Pomegranate Chicken and Brussels Sprouts

     This post is devoted to two of my newest favorite recipes, one of which I've made about 10 times and I've yet to post about (most likely because I'm too eager to eat them to take the time to take a decent photo), and the other is totally credited to Stonewall Kitchen. Though my internship there has technically ended, I have a stockpile of their products and I am more than happy to blog about how much I enjoy cooking with them.

(Before I sell you on their product though, I'll let you know that the Pomegranate Grille Sauce used in the recipe is being discontinued. They are available online through the barn sale or there might be some left in the warehouse store in Rochester, NH. I have tasted many of their other sauces though, and I can promise you that the Roasted Apple Grille Sauce (which I currently have a bottle of so you can expect a recipe soon) or the Garlic Rosemary Citrus Sauce, would both be delicious following the same recipe!)

    Stonewall Kitchen products really do make life easier in the kitchen because the sauces are soooo delicious and therefore lessen the amount of work you end up doing to get a final dish that is super good, and still tastes homemade.

So now I'll begin with this chicken....

     The pomegranate taste is unique and sweet (but not overly!) and the wine helps add another dimension and bring out those flavors. My boyfriend and I were very impressed, literally saying "wow this is good" between each bite. Serving it with quinoa was also a great choice because it soaks up the sauce so nicely. And it's gluten free! Hallelujah!

   Serving this chicken with one of my favorite brussels sprouts recipe just makes it a perfect meal. I would honestly eat this for dinner every day!

       I am so in love with brussels sprouts. They're my favorite vegetable and coming up close to my favorite food in general (call me crazy). I eat them 10x more than I end up blogging about, but I will try and change that!

      The recipe below is my current go to, and it couldn't be easier. Just toss the little guys in oil, season and roast them, then toss in a little bit of balsamic salad dressing and serve with feta or goat cheese. I also love using Stonewall Kitchen Balsamic Fig Dressing for this same recipe, but I'm not trying to go all sales woman-y on you and freak you out. Just keep in mind it's a really good option :)

     You really could toss the sprouts in any of your favorite salad dressings, and try and pair the flavors to match the main portion of your meal!




Pomegranate Chicken
Ingredients:
1 lb chicken breast
Salt, Pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup sliced onion
1/2 cup dry white wine
3/4 cup Stonewall Kitchen Pomegranate Grille Sauce (or Roasted Apple Grille Sauce or Garlic Rosemary Citrus Sauce)

Directions:
Season chicken with salt and pepper.
Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in skillet over medium-high heat, and add chicken, onions and garlic.
Cook chicken until browned on first side, about 4 minutes, then turn over and cook about a minute or so on the other side and add in wine and simmer to reduce by about half.
Pour pomegranate sauce on top and stir to combine. Cover and cook on low about 2 minutes more.




Balsamic Roasted Brussels Sprouts
Ingredients:
1 lb brussels sprouts
2 tbsp olive oil
Kosher salt
Pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
2-3 tbsp balsamic salad dressing (or other)
1/3 cup crumbled feta or goat cheese

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Remove the little root off of the brussels sprouts and slice them in half. Toss to coat in olive oil and season with salt, pepper and garlic powder.
Spread on baking sheet and roast in preheated oven about 30 minutes, depending on the size of the brussels sprouts.
Remove from oven, and toss to coat in medium bowl with salad dressing.
Serve with cheese as garnish.

Coconut Banana Pumpkin Pancakes

      So remember when I made those Pumpkin Seven Layer Bars and claimed I had leftover pumpkin that I was sure to use for another recipe post?! Well ta-daaaaa, here it is! These pumpkin banana pancakes are a great way to celebrate the fall season, without clogging an artery like the seven layer bars might....

      They're about the healthiest pancakes you can get, and I'll tell you they smell absolutely amazing when cooking. Plus the recipe is really convenient because it makes two perfect pancakes all for yourself :)


(yes one is missing from the photo because I ate it while the other one was cooking....)

      I've seen plenty of variations of these simple, and often paleo, pancakes, and I'd have to say my favorite part about this one is the combination of flavors, especially with the use of coconut oil. It's a super healthy fat and it tastes like (you guessed it!) coconut! Then it's smothered in maple syrup and you eat both of them and maybe even lick the plate and you still don't feel like a beached whale. That is the glory of healthy cooking.

     As always, you can add fruits, nuts or even chocolate!

