Chicken with Potato, Spinach, and Tomato Hash

I was recently in Target and bought a Local Crate, a meal kit box that includes ingredients sourced from local farms. It was a great deal because it had a $5 off coupon slapped on the outside.  Apparently they regularly throw coupons on them the day of or before their sell by date.  It worked for me, because I was headed home to make dinner, anyway.  

The Crate I bought was Italian Chicken with Roasted tomatoes, baby kale, and potatoes.  I made the recipe and it was pretty good.  Also, the recipe itself was nice, especially if you are a novice at cooking or are just trying a new technique.  Not only is it illustrated, but it has definitions of cooking terms. 

The only issue was that the original called for using a cast iron skillet.  I do have one, but it is too small.  Instead, I used a skillet on the stove and a baking dish for the oven.  It was more dishes, but it worked just fine.

As I started eating the finished meal I immediately thought: why did they put kale in this instead of spinach?  Baby kale is quite obviously the best of all kinds of kale, but good kale is still...you know... kale.  And anyone with any sense at all will admit that kale is basically bad spinach.

(OK, the last statement isn't true.  I had no idea that kale was so controversial and genuinely thought people just said they liked kale because it is supposedly healthy.  It allows them to be all superior with phrases like "I'm eating a FANTASTIC kale power salad/smoothie/quinoa bowl..." or whatever.  But when I commented about baby kale on my facebook page, people felt pretty comfortable being strongly pro-kale.  I guess some people really do like it?  I will never really understand it, but to each their own.  But still...it's just bad spinach.)

After my "it should have had spinach" thought, I wondered if I could make the meal easier/cheaper/healthier to reproduce in other ways, too. Among other things, I decided to nix the oil and use Roma tomatoes instead of roasted ones.  Here's what I made from scratch on my own.  It turned out really well, though if I'm being totally honest it would probably be even better with some crumbled bacon mixed in there.

Ingredients:

• 1 shallot, peeled and thinly sliced
• 2 gloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 1 Roma tomato (or another kind of "solid" tomato), chopped
• 2 medium potatoes, scrubbed and chopped into 1/2 inch cubes
• 2 chicken breasts
• 2 Tbsp. Greek yogurt (or you could use sour cream)
• 2 Tbsp. water
• Fresh baby spinach (I used two big fistfuls from a 1 lb. box, but you could certainly use more!)
• salt and pepper
• other spices as desired--I used a few shakes of roasted garlic powder and some lemon pepper
• Note: Roasted garlic powder is NOT regular garlic powder.  It has a much mellower and less sharp/harsh taste.  In fact, it tastes like--gasp!--roasted garlic instead of raw garlic.  They sell it at Penzey's, a company that has wonderful products, but also a wonderful sense of corporate responsibility and social involvement.  I'm always really happy with what I get from them.  
• non-stick spray or oil

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
2. Heat a large skillet pan to a medium-high.
3. Season chicken with salt and pepper
4. Spray skillet with non-stick spray and sear chicken on both sides until golden brown (2 to 3+ minutes per side.
   
5. Put chicken on a plate and then turn the heat down to medium.  
6. Use the same pan to saute the shallot until translucent (1 to 2 minutes)
7. Add garlic and potatoes and saute, stirring occasionally and scraping up any bits sticking to the bottom
8. Cook until potatoes start to brown (7+ minutes)
   
9. Stir tomatoes into potatoes
10. Transfer to baking dish sprayed with non-stick spray. (I used a deep ceramic pie-type pan, but a pyrex would work, too)
    
11. Nestle chicken into the hash
    
12. Cover with foil (or, you know, forget to do that...it'll probably turn out OK.  Mine did!)
13. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender when stabbed with a fork and chicken is cooked through.
    
    
14. Take pan out of oven and transfer chicken to a surface to "let rest"
15. In a small bowl, mix water, yogurt, and a pinch of salt and pepper and the other spices that sound good to you.
    
    
16. Drizzle over hash and fold in spinach
17. Stir/toss until spinach is wilted and veggies are coated in cream sauce
18. If you need to--if your dish isn't big enough to fold all the fresh spinach into, for example (not like that happened to me, or anything.  *Definitely* not. 😉)-- you can put the pan back in the oven for a minute or two to help the spinach wilt more quickly and with less stirring
19. Divide hash between two plates and serve with chicken.  I recommend slicing up the chicken and stirring it into hash.

Makes 2 servings

Pasta with Veggies and Peanut Sauce

One of the publishers at ALA Midwinter always gives away their display books to people who can answer 3 trivia questions.  Of course I had to try to win one...and I did.  Called "The Clueless Vegetarian: a cookbook for the aspiring vegetarian," I figured it would have some good ideas.  And after taking a look at it, I think it does!

The first recipe I tried was one for "Spicy Peanut Pasta."  I made a few changes to make it easier and healthier: swapping fresh veggies for frozen, adding more vegetables and sauce, using whole wheat pasta, and dividing it into more servings.  (For some reason the book said a full pound of pasta would be only make 4 servings, but I divided it into 7).

Sauce Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
• 3/4 cup hot water
• 3 Tbsp. soy sauce
• 3 Tbsp. rice vinegar
• 2 tsp. vegetable oil
• 3 cloves garlic
• ground red pepper flakes (I did about 6 shakes from my small shaker, could definitely have done more)

Pasta Ingredients:

• 1 lb. whole wheat spaghetti
• 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil 
• 1/2 medium onion, chopped
• 2 tsp. fresh ginger root, finely grated
• 2 medium carrots, coarsely grated
• 2 packages frozen steam-in-bag stir fry mixed vegetables
• 1 package frozen steam-in-bag cauliflower
• green onions, optional 
• roasted peanuts, optional 

Directions:

1. Add all sauce ingredients together in a blender and blend until smooth
2. Cook pasta until al dente, drain, and rinse with cool water
   
3. Heat vegetables in the microwave for less time than directed, just long enough to be unfrozen/warmish, but not to thoroughly heat.
4. Heat oil in large pot (I used the same one that I cooked the pasta in), add onion and ginger, cook for 1 to 2 minutes over high heat.
   
5. Add veggies and grated carrots and cook until carrots are tender and other veggies are thoroughly warm
    
6. Add cooked pasta and stir, then heat for a minute or two
7. Add sauce and stir, cooking until everything is heated through
   
   
8. Divide and top bowls with peanuts and/or green onion, as desired. 

Organizing the most unorganized of kitchen drawers

Before I left for the ALA Midwinter meeting in the last week of January, I decided to do a bit of an organization project in my kitchen.  Basically I was tired of raking around in my "other kitchen stuff" drawer looking for what I needed to use.  On top of everything else, some of the things in the drawer are stabby (or grate-y)!

I used some sturdy cardboard from a box, wrapped the pieces in wrapping paper--to go with the red theme in my kitchen--and put them in diagonally.  They are held in/up with scotch tape at the moment, and between that and the stuff in the sections, it seems to be holding up.  

One section has my tea stuff, one has measuring spoons, one has measuring cups, and one is everything else. 

I'm sure this will not be a permanent change--I should use contact paper or something that is more heavy duty--but it's working well for now and I feel good about at least one area where I'm being more organized!