One Pot Meals | onedadskitchen

Monday’s Simple Stir Fry

For most people, Monday turns out to be the one day of the week where you really don’t want to do any cooking. It’s back to the weekly routine of school, work, after school activities and by the end of the day, you’re too exhausted to even think about having to cook something for dinner. That’s why Monday makes the perfect day to do something like a stir-fry It’s quick, easy and gives you the chance to use either leftovers or any abundance of vegetables that you may have lying around the house. For me, yesterday turned out to be one of those days. I happen to have just a small package of beef in the freezer so it lent itself perfectly to this stir-fry recipe I found at America’s Test Kitchen for stir-fried beef and broccoli with oyster sauce.

Stir – Fried Beef and Broccoli With Oyster Sauce

1 pound flank steak, cut into 2 inch wide strips with the grain, then sliced across the grain into 1/8 inch thick slices
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon dry sherry
2 tablespoons chicken broth
5 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon cornstarch
6 medium cloves garlic, pressed through a garlic press or minced (about 2 tablespoons)
1 inch piece fresh ginger, minced (about 1 tablespoon)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/4 pounds broccoli, florets cut into bite-size pieces, stems trimmed, peeled, and cut on diagonal into 1/8 inch thick slices
1/3 cup water
1 small red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and cut into 1/4 inch pieces
3 medium scallions, sliced half-inch thick on diagonal

Combined the beef and the soy sauce in a medium bowl; cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least ten minutes or up to one hour, stirring once. Meanwhile, whisk the sherry, chicken broth, oyster sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil, and cornstarch in a measuring cup. Combine the garlic, ginger, and 1 1/2 teaspoons of vegetable oil in a small bowl.

Drain the beef and discard the liquid. Heat 1 1/2 teaspoons of vegetable oil in a large nonstick skillet over high heat until smoking. Add half of the beef to the skillet and break up any clumps; cook, without stirring, for one minute, then stir and cook until the beef is browned around the edges, about thirty seconds. Transfer the beef to a medium bowl. Heat 1 1/2 teaspoons of the vegetable oil in a skillet, and repeat with the remaining beef.

Add 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil to the now empty skillet; heat until just smoking. Add the broccoli and cook for thirty seconds; and the water, cover the pan, and lower the heat to medium. Steam the broccoli until tender – crisp, about two minutes; transfer to a paper towel – lined plate. Add the remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons of vegetable oil to the skillet; increase the heat to high and heat until just smoking. Add the bell pepper and cook, stirring frequently, until spotty brown, about 1 1/2 minutes. Clear the center of the skillet; add the garlic and ginger to the clearing and cook, mashing the mixture with the spoon, until fragrant, about 15 to 20 seconds, then stir the mixture into the peppers. Return the beef and broccoli to the skillet and toss to combine. Whisk the sauce to recombine, then add it to the skillet; cook, stirring constantly, until the sauce is thickened and evenly distributed over the beef and broccoli, about thirty seconds. Transfer to a serving platter, and sprinkle with scallions and serve.

As with most stir-fried dishes, I served this one with white rice. Of course you could easily substitute brown rice for the white if that is what you prefer. Also, I did not have any fresh broccoli on hand; however, I did have a package of mixed frozen vegetables in the freezer which were ideal for a stir-fry I try to keep one of these on hand to make a quick stir-fry whenever we need an easy meal and it worked last night. This bag in particular had broccoli, water chestnuts, snap peas, and carrots. It was a very simple meal, the sauce tasted great and I was all done with the cooking within fifteen minutes. It is a perfect meal for a day on the run.

That’s the only recipe for today. Tonight I have the fish tacos planned, which I have posted on here before. If you want to check the recipe for that, you can always check out the previous post I did. I do have a couple of other meals planned for later on in the week, including one for a fried chicken sandwich with spicy slaw and mayonnaise. We are also planning on having some chicken salad sandwiches later on in the week and I am looking to see if there is something new like can do with them or something new and interesting for a side dish. We’ll have to see what I can come up with. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!

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Posted by MikeG on April 23, 2013 in Beef, Cooking, Dinner, One Pot Meals, Vegetables

Tags: americas test kitchen, beef and broccoli stir fry, stir fry, stir-fried beef and broccoli with oyster sauce

A Couple of Recipes of Old Favorites

10 Mar

While I have been cooking regularly and keeping up with trying new things, I have been bad about blogging and putting them online. There just doesn’t seem to be enough hours in a day to do everything I need to do anymore, which really only gives me the weekends to blog. Hopefully I can get around to more than just that, but we’ll see how it goes.

