Oriental Grilled Chicken Pasta with Fresh Vegetables

Two elements played strong roles in this Friday Night's Challenge: hot weather and fresh vegetables. Both tended to serve the Challenge well. 


The hot weather sent me out the kitchen and onto the deck to the grill. This meant some pre-seasoning of the good things for tonight's menu. I decided to go oriental since a sesame taste was beckoning me.


I mixed up a marinade of canola oil, chili sesame oil, sesame oil, soy sauce, and a generous portion of ginger sesame spice.


Using some heavy-duty foil, I made a pocket and coated it with canola oil. Then I added in a layer of the first ingredient, chicken, that was coarsely chopped. I poured a bit of the marinade over this. For the next layer, I broke into 3 inch pieces whole wheat pasta, and poured a bit more of the marinade. I then added coarsely chopped zucchini, red bell pepper, tomatoes, and off the cob corn. 


Everything was put together on the grill. I wasn't too sure about grilling pasta, but with the natural juices from the veggies and the moisture of the chicken, it did just fine. It also nicely soaked up the mild sesame flavor.


Easy to do; easy to fix. Gotta love this time of year with all the freshness of our food...be sure to enjoy!

Friday Night Challenge: Tuscan Style Tuna on a Hot, Hot Day

When the heat index is in the 100s, all thoughts of heavy-laden foods go out the window. So with the ingredients offered in the Friday Night Challenge:

tuna, asparagus, sauerkraut, cheese, and tomatoes

I decided to steer clear of the Reuben-style solution in favor of a lighter, Tuscan-style meal that allows all the freshest flavors of the season do their thing.

The meal is very easy to make and, happily, very inexpensive. And--it's pretty!

I drained two cans of tuna until all traces of water were completely gone. Set aside. Roughly dice two Roma tomatoes and set them aside. I used frozen asparagus from this spring's garden that I brought to a boil for around 5 minutes and then rinsed in cold water in a colander until cool. Open a can of sauerkraut, drain, and then, in a colander, run cold water over and continuously wring out until much of the "bite" is gone. Mix together olive oil, a generous amount of dried basil (or if you have fresh chopped-great!), and some garlic powder. Pour this first over the kraut and let it sit for awhile while you're working with the other ingredients. 

Assemble the salad with the base of the kraut, then layer on the tuna and tomatoes. Next comes the asparagus. Finish with some freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Pour a bit more of the olive oil/basil/garlic mix over the combination. That's it!

Hot and humid days shouldn't keep us from enjoying great food; neither should a questionable economy.

Enjoy!

Tuscan tuna and a limmoncello martini--refreshing!

Spam Time! for the Friday Night Challenge

It seems the lines are clearly drawn when it comes to Spam--people either really like it or detest it. There's just not much area in between. I happened to be married to a nice guy that really likes Spam. Plain Spam, Spicy Spam, you name it--it's all good. So when it was time for a Friday Night Challenge, he asked if he could play along and name Spam for one of the ingredients. Well, of course! And so he did. The other four ingredients were:

Velveeta cheese, pineapple, water chestnuts, and avocado

It was way too hot to heat much up in the kitchen and what's nicer to have than a grill in the summer? So, with little hesitation, I coarsely chopped the avocado, the water chestnuts, and the Spam into bite-sized pieces. I kept the pineapple in slices--pineapple and a grill just really get along well, so why mess with what works? Once the avocado was tender and the rest of everything else warmed through and a bit caramelized, it was time to remove it from the grill and add some thin slices of pepper jack Velveeta and let it do some serious melting. 

My Spam man agreed it was pretty darned good!

The Friday Night Challenge--Welcome Summer!

Tonight's challenge put me in a tropical/summertime frame of mind with a super-easy main dish. Here are the ingredients:

salmon---cucumber---mango--broccoli--kiwi

On my way to the grocery, it occurred to me that I had some left-over Major Grey's Chutney in the fridge. That was the link that would bring everything together.

Here's the recipe:  Take the salmon and divide into serving sizes (I used frozen and it worked great). I sprayed a heavy piece of aluminum foil with olive oil cooking spray and let the salmon cook on this on the grill for around 10 minutes or just light pink. Don't cook too long or it will dry out quickly...ick.

While the salmon was cooking, I diced up a cucumber (be sure to remove the seeds); cut a mango into tiny slices (yep, used canned and it worked fine--be sure to save the juice from the can); cut the fresh broccoli into tiny bite-sized pieces (this will need to be fresh to hold its texture), and peeled and cut the kiwi into a rough dice.

I took a bit of the Major Grey's chutney and mixed it with the mango syrup (find mangoes in light syrup--it works better) to make a dressing for the dish.

