This recipes takes about an hour to throw together and is perfect on a cold snowy evening. Makes great leftovers as well!

Southwestern Chicken and Corn Chowder

2 red bell peppers
2 pasilla peppers
1 yellow onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 whole roasted chicken
1 32 oz carton chicken broth
½ cup heavy cream
1 8oz can corn
1 8oz can creamed corn
1 tbls cumin
½ tbls cayenne
1 tbls paprika
2tbls flour

1. Preheat oven to 450°. Place red and pasilla pepers on a baking sheet and roast, turning occasionally until blackened on all sides (about 15-20 min). Place in large plastic bag and let cool. Once cool to the touch, run under cold water while rubbing off chard skin and discarding seeds. Chop into half inch pieces.
2. Preheat large pot over medium heat. Sauté onion in olive oil until translucent. Add garlic, and sauté until fragrant.
3. While cooking onion, deconstruct chicken discarding bones and skin. Chop meat into ½ inch cubes.
4. Add remaining ingredients (except flour), and bring to simmer. Cook for 30 min – 1 hour. Mix a half cup of hot liquid from soup with flour until smooth. Add back to pot of soup to thicken.

Soy Glazed Chicken Breast with Warm Thai Rice Salad

Soy Glazed Chicken Breasts

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts (3-4 half breasts)

Marinade:

½ cup of soy sauce
1 inch of ginger, finely minced or grated
2 cloves of garlic, finely minced or grated
zest of 1 lime
juice of ½ lime
2 tlbs honey
1 tbls brown sugar
dash of Siracha

Sauce

½ cup of soy sauce
½ inch of ginger, finely minced of grated
4 tbls honey
dash of Siracha

Canola oil.

1. Mix all ingredients for marinade in a medium sized bowl
2. Marinate chicken in plastic bag or plastic wrap cover bowl for 30 minutes – 3 hours.
3. Heat a table spoon of oil in non-stick skillet or grill pan over medium high heat until just smoking. Lower heat to medium and add chicken breasts. Sugars in marinade will char and create a crust on the outside of the breasts. Cook 75% done on first side (about 5-7 minutes), turn and cook the rest of the way on second side (5 min). Allow to rest for 5-10 minutes.
4. While cooking breasts, heat ingredients for sauce over medium heat in small sauce pan until syrupy. While breasts cook, brush on a little bit of sauce every couple of minutes. Reserve a small amount of sauce for final serving.
5. Slice breasts on the bias and serve over rice with a final drizzle of sauce.

Serve with Bobby Flay's delicious Thai Brown Rice Salad.

What to do with all of these cherry tomatoes?

So, I will admit: I was overly ambitious. I saw the 2 pound box of lovely cherry tomatoes at the grocery store and I jumped on it. I'll eat those as a healthy snack...or so I thought. A week later I had a pound of cherry tomatoes going a little soft. What to do?

Simple Tomato Sauce

1 lb cherry tomatoes that you thought you would eat as a "healthy snack"
1/2 yellow onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbls fresh basil
Italian spices (I like thyme, parsley, oregano, and crushed red pepper)
1 tbls sugar

1. Saute onion in 1 tbl olive oil over medium high heat until soft.
2. Throw in crushed garlic and tomatoes.
3. As tomatoes soften, carefully crush with a potato masher (they will squirt hot tomato lava all over you so be careful).
4. Add spices, sugar, and salt and pepper to taste.
5. Simmer until tomatoes have mellowed and flavors have blended (approx. 10-15min). Add in basil.

Serve over pasta with parmesan and a bit more basil.

See, you're still being healthy!

Beaver Creek Recipe #1

I was privileged enough to spend a weekend at the Ritz a couple of weekends ago. To try and earn my keep I offered to cook for the other two people joining the boy and me. I thought a seared tuna dinner would be delicious so I got my keister to Sunflower to purchase 2 lbs of tuna filet for $10/lb. I knew that 2lbs would be too much for four people, but I was counting on the boys to eat their fair share. The morning that we left, I was informing the boy that I got way too much tuna to which he replied,

"Did I not tell you how many people are coming this weekend?"

(Color draining from face:) "No..."

"There are going to be 10 people."

Um...quoi?

So, needless to say, tuna dinner, became tuna salad, and dinner became a very-easy-to-make-for-10-people baked rigatoni (recipe to follow later.)

The salad was a hit, so I thought I'd post it here for others to enjoy. Forgive me if some measurements are off, I was just kind of throwing things together.

