Food

Easier Buttermilk Fried Chicken

There's a reason there are so many "oven-fried" or baked recipes out there for favorites that are traditionally deep fried (chicken, onion rings, french fries and fish all come to mind immediately). Actually, I think there are probably two reasons. Obviously, it's usually healthier to bake something than it is to fry it. But more importantly (at least for me), frying at home can be a giant pain. Most recipes call for a huge amount of oil, which is not only intimidating, but also a giant mess to clean up afterwards. It's not exactly cheap either, especially if you're going to use peanut oil, which is one of my favorites for frying. Sometimes those oven-fried substitutes come close to replicating the real thing, but often they just leave you wishing you'd splurged and gone for it instead.



In my continuing quest to find new ways to use up the chicken thighs in our freezer, I came across this recipe for easier fried chicken. My immediate thought? I'm sure it's great, but I'm not motivated enough to deal with the clean-up of multiple quarts of oil. When I stopped and took a second to read the recipe however, I discovered it actually called for a small amount of oil relative to every other fried recipe I've made - less than 2 cups! The chicken was soaked in buttermilk and dredged in a seasoned flour mixture before being quickly fried in this small amount of oil just to develop a golden brown crust. Instead of trying to cook the chicken through in the oil, it was removed to a wire rack set inside a baking sheet and finished in a hot oven. I was sold - this method had to be tested.

The verdict? We were completely blown away, the chicken was better than either of us imagined it would be! We haven't stopped talking about it since I made it. The crust was extra crispy and super flavorful, and the chicken was really juicy. I hate when you have a coating or rub on a piece of meat and the outside is flavorful, but the inside is sort of blah, so I was extremely pleased that wasn't the case here - the chicken had absorbed so much flavor, it was delicious. The method for making it was as simple as promised too. I loved that I could finish it in the oven instead of cooking it through in the oil, which sometimes leads to burning the outside before the inside can finish cooking. This recipe was a winner all around, a definite repeat here. The fact that it allowed me to finally use that last package of chicken thighs was an added bonus :)

Easier Buttermilk Fried Chicken
from The Best of America's Test Kitchen 2012

1 1/4 cups buttermilk
4 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon pepper
dash hot sauce
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3 1/2 lb bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces (legs, thighs or breasts)
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 3/4 cups peanut (or vegetable) oil, for frying

In a large bowl, whisk together 1 cup of the buttermilk, 1 tablespoon salt, 1 teaspoon pepper, the hot sauce, 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder, 1/4 teaspoon paprika and 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper. Add the chicken, turning to coat both sides with the buttermilk mixture. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or up to 24 hours (mine soaked for about 4 hours).

Preheat oven to 400 F. Set a wire rack inside of a rimmed baking sheet. Add the oil to an 11-inch straight-sided saute pan (or Dutch oven) and set the pan over medium-high heat. Heat the oil to 375 F.

Meanwhile, in a wide, shallow bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, remaining 2 teaspoons pepper, remaining 1 teaspoon salt, remaining 3/4 teaspoon garlic powder, remaining 3/4 teaspoon paprika, and remaining 1/8 teaspoon cayenne. Add the remaining 1/4 cup buttermilk and, with your fingers, work it into the flour mixture until small clumps form. Working with 1 piece of chicken at a time, dredge the chicken in the flour mixture, pressing to ensure a thick, even coating. Transfer the coated chicken to a large plate, skin side up.

Once the oil has reached temperature, add the chicken pieces to the pan, skin side down (a few at a time so you don't drop the oil temperature too drastically). Cook on the first side until golden brown, about 3-4 minutes, then gently flip and continue cooking on the second side until golden, about another 2-3 minutes (the crust will darken slightly in the oven while it cooks so no worries if it's not as brown as you'd like at this point). Transfer the chicken to the wire rack. Repeat with the remaining chicken, allowing the temperature to climb back to 375 F if necessary.

Bake the chicken for 15-20 minutes, or until breasts register 160 F and thighs/legs 175 F on an instant-read thermometer. Let rest for 5 minutes before serving.  

