Rosemary-Honey Chicken with Penne and Roasted Broccoli Sauce

While browsing the Web, I found this random site for mail-order meatballs, pasta, and sauce. I thought to myself… “Self, what about making a GREEN sauce for pasta? This seems like a good idea. Red is nice, white is nice, but what about a change?” After speaking thusly to myself, I got some broccoli and made this. I like the toasty flavor of the roasted veggies, but I have to admit that the sauce is more brown than green. If you want a vivid green color, steam the broccoli instead of roasting it.

Ingredients for sauce puree

2 heads of broccoli (this is forgiving—but I used medium to large size heads)

6 cloves of garlic

3 onions

14.5 oz can chicken broth

S+P to taste

Ingredients for chicken

Chicken thighs (I had 4, weighed about 2 pounds total)

1/2 orange

1-1/2T honey per chicken piece

1T rosemary per chicken piece

1 head of broccoli (small), separated into edible pieces.

1 onion, sliced

4 oz baby bella mushrooms, washed and sliced in half if large

Penne

1A. Prep the roasted veggies. Put foil on a baking sheet and lightly oil with a high-heat oil (I used a canola blend). The veggie prep is easier because everything (mostly) is getting pureed later. Smash and peel the garlic; leave whole. Peel and cut the onions into eighths. Separate the 2 heads of broccoli into larger florets than you would normally find comfortable to eat. Arrange on baking sheet, top with S+P, and roast in a 350-degree F oven for 40-50 minutes (or until it looks good and roasty to you).

1B. Prep the chicken. Rinse off the chicken pieces and arrange in a casserole dish over the sliced onion. Top each chicken piece with the honey and rosemary. Add mushrooms and broccoli to the dish. Cut the half-orange into pieces and squeeze over everything, then throw them on top. Pop into the same 350-degree F oven for about an hour.

2. After the stuff has been in the oven about 35 minutes, get a pot of water boiling for the penne. When it boils, add the penne and set a timer for about 10 minutes. When the pasta is done to your liking, drain it and mix a bit of oil in to keep the pasta from sticking together.

3. When the veggies hit 40-50 minutes, remove from the oven and pop them in your favorite blender or food processor. Tongs are very helpful for this process. Add in the chicken broth (about half the can worked for me) and process those veggies until they’re nice and smooth. Taste the sauce. What do you think? How is the texture? If you want the sauce to be thicker, pour it into a saucepan, mix a bit of flour into a small cup of hot water, and add to the sauce. Personally, I found the sauce to be fine without adding any thickeners.

4. When all is done, serve penne with the “green” sauce on top, next to a chicken thigh with the roasted veggies nearby. I suggest topping with parmesan…always nice. Looks good! Tastes awesome, too. Enjoy!

Limp and Delicious Roasted Butternut Squash Fries with Sriracha Mayo Dip

Time for another KA quickie. For those of you who don’t remember what that means—no measurements, also pretty easy and forgiving. I saw a recipe for butternut squash fries on Cook Taste Eat—a very good online cooking show hosted by chef Michael Mina, and often co-hosted by Michelle Branch, that is unfortunately no longer online. Chef Mina created a batter for his squash and actually deep-fried the fries, but since I am lazy (and also forgot to buy eggs), that did not happen. The result is a quicker, easier, and still deliciously butternut-squashy side dish. As the title indicates, these are not particularly crisp—unless you leave them in the oven too long and the bottoms get black. Best to avoid that. These would also be good sliced into coins and then put on a sandwich with the sriracha mayo as a spread—the flavor combo of spicy-squashy-sweet-salty is quite nice, no matter how you get it in your mouth.

