Crunchy Tortilla Chicken with Avocado Dip

So the Baking Beauties are no longer baking. Sort of makes the title of this blog a little odd, but I'll get over it. We've moved on to the wonderful cookbook "Bite Me". I don't know how I'm going to stop myself from cooking from this every day. All the recipes look ah-maze-ing.

This week's challenge is "Crunchy Tortilla Chicken with Avocado Dip".

I only used two chicken breasts, since there are only two of us and not six. I only halved the rest of the recipe though, since it's a little easier on my brain.

Marinade tasted good all by itself. It would have made a lovely chip dip.

While that was marinating I made the breading. Since I don't have a proper food processor this is how I crush the tortilla chips.

This is the first breading I've ever done that involved jalapenos and cheddar. I'm pretty sure it won't be the last. However, I did feel a little weird doing this:

When this was looking at me from the window:

I didn't want to improvise too much on the first recipe, so jarred peppers it was. Here are all the ingredients together for the breading:

That previously mentioned lack of a proper food processor? Became a bit of a problem when the instructions for the avocado dip include the words "food processor". I have this little hand held one, and it mostly did the trick. We just had a few giant chunks of avocado within the dip. Which wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

Finished result:

I loved it, and so did Craig. It did have many of his favourite things in it: jalapeños, nacho chips & cheese.

Crunchy Tortilla Chicken with Avocado Dip

adapted from Bite Me

Ingredients

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts

3/4 c sour cream

1 T brown sugar

1 t chili powder

1/2 t chopped fresh thyme

1/2 t kosher salt

1/4 t fresh ground black epper

1/4 t garlic powder

1 c Panko bread crumbs

1 c crushed tortilla chips

1/2 c shredded cheddar cheese

1/4 c jarred jalapeño peppers, dried off and chopped

Avocado Dip

1/2 c mayonnaise

1/2 c sour cream

2 ripe avocados, pitted and peeled

2 T fresh lime juice

1/4 t ground cumin

1/4 t cayenne pepper

1/2 t kosher salt

1/4 t freshly ground black pepper

Directions

1. Pound chicken breasts to even thickness, about 1/2 inch thick

2. In a large cowl combine sour cream, brown sugar, chili powder, thyme, salt, pepper and garlic powder. Add chicken, toss to coat, cover and marinate in the fridge for 2 hours.

3. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with foil and coat with non-stick cooking spray.

4. In a large bowl combine the remaining ingredients (minus the avocado dip). remove chicken from marinade and coat each piece with the breading mixture, pressing down so that it coats each piece well. Place on baking sheet and bake 20-23 minutes.

5. For the avocado dip combine the listed ingredients in a food processor. Blend until smooth, about 30 seconds. Serve alongside chicken.

Serves two, albeit with a lot of extra dip.

Craig Cooks Chicken Wings

Ohhai blog. It's been a while. Sorry 'bout that.
So, several months ago Craig made chicken wings. From what I remember they were amazing. They also involved tossing the wings and transferring pans and things I'd never done whilst making chicken wings. Unfortunately since this was the end of the September that's all I really recall.
Nevertheless here is photographic proof that the wings existed.














Chicken Wings, Six Ways (though we just did one)
Adapted from "How to Cook Everything"
makes: 6-8 servings

1/4 c relatively mild hot sauce
4 T butter, melted
2 T white wine vinegar
1 T minced garlic
3 lbs chicken wings, rinsed and patted dry with paper towels, cut into 3 pieces each
2 T neutral oil

1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees F. Combine the hot sauce, butter, vinegar, and garlic in a small bowl.
2. Put the chicken wings in a large roasting pan, drizzling with the oil, and sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. Toss to coat, then spread the wings out in a single layer. (it's okay if they're a little crowded, they'll shrink.) Put the wings in the oven and roast, undisturbed, until teh bottom of the pan is coated with fat and the wings are beginning to brown, about 30 minutes. Use a spoon to bast the wings with the drippings, then carefully pour them out of the pan. If the wings are still sticking to the bottom of the pan, return them to the oven until they release easily, another 5 to 10 minutes.
3. Turn the wings over, baste again, then carefully pour off any more fat. Return them to the oven until nicely browned, another 20 minutes or so (again, they'll release easily from teh pan when they're ready).
4. Raise the oven temperature to 450 degrees F. Carefully pour off any accumulated fat, then drizzle the wings with the hot sauce mixture and toss to coat. Spread them back out into a single layer and return them to the oven. Cook, tossing once or twice, until crisp all over, about 10 more minutes.

Smoky Chile Lime Variation (which these were)
Omit the hot sauce, vinegar, and garlic and replace the butter and neutral oil with extra virgin olive oil. make the tossing sauce by combining the olive oil with 2 T freshly squeezed lime juice, 2 T chili powder and 1 T smoked paprika. Proceed with teh recipe, using this sauce to coat the wings in Step 3. Garnish with lime wedges and cilantro and serve with Avocado Yogurt Sauce.


Avocado Yogurt Sauce
1 cup yogurt
1 t minced garlic
salt and freshly ground pepper
Freshly squeezed lemon juice if necessary
1/2 avocado

Combine the yogurt with garlic, a pinch of salt and a grinding or two of pepper. Taste and adjust the seasoning, adding some lemon juice if necessary. Stir in 1/2 a ripe avocado or more.

Craig Cooks Thai Coconut Soup with Chicken

Mmmmm... Thai. I love Thai food. It's probably the main thing keeping me in Toronto. You can't get good Thai in the 'burbs.

Once again this recipe required a lot of chopping. I think I need to start picking recipes that will stretch his skills a little past chopping and throwing stuff together in a pan or pot. Although that is about 90% of the cooking I perform as well.

We may have overestimated the size of pot needed.
Craig concentrating on the chopping. More on that later.

I should mention, he hates mushrooms.


Chop, chop, chop, nom, nom, nom.


Chicken waiting to be dumped in the giant pot.

Ginger, lemongrass, chile peppers, all removed from the giant pot after simmering for a while.Craig pouring fish sauce in giant pot.

gSaid Giant pot bubbling away.

Craig pouring lime juice into giant pot.

Mostly I just thought this picture looked gross. Like worms or something.

Oh my god.


I love this soup. It tastes almost exactly like my favourite soup at Lime, but without all that laborious walking across the street to get to that restaurant. That's valuable time that could be spent eating more soup.

Now, about all that chopping:


Turns out practice does not make perfect. This sucker bled for over 24 hours until we resorted to this ridiculousness. Craig promises to be more careful around sharp knives in the future. We'll see when we resume with Craig's adventures in chopping.

Craig Cooks Chicken

This week's menu was Broiled Chicken and Baked Potatoes.
I'm trying to start him off easy and then I'll throw the hard stuff at him. Of course if I want it to be easy I should probably read the recipes first, not just the titles.

Apparently broiled chicken involved things like herb pastes and butchering a whole chicken. Whoops!


I did learn how to do this in high school "foods" class. My vegan teacher showed us how to break the chicken's back, and that's all I really remember.


Work was horrible on Friday (I blame Andy Samberg and Lauren Conrad personally) so unless you see Craig's hands in the picture it's a pretty good bet that they were taken by him.

Ladies and gentlemen the final meal:


Loved the lemony flavour of the chicken!

Also a big thank you to Amanda Laird - after this post, I woke up to an amazing breakfast, courtesy of my newly cooking husband: