Category: Chicken

Chicken, One Tablespoon Testosterone, Recipes

OTT: Chicken Parmesan

Sarah
BEn
another Pajama Chef in action!

This is a guest post from my husband, Ben. Periodically, he has agreed to share some of his favorite recipes with you in a guest post column entitled One Tablespoon Testosterone, or OTT for short. Enjoy!

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Ah, Italian food.  The stereotypical style for dinner dates.  I have no problem with that, and evidently  neither does my wife.  So on this past Valentine’s Day, I decided to make her some Italian food.  For those of you who are regular readers of her blog, you understand that it is no easy task to cook for someone like her.  The standards are high, and I have to be at the top of my game to please (okay, that may be andinner exaggeration, she is pretty appreciative of the mere fact that she doesn’t have to cook for a meal).  But I enjoy the occasional kitchen adventure, so rather than just take her out to some overcrowded restaurant, I decided to have one of those adventures.

Chicken Parmesan [from Eat Live Run]

Ingredients:

  • 4 chicken breasts halves, beaten into oblivion (okay fine, pounded)
  • 2 c Panko breadcrumbs
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 c flour
  • 1/4 c milk
  • 1 c shredded mozzarella
  • 2 oz pepperoni
  • 1/4 c parmesan cheese
  • 1 jar marinara or pasta sauce
  • 1/4 c canola oil
  • spaghetti or fettuccini noodles, cooked

Directions:

As always, begin by preheating the oven.  In this case, to 450 degrees.  Combine the eggs and milk in a shallow dish.  In another shallow dish, spread out the bread crumbs.  In yet another shallow dish, place the flour.  Arrange the dishes in a neat little line.  After pounding the chicken breasts (don’t go overboard or it’ll break into small pieces), dunk one breast at a time in each dish, starting with the dairy blend (not to be confused with store brand yogurt) and so on and so forth.  Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Place the chicken breasts in the oil and fry them until they are delicious-looking golden brown and cooked through.  Drain the chicken of any excess moisture (if there is any, I had no need for it).  Lay the fried chicken breasts in a greased casserole dish.  Smother them in the pasta sauce, parmesan, and mozzarella cheeses.  Last, but certainly not least, place the pepperoni on the top.  Bake for 15 minutes and serve with spaghetti or fettuccini noodles.  Enjoy.

Click here for the printable version: Chicken Parmesan

dinner

African Peanut Pineapple Stew | The Pajama Chef
Chicken, Main Dishes, Recipes

African Peanut Pineapple Stew

Sarah

So, once upon a time [actually, two once upon a times], I studied abroad in Africa. Specifically, in Cameroon and Lesotho. This is NOT a recipe from either country. No sirree. In fact, I didn’t have any peanut-based stew in either country. And being an Africana Studies major in undergrad and an African Studies graduate student, I have some beef with people who just label things “African,” because Africa is not one monoculture! But this blog is not my place to rant about the politics of names or culture or geography… it is the place to share and celebrate delicious food! As such, I can look past the unfortunate name for this delicious dish and rejoice in its tasty splendor.

African Peanut Pineapple Stew | The Pajama Chef

In all honesty, I don’t re-make recipes very often. Classics of my mom’s get made over and over again, as do a few hits I’ve found on my own, but I love experimenting and trying new recipes. This stew is an exception: I have made it several times in the past year and enjoy every single bite. We love how the flavors melt together–everything, from the onions to the peanut butter to the ginger to the hot sauce to the kale and beyond, mixes into one filling, flavorful stew. It’s comforting and unique at the same time… familiar enough to be family-friendly, exotic enough to be interesting. And vegetarians–just leave out the chicken… I did at first, but added it to satisfy my husband. 🙂 Enjoy!

African Peanut Pineapple Stew

  • Servings: 4-6
  • Print

adapted from The Way the Cookie Crumbles

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup yellow or white onion, diced
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 bunch kale or Swiss chard, chopped coarsely with large stems discarded
  • 1 pound chicken breasts, cut in 1 inch cubes
  • 1 20-ounce can crushed pineapple in its own juice, undrained
  • 1/2 cup natural peanut butter
  • 1 teaspoon ginger
  • 1 tablespoon hot pepper sauce
  • 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
  • 1/4 cup peanuts, regular salted or honey roasted
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • olive oil
  • rice prepared with chicken broth

Directions:

Heat olive oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the chicken and season with salt and pepper as desired. Stir constantly until chicken is fully cooked, then add onions and garlic and saute until soft and fragrant. Add pineapple to the pot and bring to a simmer, then add the greens and cover. Simmer for about 5 minutes until tender. Stir in the peanut butter, ginger, and hot sauce and simmer for another 5 minutes or until flavors are blended. Fold in cilantro just before serving. Serve over rice and top with peanuts.

