If there’s ever one recipe that will help create even more recipes, it’s those for roasted vegetables. I absolutely love to fire up the oven and get my produce seasoned and roasted to eat them as-is, puree them into soups or throw them into stews. You can be as creative as you want to be or simply enjoy them straight out of the oven.
Vegetables with similar roasting times to pumpkin are acorn squash and butternut squash, depending on their sizes, of course. (more…)
Ingredients
3 tablespoons olive oil
one whole chicken, cut up
½ cup yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic
½ cup tomato sauce
4 cups water
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
½ teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
2 cups green cabbage, shredded
2 tablespoons dried or fresh flat leaf parsley
Sweet Potatoes
Directions
In a large sauté pan or Dutch oven, heat the oil. Add the chicken and brown on one side, about 5-6 minutes. Gently turn and brown on the other side, another few minutes.
Add the onion and garlic and allow to brown with the chicken. Add the tomato sauce. Pour in the water to cover the chicken. Add the salt and pepper. Bring to a boil.
Add the sweet potatoes and cover, lowering heat to a medium-low flame. Cook for 30 minutes. Add the cabbage and cover. Cook for an additional 20 minutes.
Use tongs to remove the chicken to a plate so that it can cool. Once it’s cooled, de-bone each piece, reserving the bones for chicken stock (see recipe below).
Place the boneless meat back into the pot. Add the parsley and allow the meat to warm again.
Serve in soup bowls with a dollop of crème frâiche or simply a slice of rustic bread on the side.
What a difference homemade salsa is from the store-bought counterparts. I recently made this salsa recipe for the first Halal Test Kitchen event where I was able to easily demonstrate the making of this recipe in under a few minutes. Everyone at the event was able to make their own tacos and top with this delicious green salsa they now knew how to make.
These tomatoes from my community garden spot were perfect for this salsa, but traditionally, tomatillos are used instead. It just goes to show how versatile this recipe is–and very helpful when those tomatoes sitting on your vine just won’t ripen at the end of summer, yet it’s too cold to keep them outdoors any longer. More often than not, I make this salsa with tomatillos. They are easily found at Mexican grocers or international markets that cater to an Hispanic customer base, or simply those who love to cook interesting, multicultural cuisine. I like to give mine a bath in cool water to rinse off any dirt and debris before cooking, otherwise all that stuff just stays around them.
I remove the husks as well and give another thorough rinse. The tomatillos may feel a bit sticky, which is normal. Don’t try to do anything about that- just proceed and the stickiness goes away in the cooking process.
This is a cooked salsa so you’ll need to plan accordingly if you’re making it for a party or to go with a particular recipe. It really doesn’t take that long to make, but you still need to allow for the cooking-and cooling off- of the tomatillos plus the chili pepper or jalapeño and garlic that is boiled with it.
Approximately 15 minutes of cooking and an additional 10 for cooling down after straining the cooked produce. Strain it gently because the tomatillos become so soft that you can lose some valuable contents in this process.
Because I throw in the garlic with the skin on, you can peel after the cooking and cooling process. It’s much easier than trying to fight it beforehand.
Once everything has cooled, you can add salt and cilantro to a food processor with the cooked ingredients and give it a whirl.
It doesn’t take long and the mixture is slightly gelatinous, which is normal.
That helps the tortilla chips to cling to the salsa, anyway…
And it makes it easier to spoon onto tacos, too…
This was my friend and neighbor’s reaction when she first tried it- so I asked if I could quote her, just for fun…
“The salsa was great. While there are a few brands of salsa out there that can be eaten with a spoon/fork like an Arabic style tomato salad, this one is definitely the kind that goes with nacho chips! Tasting it alone with my tongue was average good; Eating it with the chips makes it perfect! The salsa compliments the chips, and the chips make the flavor of the salsa stand out! It totally serves the purpose of a salsa and it certainly fits the original definition of sauce!”