Curried Chicken Salad Wraps

This is a great recipe if you're looking for new ways to use up leftover chicken (or turkey, or pork...any white meat, really). You can whip this together in a few minutes and it makes a delicious light lunch or dinner. Add as many extra veggies as you'd like.

If you don't have any leftover chicken, drained canned chicken will work, or you can broil two skinless, boneless chicken breasts instead.

For the curry, I would recommend Penzey's Sweet Curry Powder. We were introduced to Penzey's spices when a friend gave us the 21-piece American Kitchen gift crate as a wedding present. It was an inspired gift to give to foodies. Every time we use one of the spices or herbs, we have thought about Ahna and John. Delicious memories.

Ingredients

2 cups cooked chicken, cubed
2/3 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup minced white onion
1/3 cup sliced almonds
1/3 cup raisins
1/2 cup fat-free mayonnaise
1/2 cup fat-free plain yogurt
1 1/2 teaspoons sweet curry powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (most of the time we use fresh minced garlic, but we like a more mellow garlic taste in this recipe)
Dash of salt and pepper
12 romaine lettuce leaves, ribs removed
6-12 low fat whole wheat tortillas

Directions

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, stir together the chicken, celery, onions, almonds, and raisins. In a separate bowl, beat together the mayonnaise and yogurt. Stir in the curry powder, garlic, salt and pepper until well blended. Pour the mayo mix into the chicken mixture and stir it well. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Bend a package of flour tortillas back and forth a couple of times so that they unstick from each other. Open the bag and heat the tortillas in a microwave oven for 30 seconds, or until warm and pliable. Alternatively, you can heat the tortillas on a flat ungreased griddle for 1-2 minutes on each side, until they begin to bubble but before they are toasted.

Place two romaine leaves on a tortilla. You can double up the tortillas if they are thin and break easily. Serve 1/4 to 1/3 cup of chicken mixture on each tortilla. Fold over 2" of the bottom edge of the tortilla over the mixture. Wrap the right side over the left. Pick up the wrap and eat from the open side.

Serves 3-4.

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Med-Mex Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

When I was nineteen, I married a Mexican man and moved in with his mother so we could save for a house. Mama Nona tried to teach me how to cook traditional Mexican food, but it was pretty difficult because I didn't know much Spanish, and if she knew any English beyond "hello" and "goodbye", she didn't let on to me.

Mama Nona was not impressed with my cooking skills. One day she had a pot of pinto beans boiling on the stove. Her daughter Graciela shouted up to me. “We’re going out, Angela. Can you watch the beans?”

I came downstairs to look. “Sure, no problem.”

Mama Nona was muttering to herself.

“What did she say?”

“She says you’re going to burn the beans.”

“I’m not going to burn the beans. I got this.”

I was halfway into the HBO premiere of “Saint Elmo’s Fire” when I smelled them burning. I ran downstairs but there was nothing I could do. They were stuck to the bottom of the pot and steaming rancid smoke at me. I dumped them into the trash bag, took it out to the trash bin and started a new batch boiling. I opened all the windows to let the snow-fresh air come in.

Several hours later, when the family came home, the beans were perfectly done. I smiled at Mama Nona while she tasted them. She laughed.

"What?"

“She says, 'I told you that you were going to burn the beans.',” said Graciela.

Last night I was cooking garbanzo beans (chick peas) from scratch so that I could make hummus. To cook most dried beans, you start them the night before by sorting out the bad ones, putting them in a pot of water, adding a couple pinches of baking soda and heating them. Once they reach a boil you turn off the stove and cover them, and let them sit on the burner overnight. The next day you strain and rinse them, cover with water again and let them simmer until they are soft. Doing it this way allows the beans the rehydrate and also eliminates the stuff that makes us gassy.

Well.

I was happily simmering those garbanzos that I'd already spent time with the night before. Unfortunately, Joe and I were also making a new recipe for duck in a pumpkin-seed sauce, and baking some french bread. I forgot about the garbanzos until we smelled the smoke.

And then Mama Nona rolled over in her grave, because her hopeless ex-daughter-in-law still can't cook a pot of beans.

I aired them out on the deck because the smell of burning beans is foul. Then I picked them over, because I still wanted hummus, darn it! So I took out a container of pinto beans that I had managed to cook properly and continued on with the recipe, making a Mediterranean-Mexican hummus fusion.

What I love about this recipe is that it has a much smoother, creamier texture than garbanzos alone, which can be a little mealy and grainy. We also kicked up the heat. Cumin, sesame, chick peas, beans, and peppers are common ingredients around the entire equator, so I say this is a valid food fusion. Let me know what you think of our innovation. Out of mistakes come good things.

