Italian Chicken Salad in Lettuce Cups

Didn't get the lighting very pretty in this photo, but don't let that fool you into thinking this recipe is blah. It's almost a misnomer for this dish to be called a "chicken salad". It's kind of like that, but not creamy. It uses a vinaigrette instead of mayo or whatever is normally used in typical chicken salads. I serve this a lot at showers since it's hearty but light...perfect "lady food". I've served it in lettuce cups, as Giada suggests, open-faced on toasts, and most recently on croissants, sandwich style. Whatever the presentation, it usually receives great reviews and many "can you send me the recipe?"s.

Recipe from Giada De Laurentiis via Food Network

Ingredients

• 10 cups coarsely shredded cooked chicken(from about 3 purchased roasted whole chickens)
• 2 cups roasted red and yellow bell peppers, drained, patted dry, and coarsely chopped
• 1 1/4 cups paper-thin slices red onion
• 3/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves
• 3/4 cup slivered almonds, toasted
• 1/2 cup drained capers
• 1 1/2 cups (about) Red Wine Vinaigrette, recipe follows
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 24 butter lettuce leaves (from about 3 large heads)
• 1 (4-ounce) piece Parmesan, shaved with vegetable peeler

Directions

Toss the chicken, bell peppers, onion, parsley, almonds, and capers in a large bowl with enough vinaigrette to moisten. Season the chicken salad with salt and pepper, to taste.

Arrange 1 large lettuce cup and 1 small lettuce cup on each plate, overlapping slightly. Spoon the chicken salad into the lettuce cups.Drizzle more vinaigrette over the salads. Sprinkle with theParmesan and serve.

Do-Ahead Tip: The chicken salad can be prepared 4 hours ahead and refrigerated. Just before serving, spoon the salad into the lettuce cups.

Red Wine Vinaigrette:

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

1/4 cup lemon juice

2 teaspoons honey

2 teaspoons salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1 cup olive oil

Combine the vinegar, lemon juice, honey, salt, and pepper in ablender. With the machine running, gradually add the oil and blend until emulsified.

Yield: 1 3/4 cups

Garlic Basil Shrimp

When I see or hear about a "light" recipe, cookbook, chef, etc. I usually shudder a bit. It's not really my thing. I've seen Ellie Krieger on Food Network before, and usually I'd rather have the full-fat version of what she's cooking, mainly due to odd substitutions. A friend, Rebecca, and I swapped cooking notes and showed each other our favorite cookbooks and recipes that we use frequently for weeknight cooking a few weeks ago. As per usual, I kind of eye rolled when I saw her pull out the Ellie Krieger cookbook. Bleh. But I kept it to peruse through anyway and was pleasantly surprised to find more than a few recipes that piqued my interest. I've made two so far, and both are AWESOME!! Rebecca had actually made this recipe a few days prior to our recipe throwdown and could vouch for it's deliciousness. She was right on!!

I even told my husband, "This dish kind of embodies what I'm into with food right now. One, seafood. Two, pasta, but not saucy. Three, tomatoes, but not a tomato sauce...fresh, light, clean flavors instead of muddled gobbledy-goop." (I used to eat a steady diet of gobbledy-goop, which gained me about 50 lbs and took a long time to rid.) Enjoy!!

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/4 pounds large shrimp (20 to 25 per pound), peeled and deveined
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, or more to taste
• 3/4 cup dry white wine
• 1 1/2 cups grape tomatoes, halved
• 1/4 cup finely chopped fresh basil
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 3 cups cooked orzo pasta, preferably whole-wheat

Preparation

Heat the oil in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking, then add the shrimp and cook, turning over once, until just cooked through, about 2 minutes. Transfer with a slotted spoon to a large bowl.

Add the garlic and red pepper flakes to the oil remaining in the skillet and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the wine and cook over high heat, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and basil and season the sauce with salt and pepper.

Return the shrimp to the pan and cook just until heated through. Serve with the orzo.

Ina's Perfect Roast Chicken

When I grow up, I want to be Ina Garten. Is she not so fab?? Everything she touches is gold, and I have yet to meet a recipe of hers that doesn't kill. One of my go-to recipes of hers that I can always, always count on is her Perfect Roast Chicken. It's worth doubling, if only to reserve the meat for a future use. I have bags of shredded, deboned chicken in my freezer, ready to go for all kinds of recipes that call for it. Rotisserie chicken on sale at Sam's? Snatch it up, shred it, freeze it. Throw it in quesadillas with pesto and mozzarella, make chicken enchiladas with it, use it for chicken salad, etc, etc. But I digress...

One thing that You might wonder about is the fennel. Girl. It's the best part. If you have not tried roasted fennel, you are missing out. Roasted fennel is so sweet and it perfectly compliments the onions, carrots (or potatoes if you wish, as I did in the photo above). If you're like, "I wouldn't know a fennel if it hit me in the head," let me introduce you:

If you're like, "how the heck do I cut into that ugly thang?", here's a lovely tutorial from bon apetit. So there. No excuse not to at least try it. If yo're not a fan, then pick around it and don't use it next time. Now on to that chicken....

Ingredients

• 1 (5 to 6 pound) roasting chicken
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 large bunch fresh thyme, plus 20 sprigs
• 1 lemon, halved
• 1 head garlic, cut in half crosswise
• 2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter, melted
• 1 large yellow onion, thickly sliced
• 4 carrots cut into 2-inch chunks
• 1 bulb of fennel, tops removed, and cut into wedges or slices
• Olive oil

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Remove the chicken giblets. Rinse the chicken inside and out. Remove any excess fat and leftover pin feathers and pat the outside dry. Liberally salt and pepper the inside of the chicken. Stuff the cavity with the bunch of thyme, both halves of lemon, and all the garlic. Brush the outside of the chicken with the butter and sprinkle again with salt and pepper. Tie the legs together with kitchen string and tuck the wing tips under the body of the chicken. Place the onions, carrots, and fennel in a roasting pan. Toss with salt, pepper, 20 sprigs of thyme, and olive oil. Spread around the bottom of the roasting pan and place the chicken on top.

