Pip's Plate

Roasted potatoes are really easy and this roasted potato recipe is packed with flavor. I used a spice blend that was premixed from Lund’s/Byerly’s grocery store but you could buy one like this or check your local grocery store to see if they have something similar. The key ingredients are sea salt, lemon and herbs. You want to make sure there is salt in the seasoning; if there isn’t, you will probably want to add 1 teaspoon of sea salt to this recipe.

Serve these potatoes with your favorite roasted chicken. I served it with Roasted Chicken with Mustard-Thyme Sauce and Green Salad with Olives and it was superbly matched.

Mediterranean Roasted Potatoes
serves: 6

Ingredients
6 medium yukon gold potatoes
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons Mediterranean seasoning

Directions
1. Heat oven to 375 degress F.

2. Cut potatoes into 1 1/2 inch chunks (about 6-8 pieces per potato). Mix with olive oil and Mediterranean seasoning then place on a roasting pan.

3. Bake in oven for 45-50 minutes or until crispy brown.

Note: if you’re making this with the Roasted Chicken with Mustard-Thyme Sauce recipe, you can add the potatoes at the same time that you start the 45 minute timer at the end of the chicken. The timing will be perfect.

This salad recipe is really simple and quite tasty. It takes less than 5 minutes to make and it packs in the flavor. Serve this alongside Roasted Chicken with Mustard-Thyme Sauce and Mediterranean Roasted Potatoes for a complete meal.

Green Salad with Olives
Serves 6

Ingredients
8 oz salad greens
1/2 cup mixed pitted olives
1/2 bulb fennel, sliced
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Directions
1. In a salad bowl, place salad greens, olives and fennel.

2. To make the dressing, whisk together 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil and 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar.

3. Pour dressing over salad and mix to dress.

recipe from epicurious

When I’m craving comfort food, I instantly think of roasting a chicken. There are lots of different ways to roast a chicken, including this one with proscuitto and sage. Last night, we had guests coming for dinner, so I decided to try a new recipe.

This roasted chicken recipe is moist and has depth of flavor due to brining the chicken for the majority of the day. The mustard-thyme sauce for this roasted chicken is out of this world!

The original recipe calls for a lot of sitting around for the chicken – which translates into starting this recipe early in the morning or the day before. I trimmed it down a bit since I started around noon that day (the recipe below includes my modifications).

You could easily take the approach of a slow cooker for this recipe. Boil the brine first thing in the morning, then dump your chicken in it to sit for the day. When you get home after work, follow the rest of the instructions. Or, if you don’t have time to let the chicken sit for an hour and then cook for another hour, you can use a blow dryer to dry it out after removing from the brine.

Serve this chicken with Green Salad with Olives and Roasted Mediterranean Potatoes for a complete meal. For an accompanying wine, a good syrah works well. You could also go with white wine and try an albarino or dry Riesling.

Roasted Chicken with Mustard-Thyme Sauce
serves: 6

Ingredients
Brine
10 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup coarse kosher salt
peel from 1 lemon, using a vegetable peeler
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons honey
3 large sprigs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
4-1/2 pound hormone-free chicken

Cooking the Chicken you will also need
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth

Mustard-Thyme Sauce
1 tablespoon butter at room temperature
1-2 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons whole grain mustard (dijon is fine if that’s all you can find)
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

Directions
1. To make the brine: in a 3-quart pot, bring 10 1/2 cups water, 1/2 cup kosher salt, peel from 1 lemon, 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, 3 tablespoons honey, 3 large fresh thyme sprigs and 1 bay leaf to a boil. Stir once or twice once getting hot to make sure the ingredients are dissolving.

2. Once boiling, remove the brine from heat. Pour into a 6-quart pot and cool slightly – about 5 minutes. Add the chicken to the brine and put in the refrigerator for 4-6 hours. Remove chicken from brine then rinse and pat dry. Return to the fridge, uncovered on a plate, for an additional hour. This will dry the chicken. If you’re pressed for time, use a blow dryer to dry the chicken.

3. Heat oven to 375 degrees F.

4. Place dry chicken in a roasting pan. Bake for 20 minutes then add 1 cup of broth. Bake for another 20 minutes then add another 1 cup of broth. Bake for 45 minutes. Remove from oven and pour out the broth to get 2 cups of cooking liquid. Let the chicken sit for 10 minutes while you make the sauce.

5. To make the sauce, heat 1 tablespoon butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Once the butter starts bubbling, about 1 minute, add 1 tablespoon flour and whisk together. Add the reserved cooking liquid, 3 tablespoons mustard and 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves. Whisk together and bring to a simmer. Simmer the sauce until it starts to thicken, about 5 minutes. I suggest adding another 1 tablespoon of flour after the sauce simmers for a few minutes to continue thickening. Season with salt and pepper to taste only if needed.

6. Cut the chicken and serve with the sauce. Enjoy!

recipe from epicurious

Dinner is always fun when you randomly throw some ingredients together and hope they turn out. In last night’s case, dinner was a major success … and a surprise!

If I’m not making tacos, I’m thinking about tacos. And if I’m thinking tacos aren’t quite the right dinner option, I’ll figure something else out along the same lines: enchiladas, burritos, quesadillas. Last night, quesadillas won!

These quesadillas have a great balance of smoky, spicy, sweet and savory. Plus, there’s extra peach salsa left over to dip chips in. This recipe is a pretty healthy quesadilla if you make sure you purchase part skim mozzarella cheese.