Notes:

I usually serve this dish on top of brown rice cooked in chicken broth, but feel free to be creative! Also, feel free to omit the chicken–my meat-lover of a husband requested that addition! 🙂

Question of the Day: [And I realize this is a long shot…] Have you ever been to Africa? If so, what kind of food did you eat there? If you haven’t been… have you been to any “African” restaurants? What did you eat?

Chicken, Main Dishes, Recipes

Crispy Honey Ginger Chicken

Sarah

Sometimes my family calls me the chicken finger girl. Yes, I am that kind of person: one who always gets the same thing at restaurants, time after time. What can I say? I know what I like. And I like chicken fingers. [Not actual fingers of a chicken, as you can find with your roasted chicken in places like Cameroon, where I studied abroad. (Click at your own risk.) No joke. You can make restaurant-quality baked chicken tenders at home! Crazy, huh? This Crispy Honey Ginger Chicken is incredibly good! But the crispy, flavorful, unhealthy breaded chicken popular in most American-style restaurants today. Ooooh yes, the good stuff.]

I’ve tried to make my own at home from time to time, but never with much success. Not having a deep fryer makes crispy chicken difficult. Until I tried Jessica’s recipe. Panko bread crumbs make all the difference, I’m tellin’ ya! Panko breadcrumbs mixed with spicy ginger and savory garlic coat lucious, tender chicken bites… and made at home, these little chicken tenders aren’t exactly a health food, but they are definitely more nutritious and satisfying than any fried chicken tenders at a restaurant. Plus, they’re really simple too, and you probably have almost all the ingredients at home already, so as long as you plan ahead for the marinating, this is a perfect dinner for a busy night! Enjoy!

Crispy Honey Ginger Chicken

  • Servings: 4
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from How Sweet It Is

Ingredients:

  • 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken tenders [or sliced chicken breasts], cut into bite sized pieces [halfs or thirds]
  • 2 cups lowfat buttermilk
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 2 cups panko bread crumbs
  • 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
  • 2 tablespoons ground ginger, divided
  • 1 teaspoon seasoned salt
  • 2 teaspoons garlic powder, divided

In a baking dish, whisk together buttermilk, honey, 1 tablespoon ginger, and 1 teaspoon garlic powder. Add cut-up chicken and toss to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and marinate for at least 2 hours, or up to overnight.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees and place a wire rack on a large baking sheet. Grease wire rack with cooking spray. In a small bowl, stir together panko, remaining garlic and ginger, seasoned salt, and flour. Coat chicken pieces in mixture, then lay on wire rack. Spray each piece with cooking spray. Bake for 10 minutes, flip, coat with cooking spray, and bake again for another 10-15 minutes, or until cooked through. Serve with honey and barbecue sauce.

Question of the Day: Are you one to always try new things at restaurants or do you find a favorite and stick with it?

Chicken, One Tablespoon Testosterone, Recipes

OTT: Lime-Soy Chicken

Sarah

A delightfully easy, flavorful chicken dish… it’s always a hit!

Lime Soy Chicken | thepajamachef.comThis has become one of my favorite dishes.  My wife first made it early in our marriage and it’s one of those recipes that’s stuck like oatmeal scone batter to a mixing bowl.  It’s got three of my favorite flavors in it.  I love citrus, so you’ve got lime.  I love Asian flavors and soy sauce is excellent.  And it’s got red pepper flakes for some kick, and I do love spicy food.  But this isn’t too spicy, so don’t let that scare you off.  Plus, you can always tweak it to your tastes.  But anyhow, this is a rich in strong flavor dish that delights your sense of taste.  Unfortunately, my latest attempt at it hardly delighted the sense of sight so there’s room for improvement.  Presentation is perhaps my greatest culinary flaw.  I suspect my wife would agree.

