Tuesday night dinner

I'm so pleased with this dinner and I so wish I had taken pictures because it was lovely. We finally have a nice camera and I really want to practice taking pictures of food with it. However, it seems like once the food is finally ready my kitchen is consumed with the general chaos of finishing, plating, setting the table and of course by this point Margot is about to loose it.

Anyway, this was a great meal and a great weeknight dinner. And bonus it went onto serve as the base for two other meals! You may notice that this is not the first braised chicken dish to grace my blog. Truth be told this has become one of my favorite ways to cook chicken. It's great for weeknights because after a 10-15 minutes of prep dinner cooks itself on the stove with very little fuss. I also love the wonderful sauce braised chicken dishes make. On a cold raining weeknight something warm, saucy and Delicious on top of some wonderful carb is just about perfect! And chicken legs and thighs are usually the cheapest meat for sale at the market.

Chipolte Braised Chicken

8 pieces of chicken legs or thighs on the bone
1 cup all purpose flour or gluten free flour
1/2 teaspoon paprika
2 cans fire roasted tomatoes
3-4 chipolte Chile's*
1 large onion sliced
4 gloves of garlic minced
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp oregano
1 cup of chicken broth
1 Tb olive oil
1 Tb butter
1 Tb veg oil
salt and pepper to taste

In a braising pot or skillet that has a lid and high sides melt butter with olive oil over medium heat. Add onions and cook stirring occasionally for 10-15 minutes until they begin to brown. While onions cook prepare chicken.  Season chicken pieces with salt and pepper. Put the flour on a plate and season with salt and pepper. Add the paprika and mix well. Heat the vegetable oil in a non stick skillet on med-high heat. Dredged he chicken in the flour mixture and brown on all sides then set aside. Once onions are browning add garlic and cook for another minutes. Add cumin and oregano and season with salt and pepper cook for another minute or so. Mix in tomatoes and chipolte peppers and then place chicken in pan in a single layer. Pour in the broth. Liquid and tomatoes don't need to cover chicken. Bring to boil, reduce to simmer, cover and cook 45 minutes.

You could cook brown the chicken in your braising pan, set it aside, and then cook your onions in that same pan which would cut down on dishes. I did these steps simultaniously because I was hope a bit late and hurrying to get dinner on the table.

We had this with baked sweet potatoes and buttered peas. I like the spicy sauce alongside the sweet potatoes. I wanted to have sauteed spinach but we just didn't make it that far. I think this would also be wonderful over rice, grits, polenta or cous cous and any cooking green would be lovely especially collards. Or for a really quick dinner you could wilt some spinach directly to the sauce at the end.

We turned the leftovers into two separate yummy meals. After dinner I removed the meat from the leftover chicken and set it aside for another dinner. I saved all the yummy sauce in a jar. I took all the chicken bones and made a quick batch of broth. The next morning I reheated that left over sauce and served it over warmed corn tortillas with fried eggs on top for breakfast. The broth and leftover chicken were the base for cheddar cornmeal chicken and dumplings. A simple chicken stew with potatoes, carrots and peas topped with cheddar cornmeal dumplings. Yummy!

*Chipolte peppers in adobo are spicy, too spicy for a lot of people. I take the peppers one at a time carefully cut them open and scrape out all of the seeds and membranes. This dramatically reduces the heat. Although it will still have a nice spicy kick it will be okay for most. However it may still be too spicy for small children. For Margot we just took her chicken out of the pan without any sauce and removed the meat. The meat itself had 0 spice and she ate all of it!