       I'm definitely going to start making more pancakes like these. They're simple to make, nutritious, filling, and you eat them with maple syrup and that is basically the only excuse I need to make more :)






Coconut Banana Pumpkin Pancakes
Ingredients:
1 medium ripe banana, mashed
Heaping scoop of pumpkin puree (a little less than 1/4 cup)
1 egg
1/3 cup oats (gluten free if necessary)
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
2 tsp coconut oil

Directions:
Mix together banana and pumpkin, then add egg and stir to combine.
Mix in remaining ingredients, and any additional nuts, fruit, etc.
Heat coconut oil in large skillet or griddle over medium heat. (no higher!)
Pour in batter and spread fairly thin, making about 2 pancakes depending on size of banana. Cook in oil until both sides are browned.
Serve with maple syrup.

Turkey Gyro Salad w/ Homemade Tzatziki

       A Gyro is a Greek dish that is made from meat being vertically roasted rotisserie style and is often served in a sandwich with tomatoes, onions and tzatziki sauce. This version is more college kid friendly because it uses ground turkey instead, and there's also a gluten free option! It has such a unique flavor and is a great change of pace from my usual uses of ground turkey (chili, burgers, shepherd's pie).

       The homemade tzatziki sauce is delicious. You definitely cannot have a gyro without it! It also has many other uses so save the leftovers for anything from a dip for veggies or chips, a sandwich spread, or a sauce for any cooked meat or fish. (Follow up recipes coming soon!)

      It's a good idea to make the sauce a day in advance because the flavors will have time to develop and it tastes much better.

      I served mine a little different from the traditional style, because I've yet to see gluten free pita bread, and I have a feeling that if I did find any it would taste like straight up cardboard. Instead, I pan fried a corn tortilla in a little oil over the stove to create a tostada, and I also ate it as a salad with the tzatziki sauce for dressing.

      You could of course stick to the traditional pita if you aren't gluten free, but the salad is a low carb, healthy option! Plus it omits any oil based dressing and the Greek yogurt is fat free, so it is an extremely low-cal dish, packed with protein.

 




Turkey Gyros
Ingredients:
1 cup Greek yogurt
1 cucumber, peeled and seeded
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp fresh dill
salt and pepper to taste

1 lb lean ground turkey
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp marjoram
1/4 tsp onion powder
salt and pepper

salad greens
chopped tomatoes
chopped red onion
feta cheese

Directions:
Finely grate the cucumber and use paper towel to squeeze out as much liquid as possible.
Mix together yogurt, cucumber, garlic, lemon juice, dill and salt and pepper to taste. Store in airtight container in fridge and wait at least a few hours for flavors to blend.
Heat a couple teaspoons of olive oil in skillet over medium high heat. Add turkey and garlic, stir and mix in oregano, thyme, basil, marjoram, onion powder and salt and pepper. Cook til browned, about 8 minutes, and drain the fat from pan.
Serve over salad greens with tomatoes, onion, feta and tzatziki sauce, or stuff all ingredients in a pita!

Pumpkin "Seven Layer" Bars

    Seven layer bars are probably the most delicious desserts on earth. They're nostalgic to me because I remember having them as treats after sports games or at potluck dinners and whoever's mom made them was basically the coolest.

They're moist and sweet with coconut, toffee and chocolate and are soooo damn addicting.....

And then we added pumpkin.

And then I cried tears of joy.

And then came heartburn.

Oh my god so gooey and perfect....
(Don't let the heartburn deter you from making these....)

          The addition of pumpkin is perfect for the season, of course. It adds a new element to the traditional bar, and I guess we can pretend that it makes them healthier to eat. A little butter never hurt anyone, right?! Trust me it's worth every. single. calorie.

          Also, they're easy to make gluten free! I used my favorite gluten free ginger snaps (well the only ones I've ever had) as the crust, which I've used before in Carrot Cake Cheesecake Bites.

       What's nice about these seven layer bars is that they're pretty flexible. You can use whatever you'd like for the crust, from graham crackers to wafers to ginger snaps, and then top it with whatever type of chocolate chip, candy or nut that you want. I also like to go heavy on the coconut, but that's just me! Just choose ingredients that you think pair well with pumpkin :)

       This recipe is also a blessing in disguise because it only uses 1/4 cup of pumpkin puree, leaving me with the majority of a can leftover. I guess this means you can expect another pumpkin recipe coming up real soon...... (Which probably would have happened regardless)

       Make sure to let them cool completely before cutting. I know it's hard because I broke that rule myself, but letting them set makes a difference and you're suppose to eat them cool or room temp. If you eat them warm they are pretty gooey - but then again, I'm not sure gooey is necessarily a bad thing ;)






Pumpkin Seven Layer Bars
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups crushed graham crackers (or ginger snaps, etc - gluten free if necessary)
6 tbsp melted butter
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts
1/3 cup toffee bits
3/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/3 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 tsp cinnamon
dash nutmeg
1 cup shredded coconut

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350
Mix together crushed graham crackers with melted butter and press into bottom of 9x9 pan.
Layer chocolate chips, toffee and nuts over crust.
Mix together sweetened condensed milk, pumpkin, cinnamon and nutmeg and pour over top.
Top with shredded coconut.
Bake 25-30 minutes or until edges are lightly browned.
Let cool before cutting.








