Chicken Thighs and Onions in Mustard-Tarragon Wine Sauce

Chicken thighs and red onions cooked in wine, mustard and tarragon. 

I made this for dinner on a Tuesday night, and it was exciting for two reasons--1. it was a new recipe, and came out excellently--certainly something I'll be making again and again2. it was the first night of the year warm enough to eat on the deck. In the summer, we eat dinner on the deck every night we eat at home. Eating outside made me want to move from ski season to gardening season (and especially gardening-and-not-working season). 

Anyway--this recipe was great. Very big flavors with the wine, mustard and tarragon--and very easy, too. Would have gone perfectly with just a baguette--next time I make it I'll bake some bread, too. This chicken, good bread, and a salad would be a completely perfect weeknight dinner. 

I originally found this recipe on the NYtimes website, where it called for shallots. I stopped at the grocery store by my school after work for ingredients--and at this store they don't carry overpriced white people ingredients like shallots, so I just used red onions. It was still fabulous. I would use them again next time, too.

OK it looks much prettier in the Times' picture.

Another thing--if you spend the money to buy one of those plastic packets of herbs, just go ahead and use ALL the tarragon. Put half in the sauce and sprinkle the other half on top when serving. It drives me nuts spending money on tiny amounts of herbs in plastic packages--another reason I'm excited for gardening season.

INGREDIENTS

• 8 bone-in chicken thighs
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 12 to 15 whole medium shallots, peeled
• 2 cups white wine
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 2 sprigs tarragon
• 2 cups cherry tomatoes, cut in half.

PREPARATION

1.

Rinse chicken thighs in water, and pat them very dry with paper towels. Sprinkle over them the flour, salt and pepper.

2.

Melt the butter in a large, heavy-bottomed pot or skillet set over medium-high heat. When the butter foams, cook the chicken, in batches if necessary, until well browned and crisp on all sides. Set aside.

3.

Add the whole shallots to the pot and sauté them in the butter and chicken fat until they begin to soften and caramelize, approximately 10 to 12 minutes. Add the wine to deglaze the pot, stir with a large spoon, then add the mustard and tarragon, then the chicken thighs. Cover the pot, turn the heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes.

4.

Remove the lid, and allow the sauce to reduce and thicken, 15 to 20 minutes.

5.

Add the cherry tomatoes to the pot, stir lightly to combine and serve immediately.

The whole dinner--enjoyed on the deck! Chicken, roast carrots, potato gratin. 

Enjoy!

Roasted Tomato, Pepper and Carrot Soup with Spicy Herb Yogurt

I distinctly remember the very first time I had tomato-garlic soup--it was back when my parents were still married, so I must have been somewhere around 3rd or 4th grade. We went out to dinner as a family to this restaurant in Chico called Basque Norte (just googled them--apparently they just sell marinade now), and I ordered the tomato-garlic soup and lamb chops and INSTANTLY REALIZED I LOVE TOMATO GARLIC SOUP.

Ultimately, the night went sour because my Dad was being a dick. (A few years hence we'd be unable to afford dinner out at a nice restaurant, but much happier because my Dad wasn't invited). 

Plus, who needs dinner out? In elementary school I developed my first tomato-garlic soup recipe. Here it is: 

Stir together:

2 cans of Campbell's tomato soup, diluted with water according to whatever the can says

A few vigorous shakes of garlic powder or garlic salt

Boil and serve in bowls or coffee mugs. Sprinkle with Cheez Its as croutons. 

That was great! And my first copy-of-a-restaurant meal recipe.

But in the years since, I've made a far more delicious, complex and wonderful tomato soup recipe. It's a lot more work, though. I start by roasting about 3 lbs of veggies with some balsamic, olive oil, garlic, and a sprinkle of salt. Then, I blend the roasted veggies and add some stock--that's it! This is more a template than a recipe--you could make any kind of vegetable soup by following this basic routine. 

Tonight I made a spicy, herb-y yogurt topping, too.

Ingredients 

For soup

2 lbs Roma tomatoes 

1 package cherry tomatoes 

4 carrots

2 red bell peppers

1 head garlic

2 TB olive oil

2 TB balsamic vinegar

sprinkle salt 

2 white onions

2 cups white wine

2 TB butter

1 piece of bread (anything is fine--sourdough, wheat, white, etc)

6 cups of vegetable stock (I like to make my own--recipe below. But canned or boxed is fine. You could also use chicken stock)

What to do:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. 

