From pizza to chicken, EveryDay Food experiments prove successful

Being broke has forced us into eating at home nearly every day. How appropriate, then, that my “EveryDay Food” magazine subscription might come in handy? And, that an “EveryDay Food” app is available for my iPhone?

I hate to sound like a shameless solicitor for the magazine, but the March issue arrived in our mailbox last week and contained a wealth of fascinating, yet simple, recipes. I’ve been receiving EveryDay Food in the mail for nearly six months now, and had yet to try any of the mouthwatering recipes from any of the issues. But alas, the time had come to begin planning our meals so we could stick to a budget. I’d been wanting to try to make homemade pizza, crust and all (well, except the sauce…), for a while now, but failed to find a recipe with the perfect crust. The March issue had a special section dev0ted to one pizza dough recipe that could be used at least six different ways. So, I decided to give it a try on Saturday night.

And the result – success! The crust dominated any other storebought crust I’ve used (including a frozen dough from a pizzeria in New York City). Even Dustin remarked at how great it was – and it was so easy! Yum!

On Saturday evening while planning the menu, I never realized how handy my iPhone could be for meal planning until I found the EveryDay Food app in the iTunes app store. For 99 cents, I downloaded a virtual cookbook. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I have an EveryDay Food cookbook, but that cost me a good $24.99. This app has even more recipes, a great search function and a self-made shopping list based on the recipes you save. It’s fabulous!

So, after a quick slow cooker beef stroganoff meal on Sunday, I met Monday evening in the kitchen head-on, armed with a recipe for Teriyaki Chicken with Roasted Scallions from my EveryDay Food app. After about 15 minutes of prep time, which included trimming chicken pieces and preparing the glaze, the chicken headed into the oven to roast. While it was roasting, I prepped the scallions as directed and decided to add some broccoli to the mix.

The chicken smelled fantastic while it was cooking. My kitchen was perfumed with the scents of Asia – ginger, garlic and soy. I started working in the kitchen around 5:30 and was at the table by 6:15. That’s a record in my kitchen – and especially a record for a new recipe and a new technique (this was the first time I’ve roasted green vegetables)!

I’ve learned from the mistakes mentioned in my previous post: read the recipe to death before I start, get all of the ingredients out before I start anything, and prep appropriately.

TERIYAKI CHICKEN WITH ROASTED SCALLIONS AND BROCCOLI

For glaze
2 T. soy sauce
1 T. rice vinegar
1/2 c. honey
1 clove garlic, crushed or minced
1/2 t. grated fresh ginger

One chicken, cut up into eight pieces and trimmed of excess fat/skin (but you do want them bone-in, skin-on)

For scallions and broccoli
5 stems of scallions, greens cut into 2 1/2″ pieces and whites cut in half
1 broccoli crown, sliced thinly
1 T. vegetable or canola oil
Coarse salt and pepper

1. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Prepare the glaze. Mix together the glaze ingredients and divide glaze into two containers – one for basting and one for drizzling over the chicken before serving.

2. Place the chicken pieces skin-side up on a foil-lined rimmed baking sheet. Baste the raw pieces with one coat of the glaze and place in the top third of a preheated oven. Roast chicken for 20 minutes, interrupting the cooking cycle twice to baste the chicken with pan juices and glaze.

3. Meanwhile, prep the vegetables. Place them on a rimmed baking sheet, drizzle with the oil and sprinkle coarse salt and ground pepper over top.

4. Put the chicken in the bottom third of the oven and place the vegetables on the top rack. Roast the vegetables for 10 minutes. Continue cooking the chicken for 10-15 minutes or until a thermometer inserted into the thickest part of a breast away from the bone reads 165 degrees.

5. Drizzle the finished chicken with the glaze you set aside. Serve with roasted vegetables and jasmine rice.

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