • Made one of my pans with cheese, and one without
  • Used 1 1/2 cups mushrooms, 1 1/2 cups peas and 1 cup corn in addition to the meat and tomatoes

When Ben and I get around to eating these over the next couple months I will give some feedback about how the thawing and re-heating goes.  If you try them in the meantime and bake them right away, please let me know how they turn out!

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Italian Sausage & Vegetable Soup

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When I bought the ingredients for this soup today it was intended to be “Italian Tortellini Soup”, a recipe I got from a woman who came to a Bible study group I am involved with.  It became this Italian sausage & vegetable soup when I realized that I did not use a large enough pot and had to leave out half the mushrooms and the entire package of tortellini.  Thankfully the soup came out OK and we’ll be enjoying it for the next few days!  It might be a blessing in disguise that my pot was too small.  This way we won’t be eating the same thing all week long.

Soup is quite forgiving.  The world does not come crashing down when you realize you’ve left something out, don’t have quite enough of an ingredient, added your ingredients in the wrong order, or added more of something than directed.  Thank goodness, since almost all of those things happened to me!

Ben was not happy when I told him the tortellini soup had no tortellini.  Ben likes tortellini.  But he ate it anyway and I think he thought it was pretty good.  He had a bowl and a half, so it couldn’t have been that bad.  I really liked how chock full of veggies this soup was.  The amount of sausage made it just meaty enough and provided a nice flavor.  I added a huge handful of torn basil leaves right before serving and that was lovely.  I really enjoy fresh basil and am sad I will have to wait until next summer to grow some of my own.  I have attempted this before…and failed.  But every summer I try again.  Maybe this next time I’ll get it right and it won’t wither and die on me.

Here is the recipe, which was adapted more than just a little bit since I was not quite on top of things when I went grocery shopping.  I will try out the original recipe sometime and post that as well.  Enjoy! (more…)

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Baked Chicken Taquitos

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Some of our great friends are leaving the hustle and bustle of Amarillo and are moving down to Houston at the end of the month.  We’re very sad to lose them and they will be missed!  It’s even more sad since they are some of the only Aggies we know up here!  We had a little going away party for them this past weekend.

We had an hors d’oeurves dinner and had a wide variety of tasty foods that I need recipes for now.  A super delcious queso, spicy jalapeño, black bean and corn dip, and some crazy good chocolate chip cookies.

I made chicken taquitos that turned out to be pretty good.  These were easy to prepare ahead of time, easy to assemble, they re-heated well and were a popular item on our buffet table.

I used a rotisserie chicken, a “Fiesta” blend of cheese and added a little more lime juice and cilantro than the original recipe.  Low fat cream cheese is fine in this recipe.  You can change up the filling any way you’d like.  There are so many options with taquitos!  I made a black bean and corn version that people liked even more than the chicken ones, so I’ll get around to typing that one up in the next couple days.  Enjoy! (more…)

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Tomato Pie

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You may not have a great reaction to this combination; tomato and pie.  Ben didn’t either when I told him what we were having for dinner.  When all was said and done though, he had three helpings last night and we finished off the rest of this today for lunch.

This recipe is from Simply Recipes.  Here is the link. Her picture is so much prettier than what came out of my oven, but it still tasted great.  I will admit to being a little impatient when it comes to eating these days, so maybe if I had let it cool a bit longer I would have had better luck in removing whole pieces instead of chunks of pie.

I get really hungry and excited about eating, and I just cannot wait to eat sometimes!  I’m pregnant, so I’m using that as my excuse.  Only 6 more weeks to use that one.

While Ben was slightly disappointed that there was no meat in our meal, he put on a happy face and eat it anyway.  If you wanted to add meat, I think some crumbled cooked bacon on top of the sautéed onions would be nice.

I will make this simple meal again and I would definitely think about serving it at a ladies lunch or brunch as a whole pie or in little tart shells.

