Mexican Polenta Pizza with Tomatillo Salsa (gluten-free)

Hello everyone! Rosh Hashana is upon us, and so I thought I would post...something entirely unrelated to apples, honey or brisket! But tonight's recipe is in part motivated by the upcoming holiday. Specifically, we got a really great haul from our CSA this week and we have been scrambling (figuratively and literally as well, we made scrambled eggs this weekend with some of it) to use up the delicious produce we get from Windflower Farm - with the abbreviated week, we needed to make sure we cooked up some good stuff before heading to family for the holiday.

Among our haul: tomatoes, bell peppers, chili peppers, arugula, red onions and tomatillos. The last one being, I think, the most interesting of the bunch. I've heard professional TV chefs like Bobby Flay talk about how amazing tomatillos are, and I've heard of them used in lots of Mexican dishes. I've seen them in the supermarket too, but I've always been a little afraid to buy them, being unsure what they taste like or how to use them. So naturally when we got them in our CSA it was my job to use them up.

The trouble with tomatillos is: no one else really seems to know how to use them either! That's an exaggeration of course, but in my research it seemed like all people really used tomatillos for sauces - the most popular being salsa verde, along with some other tasty-sounding sauces for enchiladas, or as mix-ins for guacamole. I recently even saw a tomatillo ketchup from Saveur recently. But in all these recipes the tomatillos were just playing second fiddle as a condiment. I nearly gave up and planned on just buying some avocadoes and dicing them into guacamole...

When I asked Faigy what proteins we had on hand, she mentioned chicken. I figured I'd be stuffed with chicken for the next three days over the holiday, so I wanted to go for something else. The only other things she mentioned we had were pasta and polenta. Hmm...polenta sounds good, but we always have it sliced into rounds, how could I come up with a new presentation...?

A few more minutes mulling it over and it hit me! Being a sauce didn't mean the tomatillo couldn't play a starring role. What if I just treated it like a tomato and made a sauce out of it for pizza? But the better answer was to let the tomato inspire it, but not treat it like one.

I went back to the tomatillo salsa idea. I could bake a pizza "crust" from polenta, spread a tomatillo salsa doctored up as a pizza sauce on it, sprinkle cheese and bake! The result was a recipe with a number of different variations to fit all sorts of different tastes and requirements.

Some notes: I tried the salsa raw and cooked. The raw had much more of a spicy kick, but way more vibrant flavor and a beautiful color. If you're looking for something punchy with a great bright green color, keep the salsa raw before spreading onto the crust (you may need to strain it a bit). On the other had, the cooked version has a much deeper, more caramelized flavor, with a taste that vaguely resembles a tomato but not quite.

This can also be made vegan by using vegan cheese (or omitting it entirely). It is also entirely gluten-free naturally!

Finally: if you want a quick version: skip the tomatillo sauce entirely and just use regular tomato sauce. The polenta crust is way healthier than dough (350 calories for the whole thing) and it takes 5 minutes active time to prep.

Mexican Polenta Pizza with Tomatillo Salsa and fresh CSA veggie salad

BBQ-Style Stuffed Peppers

A few years ago, I made a dish of onions stuffed with a ground beef mixture from Joyce Goldstein's Cucina Ebraica. It was quite delicious, and I'd resolved to make it again (in fact, in my cooking notebook I'd written down a variant which I have yet to make, but perhaps will appear here one day), but sadly that resolution was lost between the pages of numerous cookbooks I've acquired since.

Fast forward to last week. I had ten people coming for dinner and only a package of ground beef in the freezer. I thought to myself, "how can I make one pound of ground beef stretch for ten people?" My first thought was to fall back to my reliable sweet & sour meatloaf. But then in the back of my mind I recalled the deliciousness of those stuffed onions, and thought of another iconic form of stuffed produce: stuffed peppers.