Ingredients

Butternut squash (I used about 5 pounds)

Oil that can take high heat, such as canola

Maple syrup

Salt

Black pepper

Granulated garlic

Granulated onion

Paprika

Cayenne

Dip ingredients

Mayo

Sriracha

Maple syrup

1.       Cut up the butternut squash into pieces roughly fry-like in shape, and about the same size so they bake evenly. This, more than almost any cooking task I have yet undertaken, is seriously more easily said than done. Butternut squashes are intractable jerks, as delicious as they are. The skins are tough to cut through, and the meat oozes a slippery starch when cut. It is, in short, perilous to cut these. Use the sharpest knife you have and BE CAREFUL. Make sure your fingers and other parts of your body are not near the blade or in an area where the blade could slip to. One good thing about this recipe is that it is unnecessary to peel the squash. The peel becomes very soft when baked, so it tastes just fine left on. If you don’t appreciate that yet, you will as soon as you start cutting the evil squash. When purchasing a squash, try to get one that is a uniformly straight-sided specimen—avoid the typical pear shape. This helps to make cutting easier. Cut off the vine and flower ends and don’t forget to scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Good luck!

2.       At some point, take a break from the frustration and put the oven on to 400 F to preheat. You can also cover one or two cookie sheets with foil and oil them.

3.       Toss the hard-won pieces of butternut squash in a large bowl with some oil, the aforementioned spices, and maple syrup. Don’t go overboard with anything—you just want a thin coating of oil and syrup. If you happen to be married to someone who doesn’t love sweet and savory mixed together, make one tray without maple syrup. Spread the squash on the cookie sheet as close to one layer as your patience will permit at this point.

4.       Bake the squash at 400 F for 20 minutes, then rotate the trays. Bake for another 20 minutes. They are done when a fork enters the fries smoothly. No need to flip the fries on the tray.

5.       In the meantime, prepare the dip by mixing mayo with sriracha and a touch of maple syrup. My version is about 1 cup of mayo to 1 T sriracha to 1 t maple syrup—but make it how you like it. Enjoy!

Festive Red, Green, and Bacon Spirals and Homemade Ranch Dressing Powder

I was looking for an easy and festive appetizer to bring to a Christmas party and came across The Pioneer Woman’s Holiday Roll-ups (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/holiday-roll-ups.html). Basically you mix ranch dressing powder with cream cheese, spread it on tortillas, scatter some red and green bell pepper and green onion on it, roll it up, and cut into cute little slices. I thought it was a great recipe, but jazzed it up a bit with the addition of bacon and also making my own ranch dressing powder instead of buying the packet (thanks to Simply Scratch (http://www.simplyscratch.com/2014/05/homemade-ranch-dressing-mix.html ) for the inspiration!!). So ultimately, I made the recipe way more complicated…but oh well. It’s worth it!

Ingredients

2 8oz packages of Neufchatel, softened

1 packet ranch dressing mix or 1 recipe of Homemade Ranch Dressing Powder (see below)

A few grinds of black pepper

9-10 tortillas

1.5 green bell peppers, finely diced

1.5 red bell peppers, finely diced

4 green onions, finely sliced

12 pieces of bacon, fried and chopped

To make ranch powder, combine:

1 packet (3T) of dry buttermilk

1/2 T dried parsley

1/2 t dried dill

1/2 t granulated garlic

1/2 t granulated onion

1/2 t Kosher salt

1/4 t sugar

Dash ground black pepper

Dash paprika

1.       Mix the ranch powder and black pepper with the Neufchatel. You can microwave the cream cheese if needed, or just leave it out on the counter for a few hours to soften.

2.       Prepare the vegetables and bacon.

3.       Prepare the tortillas by cutting a small slice off two opposite sides of the tortilla. Those will be the ends of the roll, and save you the trouble of having a weird unsightly end piece.

4.       Spread the cheese mixture on the tortillas, taking care to cover the entire surface. You don’t need a half inch thickness of it—keep in mind that you are rolling it up, so you’re going to get more in one bite than just the thickness you’re spreading on it any given spot.

5.       Sprinkle the vegetables and bacon on top of the spread. Leave one curved side relatively free of toppings to facilitate good sealing when you roll it up.

6.       Roll up the tortilla toward the topping-free side, taking care to go slowly and pack the roll tightly so it doesn’t fall apart. About halfway through rolling, daub some cream cheese along the roll to help create a tighter seal.

7.       Using a very sharp knife, cut the roll into 2-inch thick slices. Arrange cut side up on a tray and enjoy!