Mushroom Apple Thyme Sauce with Panko Crusted Chicken over Parsnip Mash

Posted on February 22, 2018 by Our Growing Paynes

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Mother Nature spoilt us yesterday. While we are getting snow today we had a lovely break from winter with incredible warm weather of 70F/20C. It was wonderful to be out and about walking downtown. The only downside are the guys that suddenly walk round with their shirts whipped off. Let’s just say, ahem, not always a good thing. But I loved not having to wear a coat and the dogs had a great time sniffing about on their walk.

I was in the mood for some autumn flavours this past weekend and as it is still tax season it needed to be easy. I thought it would be fun to do a sauce with apple and mushroom over chicken with a parsnip mash.

Start by prepping the parsnips. Peel and cube. Put it into a saucepan and cover with chicken stock. Bring to a boil then simmer until cooked through.

Coat chicken breasts with egg and panko bread crumbs. I usually don’t have an issue with the panko falling off but if you do, dredge the chicken in flour first, then the egg and panko. Heat a couple of tablespoons olive oil and brown both sides of the chicken.

Finish off in the oven at 350F/175C. Meanwhile slice 4-5 mushrooms, finely chop 4-6 cloves of garlic, and chop about 3/4 of an apple. It helps to have dogs to eat the rest of the apple! They are so spoilt. Add more olive oil to the skillet and begin to sauté the mushrooms, garlic and apple.

Add a healthy handful of fresh thyme. Cook until the mushrooms start to brown. Add a tablespoon of butter, a 1/3 of a cup of dry sherry and a cup of chicken stock.

Simmer the sauce until the chicken is cooked. Once the parsnips are cooked, drain most of the stock but leave about 1/2 a cup in the pot. Add 2 tablespoons of butter and about 3/4 cup of jarlsberg cheese. Mash it all together.

Place the chicken on the mash and top with the mushroom apple sauce. A very easy but tasty meal after a long day of house projects.

Pan Seared Chicken with Risotto Milanese

Posted on February 14, 2018 by Our Growing Paynes

Like every generation before us has said, we live in crazy times. Social media magnifies people’s behaviour, good and bad, and also allows movements to take off like wildfire. The #metoo movement has been such a long overdue and important conversation.

You would have to live under a rock to not hear the conversation. Which makes me wonder about some on social media. I’m in the process of setting up an Etsy shop to sell greeting cards with my photos so I have been doing loads of research and trying to get everything set up so I can hit the ground running. I’m being way more proactive in promoting my brand across the platforms. While I love to connect with people what I’m not looking for is to be hit on. I don’t understand it. Twitter is not Tinder people! Obviously on the scale of what a lot of us women go through it’s mild but I don’t understand that someone thinks this is ok.

Thankfully most treat this connections as above board but it’s just so weird when it happens. Even if I was single I would never dream by starting off by talking about a connection’s physical appearance. Just creepy!

Ah well, good thing I’m not obligated to respond. I’ll just keep cooking!

For this dish I thought I should actually look through my cookery books. They are not just pretty books! I really liked the risotto Milanese from a Williams Sonoma book. A great accompaniment to pan seared chicken. Here is my version.

To start the prep bring 5 cups/40 oz of chicken stock to a simmer. In a small bowl add about a teaspoon of loose saffron threads with a 1/4 cup/2 oz of hot water. Set aside to soak.

I just love that colour. In the large skillet that the risotto will be cooked in, add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Season the chicken thighs with sea salt and pepper. Begin browning the chicken.

Finish cooking the chicken in the oven at 375F/190C. Add a 1/2 cup of chopped pancetta and a finely chopped shallot. Sauté until the shallots begin to soften.

Slice a few mushrooms and stir in. Add 1 1/2 cups of arborio rice to the skillet cooking for a couple of minutes. Then add a half cup/4oz of a dry white wine.

Gradually add the stock a bit at a time with the rice on medium heat. Halfway through the cooking add the saffron along with sea salt and pepper to taste.

Near the end of cooking before the liquid is absorbed, toss in 2 tablespoons of butter and about 3/4 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Once the liquid is absorbed serve with chicken and garnish with parsley.