As it happened, I recently had some stuffed peppers at Abigael's - but they were stuffed with barbecued brisket. I liked the idea of barbecued beef inside the pepper - instead of the classic tomato sauce-drenched dish. But my one complaint about that dish was that the brisket felt a little dry. I knew I had to get the barbecue flavor and ensure a moist, juicy texture to the meat.

The key to that was to cook the meat almost like a stew, with plenty of liquid in a heavy-lidded pot which retains heat well. I created my own savory-sweet barbecue sauce to be cooked in with the beef, and when combined with soft basmati rice, the mixture retained moisture and flavor excellently. Most stuffed pepper recipes call for pouring tomato sauce on top. I debated this for a while but Faigy advised that doing so would drown out the flavor of the meat and the pepper too much.

The rice and meat mixture can be made ahead of time. Just stash them in the fridge for up to a day or two. Reheat the meat in a dutch oven (add a little extra water or broth if it seems dry), then add the rice and warm together (the rice should absorb the remainder of the liquid).

Also, you can make this dish pareve/vegetarian/vegan by using a good ground beef substitute (we like Trader Joe's Beef-less Beef) and vegetable broth.

Red and green peppers will lend different flavors - experiment with both!

Cranberry & Caramelized Apple Chicken

Here's another fall/winter favorite. I came up with this recipe sometime last year when I was thinking about cranberry crunch and I decided it would be great to turn it into a chicken recipe (well, maybe minus the crunch).

This is a fairly easy recipe which packs HUGE amounts of flavor. There's something special about the combination of brown sugar, apples, cinnamon and cranberries. It's very important to make sure you get the cranberry sauce with whole cranberries - that give the necessary texture, to the final sauce; plus, it's already sweetened so you don't need to add anything extra to it.

Also, there are two ways you could go about caramelizing the apples: you can use white sugar and melt it, creating caramel, and then toss in the apples; or you can use brown sugar, which seems to dissolve a lot more readily (probably because it's got the moisture of molasses built-in) and then toss the apples in that. The first time I made this recipe I used white sugar, but this last time I was in a rush so I used brown.

The difference is the time and care that the caramelization takes with white sugar (it does take quite a few minutes for it to melt...using the oil was my shortcut to make this happen slightly quicker since oil is a good conductor), and the fact that you need to be careful to stop the cooking before it burns (accomplished by adding the apples to drop the temperature of the skillet). With the brown sugar, it seems you just don't need to wait as long and it doesn't seem to be as finicky a process. The end result though, in my opinion, is that the white sugar method tastes a lot richer and sweeter than the brown, but the brown works just as well if you're short on time.

Is it chicken? Is it dessert? I don't know but it's very addicting.

Asian Tuna Steak

Ever since I was young I've loved tuna steak. Something about it just tastes so unique - it doesn't quite taste like fish, it's not exactly a steak, and it's definitely worlds apart from the canned stuff. So, as I've been settling in to my "fish renaissance" in which I actually bother going out and buying good fish to cook with naturally I have reclaimed the tuna steak as my own.

The problem, I find, is finding the perfect recipe for tuna steak. It's got such a wonderfully complex flavor. Often it's grilled, since it can take the heat of the grill. I once read in Cook's Illustrated (though I can't seem to find the issue right now) an article with a guide to how certain fish can/should be cooked. Tuna was definitely up at the top with the more heat-intense applications.

Anyways, I often find that one of the most common things involving tuna steak you'll see on a menu is some sort of Asian-style tuna. Makes sense - Asian flavors blend a whole lot of savory and umami, which is exactly what tuna needs. So, building on that, I saw an Asian-style preparation as the entry point into my quest for tuna perfection.

This recipe reuses the marinade as a sauce - but you need to make sure to cook it to avoid cross-contamination! I only had one tuna steak on hand but I think the marinade can be enough for two.

Though I don't think this recipe has brought me to tuna nirvana yet, I think it's a good way there - and so you'll see me continue experimenting in the future, trying to find the ideal tuna steak recipe.

One step closer to tuna nirvana...

