Pesto Stuffed Chicken with Roasted Vegetables

First impressions can be both misleading and dangerous. When I first saw Jamie Oliver, I had a hard time taking him seriously. I mean, he's not much older than Psychgrad. Then I made a good choice (one of the few). I said to myself - "self I said", if you take Psychgrad seriously, why then wouldn't you give Jamie Oliver the same acknowledgement. I mean, age is not an indicator of intelligence or talent. Then started the zombie like "must have Jamie Oliver cookbooks" mantra - need I go on.

I served this dish at our New Year's dinner (Rosh Hashana) and it was an outstanding hit.

Ingredients:

An array of colourful vegetables - i.e. carrots, red pepper, green pepper, sweet potato, regular potato, red onion, cherry tomatoes
2 cloves garlic (smashed but not peeled)
Olive oil
Kosher salt and pepper to taste

Cut up vegetables to the size you like
Add a glug of olive oil, s&p, and smashed garlic
Mix it all together to coat the vegetables and place in roasting pan.
Roast vegetables at 350 F until slightly tender (not mushy) approximately 35 - 40 min.

Stuffed Pesto Chicken

If you're like Psychgrad, you'll have alot of pesto in your freezer. If you're more like Psychgrad's mom, you'll probably be buying a jar at the grocery store or finishing up the last of your homemade pesto.

6 chicken breasts
6 heaping Tbsp pesto
Pepper

1. Create pockets on the thicker side of the chicken breast. Put in a heaping tablespoon of pesto evening it out in the pocket
2. Place in foil lined baking dish, sprinkle with pepper and cover with foil
3. Bake in 350 F oven for about 25 minutes - remove foil from the top and let the chicken brown slightly while roasting
4. Remove from oven and slice 3-4 slices per breast at an angle

To serve:

Place roasted vegetables on serving dish and top with sliced chicken

It's good, it's easy, it's nutritious and it's low fat.

Shrimp Dumplings - Recipes to Rival

Temperance of High on the Hog and Lori of Lori's Lipsmacking Goodness, have given us a remarkable challenge for this month's Recipes to Rival. I always thought that alot of Asian food would be beyond my capabilities and this recipe proved me so wrong. It was a pretty easy recipe and alot of fun to do.


Shrimp Dumplings


Prep Time: 20 min
Cook Time: 20 min
Makes 24 (I got more than 24)

Dumplings

4 large shiitake mushrooms
3 scallions
1/2 garlic clove
8 ounces shrimp, peeled and deveined
6 ounces ground turkey
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
3 dashes of hot red-pepper sauce
24 dumpling wrappers (see recipe below)

Dipping Sauce (optional, you can choose your own though this one is very tasty!)

2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon dark sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon minced fresh ginger or 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger

1. Coat a steamer basket with a non stick cooking spray and set aside. In a small saucepan, soak the mushrooms in boiling water to cover for 15 minutes, then drain. Remove and discard the stems; cut the caps into quarters.

2. In a food processor, combine the mushroom caps, scallions, and garlic and whirl until coarsely chopped. Add the shrimp and whirl until finely chopped. Transfer to a medium bowl and stir in the turkey, soy sauce, oil, and red-pepper sauce.

3. Place 1 tablespoon of the shrimp mixture in the center of each dumpling wrapper. Dampen the edges with water, the fold up the sides around the filling, pleating the edges. Place in the steamer basket, leaving 1/2 inch of space between the dumplings for the steam to circulate. Set over boiling water, cover, and steam for 15 minutes.



4. For the dipping sauce, in a small bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, vinegar, honey, oil, and ginger. Serve the dumplings hot with the dipping sauce.

Personalize it!
For a different flavor, use ground pork in place of the ground turkey. You can also drop a pinch of chopped scallions into the dipping sauce if you like

HOT WATER DOUGH:
4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups boiling water

In a stainless steel bowl mix flour and salt. Slowly add hot water to flour in 1/4 cup increments. Mix with chopsticks until a ball is formed and the dough is not too hot to handle. On a floured surface, knead dough until it becomes a smooth, elastic ball. Place back in bowl and cover with a damp cloth. Allow to rest for at least 1 hour. Working on a floured surface with floured hands, roll out dough to form a long 'noodle', 1-inch in diameter. Cut 1/2-inch pieces and turn them over so the cut sides are facing up. Flatten with your palm and roll out thin using a rolling pin. The dumpling wrapper should end up about 3 inches in diameter. (2)

Source: Extraordinary Meals from Ordinary Ingredients, ©2007 The Reader's Digest Association, Inc.



Tip: I found that my pasta maker makes the dough alot thinner than I ever could with a roller. It's probably more work but the finished product is so much more professional looking.

Peach Crumble Bars

Peaches and I have a bit of a tumultuous relationship. I love them. But there is only a short window where they are actually edible. Sure, they're sold year-round. But if you buy a peach when they're not in season here, they're grainy, mushy (or hard as a rock) and flavourless. I actually feel quite angry when I see them in the grocery store in January. Why waste the gas to ship them north when they taste so gross? They look good, but don't be fooled. Peaches + out of season + Canada = BAD. Ok. End of rant.

With my feelings about out of season peaches in mind, I decided to stock up on ripe peaches. In searching the net looking for ways to freeze peaches, I mainly saw that the peaches should be frozen with a sweatener solution. I may regret the decision, but I decided to go with flash freezing of peeled and sliced peaches and call it a day.


I blanched the fruit and the skin easily peeled off.


I then cored the peach and sliced them in wedges.


I froze the peaches on parchment paper overnight and put them into a freezer bag the next day.


So far, so good.

But, my eyes were bigger than my fridge and I still had a lot peaches left over. So, I decided to go with a variation on a tried and true recipe. Remember the Blueberry Crumble Bars? They originated with Smitten Kitchen and have since become one of the most popular recipes on the food blogs. Well, I made them again. Except this time, I used a peach filling instead of blueberries.

I did everything the same as the previous time, except I used small chunks of peaches instead of blueberries. I also added extra corn starch, since peaches hold more liquid than blueberries. In the end, I still needed to use a slotted spoon to remove the peaches from the liquid that formed when I added the sugar mixture.

With those modifications, the consistency was just fine.


Much to my delight, the results were great. Quite a different flavour from blueberries, but very good.



This recipe came in handy this weekend. R and I met up with Giz for a foodie weekend. I brought a bunch of crumble bars for the road. Giz and I will tell you all about the weekend in some upcoming posts.