Mustardy Baked Chicken with Bacon, Chard, and Spinach

The Meat

- 2 bone-in chicken thighs and legs, skin on

- 1 1/2 tablespoons wholegrain dijon mustard

- 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

- 1 tablespoon bacon grease

- dill, salt, pepper, savory, fennel seeds, caraway seeds to taste

- 2-3 strips bacon

The Veggies

- 1 1/2 cups of spinach, raw

- 1 cup chard, chopped

- 1 head broccoli, chopped

- 1/2 heirloom tomato, chopped

- 1/4 cup water

- salt to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Prepare the chicken thighs and legs by placing them in an oven safe baking dish.  Mix together the lemon juice, mustard, and seasoning, and rub the mixture all over the chicken.  Dot the skin with bacon grease and cook for 1 hour.  Check on the chicken occasionally, basting with whatever drippings are there if the chicken looks dry.  Before taking the chicken out completely from the oven, cut open the thickest part of the meat on the thigh to make sure the juices run clear and your chicken isn't undercooked.  

On a griddle pan, fry up the bacon on high heat.  Cook until crispy on both sides.  Save the produced bacon grease for the veggies.  Set aside the bacon to cool some, and then cut it into bite-size pieces to mix into the veggies later. 

To make the vegetables, I sauteed the broccoli, chard, and spinach together in bacon grease and a small amount of water.  I seasoned just with salt and cook for 10 minutes on medium heat, constantly stirring.  Then I tossed in the crumbled bacon and chunks of heirloom tomato.  I continued to cook the mixture on low heat for another 15 minutes, stirring pretty often.  When everything is all done, plate it and enjoy!  If you wanted to be extra fancy, you could melt a slice of swiss on top of the chicken to give this meal a Cordon-Bleu twist.

So I Entered A Contest...

As many of you know, my husband and I try to eat Primally, and we love to follow Mark's Daily Apple, created by Mark Sisson.  Mark started a Primal Recipe Video Contest, and we decided that it might be fun if I participated.

The video below is me cooking a tasty chicken meal!  It is totally unedited (we watched it through and while it is long, we thought it'd be more fun to watch the whole process, like a cooking show, instead of editing it down) and kind of funny - the smoke alarm went off right in the middle of taping it!! But we enjoyed ourselves and I made another fun meal.  Hopefully it does well in the contest, but really, cooking the meal was reward enough.  

Without further ado, I give you:

Tenderized Yogurt Chicken With Fresh Veggies

Watch it to learn how to make this meal!

A Marsala Meal

What. A. Meal.  

We had friends over for dinner on this beautiful, warm Friday night, and I decided to go all out, formulating a fantastic meal around a main ingredient - Marsala wine.  I use a sweet, superiore Marsala when I cook.  It is a versatile cooking wine, since it goes so well with tomatoes, cream, fish, veal, chicken, and so many vegetables that it is hard to go wrong.  I made boneless, skinless chicken thighs in a Marsala cream sauce and I also used the Marsala to make stuffed onions.  Since one of our guests was vegetarian, I separated some of the sauce and made some rosa bianca eggplant steaks as a substitute for the chicken.  Add some of my standard roasted sweet potatoes and turnips into the mix and we had ourselves quite the meal!

The Meat

- 6-10 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (approximately 2-3 thighs per person)

- olive oil for cooking

The Sauce

- 1 1/2 cups of whole milk

- 1 cup of Marsala wine

- 3-4 tablespoons of tomato paste

- 4 tablespoons butter

- salt, pepper, marjoram, oregano, parsley to taste

- potato starch to thicken

The Veggies

- 1 medium sized rosa bianca eggplant,  sliced into steaks

- 1-2 tablespoons olive oil

- salt, pepper to taste

- 2 large sweet potatoes, chopped into bite size pieces

- 1-2 large turnips, chopped into bite size pieces

- olive oil, salt, pepper, dill to taste

- 7-10 small onions

- 2 stalks celery, diced

- 1 large scallion, diced

- 1 1/2 cup spinach, raw and chopped

- 6-8 lare white mushrooms, diced

- 6-8 cloves garlic, diced

- 1/2 cup Marsala wine

- 1 tablespoon tomato paste

It is a several step process to make the stuffed onions, and since they took the longest, that is what I started with first.  Begin by peeling the onions and cutting off the ends - don't cut off too much, though, because you don't want the layers to separate.  Bring a pot of water to boil on the stovetop and once you have a rolling boil, drop in the whole onions for 12-15 minutes.  