Asian Tuna Steak

1 or 2 tuna steaks

2 tsp olive oil
2 tsp sesame oil

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp mustard

1 tsp rice vinegar

1 tbsp honey 1

1/2 tsp sesame seeds

1/4 tsp dried basil

2 tsp fresh ginger, minced

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp lemon juice

1. Combine all the ingredients (except tuna) in a bowl and mix together very well.

2. Place tuna steaks in a ziploc bag and pour in the marinade. Let sit in the refrigerator for 30 min to 2 hours.

3. Heat your broiler to high. Remove tuna steaks from marinade and place on a baking sheet. Sprinkle extra sesame seeds on top of tuna and broil - 2 minutes each side for medium rare.

4. Pour leftover marinade into a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat down to a simmer and cook until the sauce has thickened to the consistency you desire.

5. Serve sauce on top of the tuna steak.

Serves 1-2.

Onion Chicken

Well I've done it again. I've said I'd post soon and slacked off. But worry not! I've been collected recipes and photos this whole time and I have a whole bunch of stuff to post (including an exciting 4-for-1 pudding cake to come soon!). In the meantime, I think I'll start with my most recent creation that I made last week and was extremely pleased with: onion chicken.

Onions are a really fundamental part of my cooking but they're always the aromatic, they're always there to enhance the flavor, they're never the star of the dish - that ends today! This recipe is really easy, delicious and healthy, and I hope will become a favorite of yours too! I've been savoring the leftovers all week.

A lot of times I use chicken breasts because they are easier and quicker to deal with - but I decided to go for on-the-bone chicken this time. Though what I did do was remove all the skin and trim the fat. The way I see it is: so many people I know make such delicious chicken and they have some cool spices and flavorings or sauces but they always put it on top of the skin!

I know there's some sort of American ideal to have crispy skin with poultry but I don't buy it. I almost never eat the skin of chicken (except wings which just aren't worth the effort of taking it off), and so I always end up having to try to wipe some of the flavorings on the skin onto the pale, minimal-flavor chicken beneath it, never with much success.

So instead, I strongly prefer to take all the skin off usually when I make on-the-bone chicken. Not only is it healthier, but the flavor you worked so hard to create pervades the meat of the chicken, and doesn't just rest on top - and that's exactly what I did here.

The basic idea is your standard breaded chicken, with a layer of sauce/binder and a layer of coating (different from your standard frying dredge since there's no bottom layer of flour). The effect that occurs is kind of cool though - some of the sauce drips out, mixes with the little bit of melted fat left on the chicken, and the juice of the onions all mix together in the bottom of the dish to form a really tasty savory sauce which can (and should) be spooned on top at serving time (probably would also be good on top of rice).

Anyway, enough talking, on to the deliciousness!

Tasty chicken where onion is the star of the dish

Onion Chicken

4 thighs + 4 legs chicken (you can use any chicken pieces, I happen to like dark meat)
4 tbsp Smart Beat mayonnaise (or regular mayonnaise if you can't find the healthier one)
3 tbsp honey or dijon mustard
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 c bread crumbs
4 tbsp Osem onion soup mix
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried parsley
4-5 sprigs fresh thyme
1/2 tsp cardamom (optional, if you can find it)
1 tsp chili powder
salt and pepper
2 onions sliced crosswise into rings
2 tbsp canola oil


1. Preheat oven to 375. Pour oil into an empty pan/tin and let heat in the preheated oven for 10 minutes. Make sure you have enough space in your dish to allow all the chicken pieces to lay flat in one layer - if not, use multiple dishes.

2. Remove skin from chicken and trim off excess fat.

3. Mix mayo, soy sauce and mustard in one bowl/plate, and crumbs, spices, soup mix, herbs, salt and pepper to taste in another.

4. Dip chicken pieces in to sauce mixture, then into crumb mixture, coating fully.

5. Remove the preheated pan, and place chicken pieces face-up in the pan (you should hear a little sizzle as you do since you preheated the oil). Make sure the chicken is only in one layer!

