One Piece at a Time

Quilt Lady Cooking: Turkey Cous Cous Salad

Continuing my mission of cooking as little as possible during the hot months of summer, I bring you the latest addition of Quilt Lady Cooking. This Cous Cous salad is a mainstay at our house during the summer. The great part about it is that the only thing to cook is the cous cous which takes about 5 minutes. It’s also low calories as well…just in case you were wondering…or had been having a “little” too much ice cream.

Here we go,

Ingredients:

2 cups chicken broth

1 cup plain cous cous

1 cup red seedless grapes, cut in half

1/3 cup currants

1 small red onion chopped

10 dates, pitted and chopped

3 Tbsp parsley

¼ cup pine nuts (these are REALLY, REALLY expensive this year so omit if needed)

3 Tbsp orange juice

2 Tbsp Balsamic vinegar

1 Tbsp Olive oil

1 tsp honey Dijon mustard

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp ground cumin

½ lb. smoked turkey, cut into ½” cubes

Salad greens

Directions:

Bring chicken broth to a boil, remove from heat and stir in cous cous. Cover and allow to cool.

Combine dates, grapes, currants, onion, turkey, cous cous and pine nuts in a bowl.

Whisk together orange juice, vinegar, olive oil, mustard, salt and ground cumin.

Pour over cous cous mix.

Sprinkle with parsley and serve with salad greens.

For a printable version of this recipe click  here. Enjoy!

Quilt Lady Cooking: Chicken and Wild Rice Salad with Mango Dressing

I thought I was out of ideas for Quilt Lady Cooking since it is now summer and over 100˚F here but then I had an idea. How about minimal cooking. THAT would leave plenty of time for quilting (and blog writing as the case may be). What better way to not cook than to visit your local grocery store and pick up a rotisserie chicken. I have several recipes that involve these chickens so here is our new favorite around here, Chicken and Wild Rice Salad with Mango dressing. It is so easy, just pick up a chicken, some veggies, make a little rice, let it all cool and…well…YUM.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

One rotisserie Chicken cooled

2 6 oz. boxes long grain and wild rice mix (I like Near East or Uncle Ben’s brand) prepared according to directions and cool

1 red or yellow pepper, sliced

4 green onions

4 cups of salad greens

1 cup mango chutney (I like Pataks  Major Gray brand)

2 Tbsp cider vinegar

2 Tbsp canola oil

1 cup frozen peas, thawed

Directions:

Remove all the meat from the chicken and chop coarsely

Mix rice, chicken, peppers, peas and onions.

To make the dressing: place the chutney, canola oil and vinegar in a blender or food processor and puree.

To serve, place a generous helping of salad greens on a plate, top with a scoop of the chicken and rice mixture and drizzle with the dressing

To download a printable version of this recipe just click  here.

Quilt Lady Cooking Summer Style

I thought I was going to have to give up the Quilt Lady cooking for a bit due to summer but I have found an IDEAL Quilt Lady recipe for when it’s hot. Instead of sticking some nice casserole in the oven while you sew this one uses a slow cooker so you can sew for hours and smell your dinner cooking while you do. I know it is too hot where some of you live to run the slow cooker indoors so my idea is to get an extension cord and run you slow cooker outside instead. Of course then your neighbors might show up for dinner when they smell this.

I don’t even need "how to" pictures because it’s that easy. Plus I didn’t even think until I was eating this that it would make a great Quilt Lady recipe.

ALL you have to do is buy a pork tenderloin and a jar of Pace Salsa Verde. Place the tenderloin in a slow cooker with the entire bottle of sauce and go away until it’s done. When it’s done warm up a few corn tortillas and garnish as desired. VERY YUMMY.

I’ve added a little grated cheese and some salsa to my tacos and the salsa recipe is on the download.

Download  here.

Quilt Lady Cooking: Mexican Lasagna

Welcome to my next installment of Quilt Lady Cooking. I figured that I’d better get this recipe out before summer hits in full force and no one wants to turn on their oven. I found this recipe on Pioneer Woman and I’ve scaled it down to normal family size. If you have a huge crowd to feed just double everything and use a REALLY big pan.

There is a printable version of this recipe at the end so you don’t have to take notes or anything.

Here are the ingredients

The first step is to cook 2 cups of rice (I use basmati) in 4 cups of chicken broth (I just use the whole carton)

While this is cooking sauté your onions in a couple of tablespoons of butter.

Add the chopped tomato

Then add 1 ½ Tbsp of chili powder and 1 tsp of ground cumin

When this is done add it to the cooked rice

Then stir in a can of black beans and set aside

The next step is to brown the ground beef and add 1 ½ Tbsp of chili powder and ¾ tsp of cumin to that as well

To make your tortillas a little more pan friendly chop them up in quarters

Now to the layers

First pour ½ your jar of salsa verde into the bottom of a 9”x11” pan

Next add a layer of tortillas

Next add ½ the rice mixture

Next add ½ the cheese

Another layer of tortillas

The whole can of enchilada sauce

All the meat

The whole (drained) can of corn

The rest of the rice

The rest of the salsa verde

The rest of the cheese

Now pop this in the oven at 375 for about 40 minutes or until the top gets all yummy and browned

Don’t forget to go sew while it cooks.

To make it really special top it off with some cilantro and a dollop of sour cream.

You can print out the recipe here.

This recipe is really great as left-overs. We fight over it around here.

Quilt Lady Cooking: Arroz con Pollo

Welcome to a new part of my blog I’m calling Quiltlady Cooking. It’s mostly for those of us who like to cook but don’t LOVE it. My idea of the perfect type of cooking is the kind where you can through a bunch of ingredients together go away and quilt and come back to a yummy meal. Needless to say I have quite a few of these recipes. You might too and it would be fun to share them.

My first recipe is a modification of a recipe my friend Maurice made for me back in 2003 when I needed surgery. I will never forget the day I opened my front door to find him standing on my porch covered in spices and tomatoes holding this dish. It is my definition of comfort food.

WARNING: for the squeamish among you…there will be pictures of raw chicken…I’m just saying that because raw chicken had a bad effect on me when I was pregnant. Very bad if you must know.

There will be a printable version of the recipe to download so I’m just going to channel Pioneer Woman and show you how to cook it.

First measure your rice into a heat proof bowl and cover with HOT water and let soak.

Next take your chicken breast and cut them in half, they’ll cook faster that way.

Next measure out all the spices and just dump them on the chicken. Make sure to rub the spices all over the chicken.

Next, heat the oil in a large dutch oven and place the chicken pieces in. Brown them lightly on both sides, this usually takes me about 2 minutes per side.

The next step is to puree the purple onion with some garlic, a food processor works well for this but a blender will get the job done.

Then I add my can of diced tomatoes and puree some more.

When the chicken is browned remove it from the pan and set aside.

Drain the rice and add it to the pan you just took the chicken out of. Stir the rice around until it becomes golden.

Now add the pureed tomatoes and onion and stir. Cook until liquid is absorbed, about 2 to 3  minutes.

While this is cooking I chop my cherry tomatoes.

I add these to the rice.

Then I throw in my frozen peas and stir.

Now place the chicken on top of the rice.

Pour in the chicken broth and bring to a boil.

Once it’s boiling put the lid on and stick it in the oven for 45 mintues and GO QUILT.

Well you might want to clean this up first.

 

For a down loadable pdf of the click  here.