Balsamic BBQ Chicken

Spring is here! That means it is time to break out the grill (or at least start thinking about it) here in New England. For me that means a time to prepare my favorite BBQ chicken recipe: Balsamic BBQ Chicken by Giada deLaurentiis. 

This recipe is tangy, slightly sweet, and absolutely delicious. While vacationing in Sea Ranch with some of my favorite girlfriends (pictured above!!)  I had the chance to share the recipe. I believe it was a great success. 

Just a note: you can make this in the oven or on the grill, skin on or skin off, and chicken or steak. You may not go back to the bottled stuff again...

Below is the TastyKate version of the recipe with some slight alterations. If you want to access the original or read others' reviews check out the Food Network website. 

Ingredients:

1 C balsamic vinegar

2/3 C ketchup (high-frustose corn syrup free -- TJ's has a great one!)

1/4 C brown sugar

2 cloves garlic, minced or crushed

1 Tbl Worcestershire sauce

1 Tbl Dijon mustard

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

4 pieces of chicken bone-in (leaving the bone in will keep the chicken moist)

Directions:

Put all the ingredients (except the chicken) in a small saucepan and stir until well incorporated and smooth. Simmer over med/low heat for 20 minutes, until the sauce thickens. Keep over low heat until serving.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper. If cooking on the grill, lightly brush with BBQ sauce and cook over medium heat turning once (about 8 minutes/side). Brush chicken with BBQ sauce every few minutes until chicken is cooked through.  Serve with remaining BBQ sauce. 

If baking the chicken in the oven, wait to add BBQ sauce until the chicken has cooked at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes. Spoon over a generous amount of BBQ sauce and bake another 15-20 minutes. 

I hope you enjoy this recipe! It is one I will keep using for years to come.

Perfectly Simple Peanut Butter Cookies

Ever want to make a quick batch of cookies and you feel like there is just one ingredient that you don't have for any given recipe? Perhaps you are thinking chocolate chip cookies might be nice, but are out of chocolate chips. Or you want some sugar cookies, but don't have any (or enough...) butter. Well, today I wanted to make some cookies. I had no all-purpose flour (only whole wheat...which would make a dense cookie by itself), no oats, too little butter... You get the idea. Then the unexpected happened. I found a cookie recipe with only THREE ingredients! Did I have sugar? Yes! Did I have 1 egg? Yes! Did I have peanut butter? Yes!

So this recipe was inspired by one that I found on allrecipes.com. The website must have had 3 or 4 recipes just like this one. I tweaked it a bit, read reviewer comments, and tried it out. The results -- delectable. I will definitely be making these again. They are just too easy. (beware!)

Perfectly Simple Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients:

- 1 C peanut butter (natural works, just stir well!)

- 1/3 C packed brown sugar

- 1/3 C granulated sugar

- 1 egg

Now you can just use those above. However, based on what others have said I added the following...

- 1 tsp vanilla

- 1/2 tsp baking powder

- 3 Tbl white whole wheat flour

Note: Other variations include replacing 1/2 the peanut butter with almond butter. Those who did this really liked the cookie. I didn't have almond butter around, but if I did it would have certainly made it into the recipe. Almonds are thought to be quite a bit more healthy than peanuts -- so try it out!

Process:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. Use an ice cream scoop or large spoon to create golf ball size cookies. Place them on a cookie sheet. Take a fork and make the tell tale criss-cross design on top pushing the peanut butter balls down slightly. Bake for 10 minutes. Let sit at least 5 minutes before removing from the cookie sheet. They will be crumbly if removed too soon.

Enjoy this delicious, easy, and relatively healthful dessert! (Just don't eat the whole batch.)

"The 11 Best Foods You Aren't Eating"

Tara Parker-Pope of the New York Times writes that these 11 foods are packed full of nutrients and antioxidants, not to mention full of flavor!

1. Beets
2. Cabbage
3. Swiss Chard
4. Cinnamon (though not a good reason to eat cinnamon buns...)
5. Pomegranate Juice
6. Dried Plums (aka prunes)
7. Pumpkin Seeds
8. Sardines
9. Turmeric
10. Frozen blueberries
11. Canned pumpkin

The article gives some good insight into the main health benefits, as well as some tips on how to incorporate these ingredients into your diet.

It was amazing to see how many of these things have I started eating because of joining a CSA (community supported agriculture). Even now that I am far away from California I still will buy cabbage and swiss chard at the store -- beets, not as much. Everything on this list is delicious and not bank-breaking.

Perhaps a series on great recipes with the above ingredients highlighted is in order?

Roasted Sweet Potato Sandwich

One of the most delightful cafe sandwiches that I have ever had was at Ula Cafe in Jamaica Plain, MA. It was an unusual combination -- a sweet potato, avocado, and sprouts...etc, etc, sandwich. I can't afford eating their $7.95 version with any regularity so I decided to try to recreate it at home. You can buy turkey as a back up and use the sweet potatoes for an array of other dishes if the final version doesn't suit you. Me -- I'm planning on having it for lunch every day this week. So much for perishable ingredients!

Roasted Sweet Potato Wedges

Cut 5 sweet potatoes (I made these all at once to freeze and use in other dishes) into wedges or thick slices.

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Mix sweet potatoes with about 2-3 Tbl olive oil, salt and pepper.

Place on a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes, turning once until tender, but not mushy.

