Recipe Review | Chicken with Herb-Roasted Tomatoes and Pan Sauce

This is an incredibly flavorful and simple chicken dish. It is definitely going into the Jones Family Rotation. I served this dish over creamy polenta. It would also be great with rice, mashed cauliflower or potatoes, or even a bed of sautéed spinach. I hope you try it! 

Chicken with Herb-Roasted Tomatoes and Pan Sauce

(via bon appétit)

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What you need:

1 1/2 pounds cherry tomatoes or other small tomatoes on the vine

6 tablespoons olive oil, divided

2 tablespoons herbes de Provence

1 teaspoon kosher salt plus more

freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 pound skinless, boneless, chicken breasts

1 small shallot, minced

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

3 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley leaves

3 tablespoons fresh tarragon leaves

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What to do:

1. Preheat oven to 450º. 
2. Combine tomatoes, 2 tablespoons oil and hermes de Provence in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper; toss to coat. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large, heavy, ovenproof skillet until the oil shimmers. Carefully add tomatoes to pan (oil may spatter). Transfer skillet to oven and roast, turning once, until tomatoes burst and give up some of their juices, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl and drizzle with Worcestershire sauce. 
3. Meanwhile, season chicken on both sides with 1 teaspoon salt and pepper. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Sear chicken on both sides until golden brown, 6-8 minutes. Transfer pan to the oven and roast chicken until cooked through, 8-10 minutes. Transfer chicken to a cutting board and let rest for at least 5 minutes. 
   
4. Add remaining 1 tablespoons oil to same skillet you used for the chicken; heat over medium heat. Add shallot and cook, stirring often, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Deglaze pan with vinegar (that just means, add a liquid and scrape the bits of browned "toastiness" off the bottom of the pan); add your tomatoes and their juices and simmer until sauce is just beginning to thicken, about 1 minute. Season sauce to taste with salt and pepper. (My sauce didn't turn out as saucy as the photo in the original recipe and I'm guessing it was because my tomatoes were not as juicy as they could have been. I used cherry tomatoes this time. Next time, I will try vined tomatoes.) 
   
5. Slice chicken; divide among plates (over your accompanying starch?). Spoon tomatoes and sauce over; garnish with herbs. 
    
   
   
   ***Do be careful! If you're like me, and transferring your skillets back and forth from the stovetop to the oven is not a well-practiced drill, remember NOT to grab the handle of the oven-hot skillet at any point.*** I DID remember to use a mitt when I removed the chicken from the oven but when I went to add the tomatoes and finish the sauce, I thoughtlessly placed my hand around the handle and gave myself a pretty decent burn. A good tip is to turn your mitt over onto the metal handle or you can buy one of these.
   Bon appétit!

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Things I Love Thursday // 5.29.13

• Our recent holiday weekend ~ We kicked things off Friday night with a Date Night, always a good time. Then we had a late night rendezvous with one of my best high school friends who happened to be all the way on this side of the country (pictured below)--SO fun to catch up. Saturday was a lazy day of recovering. Sunday we enjoyed our first Charlotte baseball game with friends. And Monday we relaxed poolside with some other friends, followed by an impromptu backyard dinner (which included the best grilled hamburgers from Reid's). 
  
• My spontaneous cooking class ~ My friend Carrie invited me to take the place of another friend who had to cancel last-minute for their Sur la Table Mediterranean-inspired cooking class. We had a great time and made several delicious recipes that I look forward to making for my family very soon and sharing with you here. 
  
• My new grill pan ~ I've been interested in acquiring a new stovetop grill pan (after I accidentally destroyed the last one I had--I don't' even know how I accomplished that feat). After our cooking class, we perused the store with our discount coupons. It turned out that the pan I coveted was on sale already. Yay! Then, when the clerk went to the stock room to find my desired color (matte black), he came back with the larger version for a lesser price. It was their last one and the manager had marked it down for a quick sale. Double yay! It was a delightfully ridiculous price and I've already put it to use tonight on a another fabulous recipe I'll be sharing soon.  
• Discovering a new, delicious, (VERY) affordable chardonnay ~ I couldn't believe my ears when my girlfriend "confessed" the price of the full-bodied, buttery, oak-laced chardonnay she brought to book club this week. Yummy! 
  
• Watching Greg play tennis in the driveway with the girls ~ So sweet and so fun. I love to see him sharing something with them that he has enjoyed throughout his life. His gentle coaching, patience, and enthusiastic encouragement has paid off. Geneva can rally longer than I can (which admittedly, isn't saying much--but still). 
• The way our gardenia has come back this spring ~ Our very kind movers smuggled this plant onto the moving truck in February of 2012. It had never really had a very impressive bloom and then it made the 8-day trek across the country in the snow. Once it arrived here, it was shoved aside and completely ignored neglected until recently. I moved it to a new spot, gave it some plant food, and began watering it regularly. I think it's safe to say that it's feeling happy! I wish you had a scratch-and-sniff monitor… the fragrance is unbelievable. 
  
