Tortilla Soup, Ole! Plus May Kosher Connection Recipe Linkup

This month's Kosher Connection theme is croutons.  Croutons are delicious, crunchy, fun to eat, generally not so good for you.  But I love them - who doesn't, really?  There is nothing yummier than homemade croutons: a diced loaf of crusty bread, tossed with butter or oil and amazing seasonings, toasted until perfectly crisp on the outside, with a little chew on the inside, so delicious and addictive, and then you put them in some incredibly flavorful soup or a beautiful salad, mmmmm...

Sorry, distracted.  Where was I again?  Oh, yeah, right.  I figure that as a baker, I contribute to not such healthy eating for some folks, so I have to be more careful when it comes to the courses preceding dessert.  That's why I went with a lighter style crouton - tortilla crisps.  No frying here, and the only added fat is cooking spray.  No seasoning is added, though still delicious.  And they top off a bold and hearty soup, which, oddly enough, is beloved by every single member of my family.  How often does that happen?!

Tortilla Soup

Tortilla Crisps
Ingredients:
3 flour tortillas
Cooking Spray

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray both sides of the tortillas with a light coating of cooking spray.  Cut tortillas into 1/2" by  1 1/2" strips.  Spread into a single layer on a cookie sheet. Bake for 5 - 10 minutes, tossing about 3 minutes through for even cooking.  Remove from oven when they are toasted and LIGHTLY colored.  Set aside to cool.

Soup
Ingredients:
2 medium onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
canola oil
1 red pepper, diced
1/2 yellow pepper, diced
1 green hot pepper, ribs and seeds removed, finely diced (be super careful about touching anything after dicing the hot peppers! Keep your hands away from your eyes, nose, mouth, children... And even if you wear gloves, remember that the cutting board may retain the spicy heat, so be careful when you wash it)
14 oz can diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon each salt, cumin, and chili powder (the seasoning amounts are very subjective - feel free to adjust to your preference!)
8 cups chicken stock (use water and chicken soup powder in a pinch) + 1 cup water
1 cup frozen corn
2 chicken breasts, diced
1 can black, kidney, or chili beans, drained and rinsed

Saute onions and garlic in a small amount of canola oil until onions and translucent and tender. Add in red, yellow, and hot peppers and saute for 2 more minutes, until beginning to soften. Add in the tomatoes (drained or not, depending if you prefer a redder or less red soup, really not that important unless you have a child who only likes yellow soup. I wish I had made that up, but yeah, got one or two of those.), and seasoning and stir. Then add in chicken stock and water and bring just to a boil and then lower. Allow to simmer for about 20-25 minutes. Add in frozen corn and diced chicken and simmer for about 10 minutes, then add in drained beans and simmer until everything is just heated through.  Adjust seasoning and serve, sprinkling each bowl with a handful of tortilla crisps.  Serve additional crisps on the side, because they're so good.

And when you've had your fill of this delicious soup, check out what all the other talented cooks have contributed to this month's linkup!

Ridiculous Hot Dog Cookies for Purim - and Kosher Connection Recipe Linkup

Purim is a happy, carefree holiday.  If you're a kid, that is.  Costumes, candy, parties, and the cessation of education for at least two weeks.  It's awesome. 

But I get stressed out by this holiday, though I didn't used to.  I finally understood what my problem was recently, when a friend spelled it out for me.  You see, three years ago, we made awesome mishloach manot.  And I can't ever top it, so now I have put myself in a position where expectations are high, and I let everyone, especially myself, down when I give a lame old MM.

