Roasted Chicken Breast with Mardi Gras Veggies: Fat Tuesday, Skinny Eats

Belated Happy Mardi Gras! 

Several of my friends use this period after Mardi Gras as a de facto diet, "giving up" many of the delicious indulgences in an effort to be summer ready. I am equally guilty of this and thus have been trying to clean up my act and my diet at the same time.

One of my absolute favorite dishes my grandmother makes is her roasted red peppers, which she usually serves with her extra thin fried chicken cutlets. 

Just of the thought of them has my tummy grumbling. 

[Crazily enough the store didn't have red peppers so I used the green ones. They definitely were less sweet than my grandmother's and so in the future I highly recommend sticking with the red.]

I wanted to see if I could replicate my grandmother's peppers and serve them with a leaner choice of protein. I had some of the boys over for dinner, as well as one of their beautiful girlfriends who brought the most delicious pastries and one of the most competitive games of Jenga... we had a blast!

Grandma's cutlets while delicious pieces of perfection are not exactly diet friendly. 

As an alternative I roasted chicken breasts in chicken stock with parsley at 325 for about an hour. Halfway through I rotated the chicken on top to keep all of the chicken moist.

Thoroughly wash your peppers and remove any labels or stickers. Place your peppers on a baking sheet.

Since the peppers are going to be broiled, thus exposed to an open flame, make sure there is no paper on the peppers.

Set your oven to broil, rotate the peppers until all the skin is charred.

Check to make sure all sides of the pepper are charred. 

This one needed a little more time.

Once all the peppers are thoroughly charred, place all the peppers in a paper bag and allow them to cool. 

Once cooled, tear open the bag. 

I found that the bag absorbs a lot of the moisture during the cooling process and for the sake of easy clean up I always leave the "paper bag dumpling" in a bowl. 

The skin should peel off easily, use a knife to remove any stubborn skin, the seeds and the top of the peppers. 

Slice the peppers into slivers, and add to a large mixing bowl with garlic, salt, and olive oil. 

Allow the mixture to stand at room temperature until you are ready to serve. 

For the seven peppers I roasted, I used 1/2 tsp. of salt, 1/2 cup of olive oil and 2 cloves of garlic. 

I also served the several other vegetable sides with the chicken. 

Roasted Eggplant with cubed butternut squash, and onions. 

Fresh tomato salad.

Sautéed dandelion greens with eggplant and spicy red pepper. 

The boys came to dinner armed with flowers and wine. 

I have the sweetest brothers in the world. 

My favorites from one of my favorites.

We also had one brother join us via Facetime. 

His perfect attendance record remains technically intact. 

Skirt Steak Salad

The other day my brother and I were absolutely starving. 

We decided to order some takeout because it would take "too long" for us to cook something. While we were waiting for our food, I decided to make some skirt steak to pack for my lunch.

About 45 minutes later as I was just finishing up we realized that the order never went through. 

So, we decided to have some of the steak, pulled together a salad and the dressing with some things I had in the fridge. 

Salad: 

Arugula 

Pea Shoots 

Sunflower Shoots 

Nasturtiums 

Sanditas [otherwise known as the Mexican Sour Gherkin Cucumber]

1 cup of leftover spaghetti squash (well shredded)

Dressing: 

Juice of one Lemon

Grated Garlic 

Grated Turmeric

Grated Ginger

Grape Seed Oil 

 Red Pepper Flakes 

Salt & Pepper to taste

Steak Marinade: 

Apple Cider Vinegar

Grated Garlic 

Grated Turmeric

Grated Ginger

Salt

I purchased both the pea and sunflower shoots, sanditas, and nasturtium from the Union Square Market.

In case you were curious the wine is the Divining Rod Cabernet Sauvignon. 

I'm pretty picky about my reds and this is absolutely delicious, I HIGHLY recommend it. 

Autumn Flowers Combat Hurricane Showers

I love flowers.

They can make me smile regardless of what happened two seconds ago, twenty minutes ago, two years ago, whatever, all is forgotten the second I see a bouquet. 

It's my worst quality: my disability to stay properly furious in the face of any posy.

Please ignore the assorted squash, most of them will be used in an upcoming soup recipe. 

I am a firm believer that flowers should not be special occasion things.  Nor should they cost you a fortune, so the only day of the year I'm ok with not getting flowers is Valentine's Day because frankly IMHO they're tainted with the abject consumerism of the holiday and mean a lot less than they do if they were given on any other day... end of tangent. 

