Author Archives: Cheryl

Jamaican Jerked Chicken

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Summer sizzle and subtle spices are a winner in this citrus-themed marinade.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner! On the hunt for a fresh, new take on grilled chicken? I was. My husband and I are trying to avoid extra oil and sugar, but are missing the saucy side of BBQ chicken. Then I ran across this recipe in the June/July 2020 issue of All Recipes magazine (which I do not recall ever ordering, but hey, whatev) and thought the ingredient list looked like it’d make for a flavor-packed piece of poultry. And boy, did it ever! We’ve made this twice this week already, serving first some friends, and then my parents in socially-distanced dinners on the deck. It was well worth taking our masks off to munch on this meat, as well as the side dish we served with it, Mexican Bean & Rice salad (also from the June/July of All Recipes magazine). Note that we DID use the—gasp!!!—dark meat, not the often-preferred white chicken breast, and it was essential to the success of this dish. Another essential? Having a husband who will slow roast it over coals on his Big Green Egg. (Although I’m sure it would be delish on a gas grill, too…) I did make a couple of adjustments to the recipe, and those are reflected below.

Serves 4

Juice of one whole large orange
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 Tablespoons minced green onion (aka: scallions)
2 Tablespoons grated fresh ginger
2 Tablespoons lime juice, plus zest of lime
1 Tablespoon minced jalapeno pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/4 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs (this is 1 package of Costco meat)

Place gallon-size Ziplock bag in a large bowl to hold it upright. Combine orange juice, soy sauce, green onion, ginger, lime juice and zest, jalapeno, garlic, allspice, cinnamon, and cloves in bag. Seal and shake until mixed well. Add chicken and turn to coat. Refrigerate for 4-8 hours, turning once or twice during marination time.

Preheat outdoor grill to medium heat, about 325 degrees. Transfer chicken to grill, reserving marinade. Grill covered, turning halfway through, 12 to 15 minutes.

While meat is grilling, bring reserved marinade to a boil in a medium saucepan. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until reduced by a third and slightly thickened, and for at least five minutes. Brush cooked marinade over finished meat while on grill. Serve.

Southwest Stuffed Green Peppers

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Roasted on the grill, these peppers were a great break from burgers.

It was boredom. Pure boredom. Food boredom + quarantine boredom led to this new recipe. My husband and I have decided we would like to come out of quarantine NOT double our going-into-quarantine size. (How about you?) So we’ve been trying to up our veggie intake, and reduce the oils, fats, and excessive cheeses. He wanted me to make stuffed green peppers because he remembered his mom making them years ago. Sadly, she’s passed, so there was no calling her for a recipe… My dig for recipes online came up with a lot of beefy, cheesy options that looked GREAT, but wouldn’t fit our new eating goals.

So I played around with a few ideas, looked for what needed to be used up in the fridge, and came up with this combo that really worked! It’s kind of like a burrito in a pepper, but we like burritos. No problem there. And here’s a cooking note: Rich (the husband) roasted these in his Big Green Egg for 30 minutes at 250 degrees. He used chips for smokiness, but we both thought it was too much, so he’ll roast without chips next time. And FYI, these could totally be roasted in the oven if you’re not blessed with a BGE, BTW. (LOL…)

Makes 12 peppers
(Points 3 per serving on WW)

6-12 green peppers
1.5 pounds 99% lean ground turkey
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1.5 cups cooked rice
14-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
14-ounce can corn, rinsed and drained *
1/2 cup fresh chopped cilantro
1/2 cup chopped sweet red peppers
1/4 cup fresh baby bella mushrooms, rinsed and chopped (about 6-8 mushrooms)
1/4 cup chopped red onions
1 Tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese (or 1 cup – but that will increase your point value on WW)
1 cup fresh salsa, such as Salsa Lisa

Trim tops off of 6-12 green peppers ** and remove membranes in middle. Set aside for filling later. Have Big Green Egg coals ready at about 250 degrees, or preheat oven to 325 degrees.

In a large frying pan on medium heat, cook ground turkey in oil until no longer pink. Season to taste. (We used garlic powder, salt, black pepper, and smoked paprika.) Remove meat to a large mixing bowl. Stir in rice, black beans, corn, and cilantro.

Return pan to heat and add chopped peppers, mushrooms, and onions. Saute on medium heat until tender, about 5 minutes. Add cooked pepper mix-rice to meat mixture in bowl and sprinkle in feta and stir in salsa. Toss to combine. Season to taste.

Fill peppers with meat-rice mixture. Roast in BGE on rack above coals (or put in 9″x12″ glass baking dish and bake) uncovered for 30 minutes.

*In my photo, there is no corn. But that was a miss with this recipe. So add some corn. Corn sometimes gets a bad rap. But as my good friend and co-worker Christy Becher says, no one ever got fat just from eating some corn now and then.

**I made just 6 peppers for us, and plan to use the remaining pepper filling in corn tortillas with chopped lettuce. And maybe a little greek yogurt and avocado. You know, like a burrito…

Crockpot Queso

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Creamy cheesey goodness with minimal effort. Yes, please!
(Photo credit shout-out to my daughter-in-law Ashley.)