Seared Tuna with Chopped Asian Salad

Serves 5-6

1lb tuna filet
¼ cup Soy Vey teriyaki sauce (cheapest at Target, so delicious!)
1tbls cornstarch
skinny Rice Noodles

Dressing:
1 tsp Savory Spice wasabi powder
1 tsp warm water
1/8 cup soy sauce
splash rice wine vinegar
1 orange, zested
1 tbls toasted sesame oil
1/8 canola oil

Salad:
½ Napa cabbage, chopped
¼ red cabbage, chopped
3 carrots, shredded
1 cup frozen soybeans (edamame)
1 cup grape tomatoes, sliced in half
½ small red onion, sliced

1. Cook rice noodles according to package directions, drain and coat with a small amount of sesame oil to keep from sticking.
2. Heat large greased grill pan over medium-high heat.
3. Steam soybeans until heated through. Shock in a bowl of ice water and drain.
4. For dressing: prepare wasabi according to directions on bottle in a large bowl. Add all other ingredients except oils. While whisking vigorously, add sesame oil and canola oil.
5. Take your zested orange and cut off top and bottom. Cut off the rest of the peel starting your knife at the top and slicing around the meat to the bottom. You should be left with a whole, peal-less orange. Using a paring knife slice the meat of one wedge away from the white separator. Do this repeatedly working your way around the orange until you have a bunch of pretty orange slices in a bowl (sans icky white part), and the center of the orange with a lot of separators left over. Squeeze the juice from the leftover pit into your dressing bowl. (Note: this is really crummy way of explaining this, for video instructions see here).
6. Toss salad ingredients in dressing until coated.
7. Add tuna filet to heated grill pan when oil is slightly smoking. Sear for 2 minutes and flip to sear other side for another 2 minutes. The cooked portion should be no more than ½ centimeter. Remove immediately to cutting board and slice in long thin slices.
8. While searing tuna heat Soy Vey and cornstarch in small not non-stick fry pan until thickened.

Assembly:

1. Start with a cold salad plate. Top with small mound of rice noodles.
2. Layer a portion of salad on top of noodles.
3. Top with seared tuna slices.
4. Drizzle a line of thickening soy vey on top of tuna.

ENJOY!!

Transitions

Okay, so I have grossly fallen off the wagon, and for that I apologize. New stories and recipes are soon to come. I promise. You can especially look forward to my 10 course tasting at Colt and Grey, and the impromptu dinner I cooked up in Beaver Creek this past weekend. Until then, enjoy polishing off the last little bits of Easter candy you have lying around. I just ate the ears off of the hollow bunny my father gave me this year. Ah, high fructose corn syrup.

Pennette with Pesto and Eggplant

Serves 4-6

1 lb of pennette or penne

2 cups of packed basil leaves
1/4 cup of toasted pine nuts
1 clove garlic
1 1/2 cups of coarsely grated parmesan

1 medium Chinese eggplant

olive oil
salt and pepper

1. Heat a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until al dente. Drain and reserve 1 cup of cooking water.

2. Heat large sauté pan over medium high heat. Add a generous amount of olive oil. Cut eggplant into half inch pieces, and add to hot pan. The eggplant will soak up oil like a sponge, continue to add oil in order to coat eggplant. Season well, and continue to stir periodically since eggplant is soft and caramelized (brown). Turn off heat.

3. While cooking eggplant, blend basil, pine nuts, garlic, and 1/2 cup of parmesan in small food processor. Add olive oil a little at a time until creamy.

4. Add pesto to cooked eggplant and stir to melt cheese.

5. Add 1/2 cup of parmesan to cooked pasta and reserved pasta water. Stir to melt cheese. Add pesto and eggplant mixture and toss to coat pasta.

6. Serve topped with remaining parmesan.

Pasta Carbonara

1 lb dried spaghetti

1/2 lb pancetta
4 eggs
1/2 pint heavy whipping cream
1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
freshly ground pepper

2 cups of peas, steamed

1. Set a large pot of heavily salted water to boil. Once water reaches a heavy boil, add pasta.

2. Heat a large straight sided pan over medium/high heat. Add pancetta and sauté until golden. Turn off heat and drain/pat off any excess grease.

3. Set up double boiler (water should be at a gentle simmer, and top bowl should not touch water). Whisk together eggs, cream, parmesan, and pepper in top section of double boiler. Continue to whisk until thickened and hot to the touch (approx. 10 minutes).

4. Drain pasta and add sauce, pasta, and peas to pan with pancetta. Stir over low/medium heat until sauce sticks to pasta. Do not overheat or sauce will become clumpy.

5. Serve in warm bowls with freshly ground pepper on top.