6. Place sliced onion rings on top of chicken, and bake uncovered for 20 minutes (to crisp up the crumbs)

7. Lower the temperature to 300 and bake covered for another 20 or so minutes (to get the onions caramelizing) until the chicken is fully cooked - use a meat thermometer! (180 for dark meat, 170 for white meat). If your chicken is too close to this after the first 20 minutes at 375, you may want to lower the temperature to 250 or 275 to slow down the cooking - remember, you don't want to overshoot your mark or you'll get dry chicken!

Serves 6-8 or however many pieces of chicken you prepare.

Nutritional info per serving: 300 calories, 11g fat [2.4g saturated], 17g carbs, 29g protein

The Ultimate Sweet & Sour Meatloaf

Okay, so I must admit, after just having seen Julie & Julia last night (very good movie), I am re-inspired to continue my quest to post my collected recipes on my blog. Most notably, I'd like to finally share the Ultimate Meatloaf recipe that I came up with a couple weeks back.

So basically, I was kinda stuck for dinner one Friday night, and I decided I was going to just eat at home and try to invite whoever I could over (I ended up not finding anyone, so more meatloaf for me!). I was also in the mood for a ground beef dish, but I find meatballs very time-consuming (I am picky about the shape). So, I decided to try my hand at meatloaf (another first for me) - something that growing up I was never a huge fan of because it was often dry and flavorless.

I decided to construct the meatloaf in two layers: the first layer being the meat, which I wanted to be very savory and flavorful, yet moist and juicy. The second layer would be the glaze, which I had scribbled down in my cooking notebook over a year ago as an idea to try out - an applesauce-based glaze. I wanted to take this a step further and turn it into a bit of a sweet-and-sour glaze, so I added some cider vinegar and teriyaki sauce.

It came out ridiculously well, but I want to stress one thing. There was one flavor in the meat that absolutely made all the difference: the Chinese five-spice powder. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT INGREDIENT IN THE RECIPE (maybe besides the beef), DO NOT SKIP IT!!! I cannot stress this enough. In the past few months I have been learning the ways of Chinese five-spice, and I have concluded that it is amazing with ground beef (my meatballs on Purim were also a testament to that - but alas, I didn't write down the recipe!). If you don't have any, it is incredibly worth your while to go out and get some (sometimes hard to find - I only found Fairway carried it, but I am certain you can find it online easily). It gives this complex flavor of cumin and a hint of anise (licorice) that makes you go, "ooh, hmm!" on every bite.

Okay, okay, enough of plugging the spices. On to the recipe!

The best meatloaf I have ever tasted.

The Ultimate Sweet and Sour Meatloaf

For meatloaf:

2 lb. ground beef
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp. dijon mustard
1 tbsp. maple syrup
1 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. parlsey
1/2 tsp Chinese five spice powder
1/4 tsp ginger
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 oz finely chopped pecans or hazelnuts (you can add up to 8 oz. if you wish)
2 eggs
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 can diced tomatoes
Salt (at least 2-3 heavy pinches)
Pepper

For glaze:

1/2 cup applesauce (preferably unsweetened)
2 tbsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 tbsp. cider vinegar
2 tbsp. teriyaki sauce

1. Combine all meatloaf ingredients and mix very well.

2. Transfer to a loaf pan (or other baking vessel) and pack well. Smooth off the top.

3. Combine glaze ingredients well and spoon evenly onto top of meatloaf.

4. Bake at 350 for 1 hr 30 min or till meat reaches 160 F. Please, use a meat thermometer on this if you have one available.

5. After it's done, allow it to rest at least 10 minutes before serving. If desired, pour off excess fat (carefully please!)

Serves 10-12. Depends how you cut it really.

Chili con Carne

So, I have a confession: I've made plenty of cholents but I have never made chili before. Well, at least, I hadn't until a couple of weeks ago. But when I did finally set out on the brave endeavor of making my first chili, I borrowed a few techniques from my cholent-making skills, namely: the crock pot.