Desperate times cause for desperate measures, and I’d say being quarantined in your home for weeks on end calls for cheese. Lots and lots of warm, gooey cheese. I ran across this recipe in the January/February 2020 issue of Martha Stewart’s Living magazine and thought it sounded too easy to be any good. But I was wrong. Well, not wrong about the easy part—it goes together in less than 5 minutes. I was wrong about the good part. It is delicious!!! I’ve now made this in my new little 2-quart Crockpot ($9.96 at Walmart, purchased using appropriate social distancing, of course) several times. Once I got over the fact that I had to purchase American cheese for the first time in my life, that is. Why is it that the lowest-quality, most bland cheese ever made is called “American cheese”? Don’t answer that…

We’ve eaten it straight up as dip for tortilla chips, and once with little smokie sausages I’d wrapped in homemade pizza dough and baked in the oven. (Yes, our food standards have slipped a bit. See: “desperate times” above.) The best part about this dip is that it is smooth and silky—and stays that way! I highly recommend this when you need a cheesy goodness fix, and no judgment from me for what you choose to slip into this dip.

Makes 4 cups

INGREDIENTS
8-ounces pepper Jack cheese, shredded
4-6 slices of American cheese
2 teaspoons cornstarch
10-ounce can diced tomatoes with chilies (Ro-tel brand is great!)
12-ounce can of evaporated milk
kosher or sea salt

OPTIONAL TOPPINGS
diced red onion
diced jalapeno
chopped cilantro

Toss cheeses and cornstarch together in 1.5 or 2-quart slow cooker. Stir in diced tomatoes and milk, and season with salt. Cover and cook until bubbling and thickened, about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Stir again before serving. If desired, sprinkle diced toppings on before serving. I don’t need to tell you to enjoy, because you totally will.

Curried Chicken and Apricot Salad

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Fresh and summery, the apricots and curry add a new flavor twist to a creamy chicken salad.

Well, I sent my husband to Costco for green grapes, and he came home with apricots instead. So I had to get creative with a big box store quantity of apricots, and came up with this salad. It violates my son Justin’s “no fruity chicken” rule, but he wasn’t at the table when I served it, and everyone else thought it was a keeper!

I started with a recipe from Lunds & Byerly’s Real Food magazine, but I not only didn’t have ras el hanout Moroccan spice mix, I didn’t even know what it was. Several other ingredients in their salad recipe were “no goes” for me as well, so I started from scratch and came up with this concoction.

Makes 6 salads

For grilled chicken:
3 pounds boneless, skinless chicken tenderloins, fresh or thawed
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
salt and pepper to season

For dressing:
1/2 cup Hellman’s mayonnaise
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 Tablespoon curry powder
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 cup red onion, minced
1/4 cup fresh chopped mint
1 clove garlic, minced
2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
5-6 fresh apricots, chopped

For salad base:
2 heads Romaine lettuce, chopped
1-2 cups chopped spinach
2 scallions, chopped
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
6 baby cucumbers, chopped, or 1 regular cucumber, sliced and quartered

Toss chicken in oil, and grill until no longer pink. Season with salt and pepper while grilling. Remove from heat and chop into bite-sized pieces.

While meat is cooking, combine mayo, yogurt, curry, chili powder, onion, mint, garlic, balsamic vinegar and stir until combined. Add in warm chicken and chopped apricots and toss to coat. *

Layer plates with Romaine, spinach, scallions, peppers, and cucumbers. Top with chicken and apricot mixture.

*NOTE: To prep this dish ahead of time, once you are done making chicken and apricot salad, put it in an airtight container and refrigerate until ready to use, for 2-48 hours.

Blueberry Scones

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Scones are the chameleon of baked goods. You can change up the flavor by simple doing different add-ins.

Scones have gotten a bad rap. Some even go so far as to call them “stones.” That’s because they have a tendency to get tough and chewy if kneaded too much, so the secret to perfect scones is to barely knead the dough and do a quick, hot bake in the oven. And the beauty of this super easy recipe is that you can do any fruit add-in you want. Or poppy seeds, or mini chocolate chips, or coconut… whatever you’re hankering for. Frozen fruit works better than fresh in this recipe, so it’s perfect for winter when fresh berries are super expensive, and often not all that flavorful. Dried fruit work great, too.

I’ve had this recipe for years and years—I clipped it from a magazine, and don’t recall which one. So pardon me for not giving credit where credit is due! My daughter-in-law, Ashley, was craving scones one Saturday morning and asked if I had a decent recipe. I hadn’t made these in a while, but dusted off the recipe and gave it a go. I’ll have to put this one back into circulation again, because it’s a winner!

Makes 8 scones

2 1/2 cups all-purpose white flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
5 Tablespoons butter *
1 egg
1/2 cup Half & Half *
1/2 cup frozen blueberries (or raspberries, or chocolate chips, etc.)
OR
1/4 cup currants, craisins, raisins, etc.
OR
2 Tablespoons poppy seeds

Topping
2 teaspoons Half & Half
1 teaspoon granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut butter into 1/2″ pieces and drop into flour mixture. Then, using a pastry blender, cut butter into flour until it looks like coarse crumbs.

In separate small bowl, beat egg with a fork. Stir in cream. Pour mixture into flour and toss until all flour is incorporated and dough hold together. (May need to add a drizzle more cream to get it to hold together at this point.) Stir in berries or other add-in ingredient.

Form dough into ball and plop onto cutting board that’s been lightly dusted with flour. Gently knead about 5-10 times, just until it holds together. Using your fingers, press into a large, flat disk. Cut into 8 wedges. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Brush with cream, then sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 15 minutes, or until edges are lightly browned. Cool on a rack for a few minutes.

To make these extra delicious, smear with cream cheese, and/or fresh jam.

*NOTE: If you don’t have Half & Half on hand, you can use milk. Then up your butter amount to 6 Tablespoons.