Category: Main Dish

Jamaican Chicken and Spinach Patties

Based on this recipe from Food.com, we made these tasty chicken patties. We had originally planned on using beef, but somehow forgot to get that when we went shopping (could it have been the kids fighting over who got to push the grocery cart?). The chicken and spinach worked well together and these were quite yummy. Took about an hour and a half start to finish (including the mid-course redirection to using chicken).

PASTRYJamaican Chicken and Spinach Patties

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • 1/2 tsp curry powder
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter
  • 1/3 cup water
  • 1 egg to pain on top of filled patties

FILLING

  • 1 T olive oil
  • 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 1.5 lbs Chicken cut into bite sized pieces
  • 1 T curry powder
  • 1/2 tsp cumin powder
  • 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
  • 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
  • 1/2 cup chicken stock
  • 1 package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, but not drained

Directions:

FILLING:

  1. Heat oil in skillet over medium heat.
  2. Add onions and cook for 10 minutes stirring occasionally until soft and translucent.
  3. Add garlic, cook 2 minutes.
  4. Add chicken, curry, cumin, and pepper.
  5. Cook until cooked through.
  6. Stir in stock, breadcrumbs and spinach.
  7. Simmer until liquid is absorbed. (aprox.10 minutes).

PASTRY:

  1. In a large bowl, combine flour, turmeric, curry, and salt.
  2. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
  3. Stir in water until mixture forms a ball.
  4. Shape dough into a log, and cut into 10 equal sections.
  5. Roll each section into a circle (approximately 1/8 inch thick).
  6. Spoon equal amounts of filling into each pastry circle.
  7. Fold over making a half circle and press edges together. Use a fork to press edges, and brush the top of each patty with beaten egg.
  8. Cook for 25- 30 minutes at 375˚

Swiss Chard and Corn Tart

It’s been a while since we made this, but it was good. I finally downloaded the photos from my camera, so here it is…Swiss chard and corn tart

We used the Olive oil tart crust from Chocolate and Zucchini. Which turned out a but tough…I may not have rolled it thin enough? But was still a nice base for the tart.

The rest of the Swiss chard and corn tart was basically from the original post, except we topped it with Rondelé rather than the goat cheese.

Overall a fairly easy and healthy meal that all enjoyed!

Swiss chard and corn tart

Sausage and Spinach Quiche

This recipe for Sausage and Spinach Quiche looked good. I love making pie crust from scratch though, so I modified it a bit.

For the crust:

  • 1 1/3 cups White Wheat Flour
  • 1/3 cup unsalted butter
  • 1 Flax-paks
  • About 5 Tbs ice water with a bit of lemon juice

Cut the butter and flax into the flour and add enough water to hold everything together. Roll out on a floured surface and place into pie dish.

For the filling:

  • 1 package sausage sliced or removed from casing
  • 1/2 onion chopped
  • 1 clove garlic minced
  • ~10oz bag of fresh spinach
  • ~1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
  • 5 eggs
  • 1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 375. In a skillet, cook the sausage and onion. Add the garlic and spinach and cook until the spinach releases its water.

Place the cheese in the bottom of the pie shell, add the sausage and spinach mixture on top. Lightly beat the eggs with the milk and pour over sausage and spinach.

Cook at 375 for about 45 minutes.

Asparagus tart

After looking at several recipes for this, I more or less followed the Good Housekeeping one. Here’s my adaptation of that:

For the crust:

  • 1 3/4 cup White-wheat flour (the whole-wheat white flour)
  • 2 Flax-paks (~1 oz Flax seed)
  • 1 tsp Baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp Ground pepper
  • 6 Tbs Unsalted butter
  • 4 Tbs Cream
  • about 4 Tbs milk

For the filling:

  • 1 lb asparagus, ends trimmed
  • 3 Eggs
  • 1 1/3 cup Milk
  • 1 tsp mustard
  • 2 tsp Lemon peel, grated–though we didn’t have this

Make the tart crust and bake for 15min at 425F.

Cut the bottoms off the asparagus so that they are about 5in long (1/2 the size of the tart pan). Boil the asparagus for 5 min, drain and rinse in cold water.

 

Arrange the asparagus in a spoke fashion with the tips out. Mix the other ingredients in a bowl and whisk with a fork. Pour over the asparagus and bake the tart on a cookie sheet for 20-25 min.

Sausage and rice stuffed portabellas

The Publix Arpon meal last week sounded really good: Sausage and rice stuffed portabellas. We mostly followed the recipe, but cooked the rice from scratch, actually we had several meals that used brown rice, so I made a big batch on Sunday and put it in the fridge to use during the week. To up the veggie content, I added a pack of frozen spinach, thawed and drained. We also used cheddar cheese in place of the Gorgonzola, I am sure that would have been good, but thee kids aren’t that adventurous…

Whole-Grain Spaghetti with Garlicky Kale and Tomatoes

Wow, what a colorful dish! This one was a great, healthy and fast meal! The recipe is from Real Simple.

We added some sun dried tomato sausage, though the original was veggie. You could also add some white beans or garbanzos instead. I think I would increase the garlic a bit. And the spaghetti was a bit hard to mix everything together…maybe a smaller noodle would work better with this.