I like using those crock pot liners (sometimes hard to find in some supermarkets) to make crock pot cooking a lot easier to clean up. Some people put water underneath the liner which I find does nothing and it makes it take longer for the heat to transfer into the food. Besides, these things are purposely made to withstand the kinds of temperatures crock pots can put out. Especially when you cook a cholent overnight and things have a tendency to stick to the sides or the bottom, these things really help. OK, end of product plug (no I am not paid for this. If you are a crock pot liner manufacturer and would like to pay me I will graciously accept. Let's do lunch).

Of course, you don't have to use a crock pot for this recipe - a Dutch oven will do just as well (or so I hear, since I don't happen to own one; again, if you would like to purchase one for me, I will graciously accept. Let's do lunch. Dinner if the crock pot liner guys call me first). If you don't have either, I suppose a large-ish pot will suffice on the stovetop for roughly the same time, but keep an eye on it (since the meat is already cooked by the time it goes into the pot, you're really looking to cook for the right consistency, i.e. when the liquid level is at your liking).

You'll notice this chili contains both beef and chicken. That was the result of buying beef and having additional guests added later on and needing to add some additional protein to make it a larger batch. This turned out to be an extremely good choice and I now am a big fan of polyproteinous chili (I think I just made that word up).

Anyhow, apparently the chili came out really well - I've still been getting compliments weeks afterwards. Hopefully you'll find this chili just as memorable. And if you don't, I hope you'll at least find it tasty. Cause that's all that matters in the kitchen in the end.

This is the chili only 2 hours into cooking (which is why it's liquidy still)

Chili con Carne

1 lb. chicken breasts, cubed
1 lb. ground beef
1 bunch scallions, chopped
3-4 carrots, diced
4 cloves garlic, mined
2 tsp chili powder
1 can corn
1 can pinto beans
1 can cannellini beans
1 green pepper, diced
2 jalapenos, diced (or canned diced jalapenos)
1 tbsp. chili powder
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp white pepper
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 cups chicken stock
2 tbsp flour + 2 tbsp water
Salt & pepper

1. Saute scallions, garlic, carrots till soft in a cast iron skillet.

2. Add chili powder, salt, pepper, chicken and beef and cook through.

3. Using a slotted spoon, transfer skillet contents to a crock pot (discard the leftover fat, or use for something else).

4. Add corn, beans, pepper, jalapenos, spices, bay leaves to crock pot.

5. Mix flour and water together thoroughly to form a clumpless slurry. Add the slurry and stock to the crock pot.

6. Add salt & pepper to taste and mix well. Cook on low for 3-4 hours, or until it reaches the desired consistency.

Serves 10-12.

Skirt Steak with Asian-Whiskey Glaze

I'm baaack! I know, I've taken quite a long hiatus from my blog - I assure you, it has nothing to do with you! I've still been cooking, I just haven't had time to sit down and focus on writing entries for everything I've made. But fear not! I still have pictures and notes of what I've been up to. Hopefully, I'll be able to dump a slew of these recipes up here within the next few days.

Anyway, let's talk steak. I love steak. I haven't had it very much since being on Weight Watchers. In college, I discovered that my favorite steak cut is skirt steak. I had it grilled one time with NOTHING - no salt, no sauce, nothing - and it was quite possibly the most flavorful steak I had tasted up till that point. Well, why mess with perfection then you ask? Because I can.

I wanted to make a really nice main entree for a special Friday night dinner - just for two. I decided that steak was the best choice. A few months back, I went to Wolf & Lamb steakhouse for my birthday and ordered a Jack Daniels steak - a nice ribeye with a whiskey sauce. I combined this with an idea from Quick & Kosher for Asian-style steak and with Cook's Illustrated's May 2009 issue's recipe for Beef Teriyaki, along with their "Guide to Marinating" and voila! my skirt steak recipe was born.