• Solidifying summer plans ~ Our journey out west is creeping up and we are getting so excited. In addition to spending some time with family and friends in Oregon, the girls have several camps lined up and we have lots of "sleeping-in pool days" scattered throughout the summer months. 
• Enjoying a good book ~ I've actually enjoyed two great books back-to-back in these past few weeks. As you know if you've been reading along, I loved Sue Monk Kidd's, The Invention of Wings. I just finished Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. I found the plot and characters to be original and believable. While the character of Lou became tiresome at some points, overall the story was beautiful. AND… my book club just announced our next book, one of my all-time favorites, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. If you can believe it, I'm the only one of more than a dozen readers in the club who has already read it. I'm so excited for the others to experience the story. 
  
• My little (charitable) saleswomen ~ While we (mostly me) recovered on Saturday from our fantastic night out on Friday, the girls set up and hosted a Snow Cone Stand in front of the house. They sold their deliciously syrupy, coned refreshments for fifty cents a piece. As they planned to donate all of their proceeds to the Carolinas Kids Cancer Research Fund, many of our neighbors and friends generously declined their sticky change. Greg and I matched their earnings and they were able give a surprisingly decent gift. 
  

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Things I Love Thursday // 5.22.14

• Writing up another installment of TILT! ~ It's been so long. I swear, the end of the school year is 10x as busy as the beginning. Cheers to summertime: sleeping in, lazy days at the pool, twilight spontaneous cocktail hours, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera… I really do value this time to reflect on the simple things that make me happy.
• My little people rocking their aviators (and Waterlogue) 
  
• Our new Roomba ~ I had given up on the idea that our kitchen table and chair legs might someday sit upon the dark hardwood floors sans tufts of Richard Parker fur. I cannot express to you the delight I enjoy in seeing these 28 wooden legs stand hair-free--especially when this condition comes as a result of my effort in pressing a button. 
• The sweetest little handprint molds that my friend Sarah sneakily orchestrated with the girls for my Mother's Day ~ Honestly, it's going way too quickly. 
  
• Fearless Geneva ~ I loved receiving a couple shots of G on her field trip from her teacher. She had said in the note that the tigress was really "interacting" with the kids (through the glass). Everyone had instinctively backed up, except Geneva--who moved forward. 
  
• The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd ~ I just finished this book for my book club. I love when historical fiction just gets it right. It was also great to be reminded of some of the amazing historical figures I had been introduced to in one of my first graduate school classes, "Communication and Social Change" which focused on the Suffrage Movement. I will surely revisit Charleston, South Carolina with a new eye on our next trip.
• The magnolias coming in ~ This bud is almost double the size of my fist. I can't wait to see the whole tree in bloom again. 
  
• Lumiere ~ Far and away the BEST meal we've enjoyed in Charlotte, thus far. I talked Greg into the Chef's Tasting Menu with wine pairings and we could not have been more impressed. Our server, Ramsey, pushed the experience over-the-top and we were completely sated. 
• Fresh strawberries from the farmer's market 
  
• Discovering The Gashlycrumb Tinies and ordering a copy of the book for our home ~ Written by Edward Gorey in 1963, it is a morbid, humorous, and sarcastic account of 26 children (each representing a letter of the alphabet) who die in different scenarios. The "story" is told as a poem. The part I've come to love best is that Geneva has memorized the entire book and will recite it on demand. So good. (Or bad?) 
  
• Reaping the rewards of all the prep and hassle of hosting a garage sale over the weekend ~ It is so nice to have finally opened those boxes in the basement (it's been 15 months!), cleared through the girls' closets (and my own), purged so many things that have been collecting dust, and best of all: counting the cash at the end of the day. 
• When I casually comment to Geneva that her pillow-hair looks a little like Medusa and she really embraces it as a compliment 
  
• The puppy-sitting we got to do for our friends ~ While it did confirm that a puppy is not in our immediate future, it was a terrific experience. We loved all the belly rubs, puppy-breath kisses, and enthusiastic tail-wagging. Someday… 
  
• The prospect of catching up over drinks with one of my best high school friends tomorrow night ~ Woot woot! Cheers to keeping in touch!
• The fact that we've been living cabinet and drawer-front free for the past 4 days… because I know it means that our kitchen "facelift" project is underway ~ Yahoo! 
  