The fresh basil with the tomatoes is a lovely match as always.  I used 2 cups of chopped red tomatoes and 1 cup of chopped yellow tomatoes from the rest of my tomato plant’s crop.  I used a combination of mozzarella and swiss cheese with good results, but some nice sharp cheddar in there would also be tasty.  The Tabasco gives a nice spicy punch, but you could leave it out if you are not a fan of that kick.  Enjoy!

Tomato Pie

Courtesy of Simply Recipes

Ingredients

  • 1 9-inch pie shell
  • 1 yellow onion, chopped and sautéed in olive oil or butter
  • 3-4 tomatoes, cut in half horizontally, squeezed to remove excess juice, roughly chopped, to yield approximately 3 cups chopped tomatoes
  • 1/2 cup sliced basil
  • 2 cups grated cheese (any combination you choose)
  • 3/4 cup mayonnaise (light or regular)
  • 1 teaspoon (or more to taste) of Frank’s Hot Sauce (or Tabasco)
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Place pie shell in oven and cook for 8-10 minutes or longer until lightly golden. If you are starting with a frozen crust, you’ll need to cook it a little longer. If you are using a homemade crust, freeze the crust first, then line the crust with aluminum foil and pre-bake it for 20 minutes, then remove the foil and bake an additional 10 minutes.
  2. Squeeze as much moisture as you can out of the chopped tomatoes, using either paper towels, a clean dish towel, or a potato ricer.
  3. Sprinkle the bottom of the pre-cooked pie shell with onion. Spread the chopped tomatoes over the onions. Sprinkle the sliced basil over the tomatoes.
  4. In a medium bowl, mix together the grated cheese, mayonnaise, Tabasco, a sprinkling of salt and freshly ground black pepper. The mixture should be the consistency of a gooey snow ball. Spread the cheese mixture over the tomatoes.
  5. Place in oven and bake until browned and bubbly, anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes.
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Turkey Sloppy Joes

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This is a healthier version of a sloppy joe, but no less sloppy or tasty.  Ground turkey takes the place of ground beef, and the addition of grated carrots and tomatoes makes these more nutritious.  We ate these last night when my friend Carrie and her 3 girls came through Amarillo on their way to Albuquerque.  It pleased the adults and the kiddos.  Thank you Martha Stewart! Here is the link to her recipe.

I made a few slight changes to Martha’s recipe.  I used a full pound of ground turkey, and instead of the 28 ounces of crushed tomatoes I used a can of diced tomatoes and 2 chopped roma tomatoes.  You could easily use just the one can of diced, but consider draining off some or all of the liquid depending on your personal preference.  Carrie and I had a little discussion about the tragedy that befalls tomato paste most of the time…it doesn’t all get used and so it gets tossed.  Use the entire small can and avoid the waste.

I really like sloppy joes.  It makes me feel like a kid to eat them.  These sloppy joes are a great choice for the adult who wants a sloppy joe and wants it to be tasty.  Enjoy, and get sloppy.

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Black Bean, Sweet Potato and Sausage Soup

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Even though the temperature is now in the 80’s, it was in the upper 40’s here this morning.  This cooler weather inspired me to make a more fall-like dish for dinner.  I love sweet potatoes, but rarely cook with them…I can’t tell you why, it’s just a problem I have.  They’re so good for you, and a great fall ingredient.  I also like their versatility.  Sweet potatoes can be used in tons of dishes, both sweet and savory.  You can even make fries with them!  I am sure the deep frying that makes sweet potato fries so delicious cancels out some of their nutritive value, but it still makes me feel better to eat them instead of regular french fries.  Some of you are saying, “You know that you can bake sweet potato fries in the oven” but you and I both know they’re not as good.  Sorry.

Anyway, I don’t know how I arrived at this recipe.  I searched for sweet potato soup recipes and ended up with black beans and sausage in there at some point.  I found a lot of variations with similar basic ingredients, so I used a few recipes and combined what I liked about each of them to make this soup.