Marinating is very good for skirt steak, because it is a thin cut. According to Cook's Illustrated, marinating only penetrates up to 1/2 inch through meat's surface - which is great, because skirt steak is usually not much more than an inch thick - so lots of flavor abound! Make sure you don't use up all the marinade! You will be sorely missing out if you don't have extra reserved for the glaze.

This is also great for summer barbecues - you can make the glaze on the side!

Skirt Steak with Asian-Whiskey Glaze

1 lb. skirt steak
3 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp whiskey
2 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp white wine
1 large shallot, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1.5 tsp dry mustard
1 tbsp. flour
1/2 cup + 1 tbsp. water
Chopped scallions, for garnish

1. Combine all soy sauce, oil, wine, whiskey, shallot, garlic, brown sugar and dry mustard in a bowl or measuring cup and whisk well together - this should make about 3/4 cup.

2. Place skirt steak in a ziploc bag, and pour 1/3 to 1/2 of marinade into bag (depends how much you need to coat meat). Press the air out of the bag and seal it well. Refrigerate for at least half hour, but more is fine.

4. When ready, preheat a cast-iron skillet (strongly recommended - if not, use a pan without non-stick coating - or a grill!) to screaming hot. Sear meat for 3-4 min on both sides. Remove and let rest on a plate for 10 min.

5. In the meantime, lower the heat on the pan. Mix flour and 1 tbsp water together in a bowl to form a slurry (to prevent flour clumping). Pour slurry, and remaining water into the remaining marinade, and pour into skillet (careful - this will boil very fast in a hot skillet!). This will let you deglaze the pan and scrape up any of the fond (yummy brown bits) at the bottom of the pan. Mix very well (and fast) until sauce comes to a glaze consistency.

6. Spoon glaze over steak and serve. Garnish with scallions.

Serves 4 (or more, depending how you cut your steak).

Chicken Cacciatore

So, this week I had my first experience with FreshDirect. I figured out early what I was making, so I ordered the appropriate produce, and I must say, I am very impressed with the quality of vegetables they gave me. It definitely seems cheaper to shop there for some things if you know what you need in advance. The downside that I learned the hard way is that they don't always pack things securely - for example, yogurt that can explode all over the box and all the products in the box (ew). They were pretty understanding though and gave me a refund for the ruined items. But it beats going to the supermarket where the produce quality is sometimes okay, and sometimes awful (and the farmer's market can get expensive sometimes...).

I came up with this recipe for chicken cacciatore last year. It was one of my first "original" recipes - I basically spent a bit of time researching dozens of different chicken cacciatore recipes and tried to assemble in my mind what I thought was common between all of them. In the end, I was able to put together a nice array of flavors that were what I think this classic Italian dish should taste like (mind you, without ever having tasted it myself before!).

I think generally people like to put olives in chicken cacciatore, but I personally am not a big fan of the taste of olives, so I left them out. You can add them if you see fit - green is probably better than black.

The addition of the couscous came out of not having an extra side dish to serve with this, so I took a page out of my mother's cookbook and built-in the side dish to the chicken (my mom makes potatoes underneath chicken). It came out well - just be careful if you reheat this dish on a hot plate or something not to burn the couscous on bottom.

I used a red onion this time instead of regular for more color.

Chicken Cacciatore

1 red pepper, sliced
2 green peppers, sliced
1 onion, sliced
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup white wine
1 whole chicken, in 1/8ths, or whatever parts you prefer
Olive oil
Crushed tomatoes
1 tomato diced
1 tomato sliced
1 package mushrooms, sliced
1-2 bay leaves
Salt & pepper
Israeli couscous, optional

1. Season chicken. Brown chicken skin-side down in olive oil over medium-high heat. Transfer to a plate.

2. In same pan/oil, cook onions, garlic, mushrooms over medium heat until the onions are soft and the mushrooms have a nice brown color.