Take the salmon from the grill, assemble all the ingredients on a plate, put some chutney directly on the salmon and let it glaze, and then pour the dressing lightly over everything. 

I added a glass of sav blanc and it was fantastic.

Happy summer with a very light, pretty, and enjoyable Friday Night Challenge.

Enjoy!

Friday Night Challenge: Smoky Hunan Chicken

I finally got the chance to go to the store and pick up the needed supplies for last week's Challenge. As a review, the ingredients were:
chicken---pecans---water chestnuts---sweet potatoes---bourbon

I decided to give the ingredients a spicy Hunan taste since we like that flavor (and I had a jar of smoky hunan sauce I was interested in trying). To make the dish (easy to do!):
--cut up two sweet potatoes into very small cubes
--cook on fairly high heat in some canola oil until they start to get soft and carmelize
Turn down the heat and add the following:
--hunan sauce (I used Hunan Smokehut Spicy Grill Sauce)
--can of sliced water chestnuts
--2 oz. pecan pieces
--chicken pieces (can use a couple of chicken breasts if you'd like--I had left-over fried chicken that I pulled apart and used)

Let these ingredients cook on low heat until everything is heated through; then after turning off the heat, pour in 2T. of American Honey bourbon. Stir for even coverage.

This is incredibly easy, quick, and is quite economical. It makes a pretty dish and tastes great!

Friday Night Challenge: Balsamic-Seared Tuna Steaks

After a cool-down period of over a week, I was ready to get the Friday Night Challenge up and running once again. It is summertime, after all and that means grill weather! (The calendar doesn't show it yet, but the temperatures in the 90's do!) 
Here are the ingredients that came my way for this week:
tuna, artichoke, lettuce, strawberries, feta cheese, mushrooms


Here is the finished product:

And here's the recipe:


Take one jar of artichoke hearts, one jar of shiitake mushrooms, 1/2 dozen sliced button mushrooms. Toss all these together and place in a foil packet with some salt, a sprinkle of olive oil, and a dash of balsamic vinegar. Place on the grill on low heat and let cook for around 15 minutes.


Take tuna steaks and slice to about 1/2-3/4" thickness. Add a bit of salt, a sprinkle of olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Drop on the grill--that's it. Watch them until they just start to lose their pinkness. Don't cook any longer or they'll dry out.


For the salad (another very easy to fix item): take lettuce (any kind you prefer). Slice some strawberries thinly.   (Earlier I fixed some strawberries the regular way, i.e. sliced and sugared a bit--needed the syrup for the dressing, and besides--dessert, anyone?) Pull the lettuce into bite-sized pieces, place the strawberry slices on the lettuce bed, sprinkle some crumbled Feta cheese over the salad, and then add the simple dressing of the strawberry syrup, a bit of balsamic vinegar, and olive oil. Yep, that's it!


If you need something quick yet substantial for a meal, this is an easy fix and it tastes great with the addition of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a bit of salt. 


Enjoy!

Summer Squash-Stuffed Chipolte Turkey Cutlets

I had a three-week hiatus from the All About the Food blog; our recent trip to New Orleans and other side trips kept me from the kitchen for any length of time. So, it's time to get things started again; I threw out the challenge and boy did I not get let down challenge-wise. Here are the ingredients I received:
turkey--summer squash--beets--garbanzo beans--pickles 
Okay...
After some thought and imaginary tasting, I came up with the following:
Marinade turkey cutlets or chops (or a chicken breast if you prefer) in a chipolte-based sauce. You can find these most anywhere. Let this marinade in the fridge overnight. 
Take a summer squash, cut and clean out the seeds, slice into about 1" slices and place on a cookie sheet sprayed with cooking spray. Bake these slices at about 375 degrees for around 35 minutes. Turn them once and pierce the fleshy part with a fork to test for tenderness. Once they are very tender, remove from the oven and turn it down to325 degrees.
Put the turkey cutlet on a baking sheet. Bake for around 20 minutes and check for doneness. If the chop or cutlet is thin, make sure it doesn't dry out. An internal temperature of 170 degrees is suitable.
While the cutlet/breast is baking, cut all the fleshy parts of the squash from the peel. Mash the squash; season as desired, but remember that you have some strong flavors with the other items. 

For the garbanzo bean side dish, simply heat a can of the garbanzos, and then drench with cold water to cool down. To these add some finely chopped kosher dill pickle and sweet dill pickle. Mince up a couple of beet slices and add just before serving since the beet will stain everything it touches.
This has probably been on of the most "interesting" Friday Night Challenges, ingredient-wise, but that's what makes it fun. And, I was quite amazed that the flavors ended up complimenting each other. If I did something like this again, I believe I would use a smoked turkey breast instead of regular chops to get even more lasting flavor.