We did make a couple of things this week that are old stand by recipes that I am sure many people have made before. They are both very simple recipes that are not only easy to make but easy to clean up afterwards and they taste awesome. The first of these I made early on in the week and it was just a simple Shrimp Fried Rice. I love this recipe because it is a great one pot meal to make. If you have leftover rice already, most of the work is already done for you and you can get it done even faster.

Shrimp Fried Rice

2 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided

1 pound peeled and deveined small shrimp, thawed if frozen

8 scallions, whites chopped, greens thinly sliced

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 tablespoon finely chopped peeled ginger

3 cups cold cooked white rice

2 large eggs, beaten to blend

1/2 cup frozen peas, thawed

3 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

Heat 1 tablespoon of the vegetable oil in a large, nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Season the shrimp with salt and cook, turning once, until just opaque in the center, about 3 minutes. Transfer the shrimp to a plate.

Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil in the same skillet; add the scallion whites, garlic, and ginger. Cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the rice and stir to coat. Cook until the rice is crisp, about two minutes. Push the rice to one side of the skillet; add the eggs to the other side and cook, stirring and working them into the rice mixture, about 1 to minutes. Add the peas, soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil and the cooked shrimp. Cook, tossing constantly until the shrimp and the vegetables are heated through, about 1 minute. Top with the scallion greens and serve.

I actually added some mushrooms and water chestnuts to this to make it a more filling meal. The original recipe I got from Bon Appetit calls for edamame, which I did not have, but feel free to add it if you like. The great thing about a dish like this is you can really add whatever you want to it to make it a meal. If you don’t like shrimp, add some boneless chicken or pork. You could go all vegetarian and just add some vegetables to it like snow peas, corn, zucchini or whatever you like. Since it is all one dish, clean up is a breeze.

The other recipe for today is one we make once in a while. It is for a simple, quick batch of Banana Muffins. We used Bisquick to make these and we had some overripe bananas on hand already, so it makes baking these quite simple.

Quick Banana Muffins

2 cups Bisquick baking mix

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 1/3 cups bananas, mashed (about 3 bananas)

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

3 tablespoons milk

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place the baking mix in a medium bowl and break up any lumps. Combine the egg, bananas, brown sugar, milk, vegetable oil and vanilla extract with the mix and stir thoroughly until well blended. Fill paper lined muffin cups of a muffin tray until about 2/3 full. Bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool the muffins in the pan for 5 minutes before serving.

Of course, these are great for breakfast with your morning coffee or just to have as an afternoon snack. We left the chocolate chips out for ours, but you can use them, or some walnuts or pecans if you like. You can really use other fruit too if you wanted blueberry or some other berry muffin.

That’s it for today. I promise to have some other recipes this week. I have made a bunch of things and have recipes for them, I just haven’t had time to post anything, so I will get to some of them this week for sure. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your Sunday and enjoy your meal!

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Posted by MikeG on March 10, 2013 in Breakfast, Cooking, One Pot Meals, Rice, Seafood

Tags: banana muffins, Bisquick, Bisquick banana muffins, bon appetit, shrimp fried rice

7 Slow-Cooked Crockpot Lunches | Food Republic

24 Oct

7 Slow-Cooked Crockpot Lunches | Food Republic.

It’s that time of year again when the weather turns cool and thoughts turn back to the slow cooker to make soups, stews and chili. Here are some great recipe ideas from Food Republic about things that you can do in your slow cooker and make great lunches for these cool fall days for you at home, to being to the office or for the kids to bring to school in a thermos. Check it out!

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Posted by MikeG on October 24, 2012 in Cooking Websites, Lunch, One Pot Meals, School Lunches, Slow Cooker Meals, Soups & Stews

Tags: chili, Food Republic, slow cooker meals

Let’s Have Some Lemon Roasted Chicken

23 Oct

I haven’t had much of a chance to do any cooking the last few days. We have been running here, there and everywhere and either haven’t been home to make dinner or have just gone for quick solutions because I haven’t had time or energy to cook. Tonight, however, I was determined to cook. We had nice whole chicken and I wanted a quick and easy recipe. I came across this one from Williams-Sonoma that is a simple one dish meal. I had to modify the recipe very slightly since the original recipe is designed to be made in a special pan sold by Williams-Sonoma that acts as a roaster, holding the bird over the pan itself so you can roast the vegetables in the bottom. I don’t have that pan (and it seems kind of pricey to me anyway) so I just roasted everything in one pan and that was it.