Food

Buffalo Chicken Grilled Cheese

After the insanity of the holidays, one thing I can really embrace about the first few months of the year is an empty calendar. For the most part, our weekends have been pretty quiet, and we've definitely been taking advantage. The pace of life will pick up soon, with weddings, baby showers, and Shane's racing season, so for now, we don't feel too guilty about having a lazy day here or there. The only problem is that sometimes the day gets away from us, and before we know it, it's later than we thought and we still haven't started cooking dinner. In that moment, it's SO tempting to pick up the phone, order a pizza and be done with it. I'd be lying if I told you that hadn't happened, but most of the time I try to put something together with the ingredients we have on hand.



On one of those lazy days recently, I was craving buffalo chicken pizza in a major way. Unfortunately, I didn't have any pizza dough stashed away and it was too late to start making it from scratch by the time I got off the couch. We had everything else we needed though, so instead I decided to take the same flavors from that pizza and turn them into a grilled cheese sandwich. In my head it was pretty much the same: both the pizza crust and bread were high-carb vehicles for the buffalo chicken and cheese goodness :)

I started with thick slices of Italian bread, after having had good luck using them in the past. The bread is substantial enough to handle the filling and toasts to crispy perfection in the pan. I spread a tangy ranch-like sauce on the bread, which was then topped with cheddar cheese, the buffalo chicken mixture, and finally, more cheese. I kept the buffalo chicken mixture pretty simple, using the buffalo sauce from the pizza we love, some cooked and shredded chicken, and, for a little bit of crunchy texture, diced celery and red onion. As always, I chose not to include any blue cheese in the sandwiches since we're not fans, but feel free to add it in place of or in addition to the cheddar. This was a perfect quick and easy dinner; in fact, it's possible I enjoyed it even more than the pizza I was originally craving. But then, what's not to love about a grilled cheese sandwich and an episode of The Amazing Race to cap off your weekend? :)

Buffalo Chicken Grilled Cheese
adapted from Buffalo Chicken Pizza

White Sauce
1 tablespoon Greek yogurt (I used nonfat)
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
pinch of sugar
pinch of garlic powder

Buffalo Sauce
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/4 cup Frank’s hot sauce
1/2 teaspoon packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

3/4 cup cooked and shredded chicken (from about 1 small chicken breast)
2 tablespoons minced red onion
2 tablespoons minced celery
4 1/2-inch thick slices Italian bread
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese

To make the white sauce: Stir the yogurt, mayonnaise, sugar, garlic powder and a pinch each of salt and pepper together in a small bowl. (The sauce can be made ahead and refrigerated.)

To make the buffalo sauce: Melt the butter in a small saucepan set over medium-low heat. Add the hot sauce, brown sugar and vinegar and stir until combined. Add the shredded chicken, red onion, and celery and toss to coat. If the chicken was cold, keep the pan over low heat and let it warm through a bit.

Lightly butter one side of two slices of the bread. Flip the slices over and lay them butter side down on your work surface. Spread half of the white sauce on the side of those two slices that is now facing up (the unbuttered side). Distribute half of the cheese among the two slices. Top each slice with half of the chicken mixture and then distribute the remaining cheese over the chicken. Lightly butter one side of the two remaining slices of bread, then flip them over and use the other half of the white sauce to coat the unbuttered side. Top each sandwich with a slice of this bread to finish it (buttered side facing out).

Heat a heavy-bottomed skillet over medium heat. Place the sandwiches butter side down in the pan and cook on the first side until the bread is golden brown and toasted. Flip the sandwiches using a spatula and continue to cook on the other side until the bread is golden brown. You can use the spatula to compress the sandwich as it cooks on the second side. Remove the sandwiches from the pan and let them rest for a minute or two, then slice in half (if desired) and serve.

Food

Honey Chipotle Turkey Meatballs

I almost always do our grocery shopping first thing on Saturday morning. I'll work to finish the meal planning and get the list together on Friday night (exciting, right?) and then I'm up early and at the store not too long after it opens at 7 am on Saturday. Not only are there fewer people in the store, but the shelves always seem really well stocked at that time. I made the mistake of going late at night once (again, in an attempt to avoid crowds - sensing a theme here? :)) and pickings were very slim, especially in the produce department. Lesson learned. Nothing beats the feeling of being back home with the shopping done and the groceries unpacked by 9 o'clock. Well, except maybe knowing there are plenty of snack options on hand for catching up on my DVR that afternoon...



