Simple, delicious, and just a little bit fancy

It's always tempting to take the easy way out when preparing weeknight dinners, but sometimes it's worth it to do something just a little bit fancy.  Here's an idea: stuffed chicken.  All it takes is three simple steps.....

Step 1: Behold, the chicken!

Trim any excess bits off of your boneless, skinless chicken breast.  Then, hold the knife horizontally and slice the chicken in half almost (but not!) all the way through.

The breast should open like a book with the long (straighter) side as the spine.

Step 2: Stuff!

You can basically stuff a chicken breast with whatever you want, but regardless of what you choose I recommend incorporating some kind of cheese.  Some stuffings will require a bit of pre-cooking: spinach, for example, should be wilted, and onions are better caramelized.  On this particular evening I chose to stuff mine with spinach (wilted with a little bit of white wine) and goat cheese.  The instructions are the same regardless of the stuffing you choose: put a healthy spoonful of it on the larger side of the "chicken book" and then close (you can use a little flour to seal the edges together).

Other great stuffings include leeks, sun dried tomatoes, ham, and just about any cheese you can think of.

At this point you can either proceed to step three, or you can refrigerate your stuffed chicken breast for up to 24 hours...making this a great recipe for nights that you have people over.  They go straight from the fridge to the oven, just add an extra 5 minutes onto the cooking time.

Step 3: Roast

Place the chicken on a foil-lined baking sheet (or other suitable roasting vehicle).  Brush the top with a little olive oil and season with salt and pepper, then roast at 400 degrees F for 15-20 minutes until the meat is no longer pink and the juices run clear (20-25 minutes if you have gone the make ahead route).

A weeknight meal that looks like a weekend meal.  I served my chicken with a spinach and roasted beet salad.

Cooking with friends=Love

One of my best friends recently hopped on a plane to come and see me, which was awesome.  Of all the things that we were looking forward to doing together one in particular stood out: we wanted to cook.

Some context perhaps.  We used to live together, and while living together enabled each other's desire for good food and baking.  Having now lived apart for awhile, we miss that.  We still enable from a distance, but it's just not the same.....

Anyway.  We spent some time at a coffee shop the other afternoon, and when we were leaving we contemplated taking home some of their brownies to enjoy later...until we saw the price!  Five bucks a brownie after tax!!  So we said no thanks and headed out the door and talked about what we could do to satisfy our chocolate craving.

Simple: we would make brownies instead.

Here's the math.  One brownie from this particular coffee shop was $5 after tax, and so take home two would have set us back $10.  Making brownies only ended up costing us $7...because I had flour, eggs, butter, cocoa and the rest of the basics in my pantry back at home.  The $7 cost was for a bag of dark chocolate chips and some reese's peanut butter cups that completed a recipe yielding 16 good sized triple chocolate brownies.

Conclusion: $7 for 16 is better than $10 for 2.

Here's what you need to satisfy your own chocolate brownie craving:
-250g of dark chocolate
-1 cup butter
-1 cup all-purpose flour
-1/2 cup cocoa powder
-1 tsp baking powder
-pinch of salt
-4 eggs
-2 cups brown sugar (I used 1 cup brown sugar and 1 cup of splenda to lighten these up a touch)
-1 tbsp vanilla
-1 cup chocolate chips (or, in this case, chunks of reese's peanut butter cups)

The brownies are simple to construct.

1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2) Melt butter and dark chocolate chips together.  The cookbook that I got this recipe from suggests a heat proof bowl set over a pot of simmering water...but the microwave works just as well.  (If you go the microwave route heat for about 30 seconds at a time to prevent the chocolate from burning.)

3) While the chocolate/butter mixture cools slightly, mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt together in a separate bowl.

4) Add the eggs, sugar, and vanilla to the chocolate/butter mixture and mix well.  Add the flour and chocolate chips (or peanut butter cups, or chocolate covered peanuts, or just plain nuts.....) and stir until well incorporated.

4) Pour into a greased 9x13 pan and bake for 25 minutes.  They're done when a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out with some crumbs still attached.....

Fudge-y, peanut butter-y, goodness.

Fear not the size of the pan: brownies freeze well.  Makes a great treat....and costs a lot less than buying them one at a time!!

What I'm eating now: Beets

As you know my parents were recently in town, and one morning while I was studying they took a trip to Jean Talon market to buy some ingredients for dinner.  I suggested that they purchase some beets for us to roast....so they did: several pounds in fact.

Red AND yellow!  Oh the variety.....

Luckily I happen to really enjoy beets.

