Chicken Salad

2 cups diced cooked chicken
1 cup diced celery
1 cup green grapes, halved
1/2 cup slivered blanched almonds
3/4 cup mayonnaise
Black pepper 

Mix first 5 ingredients together in a large bowl. Add pepper to taste. Refrigerate. Enjoy.

Grilled Tuna Steak

Buy some tuna steaks, about an inch thick. Unwrap them. If they smell like fish - they aren't any good! Fresh fish should smell basically like nothing. Or maybe just a fresh-ish smell.

Pat the tuna steaks dry, and place in a dish for marinating. Pour about 1/4 cup of Dale's seasoning over them, sprinkle with Montreal Steak Seasoning and a little bit of dried dill. Turn them over and sprinkle the other side with both those things, too. Let them sit like that for about 30 to 45 minutes on the counter to let them get some of the chill off of them.

Heat a grill pan on the stove over medium high heat. Drizzle one side of tuna steaks with olive oil, and place on sizzling hot pan, oil side down. Grill for about 2 minutes, then do them a 90 degree turn (to create the cool grill marks). Cook another minutes or so, then drizzle top with oil and flip. Grill another 2 minutes, then rotate. Grill another minute or two until desired doneness. Tuna should not be well done, but doneness is a matter of taste.

Beef Enchiladas

3 cans red enchilada sauce (I strongly recommend La Preferida brand, in the white and red can)
1 large can diced tomatoes
12 corn tortillas
3 c. shredded cheddar cheese
1-1/2 lbs. ground beef
1 medium sized onion, chopped
vegetable oil (for softening tortillas)
green onion for garnish

Preheat oven to 425.
Brown beef with onion in saute pan. Drain off fat. Dump in bowl.
Open enchilada sauce, dump in a bowl.
Open tomatoes, drain well, dump in a bowl.
Open cheese, dump in a bowl.
Get out a 9 x 13 baking pan.
In a small frying pan, heat just enough oil to cover bottom of pan. Medium to medium high heat should be good.

Tear off 2 square pieces of aluminum foil. One at a time, put tortillas in oil. Fry just a few seconds, flip, fry a few seconds more. Remove to aluminum foil, covering each time with the other piece of foil. You'll end up with a stack of soft, warm tortillas in between two pieces of foil to keep them warm and soft.
When tortillas are all finished, you're ready to roll.
Place a tortilla in the sauce, covering both sides, then lay it in the 9 x 13 pan. Put a handful of ground beef in there, down the middle. Top with a handful of tomatoes and a handful of cheese. Roll up. Repeat until all tortillas are tucked nicely together in the pan. (Messy job.)
You can put any remaining tomatoes, meat, sauce, and cheese on top.
Bake at 425 about 30 or 40 minutes till bubbly.
Top with chopped green onions if desired.
Serve with refried beans and rice.

Stuffed Peppers

OK. Should have taken the picture before we started eating them. Sorry. Nevertheless...

4 Green Bell Peppers (all about the same size, all nicely shaped so they'll sit on the pan)
1 lb. lean ground beef
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 large can tomato sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 c. cooked rice
2 c. shredded mozzarella cheese

Carefully cut the top stems off of the peppers, then reach in with a spoon and scrape out all the membranes and seeds (compost or throw those parts away). Put the peppers in a pot of boiling water for just about 3 or 4 minutes. Remove them from the water. Drain on a rack. (The peppers will be little bowls for the filling)

Prepare a pan to cook the peppers in by spreading about 1/4 c of the tomato sauce across the bottom. This will prevent the peppers from sticking to the pan as they bake. Place the peppers, standing with the hole on top, in the prepared pan.

In a large frying pan, brown ground beef and onion till beef is no longer pink and onion is translucent. Add garlic. Cook another minute or two. Remove from heat.

Add tomato sauce to the beef mixture and stir. Next, stir in however much cooked rice looks good. Add some rice, stir, taste. Repeat till you're satisfied with beef to rice ratio.

Spoon the meat/rice mixture into the peppers, filling each pepper about half way.

Put 2 or 3 T of mozzarella on top of the filling in each pepper.

Then fill the peppers up to the top with the meat mixture. Top each with cheese. I spread any extra filling around the peppers in the pan.

Bake at 400 about 30 minutes, till cheese is bubbly. (Don't forget there's cheese deep inside each pepper, too. So give that time to get good and hot.)

Spread

Rosemary/Orange Chicken with Pasta

 

Marinade

1 c orange juice

4 T extra virgin olive oil

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

1 T orange zest

3 nice slices of fresh ginger

Mix up the marinade in a plastic or glass bowl. Add 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts. Make sure all chicken is nicely coated in the marinade. Cover and let sit for at least an hour.

