Fried Rice with Asparagus and Chicken

I found some leftover brown rice in my fridge and decided to put together a spring inspired fried rice for dinner last night. I diced asparagus to use in place of peas, which are not yet in season, and Jesse grilled up chicken breast because we try to use the grill as much as possible in warm weather. Jesse actually hates Chinese food, so he was a little worried at first, but in the end he declared it was leagues better than takeout fried rice.

Fried Rice with Asparagus and Chicken
1-2 cups leftover brown rice
1 large onion
1/2 lb asparagus
1/2 lb grilled breast
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
salt
pepper

Heat wok or pan to medium high and coat with olive oil. Chop onion into large pieces and sautee until translucent and browned. Rinse and dice asparagus and add to the pan. Sautee approximately 5 minutes, until asparagus is slightly softened. Add rice and continue to cook over medium high heat for another 5 minutes to flavor the rice. Meanwhile, shred grilled chicken into small pieces and add to pan. Finally, add soy suace, vinegar, tumeric, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper, and toss to coat.

Guest post: Finding local meat in Florida

Another guest post from my sister Lisa, who's currently living in Sarasota, Florida, and managing a college campus cafe. The other night she made this delicious looking whole wheat pasta with chicken sausage, and local garlic, onion and arugula. Here's her story:



Celebrating the first week of Worden Farm (the only local, organic farm that sells at the Sarasota farmer's market), I had a Saturday night feast of sauteed garlic, onions and arugula that had the perfect balanced peppery, but mild, taste. Add some non-local chicken sausage from Whole Foods (the quest for local meat in the Sarasota area is still ongoing) and the result was spicy garlic and sausage, sweet vidalia onions and tomato sauce, and filling whole wheat al dente pasta. This was miles better than the pasta dishes I grew up on, which were usually bland and unsatisfying.

Today I will be going to pick up some buffalo meat from a small local farmer, so there may be a new, even more delicous Floridian post awaiting on the horizon.

A Pleasant Surprise

So my sister's aforementioned graduation party took place this past weekend. The menu we planned sounded impressive, but in the end I felt it all fell a little flat. My rosemary roasted potatoes nicely browned but then grew soggy in the hours before they were served. My brownies came out neither fudgy nor cakey, but chalky. The chocolate coating for the strawberries was pasty and watery due to the low quality chocolate chips my mother procured from Shoprite. Then there was the oozing overly lemon zested icing on the lemon ricotta cake; the gummy rice in my rice, chickpea, and asparagus pilaf; the overly lemony hummus and the overly garlicky white bean and spinach dip. We love to cook, but aren't always that great in executing our menus. But everyone still ate most of the food and seemed to like it, so I wouldn't call it a failure by any means.


While at home in Warwick for the weekend, which is positively verdant this time of year, we had the chance to not only enjoy a double feature at the drive in despite the rainy forecast, but to check out the Warwick Farmers Market. It wasn't too large, but featured lots of baked goods, wine, homemade gourmet goods, plants, and a couple meat and vegetable stands. Since my hometown is about 50 miles outside of New York City, there is some overlap between our farmers markets. I was thrilled to see Dines Farms, which used to be my main meat guy until they were kicked out of the McCarren Park Greenmarket for some reason. I had a reliable source of tasty chicken up until then, and haven't had much chicken since. So we got a huge chicken breast and some mushrooms from Dines Farms to cook up for dinner, as well as some kind of wild green from Rogowski farm, which they told us was a kind of Mexican spinach, so I think it was quelites.


We rounded out our dinner plans with a bottle of Seyval Chardonnay Reserve from Applewood winery, which is aged in oak, making it more complex than Applewood's slightly cheaper regular Seyval Chardonnay blend.


We planned on taking a hike but got lazy and read books instead in my sunny backyard before taking our booty back to Brooklyn to cook up dinner. Can you blame us?