Peach Salsa

Chipotle Chicken and Peach Salsa Quesadilla
Makes 2 quesadillas

Ingredients
Chipotle Chicken
1/2 pound hormone-free, skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1/2 Tablespoon canola oil
1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, diced
1 Tablespoon adobo sauce
2 teaspoon ground cumin

Peach Salsa
1 ripe peach, diced
1 medium tomato, diced
1/2 small yellow onion, diced
1/2 jalapeno, minced (remove seeds for less spice)
1 Tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
juice of half a lemon
salt and pepper to taste

Quesadillas
2 8-inch tortilla shells (flour or spelt)
1/2 cup shredded part skim mozzarella cheese
olive oil cooking spray

Directions
1. Cut 1/2 pound of hormone-free, skinless, boneless chicken breasts into 1/2-inch dice.

2. Heat 1/2 tablespoon canola oil in a medium sized skillet over medium-high heat. When canola oil is shimmering, add diced chicken breast. Cook chicken breasts until cooked through, stirring frequently, about 8 minutes.

3. When chicken is about done, add 1 diced chipotle pepper, 1 tablespoon adobo sauce, and 1 teaspoon cumin to the skillet. Stir to combine and cook an additional minute. Salt and pepper the chicken mixture to taste.

4. While the chicken is cooking, make the salsa. Combine 1 diced peach, 1 diced tomato, 1/2 minced jalapeno, 1 Tablespoon chopped cilantro, juice of half a lemon, and salt and pepper to taste. Combine and let sit to allow flavors to meld. (This is a good opportunity to snack with chips too.)

5. Once the chicken is done cooking with the spices, remove from heat. Heat a medium-sized nonstick skillet over medium heat. Assemble the quesadillas like this:

• Lay tortilla on a flat surface
• Add 1 handful of cheese to half of the tortilla
• Add half of the chicken on top of the cheese
• Add 2-3 tablespoons of salsa on the chicken
• Add 1 handful of cheese over the salsa
• Fold the other half of the tortilla over
• Spray with cooking spray

6. When the nonstick skillet is hot, add one quesadilla to the pan, cooking spray side down. Lightly spray the top of the quesadilla (this is the half without the cooking spray). Cook the quesadilla for about 2-3 minutes per side. Remove from heat and repeat with the second one.

7. Allow the warm quesadilla to sit for a couple of minutes to let the cheese hold everything together. Enjoy!

note: peach salsa recipe inspired by this recipe

This breakfast sandwich is tangy, silky and salty. It’s served best on a fresh ciabatta roll, so if you can find take and bake rolls I suggest that. Quality bacon is key to this recipe – uncured, local bacon is my preference. I happen to love

Poached Egg & Bacon Sandwich
Serves: 2

Ingredients

Directions

This is what Keldon and I will be having for dinner tonight. It’s a pretty healthy pizza considering there’s next to no fat in this entire recipe. Use cheese sparingly to keep it healthy. I know it’s hard, but you can do it.

I barely had lunch so I’m getting pretty hungry. I’ve made this pizza many times, but I usually use a prepared crust like Boboli. Well, because it’s Sunday I guess I decided to make my own pizza dough. I’ve done that many times.

But this time… many things went wrong. I had to make the dough three times today. Bah! Talk about a comedy of errors.

This is what I learned today when making your own pizza dough:

1. If you’re using a food processor, make sure all the liquid goes in first. If you put it on top of the 5 1/2 cups of flour, it spills everywhere causing you to start over.
2. If you’re using a food processor, don’t blend the ingredients for 2 minutes like I did. It gets sort of soupy and becomes beyond repair. Instead, pulse 2 or 3 times … or until it forms into a ball.
3. Have several dough recipes on hand in case the first or second just doesn’t work out.
4. Have plenty of flour and yeast on hand for times such as today.

But, alas, I finally got it on the third try.

Barbecue Chicken Pizza
makes: 8 slices

Ingredients
1 pizza dough (either purchased or made from scratch – see below for recipe)
1/4 cup of your favorite BBQ sauce (I love love love Kowalski’s brand – a local Twin Cities grocery store)
1/4 small red onion sliced
1/2 pound hormone-free skinless, boneless chicken breasts: cooked & cubed OR you can pull it
1/4 cup sliced pickled peperoncinis
1/2 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

2. Put your pizza dough on a baking sheet (stoneware is preferred). If you’re using your own pizza dough or a refrigerated dough, roll it out to the shape you desire (circle, rectangle, etc.)

3. Spread the BBQ sauce evenly over the dough to about 1/2-inch to the end. If you like your pizza saucy, go ahead and add some more.

4. Top the pizza with chicken, onion, peperoncini, and cheese.

5. If you’re using fresh pizza dough, bake pizza for about 18-20 minutes or until the edges of the crust are lightly brown and the cheese is bubbly.

If you’re using store-bought par-baked pizza crust (such as Boboli), bake pizza for 10-13 minutes or until cheese is lightly brown and bubbly.

Serve this with a Greek salad of mixed greens, feta, kalamata olives, cucumber, and lemon/olive oil vinaigrette.

Pizza Dough Recipe
makes enough dough for 1 pizza

Ingredients
1/2 teaspoon dry active yeast
1/4 cup hot water (not boiling)
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon olive oil
3 – 4 Tablespoons water

Directions
1. Mix yeast and hot water in a small bowl until the yeast dissolves – about 2 minutes.

2. Combine flour, salt, sugar, and olive oil in a medium bowl. Add yeast mixture and stir the mixture with a wooden spoon. Add additional water by the tablespoon as needed. The dough should be sticky, but it should form into a ball and want to stick to itself (it gets a little grabby).

3. When the dough is completely sticking to itself, put it on a clean dry surface sprinkled with flour. Knead the dough for about 2-3 minutes or until the dough is elastic.

4. Coat a glass bowl with olive oil, put the ball of dough in the bowl and turn it over so all surfaces are covered in oil. Put a kitchen towel over the bowl and let it rise for 1 hour. Punch it down, and your dough is ready to be pizzafied!