For those that live in the cold climes, trying to get decent photos without natural light can be like trying find a yeti. But this time I tried candlelight. Why I didn’t think of this before. I have no idea.

Bacon and Chicken White Bean Soup and We Have a Houdini

Posted on February 1, 2018 by Our Growing Paynes

Our puppy boys aren’t actually puppies, they are 11 and 8. We call them puppies as they like to act like that and occasionally they teach themselves new tricks. Guinness, our 11 year old, decided to channel Houdini this morning. Because we’re still having work done on the house we put the dogs safely in a room. It usually works. Only this morning Guinness figured out how to open our sliding doors. It got a little hairy as we corralled him. It was bit bit like a comedy of people going in and out of rooms but no one could see anyone else.

Murphy has been taking this in stride but Guinness has taken to muttering at the intrusions. Definitely put out! Fortunately it will be over soon and he’ll soon get his room back. Silly sausage.

With the cacophony going on, comfort food hits the spot. Bacon chicken white bean soup fits the bill. I added bacon and chicken to this soup because they needed to be used up. Necessity being the mother of invention and all that.

In a saucepan add a half chicken breast that has been cubed and 3-4 rashers of streaky bacon that has been chopped. Sauté on medium heat.

Slice 2-3 mushrooms and chop 4-6 cloves of garlic. Once the bacon has rendered a bit add the veg to the saucepan.

Add 3 cups/24 ounces of chicken stock and bring to a simmer. Next add 2 cans of 15 ounce cans of white beans after rinsing them. Continue to simmer until the beans are cooked through. Season with se salt and pepper. A healthy splash of white wine, ahandful of fresh parsley and 4 ounces of freshly grated Parmesan finishes off the soup.

Fresh baked crusty bread with butter is a perfect companion to this soup.

I really enjoyed this hearty soup. A nice break from all the upheaval.

Gochujang Chicken Wings and the Folly of Sticking our Heads in the Sand

Posted on October 3, 2017 by Our Growing Paynes

On my sister’s suggestion, I have decided to try bullet journaling. I needed help with getting better organised and following through with projects and ideas. Including getting back on a schedule for blogging. So I bought a journal and got the supplies to start it this month, which I did on Sunday. I designated Mondays as blog post days. That was the plan, but when the first thing you hear when you wake up to the radio is about the massacre in Las Vegas, the joy goes out of the day. A cheery post seemed too jarring as the news unfolded.

It’s a sad state when you start losing track of how many times you sit down with your kids and discuss these tragedies as they occur. When your kids realise that probably nothing will be done as these get worse and worse, you start wondering what the tipping point will actually have to be. To not be able to reassure your kids that this will stop is depressing. It seems mind boggling to me that common sense doesn’t prevail and have this country follow the rest of the developed world.

I just hope some day soon this stops.

Awhile back Chef Mimi of chefmimiblog.com mentioned using an ingredient called gochujang which is a fermented chili paste. It sounded really interesting and lo and behold our co-op had some. When I cleaned out the freezer I realised there were a lot of chicken wings to use. I kept putting it off because my husband isn’t a fan of wings but neither of us like to waste food so I thought it would be a good time to try out gochujang.

This is a very easy dish to throw together. In a bowl add a couple of tablespoons of peanut oil and a tablespoon or so of lime juice. I finely chopped 3 cloves of garlic and snipped 3 chives. Add a couple of large dollops of the gochujang. Season with sea salt and pepper. Mix well.

Taste and adjust the flavours as needed. The more of the gochujang you add the more heat there will be. Pour the marinade into a large ziploc bag and add the chicken wings. Toss to coat the wings. The longer you marinate the more intense the flavours will be.

Grill on medium heat until the chicken wings are cooked through.

Because we were still in the middle of a heat wave I served the wings on top of a salad to keep things light. I really like this ingredient. I did use it again for a quick stir fry as my husband had a bad cold. I added a habanero pepper to it. Let me tell you I may never have a cold again given the heat of those two ingredients! Wowza.

