Poblano stuffed chicken

These poblano peppers have been sitting in the refrigerator for a long time so I finally put them to good use. Using ingredients on hand this delicious dinner was made.

Ingredients:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
4 poblano peppers
3-4 cloves of garlic
1/4 onion
1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes
10 cherry tomatoes
handful of greens-spinach, bok choy, chard, whatever you have
salt
12-16 tooth picks

Method:

Roast the peppers. I did this by putting them under the broiler for about 5-6 minutes per side. Once all done place in a paper bag and seal it up quickly so the heat stays in the the skin begins to bubble up a little more.
While the peppers are sitting chop garlic through greens into little pieces. Mix all together in a bowl with a little big of oil from the sun dried tomatoes. Add a dash of salt.

Hammer the chicken breasts to about 1/4 inch thickness and set aside. Placing the chicken between plastic wrap is cleaner. A plastic baggie would also work.

Get your poblanos and peel the skin. It should come off rather easily but if it doesn't slip right off don't worry about it and leave it on. Cut along one side starting at the tip going up to the stem, then work around the stem removing seeds to keep the pepper whole. Lay one chicken breast on your work surface, lay the open poblano on top and fill with a few scoops of the mixture in the bowl. About 3 tablespoons per chicken breast. Make sure the pepper is at the very bottom of the chicken, closest to you, even hanging about 1/2 an inch off the chicken. Tightly roll chicken, pepper and stuffing away from you. Secure with 3-4 toothpicks. Repeat until all ingredients used up.

Bake for about 45 minutes at 350.

Roasted poblanos are the bomb. So good...and this goes really well with a little sour cream.

Quick and easy

This is our go-to dinner. Super easy, super fast, super delicious.

Ingredients:

chicken breasts
lemon juice
chopped garlic
herbs (either rosemary, thyme, parsley, or cilantro)
olive oil

2 zucchini
carrots

Method:

Using a meat tenderizer pound the chicken breasts so they are all a uniform thickness. Combine olive oil, some lemon juice, chopped garlic and a pile of herbs and pour over chicken in a dish or plastic ziploc bag to marinate. Slice the zucchini or other veggies thinly and place on a roasting dish and dust with some olive oil. Bake in oven at 425 for about 15 minutes. Then turn the oven to broil and make room for the chicken. Place the chicken on another roasting pan and broil about 5 minutes per side until done. The zucchini should be close to done and getting a little brown from the broiling, so keep an eye on it.

Easy and tasty. Sorry, no pictures. But, really my photos are so bad you shouldn't be using them as a guide anyway. Just try it and make sure it tastes good. It's a bonus if it looks amazing.

West Indian Chicken with orange sauce

Last night's dinner came courtesy of "Grill It! Recipes, Techniques, Tools," a great BBQ cookbook with lots of how-to tips. This is our recipe based on the one from the book since we didn't have or couldn't find all the ingredients called for.

The chicken:
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts (10-12 oz each
2 t mustard powder (or more)
4 red Fresno chiles, stemmed (or something spicier than a jalapeno)
1 T minced ginger
1 T curry powder
1/4 C roughly chopped scallions, white and green parts
Kosher salt and freshly cracked pepper

Put mustard through salt and pepper in a blender or food processor and puree. Pour over chicken and marinate for about an hour, turning to make sure chicken is all coated.

While that is marinating make the sour orange sauce (mojo)

1 C orange juice
1/3 C distilled white vinegar (we used white wine vinegar)
1/3 C olive oil
2 T dried or fresh oregano
1 T garlic
Kosher salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and set aside. We thought the mojo was too watery so try less juice and oil, but play with it to see what you like.

To cook put the chicken on the grill about 7-9 minutes per side until done.

Arrange the chicken breasts on a platter and spoon the mojo over them. Place extra mojo on the table for people to add as they wish. Served with the simple coleslaw-another post coming soon!

Dinner tonight

It is another sunny day in the Northwest so the BBQ is getting fired up again. Tonight's feast is cumin lime chicken and grilled zucchini, yellow squash and eggplant.

Serves two adults and two reasonably hungry toddlers with no leftovers. (Make more than I did. You will want leftovers.)

Ingredients:
1 zucchini (with blossom still attached!)
1 eggplant
1 yellow squash

2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
EVOO
cumin about a teaspoon or more
chili powder about half as much as the cumin (although my poured out and I had about 3 times that.)
juice of 1/2 of one lime plus some chopped up lime chunks
chopped garlic

I used a mandolin to get a consistent thickness on the veggies, tossed with some olive oil and salt then grilled.

Marinate chicken in a baggie with the remaining ingredients for a little while (about 10 minutes tonight). One of the chicken breasts was a little thicker so I took the meat tenderizer to them so they would cook at the same rate. After a few minutes in the marinade they were put on the BBQ and grilled to perfection, about 7 minutes on each side.

Dessert: grilled Rainier cherries. Whole cherries put on a skewer and grilled about 10 minutes until hot and juicy. Easy and delicious.

This was the most perfect dinner. The chicken was tender and juicy, the flavors of the lime and cumin were great. The eggplant was so good and grilled summer squash is about the best thing on a summer night. Everything was from the farmers' market, so in addition to being Paleo it was also a local, happy, feel-good meal.