Moroccan Chicken with Stewed Prunes and Tomatoes

This is one of my all time favorite chicken recipes. You stew this chicken with a bunch of spices like cinnamon and then add the sweet prunes. Ok or you can call them dried plums. Apparently the prune industry is trying to change the name from prune to dried plums to escape the apparent bad reputation that prunes have. I suppose that prune does bring up the negative connotation of grandparents and an attempt at being "regular" but I think that a prune is delicious no matter what you call it.
While I cooked the chicken I also made some egg noodles which I added a little butter and some poppy seeds too. This was a lovely base for the chicken and all the sweet and yummy pan juices to run over. I had a drumstick with my noodles on the first night and kept the breasts for the following evening.

Black Tie Pasta- Nah, Just Bowties

Dinner was a mish mash of leftovers and pantry items that I am still trying to get rid of. I had extra chicken from the enormous chicken breasts I made the other night and I also had zucchini and a large tomato I needed to use. So I made a delicious pasta that John and I were both really impressed with. While I was heating up the water and cooking the farfalle I cubed up some mozzarella that needed to be used and placed it in a large bowl. I added one clove of minced garlic, the tomato cubed, lots of grated Parmesan, and a large spoonful of pesto sauce. After I drained the pasta I added it to the bowl along with some of the cooking water to lube everything up. As I tossed it together all the mozzarella melted and the pesto coated the noodles. This was so delicious. Definitely something I plan on doing again. Plus I love a no cook pasta sauce, makes life so much easier.
Once again I also tried to find a balance with my plate. I had a ton of zucchini and less chicken and pasta. I didn't actually finish everything on my plate! I wrapped it up for lunch the next day. I took the leftover zucchini but John snatched up the pasta. Lucky boy!

Why Much Chicken Muffin?

I made chicken another night last week as well. Why so much chicken does one ask? Hmm, there are a variety of reasons. First off, I am good at making chicken. I have a ton of recipes and I enjoy making them. Also, chicken is a compromise that John and I have. I prefer to eat mostly veggie meals, but I know that those won't really satisfy him. I still don't really make or enjoy red meat, a bite or two is really all I need, so we have a lot of chicken. I try my absolute best to buy free range/organic birds whenever possible. One way i save money is by buying chicken pieces with the bone in/skin on which are organic as opposed to the boneless skinless chicken breasts. It is a great way to save money and if you roast chicken, which is what I ordinarily do, they taste way better when cooked with the bones and skin.
This time I made a mustard chicken. I chopped up 2 shallots, some fresh rosemary and thyme, and mixed it with dijon mustard, olive oil, salt and pepper. I think I added a bit of white wine vinegar as well. Layer this all over the chicken in a roasting pan and you are pretty much done. I had some new potatoes and some red onions, so I chopped these up and stuck them on the side of the chicken. Roast at 425F for about an hour (check periodically) and you have a very tasty and nutritious dinner.
On the side I made green beans and mushrooms. Naturally I was so excited about eating I completely forgot to take any "after" photos. So these are all the "before" pics of the raw chicken. I will definitely make this again and remember to photograph it in all it's cooked glory!

My New Fave- Chicken Teriyaki

Now, I am not going to claim that this is my recipe. I stole it from a blog, and for the life of me I cannot remember which one, so I apologize. But this chicken is so good! You take a combo of soy sauce, honey, ground ginger and garlic, spicy chili sauce (I use Sriracha) and mix it all together over some chicken pieces (I love using thighs and drumsticks for this one. Eating a sticky drumstick reminds me of being a kid!) Let it sit for about 30 minutes, then bake it in the oven. The chicken comes out so tender and moist and the sauce is the perfect spicy/sweet combo. I could honestly make this every week, I think that John would be happy with that as well. I will post the real recipe tonight when I actually look at it. I suppose not everyone is as piecemeal as I am when it comes to throwing ingredients together!
Oooh, I also served this with the last of the summer corn and a salad. Perfection.

Foodbuzz Went to Zuni

Where does a foodie website go when they want to celebrate and munch? Zuni Cafe of course. The whole gang geared up and went on the party bus over to Zuni. And what did we order? Well, everything! For the record, I did not consume everything in these photos. I shared the Little Gem salad and the Serrano Ham appetizers, then had a piece of pizza and some of the Chicken. Oops, and some shoestring fries.
Zuni's Classic Caesar

Serrano Ham and Figs

Little Gem Salad

Chicken for Two: My Favorite Pick from the whole menu. This just has the best flavors. The acidity of the vinegar in the bread salad, the sweetness of the currants, the juicy chicken. It's something that everyone should be able to experience just once. I think that if people shared this chicken it could mend wars. If Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin sat down and shared the bonding experience of this chicken maybe there would have been peace between Palestine and Israel. Ok, maybe not, but they would have been happily full by the end, that much I am sure of.
Classic Zuni Burger
Pizza with Ricotta Salata: so delicious. The tomatoes are sweet, the crust was chewy and perfection!
Shoestring Fries: Oh My!