Getting My Husband to Like Aubergine

Posted on September 11, 2017 by Our Growing Paynes

We all have a veg we’re not a fan of but the rest of the family likes. I hate Brussel sprouts, our son isn’t a fan of asparagus and mushroom, and our daughter finds celery particularly weird. Aubergine is what my husband would be happy to avoid. I have made the Moroccan Lamb Stew that he likes but as we like to grow the veg I need to come up with more recipes to use up the harvest.

When we were in Little Italy our daughter ordered a starter that layered aubergine, tomato, prosciutto, and basil. She loved it so this was the inspiration for dinner. I wanted to use the strong flavours of sun dried tomatoes and garlic for this dish. I wanted it to pop! I also used chicken thighs as it is a less expensive cut of meat to use.

For this dish I used a little more than half a pound/10 oz of chicken. Cut the chicken into small cubes and finely chop 3-5 cloves of garlic. Slice a large handful of sun dried tomatoes while heating up a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet. Toss in the three ingredients and sauté on medium low to pull the flavours of the garlic and sun dried tomatoes into the oil.

Once the chicken is halfway cooked add the aubergine. We grew small Italian finger aubergine which get to about 5in/12.5cm long. For this dish I used four of the veg, sliced.

Cook for a few minutes then add a couple of tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. Because we ran out of our chicken stock (gasp!) I used veg bouillon instead. It worked really well with the strong flavours. Use about a cup/8oz of the bouillon and simmer to reduce slightly. For once we did really well growing basil this year. Let’s face it, gardening can be a bit of a crapshoot. But I tossed in a handful of the fresh basil. Once the dish is nearly finished cooking add a handful of chopped prosciutto. You don’t want this ingredient cooking too long as it can get tough and overpowering.

While all this was going on I oven roasted potatoes that I sliced about a 1/4 in/.625cm thick, drizzled with olive oil and sea salt. Lay out the potatoes and top with the aubergine dish. Grate fontina cheese over the dish and garnish with fresh basil.

Our daughter said it wasn’t exactly like the dish she had, which was fine as I wasn’t reproducing it, but that she loved it. My husband’s response? “Congratulations on making aubergine edible!” 😄. I do love cooking for my family.

Caprese Stuffed Chicken

Posted on May 1, 2017 by Our Growing Paynes

Battle with the garden has commenced. We may be winning but I’m not sure yet. I find it ironic that the stuff we don’t want growing in the garden are the toughest to get rid of. They are tenacious. Our grass never grows as well on the lawn as it does in the flower beds.

Some of it is our own doing and not understanding how invasive something can be. A few years ago, because we like to brew beer, we planted hops. One was very lackluster while the other is determined to take over the world. The first season or so wasn’t too bad, the hop plant just grew like gangbusters. Hops can grow a foot a day, which is crazy. But last year the hops broke the lattice that sort of held them and crawled across the rest of the flower bed. It wasn’t pretty.

This year we’re rethinking the hops. Not to get rid of them but we definitely need to put them elsewhere. In the meantime we are being brutal with them. The root system snakes everywhere under the soil. We were taken aback by the length and thickness of those suckers. They were like tree roots. I have a feeling there will be more battles with the hops.

Along with the work in the garden that comes with the warmer weather, the lighter dinners start up again. Which I am very ready for!

Recently I thought it would be fun to do a pan seared caprese stuffed chicken over salad. In a skillet heat up a tablespoon or so of olive oil. Add about a cup of sliced sun dried tomatoes and cook on low to medium heat for a few minutes. Finely chop 3-5 cloves of garlic, depending on size, and add to the skillet.

Saute for several minutes until the garlic is nearly cooked and then toss in a handful of shredded fresh basil and a few splashes of balsamic vinegar.

Slice 4 chicken breasts 3/4 the way through lengthwise. Evenly distribute the caprese mix between the chicken breasts. Season with sea salt and pepper and brown on both sides.

Preheat the oven to 350F/175C. Remove the chicken from the skillet and add fresh mozzarella cheese inside the chicken and bake until the chicken is cooked through.

Serve on top of a salad. A dish light enough for the warm weather but gives you enough energy to conquer the garden. Which we definitely need!

