Roasted Chicken Legs with Smoked Paprika, Blood Orange, and Ginger AND Bulgur "Pilaf" with Swiss Chard and Dried Apricots

I was sold on this chicken recipe from Cook This Now.  Orange, cilantro, jalapeno, smoked paprika.  I opted to bake boneless skinless thighs with the marinade and chose a side suggested in the recipe notes, a fragrant bulgur pilaf.  Both came together quickly and with a little advance prep, would be a perfect weeknight meal.  (I would recommend marinating the chicken ahead of time.)

A few little notes... I took the seeds out of the jalapeno and found the spice level to be good that way.  We baked the chicken for about 20 minutes and it was perfectly moist and tender.  The pilaf was an excellent accompaniment, though next time I will chop the chard more (instead of ribbons like I did this time).  I took the suggestion to drizzle pomegranate molasses on at the end and I highly recommend this.  I definitely intend to make both of these dishes again - the chicken especially, since it was super easy and I think would be great cooked on the grill as well as in the oven.

A pictureless summary

While I'm waiting for my official photographer to send me our Thanksgiving photos, I thought I'd share some notes on recipes that I haven't gotten around to posting about.  I've got a few posts started for recipes that I never photographed - since the main point of my blog is to post about the food I make and to avoid making the same mistakes twice, I'm going to share them quickly all at once, instead of dedicating a separate post to each.  Tune in later this weekend for our Thanksgiving post and for some Italy pictures!


Coconut Granola Bars
The coconut granola bars, from NY Times Recipes for Health, were a tasty treat on our vacation.  We snacked on them at the airport and on the plane, crumbled some into yogurt at the continental breakfast, and left a few for Deanna's roommates too.  They were super easy and very crunchy.  If you like those Nature Valley crunchy oats and honey granola bars, you'll like these, and you'll be eating a home-cooked, less-processed (and therefore BETTER) version of them.

Napa Cabbage Salad with Peanuts and Cilantro

I found the recipe for this salad in Deborah Madison's book, Local Flavors.   I made a number of changes to this based on what I had on hand. (It was good, but I thought it would be even better as written.) I didn't have any lettuce, so I used entirely cabbage, and a bit more than called for, a change I think was great! I omitted the scallions because I didn't have any, so I added in a shallot with the dressing. I made the dressing in the blender, and I also added the cilantro to the dressing instead of the salad. I skipped the basil and mint because I didn't have any. Next time I would add extra carrots too!

Fire-Roasted Tomato Stew with Eggplant, Bulgur, and Chickpeas
This one comes from Ancient Grains for Modern Meals.  It's been a while since I made it (eggplant season), but it was good.  I stuck a bit in the freezer for lunches.  The chickpeas are an optional addition, but I think it's always better to toss in some vegetable-based protein when you have the opportunity.  I used bulgur instead of farro, because it's cheaper and I wasn't sure how this would turn out, and also because I thought it would go better with the other flavors.  I was a fan of the golden raisins - if I remember correctly the recipe called for regular dark raisins, but I prefer the golden ones, and I thought they gave the stew an interesting dimension of flavor.

Slow-Cooker Black Bean Mushroom Chili
I made this chili recipe in the slow cooker I got for my birthday.  My old slow cooker is very temperamental and the temperatures seem to be off (thanks to the internet, I've found that this is a very common complaint with that particular brand and model).  My new one lets you set the time by the half hour, and you can jump straight to warm if that's what you want.  This chili recipe uses dried beans, which cooked very well in the 8 hours in the slow cooker.  One complaint is the fresh tomatillos I used - I don't think we scrubbed them well enough and their sticky coating lent a slightly bitter taste to the chili.  The mushrooms gave it a nice meaty element and the spices were a little unusual and interesting.  I would try this one again, maybe with the tomatillos I canned several weeks ago in place of fresh ones.

Fava Bean Stew with Bulgur

I bought some frozen fava beans a while ago, just because I hadn't seen them before, and I had nothing to do with them.  They have been taking up space in my freezer for months.  I am going down the list looking for recipes to make with the ingredients I have in my freezer, and I found a recipe for Fava Bean Stew with Bulgur from the NY Times Recipes for Health section.  Bulgur is one of those grains that I have on hand in my refrigerator and never used, so I decided to make the stew this past week.

It was pretty good.  The flavors were very delicious - the cinnamon and the heat from the cayenne went really well with everything else.  It was great over the bulgur, which was extremely easy to make.  It reminded me just a bit of steel cut oats, so maybe I'll try it as a breakfast grain.  One thing I'm now thinking I did wrong was regarding the frozen favas.  Based on pictures from a quick internet search, I'm not sure the kind I bought were skinned.  They were not inedible by any means, but I think it would have come out better had I thought of this before.  The bag was a little more than a pound, so I'll have to try peeling them for whatever I do with the rest of the beans.

Tabbouleh

The only tabbouleh I have ever had was storebought and I didn't like it. I liked the look of the ingredient list of the Tabbouleh in Food Matters - Mark Bittman's "way." He adds many more vegetables than are traditional.

One fun part of this recipe was that it called for fava beans. It took me forever to find these dried. I looked at every grocery store and farmers' market. Ken finally found them for me in the Mexican section at Whole Foods. But I walked over to the farmers' market the other day for some fruit and other ingredients, and I noticed while walking up and down the aisles that they had fresh fava beans. Some of them looked really good, but some were kind of browning and weird looking. I didn't know how to choose fresh fava beans but I figured they should be bright and plump looking. Lucky for me, I later found a website showing how to choose and prepare fresh fava beans, which assured me that I had been looking for the right qualities. When it came time to prepare them, I took the beans out of the pods, steamed them, then popped the edible part out of their little waxy shell. You have to shell these beans twice! But they were pretty good - I am not a big bean fan, but I liked them in the tabbouleh. The fresh beans were a little agonizing to prepare though, so next time I might try frozen or make the dried ones if I have enough time.

The recipe also calls for a lot of parsley and mint. Since I had a lot going on, Ken chopped it up for me. The recipe says "roughly chopped," but it was a little too roughly chopped so we decided that "roughly chopped" was not the best instrution and next time we will chop them more finely. Another change I would make from the recipe is the bulgur. With all the chunky vegetables, I think coarser bulgur should be used rather than the fine bulgur that is called for. I used coarse because that's what we had on hand, and I thought it was great. Because of the large amount of vegetables there isn't much grain in each bite anyway, so I think it would get lost with a fine bulgur.

We really liked the tabbouleh and I particularly love the lemon juice, and that it is packed with a variety of veggies. It is also suited well to adaptations, so you can probably change it up based on what you have on hand. I hope the leftovers are just as good tomorrow and I will definitely be making this again - I think it would be a great picnic salad!