A "Chopped" candidate

This evening's dinner felt like something out of the TV program "Chopped". A bunch of ingredients and a timer - make dinner. The ingredients this time were 1 butternut squash, cherry tomatoes, pepitas and goat cheese. There was some fresh oregano lying around too, and the usual pantry staples. Turned out absolutely delicious!

We used this recipe as one of the dishes in the knife sharpening party. Mostly because the butternut squash needs sharp blades.

It is better to toast the pepitas than to buy the ready toasted variety. Sometimes the pre-toasted pepitas can taste a little rancid.

Ingredients

1 Butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 3/4" cubes

2T vegetable oil

5 sprigs of fresh oregano

12 cherry tomatoes

2 oz pepitas, toasted

2 oz fresh goat cheese, crumbled (can substitute cambozola or even brie) 

Salt/pepper to taste

Method

Toast the pepitas in a hot skillet until they brown. This takes about 5-7 minutes. You could also do them in a 350F oven for about 15 minutes. Salt them liberally while still hot.

Pre-heat the oven to 450F. Toss the butternut squash pieces in the oil, then salt and pepper them liberally, adding the oregano. Spread the squash pieces over a rimmed baking sheet. Place them in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes add the tomatoes. Let cook for 10 minutes. Then add the pepitas. Cook for 10 minutes, then add the crumbled goat cheese (or other soft cheese if using) and place the pan back in the oven for the cheese to melt.

Serve piping hot with a nice red wine - in our case a Chianti.

Chicken Refrigerator Soup

A refrigerator soup is one where you have a whole bunch of stuff lying round, and need to use it up - in a potentially unusual way. This one was no exception. Wee were leaving for the weekend and needed to make dinner the night before. How we had the ingredients is a bit of a mystery. What happened to them was awesome.
I had bought too many chicken thighs a few days before. The packaging had me with 2 bone in, skin on chicken thighs left over. Also there was 3/4 of a red onion. That meant to me "make stock". So into  the stockpot went thee thighs, onion and water. Simmer for an hour (so the meat was still viable and the stock was OK (weird color because of the red onion, but tasty. Shredded the chicken (removed the skin, of course) and we now had the basis of a soup.
We had an acorn squash lying around and some celery, carrots, yellow onions, and red potatoes on the day that soup making was required. So how hard could it be? The bonus surprise was that the acorn squash cooked right down and thickened the soup all by itself. So no need to puree anything.
Start to finish 35 minutes.

Ingredients

1T neutral oil

1 small red onion diced

4 small carrots cut into 3/4" lengths

3 ribs celery sliced into 3/4" lengths

3 cups chicken stock (defatted)

Hot sauce to taste (we used our home made habanero vodka - aka secret ingredient)

4 medium red potatoes - quarered

1 acorn squash peeled, seeded and diced

Shredded meat from 2 cooked chicken thighs

2T crunchy peanut butter (preferably unsweetened)

Salt/Pepper to taste

Method

Heat the oil in a saucepot or dutch oven until shimmering. Add the onions, carrots, celery, turn the heat down and sweat for about 5 minutes. Add the chicken stock and hot sauce, bring to a simmer and cook for 3-5 minutes. Add the potatoes and squash. Simmer the soup for 15 minutes - until the potatoes are just cooked. As you stir the soup here, the squash will disintegrate, thickening the soup.

Add the chicken and peanut butter, stirring thoroughly until the peanut butter is fully incorporated. 

Serve piping hot with crunchy salt.   

OnePotChicken

A friend of ours had bariatric surgery recently. So he eats far less now than he used to. It's important that what he does eat is really tasty, healthy and nutritious. He doesn't want a lot of potatoes - he simply doesn't have the capacity for them any more. And no carbonation in anything - so no beer (or soda).
So the upshot was to make a one dish meal with chicken... But of course it needed to be amped up, so here goes. The ngredient list looks pretty intimidating, but I would imagine you would have most of the ingredients in the pantry. And yes we did "serve this to people" and Madame said we could!
And, full disclosure, I adapted this from a Serious Eats recipe - Thanks again Kenji

Ingredients

1T olive oil

9 chicken thighs (that's because 9 fit into my largest skillet!), bone in and skin on, seasoned with salt and pepper

8 oz bacon chopped into small pieces crosswise

1 large red onion (that's because we had a red onion - white or yellow would be fine too) diced

1 fennel bulb - diced in the same sized pieces as the oinion

1 head green cabbage shredded like you might for coleslaw

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

2T coarse grained mustard

2t habanero vodka (aka secret ingredient)

3 cups chicken stock

2T white sugar

3 bay leaves

12 thyme sprigs

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Preheat the oven to 350 and position a rack in the middle. I used the convection bake setting, so it doesn't matter quite so much where the rack is. I had these potatoes (for Madame and me) salt baking on the middle shelf.

Heat the oil over medium heat in a 12" saute pan. Make sure it is shimmering and that there are little whiffs of smoke. Place the thighs SKIN SIDE DOWN into the hot pan. Do not cover with a lid, but do use a splatter guard if you have one. Leave over medium heat undisturbed for 8-10 minutes. The skin should brown and start to crisp up.

Once the chicken has browned, flip it over and cook on the other side for 3-5 minutes - just to get some color.

Transfer the chicken to a warm plate and add the bacon to the pan. The bacon will need to cook for 3-5 minutes. It crisps and darkens a bit.

Pour off most of the fat in the pan and then add the onion and fennel and cook until soft and very slightly brown. Again about 3-5 minutes.

Add the cabbage (it will look like the pot is overflowing, but it does wilt down sum. Keeping the pan on medium heat cook the cabbage until some of it gets a slight char. You will need to keep tossing it in the pan because there is so much of it. 

Add the vinegar, mustard, secret ingredient and deglaze the pan.

Add the chicken stock, thyme, bay leaves, and sugar and bring to a simmer.

Nestle the chicken skin side up in the simmering stock. It is vital that the skin of the chicken be above the liquid. 

Put the pan into the preheated oven and "bake" for 35-45 minutes. My instant read thermometer registered a scary 200. But the chicken was fine. Skin nice and crispy. Certainly any pathogens had been obliterated. 

To serve, place the chicken onto a serving platter or bowl. Cover with the cabbage and remaining liquid. Garnish with fennel fronds, and serve.

A bit of work for a Tuesday - total elapsed time about 75 minutes. But a good chunk of the time was spent with the dish in the oven.

Now I have some left overs for lunches. Except, of course, I forgot to take any to work today.