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Thursday, June 12, 2014

Smoky Spiced Grilled Chicken & Broccoli Cheese Casserole

This evening I grilled boneless chicken thighs for dinner. This is one of my favorite ways to prepare a quick grilled chicken meal. Even though these thighs are boneless and skinless...you'd never know it by how tender and juicy they are. I took 5 large boneless thighs and lightly sprayed them with olive oil and then seasoned one side with sea salt and black pepper. I seasoned the other side with salt, pepper, roasted ground cumin, smoked paprika, ancho chile powder and onion powder (I find all these spices in my local grocery store). That's it...and they are ready for the grill. I grilled them about 6 minutes or so on each side and then transferred them to a platter and covered them with foil to rest for about 5 to 10 minutes to help them retain their juices. The blend of spices give this chicken a smoky, not too spicy flavor that is so good. To go along with our chicken, I made the Broccoli Cheese Casserole from the Wheat Belly 30 Minute or Less Cookbook. Now, of course you know me...I just couldn't leave it alone. I had to "doctor it" just a bit. I bumped up the amount of cheese and then also added a delicious buttery pecan topping to it. The topping consisted of a couple tablespoons of melted butter, mixed together with about 6 or 7 rounded tablespoonfuls of pecan meal and a pinch of sea salt. Using my fingers, I crumbled and scattered the buttery pecan mixture across the top and popped it in the oven to bake. It was AWESOME!  To go with our meal, we enjoyed some delicious garden fresh tomatoes my hubby brought home with him from work this evening. He was generously gifted with some beautiful little red and yellow tomatoes as well as the most interesting and beautiful purple heirloom tomatoes. They were small round and deep purple with green shading on the bottom. They are called Indigo Rose. They are a gorgeous deep eggplant purple color with light green shading towards the bottom blossom end. I didn't know what to expect when I sliced them. The inside of the purple tomatoes is a beautiful shade of green. The exterior skin color is almost identical to the color of an eggplant. I sliced all the beautiful tomatoes and served them alongside our meal. This is my kind of weeknight meal. Super quick, super fresh and super delicious! Check out the photos below. Enjoy!









4 comments:

  1. What interesting tomatoes! We have baby tomatoes on the vine. It will be a while before they are ripe. We can't wait! Thanks for another interesting recipe. I will look at the recipe in the WB cookbook for the broccoli.

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  2. I hope you are working on a cookbook!!!

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  3. Hi Cathy and Bill,

    I am thinking about it...haven't started working on it yet! :-)

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  4. Hi Peg,

    I thought the tomatoes were very interesting...and I was quite surprised when I sliced them. I thought they might be purple inside instead of green. I am hoping to pick a few of our first tomatoes this weekend! :-)

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