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Roast Chicken with Sautéed Onions and Peppers

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Roasted Chicken with Sautéed Onions and Peppers

Blast from the past.

Liz and I recently took a drive down memory lane on our food blog. This post from last November stood out for us because we love this meal and the story brought back great memories of when we setup Michael’s music room. This space for Michael has been such a hit and it’s been a source of inspiration for him. His music, editing, writing and social media skills have improved dramatically and we’re so proud of him!

If you’ve been following our blog for a while now, this post may be familiar. But if you’re a more recent follower, this will be new to you. Whether it’s your first time or not, we hope you enjoy this recipe and story as much as we do.

We invite you down memory lane…

Time flies!

You know those days and weeks that fly by in a blink? We all have them, I’m sure. Well the last couple of weeks have felt like that for us. I mean…where did November go? I barely saw it arrive. I think I blinked, and poof, it disappeared. And…I am nowhere near ready for the holidays.

The Music Room.

On a far less whiny note, our eldest son’s music room is painted and the guitars are up on their hooks (and the drum set is setup–oh yea me!). The room actually looks really nice and he’s thrilled with his fresh new space where he can get lost for hours playing guitar.

Thank goodness we ended up calling Antonio, our painter friend, or else that room would not have been finished until December 2016…maybe….and it certainly wouldn’t have turned out as nice.

Focusing on your true passion!

Getting the job done by someone else gave us the chance to focus on what we’re better at doing (three guesses…and it’s not home renovations). So here’s how we demonstrate our creativity…and our love of poultry. This isn’t exactly a quick weeknight meal, but on this night, Nelson had the chance to get started on supper earlier than normal, so this roast chicken with sautéed peppers and onion was quite a nice treat.

The right call…

Here’s to making the right call at the right time and maintaining some sanity in our hectic lives. Do what you love (for us, that’s not painting), and eat well, friends.

Roasted Chicken with Sautéed Onions and Peppers

Roast Chicken with Sautéed Onions and Peppers
 
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Whether you're entertaining guests or making dinner for your own family, this roast chicken recipe is easy to make and so delicious.
Author:
Recipe type: Main
Cuisine: Canadian
Serves: 8 - 12 servings
Ingredients
  • 4 tbs olive oil
  • 2 red bell peppers, diced
  • 2 green bell peppers, diced
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 4 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2½ tsp salt
  • 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
  • 1½ cups diced tomatoes
  • ½ cup white wine
  • 2 whole raw chickens, cut in quarters
Instructions
  1. Pre heat oven to 325 ºF
  2. Heat 2 tbs olive oil in a large frying pan on medium high.
  3. Add onions and sauté for 4 minutes.
  4. Add garlic and sauté for 1 minutes.
  5. Add green and red peppers.
  6. Add 1 tsp salt, ½ tsp black pepper, diced tomatoes and white wine.
  7. Stir all the ingredients, cover and reduce heat to medium.
  8. Simmer for 15 minutes, uncover and set aside.
  9. Line a large roasting pan with aluminum foil.
  10. Place the pieces of chicken in the roasting pan.
  11. Baste chicken pieces with remaining olive oil.
  12. Sprinkle 1½ tsp of salt and ½ tsp of black pepper evenly over the chicken pieces.
  13. Using a large serving spoon, scoop a spoonful of the onion and pepper mix over each piece of chicken until all pieces are covered. Divide any remaining peppers over the chicken equally.
  14. Place the pan in the oven on the middle rack.
  15. Cook for 50 minutes. Do not open the oven door.
  16. Raise the heat to 375 ºF and let cook for another 20 minutes. Do not open the oven door.
  17. Change the oven setting to broil and set the temperature to 450 ºF.
  18. Let the chicken cook for another 8 minutes.
  19. Using a thermometer in the thickest past of the meat, check that the internal temperature is 165°F (74°C)
  20. Shut off the stove and carefully remove the roasting pan.
  21. Serve chicken hot with your favourite side dish. Enjoy!

 

Quick Pesto Chicken Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

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Quick Pesto Chicken Pasta with Sun-Dried TomatoesThe holidays are in full swing around here and there’s been food, food, and more food…but we’re not complaining. We appreciate all the goodness that surrounds us–and fortunately food is a part of that.

Earlier today Nelson made a delicious homemade pesto. He hadn’t even fully planned what he was going to do with it, although he had a couple of perfect ideas in mind. Would it be pizza or pasta? Both options received my full and eager approval. mmmmm

Spoiler alert!! Nelson went with pasta. He used all my favourites–pesto, grilled chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, penne, fresh Parmesan cheese–tell me you’re not salivating right now! I am (which says a lot about me…and this dish, since I just finished eating). We might have gone with a fettuccine noodle but our kids are partial to penne so we went with that.

The pesto was the perfect consistency and it looked so nice in this dish. We’ve had pasta with pesto in some restaurants where the pesto has way too much oil and were  left with a lot of oil on our plates. That’s not our preference, so Nelson made this just the way we like it.

Have pesto? Use it for goodness sake! Eat pasta, eat pizza, eat well friends!