Not pictured, the espresso granita. Not the best but then again I am not a huge dessert fan. It sort of tasted like a fresh coffee nip, does that make sense?
The meal was a success (how could it not be) and I think I will probably have a piece of fruit for dinner and call it a night!

Salad Salad Everywhere

I've been eating a lot of salad. There are a few reasons for this. First off, I like salad. That's the simple reason. But it is summer time in California and teh produce is SO good, I can't figure out why I wouldn't take advantage of that. So I had a bunch of chicken leftover from my roasted chicken from last week that needed to be eaten. I placed that in a bowl and added purple cabbage, spinach, mixed greens, red bell peppers, tomatoes, avocado, and a balsamic vinaigrette I made. It was delicious. I also made some garlic bread on the side. I had a leftover seeded baguette that was a bit stale and wanted to use it though. So I slathered on some butter and some minced garlic I found in John's fridge and stuck it under the broiler. It was really good!

To make a more complete meal I also steamed some zucchini and yellow squash. Yum Yum. When you have good produce I find that there is no need to add additional flavor. Just some salt and pepper made these sweet and tasty.
I need to get away from the "European" dining hours that we have been keeping (that was the comment that John's roommate made the other night). It just takes so long to get everything together after work. If i am going to squeeze in the gym and a shower and get dinner together etc, plus the 30 minute bus ride home from downtown we don't end up eating til after 9:30pm. Oh well, I am usually not too hungry by this time anyway, I couldn't even finish my salad and I put the rest of the squash in a tupperware to eat for lunch the next day.

Off the Wagon- The Meat Wagon That Is

So, I ordered my first steak. I was at Izzy's Steakhouse with Kiki (www.baguetteocroissant.blogspot.com) and we decided to share the BACON wrapped fillet mignon. And the creamed spinach and potatoes au gratin. HUH? The weirdest thing is I never ate this stuff when I DID eat meat. Granted I was 12 and it is totally normal for tastebuds to change, but part of my decision to go mostly meatless was that is was easy for me. I didn't struggle. I never craved a hamburger, I never couldn't help myself to the bacon. It just was simple. So I don't know what has changed. My mother asked me if I was pregnant, apparently that changes tastes, cravings etc (the answer is NO) so I do not have an explanation for it. But I am pondering going back to the veggie side.

This has been a fun few months, dabbling with the meats, taking a bite of a burger, but I think that this isn't a lifestyle that is going to remain permanent. I don't know how staunch I will be about meat in the future, but I really want to go back to a lifestyle where it is a rare treat, perhaps once or twice a year. This weekend i was going through some of my mom's old Gourmet magazines, and I read a long article about chicken production in the United States. The article was basically about the tactics that the American plants use when killing the chickens and that it could be less painful than it currently is. Now, mind you, this article was from July 2007, so things could possibly have changed in the last thirteen months, but for some reason I doubt it. Included was an interview with a Norwegian chicken farmer and how he spent a ton of money changing his facilities so the chickens died a more peaceful death. Naturally I sat there reading this and kept saying, I will never eat chicken again. Or any other meat.
Is this going to be true? That remains to be seen. But I would like to think so.

Mitchell's Ice Cream and La Taqueria- San Francisco Classics

Following my large Perbacco dinner, I went to La Taqueria and Mitchell's in the Mission District of San Francisco. I planned a company outing and since we live in such an amazing food city, I thought it would be fun to get back to the roots of San Francisco. Go to some old establishments. La Taqueria on Mission and 25th St fit the bill! The food there is so good. I had a chicken burrito, moist pieces of chicken and juice in a burrito. La Taqueria is old school and they don't fill the burritos up with a lot of filler. They don't even offer rice! I don't have a photo because I was way too busy consuming.
Following up my burrito belly all the Foodbuzzers climbed back onto our awesome bus I rented and drove to Mitchell's. Now Mitchell's (http://www.mitchellsicecream.com)has been around forever (technically 1953) and makes all their own ice cream. The ice cream of the month was canteloupe and the whole company got a variety of Mitchell's creamy creations.
Avocado ice cream!!!

Perbacco- Featured Publishers Dinner

I was very excited to try Perbacco last Thursday night. I have hear about it and I was also anxious to try a new restaurant, I feel like I have been frequenting the same ones over and over as opposed to venturing out to new establishments. The first thing I dove into was the bread sticks and herb dip/tapenade that they had one the table. Apparently the entire staff makes over a thousand of these crunchy snackers every day. At least that is what someone at my table said. I can imagine that it would take the entire staff to handroll all these sticks. But it is well worth it. They were not at all similar to the tough/brittle and tasteless breadsticks of my youth. The ones I particularly remember are from Perry's in Tiburon (now the Piatti space). We used to dip the sticks into the ramekin of saltless butter. I would always try to convince my parents to let me order a Roy Rodgers or a Shirley Temple as well, a rare treat for the ten year old me. Anyway, back to 2008.