Lemon Roasted Chicken with Rainbow Carrots and Fingerling Potatoes

1 chicken, about 4 pounds

Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

6 large, fresh thyme or rosemary sprigs

2 bay leaves

2 garlic cloves, smashed

1/2 lemon

2 tablespoons butter, at room temperature

1 1/2 pounds baby rainbow carrots, peeled and tops trimmed

1 pound fingerling potatoes, halved lengthwise

2 tablespoons olive oil

Remove and discard the fat from the chicken cavity. Rinse the chicken inside and out and pat dry with paper towels. Lightly season the cavity with salt and pepper. Place 4 of the herb sprigs, 1 of the bay leaves, all of the garlic and the lemon inside the cavity.

Tuck the wings behind the back. Using kitchen twine, lift the neck end of the breast, then pull the twine around the wings and under the chicken. Bring the ends of the twine up over the breast and cross over at the leg end of the breast, pulling tight. Bring the ends of the twine around the drumsticks and tie in a knot. Let the chicken stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees.

Rub the outside of the chicken with the butter and generously season with salt and pepper. In a large bowl, stir together the carrots, potatoes, olive oil, the remaining 2 sprigs of herbs and the remaining bay leaf, and season with salt and pepper. Transfer the vegetables to the base of the roasting pan and spread evenly. Place the chicken on top of the vegetables and roast, stirring the vegetables halfway through, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh registers 170 degrees, about 45 to 50 minutes.

Transfer the chicken to a cutting board, cover loosely with aluminum foil and let rest for 10 minutes. Carve the chicken and arrange on a warmed platter with the vegetables and serve.

Of course, I couldn’t find any rainbow carrots around here in any of the markets. I just used regular carrots instead, but the rainbow carrots would look great and add some great color to the dish. The chicken itself roasts up nicely and the skin was crisp. You get the faint hint of the lemon and rosemary throughout the chicken and the potatoes and carrots are roasted nicely and have great flavor. Overall it was quite a nice dish.

Tomorrow night is meatloaf night here, and I’ll be using the Alton Brown recipe from Good Eats, so check back for that one. Later on in the week I do plan to make either some beef stew or soup, I haven’t decided which yet. I also have some chicken thighs and I have a recipe I plan to use for them perhaps Thursday or Friday. I also bought some egg roll wrappers and thought I would have a stab at making them, so check back for that recipe as well. Until next time, enjoy your evening and enjoy your meal!

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Posted by MikeG on October 23, 2012 in Cooking, Dinner, One Pot Meals, Poultry

Tags: Alton Brown, fingerling potatoes, lemon roasted chicken, meatloaf, rainbow carrots, simple one dish meal, williams-sonoma

A Great Weeknight Meal: Go Ahead and Thai One On

13 Oct

Now that the trip to Ireland is over and done, it’s time to get back to some everyday cooking again. I made a few different meals this week, but the one that stands out as something different was this one. I recently started a subscription to Cook’s Illustrated and when my first issue came, I had picked out this recipe as the first one I wanted to try. It is a Thai dish called pad see ew. It is a traditional street dish of charred rice noodles with some kind of meat, Chinese broccoli and eggs in a sauce. It looked good and the recipe seemed pretty straightforward to me and it seemed like something the whole family would eat. I am the first to admit, I do not normally like pasta or noodles, but the rice noodles had a little bit of different texture and taste to them and since they were crisping up in the cooking, I didn’t mind them at all. The hardest part I had was finding all the ingredients locally. Serrano chiles are apparently hard to come by around here, and it took a little work to find some broccolini and oyster sauce as well, but I did track them down at a local market that has mostly Asian food.

Stir-Fried Noodles with Chicken (Pad See Ew)

Chile Vinegar

1/2 cup white vinegar

1 serrano chile, stemmed and sliced into thin rings

Stir-Fry

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed and cut against the grain into 14-inch thick slices

1 teaspoon baking soda

8 ounces rice noodles

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup oyster sauce

1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar

1 tablespoon white vinegar

1 teaspoon molasses

1 teaspoon fish sauce

3 garlic cloves, sliced thin

3 large eggs

10 ounces broccolini, florets cut into 1-inch pieces, stalks cut on the bias into 1/2-inch pieces

For the Chile Vinegar: Combine the vinegar and the serrano chile in a bowl. Let stand at room temperature for at least 15 minutes.

