Chicken Mole

Kept you on the edge of your seat, didn't I?  Showing you a mole sauce recipe and holding out on your for TWO WHOLE DAYS for the rest of the recipe.  Muahahaha!

Muahahaha!

Fun fact: One of the things I would like to do before I die is do the voice over for a Disney villain.

Getting back to chicken mole (pronounced moe-lay).  This is a recipe I enjoyed making because after having already made the mole sauce the day before, all i needed to do was know how to open packages and containers, and turn on a slow cooker.  That's it.  Of course, this is not a traditional recipe...this is the abridged, Cliff Notes version for people with little time and little resources (e.g. money).  Woot!

Ingredients:
-1 package of chicken tenders, about 1 lb
-a batch of mole sauce
-1 can diced tomatoes

*recipe can be found here

1. Spoon a cup of mole sauce down at the bottom of your slow cooker.

2.  Get some fresh chicken tenders.

Lay your chicken tenders on the sauce in the cooker.  There's one.

And there's some more.

3.  Pour the rest of the sauce on top of the chicken.

4.  Open a can of diced tomatoes and drain it.  This is the kind I used.  I love Red Gold tomatoes, for some reason. 

Pour the tomatoes on top of the chicken + sauce.

There we go!

5.  Now set your slow cooker to low for 5-6 hours.

 When you get home after a long day of teaching, meetings, dissertating, or whatever else, you get to come home to this.

The chicken is SO tender from simmering in that sauce all that long.  Pair it with some lime cilantro rice to give that smokey rich chicken some brightness. 

Have a fantastic weekend!

For a printable version of this recipe, please click here.

How to Make Mole Sauce

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's a mole!

Wait....

Anyways.

I found a neat and easy recipe in one of my cookbooks on how to make my own mole (moe-lay) sauce.  Mole is a Mexican sauce that is often served with enchiladas or chicken.  Not to be confused with mojo sauce. 

I like being able to make sauces like this on my own because then I can control what goes in it (um, a few extra cloves of garlic?) and I can make foods that I only thought I could get at restaurants before.  I love being able to do things by myself.  It's an only-child-for-8-years sort of thing.

Ingredients:
-1 can (15 oz) beans in hot chili sauce
-1/2 cup onion, chopped
-3 cloves garlic
-1 tbsp Worchestershire sauce
-1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
-1 tbsp cocoa powder
-1/4 cup slivered almonds

So here's the kind of chili beans i used. 

Okay, so there's only one step: food process or blend all these ingredients together.  Here are the beans going in the food processor.

This is my darling little food processor that I make all my sauces with.  I love it.  Here go the onions.

And after one round of processing!

And here are the almonds, cocoa powder, and cinnamon.  

And when you're done, you get something like this.

You can use it right away, but this is something you can make ahead and store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

It doesn't look exceptionally pretty (be honest, most sauces don't), but it sure tastes deeelicious.  Next post: Chicken Mole :)  Mmmm!

For a printable version of this recipe, please click here.

Sun-dried Tomato Baked Chicken

This is a recipe that was based on a dish that Drew had eaten over at our friend Ronnie's place.  Apparently, it was a type of breaded and baked chicken that had delicious sun-dried tomatoes on them.  Mmm!  I'm sold.  We didn't have a written-down recipe, but we kinda guestimated the ingredients, and it came out wonderfully!

Ingredients (4 servings):
-4 chicken breasts (about 1.5 lbs total)
-1 1/2 cups buttermilk
-1 tsp salt
-1 1/2 cups italian breadcrumbs
-1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped

1.  Hello, buttermilk.

Ever use it?  It's so thick, kind of like the consistency of Pepto.  Except ever so hearty and flavorful.  You'll want to pour the buttermilk into a bowl, preferably one with a large surface area down at the bottom.

2.  Here are some lovely chicken breasts we got from the grocery store butcher.

Sprinkle salt on the chicken breasts, then dunk each one in the buttermilk.  I'm so used to drinking skim, it always amazes me to see a type of milk that is so thick it actually coats pieces of chicken.  

3.  Next, coat each buttermilk-dunked chicken with breadcrumbs.  Fun!

4.  Lay in a foil-covered casserole pan. 

5.  Preheat oven to 375F.  While your oven's getting nice and toasty, you'll wanna get a hold of your sun-dried tomatoes.  Awww gosh how i love sun-dried tomatoes.  They taste nothing like its non-sun-dried counterpart...they're sweet n' tangy in the most delightful way.

On top of each breaded chicken breast, lay a few hearty pieces of sun-dried tomato.  It's okay to get the juices on the chicken, it'll soak into the breading and make it taste great.

It's also very much okay to eat sun-dried tomatoes.  Just not the ones that are already on the chicken.  That's called salmonella.

Here are all the chicken breasts lying in the pan, ready to become awesome in the oven.  This is also a fun bokeh picture.  Depth of chicken field.

