Recipe: Baked Chicken with Blue Cheese, Pears, and Wilted Spinach

I came across this recipe while looking for dinner ideas for earlier this week and loved the flavor palate it featured. Sweet pears and tangy blue cheese are a fantastic combination and perfect for the fall, and combined with lightly seasoned chicken breasts and wilted spinach, they make for a light, filling meal. This meal is very easy to pull together and topped with some lightly toasted walnuts, for added texture and crunch, it's absolutely delicious.

The dish, sans walnuts, because, to be honest, it wasn't until I sat down with the dish in front of me that I realized that walnuts were just what the dish needed to be just right.

Serves: 4-6
Prep. time: 10-15 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

• 2-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pounded to 1/4 - 1/2 inch thickness (I serve each person 1/2 chicken breast and that's more than enough)
• Salt and pepper, for seasoning
• Olive oil (enough to coat the bottom of a few pans)
• 1/2 cup red onion, diced
• 4-6 cups (1 large bunch) loosely packed spinach (stems removed) or 3-5 cups baby spinach, washed and dried (I used regular spinach, but baby spinach would also work and it's a lot easier to clean and handle)
• 2 ripe D'Anjou pears, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/2 - 1 inch thick slices (I just cut the peeled pear in half, then cut slices/wedges out of each half and cut off the bit of core on each piece)
• 2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
• 2 tbsp. fresh parsley, coarsely chopped
• 3/4 cup blue cheese crumbles (I bought a small container, garnished each plate with a spoonful or two, and put the rest on the table so more could be added if desired)
• 3/4 cup toasted walnuts (spread walnuts out on a baking sheet and bake for just a few minutes at 350*F in the oven, until fragrant and slightly golden-brown)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350*F. In a medium, oven-safe skillet/pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Season both sides of the chicken breasts with salt and pepper and add them to the skillet, cooking just enough to brown each side. Remove the skillet from the heat and place it in the oven, then bake the chicken for 15 minutes, or until cooked through. While the chicken is baking, heat a little olive oil in a large pan and add the red onion, cooking until the pieces are slightly tender. Toss the spinach in and cook until it wilts (it should darken in color and "shrink" up)—if you're using regular spinach, make sure to thoroughly wash the leaves before cooking them because they tend to have a lot of sand and dirt on them and that's no fun to bite into. Once the spinach is wilted, plate it on dinner plates and set aside. Wipe out the pan and add in 1 tbsp. olive oil and the apple cider vinegar and heat over medium or medium-low heat. Toss the pears in and cook until they are heated through and slightly browned on both sides. Add the parsley in and toss to coat, then remove from heat. Plate the chicken breasts atop the spinach, place a few pieces of pear over and around the chicken, and sprinkle the dish with blue cheese crumbles and toasted walnuts.

This dish is wonderful for an autumn meal and can easily be served casually or plated formally and served at a dinner party, as the flavors of the blue cheese and pears add a certain degree of elegance to the dish. The various components of the dish all tie into each other wonderfully, creating a well-balanced and well-flavored dish.

Recipe: Banana Bread

We almost always have a bunch of bananas in the kitchen to grab as a light breakfast or a quick snack for work. It's a longstanding tradition in my house to make banana bread with the two or three bananas that inevitably get left behind to turn into mottled brown, mushy versions of their formerly selves. When I was in college, my mom passed the recipe on to me and, during my junior year, there was a new loaf of banana bread sitting out on our kitchen counter just about every other week. It's a great way to make use of yucky old bananas and a slice or two of this sweet bread makes for a great snack or breakfast, much like the bananas it's made with.

Beautiful golden brown loaf, cut while it was still warm. The slices are spread with a little butter, just the way I like it.

Serves: Many
Prep. time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 60 minutes
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

• 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter or margarine
• 2/3 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups peeled, mashed bananas (about 3 medium-sized bananas)
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/4-1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions
In a small pot over medium heat, melt the stick of butter/margarine. Remove from heat and cool slightly. In the meantime, mash the bananas in a large bowl and mix in the sugar and eggs. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl and sift (I just run a fork through the mixture repeatedly a few times). Pour the sifted mixture into the large bowl with the banana mixture. Add the melted butter and stir together the ingredients until completely combined (mixture will be a little lumpy and it will be a pale creamy yellow color). Pour into an oven-safe, greased, 8"x5" loaf pan. Bake for 60 minutes at 350*F or until tester (use a knife or fork) can be stuck in the bread and come out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in pan, then remove and let cool on a plate or rack for 10-20 minutes. Wrap in waxed paper and foil to keep it fresh. Slices can be served plain or spread with a little butter.

I love getting a slice of banana bread spread with a little butter served with a glass of skim milk for breakfast, and it's great as a snack too. It keeps well and you can even freeze it and thaw it out for later (make sure it's wrapped up tightly though and placed in a freezer bag. It's easy to make, it makes great use of bananas that are too ripe to eat as is, and it's really delicious.

Recipe: Rotini with Walnut Sauce

I started yesterday with a bowl of Kashi Heart-to-Heart cereal and a lemon bar and spent the afternoon up in the mountains with my best friend, lounging on a couch while watching The Patriot. At 4:00PM, still clad in pajamas, I headed home, my thoughts revolving around my rumbling tummy and the question of what to make for dinner. Since I had such a light breakfast and nothing else to eat that day, I felt I could get away with a more calorie-dense dinner, so I made a Giada De Laurentiis recipe (from her Everyday Pasta cookbook) that I'd pulled out to try earlier: Rotelli with Walnut Sauce. The meal was incredibly rich and creamy, so I paired it with a side salad of baby greens with a pomegranate vinaigrette and a glass of white wine. Perfect!

Serves: 4-6
Prep time: 5-10 minutes
Cooking time: 8-10 minutes (for the pasta), no cooking necessary for the sauce
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

• 1 pound rotelli, fusilli, or rotini (corkscrew pasta)
• 1.5 cups toasted walnuts (see instructions for toasting nuts below)
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Directions
To toast the walnuts: Preheat oven to 350* F. Spread the walnuts out evenly on a baking sheet and toast in oven for 5 to 10 minutes, until fragrant and golden brown. Stir them a few times while toasting and watch closely to make sure they don't burn. 
Bring a large pot of slated water to a boil. Add the pasta until cooked al dente (about 8 to 10 minutes). Drain the pasta and reserve about 1 cup of the cooking water.
In the meantime, combine the toasted walnuts, butter, salt, and pepper in a food processor. Pulse to combine the ingredients, then, with the machine running, slowly drizzle in the olive oil. Transfer the mixture to a small bowl and stir in the Parmesan cheese, then the heavy cream.
When the pasta is done, stir in the walnut sauce and add a little bit of the reserved cooking water, then stir gently until the sauce completely coats the pasta. Sprinkle with parsley and a little Parmesan cheese and serve.

This dish is very decadent and incredibly filling, so you may want to halve the recipe or reserve some of the walnut sauce and use it later in the week. I recommend serving it with a salad or crisp vegetables to add some lightness to the meal.