Easy Delicious Healthy Recipes

Tuscan Chicken with Tomatoes and Potato
Or
Tuscan Italian Sausage with Tomatoes and Potato

This recipe is one of those one-pot-wonders that is really tasty, smells incredible and is nutritious and low fat as well. You can either make this with cut up skinless chicken pieces, or use the exact same recipe using cut up pieces of fresh Italian sausage instead of the chicken. The whole thing takes an hour to bake in the oven. Serves 4.

4 chicken breast pieces (half the breast) with the bone in. You can also mix up the chicken parts: 4 thighs + 4 legs, or 2 legs, 2 thighs, 2 breasts, etc. Whatever you like. But be sure to remove the skin, or buy it all skinless.

Or

If using sausage: buy 8-10 fresh Italian pork sausages (usually from the butcher area of your grocery store). DO NOT use honey garlic or anything sweet because it won't fit in this recipe. Use a sharp knife or clean pair of scissors to cut sausages into 1 inch chunks

Ingredients:
1-large can (19 oz) peeled tomatoes
4 medium potatoes (white or red or gold), peeled and chopped into big chunks
1 dried bay leaf
1.5 tablespoons dried oregano leaves
⅓ cup good quality pure virgin olive oil
½ teaspoon salt
Pepper to taste
1 clove fresh garlic (optional...only if you like it)
Some grated parmesan cheese (don't use the canned stuff. Go to the deli and buy some freshly grated parmesan, or pecorino or asiago. It makes all the difference in the world. Trust me.)

Method:
Take out top rack in oven, and leave the bottom one in the middle section of the oven (not too high, not too low)
Heat oven to 400F
-In a roasting pan, place sausage OR chicken pieces in the pan (bone side down for the breasts).
-Open the can of tomatoes. Use your hands to squish the tomatoes up (careful that they do not squirt all over you!)
-Take the tomatoes pieces and spread them evenly over the sausage OR chicken pieces.
-Place the dried bay leaf on the bottom of the pan.
-Pour the juice from the tomatoes all over the meat.
-Sprinkle the dried oregano leaves over the whole thing.
-Drizzle the olive oil over the whole thing.
-Sprinkle salt over whole thing. Add the pepper.
-If using garlic: peel one small clove of garlic. Using the flat side of a knife, press the garlic on a cutting board until the garlic squishes a bit. Then take the garlic and just toss it into the pan of chicken.
-Cover the pan with tin foil.
-Bake at 400F for 1 hour.
-After 1 hour, carefully open tin foil and check if sausage OR chicken is done. If the juices run clear, it is good. If not, then put it back in the oven for another 20 minutes.
-When it is done, remove from the oven and remove the tin foil. Let it sit and absorb some of the juices for about 10 minutes. Remove and discard the bay leaf.

To serve, put a piece of chicken OR a few pieces of sausage on a plate. Add a few chunks of potato. And use a large spoon to spoon pieces of tomato and juice over the everything.

You can drizzle a bit of olive oil over the whole thing and add more salt if needed at this point.

You can also sprinkle a ½ teaspoon of fresh grated parmesan cheese over the serving.
Goes great with one piece of crusty bread and a small bowl of green salad.

Serves 4.
You can easily double the recipe.

Nanowrimo 2007 done.

Well, another Nanowrimo has come and gone. Congratulations to everyone who won this year. And 'good try' to everyone (including me) who gave it a shot. There's always next year.....

Fruits of procrastination, part II...

Ah, procrastination. Ain't nothing like it. Last year it was online paper dolls. This year it is writing your name in cappuccino foam! Or in a bowl of vegetable soup (see pictures). The website is called ImageChef, and allows you to write messages on all sorts of images. Or to write messages using images (like your name in flowers).

Guaranteed to make you laugh yourself silly, and take up oodles of precious time you should be dedicating to your novel. Don't say I didn't warn you.....

www.imagechef.com

Tortoise pace....

Oh my. I'm way behind on word count. So much so that I have started using 'fillers' to pad my word count. Last November, around this point, I encountered the same problem. My solution last year was to write an entire episode of House (the medical drama) into my story. It was fun and took my story into some bizarre territory.

But I can't use the same thing this year. I needed something new and different, and I've come up with something fantastic. I have a scientist with a compulsion to read all ingredient lists. It doesn't matter what the product is: cereal, canned spaghetti, motor oil, shampoo, toothpaste. He's got to read them all. And so he does. And boy, does it take lots and lots of words to go through all those ingredients. Whenever I need an extra 200 words or so, I just go to my cupboard and grab anything (the more processed the better). Who knew there were so many things in mayonnaise? And I'm learning a lot about processed food. Did you know that table salt contains sugar? I'm serious. And that many brands of vitamins use crushed clam shells (?!!) as a source of calcium carbonate? I don't even want to go into what I discovered about some of my favourite foods. So I'll stop while I'm ahead (for a change).

Onwards and upwards....

A word on coffee...

Okay, writing going along, um, not exactly smoothly, but it is going. The only thing really getting me through this month is coffee. Now, I'm usually an espresso girl, but I've come across another type of coffee that makes my soul sing. It is Turkish coffee. Homemade. In one of those strange little pots with a long handle. How can I have lived all these years on this earth and not known about this stuff? The secret is in the coffee (should have cardamom ground into it), and of course the technique. Oh, and the tablespoon or so of sugar that you add for each cup. It takes a good 15 minutes to make a cup of the stuff, and the anticipation is enough to make a grown writer weep. Well, at least it makes me weep. Excellent caffeine hit. Excellent procrastination tool. You just can't go wrong with the stuff!

Day 3 already?!

Time is flying too quickly. Didn't get nearly as much done as I'd planned, and I believe there's a crack or a tiny hole in my coffee cup because my espresso disappeared a little too quickly this morning. I know I didn't drink it that fast. Or at least I don't think I did...

First day......s-l-o-w

Well, got off to a rather slow start with nanowrimo today. Not a whole lot of actual writing getting done. But lots of organizing. Making of file folders. A few flow charts. A scene outline. I decided to go with an outline this year to keep me focused. Nothing too specific, but a general road map of where I'd like to get to.

Of course the procrastination fairy was biting at my heels, urging me to run out and buy 'necessaries' like multi-colored highlighters, a new ergonomic chair, maybe some fresh roasted chestnuts. But I said no way. Although the chestnuts sounded yummy.