Filed under “so absurdly easy to prepare it should be criminal,” this totally kickass recipe for chicken will provide you with a low fat meal with explosive, groin-grabbingly good flavor – and a sauce you can put on just about any meat.

Ingredients

  • 1 tbsp. butter or oil of choice
  • 1 large onion
  • 2 chicken breasts, halved
  • 1 cup chicken broth
  • 1/4 cup (or less, to taste) honey
  • 2 tbsp. orange juice concentrate
  • 1 tbsp. chipotle chiles in adobo sauce (La CosteƱa, comes in cans)
  • 1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes (optional for heat factor)
  • 2 tsp. corn starch
  • White rice (or corn and beans)

Preparation

  1. Chop your onion and saute in butter or oil until golden brown and caramelized. Set aside.
  2. Cook chicken until golden, while the chicken is cooking combine all remaining ingredients in a small bowl and add to the chicken, stirring constantly until the mixture is thick (a few minutes). Stir in the onions.
  3. Serve over rice or corn with beans!
Stir fry rules. It’s fast, pretty easy to pull off with a tiny amount of practice, and given the right sauce/marinade is some of the most flavorful stuff around. This particular stir fry is a “dry” stir fry in that it doesn’t have an actual sauce – the flavor comes primarily from tossing the meat in a spice medley prior to cooking, which imparts into the veggies as you toss them while cooking. In fact, if you don’t care about the vegetable portion of the dish itself you can just cook the chicken by itself and go to town. Very curry-esque and D-ricious. Additionally, the veggies I have listed in the recipe are all totally optional; most stir fry standbys like water chestnut, broccoli and white onions can be substituted, it’s entirely up to your taste. I went this route with the recipe due to the crunch factor (except mushrooms) of the ingredients.

Ingredients

  • 1 lb. boneless chicken breasts
  • 1 bunch green onion
  • 4 celery stalks
  • 1 red pepper, 1 green pepper
  • 6 oz snap peas
  • (optional – portabello mushrooms, 1 jalapeno)
  • 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
  • 1/2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp ground black pepper
  • 2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tbsp ground coriander
  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • 1 tbsp lime juice
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • Sunflower oil or Chile oil for frying

The Chicken

  1. Mix together the turmeric, ginger, salt, pepper, cumin, coriander and sugar in a bowl until well combined.
  2. Cut the chicken into small strips or chunks and toss them in the spice mix until thoroughly coated.
  3. On medium high heat, brown the chicken with 1 tbsp or so your oil of choice for several minutes. Actually, due to the coriander and cumin the chicken will take on a deep yellow color, just so you know. You can eat the chicken with saffron rice at this point and it’s a meal in and of itself. But if you want to continue, set the chicken aside.

The Rest

  1. Cut all veggies to prep them for frying; cut the celery, onion and peppers into strips, slice the mushrooms and de-tail the snap peas.
  2. Add some more oil to the pan from previously cooking the chicken and toss in the veggies. Stir vigorously for several minutes, until the snap peas are just barely tender. The point is to not overcook the veggies into a mush – the snap peas, being the most firm, are the indicator for “readiness.”
  3. Return the chicken to the pan and add the lime juice and honey. Toss all ingredients until the juice and honey are mixed in – about two minutes. Serve PIPING HOT DAMMIT! (with lots of rice)

Enjoy!

For some of the tastiest, southernest, saltiest, giant portionest and most affordable food in the city, you’d probably be best suited to head down to Immeasurable Chicken and Waffle (1700 W. Pratt St., Union Square) post haste. They serve southern cuisine primarily but serve a huge variety of breakfast, lunch and dinner dishes. Here’s some of what you can expect:

Waffle with Wings ($6.00) – Silly me, when this dish was ordered I figured the wings would be your standard buffalo wing size – horribly incorrect. These colossal wings almost look comical sitting on top of a waffle. And if you’re really hungry, you can get an extra wing (BUT ONLY ONE) for an extra dollar.
Catfish aka Whiting aka Lake Trout Nuggest ($6.00) – Went to order catfish nuggets, but they were out so we subbed Whiting instead. Well seasoned, piping hot and a pretty perfect side to split among yer freunds.
The Immeasurable Supreme ($7.00) – ok this thing is ridiculous. 4 slices of seasoned chicken breast atop a waffle, all smothered in their special “Immeasurable gravy.” A dish like this in certain neighborhoods would more than likely cost $10+, but this awesomely delicious meal is ONLY 7 BUCKS.
Catfish n’ Grits ($6.00) – See that white block in the front of the bowl of grits? That’s BUTTER. REAL butter. I’m just a yankee idiot and I don’t know anything about grits, but the person that ate them, who spent many a year in Georgia, claims they were excellent. The catfish was as you’d expect; salty, fried, well seasoned and fishy.
Apple Cinnamon Waffle w Eggs n’ Bacon ($5.00) – Again. Five bucks for this. Plus they provided 4 pieces of bacon, while most places you’re lucky if they give you two. Mmm bacon.

MORE PICTURES!!!! Duly noted the fly trap next to a picture of Hepburn (huh?)

Anyway, those pictures ought to convince you that you should be eating inexpensively and awesomely at Immeasurable whenever you get the chance. Alternatively if you’d like to read a 700 word essay on the place, check this out over at CP.

To be perfectly honest, for as long as I’ve been eating the stuff I really had no idea what made “minestrone” “minestrone.” So like any other annoying person with an iPhone trying to settle an argument at a bar, I consulted Wikipedia on the matter. As it turns out and in summary, minestrone is basically soup consisting of a bunch of stuff thrown into a pot and cooked, typically featuring pasta, beans and vegetables. And so without further ado, I present two variations of minestrone – one with seashell pasta, the other with chicken and artichokes.

Mega Vegetable Minestrone

Ingredients and Instructions (formatted for easy printing)

Nutrition Information

This is a pretty great soup. So much veggie goodness that it’s actually filling, and the seasoning is really well balanced. Not too watery but for my taste, needs more tomato. Pretty much perfect for lunch or on a cold day.

Next up is another variation of minestrone featuring chicken, corn, and artichokes. I was a little weirded out by the combination at first, but this stuff is insanely awesome and borderline addictive. If you try no other recipe I’ve posted thus far, I highly recommend this one.

Artisan Chartichoke Bistro Bonanza in Awesome Broth

Ingredients and Instructions

Nutrition Information

It’s gooooooood soup. That’s pretty much all I can say about it.

Minestrone, chicken style Welp, that’s it for now, I’ve got at least two more soups in store for yall, and then soup month is pretty much over. Now I just have to come up with a food theme for next month….