I wanted to keep our things really simple, so I didn't even add onions or garlic or any spices. I just chopped up the mushrooms and the quelites, sauteed them in olive oil with a couple glugs of the wine and shakes of salt and pepper, and covered the pan for about 15 minutes until wilted. So simple in fact, that that's really all of a recipe you need.


Meanwhile, Jesse grilled the hunka chicken along with a couple buttery yellow potatoes from Berried Treasures in a pocket of foil because we are potato addicts. We ate about a third of the chicken that night and smartly saved the rest in the fridge for future use (such as in the yummy chicken, radish, lettuce, and mayonnaise sandwich I just ate for dinner tonight).


But back to that night's dinner. I quartered the potatoes and slathered them with Ronnybrook butter and a sprinkle of fresh sage from my container garden. Then I sliced up the chicken and laid it over the sauteed quelites and mushrooms to practice my plating skills. Plunked down a glass of that white wine. And yum. Now, I've never liked mushrooms very much, but I really enjoyed these. Something about the earthy sour smell usually turns me off, but I always had this hope that maybe it would be different with mushrooms from the farmers market. So that's what led me to give these mushrooms a whirl, and it was a pleasant surprise - their smell and flavor was mild enough to just give a meaty oomph to the sauteed greens without overpowering my nosebuds. Success! If only I knew what they were called so I could find them again. Name that mushroom? Anyone?


It feels like the Dark Days Challenge just ended, yet here is two months later, moving on into One Local Summer. The challenge is this: to prepare and blog about one meal each week using only locally grown ingredients - the exceptions are oil, salt and pepper, and spices. Reading One Local Summer was what inspired me to start cooking local meals in the first place last summer, but I was too late in the game to join. Now that eating local is old hat, here goes another delicious summer, starting with this very first OLS entry of the summer.

Dark Days Challenge Final Week: Kale and Chicken with Bacon and Currants over Rice

In thinking of a way to use up the bacon I bought last weekend, I thought back to the kale salad with bacon vinaigrette that I had at Diner not so long ago. I loved that salad, with its delicate chiffonades of kale and crunch of bacon and breadcrumbs.


But I didn't think that the tight little leaves of kale I get from Garden of Eve farm would suit a salad. So I decided to cook the kale on the stovetop and make use of the bacon fat. For Jesse's benefit, I added in chicken (big strong man needs protein) and served it over rice (a complete meal must include a starch).


I also added currants, which was a nice touch. I think currants may be my new favorite pantry item. I bought them on my last stock-up trip to Fairway because they were the cheapest dried fruit by far (about $2/box compared to $8/box for blueberries etc, thinking I would use them to make homemade granola. Well, I haven't gotten around to making granola yet, but the currants were perfect in with kale and bacon - providing a nice salty-sweet complexity to the dish.


And while I was initially opposed to adding carbs to my green leafy-heavy meal, I think the rice also really benefited the meal, since bites of sweet black rice tasted wonderful with crunchy bacon. (Thanks again to Jesse's mom for the colorful rice!) The chicken breast, a lucky find at the farmers market a few weeks ago, was not the star of the show, and I would only include it if you have a craving for meat, or, like me, have a big strong man around who requires meat. And as for the shallots, you could subsitite onions as I normally would have, but I was lucky enough to get free shallots at the farmers market for having exact change :-)


Kale and Chicken with Bacon and Currants over Rice
3/4 cup rice
1 1/2 cup water
4 strips bacon
2 shallots
1/2 lb chicken breast
1 large or 2 small bunches kale
heaping handful of dried currants
salt
pepper

Combine rice, water, and a pinch of salt to a small pot. Bring to a boil and then let simmer for about 40 minutes until rice is tender.

Meanwhile, lay bacon in a large pan and cook over medium heat, turning every few minutes, until crispy. Remove and let drain on a paper towel-lined plate.

Mince shallots and cook in bacon fat over low heat until softened. Meanwhile, slice chicken into fairly small pieces. Add to the pan and turn heat up to medium to allow the chicken to brown. Turn chicken pieces over after a few minutes to brown the other side.

