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Posts tagged ‘summer food’

Sep 11

Chicken & Rice with Fruit Salsa

I’ve been on another peach eating binge. We bought some at a farm about 20 miles from here and they were very good, albeit not Georgia peaches. I used them to make one of my very favorite meals.

Here’s the recipe:

Grilled Chicken:

2 lbs Boneless, skinless chicken breasts

¼ cup lime juice

2 TBSP soy sauce

1/3 cup sugar

¼ cup apple cider vinegar

Fruit Salsa

2-3 medium peaches (plums, nectarines or grapes also work)

2 medium tomatoes

3-4 chopped green onions (be sure to get lots of the green part)

2 TBSP lime juice

½ tsp ground ginger

I clove of garlic crushed and finely chopped

¼ cup apple cider vinegar

1/3 cup sugar

This meat has to be started early in the afternoon which isn’t my strong suit, but fresh fruit sometimes inspires me to unusual feats!

A few hours before you plan to eat, the chicken breasts need to be tenderized with a meat mallet or similar device. I like to zip them into a plastic bag so that raw chicken juice doesn’t fly around my kitchen.

With a good pounding the breasts should flatten out considerably. Don’t skip this step. It really makes a difference in the tenderness of the meat.

Assemble the sweet tangy marinade with sugar, vinegar, lime juice and some soy sauce. If you have fresh limes, that’s obviously better, but we’re back to that planning issue!

When the marinade is ready, drop in the beaten chicken and make sure that it gets entirely dredged.

Cover the chicken and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours.

When the evening sun begins to cast a golden glow, it’s time to start on the salsa. (Perhaps that golden glow is just lousy photography, but I’ll go with it.)

The salsa gets almost the same marinade as the chicken, but without the soy sauce and it has some garlic and ginger thrown in.

Peaches are my favorite centerpiece fruit for this dish, but I’ve also made it with plums and they are an excellent substitute. I bet it would even be good with halved grapes.

Toss the chopped fruits and veggies in their marinade and make sure it all has a chance to sit for about 30 minutes before serving. The timing is just about perfect to pull the chicken out and get it started.

Grilling is not just for guys! My friend Kathy Madison taught me how to grill chicken breasts when we lived in Kansas and could see into each other’s kitchens for a year. She made it sound so simple that I had a hard time believing it would work, but it does – every time. Here’s how it goes: 1) Preheat the grill to medium high.

2) Throw on the chicken. Close the lid and wait seven minutes without opening it to poke, peek or prod. (Who wants to peek into an ugly grill like mine anyway!)

3) Open, turn the chicken over and quickly baste if desired. (I usually do drizzle on some of the remaining marinade.) Close and wait seven more minutes without opening the lid again. When the final seven minutes are up – it’s done. That simple.

Let the meat rest for a few minutes.

Then slice it into thin strips across the grain.

Pile the hot chicken on a bed of Jasmine rice and top it with the cool fresh salsa.

I’m sure that part of the reason I like this meal is that it’s very pretty, but it really is SO good!

Hope you enjoy!

Lisa

Jul 22

1 Comment

Chicken Pasta Salad and Corny Chicken Pictures

My kitchen is unpacked and I have internet access again! Not quite ready to wow you with food from the new Kitchen Catwalk but I still have a summer salad to share from Molly and I can even throw in a couple of crazy chicken pictures.

The directions she emailed with the pictures went something like this: “I can tell you the ingredients for this salad and that it has become a family favorite but you really just judge the amounts by what you have available and what looks right.” She may not be including precise measurements, but as I’m about to start always saying – a picture is worth a thousand measuring cups.

Here’s what goes in the salad.

Start by cooking and draining a box of pasta.

Then you’ll need Cooked, cubed chicken breast (Often, we barbeque extra to use in the salad – any marinade or salt and pepper adds to the taste.)


Red grapes halved


Mandarin oranges drained


Diced Celery


and Diced Onion


Slivered almonds (toasted if ambitious)

Mayonnaise (Real Mayo…NO Miracle Whip at [Molly’s] house)

Salt and Pepper to taste

Mix and Chill….and there you have it!


I think I’m going to try this early next week. At our house it will have to be green onions and the celery probably won’t make the cut, but the combination of cold pasta, oranges, grapes, nuts and chicken sounds perfect in such hot weather.

I happen to have some chopped cooked chicken that I can use and even pictures.


None of you will be shocked that the first time I got out the camera in my new kitchen was because I was cracking up over how a couple of beheaded birds looked in the French oven! The commissary doesn’t have rotisserie chickens, which I routinely use in all sorts of recipes, so now I have to roast my own. In the past I’ve never had trouble fitting two into my beloved French roaster, but these guys were so big they had to sit on Coke cans – (thanks to Betsy for the tech line support on how that worked).

They looked so cute in their little boat and the spoons were right there, looking so much like oars!


Row, row, row your chicken, gently down the stream…merrily, merrily, merrily…

The tune has been stuck in my head for two days.

Okay, seriously I really think the left-over barbeque sounds better for the chicken salad!

Hope you’re all having a great summer and lots of fun in the kitchen!