Mo-roccan it!

Moroccan food and flavors? Delicious!

Here's the recipes I tried for this week:

Chicken Tagine with Lemons and Olives

Yield

4 servings (serving size: 1 chicken piece and 1/3 cup sauce)

Ingredients

• 2 chicken breast halves (about 1 1/2 pounds), skinned (I used 2 whole chicken breasts, and cut them into halves)
• 2 chicken leg quarters (about 1 pound), skinned (I used none of legs)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 3/4 cup chicken broth
• 3/4 cup pitted whole green olives (I used the jalapeno stuffed olives, cause that’s what we had…absolutely phenomenal! Also, I quartered them.)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh cilantro
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley

Preparation

Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over high heat. Add chicken; cook 3 minutes on each side or until browned. Remove chicken from pan.

Add onion and garlic to pan; cook 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Add chicken, broth, olives, cinnamon, and ginger; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 45 minutes. Turn chicken over; cook, uncovered, 15 minutes.

Remove chicken from pan with a slotted spoon; place 1 chicken piece on each of 4 plates. Add lemon rind, juice, cilantro, and parsley to pan; cook for 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Spoon sauce over chicken. – I did not do this last part quite like they said. I shredded the chicken inside the pot (it was so, so tender), to make it more like a stew. Then I added the rest of the ingredients and mixed.

Enjoy!

From: Jessica B. Harris, Cooking Light, MAY 2001

And....

Moroccan Spiced Roasted Vegetables

Veggies

3 large sweet potatoes

4 parsnips

1 yellow bell pepper

2 large zucchini

- Chop these guys into good size chunks

Spice Blend

2 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground red chile

1 tsp ground allspice

Mix these together.

Topping:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 yellow onion, cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices, separated into rings

1/4 cup pine nuts

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon honey

Preheat the oven to 450. Toss veggies in olive oil to coat. Add spice blend and mix to coat, until there’s as much spice as you want on there.

Bake for about 30-45 minutes, until deliciously roasted. (Poke a thick sweet potato slice with a fork to see if it’s soft enough)

For topping:

Heat olive oil in pan over medium high heat. Add onion rings and cook until soft and slightly browned, maybe about 15 min or so. Add pine nuts and cinnamon, and cook for about a minute, until you can smell the wonderful cinnamon. Add the honey and cook until it gets melty and coats everything. Take off the heat.

When veggies are done, pour topping over them and mix well.

This will definitely serve 4, and you’ll probably get some spectacular leftovers to boot!

Adapted from: Roasted Vegetable Couscous with Chickpeas and Onion–Pine Nut Topping (Al Cuscus bil Khodar al-mausim), Amy Riolo, Cooking Light, JANUARY 2009

What I thought: These were both absolutely delicious! Please do try them!

For the chicken, I really liked the bit of spicy that the jalapeno in the olives added to the dish. Browning and simmering the breasts whole, and then shredding them at the end really kept the chicken juicy.

The spice blend on the roasted veggies got fantastic reviews from the folks who shared this meal (and from me)! I thought the topping with the little bit of sweet was just delightful with the spice!

Reviews about the leftovers (both dishes): "Delicious cold!" - Josh Huber

"I only had these the second night, and they were delicious cold!" - Carrie Sandahl

I also had these for leftovers (both recipes make a lot of food, and 4 folks were eating for this one the first go round), and indeed, they were great! I heated mine up... these both held up really well... great for work lunches!