6.  That's it!  Bake them for 25 minutes, or until the inside of the largest piece at its thickest part is white.

And look what we've got here!  Mmm!

We served this alongside some penne with red sauce and baby lima beans lightly sauteed with onions.

Wanna see the inside?  Check this out.

Oh my gosh, sooooo good.  Super moist because of the buttermilk, delicious external texture because of the breadcrumbs, and wonderfully flavorful because of those lovely sun-dried tomatoes.

This was really simple to make, but it made for a really delicious and impressive meal.  Thanks, Ronnie, for inspiring us! :D

For a printable version of this recipe, please click here.

Korean Bouncy Noodles (Jjol Myun)

My mom made this for me for breakfast (yes, that's what i requested...i like eating oddities for breakfast) on the morning before I drove back to school at the end of break.  Jjol Myun is a type of Korean rice noodle that is served cold with a spicy sauce.  The fabulous part about Jjol Myun is that the noodles are chewy or bouncy, like the way bubbles in bubble tea have a little chew to them in the center.  It's just like that.  Paired with the spicy sauce, you're in flavor and texture heaven.

You can buy Jjol Myun in a package like this at the Korean grocery store.

If you're not able to identify the Korean writing, write down this word on a scrap sheet of paper: 쫄면.  Then show the grocer your scrap of paper and say you're looking for that type of Korean noodle.  They will probably chuckle at your funny handwriting, then find you what you're looking for.

The package my mom bought comes with 2 servings of fresh noodles (yes, they're fresh, not dried!) and 2 packets of sauce.

Just boil the noodles, then serve cold with the sauce on top.  My mom also likes to fancify it by adding a poached egg and some mandolined cucumbers.

Oh gosh, i'm homesick already.

Have a good weekend, all!

Spicy Tofu Stirfry

Are you tofu-phobic?  Are you tofu-phobic without ever having tried it?  Tofu is often considered one of those crazy foods that only ridiculous health nuts and vegans eat.  Um, and the entire freaking continent of Asia.  Well, almost.  But you get the idea.  It's not a bizarre food, it's not incredibly complex or unpalatable, and it's one of those things that takes on the flavor of whatever you cook it with.  (An exception to this generalization is the "stinky tofu" that i tried in Hong Kong...oh gosh, that stuff is heavenly!  Charles, if you're reading this, please smuggle some stinky tofu to the states for me)

Anyways.  Let's get to the point: Tofu is not scary, and below is an Intro Level Recipe for a delicious and healthy stir fry that makes it very easy to try tofu for the first time.  Trust.

Ingredients (4 servings):
-1 block of firm tofu*
-1 green pepper
-1 onion
 -generous helping of sriracha hot sauce ("rooster sauce")
-1-2 tbsp soy sauce

Optional stuff:
-1 cup frozen mixed vegetables
-a teeny tiny pinch of nutmeg

*found in the refrigerated Asian food section of the grocery store, possibly near the sprouts


1.  This is what the tofu looks like.  I bought this at Walmart.  No big.

So what you do is cut the seal across the top.

And you drain the water!  You might also pat it dry when you take it out, but that's not necessary.

2.  Set your health brick onto a cutting board.

And cut it into cubes.  Mine are like 1" cubes. 

3.  Chop onions!

And the green peppers.  You can throw them in a bowl with the cubed tofu because those two ingredients will enter the pan together.

4.  In large saute pan, saute onions in a little vegetable oil over medium heat until they're translucent.

5.  Add green pepper and tofu cubes.  Crank up the heat to high!

6.  After a few minutes, all the tofu pieces should have gotten slightly softer and warm.  You can throw in the frozen veggies at this point. 

Now, get ready for the condiment duo:

Get this: in this month's issue of Bon Appetit magazine, one of the featured items was this very sriracha sauce.  Professional chefs use it to flavor all kinds of things.  Who knew?  I was happy i actually owned something that was featured in such an illustrious mag.

Okay, so now add the sriracha hot sauce, according to this table:

• 2 tbsp = weakling
• 3 tbsp = decent spicy stamina
• 4+ tbsp = yes! 
  

Give it a good splash with the soy sauce too.

7.  Okay, this might be a little weird, but take just the tiniest pinch of nutmeg and sprinkle it into the pan.  Something about the depth of nutmeg helps bring out the flavors more. 

Now you're ready to remove it from heat.  Mmm.

Look at that!

What a fabulous dish!  So healthy--tofu is packed full of protein, which keeps you full like you ate a steak.  You know?
 

This is a very easy meal that came together in about 15 minutes, and it's a hearty meal that can feed a family of four.  Or four good meals for a grad student living alone.  Math is cool. 

Just serve this baby over a bed of hot rice, and you have everything you need (protein, veggies, and carbs) all in one dish.  That's the way to do it, folks.  See, the tofu doesn't look so scary anymore, does it? 

Try this super easy recipe today!

For a printable version of this recipe, please click here.