Lemon and Garlic Chicken and the Importance of Having a Great Team

Posted on February 27, 2017 by Our Growing Paynes

If you have the bad luck of falling and injuring yourself over the years more than once it is very important you don’t wait years to fix yourself. If I could go back in time I would do so many things differently. Aside from trying to avoid falling in the first place I would get help.

Which means finding a great team and I have been very lucky in that respect. I have Pam, my exercise guru, who is very knowledgeable with body mechanics and takes the time to make sure those of us in her pilates and TRX aren’t doing nutty things with our alignment. I have Christine, who is an amazing massage therapist that battles my knots and tension. And Maria, my physical therapist, spent nearly two years helping me get strong and healed. I just finished my last appointment with her and fingers crossed I don’t do anything stupid and lands me back in PT!

Of course I’m seriously grateful that my husband supported me through all this. I really couldn’t have done it without him. There have been some painful and tough times and he never wavered. He’s my rock.

For Christmas my dad found some really cool cookery books for us. The one for my daughter is called “150 Mediterranean Recipes” by Jacqueline Clark & Joanna Farrow. Loads of delicious recipes in the book and I chose to make the Chicken Thighs with Lemon and Garlic. I mostly followed it so here is my version.

Prep the lemon by peeling it and then thinly slicing it. Set aside.

In a small saucepan bring to a simmer about 14oz of chicken stock. Add 8-10 garlic cloves cut in half. Simmer while you cook the chicken thighs.

Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a large skillet.

Season 4 chicken thighs with sea salt and pepper and begin to brown the chicken. While the chicken is cooking, preheat the oven to 375F/190C.

Once browned, transfer to a baking dish. Spoon out the garlic from the stock and add it to the baking dish along with the lemon slices. Set aside. Add 2 tablespoons of flour or corn flour to the skillet, use a whisk to scrape up the browned bits of the chicken. Cook for a minute or so to cook the flour. Then add 6oz of dry white wine. Keep stirring constantly. Pour in the stock.

Stir until the sauce thickens.

Add the sauce to the baking dish and bake until the chicken is cooked through. Meanwhile cook up some rice pilaf.

Once the chicken is cooked, top the rice with a chicken thigh and pour sauce over the dish. Add some fresh chopped parsley and voila! Dinner is served.

I look forward to trying more recipes from the books we were given. 🙂

Chicken Dopiaza

Posted on October 28, 2016 by Our Growing Paynes

It is amazing how fast a month can fly by with family visiting. It was a great time but we’re now back to reality with getting the garden cleaned up before the snow comes. Which doesn’t look like it will be long now for snow. Higher towns around us got snow last night though for us it has just been bucketing rain. This week we had the wind show up on time to shake the trees free of their leaves.

Autumn wasn’t as spectacular as it can be but it was lovely to see the colours, fortunately my in-laws were here for the short peak. They got some really nice pictures to bring back home.

We’ve started a sort of a tradition of when we are all together we do a curry night. I do two, one spicy and one on the mild side for my MIL. This dish was definitely spicy but with loads of flavour. I used the recipe for Chicken Dopiaza from “The Best Ever Curry Cookbook”but I changed it a bit. One I was restricted with some ingredients and two I wanted this to use as few dishes as possible. Especially since I was doing two curries!

This would probably be a great dish for a cold given how much onion it calls for. And ginger! A cure for sure. In a skillet heat up vegetable oil and add 8 cardamon pods, 2 bay leaves, and 2-3 chilis, chopped. If you want this dish to be milder (crazy I know!) use less chilis and/or remove the seeds.

Chop two small onions and add to the skillet. Cook for a couple of minutes then add 2-3 cloves garlic, finely chopped. Cube about a pound of chicken breast and add to the skillet. While the chicken is cooking grate a piece of fresh ginger which is about 1″sq/2.5cmsq.

Then comes the fun part, adding all the fabulous spices! Add 1 tsp of ground coriander, chili powder, and ground cumin. Add 1/2 tsp of turmeric, ground pepper, and sea salt. Add a 14 oz can of diced tomatoes. Bring to a simmer. Adjust the seasoning as needed. If you want it even spicier add more chili powder.

The recipe calls for 8 small onions. I bought 5 cipollini onions and quartered them. Add them to the skillet and cook through.