Anyway, the flowers at your local bodega are available, just as beautiful, and with a little time and creativity are just as great as a bouquet ordered by a florist, oh they're also so, so, so, so, so much more affordable. 

Leo (the VERY kind little flower man who deals with my floral addiction patiently, with an indulgent smile as he generously pretends he doesn't realize how coo-coo I am for the blooms) sells a dozen roses for $10. I challenge anyone to go out and find a better deal than that. 

Today Leo had these crazy looking berry flowers which I wanted to play around with in the vase I got in the Hampton's this summer. 

I absolutely fell in love with the minimalist design and the simplicity of the vase. You can get your own at Stems Vases' website. 

Cutting them proved to be a little more challenging than I anticipated... 

Which brings me to another point, everyone should have a screw driver. 

I don't care if you are the least handy person in the world, honestly you can't be worse than I am. 

No, seriously. I am the worst. 

If I try to fix something I usually end up breaking it worse than it was before I tried, hence why whenever anyone can build, create, fix, install, manually assemble anything I am beyond impressed, we're talking bordering on fangirl admiration levels here people! 

That being said:  I FIXED SOMETHING TODAY!!!!! 

I'm bursting with pride. Can't you tell? 

Midway through cutting the stems my scissors broke, and instead of calling my "please fix this now and I'll make you cookies emergency contact" in a panic, I did it myself. 

If it wasn't as obnoxious as it would be, I would actually give myself a gold star for this one. 

Didn't even "strip the screw." Which is one of my many hidden talents, the ability to strip any screw. Even though I'm not sure exactly how I manage to do it as thoroughly as I do... WOW digression.   

Takeaway point: Buy a screwdriver.

Better yet, buy a multitool. 

But don't use the hammer part unless you actually know what you're doing, I made a hole in my wall with this thing trying to hang a picture by myself. 

April Showers, Bring May Flowers; Tulip Chicken Salad in a Lime Vinaigrette

I recently bought myself this amazing cookbook Cooking with Flowers by Miche Bacher of Mali B Sweets (you can order it from Amazon here). I was really inspired after reading her Prologue aptly titled, 'Why Eat Flowers?' to try and incorporate some of her ideas into my own cooking. 

-Some people may be VERY allergic to flowers, so make sure you have NO reaction (rash, itchiness, sneezing) to contact with them before ingesting. If you have any concerns whatsoever consult a physician before adding flowers into your diet. If you have ingested ANYTHING and your throat begins to itch, you develop a rash or you are having a hard time breathing consult a doctor IMMEDIATELY- 

 I have always struggled to cook small quantities of food, but I've been making a concerted effort to make smaller quantities of food, especially given my restrictions are not shared throughout the household. 

 The following recipe is appropriate for an individual serving. If you want to make this for more people simply multiply the recipe times the number of individuals you intend on feeding. 

Ingredients:

Salad

1 cup of chopped/sliced red cabbage depending on how you like it

2/3 cup of cherry tomatoes cut into halves

1/2 cup shredded chicken breast

Petals from 1 large tulip (6 large petals) or 2 smaller ones (approximately 12 petals)  

1 tablespoon of shredded fresh basil

1-2 sprigs of lemon thyme

Vinaigrette

3 teaspoons of fresh lime juice, 

which is approximately equivalent to the juice of 2 fresh squeezed limes

1/4 tsp garlic powder 

1/4 tsp paprika 

1/4 tsp coriander 

1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

Our garden is currently teeming with late blooming tulips. I felt comfortable using the petals of these flowers  in the salad because I know they've not been treated with pesticides or fungicides that are toxic when ingested. Bacher cautions over and over again in her book to not use flowers that come from the grocery store or any other place, like a roadside, where they could have been treated with chemicals or absorbed pollutants. Know what you're eating. 

Tulips have a flavor that is similar to a cross between a sweet pea and a cucumber. That's the only way I can think to describe it. Apparently, each variety of tulip differs in flavor from the others and some of them can have more of a bite than others.

Wash your petals. 

Then, wash them again. 

The last thing you want is some creepy-crawly in your food. 

Stack your petals, gently roll them into a tube and slice horizontally across to get thin strips. 

Cut and or shred your red cabbage. Add to your tulip petals. 

Add your tomatoes to your mixing bowl along with the chicken, basil and thyme. 

Stir and set aside. 

In a small bowl mix together the dry ingredients for your vinaigrette. 

Add the lime juice, mixing thoroughly. 

Add the olive oil. 

Mix thoroughly into your salad and enjoy.