At the end of last week I shared with you what is quickly becoming my favorite roast chicken recipe, and I promised a follow up post with a chicken soup that could be made with the leftovers, if you had any. While you could just as easily make a traditional chicken noodle soup following the same instructions, I decided I wanted to give my soup a little kick this time around with a few Asian flavors – ginger, lemongrass, and just a hint of Thai chile. It sounded like the perfect match for a chicken and rice soup, and I agree even more so with that sentiment now that I’ve devoured a large potful of it. (more…)

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Asian, Comfort food, Dairy free, Gluten free, Soups by Courtney

A few month’s ago, while in Carmel, I had what might be the best roasted chicken I had ever had out on the town at Hog’s Breath Pub. Maybe it was just because my husband and I were enjoying a weekend away together, maybe it was the wine, but either way, I couldn’t get the perfectly crisp skin, flakes of salt, and fresh vegetable succotash out of my head. So of course, I decided to recreate the meal at home.

Of course, I didn’t actually know what constituted a succotash. I assumed corn, because every succotash I had ever seen had corn. Making this meal was a little on the fly, as I noticed the grocery store had a large bunch of fresh corn in. So I wandered through the produce section, picking up some okra and zucchini, because it looked good. Only later did I learn that succotash also includes lima beans, by definition. So we’ll call this Courtney’s sort-of-succotash, sans beans, but you won’t miss them.

For the chicken recipe, I decided to try Thomas Keller’s simple roast chicken. (more…)

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Comfort food, Dinner, Gluten free, Side Dish, Sunday Suppers, Wine pairings by Courtney

A couple of weeks ago I posted my recipe for the buffalo chicken salad, but then I realized I’ve never posted the simplest buffalo chicken recipe of all – wings! I’ve made many different kinds of wings over the years, but I think I discovered my favorite method for making them: simply grilled. No breading. No deep frying. Just a coating of special spices, a bit of time of a hot, smoky charcoal grill, and a toss in a darned good wing sauce. (more…)

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Appetizers, Cooking outdoors, Dinner, Gluten free, Lunch, Wine pairings by Courtney

I’ve been on a bit of a hot wing kick lately. And while my favorite way to quelch that craving is grilled wings tossed in buffalo sauce, this is quickly becoming my second. A fat salad bowl full of romaine lettuce, buffalo chicken tenders, blue cheese dressing, and every veggie I think is wonderful dipped in blue cheese dressing. All in one bowl.

This mixture was born a few jobs back. Pretty much the only time I would frequent the salad bar at work was if there were buffalo chicken strips, then I would make my rounds and find a variety of vegetables that I liked, and top it all with blue cheese crumbles and ranch (since we rarely had blue cheese dressing on that bar, for some reason). However, I had never tried to make this at home until last week. I had picked up some Louisiana Hot Sauce wing sauce at the grocery store and did not use all of it on my grilled chicken wings. Lucky for me, I realized how easily this could all come together, especially when you already have broccoli chunked up for snacking on and the onion already peeled. I foresee many, many more of these salads happening during football season! (more…)

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Gluten free, Salad by Courtney

It was actually my dad and step-mom that introduced me to this recipe last summer. Super-simple chicken fajita meat that can be made on the grill or in the house, along with grilled peppers and onions, all doused in a bit of the cilantro-laced marinade that makes the meat oh-so-juicy and the peppers and onions full of flavor. The great thing is this dish can be pulled off as a fairly light-feeling summer dinner or a filling fall dish just depending on how much meat you want to stuff in your tortilla. Ba-dum-bum! (more…)

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Cooking outdoors, Dairy free, Dinner, Gluten free, Lunch, Mexican by Courtney