So what was so great about that year's MM?  Well, I finally relented and went with a theme beyond "it's Purim, here's some food."  Our theme was fast food, and everything (almost) was cookies and cake.  We made hamburgers,

hot dogs,

French fries with ketchup,

ice cream sundaes,

and chocolate milk - okay, that was real. And if I can't ever live the experience down, well, maybe you can share in my suffering as I share the recipe for the hot dog cookies.  They were bookmarked in my browser in a file called "ridiculous," which, obviously, they are, but you never know when a recipe like this could come in handy.  (I don't actually hve any ideas right now for when that could be, but I am sure they'll come to me.)  So I throw down the gauntlet: make these cookies for your Mishloach Manot, but keep in mind that they will impress your friends and and then everyone will expect to be wowed next year too!

As for me, I am sure we will come up with something, but if you have any great ideas for a theme for us that's not too complicated, we'd love to hear it!

Hot Dog Cookies
Adapted from TLC

Ingredients:
150 grams softened margarine (1 1/2 sticks or 3/4 cup)
6 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt
red gel food coloring
1/2 teaspoon cocoa
Yellow and/or red buttercream frosting or royal icing

Directions:
Cream margarine with sugars.  Beat in egg yolk.  Add dry ingredients and mix well.  Remove 1/3 of the dough and knead in a small amount of the red gel food color and the cocoa. Chill both sections well, at least a few hours or overnight.  Remove the uncolored dough, leaving the rest in the fridge, and divide into approximately 12 pieces.  Form each one into a long cylinder, then use the side of your hand to form an indentation (mimicking the shape of a hot dog bun).  Divide the colored dough into 12, and form each piece into a hot dog shape, then place each one in a "bun."

Chill in the fridge for about 20 minutes.  Preheat the oven to 350.  Bake for 15-17 minutes, until "buns" are lightly browned on the edges. 

When fully cool, put your frosting or icing in a decorating bag with a small round tip, and apply a squiggle of "mustard" or "ketchup" or both.  If you are so inclined, you can use things like cut-up gummy candies and shredded coconut to add "relish" or "onions."  With or without the additions, they will be adorable. Enjoy!

 

Wishing you all a happy and joyous Purim - and fun with the preparations!

And now for some real Mishloach Manot inspiration, check out the rest of this month's Kosher Connection recipes!

Sacher Torte Sandwiches - January Kosher Connection Recipe Linkup

I was trying to be super-creative for this one, trying to think outside the box.  I mean, I love miniatures.  I make mini-desserts, I love when foods are made single serving, what's not to love.  But then I realized two important things. One, my brain does not work in a straight line.  I don't really think a box could contain the leaps and bounds and stretches my mind makes when I think about things.  Second, I am always making miniatures.  What are cookies if not miniature desserts?

So instead of something totally different, I thought I would share my process with you.  This is how Dvora's Cookie Creations comes up with a new flavor.

1.  Have a food craving.
2.  If it's healthy, indulge it.
3.  If it's for something sweet, think about how the flavors I am dying for can be translated into a cookie form.

That's it.  There's not much of that "Cupcake Wars" notion of how can I fit a disgusting ingredient into a dessert.  I draw the line at that.  No cheese curls or crispy salmon skin in my desserts.  But this concept of translation has worked for me.  Thus, the orange-cranberry-white chocolate cookies (started with Creamsicles), the apricot white chocolate cookies (chocolate dipped dried fruit), the pecan shortbread (pecan pie), the samoa sandwiches (Girl Scout cookies), the Chunky Monkey bars (ice cream!! - still working on the Chubby Hubby squares), and today's example, the Sacher Torte sandwich.

So let's talk cake for a minute.   I love cake of all kinds.  It's delicious, or should be.  But there's so much of it.  Even a little 6-inch cake is too many servings to just have lying around.  A cookie, however, is portion-controlled.  You can make some, freeze the rest of the dough, eat one, and put the other cookies aside for Shabbat or another occasion that calls for some dessert.

