Turkey Marsala

On the plate and ready to be devoured!

I've realized over the past several weeks that, while quite different in flavors and taste, a lot of what I've cooked lately looks alarmingly the same! Look at Mediterranean Baked Cod or Braised Chicken Thighs w/Mushrooms & Leeks. The same look for three very different dinner dishes. Oh well... This Marsala recipe is beyond easy and full of flavor. It's always been a struggle for me when I've made Marsala before because I never really knew what I was doing, don't know why, but that's the truth. Found this recipe and suddenly Marsala is easy-peasy! (There's a chicken marsala recipe here as well, that's delicious as well, but the ease of this one...much better!)

I used turkey cutlets (cutlet...hate that word) because it came in a package of four. It would be just as tasty using veal cutlets (!), thin-sliced chicken or thin-sliced pork.

1 pkg. turkey cutlets, 4 count (what I bought)

1/3 C. flour

salt and fresh ground pepper

2+ T. unsalted butter

2+ T. olive oil

(OR veggie oil spray)

2 shallots or 1 small onion

2 cloves garlic (optional)

8 oz. package sliced mushrooms

1 C. Marsala wine (there are no substitutes)

1 C. chicken stock/bone broth
1/2 pkg. frozen peas

rice, left-over from another dinner

Put flour in a flat container, big enough for the cutlets. Put cutlets on a flat surface and salt & pepper both sides, amount to your taste. Coat them well with the flour. In a skillet (iron skillet) large enough for the cutlets, and over medium heat, melt the butter with 1 T. of the olive oil. When butter is hot and foaming, add the cutlets. (OR heat the skillet to medium high. Spray to coat both sides of the cutlets with Pam vegetable spray - saves calories.) Cook 2 minutes per side. Remove to a plate, tent with foil and set aside. Add more oil or butter if needed and add the shallots/onion; saute for about 2 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook until mushrooms are tender. Add the Marsala and chicken stock, bring to a boil over high heat, scraping browned bits off the bottom and sides of the pan. Cook until the juices are reduced and thickened, about 5 or so minutes. Add the turkey cutlets and any juices that have accumulated back to the pan. Reduce heat and simmer until cutlets are cooked through, about 2 - 3 minutes. 

Rice was served with this as we had a LOT of leftover rice. Egg noodles would be the preference of choice.

From: The Spruce Eats website

Made this on 12/18/18 - it was good! Poured peas over the cutlets at the last minute, while they were still in the skillet, and served all over left-over rice. Noodles would be delicious, too.

YUM!

'till we feast again! 

xoabb

Braised Chicken Thighs w/Mushrooms & Leeks

Poor photo, I know...used to be good at photo-taking...lately, not so much!

This most tasty dish, which is low in fat content - surprise surprise for moi, who loves her butter, is from the gal who is the author of the food blog, SkinnyTaste. Gina Homolka, author of said blog takes her recipes very seriously. Each week she makes an entire seven days of B-L-D meals and they can all be tracked on the Weight Watchers points system. That doesn't take away from the flavor that come from the recipes of hers I've tried. And this one is over-the-top good! It is rich, buttery - just perfection in a bite. Again, a chicken dish that GB loved. Said it was now the best chicken dish he's ever tasted! Win-win for me! 

2 large leeks, white part only (to learn how to clean a leek, go here)

1 1/2 t. kosher/sea salt

freshly ground tellicherry black pepper, to taste

1/2 t. paprika

olive oil spray (tried this for the first time - and it works!)

chicken pieces, your choice (I used 4 bone-in, skin-on thighs), about 1 1/2 - 2 lbs.

2 T. unsalted butter

10 oz. pkg. whole white mushrooms, cleaned, stems trimmed and quartered

4 T. flour

2 C. chicken stock

3 or so T. sherry

Basmati rice or egg noodles, cook according to package directions

Preheat oven to 375º.

Cut green tops and bottom roots off the leeks. Slice in half length-wise and then in 1/4" thick half moons. Put all in a salad spinner filled with water and agitate the pieces. Let sit for a bit so the sand sinks to the bottom. Slowly lift the strainer out of the water and dump the water out. Rinse again and then spin the excess water out.