Ingredients

1 jalapeno (or more to taste)
1 medium red bell pepper
1/3 cup olive oil
1 medium yellow onion
3 garlic cloves
2 cups cooked garbanzos (chick peas)
2 cups cooked pinto beans
1/3 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 tsp cumin
1 tablespoon sesame oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Place the peppers on a broiling rack and place them under the broiler at high heat. Turn frequently, until the skins are blackened evenly on all sides. Place the peppers in a paper bag and put a plate underneath it to catch the juices. Allow the peppers to steam at least 15 minutes, or wait until they are cool.

Chop the onion. Saute it in 2 tbsp olive oil in a frying pan until soft. Mince the garlic and add it to the frying pan. Add the beans and 1 cup of water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 10 minutes.

Take the peppers out of the bag and remove the blackened skins. Scraping them with a knife is the way Joe likes to do this. Remove the seeds and dice the peppers. Add the peppers and the parsley to the blender.

Stir together the remaining olive oil, cumin, sesame oil, and salt and pepper. Pour into the blender. Process the bean mixture until smooth, scraping down the sides often. Add water as needed if the mixture is too thick; the consistency should be similar to creamy peanut butter. Taste and add salt and pepper as desired.

Serve the hummus in pocket pita bread with lettuce, cucumber, grated carrots, and extra parsley, or use as a veggie dip or sandwich spread.

Makes approximately 5 cups.

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Pretzel Bread (and Rolls!)

My brother-in-law, Jim Calder, is a very methodical man. For years he has been working on making soft pretzels, mall-style. He was having trouble with the twisting part, so he decided to go on a fact-finding mission to the local pretzel shop and see how they did it. Once he saw these indifferent teens flipping the twist into the pretzels, he realized that anything he did would look fine.

Jim came up with a recipe for bread that can also be used to make rolls or buns for burgers, sandwiches, or whatever. In my opinion, this tastes best the day you bake it. By the way, if you'd like some great soup ideas to go along with this bread, just click on the "Soup" link to the right.

Ingredients

2 1/4 tsp dry yeast (1 .25-oz package)
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups warm water (110-115 degrees F)
4 cups all-purpose flour, plus 1/3 cup for kneading
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 cups warm water (110-115 degrees F)
2 tbsp baking soda
2 tbsp butter, melted
2 tbsp coarse sea salt or kosher salt

Directions

Pour warm water into a large mixing bowl. Stir in the brown sugar and salt, then stir in the yeast until dissolved. Allow the mixture to work for 15 minutes. Stir together the flour and baking powder, then stir it into the yeast mixture until well combined.

Sprinkle a kneading surface (a counter, a large cutting board, a table) with flour, and put the dough on the surface. Coat your hands with flour and knead the dough by folding it in half and pressing towards the center, until it is smooth and elastic and has lost some of its stickiness. This should take 5-10 minutes.

Place the dough in a large greased bowl, and turn it over to coat the surface. Cover with a damp towel and let it rise in a warm place for one hour.

Stir the baking soda into the warm water and pour it into a shallow pan. Grease a cookie sheet. Once the dough has risen, turn it out onto the floured kneading surface. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

If you are planning to make pretzel rolls, cut the dough into 6 pieces. Form each piece into a bun shape, then quickly dip it into the baking soda solution and place it on the baking sheet. Do the same with the rest of the pieces.

If you are making pretzel bread, cut the dough into 3 pieces. Roll each segment between your hands until you have made a rope of even thickness about 12-14 inches long. Dip the three pieces into the baking soda solution and lay them side-by-side in the cookie sheet. Pinch one of the ends together, then braid the ropes across to the the other side. Pinch that end together, too.

Bake the buns for 20-30 minutes, the bread for about 40 minutes. They are done when the crust is browned and has a slightly hollow sound when you knock on it. Brush with melted butter, and sprinkle with the coarse salt before serving.

Makes 1 loaf or 6 large pretzel buns.

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Orange-Glazed Asian Chicken (or Ahi Tuna) Wraps

We recently hosted a "roll your own" sushi party, and ended up with a vast amount of little bits of leftovers, including avocados, ahi tuna slices, wasabi mayo, and napa cabbage. I marinated some chicken in honey and orange juice, then threw together these yummy chicken wraps for a quick dinner. Joe preferred to marinate the ahi tuna then sear it rare with more sesame seeds for his wrap.

I'm pretty sure avocado is one of the most luscious foods on earth. At my party, I was talking to a friend who trains for triathlons, and she said she eats eggs and avocados nearly every day. Delicious, right?