Meanwhile, rinse kale and chop into very small pieces. Add to pan and lower heat to low. Let wilt a little. Then add 1/4 cup water and cook, covered, for about 10 minutes. Tear bacon into bits and scatter bacon and currants over pan. Add salt and pepper and combine. Serve kale mixture over rice.

Grilled Chicken Saag, and Fried Calamari

Welcome to Part 2 of Welcome Back Jesse: Dinner - this one's a doozy. I decided to grill the chicken rather than brown it in the saucepan as recipes called for to make it a little healthier. That worked fine, but as you can see below, this meal requires many pots, dishes, and steps. It came out good on the end, spicy but not quite like Indian from a restaurant because I was lacking in spices such as coriander, cloves, garam masala, which I didn't feel like going out to get for this. But the best part - this dish is chuck full of spinach, so it's good for you!

1 1/2 cup rice
3 cups water
pinch of salt

1 1/2 lb chicken breast, sliced into 4 pieces
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tsp curry
salt and pepper
non-stick cooking spray

2 bunches spinach, washed thoroughly and chopped
1/4 cup water

four pitas
olive oil
salt and pepper

olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, minced
1 inch piece ginger, minced
1/2 green chili pepper, diced
1 tomato, diced
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp cumin
1 tbsp curry
salt and pepper

Step 1: Combine water, rice, and salt in a pot, bring to boil, and then lightly simmer until all water is absorbed, approximately 50 minutes.

Step 2: Rub chicken with spices. Grill on high five minutes, flip over and grill another five minutes, then grill on low for another five minutes till done. Remove from heat. Don't forget to turn off the grill!

Step 3: Put spinach in a pot with 1/4 cup water. Cover, bring to a boil, and remove from heat. When cool, grind in blender and set aside.

Step 4: Brush pita bread on both sides lightly with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and lightly toast at 400 degrees for 5 minutes until warm and slightly toasty.

Step 5: Sautee garlic, onion, and ginger until lightly browned. Add tomato and other spices and simmer for 10 minutes. Add spinach puree and simmer about 5 minutes. Add chicken and simmer another 10 mintes until sauce has thickened. Remove from heat. Serve over brown rice with pita bread.

Fried Calamari



Also, the next night, Jesse fried up some calamari that was yummy. It was already washed by the fisherman - I think he just chopped it up and sauteed it on low with olive oil and minced garlic for about 45 minutes until it was tender. And tender it was - I like it much better this way than breaded and chewy like restaurants usually serve it.

Speaking of garlic, we went to the garlic festival in Saugerties today and it was somewhat disappointing. First of all, it was overwhelming - so crowded and so many vendors I didn't know where to start where to go and it was way too easy to keep losing my friends. Half the time was spent losing and meeting back up. Anyway, there were many stands selling what looked and tasted like high-quality garlic as well as garlic spreads and sauces etc. But the actual food to eat there was almost like any county fair - fried dough, tacos, and taco and pork all in pieces dripping with gross oil or whatever stand after stand so that was disappointing. For all the hype, I thought there would be intelligent dishes. Oh well, I'm so tired from being in the car so long I can't even think.

Swiss Chard Stuffed Chicken

1 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic
1/2 small onion
1 tomato
1 bunch swiss chard
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp lime juice
rosemary
salt
pepper
2 oz goat cheese
2 chicken breasts

Dice garlic, onion, and tomato, and sautee over low heat. Rinse swiss chard, break into small pieces, and add once tomato is tender. Let swiss chard wilt. In a bowl, combine olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lime juice, rosemary, and salt, and pepper. Pour over swiss chard mixture.

With bottom of small skillet or mallet, pound chicken breasts until thin. Place small amount of swiss chard mixture on each breast, add a few pinches of goat cheese, and roll up.

Cook chicken over approximately 15 minutes at 350 degrees, or until done. Serve over remaining swiss chard mixture. Serves two.

Note: This is a great summer dish, and I was able to incorporate local ingredients, since chicken, swiss chard, Jersey tomatoes, and goat cheese are all readily available at my farmers market.