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Home Transformation | Front Yard Landscaping

We managed to take on the front-of-house landscaping project back in December. We worked with an amazing landscape designer and everything came out beautifully. Originally, we had plans worked up for all of the beds on the property. As it turned out, executing half the plans fit into our budget so the backyard beds remain enthusiastically overgrown and chaotically unkept (though bursting with blooms and wild southern greenery). We're so glad that we didn't skimp on the details or the scale in order to address all of the beds "a little bit." Instead, we chose to fully undertake half of the project at the time and look forward to completing the plans for the back-of-the-house at another time. It's remarkable how much more the house looks like a home now that we've added all the plantings.

I've gone back through some of our photos to find a couple that show the front beds BEFORE. 

The beds had always been neatly weeded and there was a little greenery planted throughout. I actually didn't notice how bare they looked for the longest time--focusing instead on the interior of the house, like the entryway, living room, and dining room. The most flattering picture of the front yard that's been posted here was in the New Southern Porch blog post from this time last year.

When everything had been planted, it already looked so much better. And yes, the skies really are bright blue here some of the time in December--though our "regional" grass (Zoysia) does go brown and dormant through the winter. In fact, many of the plants were dormant when they went in. The Weeping Japanese Maple had no leaves (out of the frame below--far left) and neither did the European Hornbeams (which you can barely make out in the photo below, flanking the outer columns). 

 While the plants were big and beautiful, the only thing getting ready to bloom in December were the Yuletide Camellias and some brightly colored pansies in the "annual beds" that hug the walkway. However, the Pink Drift Rose bushes had promising new growth and the Big Leaf Hydrangeas boasted many buds, hinting at what was to come.

And finally, it's SPRING!

The hydrangeas are really coming along. We have 5 of the Big Leaf variety at the right side of the front beds. We also have a large Limelight in the bed that lines the driveway (not pictured). I can't wait to see the big-headed flowers they produce.

The Pink Drift Roses are in full bloom right now, bursting with blossoms.

Our Weeping Maple has come in with beautiful red leaves. The Creeping Jenny survived the snow and is beginning to reach its arms out toward the giant boulder that serves to mark the far left edge of the bed.

And most impressive, are the giant Hornbeams that have begun to fill out with an abundance of green leaves.

Oh yeah… our grass is coming back too! Everything is looking green, fresh, and loved. The sweet tea tastes even sweeter now from the front porch rocking chairs--I kid. I've not quite embraced the south to that extent yet. No sweet tea for this girl. I'll stick to Vermont Vixen sipping (recipe at the bottom of the linked post) on the front porch for now.

Cheers!

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Recipe Review | Herbed Greek Chicken Salad

With the weather warming up and the evenings getting busy (soccer, tennis, play dates, etc.), it was time to introduce a new entree salad into our regular dinner mix. This protein-packed Greek chicken salad was everything I hoped it might be: easy, flavorful, healthy, and filling.

Herbed Greek Chicken Salad

{via My Recipes}

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What you need:

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

3/4 teaspoon black pepper, divided

1/2 teaspoon salt, divided

Cooking spray (I used a dash of olive oil instead)

1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into 1-inch cubes

5 teaspoons fresh lemon juice, divided

1 cup plain fat-free yogurt (I used Greek yogurt--Y'know… getting into the spirit of the dish an' all.)

2 teaspoons tahini (sesame-seed paste)

1 teaspoon bottled minced garlic*

8 cups chopper romaine lettuce

1 cup peeled chopped English cucumber

6 pitted kalamata olives, halved (I used about 6 per serving!)

1/4 cup (1 ounce) crumbled feta cheese (Again, went a little heavy here.)

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What to do:

1. Combine oregano, garlic powder, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a bowl. Heat a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray (olive oil). Add chicken and spice mixture; sauté until chicken is done. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon lemon juice; stir. Remove from pan and set aside. 
   
2. Comine remaining 2 teaspoons lemon juice, remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, remaining 1/4 teaspoon pepper, yogurt, tahini, and garlic in a small bowl; stir well. *Because I have a distaste for pre-processed garlic, I used a clove of garlic, run through my garlic press. However, this did leave quite a bite of garlic in the dressing. I might consider using the garlic paste in the refrigerated tube next time… not sure. What do you think?
3. Combine lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, and olives. Place 2 1/2 cups of lettuce mixture on each of 4 plates. (I have a couple raw-tomato haters in my house. I built my salads in each bowl per each diner's preferences.) 
   
4. Top each serving with 1/2 cup chicken mixture and 1 tablespoon cheese.  Drizzle (or plop--it's pretty thick) each serving with 3 tablespoons yogurt mixture. 
   
   

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