Shredded Chicken and Black Beans

This is the good stuff. I make it all the time. Super cheap, super easy and super fun.

Here is what you need:

1 lb dried black beans, prepared according to the directions on the package
1 32 oz can diced tomatoes
2 big chicken breasts
1 green pepper
2 jalapenos
1 cup frozen corn
1 bunch cilantro
1 onion
butter to fry in
salt, pepper

The first step is browning the chicken. This gives you flavor and flavor is fun. Melt the butter over medium high heat in a big skillet and then brown the chicken for about four or five minutes on both sides. You do not need to cook it through.

Turn down to medium heat and add the can of tomatoes and then the onions, green pepper and jalapeno all chopped. Bring this to a simmer and cook covered for about twenty to thirty minutes or so, you want the chicken to be quite well cooked.

It's done when you can relatively easily break the chicken up w/ a spatula:

At this point, I generally let it cool, uncovered for about twenty minutes. It just makes it easier to shred. Though if you want, you can go ahead and shred it w/ forks right away.

I don't much worry if it's perfectly shredded just get it into nice bite-size pieces. Nobody is going to complain. Once you're at this point, you can serve this stuff over rice and it's great but I prefer the more protein-centric rout and mix it up w/ a package worth of cooked dried black beans. I also add a handful of frozen corn and a bunch of chopped cilantro.

At this point you'll want to put it over medium heat to bring it back up to serving temperature. Season w/ salt and pepper and you're good to go. I just plop this unceremoniously into bowls and eat it up.It's not fancy, it's fun!

Chicken Tacos with Green Salsa

TFC Toledo has become TFC Tokyo. It's almost the same except "led" has become "ky." Anyways, I made these tacos right before leaving Toledo. They are very limey because I love limes, and I knew I wouldn't be able to get them as easily in Tokyo. Plus Japanese tacos are hard to find, and even then they taste like they are made with extra sugary ketchup. This recipe fed 3 people.

Chicken Taco Filling

Ingredients:
2 Large chicken breasts
1 TBSP Lime Juice
1/4 Cup chicken stock
1 Lime
Jalapeno
Couple Cloves of Garlic
1 Small Onion
1 tsp Coriander
1 TBSP Cumin
A little black pepper
Cilantro
Olive Oil

What to Do:

Get out your crock pot, or prepare to use a pan on low on your stove.

Put the chicken stock and lime juice into your pot. Sometimes with slow cooking all the flavor gets cooked out of things like lime or lemon juice, but for some reason it made me feel better to put a little juice into the crock pot anyways. For long lasting lime flavor, take a whole lime, poke a few holes in it with a fork, and then put the whole thing in the pot.


Next put in the cumin, coriander, pepper, garlic, onion, and jalepeno. You can actually just leave the garlic and onion whole or in large pieces, and you can put in the spices in the seed or corn format. Once again, slow cooking can make spices lose flavors so it can be better to leave everything whole. I just strain everything out later on.

Put in the chicken and turn your crock pot on. On high it takes about an hour and a half to cook, low would probably take closer to 3 hours.

The meat should be pretty tender when it's done cooking, and you should be able to shred it a bit with forks. If you used whole spices, take the chicken out of the cooking liquid before shredding it. Then strain the cooking liquid.

Next take your shredded chicken and the strained cooking juice and put it back in your crock pot on high. Throw on some oregano and olive oil. You can taste everything, and adjust the seasonings as you wish. If you like spicy things, you might want to add some cayenne pepper or chili powder. If you do this part in a crock pot, you don't need to put the lid back on. I actually did this part on low on the stove, but that was because I still had seeds and stuff stuck in my crock pot. The main purpose of this is just kind of heating things back up again after shredding everything, and to get the tasty cooking liquid back on the chicken.



When everything is nice and hot, sprinkle in some fresh cilantro. Then serve in anyways you enjoy eating tacos. Personally, I like these on a flour tortilla with some green salsa.