Lime-Soy Chicken

  • Servings: 4
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adapted from an unknown magazine

Ingredients:

  • 1/4 c lime juice
  • 1/4 c soy sauce
  • 1/4 c olive oil
  • 1 t crushed red pepper
  • 1/2 t cumin
  • 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (unless for some reason you enjoy boning and skinning the chicken breasts yourself…which would make you weird)

Directions:

Combine all the ingredients in a medium bowl (except the chicken of course).  Then marinate the chicken in it for at least 30 minutes to an hour, although I’m a big fan of overnight marinating.  The more the time those flavors have to absorb into the meat, the better.  Now it’s time to fire up your grill (or you could just broil it in the oven).  When it’s ready, place your flavor-infused chicken breasts on the grill and cook.  Unless you’re using a George Foreman (which at this time of year you should be…unless you live in the south or west in which case you can use the time waiting for your outside grill to fire up to contemplate what it would be like to experience the weather phenomenon most of us call “seasons”), turn the chicken after several minutes.  When the sweet sweet juices run clear, your chicken is done.  Remove from grill and enjoy.  It can be served with any tasty vegetable such as fresh green beans or roasted potatoes.  I served it most recently with a cilantro lime barley.  This was basically just barley cooked in chicken broth, with lime juice and cilantro added.  Also try adding bacon.  I haven’t tried this, but bacon makes everything better so I don’t see how it could hinder this either.

Question of the Day: With Thanksgiving just around the corner, what’s your favorite Thanksgiving dish? Mine is turkey, covered in gravy. Mmmm… or really, anything covered in gravy, except cranberry sauce; that would just be gross. Side note: my wife hates gravy. I don’t know what’s wrong with her.

Chicken, Main Dishes, Recipes

Hawaiian Chicken

Sarah

Hawaiian chicken When my husband and I first got married about a year and a half ago, I wasn’t a bad cook. I grew up cooking and baking a lot at home with my family, and living on my own for two years post-college gave me time to experiment with new recipes and figure out things in a grown-up kitchen. Problem was, I married a meat-lover and so in the early days of our marriage, I quickly realized I needed to expand my cooking repertoire to make Ben happy. Because I did want to make him happy… and I still do. 🙂

That first summer of marriage, I wasn’t yet working or in school so I had a lot of spare time [after all the wedding gifts were unpacked, I was settled into our new apartment, thank you notes written, etc.]. One day, I was flipping through one of my new cookbooks looking for some recipes I could try out. I knew Ben liked meat and Asian food, and when I saw the recipe for Hawaiian Baked Chicken, I was sold. It wasn’t exactly Chinese food, but it had a bit of Asian undertones, if only in the fact that it was chicken and veggies with a sauce served with rice. We didn’t have all the ingredients, but I improvised and by the time Ben arrived home that night, had dinner prepared.

wedding day
5/23/09--I love you, Benny.

This sweet and savory chicken dinner was a winner and was quickly proclaimed a keeper. There’s some mustard and spice for a savory, tangy kick, and honey and pineapple for sweetness. Served atop a bed of rice, this will make any hungry man happy. Now, it was what I make for my husband when I know he’s had a hard week or to celebrate an accomplishment at work. I like to make it for him when we haven’t had it in awhile just so he knows I remember how much he enjoyed it. I look forward to making it for my Ben in the years to come, so we can be in our 60s and look back to remember our early days of marriage in our tiny apartment in Bloomington, Indiana.

Hawaiian Chicken [from The Taste of Home Cookbook]

Ingredients:

  • 1 pound raw chicken breasts, cut into bite size chunks
  • 16 ounces pineapple chunks in pineapple juice, undrained
  • 1 cup green pepper, chopped
  • 1/4 cup chicken broth
  • 1/4 cup spicy brown mustard
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon paprika
  • cooked rice prepared with chicken broth instead of water
  • cooking spray

Directions:

Grease a shallow baking dish with cooking spray and then place chicken in dish. Pour green pepper and pineapple [and its juice] over chicken. In a large measuring cup, whisk together chicken broth, mustard, honey, olive oil, and paprika. Pour mixture over chicken and pineapple, cover, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours for best results. Bake uncovered in a 400 degree oven for about 40-45 minutes or until chicken is fully cooked. Serve over rice.

Notes:

I’ve also used Dijon mustard and chili powder in lieu of brown mustard and paprika with excellent results. I’ve also added carrots before, but would recommend very small pieces so they cook and/or pre-cooking the carrots prior to baking. Also, this dish doesn’t have to marinate over a long period of time but it does get more flavorful the longer it sits. I like to prepare this the night before or morning of, but do what works best for you.

Click here for the printable version: Hawaiian Chicken

Question of the Day: What dish do you like to make for a special person in your life?