Sacher Torte is a traditional Austrian pastry; two layers of chocolate sponge sandwiching apricot preserves, covered in chocolate glaze.  Mmmmm.  So to translate this into cookie-hood, I decided to go the sandwich cookie route (which, let's face it, I do a lot of.  It just seems a great way to layer flavors and textures.).  I started with a chocolate but not excessively chocolatey roll out cookie, to which I added almond extract - not so authentic, but definitely screams Vienna to me.  I wanted one with a fair amount of leavening, so the cookies would puff up to resemble the texture (sort of) of sponge cake.  I cut the well-chilled dough into circles, cutting out a small circle from the center of half of the cookies to provide a window into the filling. 

After baking, I paired off the cookies, one solid and one with a peek-through, so that similar sized cookies fit together.  It's one of those annoyances that even cookies cut with a cutter are never all precisely the same, so it's just gotta be done.  I covered the backs of the solid cookies with apricot preserves, then topped them with the cut-out cookies.  Instead of coating the whole thing with chocolate, I chose to drizzle a zig-zag of chocolate across the cookies, as I felt a complete or even partial dunking would overpower the apricot and almond flavors.  And a drizzle is always pretty...

So there you have it, an actual cookie recipe from me.  It doesn't happen too often, so enjoy!

Sacher Torte Sandwich Cookies
Ingredients:
200 grams margarine, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup cocoa
3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

good quality apricot preserves
100 grams chocolate chips or baking chocolate
1 teaspoon oil

Directions:
Cream margarine with sugar.  Add eggs, one at a time, then vanilla.  Sift together cocoa, flour, baking powder, and salt, and add to creamed mixture.  Divide dough into three disks, wrap each in plastic wrap, and chill well, at least one hours.  Preheat oven to 350 F.  Roll out dough on well-floured surface, about 1/8" thick. using a 2" round cutter, cut circles.  Place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  Gather up scraps and re-roll.  Cut out a small (1/3 - 1/2") circle from the center of half the cookies.  Bake for about 7 minutes.  Cool and pair cookies, one whole and one cut-out, by matching sizes.  On the underside of the whole cookies, spread apricot preserves.  Top with a cut-out cookie.  Spread cookies out on a fresh piece of parchment.  Melt chocolate with oil in microwave on low power.  Pour into a disposable decorating bag or heavy duty ziploc bag.  Twist shut, and cut off tip/corner.  Drizzle chocolate onto cookies.  Let chocolate set, and - b'tayavon!

Bread Pudding - November Kosher Connection Recipe Linkup

 

The theme for this month's linkup is Thanksgiving related - Stuffing.  The gauntlet was definitely thrown down for us dessert-y people, so I felt that I could not get away with another savory, defiantly non-dessert recipe.  I let my mind run amok, as it is wont to do anyway, and went on a whole stream of consciousness adventure.  Stuffed cookies, stuffed cupcakes, a cake with something fabulous hidden in the middle....the possibilities seemed endless.  But then work got intense, and the world got scary.  Elections, hurricanes, nor'easters - and none of that even where we live!  And now, we are embroiled in an unfortunate but utterly necessary military operation, and the world is a little scarier and colder place than it was before.

So the drifting in my brain became focused on two things: 1. the universal need for comfort food, and 2. figuring out what the sweet counterpart to savory stuffing would be.  Well, duh, if stuffing is stale bread with liquids, vegetables, and seasoning, then the sweet version is bread pudding!!  And let's be honest, call it challah kugel and serve it as a side-dish; call it bread pudding and it's dessert (yummy with Creme Anglaise!!).  And if you want to go all out, serve it for breakfast with some maple syrup and it's a fabulous French Toast souffle.  I get raves for this dish, especially from my family, who fight over the last piece...

Is it a side dish?  A dessert? Breakfast? Brunch? All of the above!!

Like almost all recipes I present to you, this is just a launching pad - feel free to change up the dried or fresh fruit components, or leave them out altogether.  Use any leftover challah you have, though I am partial to my own recipe, which happens to have a very soft crust, making it less crucial to trim the challah.  Make the seasoning more exotic, like cardamom and ginger, or more homey, with nutmeg and cloves in addition to the cinnamon.  Make the dish bigger, make it smaller, just incrementally adjust the amount of bread and the amount of custard.  This is a rather rustic looking dish, so don't sweat making it look perfect.  Just enjoy!