Then I started thinking about all the calories and fat content in those foods. I thought, well, there's your problem. If you didn't eat eggs and avocados every day, you wouldn't have to do all that running and swimming and biking. I didn't mention it out loud, though, because no one really likes unsolicited advice.

However, you can add as much avocado as you like to this wrap, since the napa cabbage cancels out the fat content. This is one of the quickest wraps I've made - you can prepare the mayo and glaze anytime, start your meat marinating in the morning, then quickly cook it up and get dinner on the table in 15-20 minutes. This is a fantastic lunch sandwich, too.

Ingredients

For the glaze

2/3 cup orange juice
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp cornstarch

For the wraps

1 tbsp oil

2 chicken breasts, thinly sliced

1/3 cup mayonnaise

2 tsp wasabi paste or powder

8 large flour tortillas

2 avocados, peeled and thinly sliced

2 cups napa cabbage, shredded

1 large carrot, shredded

1 orange, peeled and thinly sliced

2 green onions, chopped

1 tbsp sesame seeds

Instructions

Whisk together the orange glaze ingredients, then pour over the chicken. Allow it to marinate in the refrigerator at least 30 minutes, but ideally several hours. 

Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat, and cook the chicken and glaze until the chicken is just cooked through and the sauce is sticky. Place in a bowl.

Whisk together the wasabi and mayonnaise. Heat the tortillas on each side in a dry griddle. Wrap them in a clean kitchen towel or tortilla keeper to keep them warm.

Assemble the wraps by spreading the wasabi mayo on each tortilla. Place the chicken, avocado, oranges, carrots, cabbage, and green onions down the center of the tortilla.  Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Fold in the bottom corner, then roll up the sides.

Makes 8 large wraps.

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Turkey-Cranberry-Brie Grilled Cheese

Christmas is our second-favorite occasion for a good turkey dinner, and this decadent grilled sandwich oozing with melted brie is just about the best way to finish off the holiday leftovers.

This year we were doing a whirlwind Midwestern family tour, starting in Iowa, then celebrating with the Dueas in Minnesota. We were home for a day and a half and are now packing to spend Christmas with my family in Ohio.

Since everyone else planned something different for holiday meals, I got my turkey fix when Joe roasted a turkey breast and made his light garlic mashed potatoes. Since we'll be on the road all afternoon, I grilled up a few of these sandwiches to keep us company on the drive. Yum!

Ingredients

4 slices Italian bread
2 tbsp butter
4 oz brie
4 oz thinly sliced turkey
1/4 cup cranberry relish

Instructions

Spread the butter on one side of each slice of bread. Slice the brie (you can peel off the white outer covering if you want - Joe likes the way it tastes, but I take it off of my slices). Arrange the brie on the bread and then spread the relish over it. Top with the turkey slices and the other slice of bread.

Grill or toast the sandwiches on a hot skillet until browned and heated through.

Makes 2 sandwiches.

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Gourmet Stuffed Hamburgers

Try this fun recipe the next time you have people over for a burger cookout. Give each guest two hamburger rounds and an array of stuffings like bleu cheese, chopped olives, jalapenos, shredded cheddar, onions...whatever your imagination suggests!  After stuffing the patty, place the second round on top and pinch the edges together.

Clockwise from top right: Cheddar and bacon, Swiss with onions and mushrooms, Olive with feta and roasted red pepper, and Swiss with green olives and pancetta.

The griller is in charge of remembering which burger belongs to which guest; it helps if a little of the stuffing drips out the side. Why not try these on homemade pretzel buns? It takes the burger to new heights of deliciousness.

Ingredients

For each burger

1/4 pound ground beef or turkey
1/4 tsp salt, pepper, and powdered onion
2 tbsp shredded cheese
2 tbsp sliced olives
1 tbsp sauteed mushrooms
1 tbsp sauteed or fresh chopped onions
1 tbsp roasted red pepper strips
1 tbsp cooked bacon, ham, or pancetta, diced
2 tbsp chopped spinach, kale, or basil
2 tsp chopped jalapenos
1 tbsp pizza sauce
2 tbsp chopped pepperoni or sausage

Note: each hamburger will only be able to hold about 3 types of stuffing before it explodes!

Directions

Form each 1/4 pound of ground beef into two patties with a lip around the edge. Sprinkle the stuffings on one half, then put the top patty over it and press down. Pinch the edges together well. Grill over medium heat until the desired level of doneness.