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Argentine Flank Steak with Salsa Criolla

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To kick off the long weekend we had a great dinner with Ben’s parents who made the trip up from Austin to visit.  I’ve had this recipe from Fine Cooking printed out and in my wonderfully organized recipe binder for a while now with every intention of making it, but just never got around to it.  So, I pulled this out with high hopes that it would be a winner.  Here is the link to the original recipe.

It turned out to be a great meal that we all really enjoyed.  All the preparation can be done 24 hours in advance, so that made this meal an even better choice for company.  I rubbed the meat down and made the salsa about 7 hours before dinner, which was plenty of time for the flavors to infuse the meat and for the salsa to get really yummy.

The steak alone has a bit of kick.  The cool, vinegary, slightly sweet salsa is a great complement to the spice.  I served this with a green salad, simple scalloped potatoes, and baguette.  The recipe recommends using any leftover steak and salsa mixed in with scrambled eggs and cheese.  I wish we’d had more leftovers!

Here are the very few changes I made to the recipe.

I used one 2-pound steak since there were only four of us.  However, I made the same amount of rub, so that makes me think that if you plan to make 4 pounds of steak you may want to consider doubling the rub ingredients.

The 1/2 cup of olive oil in the salsa just seemed like too much to me, so I reduced it to 1/4 cup and added just a slight drizzle more.  Mix up the salsa and use your own judgement and preferences as you do so.  Add a small amount to start, then add more if you need it.

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Thin, Crispy Pizza Crust & The Rudy

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There are a few pizza doughs that I’ve tried that are delicious, but require an overnight rise in the refrigerator.  Since I decided to make pizza for dinner the morning of, I wouldn’t have the luxury of letting the dough rise for 12 hours.  So, I went in search of a quick rise pizza crust and found this recipe for a California Pizza Kitchen type crust.  I made the basic dough, but I’ll have to try the honey wheat when I can remember to buy whole wheat four.

One of my favorite restaurants in Amarillo is Fire Slice Pizzeria.  It is a little hard to find, tucked behind a shopping center, but your efforts in finding it will be rewarded.  The last time Ben and I were there they had some really great live music, which is not something you find very much of in Amarillo.  The pizzas here have a great thin crust, and unique and tasty toppings.  They do have a wonderfully simple Margherita pizza, but they also have a green chile cheeseburger pizza that Ben really likes.  My favorite is The Rudy.  The Rudy is a white pizza topped with bacon, spinach, mushrooms and mozzarella cheese.  It is delicious.  I love it.  I want a slice right now.

I tried to recreate this pizza with my new pizza crust recipe.  While it didn’t turn out quite like Fire Slice, the flavors were good and I’d definitely make it again.

The first thing I needed to do was find a white sauce to use.  The sauce I found was OK, but pretty thick.  I added about an extra 1/2 cup of 2% milk to thin it out.  The flavor was good, and I liked it as the base of the pizza.  The real Rudy may not have any sauce under the toppings, but I liked it this way.

Now to the toppings!  These amounts made enough for 2 pizzas, so double them if you intend to make all your pizzas with these toppings.

Bacon: 6 slices of bacon cooked in a skillet, drained and cooled, then chopped up.

Mushrooms: 8 ounces of mushrooms, roasted with olive oil and garlic cloves for 30 minutes at 375°F.

Spinach: 12 ounces of fresh spinach, sauteed in a little olive oil, minced garlic, salt and pepper.

Assembling the Pizzas
  1. Divide your dough into 4 pieces, roll each one out to 10-12 inches in diameter.  The dough will be thin.  Transfer the dough to a pizza peel (or unrimmed cookie sheet) dusted with corn meal.
  2. Spread some of the white sauce on to the pizza, leaving a thin border which you can brush with olive oil is desired.
  3. Top evenly with spinach, mushrooms and bacon.  Sprinkle a little shredded cheese (mozzarella or provolone).
  4. Bake on a preheated pizza stone at 400°F for 15-20 minutes.

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