Quick Pesto Chicken Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Quick Pesto Chicken Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes
 
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This pesto chicken pasta recipe is one of our favourite quick meals. It's easy to make on a weeknight and tastes delicious with the sun-dried tomatoes.
Author:
Recipe type: Main
Cuisine: Italian
Serves: 4 to 6 servings
Ingredients
  • 4 cups penne regate
  • 1 tsp coarse salt for boiling with the pasta
  • ¼ cup of the cooked pasta water.
  • 3 oz (85 g) sun-dried tomatoes (preserved in oil)
  • 2 tbs olive oil
  • 1 tbs oil from the sun-dried tomatoes jar
  • 1.3 lbs (.6 kg) boneless skinless chicken breasts
  • 5 tbs fresh basil pesto (see our recipe made with a mortar and pestle)
  • ¾ tsp salt
  • ½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
  • Fresh basil and shaved parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil to top the dish
Instructions
  1. Cook pasta with 1 tsp salt to al dente (per package instructions).
  2. Save ¼ cup of the pasta water.
  3. Drain the pasta and set aside.
  4. Pat down the chicken breasts with paper towel to remove moisture.
  5. Cut the chicken into strips and place them into a medium size bowl.
  6. Add the salt and pepper to the chicken strips and mix well.
  7. Heat the olive oil and sun-dried tomato oil in a large pan on medium high.
  8. Add the chicken strips and brown them. This takes around 4 to 5 minutes depending on the heat of your cook top.
  9. Reduce the temperature to medium heat.
  10. Add the sun-dried tomatoes and stir for about a minute.
  11. Loosen the pasta and add it to the pan.
  12. Add the pesto and stir well to make sure everything is coated.
  13. Add the ¼ cup pasta water and stir again.
  14. Cover and cook for about 2 minutes.
  15. Uncover and serve immediately, topped with basil leaves, freshly shaved parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil. Enjoy!
Notes
Quality ingredients always a make a positive difference. We used quality penne imported from Italy.

 

From Scratch Butter Chicken

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From Scratch Butter Chicken

This Sunday started off like most other Sundays… slow start… leisurely breakfast prep and then a nice traditional family breakfast with pancakes, thick bacon and eggs, oh…and coffee…always coffee!

Once that was done, we changed gears. We cleaned up and headed downstairs to our eldest son’s music room, or should I say, his soon-to-be-awesome-music room. Until now, it’s been an unorganized and pale green room we all preferred to avoid. Our big guy has been asking us for months to convert it into a proper, classy music room where he could display his guitars and have room to jam with some friends. We agreed with him, but life and schedules got in the way and we never started the project, beyond buying paint. So this weekend we finally got started. Yesterday, Liz prepped the room with the help of both our kids. After doing some cooking, I joined Liz and we completed the first coat on two walls. Today, we headed back down to paint a second coat. After about an hour we looked at each other and Liz said the thing we’d both been thinking, “Let’s call Antonio”. Liz and I HATE (yup, those are capitalized) painting, and we’re not very good at it. Antonio is this awesome painter who painted the main floor of our house a few years ago. Basically, we both came to realize that with our lack of skill and our busy schedules, there was no way we were going to have this room finished in any decent amount of time (I mean, not for weeks). I couldn’t have agreed more with Liz, and lucky for us, Antonio was sitting in our living room about 5 hours later, discussing the project. Needless to say, we’re now smiling more than we were earlier in the day. Thanks Antonio!

After all this paint chaos, what better way to celebrate this “work hand-off”, than with some delicious butter chicken. This was my first time making this dish. I’ve eaten butter chicken quite a few times. My family, on the other hand, not so much. They aren’t fans of the stronger flavours or ‘heat’ in Indian cuisine. Butter chicken is the exception because of it’s milder flavour. There was a bit of effort making the dish, but it wasn’t difficult at all and it was completely worth it. Oh… and the house smelled so good! Basically the cut-up chicken sits overnight in a bath of yogurt and spice goodness, and then the next day it gets slow-cooked to perfection. Add nutty basmati rice and some naan bread and you have a recipe for success.

Everyone at home loved it! I think Liz enjoyed it even more because she knew we no longer had to worry about the painting work to be done. If you’ve ever been cautious about trying to make Indian food, I encourage you to cook up some butter chicken… and eat well, friends!

From Scratch Butter Chicken

From Scratch Butter Chicken
 
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This butter chicken recipe is made from scratch and it's so creamy and delicious served on a bed of basmati rice. Don't forget the naan bread.
Author:
Recipe type: Main
Cuisine: Indian
Serves: 8 Servings
Ingredients
  • 2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs cut into large bite-sized pieces
  • 2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into large bite-sized pieces

  • Marinade
  • 1 cup plain yogurt with fat (I use 3%)
  • 2 tbs freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 3 tsp ground turmeric
  • 5 tsp garam masala
  • 2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp cinnamon powder
  • 3 tsp chilli powder

  • Cooking the Butter Chicken
  • 8 tbs unsalted butter (1 stick)
  • 3 tbs olive oil
  • 1 medium cooking onion finely diced
  • 5 cloves garlic minced
  • 2 tbs fresh grated ginger
  • 14 fl-oz diced tomatoes (1 can)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 cup chicken stock
  • 1 1⁄2 cups heavy cream
  • 4 tsp tomato paste
  • 4 sprigs of cilantro cleaned and chopped
Instructions
  1. In a large bowl, combine all the marinade ingredients well.
  2. Add the chicken and stir until all the pieces are evenly coated.
  3. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate over night or for at least 4 hours.
  4. Place a large pan on the stove top and heat to medium high.
  5. Add the oil and butter and heat until the butter is fully melted and hot (but not burnt).
  6. Add the diced onion and cook until translucent (should be soft).
  7. Add the garlic and ginger. Cook and stir for another 3 minutes.
  8. Turn down the heat to medium and add the tomatoes, tomato paste and salt.
  9. Stir until well combined. Cook for 15 minutes.
  10. Add the chicken with marinade and cook for about 8 minutes covered.
  11. Add the chicken stock. Note: you may find that it looks a bit dry, this is normal.
  12. Raise the heat to high and stir until a boil is reached
  13. Lower the heat to medium and simmer uncovered for 25 minutes.
  14. Stir in the cream and continue to simmer for about 12 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.
  15. Serve hot on a bed of basmati rice and sprinkle the chopped cilantro over the chicken.
  16. Enjoy!

 

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