For the Stir-Fry: Combine the chicken with 2 tablespoons of water and the baking soda in a bowl. Let sit at room temperature for 15 minutes. Rinse the chicken in cold water and drain well.

Bring 6 cups of water to a boil. Place the noodles in a large bowl. Pour the boiling water over the noodles. Stir, then soak the noodles until they are almost tender, about 8 minutes, stirring once halfway through the soak. Drain and rinse the noodles with cold water. Drain well and toss with 2 teaspoons of the oil.

Whisk the oyster sauce, soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, molasses, and fish sauce together in a bowl.

Heat 2 teaspoons of the oil and the garlic in a large nonstick skillet over high heat, stirring occasionally, until the garlic is a deep golden brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the chicken and 2 tablespoons of the sauce mixture, toss to coat, and spread the chicken in an even layer. Cook without stirring until the chicken begins to brown, 1 to 1 1/2 minutes. Push the chicken to one side of the skillet. Add 2 teaspoons of the oil to the cleared side of the skillet. Add the eggs to the clear space. Using a rubber spatula, stir the eggs gently and cook until they set but are still wet. Stir the eggs into the chicken and continue to cook, breaking up the large pieces of egg, until the eggs are fully cooked, about 30 to 60 seconds. Transfer the chicken mixture to a bowl.

Heat two teaspoons of the oil in a now-empty skillet until smoking. Add the broccolini and 2 tablespoons of sauce and toss to coat. Cover the skillet and cook for 2 minutes, stirring once halfway through cooking. Remove the lid and continue to cook until the broccolini is crisp and very brown in spots, 2 to 3 minutes, stirring once halfway through cooking. Transfer the broccolini to the bowl with the chicken mixture.

Heat two teaspoons of oil in the now-empty skillet until smoking. Add half of the noodles and 2 tablespoons of the sauce to coat. Cook until the noodles are starting to brown in spots, about two minutes, stirring halfway through cooking. Transfer the noodles to the bowl with the chicken mixture. Repeat the process with the remaining 2 teaspoons of oil, the noodles and the sauce. When the second batch of noodles is cooked, add the entire contents of the bowl back to the skillet and toss to combine. Cook without stirring until everything is warmed through, 1 to 1 1/2 minutes. Transfer everything to a platter and serve immediately, passing the chile vinegar separately.

It’s a pretty simple meal that I think turned out quite well. Michelle and Sean both loved it, and I liked it too. And it’s nice because it fits easily into a one-pot meal for easy cleanup as well.The whole meal itself does not take long to cook and prepare, so it fit well into a school night meal.

As I said, finding some of the ingredients can prove to be a challenge depending on the type of markets you have locally to you. If you can’t get broccolini, you could substitute regular broccoli with no problem. I think you need to get the rice noodles to make it authentic and it does add to the taste, though I found the rice noodles to be quite expensive ($6.99 for a 1 pound box of noodles).

I had my budding photographer Sean take the picture of the meal for me as it cooked. He wants to be my blog photographer, so the job is his right now. I think he did a pretty good job on this one.

That’s it for today. i do have some more recipes to post that we have done recently, including some tacos and a bacon-wrapped tilapia, so look for those over the next few days. Until then, enjoy the rest of your fall day and enjoy your meal!

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Posted by MikeG on October 13, 2012 in Cookbooks, Cooking, Dinner, One Pot Meals, Poultry

Tags: broccolini, cook's illustrated, Pad See Ew, rice noodles, Stir fried noodles with chicken

A Taste of Dublin, Part 5

11 Oct

So this is all I have left from our trip to Dublin as far as the food goes. We ate a small breakfast on our last down, took one last walk around the city and we actually had hamburgers for lunch at the Jasmine Bar at the hotel before we headed for Dublin airport to come home. I did get some recipes from Guinness while we were there at the Storehouse. They do have a whole display of how Guinness has been incorporated into many food dishes in Ireland and the world. I picked up three separate recipes while we were there that all looked good. The first one is Irish mussels in a Guinness cream sauce. Keep in mind that all these recipe measurements are in metric so you may have to convert them when you give them a try.

Irish Mussels in Guinness Cream Sauce

1 kg fresh Irish Mussels

300 ml cream

200 ml fish stock

330 ml Guinness extra stout

1 bay leaf

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon fresh dill, chopped

1 onion, diced

1 carrot, diced

1 stalk celery, diced

Juice of half a lemon

In a saucepan over medium heat, place the butter, onion, carrot and celery and fry for 2-3 minutes until tender but not browned. Add the Guinness, fish stock and bay leaf and simmer until reduced by half. Add the cream and reduce by half again. Add the mussels and cook for 2-3 minutes until all the shells of the mussels have opened. Add the dill and sprinkle with lemon juice.