Sweet Bread Pudding
Ingredients:
8 cups cubed day-old challah, crusts removed
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and diced
1/2 cup raisins
3 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch salt
2 cups soy milk or non-dairy creamer or a combination of the two (use real dairy milk for a milchig/chalavi version)

Directions:
Toss the challah cubes with the diced apple and raisins.  Place in a greased oven to table baking pan.

Beat together the eggs with the sugar until the sugar is fully dissolved.  Add in the the vanilla, cinnamon, and salt, then slowly whisk in the soy milk or creamer to make a custard mixture. Pour this custard over the challah cubes, making sure to evenly distribute it.

Press down lightly to make sure all of the cubes were moistened.  Turn the oven on to 350 and let the challah soak while it preheats. 

Bake for about 45 - 50 minutes, until top is lightly browned.

Enjoy!

Now before I send you to see all the other delicious contributions to this month's link-up, please keep in your minds, hearts, and prayers the brave soldiers of the IDF, as well as the residents of the South of Israel, and the entire Home Front.  May we all be blessed to live in peace and security.

Dvora

Orange Soup - Kosher Connection Recipe Linkup

Ahh, root vegetables.  This month's theme brings to mind autumn.  Caramelized roasted vegetables, hearty stews, warming soups.  It all sounds wonderful, like fall foliage, roaring fires, warm slippers, and fleece blankets.

Well, it would, if only we actually had a fall season here.  It's still very much summer outside, with today's forecast hitting around 90.  The A/C is on, flip-flops are the footwear of preference, and it's too warm to think about running the oven or standing over the stove for a long time.

And yet, my family is still a bunch of soup lovers.  We have chicken soup each and every Friday night of the year.  One daughter even enters the house on a regular basis with the delightful greeting, "Did you make soup?  Oh, no?  (insert sad and pensive face here)... Maybe I'll make some myself (put upon look)."  Oh, my poor sweetie, I was too busy eating bon-bons and polishing my toenails, while the elves were busy taking care of the housework and running my business.  But I digress...

So tonight we are having soup, and so can you, whether it's autumnal or or not (yet).  "Orange soup" is an Israeli classic, a pureed soup made of a variety of orange vegetables.  It can be sweet or savory, depending on the other components, from the added vegetables to the seasonings.  This version, which in its original form came from my friend Shoshana, is an easy and delicious addition to your table any time.  It stars carrots and sweet potatoes, along with pumpkin, zucchini, onions, and garlic.  It tastes great and it's not so heavy that you feel overheated just from eating it.  There is no sauteeing, no hard work aside from peeling and cutting.  And it cooks rather quickly (easy enough for a teenager to put together after school!).  Shoshana makes this in a meaty version, browning some stew meat before adding the other ingredients, and then removing the meat and some of the carrot slices before pureeing.  Because we love to have soup on hand all the time, I turned this into a pareve version, adding a bit of cumin for a smoky, beefy background flavor.  If you have beef flavored soup powder, it is a tasty enhancement, but we just don't find it too often on the grocery shelves in our part of the world.  For a special accent, you can add knaidlach, which makes this extra-enticing for my youngest child, who believes all things are better with matzah balls. Garlic croutons are great with this as well.  Feel free to play with the quantities and proportions of vegetables to suit your taste and your refrigerator!

Orange Soup

Ingredients:
2 onions
1 head garlic (If you are fresh garlic-phobic, you can add in a few frozen cubes instead)
4 carrots
2 zucchini
2 sweet potatoes
small chunk pumpkin (optional)
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon beef soup powder (optional)
several shakes cumin

Directions:
Peel and chop onions, carrots, zucchini, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin.  Peel cloves of garlic.  Place all ingredients into stockpot, and add water to cover.