Preheat oven to 400. Heat a grilling pan if you have one (otherwise just use a big skillet) over medium-high until it's hot. Brush pan with vegetable oil. Lay 4 stems of rosemary on the pan and immediately cover each with a chicken breast. Don't move the chicken around! Let it sear for a minute or two. Lay a stem of rosemary on top of each breast then flip (so the new rosemary is under the chicken). Sear that side for a minute or two. You want to develop a nice brown exterior (with grill marks if you're using a grilling pan). Next, put the whole pan into the preheated oven and cook another 10 minutes or until done. Let the chicken rest for 5 minutes before you cut into it. Remove any pieces of ginger or rosemary clinging to the outside. Place chicken on cutting board and slice.

Pasta

1 bunch or broccoli, stems removed and tops cut into bite sized florets
3/4 c matchstick carrots
8 oz wheat pasta (I used bow-tie)

Boil pasta while preparing sauce. During the last 3 minutes of cooking, add broccoli and carrot. Then drain thoroughly.

Pasta Sauce

1 T extra virgin olive oil
1/2 c minced shallot
1 c white wine
1 T red pepper flakes
1 c orange juice
1/2 c chicken broth
1 c evaporated milk
3 cloves garlic

Heat oil. Add shallots and garlic. Saute over medium to medium-low heat for 6 minutes or until cooked but not browned. Add wine. Increase heat to medium or just till it bubbles gently. Cook until reduced by half (about 10 minutes). Add orange juice and broth. Simmer for 5 minutes. Add milk. Cook another 10 or 15 minutes or until sauce is desired consistency. Add a little bit of orange zest.

Toss with pasta from above.

Put a nice pile of the pasta mixture in the center of the plate and top with the sliced chicken breast. A little touch of parmesan might be good on this, but I didn't have any. The dish could be garnished with a little twisty slice of orange. I served this with oven roasted baby carrots and a mini-loaf of whole grain wheat bread. Delicious!

Cut Out Cookies

 

Obviously, I used valentine's cookie cutters, but these would be great Chrismas cookies too.

1-1/2 sticks unsalted butter (softened)
1 c. sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 c. flour (all purpose flour)
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt

Cream butter and sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time incorporating each. Add vanilla.

In another bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Mix thoroughly (I use a whisk to do this).

Slowly add the dry mixture to the wet.

When nicely mixed, flop the mixture onto a piece of plastic wrap. Flatten it down into a disc, wrap it up and put it in the refrigerator for at least an hour. You can leave it overnight if you like.

When it's time to bake the cookies, remove the dough from the fridge. If it's too hard to roll out let it sit for a half hour or so. Cut the disc in half.

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare your cookie sheets by covering the bottom with parchment paper.

Lightly sprinkle a surface with flour, then roll out the first half of the dough. It should be about 1/4 inch thick. Cut out the cookies and place them on the sheets. These don't really expand very much so 1/2 inch or so apart will be fine.

Bake for 8 to 12 minutes depending on how large your cookies are. They should get slightly browned around the edge, but still be nice and pale in the middle.

Cool on a rack. Ice after they've cooled.

You can make the icing by mixing 2 or 3 Tblsp. of very hot water with 1 cup of sifted confectioner's sugar. Or, you can buy white icing pre-made. Either way, use food coloring to make the colors you like.

Chicken Fried Rice

 

2 c. cooked rice (cold)

2 c. shredded chicken (I used one of those pre-cooked rotisserie chickens)

2 large carrots, coarsely chopped

1 yellow onion, coarsely chopped

4 green onions, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

2 eggs, beaten 

Black pepper

Vegetable oil, for frying

Butter, for cooking the eggs

Tamari sauce (or soy sauce)

Cook onion and carrot in about a tablespoon of vegetable oil over medium low heat till they tender up. Add garlic and green onions for the last minute or so of cooking. 

While this cooks, put a little butter in a small pan and cook the scrambled eggs. Do not overcook them. Set them aside for now.

In a large frying pan, heat 2 T vegetable oil over med-hi heat. Do not let the oil smoke - once it shimmers, toss in the cold rice. Stir fry for a few minutes, till it starts to crisp up and pop a little. 

Throw in chicken and vegetable mixture. Stir. Turn down heat to just below medium. Cook till all ingredients are warmed and nicely mingled.

Add soy sauce (or tamari) to taste.

Remove from heat, add eggs. Stir and serve.