Mix together the salt, pepper and paprika. and season all sides of the chicken. Spritz both side of the chicken with olive oil spray. Heat a large iron skillet or Dutch oven on high heat. Once hot, brown the chicken on both sides, about 5 - 7 minutes per side, until nicely browned. Set chicken pieces aside. 

Reduce heat to medium-low and add the butter. When the butter starts to foam, add the leeks and cook, stirring until soft, about 6 - 8 minutes. Add the mushrooms, salt a bit and cook, covered, until they release their juices and juice mostly evaporates:

(Steam is not a friend of photo-taking)

Sprinkle flour over all, stir in to totally coat the flour and then add the chicken stock and sherry. Simmer for about 4 minutes:

Return the chicken to the skillet, spoon sauce over them and bake in the oven for 40 - 50 minutes, until tender. 

Serve over rice or egg noodles.

YUM! 

'till we feast again! 

xoabb

Lemon Garlic Onion Peas Chicken Thighs

In the iron skillet just before serving

GB thinks he hates chicken. Well...ok, chicken breasts are rather boring and easily over-cooked. Chicken thighs? Not so much. On hand, I had boneless, skinless thighs, and while I don't normally buy them - much prefer skin-on and bone-in - I made do! I also used my not-that-new-go-to True Lemon Crystals - no lemons in the house at the time this was made - but always a bottle of True Lemon - and it's a perfect substitute for fresh lemons! I also had no chicken stock or bullion so substituted the beef stock that was on hand. Results were delicious!

Found this recipe on the website Life as a Strawberry, adapted it a bit, and here it is! Delicious - and even better the next day! (Even chicken-hater GB agreed!)

extra virgin olive oil for sauteeing. 

2 lbs. or so boneless, skinless chicken thighs (or whatever cut of chicken you have on hand)

salt & pepper to taste

1 medium onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 - 5 sprigs fresh thyme, stripped, or 2 t. dried thyme

1 large lemon, or 1 T. or so TRUE Lemon crystals

1 1/2 C. or so chicken stock (I used beef stock as I had no chicken stock)

1/2 - 1 package frozen baby peas

rice or egg noodles, cooked according to package directions

Preheat oven to 400º.

Heat olive oil in a large oven-safe (iron skillet) pan over medium heat. Season both sides of the chicken with salt and pepper to taste. Place chicken thighs in the hot pan and sear for about 4-5 minutes per side, until browned. Remove chicken to a plate and set aside. Return pan to stove over medium-high heat and add more olive oil if needed. Add onion and garlic to the pan and saute until the onion is translucent and has started to caramelize, about 4-5 minutes. Add olive oil if needed. Add thyme to the pan and season with salt and pepper. Either juice the lemon, removing seeds and add to the pan (lemon zest as well if you like), or add your True Lemon crystals. Stir to combine. Add the chicken/beef stock. Bring to a low boil and return the seared chicken thighs to the pan. Spoon the juices over the thighs and add the frozen peas, amount to your taste. Stir so the peas are coated in the sauce. Place the pan in the oven and bake 15-20 minutes more until the chicken is cooked through (use a meat thermometer for accuracy). Serve over rice (what we did) or egg noodles.

YUM!

'till we feast again! 

xoabb

Iron Skillet Seared Swordfish

Iron Skillet-Seared Swordfish Fillet

I'm not a fan of a monochromatic dinner plate - boring to say the least! But, I only had yellow tomatoes, no red ones in the kitchen, so monochromatic it was! However, the finished meal was delicious...well at least the swordfish was! The onion rings were Alexa brand  - and very good - but I had nothing to do with those. The tomatoes were heirloom and there were only yellow ones left out of the box, so, yellow it was. The swordfish...well anything that's basically white to begin with, which will become golden when grilled or sauteed, so we have a monochormatic dinner plate. Not pretty, but damn good delicious! 

The Throw-n-Go:

1 lb. or so swordfish steak
2 TrueLemon packets (use fresh squeezed lemon juice if you must)
fresh ground Tellicherry pepper (if you're lucky to have those tellicherry pepper corns)
grape seed oil

salt to finish

Heat your iron skillet to just smoking. In the meantime, wash and dry the swordfish fillet. On each side, sprinkle one packet of TrueLemon, fresh ground pepper and a smear of grape seed oil. When your skillet is smokin' hot, slap the sworfish fillet down and let it sit there for about 6 minutes. Flip it and let it sear for another 4 or so minutes. Turn off the heat, put a lid over it and let it rest for up to 10 minutes. And then LOVE it!