Green Salsa

Ingredients:
About 10 tomatillos (or more if they are exceptionally small)
1 or 2 jalapenos
Big Handful of fresh cilantro
2 or 3 cloves of garlic
Squeeze or lime juice
salt and pepper

What to Do:

Husk the tomatillos and cut them in half. Heat up a frying pan on high, then throw in the tomatillos and let them get a little black on the outside. I'm not actually sure if this is necessary, but I feel like at some point in my life someone of the Food Network told me this was a good idea, like maybe it brought out the sweetness a little.

Put tomatillos, jalepenos, cilantro, and garlic into a food processor and process away. I make it pretty smooth, but it's up to you how chunky you like it. Then add lime juice, salt, and pepper to your liking. I'm a fan of sour things, but if you're not you could add a little bit of sugar.


Put this on your limey chicken taco and you will be very satisfied! Or stick it in a festive bowl and get out the tortilla chips.

Chicken and Parsnip Fun Pie

What good is a pot pie crust w/o pot pie filling? Well, it is actually a lot of good. It is a potential pot pie. That is better than most people achieve in a lifetime and it's just a bunch of butter and flour mixed up. After all, do you think you could ever be as awesome as this?

There is almost no chance. What we have here is pie full of chicken, parsnips, turnips and other assorted delicacies. While you might never be so delicious yourself, you can always make it. Here's what you need.

6 Chicken thighs w/ bones and skin

1 qt stock

4 parsnips

2 turnips

1 large onion

2 stalks celery

salt pepper

2 bay leaves

4 tbsp corn starch

1 pot pie crust

First things first, season the chicken thighs well w/ salt and pepper and roast at 400F for about forty five minutes. You can use boneless if you want or an equivalent amount of chicken breasts or legs but bone-in thighs are cheap and delicious and you can save the bones to make stock later.

Let those cool for a minute and then they should be cooked enough that you can pretty much just pull the meat off w/ your fingers. I like to leave it in fairly big chunks.

While the breasts are cooking cut up the turnips, celery, parsnips and onion. Throw them in a pot w/ the shredded chicken once done and top up w/ your best stock, probably need about a quart. If you don't have enough, just top up w/  water and don't tell anyone. Throw in a couple bay leaves and bring to a boil. Turn down to a simmer and cook about twenty or thirty minutes, just until the veggies begin to get soft. At this point, you'll want to add cornstarch to thicken. This is one thing it's best to judge case by case. It will change depending on your stock. Sprinkle in a tablespoon at a time, stirring vigorously until the soup takes on the consistency of a light gravy. Be careful not to use too much, it thickens as you cook. Add salt and pepper to taste. You'll end up w/ something like this:

Now for the fun! Dump that sucker into the bottom half of the pot pie crust. Be careful not to splash. I did not pour from as high as it looks in this picture.

Put the top crust on and then bake at four hundred about twenty minutes. Won't take a terribly long time, just cook until the crust is nice and brown like this:

 Serve as carefully as possible but don't worry about it too much, pot pie is supposed to be sloppy.

Got any favorite pot pie fillings? Let TFK know in the comments.

Roasted Red Bell Pepper and Cauliflower Sauce w/ Chicken

You can turn pretty much any vegetable into a sauce by roasting it and throwing it in the food processor. In this case, I used cauliflower and red bell pepper. Makes for a nice light meal.

2 red bell peppers
1/2 head of cauliflower
1 large chicken breast
1 medium onion
1 clove garlic
1 handful cilantro
salt, pepper, Sriraracha hot sauce
~1 cup water or stock

The first thing you want to do is roast the veggies. I put them on a baking sheet in the broiler. Takes about ten minutes to start getting hot and soft w/ a little bit of char like so:

Pull the peels of the peppers (don't worry about getting every last bit) and chuck it all in a food processor:

In the meantime, cut your chicken breast up into bits and brown it in a big frying pan in a little bit of oil. They can be a little undercooked at this point but almost done.

