Parmesan Chicken

The main course for this South Arm Older Adults Cooking session is a chicken dish.

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This simple recipe is easy to make and kids will love it. We cut each of the chicken breast into 3 portions which is the recommended serving size. You can cut it into strips for easy handling for the kids.

Ingredients

  • 4 to 6 boneless, skinless chicken fillets or tenders (we used chicken breast)
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon pepper
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tablespoon water
  • 1 1/2 cups bread crumbs
  • 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
  • olive oil

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This 3-bowl breading system works well for any meat or vegetable that you want to bread and cook on stove top or bake in oven.

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Rosemary Chicken

Michelle incorporated a chicken dish in this week’s kitchen at the South Arm Cooking Club for Seniors.

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This Rosemary Chicken is quick to prepare as it needs as little as 5 to 10 minutes to marinate in a yogurt marinate.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup low fat plain yogurt
  • 1 teaspoon fresh minced rosemary
  • 1 lemon, rind grated finely
  • 1 clove garlic, crushed and minced
  • 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1/2 cup or more bread crumbs
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
  • olive oil
Yogurt Dip
  • 1/2 cup yogurt
  • 1 lemon, juiced
  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  • pinch of cayenne
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • minced parsley, optional

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Source: South Arm Cooking Club for Seniors

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Ian Lai’s Asian Inspired Soup

May is Asian Heritage month.  The City of Richmond and Richmond Food Security Society once again present Chef Mr. Ian Lai in demonstrations of healthy, fun, affordable and locally sourced Asian inspired cooking. Cooking demonstrations that will inspire you to create fresh and tasty food from the best Richmond and Lower Mainland ingredients. This is Ian Lai’s third year involvement in this event.

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Ian Lai shared with us why he keeps coming back to this event. As an Asian with heritage from Canton, China but grew up in South Africa, Ian continues to search what it means to be Asian. He even made a trip to Beijing recently but still unable to find his answer.

Ian realizes that he identifies his Asian heritage through food as he spends a lot of time cooking and enjoying food with Asian flare.

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The first recipe that Ian demonstrated is a Mixed Vegetable Chicken Soup. It is a light broth loaded with lots of seasonal vegetables.

Ingredients

  • chicken bones from 1 chicken
  • 2 pieces star anise
  • 2 pieces dried tangerine peel
  • 1 chunk of ginger, cut into half and smashed
  • 8 to 10 fresh shiitake mushrooms, remove and reserve the stems, slice or quarter
  • 1 package of enoki mushroom, remove ends and loosen the needles
  • 1 medium zucchini, rough chopped
  • 4 to 5 new potatoes or red potatoes (not russet), diced
  • 6 to 8 baby bok choy, cut into half
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/3 cup oyster sauce
  • chopped green onions and cilantro for garnishing
  • sambal oelek, optional

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Source: Ian Lai

P/S: some of the ingredients above are for another recipe.

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Chicken and Wholewheat Pasta with Creamy Walnut Sauce

The main dish which Colleen prepared for the South Arm Seniors Kitchen is Chicken and Wholewheat Pasta with Creamy Walnut Sauce.

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Walnuts offer us a dose of protein, calcium, and fiber among other nutrients. Walnut also contains Omega-3 fatty acid. However, walnut is high in calories and should be limited to a small handful.

Ingredients

  • 1/3 cup walnuts
  • 1 clove garlic, peeled
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • pinch of cayenne pepper
  • 1/3 cup reduced sodium chicken broth
  • 3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon olive or walnut oil
  • 1/2 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
  • 1 1/2 cups wholewheat pasta
  • 1 cup small broccoli florets
  • 1/2 red pepper, cut into thin strips

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Source: via Colleen

Makes 4 servings

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Chicken Paprikash

The main dish planned for the Valentine’s Day in the South Arm Cooking Club for Seniors is a chicken dish.

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The Chicken Paprikash is seasoned with paprika and accompanied with red bell pepper to coincide with the red color theme of Valentine’s Day. You can serve it over buttered egg noodles.

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 12 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 red bell pepper, sliced into thin slices
  • 1 cup chicken broth
  • 2 tablespoons paprika
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper, or to taste
  • 1/3 cup sour cream (or Greek yogurt)

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Please note that the milk is not supposed to be in the picture above.

Source: this recipe is adopted from Bravo! The Best of Bridge Cookbook

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Simple Butter Chicken

The Gilmore Park Church Community Kitchen resumed in late January. It’s been a month since we last met at the Christmas Potluck.

Minoo started the kitchen with 3 recipes. The theme for this kitchen was curry and comfort food.

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Butter Chicken is certainly my family’s comfort food. Arkensen loves butter chicken.

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Minoo served the butter chicken with a Quick Curried Couscous.

Ingredients

  • 2 lbs boneless chicken meat (cut into cubes)
  • 2 lbs tomatoes
  • lemon juice from 1/2 lemon
  • 1 cup half & half
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 packet Shan Butter Chicken mix

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Source: Minoo adapted the recipe from a Pakistani family

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Smothered Chicken in Quinoa

The South Arm Cooking Club for Seniors met again after the Christmas and New Year winter break. Michelle, the program facilitator prepared four recipes for the first meeting in 2012. By the way, Michelle has her own recipe blog by the name Mint Green Apron. Go check out her blog for healthy and delicious recipes.

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The main dish for this meeting is an easy, one pot meal with almost all the food groups covered. It’s called Smothered Chicken in Quinoa.

