Greek Chicken Pasta

This skillet pasta dish is light and delicious. I usually keep quart bags of diced chicken pieces in the freezer so it comes together quickly.

Ingredients

1/2 lb ziti/penne, cooked per package directions in salted water and drained (reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta water)

1 Tbsp each of olive oil and butter
2 cloves minced garlic
2-4 diced pepperonici peppers (more if you like it spicy)
salt and pepper
1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into 1" chunks
1 Tbsp Symeons/Greek seasoning (or 1 tsp each oregano and paprika, plus 1/2 tsp garlic and a pinch of red/hot pepper)
1/4 cup white wine
2 tbsp juice/brine from jar of Kalamata olives in vinegar brine

1/4 to 1/2 cup sliced Kalamata olives (to taste)
1/2 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
Chopped spinach/baby greens to taste
Feta cheese to serve (optional)


Start cooking the pasta first.

Heat oil and butter in a high sided saute pan (preferably one with a lid) over medium low heat. Add garlic and pepperoncini, then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook on low for about a minute until fragrant, stirring to prevent garlic from burning. Add chicken pieces, sprinkling a little more salt on them, along with the Greek seasoning. Turn heat to medium and cook until the bottom of the chicken turns light golden, flip the chicken pieces over and add the wine and olive juice.

Turn heat down to simmer on medium low until the chicken is cooked through, adding more wine if necessary to keep pan from drying out.

Meanwhile, prepare the olives, tomatoes, and greens.

When the chicken is cooked through and the pasta is ready, add pasta and vegetables to the pan with chicken. Gently toss to coat the greens with broth. adding the reserved pasta water if necessary to have enough liquid to coat the greens and pasta. Put the lid on the pan and steam on low for a couple minutes until the greens are wilted to your liking. Sprinkle on a little more salt and pepper to taste before serving, as well as feta cheese if desired.

Distracted Dish © 2013-2017

Spicy Gingerbread Muffins

These muffins are spongy, spicy, not too sweet, and best with coffee or tea. They make a nice breakfast treat or snack.

Dry Ingredients
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt (omit if using salted butter)
pinch ground black pepper
pinch cayenne pepper

Wet Ingredients
1/4 cup butter or coconut oil, melted and cooled to warm
1/2 cup dark molasses (can sub out a couple tbsp for maple syrup if available)
1 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp fresh grated ginger
1/2 cup plain greek yogurt
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk (any milk will work)
1 egg


Heat oven to 350 and grease 12 cup muffin tin.

Sift flour and spices together in a small bowl and whisk to combine.

In a large bowl whisk butter, molasses, vanilla, fresh ginger, yogurt, milk and egg until smooth.

Use a spatula to gently fold flour into the wet ingredients in the large bowl just until combined. It will seem very wet and lumpy at first but will thicken up in a minute or two of gently mixing. Don't over mix, some lumps are fine.

Spoon batter evenly into prepared muffin tin. Bake for 18 - 20 minutes or until a knife inserted into a muffin comes out clean. Remove from muffin tin when cool enough to touch.

Distracted Dish © 2013-2017

Sausage and Pepper Sandwiches

I concocted this recipe based on my recollection of the sausage and peppers served at local Italian festivals. I have played around with it a bit and this is exactly what I was looking for. Add a cup of house red or a can of cheap beer and this is what summer tastes like to me!

Ingredients
1 lb Italian rope sausage (sausages usually come in hot or sweet, I usually go with hot because the spice is half the fun of this sandwich)
Water for boiling
1-2 tbsp olive oil (enough to thinly cover the bottom of your skillet)
2-3 cubanelle peppers (or other thin frying pepper, green peppers are too thick and don't have the right texture)
1-2 Italian long hot peppers (to taste, these peppers can be very spicy, see notes below on choosing and preparing peppers to control the heat*)
salt and pepper
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
Dry Sherry or wine
4 Italian rolls

Bring water to a boil on high in a medium pot. Prick sausage all over with fork and boil in the water for 10 minutes. You should see fat starting to leak out of the holes.

Meanwhile slice peppers into thin strips.

Heat olive oil in a non stick skillet. Using tongs, remove sausage from boiling water to a cutting board. Cut sausage into desired size chunks to fit the rolls. Transfer sausage links to skillet and brown on medium heat for 5-10 minutes, rotating them to brown on all sides.

Once sausages are starting to brown add the peppers, salt, and pepper, stirring to coat in the oil. Cook until peppers soften and sausages are cooked to 160 in the center.

Turn heat down, add garlic and herbs, saute for a minute to just color the garlic, then add sherry/wine to deglace the pan, scraping up any bits stuck to the pan.

Turn the heat back to medium and cook until the liquid cooks off a bit and the sauce is more oily and less watery.

Meanwhile, lightly toast the buns. Serve sausage and peppers in the buns with a generous drizzle of the pan juices.


* When choosing long hot peppers, look for dark, shiny, deeply twisted or wrinkled, striated peppers if you want very hot, otherwise stick to smoother, lighter green, straighter peppers without the twists for less heat.


To remove a lot of the heat when preparing peppers, make sure to cut off and discard the top 1/2" or so to avoid the hottest part, then carefully slice out all white pithy parts and remove all seeds. Leave some pith and seeds behind to keep them hotter.

When cutting these peppers up, avoid touching them as much as possible (you can use a fork to manage them or wear gloves),. If you do touch them wash your hands immediately with lots of soap, rinse thoroughly and DO NOT touch your face or eyes. The pepper oil can really burn.

Berry Pie Crumb Bars

This is an excellent recipe for when you need to use up a bunch of berries, want a special yet portable dessert, or just want juicy pie filling but don't feel like making crust.

I like to use part oat flour in the crumb mixture because it gives the topping a nice chewy texture and slightly rustic flavor, but it's fine without that. I make oat flour by running oatmeal through a kitchen mill, but a blender, spice grinder, or food processor would do the trick. The oat flour doesn't have to be super fine.

I'm guessing you could use more berries because this was nowhere near too juicy. You'd need to proportionally increase the other filling ingredients to compensate for any extra berries but crumbs could remain the same.

Crumbs
2 cups all-purpose flour + 1 cup oat flour (or 3 cups all-purpose flour would work fine)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
dash of coriander (optional, but it tastes good)
2 sticks cold salted butter, cut into chunks
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla

Berry Filling
5 cups fresh blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, cherries, or a mix (I used all blueberries)
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/3 cup white sugar (to taste, use less for sweeter berries and more for tart berries. I used wild blueberries that were a little on the tart side and 1/3 cup sugar was perfect for my not too sweet taste)
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
dash of salt


Preheat oven to 375. Grease 9x13 pan.Whisk flour, sugars, baking powder, spices, and salt in a large bowl. Cut in butter with a pastry blender until coarse crumbs form and butter is well incorporated. Stir in vanilla and egg with a fork until evenly distributed. Dough will be crumbly.

Pat half the dough into the prepared pan, pressing it down a bit to even it out and stick it together, creating a solid bottom crust.

In another bowl, toss berries with lemon juice, then sugar, salt and flour. Gently toss or mix until flour coats all the berries. Pour berries over the bottom crust, sprinkling any excess flour, sugar, or juices from the bowl evenly across the surface.

Sprinkle the remaining crumbs over the top of the berries, spreading them as evenly as you can. If a few berries peek through, that's fine.

Bake for 40-50 minutes or until berries are bubbling and the top is slightly browned.

Allow to cool completely before cutting or the bars will not be set. Keeps very well in the fridge.