Dump in your food process mix of veggies and you'll end up w/ something like this:

You will probably have to add a cup or so of water or stock to make it a little more liquid. Bring to a boil, turn it down and simmer for about five minutes, season w/ salt and pepper to taste then throw in a handful of cilantro at the end. I like to add a couple teaspoons of Sriracha hot sauce to this. It adds some heat, a touch of sweetness and some garlic. Serve over rice.

Black Eyed Pea and Chicken Tootin' Soup

Beans are probably the most fantastical food in the universe. Here at the Chicago chapter of TFK, we eat beans nearly daily. Well, at least every other day or a couple times a week. OK, sometimes we don't eat beans at all but that is a mistake. Beans have no fat, are high in protein, taste great and are practically free. While known to many as the musical fruit, they are actually a legume. Black Eyed peas are considered good luck to eat on New Years so I cooked up a special batch over the holiday weekend. This is a thick, fun and hearty soup made based on fresh black eyed peas and chicken. Here's what you need:

2 chicken breasts

2 packages fresh blackeyed peas (or one package dried beans, cooked)

1 large can of whole tomatoes

4 cups stock or something, enough to cover beans

2 bay leafs

1 large onion

salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, vegetable oil

This takes about an hour to prepare and will server six people or so as a main course. 

First thing you do is brown up the chicken breasts. Dark meat will work just as good if you prefer. Do this right in the pot you make the soup in. Cover the bottom w/ a couple tablespoons of vegetable oil, turn the heat on high and have at it. You can use any fat to fry in that you prefer. I don't think the taste ultimately comes through in the end which is why I go w/ a simple vegetable oil. Just get them good and brown, don't worry about cooking through as it will all be recooked a bit later:

If you don't think this step is fun, skip it. It will turn out OK. Browning does really add a lot of flavor though so I recommend it. Either way, cube the chicken and set aside for later. Keep any remain drippings in the pot.

Now for this recipe I used some fresh beans. They come packaged and can normally be found in the produce section of your grocery store:

Two of these guys gives you about as much beans as one package of the dried ones. They cook up really fast compared to dry ones too. Add enough stock to really cover the beans (about four cups):

Your choice of stock here is critical. Homemade stock is so vastly different from packaged broth it is hard to even think of them as the same thing. Using homemade stock gives you a thicker texture and more control over sodium content. It tastes better and is just better in general. Trust me. (I promise to include instruction on making your own stock shortly.) If you have no other option go for vegetable broth from the grocery store, preferably a low sodium one.  The beef and chicken ones just taste like reconstituted ramen noodle packets. Forget that.

From here you wanna bring the mix to a boil over high heat, reduce to a simmer and cook for about ten minutes until maybe just a tiny bit less tender than you like. If you are using dry beans, soak over night before hand drain the liquid, replace w/ stock and you'll have to cook 'em about an hour before they are tender. Cover so the liquid does not evaporate too quickly. If it does, just top off w/ tap water.

Now here is where I break out another special homemade ingredient, a jar of tomatoes hand canned by TFK's Chicago chapter's future mother in law:

This is good stuff but any old canned tomatoes work in a pinch if your future mother in law does not can tomatoes. Open whatever can or jar of tomatoes you have and dump in the soup, along w/ the cubed chicken, a small handful of red pepper flakes, a large chopped onion, a couple bay leaves and a good bit of salt and freshly ground pepper:

Now it's starting to look fine like wine. I should stress that you really don't want to add either salt or tomatoes before the beans are tender as both salt and acidity will prevent your beans from properly absorbing water. I learned this the hard way. The salt and pepper are to taste. Might be a couple teaspoons of each. It is an invaluable tool for fun chefs to learn to salt by taste alone. Try it and if you fail, try again next time. Nobody gets to be a good cook w/o learning to salt food properly and it can't be taught other than by experience.

Let the soup continue simmering until the chicken is cooked through and the onions get tender, maybe ten minutes or so. The final product looks gross when I take a picture of it but is actually delicious:

This is honestly the most compliments I have gotten out a dish in a very long time. It is a perfect warming soup for a cold holiday. Enjoy.

If you have a favorite bean soup recipe or just think this recipe is retarded, let us know about it by commenting.