Tag: Martha Stewart

Chicken with Plum Chutney – plus a give away!

Chicken with Plum Chutney

Chicken with Plum Chutney

Do you like chicken? I like chicken. It seems to always be a good backup dinner. For example… not feeling spendy/fancy enough to buy fish? But don’t want something as carb-y as pasta? Answer: Chicken. You can do so many things with it! Cut it up and use it in a stir fry, smash it and coat it in Panko. Roast it in the oven with root vegetables. Make soup. The list goes on and on.

One of my personal favorite chicken recipes is this recipe for chicken with plum chutney from Martha Stewart. When I was in high school, we used to get Martha’s monthly everyday food magazines, and I would always go through them one by one and dog-ear all the recipes I wanted to make. This one has been by far the best recipe I have ever made from those things, and has stuck around the longest. It became a family favorite when I made it at my family reunion, and I it was included in the cookbook of family recipes that I gave my mom for her birthday last fall. It also is one of the few meals I’ve made for Jonah’s parents (this one even got the honor of being served on his dad’s birthday), so you know it’s good. It’s perfectly summery: fruity and tangy, but also sweet and a beautiful purple color.

Chicken with Plum Chutney

Ingredients

4 (6 to 8 ounces each) boneless skinless chicken breast halves
Salt and ground pepper
2 Tbl olive oil
1/2 medium red onion, chopped
1/2 jalapeno chile, (ribs and seeds removed for less heat, if you want), chopped
4 red plums, (about 1 pound), halved, pitted, and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/3 cup packed light-brown sugar
2 Tbl cider vinegar
3/4 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp ground ginger

Instructions

Start by seasoning the chicken with salt and pepper. In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium heat. Put the chicken into the hot pan and cook until it’s opaque throughout, about 5 minutes per side. Transfer the cooked chicken to a plate and set aside for later use.

Now let’s make the chutney. Put the rest of the olive oil into the same skillet (No need to even rinse! Look at that, a one pot meal!), as well as the onion and jalapeno. Cook for about 3 minutes, or until softened. Increase the heat to medium-high and add the plums, sugar, vinegar, curry powder, ginger, and 1/4 cup of water. Now, I like to do a little less water so it isn’t quite as runny, but do it how you like. If you add too much water, you can always let it cook down a bit more (though everything in the chutney will get more cooked); On the other hand, if you add less to begin with, you can always add more later. Do whichever suits you. Bring the chutney to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Cook until the plums are softened and the liquid is slightly thick – the recipe says 8 minutes, but I always find that this takes a bit longer.

When the chutney is ready, add the chicken and any juices from the plate back into the pan and simmer until the chicken is heated through. Season to taste with S&P and serve the chicken with loads of chutney spooned on top. In college, I liked to make large batches of this chutney and then freeze it, and then all I really needed to do was cook up some chicken and voila, dinner. Or you can put it over some plain pasta. Really, any vehicle you need to get this chutney into your mouth is fine. But chicken is best.

Ticket Give Away!

Now, speaking of chicken, I’ve got my very first give away on the blog! Kind of cool, right? It’s really only for Portlanders, though… sorry out-of-towners. Last week, while on vacation, I was contacted to see if I wanted to offer FREE tickets to the Foster Farms Fresh Chicken Cooking Contest. Exciting, no? At this point in the game, this is the regional finals at the Art Institute of Portland. The contest takes place on August 10th (in a week and a half!) at 9:30 am. You would be able to attend the event, watch the contest live, and sample the contestants’ dishes. You also will have a chance to see the professional kitchen at the Art Institute, which will be pretty cool, I bet.

Now, I can’t attend because, you know, I work two jobs, but I want anyone who reads this blog and wants to go to please leave a comment below with your full name! We’ve got 10 tickets to give away here folks, so get going! On Monday (or Tuesday), I’ll pick 10 people from the comment section to give tickets to. Want more information? Go here.

Steak, Crispy Potatoes, and Watercress

steak

steak
steak

I found this recipe for steak with potatoes and watercress on Martha Stewart’s website and thought it would make a nice weeknight meal. It did! Unfortunately, my local grocery store didn’t have skirt steak, which was why I was drawn to the recipe in the first place. Some thinly sliced chuck steak did the job though.