In the meantime, take your chopped celery, garlic, sliced scallion, and mushrooms and put them into a large pan with the tablespoon of olive oil.  Saute for a few minutes, then season.  Separate a small amount out to use in your Marsala sauce for your chicken. With what is left, add the walnuts, spinach, tomato paste and the Marsala wine.  Bring the whole mixture to a simmer and allow it to cook for around 8-10 minutes, helping the alcohol burn off and infusing the stuffing with flavor.

When the onions are soft from boiling, take them out of the water and let them cool for a little while.  Use a small paring knife and gently cut through the center layers - you are using the knife to help separate the inner layers of the onion, not butchering them!  I also cut a small X on the side I would be pushing the centers out from, to help create a larger opening for the onion inners to go out, and later, my stuffing to go in. Hold the onion in both hands, and using your thumbs, gently (GENTLY!!!) push the inner layers of onion out into a bowl.  You want to leave around 3 of the outer layers intact, as your stuffing "shells." Place the intact outer layers in an oven safe baking dish.

Return to your stuffing and bring the onion innards with you!  Chop up the cooked onion that was leftover from creating our shells, and mix it into the stuffing mix.  Saute on medium heat for only a few more minutes, and then spoon the mixture into the onion shells in your baking dish.  You will have to use your fingers to really get as much stuffing in there as possible, so watch out for burnt fingers, and try to be as careful as possible so you don't split your shells.  Layer any leftover stuffing on top and around the stuffed onions.  Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown and getting a little crispy.

I put the onions and my sweet potatoes and turnips into the oven at the same time, since they both needed around the same amount of time to cook.  I had chopped my sweet potato and turnips before, lightly brushing them with olive oil and seasoning them.  When you put the veggies into the oven, add a 1/2 cup - 1 cup of water to the bottom of your glass baking dish to ensure the veggies don't dry out during their cook time.  Cook them for 40 minutes on the center rack of the oven (right next to your onions!)

To prepare your chicken, you will need your meat tenderizer.  Lightly tenderize the chicken thighs with the smooth side of the tenderizer.  Set the chicken aside, they are ready to be seared.  In a large pot, pour the milk and Marsala wine together.  Add the butter, tomato paste and seasoning, and bring your sauce to a simmer, stirring often.  This will simmer the entire time you cook the rest of the meal.  You'll be dropping your seared chicken into the sauce as well, letting them infuse with flavor and in turn, help flavor the sauce.  When it was time to add the chicken to the sauce, I separated a small amount and kept it apart to keep it vegetarian for our guest.  If you aren't serving vegetarians, you can omit that step.

To cook the chicken, I took my largest pan and heated up some oil.  I sauteed some celery, scallion, garlic, and mushroom in the pan to get it all flavorful, then I tossed the sauteed veggies into the pot with our simmering Marsala sauce.  I seared my tenderized chicken thighs on high heat, adding oil as needed, and flipping them a few times to make sure they got nice and brown on each side.  

It was at this point that I separated out some of the sauce and put it in a smaller pot to continue simmering.  I placed my seared chicken into the larger pot with sauce, allowing the chicken to finish cooking in the sauce.  Add to both pots some potato starch to help thicken the sauce a bit.  I added a teaspoon to the smaller pot and a tablespoon to the larger pot.  I let the chicken and both sauces continue to simmer on lower heat for around 20 minutes until my meal was all set to be served.  During that time I used my griddle pan and some olive oil to cook the rosa bianca eggplant steaks.  Season the thick slices of eggplant lightly and brush them liberally with olive oil.  Cook on medium heat, turning every so often, for around 15 minutes or until the eggplant is soft to cut and golden brown on the edges.  When it is time to serve then, pour the Marsala sauce all over the eggplant steaks. Garnish both sauces with green onion.

This meal was so great, we scraped all the dishes clean!  Enjoy!!

Roasted and Stuffed Chicken

This meal is doubly good.  Make sure to get boneless chicken breasts that still have the skin so you can create this meal properly.  Instead of stuffing the meat, which would require slitting the chicken breasts, this time around I stuffed all the goodies in between the skin and the chicken.  As it all roasted in the oven the juices from the cheese, tomatoes, and bacon ran down and soaked through the meat, making it completely moist and flavorful.  My husband loves crispy roasted chicken skin, so cutting open his meal and finding all the fun, baconful surprises inside was an extra win for him. :)

The Meat

- 2 boneless, skin-on chicken breasts

- 1 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes, sliced in half

- 2 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled

- 2 tablespoons of olive oil

- parmesan cheese, dill, basil, garlic salt, pepper, marjoram to taste

The Veggies

- 1 large zucchini squash, cut into large pieces

- 1 cup green beans, trimmed and cut

- 1 cup broccoli

- 1 cup water

- 1 tablespoon of olive oil

- salt, pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 385 degrees.