Recipe adapted from www.alattefood.com

Honey Soy Srircha Chicken Wings

        I work at a bar called The Roost that specializes in wings, so I am constantly serving them to people, yet I've never made them on my own. I decided it was about time to try, because it is Sunday and what's a more perfect game day snack than wings?! That's right..... nothing.

      They're sticky and messy and delicious and that is exactly what I want while watching a good football game. They're baked until crispy and tossed in a sweet, salty and mildly spicy sauce that everyone's sure to love.

      I was tied between trying two different recipes - Asian sticky wings or Honey Srircha wings - so I asked my boyfriend which he'd rather have, and of course he recommended mixing the two together. It was a very good choice, indeed.

        Patting the skin dry and brushing it with the oil and butter allows it to crisp up really nicely (DO NOT skip that step!), so you won't miss the deep fryer. In my opinion they're just as good, and they're much healthier!

         I'm thinking that I will be serving up wings at home during Sunday football quite a bit this year, so you can expect some new and creative recipes!


They were gone all too soon.....

Honey Soy Srircha Chicken Wings
Ingredients:
12-15 chicken wings
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp melted butter
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup reduced sodium soy sauce or tamari
1 1/4 cup water
1/3 cup honey
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 tsp srircha or to taste

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 and line rimmed baking sheet with foil and grease.
Pat chicken wings dry.
Mix together oil, butter, garlic powder and salt, and brush wings liberally on all sides.
Cook in preheated oven 40-50 minutes or until skin is crispy.
While chicken is cooking, combine soy sauce, water and honey in saucepan over medium to medium-high and simmer 20-30 minutes to reduce, til it just coats the back of a wooden spoon. Stir in butter, lemon juice and srircha. Adjust srircha amounts to taste.
Toss wings to coat, and serve with remaining sauce drizzled on top.

Classic Steak Rub

     I've learned a lot about cooking and food this summer. One consistent lesson, which I have found to be very important, is about salt. People worry about over doing it and having their food taste too salty. In many cases that can happen, if you way over do it, but a liberal amount of salt to a steak rub really brings out the good flavor and it's extremely important.

    Here's the deal though - Use a coarse salt when salting meat. Iodized/table salt is much finer and it dissolves much faster, making it absorb more into the meat and increases your chances of over salting. Also it's good to note that 1 tsp of table salt is actually much more than 1 tsp of kosher salt. (So be aware of that based on what your recipe calls for!) Plus table salt doesn't have as pure of a salt flavor as sea salt or kosher salt, and can be more harsh or bitter. Coarser grains of salt are the way to go!!

  Also, in terms of worrying about over salting, think of the thickness of a steak. It's usually about an inch and a half thick, so if you liberally season the outsides (to an extent) it will not ruin the flavor of the steak because each bite is still mostly composed of the meat from the inside.

   Lastly- freshly cracked black pepper is best for the steak. It's clear that it brings on much better flavor.

So, this post is really about this simple steak rub that is absolutely delicious. If you have a decent spice cabinet, it's likely that you will already have all of these on hand. This wasn't an expensive cut of steak, but broiling it (our grill had a broken piece) with this rub made it insanely good.

     I like to rub the steak and let it sit to get to room temperature for about 20 minutes, then before broiling or grilling drizzle it lightly with some oil. God, was this steak good....

    Cooked to my liking! Tender, juicy and full of flavor.


-    On a side note, I made fish tacos last night - well the plan was fish tacos until the taco shells were stale so I actually made a fish taco salad - and used Stonewall Kitchen Habanero Mango Aioli and it was outstanding. So good! That stuff is absolutely delicious. Good on fish or fries or sandwiches, you name it! I just generously seasoned a haddock filet and baked it, then served it over some romaine lettuce, avocado, chopped cherry tomatoes, red onion, pepperoncini peppers, peach salsa and the Habanero Mango Ailoi, all topped with some crushed tortilla chips. I wish I took a picture to blog about it because it was the perfect dish! Maybe that gives me an excuse to make it again :)

But seriously get some of the aioli...(and speaking of steak it would be a great twist to a philly cheesesteak sandwich!)





Classic Steak Rub
Ingredients:
4 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp paprika
1 1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
3/4 tsp onion powder
3/4 tsp garlic powder
3/4 tsp coriander
3/4 tsp oregano
cayenne to taste (optional)

Directions:
Mix ingredients together.
Season steak generously and let sit to get to room temperature, 20-30 minutes.
Drizzle lightly with olive oil before grilling or broiling