Roasting beets brings out their natural sweetness, and it's one of the easiest ways to cook them.  All you need to do is:

1) Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.
2) Clean the beets thoroughly.  No need to peel!
3) Wrap them in a large foil packet to make sure that they roast evenly (if you don't have any foil don't worry...the beets roast just as well naked.  If you do choose this method, make sure you turn them so that they cook evenly).  Roast until tender...time required varies.  The beets are ready when they pierce easily with a fork.
4) Remove from the oven and let them sit until they're cool enough to handle.  Once they are cool you can peel them easily...their skins should slide right off!  (If you have any trouble just pull off the peels with a small paring knife.)

I usually like to serve my roasted beets on the side seasoned with just a little bit of salt and pepper.  But they're also delicious in salads...they go well with roasted nuts, creamy cheeses, fruits, and slightly bitter greens.  I combined a number of those elements in this particular salad: roasted red and yellow beets, mixed greens, sliced pear, and toasted pecans.

Tossed with some blue cheese dressing...delicious!

While delicious, roasting is not your only option.  If you're looking to be a little more creative, give beet gnocchi a try.  It takes a bit more effort, but is a stunning dish if you're having people over for dinner.  You can also eat beets raw (though you will want to slice them thinly if you do)...alternatively, try giving them a quick pickle!

The real secret to delicious food is...

...a good plan.

If meatless March has taught you anything, it's probably that I'm a little obsessive compulsive when it comes to planning my meals.  I will be the first to admit that it is true...I sit down at the beginning of the week and decide then what I am going to cook over the next seven days.

I promise that my reasons are good.

Reason #1: Avoiding the "What am I going to make tonight?" moment

We've all had those days...you get home after a busy day and finally have time to think about something other than (school)work, and you're faced with the fact that you have to make something for dinner.  Then you think of something that you want to make and realize that you don't have all of the ingredients...and then you end up ordering pizza.

Planning ahead avoids those days.  First, you can buy the ingredients early on a day that you have the time to do so.  Then you can plan easy meals (or leftovers) for nights when you know that you're not really going to feel like cooking.  Finally, I find that having a delicious meal planned gives me something to look forward to...and gives me that little bit of extra motivation to get things done.

Reason #2: Delicious (and healthy) lunch

I'm not a big sandwich fan, nor am I fond of getting all my pots and pans out to cook in the middle of the day.  As a grad student I'm also not flush with cash, which further limits my noon hour options.  My solution was simple: leftovers.  By planning my dinners I can also plan to have enough left over for lunches throughout the week.  Saves time and money...and is oh so much healthier.

Reason #3: Waste not

As a person on a budget who lives alone, I desperately try to avoid wasting food (another reason that I'm big on lunchtime leftovers).  This is a problem when it comes to produce: fruits and veggies are perishable.  Having a plan ensures that I'm able to use everything in my fridge before it goes bad...remember the various kale applications from week 1, or the eggplant that ended up on my pizza?  Planning prevents waste...and saves money, especially if you can make your plan work with whatever produce happens to be on sale that week.

Reason #4: Try new things

I don't think I'd cook as many new recipes if I didn't plan ahead at least some of the time.  Whenever I don't want to do school related things (which is more often than I care to admit), I go through my cookbooks and pick out recipes that I haven't tried yet (or that I haven't made in a really long time)...staving off boredom.

Reason #5: Variety

When you're busy it's quite easy to fall into a rut where you cook the same things over and over again.  It isn't necessarily a conscious decision...it just happens that way.  Planning forces me to deal with the reality of what I actually eat because I write everything down: I know I'm getting into a rut when I find myself writing the same thing ("pasta" or "chicken") over and over again...once I know I can change things up to prevent myself from getting bored.

Reason #6: Health

Finally, writing down everything you're going to make forces you to come face to face with what you're actually cooking, teaching you what your bad cooking habits are.  We all have these bad habits...mine is that I cook a lot of pasta and don't always balance my plate with an equally large serving of vegetables.  The goods news is that once you realize what your bad habits are they are easy enough to change: I know that I have a tendency to overlook vegetables at dinner, and so I make an effort to add a large serving of these to everything I cook (case in point, cauliflower puree).

And there you have it...the reasons behind my obsessive meal plans.  I don't expect that you're going to want to go from no plan to a full week, so start slow.  Maybe you buy a couple night's worth of groceries at a time.  Maybe you start getting a little more in tune with your schedule and realize which nights are tough for you and plan easy meals.  Maybe you just plan to make a casserole or stew on Sunday nights that will feed you through the week (something that I do quite often).  I know what works for me...take some time to figure out exactly what works for you!