If this dish looks vaguely familiar to you it’s because I previously shared a rather similar recipe, for Honey Lemon Chicken, earlier this year. So I hesitated for a moment to post this Chicken and Rice Chile Verde. But, you know, I don’t think you ever can really have too many good one-pot, one-hour chicken and rice recipes…especially when they taste as homey and comforting as these two do.

Things have been a bit sniffly around our house for the past few days (which, as many of you know, happens about every six weeks or so when you live amongst toddlers). Gone are the days when I could call in sick, keep the jammies on all day and catch up on the DVR while I waited out a cold. I’ve got to keep this ship (aka, my household) moving forward. So I power through it, and cook extra-comforting food.

This is definitely one of those dishes that taste even better when you reheat it after a few days. The green chile flavor has had a chance to really seep into the rice and the chicken. The rice becomes almost creamy, like a risotto. It’s not a spicy dish but there is a gentle heat that runs through it. It takes just about an hour start to finish so I actually made it at lunchtime this week, but you can be sure it’s already been added to my weeknight dinner rotation.

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© Cooking On the Side, 2011. | Permalink: http://cookingontheside.com/chicken-and-rice-chile-verde/

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Exhibit #5978b on why I’ve lived in suburbia for too long: I found it more than a little bit exciting that they recently redid our Target. New carts! Fresh groceries! (and the pièce de résistance) In-store Starbucks!

I pushed our cart up and down each aisle of the grocery section (which is a financially dangerous thing to do at Target) just to see what all they have now, hoping to find some potentially interesting on-the-package recipes to share here on this blog. I brought the cart to an abrupt halt when I saw Giada De Laurentiis‘ new line of pasta for Target. Hello, recipes!

Giada’s spaghetti was the first box I picked up and on the back was the recipe for Lemon Spaghetti that I’m sharing today. Spaghetti tossed in a light sauce of lemon, olive oil, parmigiano-reggiano and basil is absolutely as fresh-tasting as it sounds. The flavors really scream spring and summer lunch, but I love lemon so much that I wouldn’t dream of waiting till then to eat this. It is such a quintessential Giada recipe, with the bright flavors and simple ingredients. The whole family loved it!

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© Cooking On the Side, 2011. | Permalink: http://cookingontheside.com/lemon-spaghetti/

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It would happen every single weekend. I’d sit down to sketch out our family’s meals for the week…and drive myself crazy deciding what to make. Didn’t we just have that last week? What’s something good I can make in the slow cooker since I’m out all day Monday? That’s too many chicken dishes in a row, what’s good that’s vegetarian? It was taking almost as long to come up with the menu as it did to shop for the groceries.

I realized that my brain was overloaded with too many options. I was trying to choose from a field of all possible meal ideas in the world for what to make for dinner and was quickly getting overwhelmed. That’s when I realized I needed a shortlist of maybe just 20 or 30 go-to dishes, the ones our family has enjoyed the most. I took ten minutes one morning and brainstormed ideas in categories such as “Poultry”, “Pasta”, “Seafood” and “Slow Cooker”. Oh yes, this was an Excel exercise for sure (remember, I’m Type A). Now I just choose from the list…problem solved.

Of course, I still try out new recipes too. This Japanese Pork Cutlets recipe from the side of a bottle of tonkatsu sauce went straight onto the shortlist under “Pork” once we tried it this week. Anything with a crisp, golden panko crust usually gets my vote. The sweet and tangy katsu sauce is terrific with the savory pork. All I needed were some steamed rice and vegetables to get this new go-to meal on the table in less than 30 minutes.

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© Cooking On the Side, 2011. | Permalink: http://cookingontheside.com/japanese-pork-cutlets-tonkatsu/

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It was about time we switched things up at lunch. On most days, my kids get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a quesadilla for lunch. They like it and I can pull it together and get it onto their Dora the Explorer sectioned plates before a meltdown erupts (that’s mainly my 20-month-old little guy – he doesn’t like to wait).

This Chicken Curry recipe, from a can of coconut milk, has been staring at me from the recipe clipboard I recently installed inside my pantry door. In particular, I was drawn to the words “30 minutes total time” at the top. It was going to be dinner one night this week but then I had a light bulb moment: why not make it for lunch instead? Chicken, vegetables and rice in a flavorful broth…that’s something my kids will definitely eat.

This turned out to be an excellent excuse to break from our PB&J and quesadilla lunch rut. It’s a mild-flavored curry, with gentle warmth but not overwhelming heat (of course, you have control over the spice level). Not only did I actually manage to prepare it in about thirty minutes, but I also was able to photograph it within a timeframe acceptable to him-of-little-patience.

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© Cooking On the Side, 2011. | Permalink: http://cookingontheside.com/chicken-curry/

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We walked into the restaurant for a good friend’s birthday dinner a few years back and right away we noticed there was something odd about this steakhouse. Smoke rising from steaks searing on an open grill was, of course, expected. But as we moved further into the dining room the smell of those steaks actually seemed to be emanating from rather close by…like they were being grilled right there in the dining room. Oh my goodness, by the restaurant patrons themselves!

If you haven’t been to one of those do-it-yourself grill places (there are a few here in San Diego), it can be a fun social experience with a group. Especially with a group of inexperienced grillers. At the time of this party, my husband and I were abysmally bad at grilling. I don’t think we even owned a barbecue at that point. We could execute a decent burger… beyond that was uncharted territory. Suffice it to say, we enjoyed a lot of side dishes at that party!

