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.