My FIL requested peshwari naan for curry night. My husband looked up the recipe and made some. I was a bit worried, given the stuffing, how it would pair but it worked really well.

This had quite the kick to it. One by one our eyes started watering. But the heat didn’t overwhelm the flavour of the dish. Like I said, possible cold cure!

Curry Inspired Couscous

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Our Growing Paynes

We still have tomatoes and aubergines coming out of our garden at a great rate so it is time to get creative so they don’t go to waste. It was a crazy week last week with my husband traveling and with the kids schools stuff so I only got round to cooking a meal for the kids on Friday. Well, I did feed them the rest of the week, not that much of a slacker! But I stuck with the easy stuff I could do with my eyes shut. I was in the mood for something curry flavoured and we had chicken on hand. This could be done!

I thought it would be a fun twist to use the Israeli Couscous I had on hand. Cook that using the directions on the package. First I prepped the chicken with a marinade paste. I mixed a tablespoon of olive oil with a tablespoon of red curry paste, a teaspoon of chili powder, 1/2 a teaspoon of ground ginger, 1/2 a teaspoon of cumin, and a bit of sea salt and pepper. Mix well and spread it on the chicken thighs.

Preheat the oven to 375F/190C. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet and brown both sides of the chicken.

Finish off the chicken in the oven. Chop up a small onion and a couple of cloves of garlic. Add them to the skillet and cook on medium low temp.

Slice up the aubergine and several tomatoes and bring the temp up to medium to saute.

Add 1/2 a cup or so of chicken stock. Add 2 tablespoons of red curry paste, 1/2 a teaspoon of ground ginger, a teaspoon of chili powder, a few dashes of garam masala, and a sprinkle of asafoetida. As it simmers also add a few splashes of lime juice. Stir in the couscous.

The kids came into the dining room and said how wonderful it smelled. I was a little jealous as I don’t have a sense of smell and the spices that go into curry can be wonderful.

Aubergine Quinoa and Any Time is a Good Time for a Clear Out

Posted on September 2, 2016 by Our Growing Paynes

Every year we try to accomplish something with the house. Some years are more successful than others of course depending on what we have going on or how expensive the next set of projects are. This year we finished our closet and redid our son’s bedroom floor. But the big thing done is we did a massive clear out of the carriage house and the house itself.

I am convinced stuff multiplies. How else do we explain filling a 20 yard skip? Granted a lot of it was from the carriage house and old odds and sods left over from previous owners, the debris from our projects, that sort of thing. But it feels so good doing some serious organisation, rediscover what we have, and do some major recycling. We do try to fix, upcycle, and recycle before the last resort of throwing out. Plus we have loads of stuff for the Girl Scouts fundraising yard sale. It’s taken us all summer but it’s a big project to cross of the never ending list.

We’re starting to get some result from our garden. Of course it comes all at once! Our aubergine and tomatoes are coming in fast so it’s on to preserving and eating so none of it goes to waste. The aubergine we decided to grow this year is called fingerling, I believe, and they are small diameter and about 8in/20cm long. Perfect size for a small family.

I wanted to make roasted aubergine and roasted tomatoes with quinoa for dinner. The longest bit of this dinner is the roasting, everything else comes together quite quickly.

Preheat the oven to 400F/200C. Slice the aubergine and tomatoes and place them in a single layer into the baking dish. Drizzle with olive oil and season with sea salt and pepper. Roast until the veg is cooked through and begins to brown. While this is roasting cut up some chicken and begin to brown with olive oil in a skillet. Add about half a cup of chopped red onion and a few cloves of chopped garlic.

Cook the quinoa according to directions. It only takes about 15 minutes to cook so plan accordingly. Once the tomatoes and aubergine are done remove from the oven.

Slice up the aubergine and add the veg to the skillet with the chicken. Add 1/2 a cup of chicken stock and about 1/4 cup of white wine. I chopped up a small handful of fresh oregano from our garden.

Add the quinoa and about 1/2 a cup of freshly grated parmesan. Stir well and serve.

Top with more parmesan and enjoy! This is quite filling without being heavy and perfect to throw together after a day of projects.

Our Growing Paynes

A journey about cooking, traveling, gardening, and crafting.

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