Dinner

Teriyaki Chicken & Veggies

Gillian

I’ve always been a fan of teriyaki chicken, that tasty staple of late-night delivery, but the sauce is usually way too sweet, leaving me feeling full of regret and MSG.

So I started making my own simple teriyaki chicken at home. It scratches the takeout itch and makes for awesome leftovers.

 

teriyaki-chicken3

 

I add veggies and serve it over brown rice, so I can feel morally superior as I’m slurping down my salt and sugar sauce (it’s homemade).

 

veggies2

 

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Teriyaki Chicken & Veggies

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Yield: 4-6 servings

Teriyaki Chicken & Veggies

Ingredients

  • Sauce:
  • 1/2 cup soy sauce
  • 1 T. rice vinegar
  • 1 T. wine, vermouth or mirin
  • 3 T. dark brown sugar
  • 1-inch knob of ginger, peeled and minced
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1/2 cup water or stock
  • Sriracha (optional)
  • Cornstarch

  • Stir-fry:
  • Vegetable or sesame oil
  • 1 lb. chicken breast or thigh meat, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
  • 1 head chopped broccoli
  • 2 cups chopped snap peas
  • 1 chopped red pepper
  • Steamed rice

Instructions

  1. Make the sauce first. Sauté garlic and ginger in oil for 2 minutes.
  2. Add all the other sauce ingredients and bring to a boil; turn the heat to low and cook until the sauce has started to reduce and thicken.
  3. Adjust the flavor, adding a splash of sriracha if you're feeling sassy.
  4. Mix 2-4 T. cold water with an equal amount of cornstarch. Add to sauce and bring to a boil again. Let cook for a few minutes until it reaches the thickness you want. Turn heat off.
  5. Coat chicken in some of the sauce and marinate for 20 minutes.
  6. In a wok or large pan, heat a few T. of oil on medium-high heat.
  7. Add chicken pieces and stir-fry until browned on all sides and nearly cooked through. Remove chicken and set aside.
  8. Add veggies and stir-fry, adding a splash more oil. Stir-fry for 5 minutes, then add ¼ cup of water and steam (covered). Cook till tender, 15-20 minutes, adding more water if it starts to stick.
  9. When veggies are nearly done, add chicken back in. Mix in the sauce.
  10. Serve over steamed rice.
https://www.travelingtotaste.com/2016/06/07/teriyaki-chicken-veggies/

Vegetarian Chili With Beans & Winter Veggies

Gillian

People have lots of opinions when it comes to chili. Texas style. New Mexico style. Cincinnati style. Kansas City style. (I’m from California, so I have no real loyalty to any one doctrine.) I love a big hearty bowl of chili when the weather cools down, but until recently, I was convinced that I didn’t much care for vegetarian chili. It seemed like most I tried were just poor imitations of the real deal – more like watery bean soup than something you’d have a cook-off over. But I’ve been trying to make more veggie-rich meals lately, and I’ve made it my mission to put together a vegetarian chili recipe that can stand up to the meat version. vegetarian-chili This is it. It has a good balance of earthy beans and sweet winter veggies, but for me, the success is in its satisfying spice and thickness. A few notes on this, in case the recipe looks annoyingly complicated:

  • I’m a huge fan of Serious Eats’ J. Kenji López-Alt, and I based my blend of dried chiles (and some other ingredients) on his Serious Eats recipe. This approach takes a little more planning and cook time than just throwing in some chili powder, but it makes for a really nice, complex flavor. If you don’t feel like doing this, you can obviously ignore me and use cayenne, chili powder and a couple chipotles in adobo sauce, and it’ll still be pretty darn good.
  • The rest of the ingredients are also flexible and forgiving. Use fewer vegetables or different kinds of beans if you like. Leave out the bourbon or masa harina or whatever you don’t have on hand; as long as you have some beans, veggies, spices, tomato and enough liquid to tie it all together, you win.

Make this for a crowd, and no one will miss the meat.

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Vegetarian Chili With Beans & Winter Veggies

Cook Time: 2 hours

Serving Size: 8-10

Vegetarian Chili With Beans & Winter Veggies

Ingredients

  • Chile puree:
  • 2 dried mild to medium chiles (ancho, pasillo, Anaheim or mulato)
  • 2 dried sweet chiles (New Mexico, ñora, choricera or costeño)
  • 2 dried spicy chiles (chipotle or arbol)
  • 2 canned chipotles in adobo (seeds removed)
  • 2 cups water

  • 2 T. vegetable oil
  • 1 large onion, finely chopped
  • 2 small carrots, peeled and diced
  • 2 small red bell peppers, diced
  • 2 small sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
  • 1 small butternut squash, peeled and cubed
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 T. + 1 tsp. cumin
  • 1 tsp. oregano
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. pepper
  • 2 cans black beans (liquid reserved)
  • 2 cans garbanzo beans (liquid reserved)
  • 1 28 oz. can whole peeled tomatoes
  • 4 T. tomato paste
  • 1 T. soy sauce
  • 1 T. unsweetened cocoa
  • 2-3 T. bourbon
  • 2 T. masa harina or cornmeal
  • Fixins: sour cream, cilantro, cheese, lime, hot sauce, tortilla chips, etc.

Instructions

  1. Remove seeds from dried chiles. Saute them without oil in a Dutch oven for about 5 minutes, until lightly toasted. Place them in a glass liquid measuring cup; add canned chipotles and 2 cups of water. Microwave for 5 minutes. Puree in a blender or carefully pulse with an immersion blender.
  2. In the Dutch oven, heat vegetable oil over medium heat. Saute onion, carrots and bell peppers until they start to get tender, about 5-7 minutes. Add cumin, oregano, salt, pepper and garlic. Cook for 2 minutes.
  3. Stir in sweet potatoes, squash, beans and tomatoes. Add tomato paste and 1 cup reserved bean liquid. Gradually add chile puree, stirring and tasting for spice. Add soy sauce and cocoa powder, plus more water or bean liquid if mixture is too dry.
  4. Bring to a light boil, then turn down to a simmer. Simmer, stirring often, for 1 ½ to 2 hours. Add more water or bean liquid during cooking if needed. Stir in the bourbon and the masa or cornmeal. Garnish with your favorite fixins.
https://www.travelingtotaste.com/2016/03/12/vegetarian-chili-with-beans-winter-veggies/

Beets and Pasta (courtesy of Mark Bittman)

Brian

We love our CSA. Every Tuesday we get a basket full of produce, and most of it we know how to cook. Some other items require a bit of research, and some of it I’ve never even heard of (I’m looking at you kohlrabi).

I’ve written about beets beets beets before, but they showed up again in our basket this week and I had to take to the interwebs to figure out something new to do with them.

Thankfully Mark Bittman was one step ahead of us with this recipe on the New York Times Cooking site. It’s quick, easy, delicious and totally different from any pasta I’ve made before.

The recipe is roughly this: 1) grate beets 2) cook in butter 3) add sage, cooked pasta and cheese. That’s it!

beet pasta

 

Grating the beets definitely speeds up their cook time as compared to baking them whole, and the butter and sage give a really rich flavor without investing a lot of time. Also, visually it’s just a beautiful dish.

Fingers crossed that some beets will turn up in our basket this week so we can make this again!