Oatmeal Crusted Chicken

I am constantly thinking of new ways to prepare chicken. Since raw meat makes me squeamish, I like coatings on chicken when preparing to hide the sight of the raw meat.

I like the idea of an oatmeal coating. I am trying to eat low gluten to help my stomach bloat and I bought rolled oats from Trader Joe’s that claim to be gluten free. Oats are naturally gluten free, but oats are often processed near wheat, and the tiniest bit of wheat will contaminate the oats and be a disaster for anyone with celiac disease.

These oats from TJs claim to be processed in a wheat-free environment. Even if there was a bit of wheat, it wouldn’t affect me since I do not have celiac disease. But for those of you with celiac or a gluten intolerance, these oats might be for you. I know that Bob’s Red Mill also makes gluten free oats.

Anyway, back to the chicken. Regular readers know how much I like the sweet and spicy combo. The cayenne and honey give this chicken that sweet and spiciness that I love. I wanted to eat my entire chicken breast, but my bloated stomach and gastroparesis prevented me. The topping is so good; I wanted to eat it by the spoonful.

Yellow Curry Sauce with Chicken

I love spicy food. I love curry. I love Trader Joe's Thai Yellow Curry Bottled sauce. I posted a recipe with it a long time ago, when my blog was new and my photo skills were poor because I was using my trusty canon point&shoot. That post is one of my top 5 most popular posts.

I figured there must be a way to make my own curry sauce so I went about creating one. It was actually pretty easy; it only took a few attempts to perfect. I'm not sure how "authentic" it is but it sure is tasty. It's a great sauce and for vegetarians and vegans, tofu can easily be used instead of chicken, and veggie broth could be used instead of chicken stock.

Guest Post: Chicken Salad with Tarragon Vinaigrette

Alright, here's week two's guest post. Haley has graciously agreed to share this amazing chicken salad recipe with all of you while I'm away, this time in the city of brotherly love. Haley and I have been blogging friends for a long time. She amazes me. She was in college, and now nursing school, and she still finds the time to post more often than I do. Amidst all this, she is training to run a 10K. I wish I had her energy. A bonus of her part time job allowed her to be an assistant instructor at a kid's culinary camp. I loved seeing the creative desserts the students came up with. They were much prettier than any cupcake I've ever made. I urge you to check out her blog if you haven't had the opportunity. You'll find a lot of delicious recipes. And now for Haley and her best chicken salad ever...

Hello!

I'm Haley from The Girly Girl Cooks and I was so honored when I was asked to write a guest post for the fantastic blog, Surly Kitchen!

Summer is all about picnics, weddings and BBQ's, so I thought this recipe for Chicken Salad would be perfect for any three of these occasions. Besides being absolutely delicious, this chicken salad is great for all of us watching what we eat because it's made with a delicious vinaigrette and not loaded with guilty mayonnaise! I have the fantastic job of assisting chef's teach culinary classes at work, and this chicken salad sandwich was a total crowd favorite.The bright flavors, colors and freshness of this salad are unbelievable and the dressing is so light and delicious! I know for a fact that you are going to love it!

Mediterranean Chicken and Peppers

This is one of my favorite meals for 2 reasons: 1) it's delicious and 2) it's easy. I love bell peppers and this dish is chock full of them. Plus, it has my beloved balsamic vinegar in it. And who doesn't love a dish that you just throw together, pop into the oven, and forget about it. The longest part is chopping all the peppers and that only takes a few minutes.

If you like olives, some Kalamata olives would be a tasty addition to this. I don't like olives, I find them too salty, but Mr. Surly loves them.

I have served this over quinoa, millet, couscous, and rice. Sometimes I add cubed potatoes to the dish. This dish makes a regular appearance in our menu rotation.

Pineapple Teriyaki Chicken

This week has gone by so fast for me! I'm finally getting around to editing photos and getting some posts up. I feel like I'm so far behind! I have missed reading my favorite blogs, and I plan to catch up on that this weekend.

I've been going through a lot of my recipes to see if I can deem them low oxalate. I have made this chicken many times; we really like it. I’m not sure if this is an ideal dish for a low oxalate diet. The soy sauce is on my list of foods to avoid, but I figured using just low sodium would be fine.Besides, I dilute it with pineapple juice, which is on my “good” list. ;)

I've made this with fresh pineapple and canned. Canned is obviously less work and tastes just as good. I really love sweet and spicy combinations. Don’t substitute cooking sherry for the dry sherry, they are different and cooking sherry is loaded with sodium (which is bad for a low oxalate diet). I have grilled it, cooked it in a skillet, and one time I even just tossed everything in an 8x8" glass dish and baked it at 375F. Just depends on my mood, and how tired/lazy I'm feeling.

You can serve this with rice, couscous, millet, almost any grain. I chose orzo since it's a pasta, which is on my "good" oxalate list.