These days I’m proud to say I’m a confident griller. I fire up the barbecue nearly every weekend in the summer and lately I’ve been able to manage one weeknight grilled meal as well. Today’s Balsamic Marinated Lamb Chops are perfect for a weeknight. It takes just minutes to assemble the marinade, which is a fabulous combination of savory and tangy flavors. Let the lamb bathe in those flavors overnight, then just grill them off in under 15 minutes for dinner. Toss some asparagus in olive oil, salt and lemon pepper and roll them on the grates for a few minutes while the meat is resting and you’ve got a meal!

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© Cooking On the Side, 2011. | Permalink: http://cookingontheside.com/balsamic-marinated-lamb-chops/

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There was a time, not so long ago, when I wouldn’t even have considered trying to make Pad Thai at home. It was out of the question. The ingredients would be way too hard to track down, I was unsure of how to use a wok and just how authentic would my version of Thailand’s national dish really be anyway? It was easier to just sit down at Bangkok Bay and order my stir-fried noodles as prepared by a trained chef.

But wouldn’t it just be fun to try?

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© Cooking On the Side, 2011. | Permalink: http://cookingontheside.com/homemade-pad-thai/

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How many times have you come across a recipe like the one below for Penne with Artichokes on a food label? A tiny 3″ square with no photo or headnotes, significantly truncated to fit on the box?

Recipes like this are kind of mysterious. You have no idea of what the dish looks like or how it tastes and it can be a challenge to decipher the oh-so-brief directions. It was mysterious little on-the-package recipes like these which sparked my interest in starting this blog two years ago. There were so many of them popping up on labels in my pantry, I became very curious to see how they actually came out and hoped to find some hidden gems along the way (which I have).

You guys know that when I say food packages I don’t mean “packaged food”, as in mixes and prepared or processed foods, right? Every once in a while someone will indicate to me that they think Cooking On the Side is about cooking with processed foods and I cringe. Yikes, it’s just the opposite!

Wherever possible, I like to cook from scratch. For this blog, I look for the recipes that appear on basic ingredients – flour, butter, fresh meats and vegetables, pasta, chocolate and so on. I have found a number of fabulous new recipes in the course of this little endeavor – and today’s easy, flavorful tomato and artichoke pasta dish is one of them.

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© Cooking On the Side, 2011. | Permalink: http://cookingontheside.com/penne-with-artichokes-and-how-i-started-this-blog/

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We have what I consider to be a great system in our house. I create the week’s menu, buy the food and cook the meals…my husband does the dishes. It works out most of the time except for my occasional penchant for using nearly every dish in the kitchen to prepare a meal. As I eagerly describe the fabulous roast chicken with sautéed Swiss Chard and homemade rolls I’m planning to make on a Sunday afternoon, all my husband hears is “skillet, knives, cutting board, roasting pan [baked on juices!], bowls, measuring cups, measuring spoons, baking sheet…”

When I find a good one-pot dish it makes both of us happy. I found this Honey Lemon Chicken recipe on a bag of sushi-style rice. The chicken, rice and vegetables all simmer in a braising liquid of honey, lemon, soy sauce and chicken broth in the same pot. Not only did this save me from dirtying too many dishes, it also saved on time – I had dinner on the table in about 45 minutes. Most importantly, the sweet and savory flavors were wonderful. What’s more comforting than chicken and rice?

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© Cooking On the Side, 2011. | Permalink: http://cookingontheside.com/honey-lemon-chicken/

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My mom recently mailed me a pasta press attachment for my stand mixer. I’d secretly been hoping it might fall into my hands at some point after she received it as a giveaway from a Martha Stewart Show taping a while back. She determined after about a year of it sitting in the cabinet that it might receive more use at my house. As usual, she was right.

For my first go with the pasta attachment, I thought I’d try a shape that’s not too easy to make without a contraption like this – macaroni. All I had to do was mix together the dough, push it down through the extruder and out came continuous tubes of pasta that I had to keep active watch over and cut before they got too long. Picture that classic “I Love Lucy” scene where Lucy and Ethel are overwhelmed by the speed of the chocolates coming down the conveyor belt…that was me!

So all didn’t go perfectly…no matter, it at least resembled macaroni so I was happy!

There was a recipe for classic Minestrone Soup inside the recipe booklet that came with the attachment, with lots of fresh vegetables and white beans as well as macaroni. I’m not usually a big vegetable soup person but this one ate almost like a pasta dish – a hearty, flavorful one at that. If I hadn’t made my own pasta, the whole thing would have easily been done in under 30 minutes (even with my super-slow chopping skills!). I adapted the recipe below for store-bought macaroni, but if you ever have the opportunity to extrude your own pasta I promise it’s a fun time!

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© Cooking On the Side, 2010. | Permalink: http://cookingontheside.com/minestrone-soup-and-my-lucy-moment/

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You’ve watched over your steak on the grill in hopes of getting it to your desired doneness. You’ve patiently waited while it rests and redistributes all of its juices. Then finally it’s the moment of truth…time to carve.

I was full of pride (and relief) when I made that first incision into this Sweet & Spicy Grilled Steak. A perfect medium rare! I can’t take all of the credit, I did have a little help from a pretty cool meat thermometer. OXO recently sent me their digital meat thermometer to try out and I ended up really loving the thing. Read on to hear what I liked so much about it and what makes this steak taste so incredible (hint…roasted cumin!).

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© Cooking On the Side, 2010. | Permalink: http://cookingontheside.com/sweet-spicy-grilled-steak-with-tomato-relish/

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