Chicken Soft Tacos

I made this dish a few weekends ago.  I got the recipe from my dear friend Aleah over at Nesting in New Jersey. She is a great cook and awesome party planner!  When she posted this recipe on her blog, I knew I would have to make it.  It's exactly the type of recipes I look for--easy, quick, and relatively healthy.  Mark and I both loved this dish.  I modified the recipe a little, but check out Aleah's blog for more great recipe ideas!

Chicken Soft Tacos

3 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts (about 3 breasts)
1 teaspoon plus 1 ½ teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon plus ½ teaspoon chili powder
1/8 teaspoon plus 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 large carton low sodium chicken stock
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, coursely chopped
¾ cup onion, coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic
2 small cans (or 1 large can) tomatoes with green chilies (Rotel)


Place chicken, skin side down, in a heavy stock pot and cover with chicken broth.  Add 1 teaspoon cumin, 1 teaspoon chili powder, 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper, and cilantro.  Cover and bring to a boil.  Cook 30-40 minutes.

Remove chicken from pan and reserve broth.  When chicken is cool enough to handle, shred and set aside.  Meanwhile, add onions and garlic to pan and sauté until just softened, about 3 minutes.  Add canned tomatoes and all juices.  Return shredded chicken to the pan.  Season with an additional 1 ½ teaspoons cumin, ½ teaspoon chili powder, and 1/8 teaspoon cayenne. Add in ¼ – ½ cup reserved broth to moisten.

Stir well to combine.  Warm over medium-low heat and serve.

 I can't believe I didn't take a picture of our soft tacos!  I'll just have to describe them.  We had them on flour tortillas (freshly made from HEB), with refried beans, cheese, salsa, diced tomatoes, and my creamy avocado dip.  Delicious!

Bourbon Chicken

I found this recipe by googling the title and came across this recipe on food.com.  It scored 4.5/5 stars and over 2,500 reviewed the recipe!  I've never seen a recipe reviewed so many times!  This dish was easy and delicious!  Great for a weeknight meal.  Mark liked it too!  I modified it a little from the original and this served 2 people for dinner plus 1 or 2 meals for leftovers. 

It's funny that this recipe is called "bourbon chicken" when it actually has no bourbon at all.  It's supposed to taste like the "mall chicken", you know, they are always handing out samples in the food court.  A lot of reviewers said it tastes like the chicken in the mall food court.  I didn't think it did but I thought it was good in it's own right.  The one in the mall probably has a LOT more sodium and other unhealthy things in there. 

Update: I ended up with some sauce leftover after we had eaten all the chicken, so I ended up dicing up some firm tofu to put in the sauce over rice.  Delicious!  So you can make this dish vegetarian/vegan too.

Bourbon Chicken

Ingredients:
5 chicken tenderloins, cut into bite sized pieces
about 3 tablespoons of cornstarch
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 cup orange juice
1/3 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1 package frozen "asian medley" vegetables or any other veggie of choice

Directions:
Heat oil in a large skillet.  Coat chicken pieces in about ONE tablespoon of cornstarch.  Add chicken to the hot skillet and cook until lightly browned.  Remove chicken.  Add remaining ingredients, heating over medium heat until well mixed and dissolved.  Add chicken and bring to a hard boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.  After the first 10 minutes of simmering, you can add the frozen veggies so that they can cook until crisp tender.  In the last few minutes of simmering, slowly add about 2 tablespoons of cornstarch until desired consistency is reached.  Serve over hot rice (I used a rice blend of brown, white, and wild). 

Grilled Balsamic Chicken

Happy Valentine's Day! 

I made this recipe a few weeks ago.  It was pretty good and I'm going to try to make it again tonight with pork loins rather than chicken breasts. 

I had these four chicken breasts to use up from the Omaha Steaks package my dad sent us for Christmas.  I've been getting good use out of this gift--it just keeps on giving!  I've used a good amount of it but we still have more to go--filet mignons, beef tenderloins, seafood, hot dogs, and baked potatoes.  I've also been trying to use up things that we have from the fridge, freezer, and pantry rather than buying more stuff from the store. I'm trying to find recipes using what I have. 

I haven't been in the mood to cook anything "extravagant" lately.  So I wanted to find an easy recipe that would be quick to cook and if the stars aligned properly, I wouldn't have to go to the grocery store either (mostly out of laziness).  I decided to browse through Willie's Wildcat Cookbook, which was a Christmas gift from my in-laws.

This was the simplest recipe I could find that sounded decent and I already had everything in my pantry.  It was super quick to make (besides the 1 hour marinating).  I served it atop mushroom and herb risotto from Trader Joe's.  The risotto was just OK, so I'm not going to blog about it, but there are probably a ton of different sides you could serve with this dish.  This chicken would also be good with some mashed potatoes (or sweet potatoes) and a simple steamed vegetable. 

Grilled Balsamic Chicken

Ingredients:
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tablespooons olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh oregano (1 teaspoon dry)
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary (1 teaspoon dry)
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 cloves of garlic, minced
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves


Directions:
Mix first 6 marinade ingredients.  Marinate chicken in marinade for 1 hour.

Preheat grill pan to medium high heat and drizzle olive oil on surface.  Put chicken on grill pan and cook about 5 minutes on each side.  Remove meat from grill pan when done and let the meat rest for about 5 minutes before serving.  Enjoy!