I think this one will make a great appetizer for a group of 4 or 6 people. I’m not sure you can find Irish mussels easily, but I would try substituting mussels you can get at your local fish market and see how it goes.

For an entrée, I picked this recipe, one we actually saw on a number of menus in places we were at in Dublin. Beef & Guinness stew seems to be a favorite, and it just plain looks like it would taste awesome.

Beef & Guinness Stew

200 ml of Guinness Foreign Extra Stout

400 g stew beef, diced

1 medium onion, diced

1 large carrot, diced

1 large stalk of celery, diced

1 large parsnip, diced

1 liter beef stock

Sprigs of fresh thyme & rosemary

In a large pot or Dutch oven, heat 1 tablespoon vegetable oil until shimmering. Add the stew beef and brown on all sides, 4-5 minutes. Add the vegetables and cook until tender then pour the Guinness and reduce by half. Add the beef stock and the herbs and simmer very slowly for between an hours and an hour and a half.

They serve the stew with mashed potatoes served on the side of the bowl of the stew. It looks like it has a great dark color to it. It sounds very simple to make and does not have a lot of ingredients, so you can easily make it on a weeknight.

Of course, there needs to be a dessert using Guinness as well. They had a few different ones to choose from, including some cakes, but I chose this recipe for Guinness chocolate truffles instead. It looks simple and should taste great.

Guinness Chocolate Truffles

1 kg dark chocolate, cut into small chunks

400 ml cream

100 ml Guinness

Zest of 1 orange

Cocoa powder

Add the cream and Guinness to a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the chocolate and grated orange zest. Mix together until the chocolate is fully melted. Leave the chocolate mix until it is cool to the touch, but not set. Take a generous teaspoon of the mixture and roll it in your hands to form small round truffles. Dust each with the cocoa powder. Set in refrigerator for 2-3 hours.

A simple fast, chocolatey dessert to finish off a Guinness meal.

So that covers all of the Dublin meals. It was a wonderful trip and we hope to get back to Ireland again and see more of the country than just Dublin. it was a great experience and I would recommend to anyone that they go and enjoy it.

Back to real world cooking for me now though. I do have a backlog of some recipes we have tried recently that I plan to post, including one I just tried from Cook’s Illustrated the other night. Check back and see which one I display first. Until then, enjoy your evening and enjoy your meal!

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Posted by MikeG on October 11, 2012 in Appetizers, Beef, Cooking, Dessert, One Pot Meals, Seafood, Soups & Stews

Tags: Beef and Guinness stew, Dublin, Guinness chocolate truffles, Irish mussels in Guinness cream sauce

A Taste of Dublin, Part 4

10 Oct

So it was on the second full day that we decided to stop for dinner at a local pub. We had seen the signs for the Hairy Lemon every time we walked back and forth to the hotel since they were on the same block. Just the name alone got the better of us and we knew we had to give it a try. It was a very quaint place jam-packed with old mementos and signs from years’ gone by in Dublin. The place was quiet when we got there and we easily got a table. The server was very friendly, as every server we came across in Dublin was. We ordered drinks ( I had a Guinness, of course) and took a look at the menu. They had quite a large selection, including several traditional Irish meals. We both saw the traditional Irish stew listed on the menu and agreed that it sounded wonderful so we both ordered it. Neither of us was disappointed. What came out was a very large stainless steel crock (actually 2 crocks, one for each of us) on a platter with a very large baked potato and some homemade brown bread. The stew was absolutely amazing. The lamb was super-tender and just melted in your mouth and all the vegetables were perfect. The server said the vegetables came in fresh every day from the market the chef shopped at, and he picked out what he wanted so sometimes there was something different in the stew each time. This time, there were definitely parsnips in there and they were good. We both finished our bowls clean and devoured the homemade bread, which they bake fresh each day and sell by the loaf if you want to take some home. I could barely touch my baked potato, and it was a big one. I ended up eating about 1/2 of it, but it was cooked well and I enjoyed it. Neither of us had room for any dessert after.

I searched around on the Internet and have found that many of the Irish stews are basically the same recipe. although some use different vegetables or no other vegetable besides potato, so it is really your call as to what you want to make. Others also use a lot of beef broth to darken it. The stew we had was lighter but did taste of beef broth, so they must have used some. Try this one and see if you like it.