Quinoa is widely considered a “super food” that originated from South America. It is a grain-like crop grown for its edible seeds. It contains essential amino acids and good quantities of calcium, phosphorous and iron. It is also high in protein and is a “complete protein source”- unusual among plant foods. It’s nutritional value is similar to milk. The information above is taken from www.quinoa.net and wikipedia.

You can use quinoa in place of almost any other grain and it cooks in 15 minutes.

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 2 carrots, chopped
  • 2 celery stalks, chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 chicken breasts, cut into 1″ chunks
  • 2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
  • 1/2 cup sherry, cooking sherry or more broth
  • 1 cup quinoa, rinsed and drained
  • 1 teaspoon thyme leaves
  • salt and pepper to taste

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Source: via Michelle

Serve: 4 to 6

P/S: Michelle substituted shallots for the onion in this recipe

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Russian Cold Soup (Okroshka)

Iryna and Joanne partnered up to demonstrate at the Caring Place Community Kitchen. Iryna is from Ukraine. She demonstrated a very popular Ukrainian dish which originated from Russia. It is a cold soup dish called Okroshka. Iryna told us that she had been making this cold soup all her life. She served the Okroshka with toasted bread and a dollop of sour cream.

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Okroshka is a summer dish. It is a very refreshing soup. It is made with fresh diced vegetables. The fresh vegetables retain the vitamins due to no cooking is involved. Heat is the main culprit to destroy vitamins. The only vegetables that need cooking is potatoes. Of course, there is meat in this dish which needs cooking. You can add poached chicken, fish, ham or sausages to this dish.

Okroshka is usually made with cucumbers, carrot, a garden radish, parsley, baby dill, green onion, eggs, lemon juice, butter milk or sour cream or mayonnaise.  If you like to add meat, it has to be cooked and chilled. The ratio of meat and vegetables should be approximately half and half.

Iryna, thank you for sharing your favourite soup with us.

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Iryna shared with us something about her country, Ukraine. Ukraine is used to be part of Russia. It’s an European country. It is the biggest country in Europe after Russia. It claimed it’s independence in 1921.

Ukraine’s population is about 50 million. Ukrainian also speaks Russian and it’s language is similar to Hungarian and Poland.

Ukrainian’s winter is very harsh, between -20 to -35 Celsius and the summer can be pretty hot, as high as 40 Celsius.

Ukraine has no mountain except the border with Poland and Hungarian. Iryna is from the south of Ukraine which borders the Black Sea.

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds chicken breast or sausages
  • 2 cucumbers, dice
  • 2 radishes, dice
  • 4 boiled potatoes
  • 6 hard boiled eggs
  • 1 bunch of green onions
  • 1 small carrot, boiled, dice
  • 1 bunch baby dill, chopped
  • 1 small tub of sour cream
  • 1 litre of butter milk or 1 small jar of mayonnaise
  • lemon juice from 1/2 lemon
  • salt to taste

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Iryna did not use the butter milk but she used the mayonnaise instead.  She brought the butter milk to show us the option.

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Radish is a root vegetable. It is related to mustard and turnip. Radishes are rich in ascorbic acid, i.e. Vitamin C, folic acid and potassium. They are a good source of Vitamin B6, riboflavin, magnesium, copper and calcium.  Radishes can be eaten raw and is often used in salad.

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The flavour of Okroshka is predominated by dill. Dill has fernlike leaves that are aromatic and used to flavour many food such as salmon, borscht, okroshka and pickles. Fresh dill loses it’s flavour rapidly if dried, however, freeze-dried dill leaves preserve their flavour relatively well for a few months.

Source: Iryna

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Chicken Cacciatore

For the main course, Minoo picked an Italian dish called Chicken Cacciatore for the South Arm Community Kitchen. Cacciatore refers to a meal prepared “hunter-style” with tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, bell peppers, herbs and sometimes with wine. It is popular to be made with chicken or rabbit.

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This is a rustic and hearty meal complete with carbohydrate, protein and vegetables. You may served the Chicken Cacciatore with pasta, rice or bread.

Ingredients

  • 6 chicken thighs or 3 chicken breasts cut into halves
  • 2 teaspoons salt, plus more to taste
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, for dredging
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 large red bell pepper, chopped
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 8 pieces of button mushrooms, slice
  • 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 1/2 cup dry white wine
  • 1 x 28-ounce can diced tomatoes with juice
  • 1/2 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
  • 3 tablespoons drained capers
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano leaves
  • 1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh basil leaves
  • pasta to be served with this dish (allocate about 4 oz per person)

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Source: this recipe is adapted from Giada De Lauentis

Serves 6

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Thai Chicken Salad with Spinach and Peanuts

The South Arm Multicultural Community Kitchen will be held at the Bethel Church while the South Arm kitchen is under renovation. We were very fortunate and thankful for Bethel Church’s generosity to allow us to use their kitchen. We love the kitchen as it is big and very well equipped. There are 6 washing basins in the center island.

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Minoo prepared four recipes for this kitchen. The first recipe is a Thai Chicken Salad with Spinach and Peanuts. This salad has a little kick with the hot chili flakes. It is a combination of cooked chicken with raw vegetables.

Ingredients

  • 2 large lime or lemon
  • 3 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
  • 1 tablespoon finely grated fresh ginger
  • 2 teaspoons fish sauce
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 to 2 teaspoons hot chili flakes
  • 1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
  • 1/2 English cucumber, thinly sliced
  • 1/4 green cabbage, thinly sliced
  • 1/3 cup chopped fresh coriander
  • 4 cups baby spinach
  • chopped mango (optional)
  • 6 skinless, boneless chicken thighs, trim fat and slice into thin strips
  • vegetable oil
  • salt to taste

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Source: unknown via Minoo

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