Tomatillos: Charred Tomatillo, Chicken & Broccoli Salad

I've only ever used tomatillos in salad dressing, but I was excited to give them a chance to star. I adapted a recipe from EatingWell 500-Calorie Dinners Cookbook when I read that tomatillos are great charred. The cookbook had a charred tomato salad, so I made it into a charred tomatillo salad.

4 c broccoli florets
1 lb tomatillos (smaller is better, I'm told)
2 tsp + 3 Tbps extra virgin olive oil, divided
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp chili powder (I omitted this)
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 14-oz cans chunk chicken

1. Bring about 1" of water to boil in a large pot. Add broccoli and cook until crisp-tender, about 5 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water; set aside.

2. Peel off leaves and rinse them. Toss with 2 tsp olive oil. Cook in a heavy pan over high heat until charred. Remove from heat and quarter. Do not clean the pan.

3. Heat remaining oil in the pan over medium. Add salt, pepper, chili powder, lemon juice and balsamic vinegar (watch out for spatter when adding liquid). Stir, scraping up any brown bits.

4. Break up chicken, and combine tomatillos, broccoli, and chicken. Pour pan sauce over. Serve warm or cold.

This was kind of acidic for me. If you like tomatillo flavor, you might like this, but we . . . didn't.

Wayward!

Tomatillos Food Challenge!

So when Jasmine gave the us the cooking challenge, I wanted to pick an item that was fresh and in season for summer, but not something we were all familiar with. Fresh summer produce makes me think of corn on the cob, tomatoes, and watermelon but those were so familiar! I finally settled on

Tomatillos! 

My sisters and mom told me this was a little more challenging for them. I'm pretty familiar with tomatillos but not everyone is, so here is a little about them:

(Image source: Popsugar)

Tomatillos look like a green tomato in a wrapper, that's called the husk. Husks should be removed before cooking or eating. The tomatillo's skin is sometimes a little sticky under the husk so I usually rinse them. Tomatillos can be eaten raw or cooked. Cooking, roasting, or blanching helps to enhance its flavor. Most salsas verde (green salsas) contain tomatillos. When selecting tomatillos at the grocery store, look for them to be about the same size, and green. A yellow hue means they are overripe. Can't wait to see how everyone used tomatillos!

The mama tries Indian food

I am not a fan of curry. To me Indian food = curry, so I wasn't anxious to try it out. I also was feeling less than adventurous, so I decided to just look in the small international food section of Food Lion and see what was there. I was definitely looking for something without curry. I thought I hit on it when I saw this:

I didn't see curry listed in the ingredients and it said "Just add meat or chicken."

I tried it, (with a side of orzo risotto, I might add!)

I would give it a 2 on a 1-10 scale. I just didn't like it. I tried it, but it wasn't to my taste. Ben didn't like it much either, but Kevan did! He ate the leftovers and took the rest of the sauce home, too.

Indian: Butter Chicken

Now, I know what you're thinking, "Uh, Jaime already did butter chicken!" Well, I did a much lazier edition of butter chicken! I didn't have half the spices the recipe called for and the bulk spice section in our small grocery store didn't help either. Luckily, the Asian aisle did!

Ingredients:
1 Chicken Breast
1 Packet Butter Chicken Paste
4 tbsp Butter

2 c Rice optional

 See? Lazy.

   So, really all I did was combine the paste with butter, let that cook for 15 minutes then added the chicken. It was pretty easy so I tried making Naan bread. Well, that didn't turn out very well so we'll just leave that wayward moment out of the post!

   I served the butter chicken on top of rice and served it with bread and salad. It was very spicy for me! Like so spicy I could barely finish. My husband served an LDS mission in Australia and was able to meet a lot of Indian immigrants. He was served a lot of spicy Indian dishes so he was used to both the strong flavor and spices and enjoyed it quite a bit! This is something I think I'd have to make from scratch next time to tone down the spicy level!

Indian: Naan Pizza

So I'm embarrassed to say that I barely participated in this challenge! I had huge plans and I guess the impending birth of my newest baby girl (Oh yeah! Guess what I had another baby girl and she is amazing!) and tons of other stresses, I just fell short! So here are some pins of what I wanted to make. 

My husband and I don't especially care for Indian food so I thought of a way that we could tweak a traditional Indian food to be something a little more our speed. The last time we went to an Indian food restaurant we had some delicious naan bread. I thought I could make naan into pizza and I wasn't the first one with this idea!

Here are some of the recipes I found that look delicious!

Pizza #1
Pizza #2 I love barbecue chicken pizza!
Pizza #3 The chunks of mozzerella look amazing on this one. It reminds me of the prosciutto pizza I posted a while back.

Indian Food: Best Butter Chicken

Best Butter Chicken  Special Type of Food: Indian, chosen by Jordan

My husband loves Indian food. I suspect that was a strong factor in his choosing to go to India on an MBA school trip a few years ago. He has made some amazing Indian food at home so it's a little intimidating for me. I found this recipe for Butter Chicken aka Tikka Masala. It turned out delicious. This was one of the best things I made and opened me up to making more Indian food.



When I told my husband I made the recipe for the challenge he said, "Oh. I thought you made it for me because you know I love Indian food," HA! Well since then I've made a lot more.

Indian: Chicken Korma

I wanted to recreate my Indian restaurant experience at home, so I found a recipe for the dish I had: Chicken Korma. This particular recipe requires a bit of work and ingredient coordination—and salt, since the recipe doesn't call for any—but it's very tasty. (You may want to increase the spices or heat; we omitted all heat from ours.)

I wish you had smell-o-vision right now. The wok has the spices below (1 tsp each) plus an onion, 3 cloves of garlic and 2 bay leaves in oil. (The blender has 1/2 c half and half, 1/2 c plain yogurt and 1/3 c cashews soaked in 1/3 c boiling water.)

Add three chicken breasts, cubed, to the wok and cook for five minutes. Add 1 c chicken broth and 1/4 c tomato sauce. Simmer 15 minutes. Add blender mixture and simmer 15 minutes more.

Add a slurry of 1 tsp cornstarch + 1 tsp water and cook to desired thickness.

Serve over rice!