Pepper Jack, Chicken, and Peach Quesadillas

From Cooking Light



Ingredients:
1 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon fresh lime juice
1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream
4 (8-inch) flour tortillas
3/4 cup (3 ounces) shredded Monterey Jack cheese with jalapeño peppers
1 cup chopped skinless, boneless rotisserie chicken breast
1 cup thinly sliced peeled firm ripe peaches
4 teaspoons chopped fresh cilantro
Cooking spray

Directions:
1. Combine honey and lime juice in a small bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Stir sour cream into honey mixture; cover and chill until ready to serve.

2. Place tortillas flat on a work surface. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons cheese over half of each tortilla; top each tortilla with 1/4 cup chicken, 1/4 cup peaches, and 1 teaspoon cilantro. Fold tortillas in half.

3. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Place 2 quesadillas in the pan, and top quesadillas with a cast-iron or other heavy skillet. Cook 1 1/2 minutes on each side or until tortillas are crisp and lightly browned (leave cast-iron skillet on quesadillas as they cook). Remove quesadillas from pan; set aside, and keep warm. Repeat procedure with the remaining quesadillas. Cut each quesadilla into wedges. Serve with sauce.

Comments:
I always make my quesadillas on my large griddle. It's so much easier. I also usually use two tortillas instead of trying to fold them over.

These were really good. I think I put lemon juice in the sour cream instead of lime because I was kind of on auto-pilot and the lemon juice bottle is taller than the lime. But I'm not 100% on that. I ended up using about half monterey jack and half pepper jack cheese because that's what I had in the fridge.

And I left out the cilantro. But you already knew that. :-)

In any case, very good.

Aloha Chicken

From Taste of Home



Ingredients:
4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
4 tablespoons butter, divided
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1/3 cup pineapple juice
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
2 tablespoons chopped onion
1 can (15-1/4 ounces) peach halves, drained
1 cup pineapple tidbits, drained
Hot cooked rice, optional

Directions:
In a large skillet, brown chicken on both sides in 2 tablespoons butter. Transfer to a shallow microwave-safe dish. Cover and microwave on high for 4-5 minutes or until juices run clear.

In a small bowl, combine cornstarch and pineapple juice until smooth. Stir in the lemon juice, lemon peel, soy sauce and thyme. In the same skillet, saute onion in remaining butter until tender. Stir juice mixture and add to the skillet. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened.

Arrange peaches and pineapple over chicken; baste with sauce. Cover and microwave for 1 minute or until sauce is bubbly. Serve over rice with remaining sauce if desired.

Comments:
I think the directions for this recipe are stupid. Just because a recipe is "quick" doesn't mean it has to nuke things in the microwave. I hate, HATE, cooking chicken in the microwave. It's so gross.

So I pretty much ignored the directions. Here's what I did:

Cooked the chicken in olive oil. Cooked about 3 minutes per side - I had butterflied the breasts open so they were pretty thin. Took the chicken out, put the onions in the skillet. Cooked for a minute or so and then added in the cornstarch/juice mixture. Cooked another minute or so then added the pineapple and peaches. Brought to a boil, then added the chicken back in to reheat a bit while the rice finished cooking. Voila. Not hard, pretty quick, and no microwaving of chicken. Yay!

Anywho, nice flavor and combination. Adam liked it too so we'll probably see this one show up on the menu again.

Peachy Barbecue Chicken

From Taste of Home



Ingredients:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
8 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (5 ounces each)
1/4 cup canola oil
2 cups peach preserves
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup barbecue sauce
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 medium green peppers, julienned
2 cans (8 ounces each) sliced water chestnuts, drained
Hot cooked rice

Directions:
In a large resealable plastic bag, combine the flour, salt and pepper. Add chicken, a few pieces at a time, and shake to coat.

In a large skillet, brown chicken in oil in batches on both sides. Return all to skillet. In a large bowl, combine the preserves, onion, barbecue sauce and soy sauce; pour over chicken. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

Add green peppers and water chestnuts. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes or until a meat thermometer reads 170°. Serve immediately with rice; or cool chicken and transfer to a freezer container and freeze for up to 3 months.

Comments:
I halved this recipe and left out the peppers and water chestnuts. I also served it with some pre-fab (and not so impressive) scalloped potatoes rather than rice. I wasn't sure if I'd like this dish as it has the "barbecue" right in the name of the recipe. Luckily I ran out of barbecue sauce so it was a little skimpy in that department. I'm talking maybe 1/3 instead of 1/2 cup, so not a huge difference, but in any case the barbecue flavor didn't overwhelm the other flavors and it turned out great.

Grilled Summer Fruit Kabobs

From Cooking for 2 Summer 2008.

Pre grill

Post grill

On the plate


Ingredients:
peach
nectarine
plum
peach preserves
butter

Comments:
Since the grill was on for the brats anyway I figured this would be a good side dish/dessert. I only stabbed myself about a million times with the skewers while threading the fruit on. Those things are sharp! Anyway, the fruit gets really sweet as it cooks so I'd recommend using the optional pound cake and whipped topping to cut some of that. I didn't. I wish I would have.