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YUM!

'till we feast again! 

xoabb

Hot 'n Sweet 'n Spicy Walnut Goodness

Hot 'n Sweet 'n Spicy Walnuts

We met for our Gourmet Group recently and this time our theme was '50's and '60's Gourmet magazine recipes. My contributions were part of the appetizer round and were the above spiced walnuts and strawberry daiquiris. (Got off pretty easy this time around!) The daiquiris were the frozen mix bought at the grocery store along with a fine bottle of Bacardi. They were good, but soooo sweet, we couldn't manage more than one each. The walnuts were simply sublime. Wish I could take credit for inventing the recipe, but I can't. As usual I've now tweaked it a bit (no cloves - didn't have any) and the original recipe suggested that the cayenne was optional. How silly is that? Cayenne is never optional as far as I'm concerned!

The T'nG:

1 - 1 1/2 lbs. walnuts
6 T. butter, melted
1/2 C. confectioner’s sugar (less to taste
1 1/2 t. ground cinnamon, (more to taste)
1/4 t. ground ginger, (more to taste)
1/4 t. ground allspice, (more to taste)
1/8 t. ground cloves, (more to taste)
1/8 t. cayenne pepper – (I always use a bit more - we like 'em kickin')
sea salt – optional 

Preheat oven to 325º.  In a bowl, stir the walnuts and butter until combined.  Add sugar and stir to coat evenly.  Bake on cookie sheet 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Put nuts back in your bowl and toss well with all seasonings.  Put back on the cookie sheet and bake for another 15 minutes – be careful not to brown too much.  Let cool in oven.  When completely cooled, place in airtight container until ready to serve.  4 cups.  From:  The Norwalk Hour; edited a bit by moi.

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Above is the rest of our Gourmet magazines meal...

Of course I didn't think to take a photo of our meal until after we'd eaten and it was suggested that a photo should be shot of all the food, along with all the magazines. Everything looks served from, because it was. (There wasn't a whole duck side left, so we just plopped what remained down on the potatoes.)

We started our meal with the sweet 'n spicy nuts, on the far right. Stephanie, also on appetizers, made two "pates", one a cooked shrimp pate that was delicious, and the second, a chicken liver pate that, somewhere along the way, went horribly wrong. Steph followed the recipe to a "t" as she'd never made it before. It looked like, well, let's not go into that. I tasted it and it actually was tasty, just the looks of it...O dear!  That lovely veggie dish was the ratatouille Julie made. She's an excellent cook that I don't think has ever followed any recipe to a "t". Doesn't matter. Everything that comes from her kitchen is delicious! Next to that is our nearly finished escalloped potatoes and lying in the middle is the very last piece of grilled duck. Suzanne made the potatoes and Brian barbequed the duck. Excellent! Last but certainly not least was our dessert  - a Rum Custard made by Patty. It was one of the most delicious desserts I've ever had - a sentiment shared by all of us. Thankfully Patty has the recipe and, for your enjoyment, here it is:

The T'nG: 

for 10 -  12 servings:

4 C. heavy cream
1 C. sugar
12 egg yolks
3 T. white rum

Preheat the oven to 325º. In a double boiler, cook the heavy cream and sugar together until the sugar is incorporated. In the meantime, beat the egg yolks and slowly add them to the cream mixture. Add the rum and stir until all is combined. Prepare your bain-marie (hot water in a rimmed pan that's just deep enough to come up to the edge of the custard - remember the containers will make the water rise and you don't want it to spill into the containers.) When custard is smooth, pour into individual ramekins and place in the bain-marie bath. Bake in the oven until custard is set, around 20 - 30 minutes. Remove from oven and just before serving (warm or room temp - both are excellent) sprinkle the top with cracked pistachio nuts. DELICIOUS!

We used to keep a recipe record of each time we've broken bread together, but, alas, that fell by the wayside (um, thanks to moi). We'll start our 12th year together this coming February!  Gatherings...love them!

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YUM!

till we feast again!

T'nGG

Clams on the Grill! Corn in the Skillet!

Cousins grillin' up some scrumptious eats

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Fresh corn-off-the-cob = in the skillet goodness!