After I had sufficiently demolished 4 too many breadsticks and the majority of the herb/olive oil mix in front of me (definitely eating more than my share!) we were served my new favorite dish. Raviolo all'uovo. This was incredible. A warm raviolo (ravioli is plural, since there was only one, it is a raviolo) stuffed with ricotta, spinach and a perfectly cooked egg. And I absolutely love a runny yolk. I should have taken a picture of it when I cut into it and the yolk drizzled out, but I was too busy consuming at that point. Oh, and it was topped with truffle oil. Mmmmm, hungry just thinking about it.

We were then served a roasted red and gold beet and arugula salad. It was served with a Castelmagno cheese, which is a semi hard cheese from the Piedmont region of Italy. It reminded me a bit of a ricotta salata, but it's been a few days, so maybe I am off on this. The salad was nice, nothing to rave about. But this could also be because I had just eaten one of the best appetizers ever, so anything would be a bit of a disappointment after that.

There were two options for the main course. A seafood risotto, which I did not choose, and a pan roasted chicken with mushroom jus and herb roasted gnocchi.

I had a bite of the risotto and I will admit, it looks a lot prettier than it tasted. I think if it had been executed properly perhaps my review might be different, but it was undercooked so it was a bit crunchy almost. Not the correct texture for risotto.

The chicken was lovely. It was moist and tender and the gnocchi was out of this world. I don't think that it was traditional gnocchi, more like soft pillows of flavor. Magnifique! I thought I wouldn't have any room for dessert, but somehow I managed to consume an entire piece of the peach raspberry crostata. It was well worth it. Besides feeling like I weighed 500 pounds for the rest of the evening and the next day, Perbacco was absolutely wonderful and I am looking forward to my return visit.

Enchiladas Supremo- Ole!

Ok- I am not one to toot my own horn very much, but I will say that the enchiladas I made last night were AMAZING. Awesome in fact. I used the filling I had made the previous night and they didn't even take too long to put together. I placed tortillas in the oven while it was preheating to warm them up. I then soaked each one in Enchilada sauce (I bought the sauce but I am going to make my own next time) and slathered some refried beans (low-fat and vegetarian) on each and then loaded in the filling. The filling was the roasted chicken, shredded, a mix of cheddar and jack cheese, green chili peppers (2 little cans, yes I can make these but they are so easy from the can), sauteed onions and zucchini (in sticks), sour cream (I used about 1/2 a 9 oz. container), garlic powder, cayenne pepper, chili powder, a pour of the enchilada sauce, and an unauthentic dash of Crystal super hot sauce. I rolled up all the tortillas in a baking dish, covered it with jack and cheddar and a can of the enchilada sauce. I baked these covered for about 20 minutes at 375F and then uncovered for another 5 minutes. They came out looking not the most beautiful, but still good.
For the plating I shredded about 1/2 a cabbage and placed it on each of the three plates. I added a beautiful orange tomato to this and made a quick vinaigrette to go over the "salad." I had bought both fire roasted tomato salsa and a green salsa, so I added about 2 tbsp of the green salsa to a bowl, mixed it with some red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper and mixed it all up. I poured this over the cabbage and tomatoes and then added a enchilada on top.
To dress the enchiladas I drizzled each kind of salsa on it, cubed red tomatoes and avocado dressed with lime juice and salt, and some cilantro. The whole thing was really incredible. It was spicy but not too spicy. we had a ton of veggies with the salsas, tomatoes, avocado, cabbage, zucchini, onions, and peppers. Protein came from the chicken and beans. And besides using some sour cream (4 oz for two HUGE casserole dishes) and two blocks of cheese, these weren't bad for you.
I saved calories by not frying the tortillas before rolling them up as well. I can see that this could make them a bit crisper, because I will admit that I think it would be a waste of calories and time. i might also use less sour cream next time and drain the green peppers more effectively, as well as use black beans instead of refried. The refried beans got lost in the texture, so I think that black beans would be able to stand out more.
One thing that REALLY stood out was the addition of cabbage. I thought about this because a) I had it on hand, b) I wanted a green that could stand up to the heat of the enchiladas and add a crunch, and c) in traditional Baja style fish tacos they add cabbage, so I figured that this would not be an unauthentic choice. The mild tang of the vinegar was also lovely, as well as the lime that covered the veggies. I think that these would NOT have been as good if they weren't over the cabbage, this will definitely be a new stand by for me.
These didn't come from a recipe either. I read probably 40 enchilada recipes in the last few days and simply took elements that seemed good from each one. This is the way I cook and why I don't enjoy baking as much. I like guessing and doing what seems right at the time. Anyway, I might have to do this again and actually write down what I am doing so I can share with others one day. Also need to figure out how to freeze these. Do you freeze it before baking or after?
The funniest part is that I roasted corn to go along with this meal, but by the time we finished our enchiladas, we were all too stuffed to eat it. Oh well, I can have it for lunch tomorrow. And dinner tonight. And dinner tomorrow...