That's it, all the hard work is done!

 

Bring to a boil, then simmer until vegetables are very tender.  Puree with an immersion blender. 

To add knaidlach:
NOTE - these are not the matzah balls we add to the Friday night chicken soup.  Those are delicate things of beauty, with a carefully combined batter that gets a rest in the refrigerator to let the matzah meal absorb the other ingredients.  It is then gently rolled into balls and dropped into a pot of boiling water flavored with salt and chicken boullion, and cooked until perfectly round, light, and fluffy.  These are not them.  These are rustic knaidlach, a little chewier and heartier, quickly mixed and dropped into the simmering soup by teeny tiny spoonful.
Mix together
1 egg
1/4 cup matzah meal
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Drop into simmering soup by teaspoonful, and cook about 10 minutes.  Enjoy!

Now that you can make your soup and eat it too, check out the other Root Vegetable recipes on the Kosher Connection this month.  And leave a comment to tell us what you thought!

For a Sweet New Year - Kosher Connection Recipe Linkup

It's time for the next round of the Kosher Connection Recipe Link-Up!  This month's theme is "Honey," which is especially appropriate for the time of year - the run-up to Rosh Hashana.  In addition to my grandparents' honey chiffon cake, which I suggest you make because it makes me happy ;-),  I am contributing a newly developed recipe for Spiced Honey Sticks with Lemon Glaze.  I can't exactly call them mandelbroit, because there's no mandel (almonds) in the recipe, and they are not biscotti, because they are not toasted after baking and slicing.  The texture is soft and chewy, just the way I like them.  They have a tasty honey flavor without being cloying, the spice adds interesting notes, and the honey-lemon glaze brings it all together.  Feel free to bake and freeze. The honey in the recipe keeps the bars moist and chewy for several days, stored in a sealed plastic container.  A great recipe to prepare in advance of the holiday.

Here in Israel, we don't call it a run-up to chag for nothing.  All over the country, people are running around and FREAKING OUT over the impending TWO DAY CHAG!!!  When we first made aliyah, I vacillated between thinking that (A) everyone here was crazy, I mean good grief, I could prepare two day yom tov in my sleep and (B) how wonderful it was that everyone is preparing for the same holiday.  Six years down the road, I am slightly less enamored of the supermarket chaos that ensues two full weeks before yom tov.  If you saw the creative parking that goes on in the lot at our Rami Levy (think drunken sailors and illegal mid-lane car abandonments), you would understand my frustration.  But it is still truly beautiful that we are on the same page, gearing up for Rosh Hashana.  And I just have to keep telling myself that.  Even if I am now enough of an old-timer to think two days of yom tov is really, really long.


Fear not the crystallized ginger -
 but do try sprinkling a little flour over it while
you're chopping so it doesn't stick to your knife

So what are the keys to getting ready for Rosh Hashana?  Here's my take:  Shop early.  Get whatever you can buy in advance, things you can freeze like chicken and meat, dry goods, items with long shelf lives.  Start preparing early.  Bake and freeze, if you have the room.  Make recipes that are quick and require little patchke-ing.  Like this one. Mix it up, chill just a bit, bake in two long loaves, cool, glaze, and slice.  I considered giving you two variations, one with crystallized ginger and one without, because I thought the ginger flavor might be a bit much for some people.  The flavor is indeed quite pronounced shortly after baking, like when you can't wait for the bars to cool and you slice off an end and you burn your fingers and your tongue just a little, but it's worth it.  The next day, though, the flavors meld and mellow perfectly.  Even if you've never tried it,  be adventurous - add the crystallized ginger.  But if you don't have it on hand, or don't feel like chopping it up (I can't resist a little patchke!) but still want a spicy kick, add an additional 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger. Or just omit the crystallized ginger, and it's still a delicious honey dessert for a sweet New Year.  Definitely a step up from your traditional honey cake.