Assemble Sandwich:

1 avocado, sliced

1 red onion, sliced

1 Tomato, sliced

sprouts

4 slices Provolone cheese (or Monterey Jack)

2 Tbl Tahini 

8 slices Semolina bread (sourdough or a hearty italian bread works well, too)

Spread each bread slice with about 1 tsp of Tahini. Then layer the sprouts, tomato, onion, cheese, avocado and sweet potato on 4 of the bread slices. Place the other slice of Tahini bread on top.  Enjoy!

Bourgogne Pinot Noir

While shopping at our local TJ's I was looking for a red wine that would pair well with pork or another light protein, like fish. A member of the TJ crew confirmed my suspicion that a Pinot Noir would be a good choice. Now, I was hesitant to pick a Pinot Noir, because a) they can get expensive, and b) there seems to be more of a linear relationship between price and tastyness (aka. a cheap pinot noir will not necessarily be very fun to drink). A few of the $14-$18 wines were suggested, but I was looking more in the "$10" (really under $10...) price range. Perhaps the only Pinot Noir under $10 that TJ carried was one from France. The employee recommended it with some reservations, "it is really light...I mean, really light," he said. 

So why did I buy it? My thoughts guided by the employee's description...

1. Not too spicy

2. Easy to drink, smooth

3. My friends may enjoy it, too. 

4. $7.99

Great! "I'll take it!" I told him. 

Being invited to a friend's for dinner, I was hesitant to bring the wine with me. But, it was the only one we had and I figured it couldn't be that bad. I just hoped they weren't serving some really heavy meal that would completely overwhelm the flavor.

My thoughts:

After finishing off two other bottles of red, this wine was opened and served. It certainly was the most light and clean of the wines we drank that night. It was reminiscent of a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc in some way. It was not a terrible wine, but it was also not very memorable. Hints of cherry and a clean finish. I would like to try a few other Pinot Noirs before coming back to this one.

Details:

Cuvee 2007

Blason de Bourgogne

Pinot Noir

13% Alc.

TastyKate Loaded Banana Bread

Since moving to Boston I have had several unsuccessful attempts at banana bread and/or muffins. I don't know if it is just a matter of getting used to the gas oven or not using all-purpose (white) flour anymore. Today my poor banana muffin streak came to an end, using a recipe from the Complete Cooking Light Cookbook (go figure!) for inspiration.

I love lots of "stuff" in my banana bread. I think it keeps the mixture moist and I love the texture of nuts, coconut, dried fruit, etc. The proportions in this recipe were great -- and I hope that I will be able to replicate in the future!

TastyKate's Loaded Banana Bread/Muffins
(adapted from Mom's Banana Bread Recipe in Cooking Light)

1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
3 (mine were large) ripe bananas
1/4 cup fat free milk
1/4 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups white whole-wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
dash nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt

Mix-ins:

1 1/2 cups of oats, dried sweetened coconut, walnuts, diced dried apricots, jumbo plump raisins, raw pumpkin seeds, even chocolate chips.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Beat sugar and butter until well-blended. Add other "wet" ingredients -- banana, milk, cream, eggs, vanilla -- and beat well.
3. Sift flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt together (sprinkle nutmeg on top).
4. Add "wet" ingredients to dry ingredients and fold mixture together until all dry ingredients are incorporated. Try not to overmix!
5. Add in mix-ins and continue to fold until incorporated throughout the batter.
6. Pour batter (I used an ice-cream scoop) into lightly greased muffin pan and 1 mini-loaf pan (or 1 large 9-inch loaf pan).
7. Bake muffins for about 20 minutes, mini-loafs for 40 minutes, regular loaf for 1 hour.
8. Let cool, remove from pan, and enjoy!

Cooking Light suggested -- low-fat sour cream, 1/4 cup butter (I would then add 1/4-1/2 cup applesauce if using a smaller amount of butter), and 2 egg whites rather than whole eggs.

If you try this -- let me know how it turns out!

Comparing Apples to Apples: The Organic Debate

The Boston Globe just published a great piece on the controversy surrounding the added health benefits of eating organic produce versus commercially grown produce (i.e., grown with the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides). The take home messages for me:

1. Eat your fruits and veggies.

Too few Americans are getting even close to the healthful quantities of fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables are considered nutrient dense, calorie light foods. They are essential to a well-balanced lifestyle. There may be some harm in giving Americans yet another reason to skimp on their vegetables by saying that commercially grown produce is harmful to your health.

2. Organic produce is intuitively, but not scientifically proven superior to commercial produce.

As a student of epidemiology, the idea of being able to scientifically prove anything is elusive. All we can ever do is disprove; disprove that organic produce is not the same as commercially grown produce. Detecting a significant difference between organic and commercial produce is made even more difficult when the effects of such exposure is likely to manifest itself in many different ways over the course of one's life. Teasing out how the pesticides in produce cause poor health compared to the myriad other causes is nearly an impossible task. We must first look to more basic science studies for this one.

3. Buy organic when you can, and when it matters most.

In the midst of an economic recession, it is likely that people will be splurging on organic (and out of season) blueberries, nectarines, and avocados. However, the price differential of some organic vs. conventional produce is not quite as steep. Also, certain conventionally grown produce has been shown to require much more pesticide and chemical manipulation. A list of "top" fruits and vegetables to buy organic, if possible, can be found at the DeliciousOrganics website, which also has a list of links to more information surrounding this controversy. I will not say these are bias-free links or sites.

Remember to consider the advantages to buying local, as well. You may not be able to find local, organic produce at your nearest farmers market (are you so blessed as to have one where you live). But, there are many environmental advantages to buying local (Time included this in their Global Warming Survival Guide).

Happy eating!