Roast the chicken for 1 1/2 hours, or until the juices run clear when you cut between a leg and thigh. Remove the chicken and vegetables to a platter and cover with aluminum foil for about 20 minutes. Slice the chicken onto a platter and serve it with the vegetables.

Boeuf Bourguignon Soup

So my fancy friend Davy made a gorgeous Boeuf Bourguignon a few months ago for a small dinner party and inadvertently created a monster in me. I now crave this meal on a regular basis. In December, Martha saved my day by publishing this soup rendition of the meal that I was dying to make and eat again and again. The first time I tried it, I was cooking for a crowd, so I doubled the beef, but I think I forgot to double everything else. So while eating (devouring?) it, I thought, "this is amazing, but it sure isn't much of a soup, is it?". Little did I realize my mistake until the next time I made it, doubled the beef again, but REMEMBERED to double everything else too. Soup-y or stew-y, either way, the flavors are killer. Eating a bowl of this is like being wrapped in the biggest bear hug (at your mom's house, of course).

From Martha Stewart Living, December 2010

• YieldServes 6

Ingredients

• 4 bone-in short ribs (2 inches thick, 2 pounds total)
• Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 8 ounces white button mushrooms, quartered
• 3 carrots, 2 finely chopped and 1 cut into 3/4-inch cubes
• 3 shallots, minced
• 2 celery stalks, coarsely chopped
• 2 strips bacon, thinly sliced crosswise
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 2 thyme sprigs
• 1 dried bay leaf
• 1 cup dry red wine, such as Burgundy
• 8 cups homemade or store-bought low-sodium beef stock
• 2 cups water

Directions

1. Season ribs with 1/2 teaspoon salt and
   some pepper. Coat with cornstarch. Heat oil
   in a large heavy pot (preferably enameled
   cast iron) over medium-high heat. Lightly
   brown ribs on all sides, about 6 minutes.
   Transfer to a plate.
2. Add mushrooms to pot. Cook until
   browned, about 4 minutes. Transfer to a bowl;
   add cubed carrot.
3. Add shallots, celery, bacon, and chopped
   carrots to pot. Cook until caramelized, about
   6 minutes. Stir in tomato paste.
4. Return ribs with plate juices to pot. Add
   thyme and bay leaf. Raise heat to high.
   Add wine. Cook, scraping up brown bits with
   a wooden spoon, until slightly reduced,
   about 1 minute. Add stock and water. Bring to
   a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer, partially
   covered, until beef is tender, 2 to 2 1/2 hours.
5. Remove ribs. Separate meat from bones;
   discard. Cut meat into bite-size pieces; return
   to pot. Add reserved mushroom-carrot
   mixture. Bring to a simmer; cook until
   cubed carrots are tender. Season with salt. Ladle soup over bowls of herbed egg noodles and serve with horseradish chive bread on the side.

Cook's Note

Soup can be refrigerated for up to 2 days or frozen for up to 1 month. Thaw before using. Skim fat from top, and reheat.

Meyer Lemon Pistachio Tart

WhooooooaaaMyGoodness is all I have to say about this little ditty of a dessert. The crust is like a cookie, the lemon is not overpowering (although, I LOOOVE lemon and added a bit more to the glaze on my second go-round), and the saltiness of the pistachios give this treat the perfect mix of salty/sweet. The texture! The flavor combination! The all around party-in-the-mouth!! Try it. It's a crowd-pleasing show-stopper.

I will say that I had been meaning to try this recipe from the minute I received the cookbook from a friend a couple of years ago. What was holding me back, however, was my lack of a tart pan. If your kitchen is not stocked with such specific bakeware either, save yourself some time and effort...go straight to Marshall's and pick one up for $6.

Recipe from the Junior League of Houston's Peace Meals (which is an unbelievably beautiful cookbook and one that I use on a weekly basis for EVERYTHING!)

Crust:

3/4 cup unsalted butter

1/4 cup sugar

1 Tbs powdered sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup chopped shelled pistachios

Filling:

1 cup sugar

2 Tbs all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs, at room temperature, beaten

1 tsp grated Meyer lemon zest (I used regular lemons and it was great...can only imagine what the Meyer lemons would add!!)

2 Tbs fresh Meyer lemon juice

Topping:

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 Tbs fresh Meyer lemon juice (here's where I nearly doubled the lemon juice for some extra zing)

1 Tbs butter, melted

1/4 cup chopped shelled pistachios

Crust: Preheat the oven to 325 degrees, F. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over low heat. Remove the butter from heat and add both sugars, stirring to combine. Mix in the flour. Let the mixture cool for 15 minutes; the dough will still be warm. Press the dough against the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch tart/quiche pan with a removable bottom. Bake for 15 minutes. Allow the crust to cool. Sprinkle the pistachios evenly over the crust.

Filling: Stir together the sugar, flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Add the eggs, lemon zest and lemon juice, and stir to blend. Pour the filling into the partially baked crust. Bake for 30 minutes or until the crust is golden. Let cool.

Topping: Combine the powdered sugar, lemon juice, and butter in a small bowl. Spread the glaze over the cooled tart. Sprinkle with the pistachios to finish.