Fry up your bacon in a griddle pan using high heat, and turn them once after 2-3 minutes.  While the bacon cooks and then cools, chop your veggies and set them aside to cook later.  Once the bacon is cool enough to touch, crumble it into bits.  Take the bacon, parmesan cheese, and the sliced cherry tomatoes over to your chicken, and make little piles of each.  Setting up your station like this will make it easier to contain your mess, and keep you from spreading too many germs from touching the raw chicken.

Gently separate the chicken skin from the center of the chicken breast with your fingers.  You wan to have a little flap so you can stick stuff in it.  Put in equal amounts of the tomatoes, bacon, and cheese.  I did the cheese first, laying it flat against the meat, and then mixed in the bacon and tomatoes.  Take the extra cherry tomatoes and sprinkle them all around the chicken in your baking dish.  Drizzle the olive oil over everything and season liberally.   Pop the dish into the oven and bake it for 40 minutes or until the juices run clear when you cut into the meat.  

When the chicken is around halfway cooked, dump the veggies in the water and olive oil in a medium sized pan and cook them with high heat, around 20 minutes.  When they are done, season them with some salt and pepper.

Put the veggies on the plate first, and then layer the chicken on top.  Drizzle any pan drippings and the baked tomatoes over the top of everything.  Enjoy. 

Buttery Marsala Cream Chicken

This dinner was sooo good!  While it took some time to cook, it was easy to prepare and we gorged on the creamy Masala wine sauce.  I chose to make this sauce because I had some leftover cream from this weekend when I made cupcakes.  The figs made the sauce naturally sweet and tapioca starch thickened it up yet kept the meal gluten free.  

The Meat

- 2 chicken legs and thighs, meat removed in chunks

- thyme, rosemary, bay, coriander seed, salt, pepper, dill, crushed red pepper to taste

The Sauce

- 1 cup heavy cream

- 3 tablespoons butter

- 1/2 cup Masala wine

- 4-6 fresh figs, chopped into pieces

- 2 tablespoons tapioca starch (to thicken the sauce)

The Veggies

- 1 turnip, cubed

- 1 cup green beans, tips trimmed and beans cut

- 1/2 small eggplant, sliced into quarters

- salt, pepper to taste

- bacon grease for frying

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

Debone the chicken and layer it in the bottom of you baking pan.  Add the chopped figs and season everything well.  Mix together the other sauce ingredients and pour it all over the chicken.  Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.  

In a 3" deep pot, cover and boil the turnips and snipped green beans for around 25 minutes.  While they are cooking, grease your saute pan and cook the eggplant slices until they are soft on each side.  Use a wooden spoon to keep the eggplant moving in the pan, and re-grease as necessary to keep the eggplant from burning or drying out.  When the turnip and green beans are done, I tossed them together with the eggplant and seasoned all of them together. 

I layered the veggies on the bottom of the plates and poured the chicken and sauce all over the top.  Serve this dish with a spoon - you'll want to savor every last drop of the delicious, creamy sauce!

Honey Pecan Roasted Chicken Delight!

Oh my goodness, this chicken is delicious.  It is gooey, sweet, crunchy, and the chicken is moist and tender.  You could alternatively use chicken breasts if you didn't want to deal with the bones in the legs and thighs.

The Meat

- 2 bone-in chicken legs & thighs

- 2 1/2 tablespoons butter

- 1/4 cup honey

- 1/3 cup pecans, chopped

- sea salt to taste

The Veggies

- 1 cup fresh green beans, ends cut

- 1 cup water

- salt to taste

- 1 zucchini squash

- 1/4 cup red onion, largely sliced

- 3 mushrooms, sliced

- 1 teaspoon butter, softened

- 1 teaspoon bacon grease, softened

Preheat your oven to 420 degrees.

Place your chicken on a baking pan and sprinkle it generously with sea salt.  Split the butter into four parts.  Dot one part of butter on each piece of chicken and cook it for 25 minutes.  After 25 minutes, take the chicken out briefly and cover it with the honey, the rest of the butter, and the chopped pecans.  Pop the chicken back into the oven for 5 more minutes so the pecans are all toasty and amazing.  Omnomnomnom.

I boiled the green beans in the water for 20 minutes.  I threw in a pinch of salt and left them plain since the chicken is so good.  I drained the pot and that was it.

