He made food: chicken with shallots and Dijon

Tonight Mr. ALIQUID offered to make dinner, because he saw this recipe on the New York Times website and wanted to try it. If he wants to cook, I'm certainly not going to say no! Before we even started eating, he asked, "Are you going to blog about this?" I said sure, so here we are!

This is a great easy one-pot dinner: chicken thighs in a white wine and Dijon mustard sauce with shallots, tarragon and cherry or grape tomatoes. It's soooo flavorful, with a nice balance of savory and acidic! Mr. ALIQUID's chicken didn't come out quite as pretty as the picture in the NY Times, but we didn't care. Definitely give this one a try!

I made food: Mediterranean chicken en papillote

Today I was faced with cooking the dreaded chicken breast, which I normally hate because they tend to be dry and tasteless. My husband suggested trying to cook them en papillote (apparently he heard about it on NPR), which just means you wrap the food in a parchment paper packet so it steams in its own juices.

I followed this recipe from Martha Stewart, except I omitted the artichokes and olives for budgetary reasons.

First you mix up a mustard vinaigrette.

Then in the middle of a piece of parchment paper, you make a little bed of asparagus and top it with a half chicken breast, some vinaigrette, feta, basil and tomatoes.

Then the chickens all go to sleep in their little beds and into the oven...

...and here's what you get when you open the package! (We ate it with penne and homemade marinara.)

Because it cooks all sealed up, the chicken stays moist and tender. It's relatively low-fat (unless you drink all that leftover dressing at the bottom...) And it's very flavorful thanks to the mustard vinaigrette. We both agreed this recipe needs to go into my chicken breast recipe rotation!


Everyone ready for the 31-Day Challenge starting tomorrow? I am!!

I made food: Mexican melange

I LOVE Mexican food. I could probably eat it every day. My favorite is anything covered in cheese. Unfortunately for me, if I ate cheesy Mexican food every day, I'd weigh...a lot more than I do now. So this week I decided to make a somewhat healthier dish that still satisfies my craving for Mexican. This was vaguely inspired by the adobo chicken bowl I had at Cosi last weekend.

Looks good, no? Here's what I did:

First, I left some chicken breast to marinate in grapeseed oil, cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Meanwhile, I cooked some Spanish rice (I confess, it was a boxed mix!) and made some fresh pico de gallo (tomato, onion, cilantro, lime juice, salt and pepper).

Then I cooked the chicken in a pan with some oil. When it was almost done, I added a can of black beans to get them heated up. I threw a bit of everything on a plate, added some avocado chunks and sprinkled some lime juice, and voila!

Super tasty and pretty good for you! Next time I think I'll add some corn too!

Are you a cilantro lover or hater?