This classic Pierre Franey recipe is delicious. Extremely basic technique to cook dredged breasts in a skillet, then remove and make a simple sauce of shallots, garlic, lemon juice/zest, broth and thyme.
Because chicken breasts are so stupid large these days, I sliced mine in half (rather unevenly, I must admit) and made the recipe with two halved breasts. I had the oven on to 250 and removed the mostly-cooked breasts to a separate oiled pan and held them in the oven while I made the sauce with a bit of delay to account for the planned meal time. Worked fine, as I didn’t overcook the breasts to begin with.
I love a shallot-y sauce and had about 2/3 of a large shallot in the fridge leftover from salad dressing-making, and I was determined to use every tiny scrap of it. Really the only modification I made was I didn’t “finely mince” the garlic because that makes bitter garlic and who likes that; instead, I very thinly sliced it. I had fresh thyme from the pot I was growing outside all summer, but which has been in the garage for a while now… with these arctic temps, I finally gave up and harvested all the herbs and brought them in. Recipe says you can use dried thyme if that’s what you have.
I used canned chicken broth and whisked in the butter at the end, as one does. Fortunately I also had some rice in the fridge, because this kind of savory lemony sauce REALLY wants something else to soak it up.
ONE POT SPICED TURKEY AND RICE
I one and a halfed the recipe and it worked well in my Le Creuset. While not particularly exciting, this was a solid weeknight meal… It is missing a little zing… maybe will add some lime juice at the end next time. This was an acceptable use of ground turkey for me - though I may even go heavier on the spices/seasoning next time. Served with cucumber/avocado/lime salad, which was a nice counterpoint.
This caught my eye since I had a bunch of the pantry items - canned pumpkin and coconut milk as well as copious amounts of peanut butter. I used half a jalapeno in the hopes that my daughter might eat this if it wasn’t too spicy but she doesn’t seem interested, so I topped my portion with a healthy douse of lilikoi hot sauce. While not super nuanced in terms of flavor, this is warming and totally in my flavor wheelhouse. I would probably add the hotter pepper,more PB, and more ginger. Might be nice with chopped salted peanuts on top.
Not sure what else belongs in this flavor profile from a regional perspective but I’ll research it. Super easy - I made a double batch for lunches this week.
I had leftover caramelized onions from focaccia I had made last week, and a bit of unexpected time today. So I made this, including the tart dough. The tart dough came together pretty easily and while it was a bit finicky when rolling out (had to add some more ice water), it came out great. The filling turned out a bit sweet for my taste (maybe because my onions were caramelized, which is not called for in the recipe ) but I loved the simple diy herbed goat cheese and the ample portion of squash within the galette. I dont get much of the smoked paprika flavor so I may amp that up next time.
This was good! I wasn’t sure about using jalepenos but they work. I probably had more Brussel sprouts than called for but I usually do. Added some pasta water at the end to deglaze the pan. Kind of ugly but I’ll make again!
SPINACH ARTICHOKE PASTA
I pulled this together in record time last night. I only had some half and half and 1%, and I couldn’t rationalize two cups of heavy cream for such a small amount of pasta anyway. I’m sure it’d have been much creamier and would have thickened better in the oven with the heavy cream, but alas. I wonder if mixing in some cream cheese would have given it the trademark taste of the actual dip. At the last minute I mixed in the rest of the caramelized onions from last week, which was a great move. An even better move would have been a bit of lemon juice to brighten it and my husband suggested a bit of crumbled bacon on top. Breadcrumbs would be good too on top for a little texture. Notes aside, we enjoyed it and like I said it was fast and satisfying. I’ll make this again with tweaks.
CLASSIC RANCH DRESSING
I made this as a dip to go along with the oven baked chicken tenders (upthread somewhere) - not my first time making it. I didn’t have any parsley so omitted it. The dried chive is key here in my opinion. I also didn’t have buttermilk but wanted it thicker anyway as a dip vs a dressing so low-fat Greek yogurt did the trick. I added a bit of lemon juice to loosen it a bit and add some brightness. It’ll go well with the oven buffalo wings I’m making for the Superbowl later.
I think it’s a good base recipe with the potential for greatness with riffing. The caramelized onions were so good with it and I think some crunch from either bacon (which will add needed salt too) or toasted breadcrumbs would be great as well. I do think I may try to replace some of the cream/milk with cream cheese next time. I think it may give it some of the dip flavor I thought it was missing.
YAKI UDON Ingredients online - technique as follows:
Make sauce
Cook noodles, drain, toss with sesame oil
Cook meat and remove from pan
Cook vegetables (onion and mushrooms first, then everything else)
Add sauce, noodles, and meat back to pan - toss well to combine
I made some changes (see below), but mostly I found the sauce to be missing something - and I couldn’t figure out what to add it. I guess it was overall just okay? Thinking back, I should have added some ginger with the garlic, maybe?
My changes: gluten-free soy sauce for both regular and dark soy sauce, plus 2t brown sugar. Used dried brown rice udon noodles (love!) and chopped broccoli crowns instead of bok choy, also skipped the onion.
Thanks. It felt like the right amount (volume) of sauce, but I think some bouillon/BTB paste would have helped. Oh well, we all got our vegetables and I’ll eat the leftovers.
CRISP TOFU KATSU
Wow, I really liked this. I’ve never cooked with tofu before but I would definitely make this again. I only made the tofu and the sauce (no quinoa or mushrooms). The sauce was a bit incongruous in terms of flavoring - not what I think of when I think of katsu - but delicious and made a lot of extra, which I will use on salads this week. The tofu I had from Wegmans was extra firm and held together (mostly). I didn’t pre-brown the breadcrumbs which I usually do with the NYT chicken fingers recipe and which I’d probably do next time- just like a bit more color/crunch on them. The tofu itself doesn’t have much flavor but it crisped up great and was a good vehicle for sauce. I sprinkled some salt on when they came out of the oven. It definitely satisfied a fried type craving for me without actually being fried. Air fry setting on my oven worked great - flipped them half way.
ROASTED MUSHROOMS WITH GOAT CHEESE AND GRITS
The grits were great, don’t think I’ve done them with goat cheese before and I liked the combo. I’d do sauteed mushrooms next time. The roasted mushrooms were too dry for my taste. Easy weeknight dinner and plopped on top of a huge pile of wilted spinach was pretty well rounded for our taste so it was a one dish meal.
I love the idea of a big pot of red sauce simmering away all day. This was… just okay. Based on reviewers’ comments, I used boneless country ribs instead of shoulder and did not add water with the tomatoes. Both of these changes worked well. I wanted turkey sausages but could only find chicken-basil sausages, so I omitted the extra basil - thank goodness, because the sausages were more like !BASIL! in a chicken base. Finally, I used my preferred frozen meatballs (Wegmans, gluten-free) just to save a little time on a weeknight. I actually made the sauce yesterday, then fridged it overnight - reheated today and cooked the meatballs while the pasta was cooking. Like I said, it was just okay - tomato with lots of meat. It was missing something but we couldn’t figure out what. We’ll eat the leftovers (maybe not the sausages) but I don’t think I will make this again.