Apple Mustard Chicken with Dates

I haven’t been in the kitchen much recently. Instead, I’ve been studying up on low oxalate foods and trying to come up with ideas of low oxalate dishes to make. One night I decided to throw together some “good” oxalate foods I like for dinner. I just made it up as I went along. I can’t find dates on any "good", "bad" or "limit" list, so I figured they’d be fine. Golden raisins are on the good list, but regular dark raisins aren’t on any list, so I don’t know if it’s a safe oxalate substitution. Doesn’t matter for me, since I prefer golden raisins.

Also I didn’t salt and pepper my chicken since I’m not supposed to have salt nor black pepper. I used wild rice because that is a “good” food for me; brown rice is on my “limit” list.

I think sliced almonds would be a great addition to this dish at the end. Unfortunately for me I cannot have nuts. But if I could I totally would have garnish with some sliced, toasted almonds.

Creole Chicken with Rice

Don’t let the unappetizing photo scare you off from this dish. It doesn’t look like much, but the taste is out-of-this-world phenomenal.

Back before I got sick, I read the book Eat to Live by Dr. Fuhrman. I have always tried to eat as healthfully as possible and heard his book was informative. Basically, he maps out a caloric restriction diet/lifestyle. He recommends eating lots of fresh, raw veggies and eating meat sparingly, thinking of it as a condiment. I used the book as mainly a diet guideline and for some of the recipes--caloric restriction is a bit too extreme for me, I'm not really into counting calories. Some of the recipes are really good so I went online to Dr. Furhman's blog to find more. I saw this one and decided to try it. I’m so glad I did because this has become one of our top 5 favorite recipes. A word of warning, if you don’t like hot and spicy food this is not the meal for you. It definitely cleans out the sinuses.

I made this a lot when I had to eliminate gluten from my diet. I use Trader Joe’s brand chili sauce because it is gluten free and I love it. I’m not sure if all chili sauce is gluten free so if you have celiac disease or a gluten intolerance be sure to check the ingredients of the sauce you use.

Apricot-Mustard Glazed Chicken

Recently, I bought the Cook's Illustrated Light and Healthy 2010 magazine. I’ve had it for a few months but have yet to make a recipe from it. This is mostly because I have been feeling ill lately and have not felt like trying out a new recipe; I’ve just been sticking to easy recipes I’m familiar with.

Finally, I decided it was time to try a new entrée recipe. I wanted to use up the apricot preserves I had from the fresh fruit tartelettes I made awhile ago, and this recipe sounded perfect; it would allow me to use up the rest of the jar of preserves that has been in my refrigerator for months. The original recipe uses 4 chicken breasts, but since there are only 2 of us, I used 2 breasts. I kept the sauce amount the same because I figured I’d just glaze the heck out of the chicken as it grilled.

I was only able to eat about ¼ of my piece, and Mr. Surly ate the rest of it. He wasn’t feeling very hungry that night (probably due to the intense heat we’ve been experiencing) so he only ate the rest of my chicken along with some fresh corn on the cob and a baked sweet potato. He didn’t comment too much about the chicken that night, other than to mumble it was “pretty good.” However, the next night he reheated the other breast and could not stop raving about how good it was, both during and after his meal. Maybe the glaze had a chance to soak in the chicken as it sat in the refrigerator, I’m not sure. I thought the chicken was really good; the glaze kept the chicken moist and the preserves added a nice sweet flavor, setting it apart from other mustard glazes I’ve used on chicken. Next time I’ll try marinating the chicken in the glaze to see if that makes any difference in flavor.

Spicy Mexican Pulled Chicken and Vegetables

I love this chicken so much I made myself sick eating too much of it. Since my stomach has trouble emptying I have to eat my meals spaced out. Because a few bites of anything causes my stomach to blow up like a balloon, my nutritionist suggested spacing out each part of my meals. I eat the vegetable, wait an hour or so, then eat the meat/protein, wait an hour or so and eat the potato/grain, etc. It’s frustrating, but I’m getting used to it. However, when it came to taco night I couldn’t help myself, I ate 3 tacos, knowing I should only have had two. I should have waited an hour before eating that third one, but it was so tasty I couldn’t wait. My stomach was painfully distended, but it was so worth it.

For lunch the next day I made nachos covered in the chicken and topped with homemade salsa. You can use this chicken as a topping for nachos, a filling for burritos, tacos, or just eat it as is. Less chipotle chiles can be used if you don’t want too much spice. It also freezes well. I usually just freeze it as is, but you could add the filling to some burritos and make frozen burritos. Unfortunately, this was gone in 2 days, with no leftovers to for me to freeze. Speaking of tacos, have you ever tried the Trader Joe’s organic hard taco shells? They are to-die-for. I will never buy the supermarket ones again. The flavor is unbelievable. If you find yourself at TJ’s, do yourself a favor and get a box.

