Toasted Millet Salad with Arugula, Quick Pickled Onions, and Goat Cheese

LOVE this Salad!!


Quick Pickled Onions
3/4 cup apple cider or white vinegar
2 teaspoons sea salt
3 tablespoons natural cane sugar
1 red onion, thinly sliced


To make the quick pickled onions, in a saucepan, combine the vinegar, salt, sugar, bay leaf, and cloves and bring to a gentle boil over medium-high heat until the sugar is dissolved. Add the onion, stir and remove the pan from the heat. Let the onions cool at room temperature, or transfer it all to a glass jar and put them in the fridge to speed the process along.


Millet
3/4 cup millet
1 1/3 cups low-sodium vegetable broth or water (or chicken broth)
sea salt


Put the millet in a heavy saucepan over medium-low heat. Cook, stirring frequently, until the millet is toasted, about 5 minutes. You will begin to smell a toasty aroma and they'll make a bit of a popping noise. Remove the pan from the heat and carefully add the broth (it will splatter a bit). Return to the heat and bring to a gentle simmer. Cover and cook for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and let sit another 5 minutes before you remove the lid. Using a fork, break up the millet and fluff it, add the salt, stir and set aside to cool completely.


Salad
2 cups arugula
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup toasted pine nuts
1/3 cup crumbled fresh goat cheese (about 3 ounces)


Once the millet is cool, combine it with the arugula in a large bowl. Drizzle the olive oil and vinegar on top and gently toss to coat.


Drain the desired amount of pickled onion and add to the salad along with the pine nuts and goat cheese, giving it another toss. Taste and add more salt, if necessary, and serve.

Chicken Couscous Salad

This is a healthy weekday favorite for us, adapted from www.myrecipes.com

For the salad:

1 1/4 C. chicken stock
1 Box uncooked couscous
1 1/2 C. chicken, cubed (about 2 breasts, grilled with olive oil, salt and pepper).  *to make it quicker and more flavorful, sometimes I just buy a roast chicken at the store and use that.  The roast chicken absorbs the dressing more though, so I tend to increase the couscous to more than one box and double the dressing.
1/2 C. green onion, sliced
1/4 red onion, diced
1/2 C. frozen corn, thawed
1/2 cucumber, seeded, peeled, and chopped
1/4 C. fresh cilantro, chopped (recipe calls for parsley but we prefer cilantro)
*Add any other ingredients, it's a flexible dish and we always play with it a bit.

For the dressing:
1/4 C. white wine vinegar
1 1/2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. salt
Ground black pepper
1 garlic clove, minced

To prepare the dressing:  Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and whisk.

To prepare the salad:

1.  Boil chicken stock in a small saucepan, store in couscous.  When stock returns to a boil, cover, remove from heat and leave for 5 minutes.  When finished, fluff with a fork.  
2.  Spoon cooked couscous into a large bowl and cool slightly.  *I like to do this first so the couscous can cool while I work on the rest of the salad.
3.  Add chicken, green and red onion, corn, cucumber, and cilantro.
4.  Drizzle dressing over salad and toss gently to combine.

Italian Chicken with Sausage and Peppers

This is a serious favorite - and always a comfort food at our house! On a cold day - make this with some yummy crusty bread and your tummy will be happy happy happy!

Ingredients:

 

5 Italian sweet sausages

3 ½ lbs. boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into bite size pieces

Seasoned salt

8 Tbs. butter

4 Tbs. olive oil

1 large onion, cut into thin slivers

1 tsp. minced garlic

4 large bell peppers (red, green, yellow) cut into 1 inch pieces

2 large carrots, diced

1 28oz. can diced Italian tomatoes with liquid

1 ½ tsp. paprika

1 tsp. dried basil

½ tsp dried oregano

1 bay leaf

2 Tbs. red wine vinegar

1 tsp. sugar

1 cup chicken broth

4 tsp. flour

Salt and pepper

3 Tbs. chopped fresh parsley

1 ½ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

 

Directions:

1. Prick sausage and microwave for 5 minutes
2. Season chicken with seasoned salt.  Heat 2 Tbs. butter and 2 Tbs. oil in large pot and brown chicken.  Use 2 more Tbs. butter and oil to finish browning chicken.  Transfer chicken to large bowl when done.  Leave remaining butter out to soften.
3. Cut sausage into 1 inch slices, brown in pan and add to bowl with chicken.
4. Add onion, garlic and peppers to pan.  Add accumulated juices from bowl into pan.  Cook over medium heat for about 8 minutes, stirring often.  Add carrots, tomatoes, paprika, basil, oregano, bay leaf, vinegar, sugar and chicken broth to pan.  Add browned meat from bowl.  Mix well and cook over high heat for 10 minutes.
5. Mash together 4 Tbs. softened butter with flour.  Stir into chicken mixture and cook until sauce thickens slightly, about 5 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper.  Sprinkle with parsley and serve with cheese.

Love to all!

Lesa

Gameday Buffalo Chicken Dip

Oh, it's football season you say?  Funny, I was just daydreaming about buffalo chicken wing dip, a favorite introduced to Scott and me by one of our dear friends now ex-boyfriend (and that's a good thing) about five years ago.  At least he contributed something positive and lasting to our group of friends!  We first had it at a tailgate outside FedEx Field (#HTTR) and were floored - a way to feel like you're eating wings and a yummy dip??  The recipe was immediately adopted and has since been tweaked and enjoyed by Scott, our friends, and me every season since then.  Below are the basics along with ingredients or changes I made.  Feel free to put your own twist on it, you really can't go wrong!*

Ingredients:

Either 1 lb. chicken breasts or thighs poached and then shredded or 1 rotisserie chicken, meat taken off and shredded (much easier and tastier)

1 block of extra sharp cheddar cheese, or your cheese of choice, shredded

8 oz. (approx.) of cream cheese (room temperature)

1 bottle buffalo wing sauce of your choice (this is usually near the bbq sauce in the condiment aisle)

~3/4 a bottle of ranch or blue cheese dressing

Half of one red onion, sauteed

1 small can of diced green chiles

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Shred the cooled chicken and saute the onion.  When both are complete and cooled, toss together in a large mixing bowl.  Add the green chiles, cream cheese, and your choice amount of wing sauce (not too much so that it becomes soupy, I usually use about 1/2 to 3/4 a bottle) to the bowl.  Mix thoroughly.

Place chicken/cream cheese mixture in greased 8" x 8" baking pan or glass pan.  pour as much ranch or blue cheese dressing as you desire over the top but enough to cover the chicken mixture.  Sprinkle the cheddar cheese over the top of the ranch dressing.

Bake dip for approximately 20 minutes.  If cheese on top starts to bubble but the dip is not warmed through, tent some foil over the top so the cheese doesn't burn.

Serve and enjoy with your favorite tortilla chips!

*This recipe is not recommended for the calorie-conscious!

Welcome to the Crockpot!

Well, I finally did it - I clicked on "create blog."  All these years I have heard and tasted many delicious recipes created by my chef-mother (Marmasette), and awesome brothers and sisters-in-law.  Darren and Lesa's tasty take on Cafe Rio's salad, Jason and Marcie's love-filled chicken corn chowder, Justin's creative seasoning choices, Dad Dude's delish potato, watercress salad with grilled anything (salmon is a favorite), Scott's "wok it up" Kung Pao Chicken (from scratch), my fabulous Godmummy (Mew)'s succulent roast chicken stuffed to the nines with lemon and rosemary, or dare I say my own rigatoni with vodka tomato cream sauce? 

Well, I decided I just can't live without a central repository for these recipes and new ones we all try out or create.  I encourage everyone to post as often or as infrequently as works for you, but I hope this will catch on so that when we each try something new and think "hmm I think the fam would like this" we think to post it (with pics if you are technically-inclined!) and share with everyone.

Happy Cooking Everyone!