I had never had watercress all by itself either – and had never even purchased it from the store before.  It was pretty bitter, but yummy with the dressing.

Steak, Crispy Potatoes, and Watercress

Ingredients

2 garlic cloves
salt and pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 pounds golf-ball-sized potatoes, sliced 1 inch thick
1 1/2 pounds skirt steak, cut into 4 equal pieces
2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 bunches watercress, bottom of stems chopped off

Instructions

Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Mince garlic, and sprinkle with salt. Transfer to a small bowl; stir in thyme and 1 tablespoon oil. On a baking sheet, toss potatoes with garlic mixture; bake until browned on underside, 20 to 25 minutes. I dribbled some more oil on the potatoes once they were laid out on the baking sheet.

Meanwhile, heat a large frying pan on high. Sprinkle steaks with salt and pepper, and cook (in two batches if necessary) until medium-rare, 3 to 6 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate to rest.

While steaks rest, make salad: In a large bowl, whisk together vinegar, Dijon, and remaining oil; season with salt and pepper. Add watercress, and toss to combine. Serve steaks with potatoes and salad.

Pie Crust + Apple Pie

Apple Pie

Apple Pie
Apple Pie

Apple Pie

Alright folks. It’s time. Time for what, you ask? Time for me to give to you all the recipe for my pie crust, for which this blog is named.

My father’s favorite kind of pie is strawberry-rhubarb. “Favorite kind of pie” is kind of an understatement. He LOVES anything strawberry-rhubarb, but pie especially. Many years ago, when I was in high school, he and I spent an entire summer finding the perfect strawberry-rhubarb pie recipe. We tried every recipe we could find, and eventually perfected our own recipes for both the crust and the filling.

Last weekend, when Jonah and I had that dinner party (where we made the braised short ribs, the recipe for which you can find here), I made an apple pie for dessert. It seemed like the perfect thing to make, and I hadn’t made a pie in quite a while. Making a pie is, for me, one of the most therapeutic things in the world. Rolling out the dough, stirring up the filling, putting it all in a dish and waiting while the apartment fills with the smell… oh man. I just love it.

This post is dedicated to my friend Peri, who texted me today asking for my pie crust recipe because “they have no frozen pie shells in New Zealand.” First of all, I was disappointed to hear that Peri would ever rely on a frozen pie shell because they are simply horrible compared to a real homemade crust. But also, this recipe is my gift to her because she’s about to head off to New Zealand, where she has a Fulbright Scholarship to study the history of some fault lines (she’s a geologist). I wish her the best and I hope that now she can make delicious pies while she’s there!

Apple Pie

Makes 1 beautiful pie

Ingredients

Pie Dough

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, COLD, cut into chunks
1/2 cup vegetable shortening, ALSO COLD, and also cut into chunks
3-6 Tablespoons ice water

Apple Filling

12 apples (I used 9 granny smith, 3 braeburn because I really like them)
3/4 cup of sugar (plus more for sprinkling if you want)
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 egg, beaten (optional)

Instructions

Pie Dough

I always use a food processor for this, but I have done it without a food processor or a rolling pin. It is possible. Combine flour and salt in the food processor, pulse. Add butter, pulse again until mixture is slightly course. Add shortening (I like to use the stick form of crisco, it’s so easy to deal with), pulse. Now add water. I like to add the water a couple tablespoons at a time so that I don’t overdo it. You want to add as little as possible. Now, pulse again. When the dough is wet enough, it will come together in a large ball in your food processor. Dump this out onto a lightly floured surface, cut it in half, and form 2 discs. Wrap them in plastic wrap and put them in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. The dough can also be made and refrigerated or frozen for quite some time.

Apple Filling and Assembly

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Peel, core, and thinly slice those apples (that’s right, all of them). In a large bowl, combine apples, sugar, lemon zest and juice, spices, and cornstarch. Toss well.