Spicy Peanut Butter Marinated Chicken

I’ve been all about easy meals recently. I saw this recipe and decided to make it since it was easy and sounded flavorful. Yes, it needs to marinate for hours, but I can handle flipping a bag every couple hours for an entrée that will cook up fast and not dirty any dishes. Oh my, does this marinade smell amazing. Every time I opened the fridge I caught a whiff of this and would immediately start salivating. I couldn’t wait to grill this up. The chicken tasted good, it was tender and incredibly moist, but I wish the flavor had been stronger. It wasn’t bad, I just expected more because it smelled so incredible while marinating. Maybe next time I’ll let it marinate overnight instead of all day.

Bourbon Chicken

I love Chinese food. I hate that it is usually loaded with sodium and a lot of the meat is deep fried. About an hour or so after eating Chinese take-out I’m usually regretting my decision due to stomach pains. Even before all my GI issues started last year I began making my own Chinese food. I scoured the internet for healthy make-at-home versions of Chinese take-out. I found this recipe and, over time, slowly tweaked it to this version.

Since we are not juice drinkers, I like to buy apple juice boxes (look for 100% juice; Mott’s and Trader Joe’s brands are my faves) so that I don’t waste a large bottle of juice. Definitely one our our favorite meals, this dish pops up often in our menu rotation. I love it because it’s easy and you can use any veggies you want. Sometimes I buy the ready cook stir fry asian veggies from Trader Joe’s. It doesn’t get any easier than just tossing in the precut veggies; all I have to do is cut up the chicken.

The chicken can be cut into chunks before cooking, but because I detest handling raw meat, I opt to cut it after it’s mostly cooked. I'm less grossed out this way.

I prefer to serve this over noodles, especially wide rice noodles, since they soak up all the yummy sauce and cook quicker than brown rice. The vegetables could also be sauted in a separate pan and added after the chicken has simmered in the sauce, but I'm lazy and I usually don't want to dirty another dish.

Moroccan Chicken with Couscous

A few weeks ago Mr.Surly came home with a big bag of sweet potatoes. I have been feeling pretty ill lately and have had no desire to cook until last week. In an attempt to find a recipe that would help me use up some of those sweet potatoes I came across this dish on Martha Stewart’s website. It sounded good and I had all of the ingredients. I adapted the recipe a bit by added some spices and extra ingredients. It turned out really well. I love a dinner that is easy, quick, and requires minimum clean up. Also, the leftovers I had for lunch the next day were even better than dinner the previous night. Definitely a recipe I will make again.

Slowcooker BBQ Pulled Chicken

I’m not a fan of pulled pork but whenever I smell pulled pork it makes my mouth water. I just can't bring myself to eat it because I don't really like pork; I only eat it once a year on New Years Day.  

When I saw this chicken version awhile ago I immediately made a mental note to make it in the future. This weekend it was rainy and chilly, so I decided now was the time. MrSurly ended up eating 4 of these in one sitting, they were so good. 

The sauce is spicy, which we like, and the heat factor can be adjusted by using less/more chipotles and cayenne. I added some brown sugar to give it a spicy sweetness, which I love. I ate one of these sandwiches cold the next day and I think I liked the cold leftover version even more than heated. 

 I wish I would’ve had some potato chips to serve along with the sandwiches. Instead I had to settle for baked potato wedges, which the only option available to me at the time. What a great alternative to BBQ pork. I will have to remember these for fall football game days.

Chicken Millet Skillet

I had never heard of millet until I had to go gluten free awhile ago. Luckily my celiac test came back negative, but my GI doctor still had me go gluten free for 6 weeks to determine if I was gluten intolerant (turns out I’m not). 

I learned about a lot of alternative grains/pastas/flours while eating gluten free, millet being one of them. Millet is bland and I wasn’t even sure how to serve it to make it palatable. Desperate to use up some of my millet, I found this recipe on Whole Foods’ website. I made modifications to suit our tastes. I was surprised at how good this was. I really didn’t have any expectations for this, I just wanted to get rid of some millet, but wow, this was so good. Mr.Surly loved it and he requests it often, which I don’t mind because it’s so easy and quick to make.

You could probably use quinoa if you don’t have millet. If you don’t have wine, substitute with chicken broth and, if desired, stir in a Tbsp or two of white wine vinegar with the swiss chard. Kale could also be used instead of swiss chard. Next time I make this, I think I'll add some pinenuts or almonds as garnish before serving.

Crunchy Garlic Chicken

Jamie Oliver delivers another great recipe. Easy, simple, flavorful, and healthy. I used to watch his show "The Naked Chef" on the food network when I was in college. I remember upon first hearing the name of his show I pictured some gorgeous guy, wearing only an apron, making food. Hmmm maybe unsanitary, but definitely worth checking out. I admit I may have been a bit disappointed when I discovered the term "naked" referred to his simple, unadorned approach to food, not being physically naked. However, his show did inspired me, I would watch and say to myself, that looks like something I could do. I love him and his recipes. 