Cut the veggies other than the onions. Quarter the Roma tomatoes, chop carrots and peppers into large chunks. Leave the cherry tomatoes whole. Peel a head of garlic. Toss everything together in a large roasting pan. Drizzle with the olive oil and balsamic, and sprinkle with a teaspoon or so of salt. 

Veggies before roasting. 

Place into the 400 degree oven and roast, uncovered, for an hour.

An hour later--the veggies are fragrant, concentrated and soft. 

Remove the vegetables from the oven and set aside to cool.

Melt the butter in a large soup pot. 

Put the two onions in a food processor and blend into a paste. Put them into the melted butter and saute for about five minutes.

Pour the wine into the pot and simmer for about five minutes. 

I used this classy vintage. 

Meanwhile, scoop the roasted veggies and slice of bread into the food processor and blend. You may need to work in batches. 

Roasted Vegetable Puree. 

Add the pureed vegetables to the onions /wine/ butter in your pot. Stir to mix. 

Add vegetable stock and stir--bring to a boil, then turn the heat off. Taste--does it need a teaspoon of sugar to temper the tomatoes? A dash of lemon or some more salt???

Serve with toast, grilled cheese, or anything! 

Spicy Herb Yogurt Sauce

Blend together:

1 large container (32 oz) of 2% Greek yogurt

2 jalapenos, with seeds (remove seeds if you want it less spicy)

1 bunch parsley

handful of basil 

1 bunch scallions 

juice and zest of 1 lemon 

Yogurt sauce--bubbly as a result of recent blending. 

How to Make Veggie Stock

Add--carrots (3?) 2 heads of garlic, 2 quartered onions, then stems of your parley and the ends of your scallions to the bottom of a pot. Sprinkle lightly with salt.  Cover with 8 cups of water and boil, covered, for an hour. The veggies will become tasteless mush while the broths becomes fragrant and delicious. 

(Look in the veggie drawer of your fridge--anything about to go bad? Throw it in the stock)

Veggie stock ingredients. 

I toasted some bread with cheddar to dunk in the soup--YUM.

This was a great winter dinner--warm, flavorful and delicious. It's a bit time consuming, but worth the effort--though, if you're in a hurry, my original tomato-garlic soup recipe is pretty great, too. 

Enjoy!

Melted Tomatoes

These taste AMAZING.

Melted tomatoes and ricotta on beer yeast bread. 

This summer was my first experience with home gardening--and it was fabulous. I have a year's worth of pesto in my freezer and am a master of no less than seven zucchini recipes (bread, latkes, crisps, pasta ribbons, ratatouille, nut muffins, fritters, strata). We love having a garden--a great way to shake the work-day out of your head is to come home and putz around out there for awhile, inspecting the plants, weeding, rearranging branches, etc.

Our tomatoes have been developmentally delayed--early squirrel attacks set them back a month--so ours are only maturing now--when there's already snow in Summit county! But better late than never. 

the garden

Tomatoes! 

Now that the tomatoes are coming alive, I've been making tons of tomato salad, one of our all-time favorites. But I wanted to try something new, and I've been reading recipes here and there for "melted tomatoes" for years. 

And holy shit--these were UNREAL. Absolutely delicious. Fresh tomato x 100. Fruit-jammy and tangy and rich and deep.
The perfect dinner or lunch is to toast some good bread, spread with a thin layer of ricotta, and top with melted tomatoes and maybe a scattering of crunchy salt. Drink with wine.

How to Make Melted Tomatoes 
Chop some tomatoes into big chunks. Quarter big tomatoes or slice smaller ones in half. Spread into the bottom of a roasting pan, pie pan, or casserole. I don;t think the amount of tomatoes particularly matters--enough to cover the bottom of the pan, but if they fill the pan, that's fine.
Mince several (5?) fat cloves of garlic. Scatter over the tomatoes.
Add two tablespoons of olive oil and two tablespoons of balsamic. Toss everything together.
Place in a 210 degree oven for 8 hour, or a 225 degree oven for 5 hours. You could cook these overnight at 210.
Eat however you want! As a condiment on sandwiches, on salads, on top of meat, by itself.