Last weekend, for a variety of reasons, I never made it to the store. Monday night came - I had nothing planned for dinner and only a lone package of ground turkey with which to work. We eat ground turkey a lot so I could easily have scanned the archives for ideas, but of course I wanted to try something new. I remembered these meatballs Natalie had posted - they're super quick and easy, and I loved the sweet and spicy combo with the honey and chipotle chiles in the sauce. The meatballs were a great last minute dinner, healthy and flavorful! Per Natalie's recommendation, I doubled the sauce and was glad I did, but if you don't need your meatballs swimming in it, you'd be fine halving what I have listed below.

Oh, I had also hoped to tell you about that rice you see hiding behind the meatballs, but it wasn't to be. Somehow I managed to screw up a recipe with the word "easy" in the title. We're talking barely edible. Better luck next time I guess :)

Honey Chipotle Turkey Meatballs
adapted from Martha Stewart

1 1/2 lb ground turkey
1/2 yellow onion, diced small
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
4 tablespoons honey
2-4 tablespoons chopped chipotle chiles in adobo sauce (depending on your tolerance for heat)
4 teaspoons cider vinegar
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 375 F. In a medium bowl, stir the onion, garlic, salt, and black pepper together then add the turkey to the bowl and use your hands to mix just until combined (do not overmix). Form into 16 meatballs (each will be about the size of a golf ball). In a small bowl, stir together the honey, chiles, and vinegar.

Set a large ovenproof skillet over medium to medium-high heat and add the oil. Once it is shimmering, add the meatballs. Cook until browned on all sides, about 10 minutes. Move the skillet to the oven and bake the meatballs for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven (remember, the handle will be hot!) and pour the sauce over the meatballs. Bake for another 5 minutes (swirling the pan at the halfway point), or until the sauce has reduced to glaze the meatballs and the meatballs are cooked through. (Keep an eye on your meatballs in the oven - without eggs or milk-soaked bread for added moisture, they have the potential to dry out if overcooked.) 

Food

Lighter Chicken Parmesan

When I was a teenager chicken parm was one of my go-to dishes at restaurants. Crispy, fried chicken smothered with lots of cheese sitting on a giant pile of pasta - kind of boring, but delicious, and I wasn't very adventurous when it came to my food back then anyway. It wasn't exactly a healthy choice, but I was an athlete and my teenage metabolism could handle it :) These days it's a different story. When a chicken parm craving strikes, we make a healthier version at home instead of running out. This is my current favorite. The chicken is breaded with a combination of toasted panko breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese and then baked rather than fried. It's still just as crispy and decadent-tasting, but doesn't leave me with that heavy feeling in my stomach after I eat it.

This is actually the second time I've made this particular recipe. The first was back in 2008, when I was just starting to play around in the kitchen, and I remember that it felt like an all-day project to put this meal together. It was significantly faster this time, though probably still on the high end of the amount of time I'd ideally like to spend making dinner on a weeknight. Prepping the tomato sauce in advance or having a second set of hands to assist (Shane was still at the gym so I was on my own) would help, but honestly, I like this dish so much I don't mind spending a little more time in the kitchen for it.

Lighter Chicken Parmesan
from America's Test Kitchen Healthy Family Kitchen

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 8 oz each)
1 1/2 cups panko breadcrumbs
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
3 large egg whites
1 tablespoon water
2 cups tomato sauce, warmed (store-bought or homemade (see recipe below))
3/4 cup shredded mozzarella
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil

Place the chicken on a cutting board. Working with one breast at a time, place your hand on top and use a sharp knife to cut the breast in half horizontally, to make two thinner chicken cutlets. (Don't worry if they're not perfectly even, mine never are!) Place each cutlet between two sheets of plastic wrap and use a meat mallet or skillet to pound to 1/4-inch thickness.

Preheat oven to 475 F. Set a wire rack inside a rimmed baking sheet and spray the rack with cooking spray. Set aside.

Add the panko and oil to a 12-inch skillet, and stirring frequently, toast the breadcrumbs until they are golden brown, about 10 minutes. Transfer the breadcrumbs to a wide, shallow dish and allow to cool briefly, then add the Parmesan and stir. In a second shallow dish, mix the flour and garlic powder. Finally, add the egg whites and water to a third dish, and beat with a fork until frothy.

