Category Archives: recipes

Wilted Mustard Greens

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If you want to get some concentrated nutrition really quickly – and inexpensively – wilted greens are just a fantastic solution. I’ve thrown together wilted spinach many times as a quick and easy green side for dinner parties, and you can’t beat the nice pop of color on your plate. Even better, it’s stupid-easy to make; there’s really nothing to it.

This recipe was made with the red mustard greens we got from our first CSA box from our local farm, and it can easily be scaled up to meet the needs of a larger crowd.

Follow along with me, if you will…

Wilted Mustard Greens

Nutritious and tasty – such a great combination!

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cooking Time: 5 minutes

Serves: 2 (small side portions)

Ingredients

1 bunch mustard greens (approx 10oz weight, including stems)

1 small shallot

1 Tb olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Sliced or slivered almonds (optional)

Make it Happen

1. Peel and slice the shallot; set aside.

2. Cut or chop the stems from the bunch (easiest to do while it’s still held together by a rubber band), then wash the leaves and let them sit in a colander to dry somewhat.

3. Add the olive oil to a large non-stick skillet and heat over medium heat.

4. Add the shallots to the skillet and toss to coat with the olive oil. Heat the shallots in the pan for approximately 2 minutes, until the aroma of the shallots really starts to come out.

5. Add the mustard greens to the pan and, using tongs, combine them well with the oil and the shallots.

6. Use the tongs to continue this combination for approximately 2-3 minutes, until the greens have wilted a good amount and their volume is greatly diminished (what once filled a pan is now easily compressed down to less than half of the pan).

7. Remove from heat and serve immediately. Apply balsamic vinegar lightly over top of the greens and (if desired) top with almonds.

Crock Pot BBQ Pulled Chicken

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This recipe is about a month late in getting posted, not because I’m a completely lazy person but because I’m often going in so many directions at once that sometimes it’s easier just not to go in ANY direction when offered a few free minutes a day where directions aren’t required. Sorry about that.

So, once we get past that, we get on to a recipe that worked. Oh my, did it work. One of my favorite southern treats is a pulled meat sandwich (typically chicken, but pork is a close second), and when we were having family over for dinner it seemed like a simple way to prepare an easy crowd-pleaser.

At my sister’s suggestion, I paired this with a maple cornbread recipe from the geniuses at King Arthur Flour – it’s a simple and tasty homemade cornbread that I will surely make again in the future. I also threw together a batch of kale chips, so there would be something green on the plate. OK, sure, the right accompaniment would’ve been either collards or fried okra, but kale chips seemed to be more my required level of effort. It also had the bonus of having been the first time my parents had them, so I had the rare pleasure of introducing them to something!

The “hardest” part of this particular meal is the shredding; everything else takes only seconds to prepare. Shredding can be tedious, but once you get into a groove with it, even a few pounds of chicken shreds pretty quickly. It’s just wonderful to have dishes that take virtually no time to throw together when you’re entertaining. Once we can get the kids to (reliably) eat meat, we’ll be making this more often. The other benefit is that, unlike the pulled meats I’ve gotten pre-packaged at the grocery store, I know exactly what’s going into the dish. Since I’ve been on a rid-my-house-of-High-Fructose-Corn-Syrup kick over the last year or so, this is a really nice thing. (FWIW, we use Heinz Organic or Simply ketchup varieties; both are HFCS-free.)

The first picture shows you the full plate; the second picture shows you what happened when we thought it would be fun to try some of the pulled chicken on the cornbread. “I just want a small taste of the chicken…what would happen if I put it on a square of cornbread?” My BIL and I both thought of this at the same time, and his positive response to bite #1 of the combination spurred me to try it myself. OH BABY WAS IT GOOD.