Now that I'm attempting to eat "clean", I have been getting into his recipes even more. Every time I make this chicken I wonder why I don’t make it more often. It is relatively easy and the chicken comes out really moist and flavorful.  

I have prepared this both ways, baked and fried, and I prefer baked (this also makes it more "clean"). Both methods yield the same tender chicken, but when I fry them, I find the coating comes off the chicken too easily. Maybe it’s because I don’t pat the crumbs onto the chicken breasts with my hands. I try to do it with tongs, since I cannot and will not touch raw meat, which probably isn’t the most effective method. 

Hopefully, you are a stronger person than I am and will be able to do it with your hands and as a result have a beautiful coating that doesn't slip off the chicken.

Pressure Cooker Chicken Cacciatore

This week my nutritionist put me on a low fiber diet, hoping that it will help me gain some weight (I’m currently about 20 lbs underweight). I’m supposed to be eating pasta, potatoes, bread, lots of “white” foods. These are foods I normally do not eat so I had to buy a few things from the grocery store. Also, my abdominal pain has increased this week and the meds my GI doctor prescribed aren’t helping. 

I really haven’t felt much like cooking nor eating this week. But Mr.Surly still needed food and since he’s been working late I didn’t want him to come home and then have to make dinner.  I’m looking for easy, no fuss meals and dish fit the bill. Just throw everything in your pressure cooker and it’s magically done in under 10 minutes. This could be made in either a skillet or pot, it would just take longer to cook. There was also extra sauce left over, so I have some “pasta sauce” for pasta this week. Sorry about the unappetizing photo, I just took a quick picture to post along with the recipe.

Mustard Chicken with Potatoes & Leeks

Wow. I love simple dishes that are full of flavor. I also like that this effortless dish is so visually appealing. By steaming the veggies in the parchment packets they come out vibrant in color and deliciously crisp-tender. This dish was so simple to put together. While it baked I was able to make a salad and dessert. The mustard kept the chicken tender and moist. I can’t wait to make this again.

Chicken Tortilla Casserole

Casseroles aren’t normally thought of as healthy, usually due to condensed soup, which this version doesn’t have. I know the picture doesn’t make it look appetizing, but this is so freaking good. It was also quick and easy, which is a plus for me.

Next time I think I may add some cumin to season the chicken. The recipe says it feeds two, but we only ate half of it. I think it could serve 3-4 depending on the portion size. I’m definitely going to be making this again, hopefully, next time I’ll get a better picture.

Thai Yellow Curry Chicken and Rice

I love, love, love, curry; especially yellow curry. There was a Thai restaurant near my old office and I would often get their yellow curry with chicken for lunch. I was so excited recently when I saw this yellow curry sauce at Trader Joe’s.

Now I could attempt to recreate this delicious dish at home. The restaurant curry sauce was pretty thin and flavorful, almost like a soup. It was served with white basmati rice on the side so you could add the rice to the sauce to, allowing the rice to soak up all the delicious sauce. When I’m adding the bottled sauce to the pan I put a little bit of water (a Tbl or two) in the bottle, shake it up, and dump it in the pot so that I get all the sauce out. I suppose that if you feel like you need to you could add water or chicken broth to stretch out the sauce. I don't because I don’t want to risk diluting the flavor. Of course you could use any rice that you want, but I prefer brown basmati rice, since it has a low glycemic index. Also, you don’t have to add the sweet potato; you could use all white potatoes. But sweet potatoes are so nutritious that I try to mix them in with white potatoes any chance I get. I prefer using baby yukons because all you have to do is wash and cut them in half. I have used russets before, just peel them before cubing. I debated whether or not to add garlic, but decided against it this time. I think I have added garlic in the past. Of course vegetarians/vegans could use tofu instead of chicken.

Honey Beer Glazed Chicken

I know a lot of people don’t like Rachel Ray. But her recipes are so easy, quick, and delicious that I can’t help trying some of them out. We eat chicken often and I’m always looking for easy ways to try to jazz it up a bit. 

When I saw this recipe I had to try it. The ingredients are things I almost always have in the pantry. I like sauce so I kept the sauce ingredients the same, but only used 2 chicken breasts. Next time I will try substituting agave for the honey. I used a whole bottle of beer because right now I can’t drink alcohol (otherwise I would just measure out a cup and drink the rest of the beer). Maybe this is why my sauce was a bit thin. That wasn’t a problem, I just added a slurry at the end to thicken it up so I could serve it over the chicken. 

I think next time I might toss in some red pepper flakes to give it some heat. I love foods that are sweet but with a little heat.