Pat the chicken dry then season both sides with salt and pepper. One at a time, dip the cutlets in the flour, then the egg whites and the panko mixture. Press the panko onto the chicken to completely coat. Transfer the cutlets to the wire rack you sprayed earlier.

Spray the tops of the cutlets with cooking spray then bake for about 10 minutes, or until the chicken registers betwen 150 and 160 F on an instant read thermometer. Remove from the oven, and top each piece of chicken with 2 tablespoons each of sauce and mozzarella. Return to the oven and bake until the cheese has melted and the chicken is cooked through (160-165 F), about 3-4 minutes. Sprinkle with the basil before serving.

Serves 6

Quick Tomato Sauce

1 28-oz can diced tomatoes
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon minced fresh basil

Add the tomatoes and their juice to your food processor and pulse until broken down (you can make it as smooth or chunky as you like your sauce). In a medium saucepan, cook the garlic, tomato paste, oil and red pepper flakes over medium heat for about 2 minutes, or until the tomato paste starts to brown. Add the tomatoes and let the sauce cook until slightly thickened and reduced, about 20 minutes. Add the basil and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Food

Lighter General Tso's Chicken

General Tso's chicken has been my go-to Chinese take-out order for as long as I can remember. Though I generally like to embrace variety and try new things, this is a definite exception. I don't think I'll ever get sick of my General Tso's chicken. A few years ago I was pretty psyched to discover a homemade version of this take-out favorite, and that recipe quickly became a favorite around here. As I mentioned recently, we don't repeat recipes often, but every single time I find myself with extra chicken on hand, that's the recipe I immediately want to make. Although I'm sure it's about 100 times healthier than the take-out version, there's still quite a bit of sugar in that recipe, so in reality, we don't have it all that often.



I couldn't help myself when recently I stumbled upon this new variation on General Tso's chicken. It had to go on our menu for the next week. This recipe is similar to our old favorite in that the chicken is cut into small cubes, dredged and cooked in a bit of oil on the stove top, but where our old recipe used just cornstarch, this one combines cornstarch and egg whites. I thought the addition of the egg whites made for a slightly thicker crust on the chicken. There is some brown sugar in the sauce here, but less than the other variation, and this one doesn't have ketchup or hoisin sauce either, which also helps to reduce the total amount of sugar in the dish.



Ok, so probably healthier - check. But would we like it? The recipe had received rave reviews on Martha Stewart's site, so I had high hopes, and fortunately, I wasn't let down. The chicken had a nice crust, and the sauce was really flavorful. I would probably suggest doubling the sauce if you want extra to drizzle over your rice, but otherwise, I wouldn't change a thing. I liked the addition of the snow peas - I'm pretty sure it's the first time I've ever made them at home, but it won't be the last. Shane, on the other hand, was freaked out by the snow peas so this dish was at a psychological disadvantage for him from the start. That said, he still devoured the generous serving on his plate (minus any peas), and when I asked if he'd want it again, he said yes. I love that we now have two homemade variations on General Tso's chicken at our disposal - who needs take-out? :)

Lighter General Tso's Chicken
barely adapted from Martha Stewart

1/4 cup cornstarch, divided
1/2 cup cold water
4 garlic cloves, sliced
2 teaspoons fresh ginger, grated
3 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
3/4 lb snow peas, trimmed and halved crosswise
2 large egg whites
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

In a large bowl, whisk 1 tablespoon of the cornstarch and the cold water together until smooth. Add the garlic, ginger, brown sugar, soy sauce, and red pepper flakes and whisk to combine. Stir in the peas and set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk the egg whites, remaining 3 tablespoons of cornstarch, salt, and pepper until well combined. Add the chicken pieces, and toss to coat.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium to medium-high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of the oil, and once shimmering, add half of the chicken from the egg white mixture (be sure to shake the excess off). Cook the chicken until golden on all sides, about 6-8 minutes. Transfer to a plate and tent with foil. Add the remaining oil to the pan and repeat with the other half of the chicken.

Reduce the heat under the pan then add the snow pea mixture to the now empty skillet. Cover the pan and cook until the peas are tender and the sauce thickens, about 3-5 minutes. Add the chicken (and any juices on the plate) back to the skillet. Toss to coat with the sauce and, if necessary, finish cooking the chicken through. Serve the chicken on a bed of rice, if desired.