3. Deglaze the pan with white wine. Add crushed tomatoes and diced tomato, peppers and the bay leaf. Season the sauce too. Simmer together, covered, until sauce comes together and peppers are more or less cooked, but not too soft (about 5-10 minutes).

4. If using Israeli couscous, toast it in a skillet until they start to brown, making sure to mix constantly to ensure even heat distribution.

5. In a baking dish (sprayed with Pam), optionally dump couscous on the bottom. You can either layer some sauce above that, then place chicken, then more sauce, or just do the chicken then all the sauce - it will seep down and cook and flavor the couscous. Bake, covered, in a preheated oven at 350, for 30-40 minutes or until done (for this it's best to use a meat thermometer if possible; cooking time could vary depending on how cooked the chicken was when you browned it).

Beta Recipe: Cornflake Chicken with Corn Sauce

I came up with this chicken recipe a couple of months ago when (as usual) my pantry was not well-stocked enough and all I really had on had were some onions and a can of corn. I made it and I liked it but I put way too much consomme mix in, and it just dominated the sauce. So, this was primarily another shot at the recipe with the seasonings mellowed out a little bit.

The sauce was not bad, but it could have used a little more flavor from something else, and definitely some more color besides just the yellow of the corn.

The biggest problem I had with the chicken this time though was the texture. Just like the last time I made it, the coating was mushy, and I'm not sure it was flavorful enough. The cornflake crumb mush just slopped off the chicken with the corn sauce, which was extremely unsatisfying. I found myself eating this mass of cornflake globs with the corn sauce...the taste wasn't too bad, but it wasn't the kind of thing I'd be prepared to served to a large crowd.

Here's what I would change: I would add another vegetable to the sauce, possible diced tomatoes, as well as maybe a green bell pepper (or even jalapeno possibly). I kind of want it to be more of a salsa than a sauce, and maybe give the dish a little more of a Mexican flair.

I would also definitely change the primary cooking method of the chicken. Baking it covered just plain didn't work. Baking it uncovered without the sauce first might be a step in the right direction. Another step might be to bake it uncovered on a cooling rack on top of a baking sheet, to allow both sides of the chicken to crisp up. But really, my gut feeling tells me this chicken is meant to be sautéed. A preliminary experiment with frying the leftovers definitely yielded better taste, but it was too late to see the effect it would have on the texture since it was already cooked. I'm pretty confident though that frying the chicken first will crisp it up nice and golden brown, and then cooking it with the sauce might be the right way to do this.

So, try this beta recipe at your own risk, or even better, improve it and let me know how you fixed it up!

This could've used a crisper texture and more color...

Cornflake Chicken with Corn Sauce

For chicken:
4 chicken breasts
1 Tbsp fat-free mayo (such as Smart Beat)
2 Tbsp mustard or prepared mustard sauce (I used SanJ tamari mustard sauce or a chipotle mustard)
1 Tbsp paprika
2 tsp. Billybee honey garlic spice (or just use garlic powder and a little bit of honey)
1 cup corn flake crumbs

For sauce:
2 tsp. olive oil
1 onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 (11 oz.) can of corn
2 tsp marjoram
2 tsp coriander
1 cup white wine
1 Tbsp. chicken consomme mix (such as Osem brand)
Salt & pepper to taste

1. Mix mayo, mustard, paprika and honey garlic spice together in a small bowl, and lay corn flake crumbs out on a plate. Dip chicken breasts in mayo-mustard sauce till well-coated, then coat in corn flake crumbs. Set the chicken breasts aside in a dish.

2. Saute sliced onions and garlic in olive oil over medium heat until translucent.

3. Deglaze the pan with white wine, then add corn, marjoram, coriander, chicken soup mix, salt & pepper. You might need to add a little bit of water too if there is not enough liquid in the pan - but no more than half a cup. Cover and let simmer over medium heat until most of the liquid has reduced.

4. Spoon corn sauce over chicken, cover and bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes or until done.

Serves 4.
7 WW points.