Now let’s talk about rolling out your pie dough. What I ALWAYS do is unwrap my discs and use the plastic wrap as a helper/barrier/thing. I lay the two pieces on top of each other so they’re kind of like a plus sign (perpendicular to each other…make sense?). I think sprinkle the plastic wrap generously with flour, plop my disc down, and roll that bad boy out. Be sure that your rolling pin and the surface of the dough are floured well too so that it doesn’t stick and then tear. The beauty of using the plastic wrap this way is that instead of rolling your dough on your rolling pin like many people advise (it never works for me because the dough is too fragile), you can just slip your hand under the plastic wrap, flip it into the dish, and then gently pull it off, leaving the dough perfectly laid in the pie dish. Hopefully all this makes sense.

Now, spoon the apples into pie pan. Dot with butter, roll out your other disc of pie dough, and cover the pie. I trim the excess dough off the edges, and then pinch the two layers into a little edge around the pie. Be sure to cut several steam vents across top. If you want, you can brush the top with beaten egg, and sprinkle with additional sugar.

Now pop that sucker in the oven! I always like to put my pies on a cookie sheet when they bake, just incase some of the juices overflow. I hate it when things drip onto the bottom of the oven, and then it burns and gets smoky everytime you bake anything. So, yeah, it helps avoid that. Bake the pie for about an hour, or until the crust is golden brown and the juices are bubbling. I baked this pie for exactly an hour, and the apples still had a little bit of crunch to them, which I really enjoyed. Let the pie cool for a long time so that the filling can cool and congeal, I say at least 6 hours. Serve with vanilla ice cream (if you want, it also tastes really good plain OR with salted caramel ice cream if you can get your hands on some).

Cheddar and Sage Biscuits

Cheddar and Sage Biscuits
Cheddar and Sage Biscuits

Cheddar and Sage Biscuits

A couple of weeks ago, Jonah and I got that nasty cold that’s been floating around. We were both out of commission for a few days, which really sucked. When I started finally feeling a little bit better, I really wanted to make some bread. See, a couple weeks before we got sick I bought some active dry yeast because I really want to start making bread. I’m terrified of it, for some reason, and also I don’t want to go through the learning process. I just want to start making beautiful crusty sourdoughs to begin with. But I think I should learn about the process and the ingredients and all that too, rather than perhaps biting off more than I can chew.

Anyway, back to the story. So I wanted to make bread but I really wasn’t feeling up to it: I was still a little light-headed, not to mention drugged up. But I wanted something bread-like. I recalled a recipe I had seen on marthastewart.com. If you have never been to her website, you really ought to. More recipes, craft, and homemaking ideas than you will ever have time to look at. So I went to my pinterest where I had saved the recipe (more on pinterest later), and got started: Cheddar and Sage Biscuits.

Sounds good, no?

Cheddar & Sage Biscuits

I don’t think it would hurt to add a little more cheese and a little more sage to the recipe. These ingredients were really subtle, and I think I was hoping they’d be a little more obvious in taste. The recipe also says to use a food processor, but mine was not nearly big enough for all this stuff. It nearly overflowed by the time I got to the butter. What I would recommend is putting either half or 3/4 of the flour in to begin with, then everything except the buttermilk, then transferring either to an electric mixer (kitchenaid) or hand mixing and adding in the remaining flour and buttermilk. But I dont’ know, try whatever you want. Just don’t blame me when you can’t fit it all in your food processor.

Ingredients

4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for working
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons coarse salt
2 cups grated sharp white cheddar, or whatever cheddar you have around (also, a little parmesan would probably taste delicious too…)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 1/2 cups low-fat buttermilk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In a food processor, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add cheese and sage, pulse to combine. Add butter and pulse until mixture is the texture of coarse meal. Add buttermilk and pulse until combined. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead it comes together. Don’t overknead it! With a floured rolling pin, roll dough to a 3/4-inch thickness. With a floured 2 3/4-inch round biscuit cutter (or, you know, a cup), cut out biscuits (reroll and cut scraps).

Place biscuits on a baking sheet, 1 1/2 inches apart (I did only 6 per batch to ensure they had enough room), and bake until puffed and golden, 12 to 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

They’re also really good if you cut them in half and put them in the toaster for breakfast the next morning. I took little tupperwares of these biscuits to some friends who are still in school at Lewis & Clark. They work their butts off, and so sometimes I really like to bring them a little surprise treat. I think they appreciate it.