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Tuesday, June 14, 2016

My Paris Kitchen: Fattoush and Chicken Lady Chicken

I feel pretty accomplished. Not only have I managed to keep this alive for a month:
but I also cooked the two recipes from My Paris Kitchen that were on the docket for June.

Up first, albeit, late, was Fattoush, a delightful, crunchy salad that involves lots of herbs (mint and parsley, and I threw in basil, because I had it), radishes, cucumbers, scallions, sumac, and, most importantly, toasted pita bread. I took a cue from some of the French Fridays crew, skipped a step, and just used pita chips. I make no apology for that. I also added chicken. This was very tasty, and I appreciated that I could chop things throughout the day, as my hands were free, and pull it all together at dinnertime. Matt and I both enjoyed this, and it felt clean and virtuous to eat. Unfortunately, we were both starving again two hours later, and each had a hot dog. Woops. So much for nutritional virtue.
I also made Chicken Lady Chicken, which is meant to be a whole chicken, marinated for 1-2 days in an intriguing mixture of garlic, oil, lemon juice, wine, soy sauce, sriracha, mustard, and honey, browned on the stove, and then baked in the oven.

I had the butcher cut my chicken into pieces, because I knew I wasn't going to have time/the will to removing backbones and cracking breasts. I also only marinated the chicken for about five hours. I'm sure it would have been even better with a longer soak, but it was pretty delicious (and smelled amazing), regardless.
As with the fattoush, I appreciated how low maintenance this recipe was. It was pretty easy to complete, even with the bambino around, and the leftovers made a very tasty chicken salad for the next day's lunch.

Now, if only all the recipes in the book were as conducive to cooking with a newborn...

18 comments:

  1. I'm in AWE!!!! Congrats (on the bambino and the recipe completion!)

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    1. Thank you! He's a sweet little nugget.

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  2. Congratulations on the new additional to the family! I must say that is their favorite pose (my two latest grand kids does the same!). You did well with the two dishes at one go, good job!

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  3. He is adorable!!! so cute, how could you stop holding him enough to cook? Your chicken looks great!

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  4. Congratulations, beautiful new addition. Both of your dishes look great, they were both winners in our house. To your
    comment on my blog, those cannoli chips were purchased at our local Italian bakery. I had not seen them before, but man
    were they good. Not something you should have around too often, I couldn't stop picking on them.

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  5. What a restful and cute shot of the baby. Congratulations. I made the chicken and a modified version of the fattoush. They pair well together as you've shown here. Five hours of marinating might just be the way to go when you're short of time. Perfect adjustment to fit your needs.

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  6. Call yourself Wonder Woman. You definitely have your hands full with your 1-2-3 guys. Your baby is darling (Can Boys be darling? I only know girls.) I love seeing pix on Facebook and did get a giggle or two out of your early "bathroom" disaster. Way to go, Mom. And, that you could pull off June recipes is worthy of 5 gold stars. Because you can even throw meals on the table everyday, add another star or two. Your Life is full and busy and I am so happy you continue to cook with us.

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    1. Sure, boys can be darling. I think. 😀

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  7. CONGRATS!!! So, when Betsy and I were having dinner last week, we talked about people we'd met and then moved on to people who had joined CtBF from FFwD and I mentioned how you hadn't posted in a while. I was wondering if you'd given up due to that run of bad experiences you'd had a few months ago. Well, now I completely understand! And, dang: good on you for cooking with your newborn. I think I made my husband cook for at least 6 weeks. :) Oh and he is adorable (I always love the "I surrender" pose)!!

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    1. Yeah, I'm still here! I have a few recipes to make up, but it's a manageable amount. :-) I WISH I could make my husband cook for 6 weeks! He doesn't get home from work until close to my 6year old's bedtime, so dinner's on me. So far, I've managed to find recipes I can set up or cook early in the day.

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  8. Congratulations! What an adorable little fellow he is. I'm so impressed that you managed both these recipes with a new baby. I was thinking the chicken would likely work just as well for pieces of chicken - I'm glad to hear it does. I think it would make a fantastic buffet dish, scaled up, with something like chicken thighs.

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  9. Congratulations on your new arrival! So cute!!! You should get a medal for making both of this month's recipes on top of that. I'm finding the recipes in this book to be relatively easy and delicious.

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  10. Congratulations on your little baby! He is adorable! Thumbs up that you can still find time to make this delicious chicken dinner!

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  11. He's adorable! Congratulations! You are very impressive to be cooking and posting! Glad you enjoyed!

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