Crock Pot Pulled Chicken with Maple Cornbread and Kale Chips

A plate full of OMNOMNOM

Crock Pot Pulled Chicken Cornbread Sandwich

Two great tastes that tasted grrrrrreat together

Prep Time: 5 min

Cooking/Active Time: 8-10 hrs on LOW plus another 10 minutes to shred and 15-20 mins on HIGH

Serves: 8-10 people

 

Ingredients

2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Marinade/Cooking Sauce:

  • 1/3 cup worcestershire sauce
  • 1/3 cup green chili sauce
  • 14-1/2 oz can low-sodium chicken broth
  • 1 cup apple juice

BBQ/Finishing Sauce:

  • 3/4 cup ketchup
  • 3/4 cup molasses
  • 1/3 cup yellow mustard
  • 1/3 cup worcestershire sauce
  • 3 Tb green chili sauce

 

Make it Happen

1. Spray the inside of a 4qt round crock pot with non-stick cooking spray.

2. Add the chicken thighs and chicken breasts to the crock. Mix the worcestershire sauce, chili sauce, chicken broth and apple juice in a bowl and pour over the chicken.

3. Cover and cook on LOW for 8-10 hrs.

4. In a bowl, combine the ketchup, molasses, yellow mustard, and the worcestershire and green chili sauces that comprise the finishing sauce.

5. When the chicken is done cooking, remove it from the crock to a cutting board and shred with a pair of forks.

6. Dump out the liquid in the crock and put the shredded chicken back into the crock, along with the finishing sauce. Stir well to combine.

7. Cook on HIGH for 15-20 mins, just to bring the sauce up to temperature. Serve on rolls. Or cornbread. Or with a spoon straight to your mouth OMNOMNOM…

 

Grill those beets!

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Consider this the world’s shortest list of ingredients next to the recipe for making toast: grilled beets. While dh and ds were at the grocery store yesterday, apparently ds pointed THE ALMIGHTY FINGER OF THE PRESCHOOLER at beets, and dh happily obliged. After all, when your small child is pointing to a vegetable that he’s actually likely to eat, you often want to pounce on that with all of the joy and verve of a tween offered a chance to see Justin Bieber reading the part of Edward in a table read of “Breaking Dawn: part 2”. (Maybe minus all the angsty swoon…but you get the point.)

The pair of ’em picked out a lovely set of golden and red beets. Then dh prepped ’em and put ’em on the grill. Y NO CAN HAS PIC? Sorry, didn’t think to take one, but suffice to say that they were lovely. The golden beets have this terrific yellowish-orangy hue, and the red beets have a fantastic reddish purple color that just lights up a plate. This recipe yields  the same outcome as oven roasting, only you don’t have to bother turning on your oven (yeay!). DH also noted that he finds this method of peeling beets far easier than what I do – using a peeler on them when they’re raw so I can chop peeled beets before roasting them in the oven.

Pointing back to my question about how to have things that help relieve some of the monotony of one-night dinners and the related follow-up post by my friend Local Kitchen, we did have extra beets at the end of the meal, even with ds clamoring for a third serving. What do you do with said leftover beets? WHATEVER YOU WANT. The suggestions I had for dh were either to cut them up and toss them in with some leftover couscous for a simple lunch option or cut them up and add them to the salads he takes to work every day. Either way, they’re yummy and totally worth having. And, if you have a grill, they’re easy to prepare. Also, waste not, want not: this recipe also yields a bunchload of beet greens. USE THOSE BABIES. Make a salad out of ’em, wilt ’em in a pan before serving immediately…find a use for ’em!

I will also point out that when your 2-1/2 year old son decides to wipe purple beety hands on his white t-shirt, baby wipes appear to take out most of the stain. *cough*

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 1 hour

Serves: 3-5 (depends on your beet-lovin’ level)

Ingredients

1 bunch golden beets

1 bunch red beets

Make it Happen

1. Start your grill and aim for about medium-level (indirect) heat. When ready, this should be up in the 450F range.

2. Trim off the beet greens and scrub each beet bulb clean.

3. Wrap each beet bulb in aluminum foil; place the foil-wrapped beets on the grill and close the grill cover.

4. Turn the beets every 15 minutes until at desired tenderness, approximately 1 hour for medium/large beets (3″ or so in diameter), slightly less for small beets (2″ diameter or thereabouts).

5. Remove the foil and then carefully remove the beet skin; this is most easily done by rubbing the beet in a paper towel, which should fairly well slough off the skin.

6. Either serve whole or chop into bite-sized pieces and serve.