Chopped tomatoes 

Ready for the oven 

Yummmm. Many hours later...

Put the finished tomatoes and all their juice into a tupperware or jar and refrigerate. Should last quite awhile. 

Melted tomato toasts. 

Enjoy! 

Rainbow Summer Salad with Mustard Vinaigrette

The dressing looks a bit green because the cutting board still had parsley remnants.

Summer produce is so delicious and wonderful, you just want salad all the time. During the summer, I love to keep a big tupperware of a mixed, lettuce-free salad in the fridge to eat with everything. 

This salad contains some of my favorite summer things: sweet corn, peppers, tomatoes, herbs. Roasting the corn and red peppers gives extra sweet flavor. I also like to throw a few diced jalapenos in any salad for the occasional burn-bomb.

I don't think people really actually a recipe for salad, but here's what I put into this one: 

Rainbow salad

Ingredients: 

1 cucumber, chopped 

2 packages grape or cherry tomatoes, each tomato sliced in half

4 ears of corn on the cob, roasted, kernels sliced off

2 red peppers, roasted and chopped

2 yellow peppers, chopped

1 bunch spring onions, chopped

1 red onion, chopped

1 bunch Italian flat-leaf parsley, chopped

2 jalapenos, finely chopped (I left the seeds in))

What to do

Start by roasting your corn. Rub each ear with olive oil, place them on a cookie sheet, and place under the broiler. As the ears start to look roasty-brown, rotate them. When they're roasted on at least two sides, take them out. Wait for them to cook slightly, then slice the kernels off and put them in the salad bowl. 

Roast your peppers. I use the gas burners on my stove. Poke a hole in the peppers, then lean them up against the flame until their skin is blackened. Rotate to get all sides. Allow to cool, then chop and add to the salad bowl. 

Chop all the other veggies. Add to the bowl. Mix. Add dressing and eat!

I like to serve this over a bed of spinach leaves. 

Mustard Vinaigrette 

Ingredients

3/ 4 cup olive oil 

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar 

3 TB whole-grain mustard 

2 garlic cloves, minced 

juice of 1 lemon

2 TB brown sugar 

salt and pepper to taste 

What to do: 

Mix all the ingredients in a jar. Screw the lid on, then shake like crazy. Taste for salt and re-season as needed. Pour over salad. 

Tomato Salad

This salad means SUMMER. It's as delicious as staying in bed while your groggy lover drags himself to work. As delicious as boxed wine and the Cooking Channel at 2pm for the third day in a row. As delicious as laying on a towel on the lawn, finishing a novel in one day. As delicious as not working for three damn months.
I make tomato salad all summer long and we eat it with everything--goes beautifully with lamb chops, BBQ chicken or steak--all the kind of things you eat grilled, on days when it's way too hot to turn on the oven.
I have always loved tiny tomatoes--they are sweeter, somehow more tomato-y than big ones. The most difficult aspect of this recipe is not popping too many of them into your mouth as you chop.

Ingredients:
2-3 lbs of small tomatoes. Try to find a variety of colors and types. The very BEST way to make this salad it to get the rainbow heirloom ones from the farmer's market--but a few tubs from Albertson's also works.
1 head of fennel
1 bunch fresh basil
1 bunch Italian flat-leaf parsley
Balsamic vinegar
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

I used basil from the garden!

What to do:
Start by slicing the tomatoes. I cut each in half.

Sliced tomatoes

Put the sliced tomatoes in a bowl.
Then, dice the head of fennel and add to the bowl with the tomatoes.
Chop the basil and parsley together and add to the tomatoes and fennel.

Chopped herbs

Pour a glug of olive oil and a few lashings of Balsamic into the bowl.
Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.
Mix!
Eat!
Taste and re-season if needed.

This is a delicious, refreshing salad. My fingers are crossed that our tomato plants allow me to make it with our own produce later this summer--save the fennel, I am growing all these ingredients in the backyard.
Enjoy!