I brushed the veggies with some softened butter and bacon grease, then grilled the squash, onion, and mushrooms on my griddler.  I grilled them on medium for around 10 minutes, and then they were soft and wonderful.

I truly enjoyed making this meal and also eating it.  I hope you do, too.

The Delights of Land and Sea

This is a feast of land and sea!  The chicken and shrimp go really well together in a lemony, buttery sauce, and the light side of veggies keeps you from feeling too laden down or heavy.  I make this meal for my husband when he's craving extra protein. :)

The Meat

- 2 fresh chicken breasts

- shaved parmesan cheese

- salt, pepper to taste

- 1 pound of wild shrimp, peeled and deveined

The Veggies

- 2 golden beets, cubed

- 1 large heirloom tomato, chopped

- 3 green onion stalks, sliced

- 4 white mushrooms, thinly sliced

- 1 cup fresh spinach, loosely chopped

- 1/2 cup water

- 1 teaspoon olive oil

- 1 teaspoon lemon juice

- salt, pepper to taste

The Sauce

- 1 teaspoon olive oil

- 2 tablespoons butter

- 3 teaspoons lemon juice

- parsley, dill, mustard seed, salt, pepper to taste

You can bake or grill the chicken breasts - I fake-grilled mine on my griddle pan, but if you'd prefer to bake it, heat your oven to 400 degrees and pop the chicken in there for around 20 minutes or until the juices run clear.  Since I had such thick pieces of chicken, it took around 16-18 minutes for me to cook my chicken on the pan, turning twice.  In the last minute I placed some shaved parmesan on top of my chicken to melt onto it and make it extra tasty.

I boiled the beets in the water for around 20 minutes until they were soft and their flavor wasn't so intense.  I enjoy beets, but sometimes their earthy flavor is overwhelming.  After the beets were ready I sauteed the rest of the veggies without draining the leftover liquid from the beets.  I cooked it all on medium-low heat with the lemon juice, olive oil, and the shrimp.  Stirring continuously, I cooked the whole mixture together for around 8 more minutes, until the shrimp were pink all the way through.  

For the sauce I just threw together some lemon, butter, and a little more oil with some seasoning.  I melted down the butter in a small pan on low heat and then tossed the sauce in with the veggies and shrimp, coating everything lightly.  It's a great meal, totally satisfying.  The softness of the tomato and spinach go well with the texture of the chicken and the shrimp are a delight.  I poured the veggies and shrimp on top of the chicken, so the chicken had a chance to soak up a bit of the lemony sauce throughout the course of the meal.  Yum.

Happiness Is Roasted Chicken

My husband LOVES roasted chicken.  And I love to make it for him.  I usually just buy the bone-in legs and thighs because we both prefer dark meat, and there is just something primally satisfying about eating meat off the bone.  

The Meat

- 2 bone-in chicken legs with thighs

- 2 tablespoons of lemon juice

- 2 teaspoons bacon grease

- 1 tablespoon butter

- rosemary, thyme, savory, dill, salt, pepper to taste

The Veggies

- 2 yellow summer squash, sliced

- 1/2 cup of green beans, ends cut off

- 1 green gypsy pepper, sliced

- 2 red heirloom carrots, diced

- 1 medium sized turnip, cubed

- 1 cup water

- 1 tablespoon butter

- 1/2 cup red wine

- dill, salt, pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

I prepped my chicken on my baking pan by lightly coating them with lemon juice and seasoning them liberally.  Then I broke up the butter into small dollops and dotted the top of the chicken with it.  I repeated the process with the bacon grease (I keep my supply of grease refrigerated so it is in a more solid state, easier to manipulate for meals like this) and dot the spaces in between the butter with the bacon grease.  The chicken goes into the oven for around 40 minutes - make sure you get your chicken up to 165 degrees internally and that the juices run clear when you cut into it, so you don't get sick from undercooked meat.  At minutes 15 and 30, open up your oven, and re-spoon the grease/butter that has dripped off the chicken back onto the skin.  This ensures you have an intensely delicious crispy outer skin. 

After dicing, slicing, and cubing all of my veggies, I throw them in a pan and add the water, butter, and wine.  I cooked my veggies on medium-low heat for around 25 minutes, until most of the water had boiled down and the green beans and turnips were soft. 

This is a relatively simple yet absolutely wonderful meal.  The chicken is cripsy on the outside and juicy within, and the wine in the veggie "broth" gives the turnips and the beans a memorable flavor.  The squash melts away in your mouth.  Yum.