The hubs played in a charity golf tournament the other day and won one of the door prizes - a bushel of fresh Long Island Sound clams (actually he won an embarrassing number of door prizes; I've been visiting a lot of restaurants and wine shops of late). While this is one of our favorite foods, a bushel of clams is a lot more clams than two folks could possibly consume. Good thing we have our Sunday Family Dinner tradition! We gathered, they grilled and we all moved directly toward a food coma. SO good! The clams started our meal and were followed by the corn, grilled assorted sausages and a big green salad. So very good!

The T'nG:

For the clams: 

Clams
butter, melted (LOTS) keep it warm (clarified butter is nice)

Store the clams either on ice in a cooler or in the refrigerator in an open bag until ready to use. About 40 minutes before grilling, place clams in a colander and rinse them, then put them in a big bowl (or kitchen sink) and cover them with cold tap water. Sprinkle corn flour or black pepper into the water and give all a gentle stir. Leave the clams - do not stir - in the water for 20 minutes. After that time is up, gently lift the clams individually, or a few at a time, out of the water. Clean anything ugly off the shell, rinse and put into a lasagna-like pan. (It's better to lift them out one by one as just dumping them into the colander would also dump the sand back on top of the clams. Not good.) Place clams on your prepared charcoal/gas grill, see above, and grill with the lid closed until they pop open. As they pop open, place clams on a platter or another lasagna-like pan. Serve. If you have a ginormous amount of clams like we did, use two serving pans and serve the clams in shifts. Delicious!  

For the corn: 

Corn, use frozen, fresh cut off the cob, or in our case, left-over grilled corn cut off the cob
butter 
cayenne and fresh ground black pepper
sea salt

Warm butter in a large skillet (and while I almost always use an iron skillet, for some reason I didn't when cooking the corn that night - what's up with that??). Add corn to the skillet and stir. Let corn sauté, stirring often until it begins to caramelize. Be sure to scrape the bottom of your skillet to get all the lovely brown bits that will be forming there. Add cayenne and black pepper to taste as well as salt. You want it to have a bite, but not enough to take your head off. You can do all of this ahead (takes about 30 minutes for good caramelization) and just reheat right before serving. Wonderful!

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YUM!

'till we feast again!
xoabb

"Grilled" Pork Chops w/Green Beans and Rice

Pork Chops w/mushrooms, green beans & rice - YUM!
Such a delicious meal it was!

I was in Whole Foods and they had double thick bone-in pork chops on sale so I got two for our dinner. Took them home and told the hubs to fire up the charcoal grill. Shortly later, he came up to the kitchen to let me know that while we had LOADS of charcoal, we had no lighter fluid. Damn. I happened to be on the phone with cousin Julie and she reminded me that there IS another grilling method for meat that is just as tasty - sear in a hot iron skillet and then finish in a hot oven. I hadn't used that method in, well, forever, and had forgotten all about it. I will forget it NO MORE! What delicious pork chops we had!

pork chops

seasonings of your choice; I used Penzey's Arizona Dreaming mix and Southwest mix

salt & fresh-ground pepper to taste

olive oil

butter

1 box already sliced mushrooms

basmati rice

french-cut green beans (frozen this time)

Preheat oven to 425º. Start the rice, following package directions. Season the pork chops. Place iron skillet (any oven-proof skillet will do, but if you don't have an iron skillet, you really should treat yourself) on stove and turn heat to high. Add a swirl or two of olive oil to the skillet along with a pat or two of butter. When they just begin to smoke, add the pork chops and saute on each side till nicely browned. Transfer skillet to the oven and bake an additional 10 - 15 minutes, depending how thick your chops are, or, better yet, use a meat thermometer and remove from oven when internal temp. is around 140º (pork should be 145º, but they will continue to "cook" after removed from the oven). Once you've put the chops in the oven, cook the beans, either boiling in a bit of water, or steaming. When the chops come out of the oven, remove from the skillet and lightly tent them with a piece of foil. Return skillet to stove and add the sliced mushrooms. Stir and add more butter/oil if needed. Saute the mushrooms until golden and they're beginning to crisp around the edges. To serve, place a chop on each plate along with a serving of rice and green beans. Spoon the mushrooms, along with their juices over everything, just the chops, just the rice - however you want to plate it! 

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YUM!

'till we feast again!

xoabb