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New Nordic Open-Faced Sandwiches (Smørrebrød, Smørbrød, Smörgås)

From top right: Egg/Radish, Gravlax/Asparagus, and Liverwurst/Watercress Smørrebrød

New Nordic cuisine is hot: Scandinavians have been working for nearly a decade to create a fresh take on their traditional recipes. This includes working with locally-sourced, in-season fruits and vegetables that thrive in the special climate of Nordic countries.

While Chicago is much milder than Norway, I took the spirit of New Nordic cooking to heart when I surprised Joe with a smørbrød (smurd-a-bra) platter for brunch. He had been rehearsing with the worship band all week and then led worship for three Easter services, and when he got home Sunday afternoon, I made a pretty spread of open-faced sandwiches for him.

These traditional sandwiches are usually made with rye or pumpernickel bread spread with butter, pig fat, or mayonnaise. Asparagus, watercress, and radishes looked fresh and tasty at the produce store on Saturday, and are also fairly common to these sandwiches. We used a chewy rye bread, but pumpernickel is also traditional. Taking the latest suggestion from Bon Appetit magazine, we cut the vegetables into a variety of shapes to add visual interest to the plate. The following recipes fed two hungry people.

Egg/Radish smørbrød

Chive and garlic butter (1 tbsp snipped chives in 3 tbsp butter)
2 sliced hardboiled eggs
1 slivered hot radish
1 tbsp chopped celery
1/4 cup sliced cucumber or dill pickle
Dash Sriracha sauce or Sriracha salt for each sandwich

Gravlax/Asparagus smørbrød

3 oz. cured salmon
Horseradish cream cheese with parsley (1 tbsp horseradish in 3 oz cream cheese)
1/4 cup sliced cucumber
1/4 cup shaved raw asparagus
2 tbsp slivered carrots
Dash lemon pepper for each sandwich

Liverwurst/Watercress smørbrød

Dijon mayonnaise (1 tbsp Dijon mustard in 2 tbsp mayonnaise)
3 oz. liver pate
1 slivered hot radish
2 tbsp slivered green onions
1/4 cup chopped watercress

Assemble the sandwiches in the order of ingredients.

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Crock Pot Pulled Pork Sandwiches

On Super Bowl Sunday, there's nothing better than a houseful of football fans and a big pot of pulled pork sandwiches. If you keep the meat hot in a crock pot or on the stove, and put a big pile of sandwich buns nearby, people can help themselves whenever they're hungry. These are especially good with a spoonful of our giardiniera.

This recipe is my grandmother's, who also made barbecue beef sandwiches with this same recipe, using a beef roast instead of pork. She was a Bears fan when she lived in Chicago, and a Vikings fan when she moved to Minnesota. I loved her either way.

Recently, I made these barbeque pork sandwiches for a church meeting that was going to begin directly after the worship service. Halfway through a sermon on patience, the savory BBQ smell started to fill the room, and I realized I hadn't stirred the pot in a while! I didn't want to walk out in the middle of my friend Al's sermon, so I practiced my patience and waited. It turned out fine.

Ingredients

2 cups onions, chopped

1 tbsp oil

3 lb beef pot roast or pork shoulder

2 cups beef broth

2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tbsp dry mustard

1/2 cup honey

1 can tomato soup

1 cup barbecue sauce

1/4 cup hot sauce

Directions

In a large pot, fry onions in oil until brown. Cut meat into 2 inch cubes, and brown with the onions. Pour in the beef broth and enough water to cover the meat. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium, and simmer 1 hour.

Transfer to a crock pot. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir well. Cook on low for 6 hours, or on high for 3-4 hours, until sauce is thick and the meat is tender and shredded.

Makes 6 cups, or 24 1/4-cup portions.

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Christmas Chorizo Rolls

The first time I ever ate chorizo, I was a few months pregnant with my first daughter and had morning sickness all day long. I could hardly bear the strong aroma from Tia Sonia's kitchen. Since then, I have come to love the spicy, rich taste of chorizo. These sausage rolls are a traditional meal in some of the ranchlands of Mexico.

Ingredients

1 can sardines
1/2 fresh chorizo sausage (about 2 cups)
1 onion
1 tbsp. Mexican oregano
2 serrano chiles
10 hard rolls

Directions

Finely chop onions, peppers, and oregano. Remove the chorizo from its casing and fry the sausage over low heat until cooked but still tender. Skin and debone sardines, then finely chop them and add them to the sausages.

Add the onions, peppers, and oregano to the sardine/meat mixture. Cook for five minutes, or until peppers and onions are soft and fragrant. Cut rolls in half lengthwise and fill with meat mixture before serving. 

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