Dinners for Friends

At my work when someone falls ill or needs a little help we all sign up and chip in to create meals for the family. I signed up and made a simple but elegant and healthy meals for two different people at work, one for a person that was in the hospital for a surgery and one for a new mom! Basically I buy the tin foil packing trays, create the meal and then give them print outs not only on how to make the meal itself but also how to reheat. The technique that I tell them to use is called "flashing" it is something that caterer's do to quickly reheat food without overcooking and drying it out. Basically you set your oven to 450 or 475 and then reheat whatever you want (I have done chicken and veggies this way) for 2-10 minutes. This is especially great for meats, I hate chicken reheated in the microwave for example. So to begin for this meal I get the chicken marinating and then I make a big batch of rice, and usually since I am making this for someone else I go ahead and make it for my family too so the rice is for two dinners.
Brown Jasmine Rice
2 cups uncooked rice
4 cups water
1. In a strainer with small holes, wash the rice. Add to a pot (or rice cooker if you have one) I just use a pot on the stove. Add water and a pinch of salt.
2. Heat till boiling, cover and reduce heat to low. Let cook for 20-25 min until done.

Grilled Asian Chicken Breasts

4 chicken breasts
2 tablespoons soy sauce (low sodium)
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
coarse salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
[1] In a Ziploc bag mix together the soy sauce, honey, orange juice, olive oil, mustard, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper and sesame oil and add the chicken. Seal the bag and turn to coat. Marinade while the rice is cooking. If you can remember to make it in the morning that is even better but I never have time for that, believe it or not you get a lot of flavor for even a 20-30 min. marinade.
[2] Grill the chicken (outside BBQ, or inside grill your choice... I convinced my husband to go outside in the cold and plop it on the grill for me :-) ) for about 20-30 minutes.
[3] Place the cooked rice and chicken breast in the tin trays and affix a nice cooking label on top.
*Since this is a Relish recipe I used their note card recipes from their website and just print them out.

Sesame Green Beans

Prep and cook time: 15 minutes
2 pound green beans & carrot pre-trimmed bag from grocer
2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon ginger, minced
2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted
coarse salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
[1] Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add green beans & carrots and cook, uncovered, until crisp tender, 3 to 4 minutes. Drain and since this will be used tomorrow and flash cooked to reheat immediately dunk it in an ice bath. This helps stop the cooking process and keep their colors bright otherwise you might have some dull/discolored green beans.
[2] In a large bowl, whisk together remaining ingredients until well blended. Add green beans and toss to combine.
[3] Add these to a second tin foil tray and affix a cooking label.

*Both of these tin foil trays can be put directly into the oven and flashed at 450 for about 10 minutes to reheat, you might want to put a few drops of water on the rice to help moisten it up a bit.

This was our flashed/reheated dinner the next night. This time I made white jasmine rice instead of brown, but I thought it was very tasty (I especially LOVED the green beans and on weight watchers they are free so I tried to fill up on those). Chicken flashed is 10x's better than in the microwave!

Grilled Asian Chicken Part Deux

Click here for the original post and marinade recipe.

This is a meal that is one of my husbands favorite, white rice, grilled veggies, and Asian marinaded chicken. I think if my daughter wasn't a little distracted with Dora's birthday show I would have had more of her attention but as it was she ate a few grilled squash and onion and half a chicken breast and some rice which is pretty good. Again this marinade is quick (this one went for about 15 minutes) and it lends itself to great grill marks.

The chicken breasts, I have mentioned before, lately are HUGE! I have just automatically taken to butterflying the breasts (so I start out with two HUGE breasts and end up with Four) which is usually enough for us to have left overs for lunch the following day. How do you portion your chicken? And apart from our or rather "my" little freak out in the kitchen with raw chicken and uncomprehending two year olds, Molly helped me assemble the ingredients and was with me during the preparation.

Turned out great again, I used more orange juice this time and sesame oil it is a very unforgiving marinade. And I just searched through my fridge for whatever veggies I had that would be great on the grill. With our CSA bag we have had a lot of sweet onions and summer squash this summer. And thankfully our propane tank held out to cook the meal, have to get a new tank tomorrow with this heat there is no way I am cooking inside!

This was our dinner on Friday (Saturday was our anniversary and while we didn't have our big anniversary dinner, that is on Tuesday, I didn't want to cook so we went out to Noodles & Co. which is always great). I love burgers on the grill, and again I have a huge amount of green beans from our CSA so they are a constant lately. As are the potatoes, which just keep getting better the more we use our grill pan. If you have one of these, yes you can use it in your house on your stove top but have you thought about taking it out to your grill?



Linked to Mingle Monday (I am a featured blog this week on this one!),  Meet Me Mondays, Making Friends Monday,


And just for fun I am popping in a pic of my Molly from yesterday, or Friday (can't remember which one) when we were trying to beat the heat, swimming pool and water table does the trick!