Pasta Salad with Walnut Pesto

This was another dish I made for my school's end-of-year party, which happened in my backyard. I made pesto pasta salad, chicken piccata, bean salad, and roasted root vegetables with basalmic and goat cheese dressing.
If you are confused about the lack of pork or beef in this menu, it's because my coworkers are all a bunch of health freaks. Half of them don't eat red meat, a couple are rule-following Jews (unlike the bacon-loving Frank interpretation of Judiasm), and some are even vegetarians or nondrinkers! These people love fresh air, exercise, local vegetables, and waking up without regrets. I can only imagine they all secretly have really sinister vices--crack? Parkour? Abuse of baby goats? All I know is anyone who teaches HS has to cut loose somehow, and if it's not scotch and steak, what is it?

Anyway, pesto!
I like making mine with toasted walnuts in place of traditional pine nuts--I think they have a more distinctively nutty flavor.

Pesto Recipe

1.5 cups toasted walnuts
1 cup parmesan cheese
4 cups (packed) basil leaves
1.5 cups olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp chili flakes
4 cloves of garlic 
juice of 1 lemon

What to do:
Blend!

Ingredients

So to make this pasta salad, I combined the pesto with campanelle, fresh cherry tomatoes, and roasted red peppers.

It was delicious, and so was everything else.

Party food!

These people work too hard.

It was a delightful night and now: It's summer! I don't have to take the highway out to the boonies until August 12th! Looking forward to watching a lot of tv, cooking a lot of great food, getting married to world's sexiest man, and reading Game of Thrones on a beach in Belize.
YAY!

Shrimp Saganaki

Well, the story of this meal, which was delicious, starts with my back garden. When we bought this house it was a MESS. Completely overgrown with creeper, strewn with chihuahua poop (ok that happened after we moved in). Basically unused space going to waste. So I decided I should clean it up, and seeing as I had a week off for Spring Break, now's probably the time.

The garden before. It smells like turds and the gate won't close because of the damn vines.

So that led to me having to go to Home Depot, my least favorite place on earth. I needed shovels and cutters and stuff. That was the worst part of the whole day. I had to have a conversation about dirt with a man I didn't know.
But: my sister very nicely said she would help. My sister is really buff--she works out ALL the time. And she sees all life activities as opportunities for exercise. So she is the best possible person to help you clear out your back garden.

This firm and lovely creature is single. Calm down, gents.

Bridget is awesome at pulling on thick, woody shafts.

 So we yanked and raked and clipped for hours. It sucked. We got pokey things stuck in our pants and hair, scratches on our arms, dirt in out buttcracks. But:

After! 

We finished it up! It looks so much better and we yanked out all the creeper. In a few months I can actually plant a vegetable garden here. Hooray!
So, to thank my sister for her help I decided to make her Shrimp Saganaki for lunch! This is a Greek shrimp appetizer that I order whenever I see it on diner menus.
So, here is the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil (enough to cover the bottom of your pan)
1/4 cup onion (chopped)
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (or more, if you like it HOT)
4 cloves garlic (minced)
1 cup ripe tomatos (chopped)
Ouzo! Enough to deglaze the pan--about 1/4 cup
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 pound shrimp
1 handful parsley (chopped)
1/2 cup feta (crumbled)

Directions (use a pan that can go in the oven):
1. Heat the oil in a pan.
2. Add the onion and saute until soft, about 5 minutes.
3. Add the red pepper flakes and garlic and saute for 30 seconds.
4. Deglaze with the ouzo.
4. Add the tomato and simmer until the sauce thickens, about 7 minutes. I covered it for a few minutes to encourage saucification as well.
5. Add the shrimp. Space out and bury in the sauce.
6. Top with the feta cheese.
8. Bake in a preheated 425F oven until the sauce is bubbly, about 10 minutes.
9. Eat!  

 The most difficult ingredient to find was ouzo--a Greek, anise-scented liquor. I found it at Argonaut's, because they have everything. All the other stuff was easily located at Albertsons.

 

The ingredients

Plus red pepper flakes! I forgot to put those in the previous picture.

The sauce bubbling away. This is the garlic, onions, red pepper, ouzo, and tomatoes. I am waiting till it looks saucy enough. 

The finished saganaki. We decided to eat it on the deck so that we could gaze upon the garden at the same time. 

I needed a glass of wine, considering I had to go to Home Depot today.

Serve with sourdough toast.

This was an easy, delicious lunch. Garlicky, tomato-y, and just slightly licorice-scented, thanks to the ouzo. I would make it again for a weeknight dinner, an appetizer--anything.

Yum.Consuela is so pissed we didn't share.