Tag Archives: thyme

Chicken and Mushrooms Marsala

Happy day before Thanksgiving!

And while the nation ponders the all-consuming ‘turkey’ issue (fried? roasted? covered? uncovered? brined?), I have something completely different on my mind. Chicken!

This dish (inspired by this blog post–thanks Amy!) incorporates many of my favorite things: mushrooms. Cream. Sweet wines. One-skillet meals.

Would you believe me if I told you that I’ve made it at least 4 times in the past 6 or so weeks? And that I made a sinfully delicious variation that we dubbed ‘Bacon Marsala’? And lemme tell you: for someone who has the food-blogger-like tendency of never making something twice (which, for the record, is a habit I had long before becoming a quasi-food-blogger-person), this is extraordinary.

It’s just so easy to make, uses such basic ingredients–and it’s so, so, so good.

Okay, less raving and more showing!

Ingredients

 (Serves 4)

2 TBS olive oil
1 TBS butter
1 ½ lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 lb sliced cremini mushrooms
3 shallots or 1 red onion
4 cloves garlic
1 ¼ cups Marsala wine
1 cup chicken stock
½ cup heavy cream
1 tsp dried thyme
1 cup frozen peas

Chop the chicken thighs into large chunks, trimming and discarding the fat.

Season and toss the chicken with a generous amount of salt and pepper.

In a large skillet, heat 1 TBS of oil and the TBS of butter over high heat.

When hot, add the chicken, and cook for 6-7 minutes, stirring occasionally, until browned (but not cooked through).

Remove the chicken to a plate.

I have to add here that when I’m in a hurry, nothing gets removed from the skillet. Everything goes into the pan at once, and it still turns out great.

Heat the remaining tablespoon of oil in the same skillet over medium high heat, and add the mushrooms.

Cook the mushrooms until browned, about 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Mince the shallots and garlic as the mushrooms cook. You can use a red onion instead, if you have one handy (I’m very partial to this option). Or a white onion. Or a yellow onion. Whatevuh.

Add the shallots and garlic to the mushrooms, and season with salt and pepper.

Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently.

Add the Marsala wine . . .

. . . and scrape up any brown bits. Simmer over medium high heat for about 8 minutes, until the liquid is reduced to about ½ cup.

Add the chicken stock, thyme . . .

. . . cream, and some more salt and pepper.

Bring to a gentle boil, and cook for about 10 minutes, until the sauce has reduced by half.

Note: I usually ignore the ‘gentle’ part and boil it like crazy, and it hasn’t seemed to harm anything or anyone.

Return the chicken to the skillet . . .

. . . and simmer over medium heat for 4-5 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through.

Add the frozen peas . . .

. . . and cook over medium heat 2-3 minutes, until they are hot.

We’re about done here.

Taste and season with more salt and pepper if needed.

Mmmm! It smells so, so good guys (and I think I’ve officially maxed out my monthly allotment of the word ‘so’ as of this sentence).

Serve over rice or noodles!

The sweet Marsala is simply perfect with the cream and shallots. These leftovers are guaranteed to be in high demand, I can tell you that.

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Split Pea Soup

I think this split pea soup is the very soup about which was written:

Pea porridge hot, pea porridge cold, pea porridge in the pot nine days old.

After an hour on the stove, it gains a thick consistency, like a porridge. And the quantity of soup produced is so large that I definitely understand how it could sit around for 9 days. Ours sat around for at least 6–though in the fridge, mind you. And in a nice airtight container, for those concerned.

In her original recipe, Tracy says you can use bacon or ham, but I’m completely advocating the use of ham. Because the bacon, after simmering for an hour, is bound to get floppy–and who likes floppy bacon? The chunks of ham are totally satisfying and delicious. Troist me. This is a great comforting soup with awesome flavor, and very little prep work.

The ultimate test: the man of the house. He said (and I quote):

“Why don’t we eat things like this all the time?”

Bless his ever-loving soul. I love it when he says that.

And it’s a good thing he loved it, since we ate this soup all week long and it yielded no less than 4 meals for the two of us–plus a little extra for some hungry members of our Bible study.

Ingredients

( Serves 8 )

2 sweet potatoes or yams, or 1/2 butternut squash
1 large onion
2 carrots
2 stalks celery
2-3 cups ham cut into 1″ pieces
8 cups water
2 vegetable bouillon cubes
16 oz dried split peas
1/2 tsp ground thyme
1 TBS dried sage
1 TBS fresh basil
Salt and pepper, to taste

Before we jump in, I must explain that my flash temporarily decided to be broken. I switched out batteries a few times, prodded it, swiveled it around–but it would not work. The lighting in my kitchen is very bad, but I was also very hungry and not willing to waste any more time messing with the flash, so I gritted my teeth and took some very bad pictures. Bad light . . . bad focus . . . bad color balance. Man, I’d really grown dependent on that flash unit for my food photography.

Anyway–less about Mr. Speedlight SB-600 and more about the veggies at hand!

Peel the sweet potatoes or yams, and chop ’em up (along with the carrots for OrangeFest 2011) into smallish cubes.

Dice the onion and celery . . .

. . . and cut the ham into 1” cubes.

Dice the basil and pretend I took a picture.

Thoroughly rinse and clean the split peas.

Combine all the ingredients in a very large pot.

Oooh, a shred of light is coming through the window!

It’s the first decent picture of the lot.

Don’t forget the herbs and spices, along with a generous amount of salt and pepper!

Bring to a boil over medium high heat . . .

. . . and rejoice that your flash suddenly decided to work again!

Once the soup boils, turn the heat down to low, cover the pot, and simmer it for about an hour, stirring a couple times to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom and creating a layer of burnination. Remove the cover of the pot during the final 10-15 minutes of cooking. Taste, and add salt and pepper as needed.

Serve hot!

You can also freeze it within 5 days. Or hope for the best and polish it off on day 6.

A note: the soup looks a little watery here, but after a night in the fridge it was so thick it definitely qualified as ‘porridge.’

It was so good that after eating it all week long, by the time I scooped up the very last spoonfuls from the very last bowl, I was actually disappointed.

I actually started plotting when I could make it again.

True story.

I think you guys will love this one!

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