For me, this is not just a soup, but also a quick dinner when I add some quinoa or rice to it. This soup is mild, but when I make it for myself, I add hot sauce or green chillies while blending the onions and garlic. You can also add leftover vegetables to it.
INGREDIENTS
While chicken breast is undoubtedly an easy, quick and uncontroversial option for dinner, I find it often to be quite disappointing: a little bland, usually dry and just a bit boring. Except when cooked this way: the meat is browned, then lightly poached in rich tomato sauce so it stays exquisitely tender, and each piece comes enrobed in a blanket of melting mozzarella cheese. Absolutely essential with this is some crusty bread for wiping up all the juices on your plate. And depending on your mood, you might also want a light salad or a few greens.
My nonnie loved a good dinner party and was a pro at effortlessly entertaining a crowd. I can’t say she enjoyed spending much time in the kitchen cooking, but she could conjure up a delicious dinner with minimal effort. One of her tricks was using a mix of store-bought and homemade ingredients, perhaps leaning heavily on the former, but her food always tasted GOOD. Nonnie got this recipe for apricot chicken from her neighbor in Florida. She served it the night we arrived to visit her for Easter one year—she called it “First Night Apricot Chicken.” Apparently, she made it the first night any of her many guests arrived. (When you spend the winters in Florida, you get a lot of visitors.) Well, we devoured it. This recipe is really all about the sauce, and it’s a combo I never would have dreamed up. The three main ingredients sound odd together but are magic. They create a sticky, sweet, and savory chicken that will satisfy all your cravings. I serve mine with roasted broccoli and rice, but Nonnie often did mashed potatoes and asparagus. Take your pick! Either way, you’ll end up with a stress-free dinner that’s full of love.
This express chicken and haloumi bake leaves you with a gorgeous pool of sweet, citrusy, herby tray juices to drag each bite through.
SERVES 4
This salad is perfect over mixed greens, spinach, or arugula or served in lettuce cups for a quick easy lunch. It keeps well for five to seven days in the fridge. I adore using Homemade Avocado Mayo (recipe follows), or Primal Kitchen’s avocado mayo if you’re short on time, in this recipe.
Recipe provided by Bricia Lopez of Guelaguetza Restaurant in Los Angeles. Hear Lopez talk more about the ingredients and process of making chile rellenos in our story, "It's easy to fall in love with Oaxacan-style chiles rellenos." Find more of Lopez's recipes at the website Mole and More.
Often, I have a bit of chicken left over from dinner that I use up the next day for lunch. Here is a really delicious summer version, using fresh-cooked chicken breasts; obviously, you can swap in leftover roast chicken.
There is no way I could even attempt to match the virtuoso performance that Maya Angelou put on when she prepared her curry for me in her Sonoma kitchen over four decades ago. My own curry, from my book Sky Juice and Flying Fish: Traditional Caribbean Cooking, is more of a West Indian–type curry that includes potatoes along with the chicken. They serve to not only stretch the chicken, but also to lend substance to the curry. While this is traditionally eaten with roti, I like to serve it with rice (yes, I know two starches, but why not) and then add as many of the “boys" — mango chutney, tomato chutney, chopped peanuts, raisins, finely grated coconut, lime pickle, fresh pineapple pieces, kachumber salad, raita, and papadum — as I can get.