Traditional Irish Stew

4 tablespoons olive oil
3 pounds lamb shoulder, cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 cups leeks, sliced
1/2 cup flour
4 ounces butter
1 cup Guinness beer
3 cups beef stock
1/2 pound parsnips, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
1/2 pound carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
1 pound russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
4 cloves garlic, cut in half
3 sprigs of fresh rosemary, plus 1 tablespoon chopped
1 cup peas, shelled
1 cup leeks, sliced thinly
Oil for frying

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a heavy-bottomed pot, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the lamb and brown evenly. Remove the lamb from the pot and set aside. Add the leeks and saute until soft. Add the butter and melt. Add the flour to make a roux. Turn the heat down to low, and cook the roux until it is brown, about 15 minutes. Whisk in the beer and stock. Add the reserved lamb, bring to a simmer, and cover. Simmer, covered, for 1 1/2 hours.

While the lamb mixture is simmering, combine the parsnips, carrots, potatoes and garlic in a large bowl. Toss with remaining olive oil, salt and pepper and rosemary sprigs. Place the vegetables in a roasting pan and place in a 400-degree oven. Roast for 45 minutes, stirring every 20 minutes, until vegetables are tender. Remove the vegetables from the oven and discard the rosemary sprigs. Add the roasted vegetables and the peas to the lamb mixture. Cook for 10 minutes. Add the chopped rosemary. Season with salt and pepper. Add the thinly sliced leeks to a pot of heated oil and fry for 3 minutes, or until crisp. Remove the leeks from the oil and drain on paper towels. Season the leeks with salt. Garnish the stew with the fried leeks.

You could substitute some scallions for the leeks used at the end if you wanted to without frying them any, just chop them up and use them as a garnish. Either way I don’t think you can go wrong. I’ll definitely be trying this one at home myself.

We are just about done with our meals from Ireland. All we have left is our final day, which we spent entirely at the Guinness Storehouse at then at Whelan’s Pub for the show. I did get some recipes from Guinness while we were there which I will be posting tomorrow, and you can check my personal blog tonight for my account of the day we spent with Guinness. It was great! So, until tomorrow, enjoy your evening and enjoy your meal!

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Posted by MikeG on October 10, 2012 in Eating Out, Lamb, One Pot Meals, Soups & Stews

Tags: Dublin, guinness, Irish Stew, irish stews, The Hairy Lemon, traditional irish meals, Traditional Irish Stew

A Simple Dinner: Braised Chicken, Tomatoes and Bacon

27 Aug

I’ve been pretty busy with work lately so I’ve barely had time to do any blogging. As a matter of fact I’ve been completing neglecting my other blog the past few weeks so I could get work flowing. Hopefully I will get back to it next week. in the meantime, I am trying to stay with simple, easy dinners. This one even comes from a cookbook called “Simple Suppers” from Williams-Sonoma. It was a quick meal of chicken and tomatoes and makes a great one pot meal, although I did make some boiled potatoes along with it.

Braised Chicken, Tomatoes and Bacon

4 thick-cut bacon slices, chopped

6 bone-in,skin on chicken thighs, about 2 pounds total

Salt and Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1 yellow onion, chopped

2 large garlic cloves, minced

1/4 cup dry white wine

1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 can (14 1/2 ounces) diced tomatoes with juice

In a large skillet over medium heat, cook the bacon, turning often, until crisp, 4 to 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the bacon to a small plate. Drain off all but 2 tablespoons of the drippings from the pan.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Return the pan to medium-high heat, add the chicken and cook, turning once or twice, until golden brown on both sides, about 8 minutes total. Transfer the chicken to a plate. Add the onion and garlic to the pan and saute until softened, about 4 minutes.

Pour in the wine and stir to scrape up the browned bits from the pan bottom. Stir in the oregano, red pepper flakes and tomatoes and their juice. Return the chicken and any juices from the plate to the pan, cover, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook until the chicken is cooked through, 25 to 30 minutes. Uncover the pan, increase the heat to medium-high, bring to a simmer and stir in the bacon. Transfer the chicken to individual plates, top with the sauce and serve immediately.

The sauce that is made is delicious. The chicken thighs are ideal for this dish as well. The meat just falls right off the bone and is moist. Best of all, you can have this be a one dish meal and you are all done.

Simple recipe, simple meal, simple clean up, simple blog post. I am planning to make some shrimp tomorrow, so we’ll have to see what I can come up with to make. Check back and see what I decide to do. Until then, enjoy your evening and enjoy your meal!