Spiced Honey Sticks with Lemon Glaze

Ingredients:
100 grams or 1/2 cup margarine at room temperature
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup finely diced crystallized ginger

Glaze:
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest, optional
1/3 cup confectioner's sugar

Directions:
Cream the margarine with the sugars until smooth.  Beat in the egg, then the honey and vanilla.  Add in the dry ingredients and mix just until combined.  Mix in crystallized ginger.  Chill dough at least 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Divide dough into two and, with oiled hands, roll each into a long, narrow log about 13 inches long, and place on the sheet, leaving space between the two rolls.  Flatten slightly.


I cheated - I used two separate pans.

Bake for 15-18 minutes, until golden brown.  Cool.


Not so impressive without the glaze, but still yummy.

Mix together glaze ingredients. Drizzle diagonally across loaves with a disposable decorating bag, a ziploc bag with the corner snipped off, or even with a fork. 

Allow glaze to set, then cut into slices, somewhere between a half and three-quarters of an inch. Enjoy!

With best wishes for a Shana Tova U'Metuka - a Good and Sweet New Year full of blessings for us all.

Dvora

Now check out all the other recipes featuring honey from the September Kosher Connection Recipe Linkup!

Dijon and Thyme Grilled Chicken - Kosher Recipe Linkup

What is a grilled chicken recipe doing on a baking blog?  Well, man can not live on cookies and buttercream alone, and a home baking business can not survive without a strong support system, so read on...

It’s true confession time, boys and girls.  Here’s my big, guilty secret.

I don’t know how to use a grill.

Seriously.  I don’t even know how to turn our gas grill on.  When my husband left on his first trip to the States, he gave me a quick lesson on how to use the grill, which I immediately put out of my mind, as I had many other things to think about, like how to get everything in the house done as a (temporarily) single parent without killing the children I was supposed to be caring for.  I see my girlfriends grilling outdoors and I admire them, but I am truly happy to leave the heavy lifting to my DH and stick to the prep work in the kitchen.

So when the Kosher Connection theme for the very month I joined the group turned out to be "Grilled,” I was a bit taken aback.  Sugar, eggs, frosting, those are food themes I can easily get behind.  And no, I was not about to bake a cake on the grill, or even grill sliced pound cake or nectarines on my very besari (meaty, or fleishig) grill.  So this challenge led me to conclude that I would need some help from my dear grilling husband.  Which made me think that I have to make another true confession:

I would not be able to make Shabbat without help from my husband and children, especially my two older daughters.

Seriously.  People tend to think I am organized and on top of things, able to get everything done and make it look effortless. Hah! Just ask my family. Erev Shabbat in our house is chaos.  Between cooking for Shabbat, baking fresh challah, wrapping cookie platters, and decorating cakes, there is about 24 hours worth of work to be done, but only about 10-12 hours to do it in.  We have worked up a couple of strategies, including finding a few recipes for each family member to master and be in charge of each week.  The other strategy is getting some of the cooking moved out of doors to free up oven space.  With our great weather here in Israel, we can grill pretty much year-round, especially for Shabbat.  And since I don’t know how to work the grill, I am off the hook for any grilled items.  Recipes like this one, they help me stay sane. Woohoo! 

So with many thanks to my wonderful husband, I share with you one of our favorite grilled chicken recipes.  It is so flavorful – even with a relatively short marinating time – and delicious fresh off the grill, or even room temperature or reheated the next day.  You probably have all the ingredients in your fridge and pantry already, a real bonus.  It’s also super  versatile, as you can use this marinade on boneless, skinless chicken breasts, but also it’s also unbelievable on pargiyot – boneless, skinless chicken thighs, which are so rich and luxurious tasting that you will feel you have died and gone to culinary heaven.  You can also cube up your chicken before marinating and put it on skewers along with a variety of vegetables, like onion, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, peppers, and mushrooms that have also taken a bath in the delectable marinade.  Don’t forget to soak your wooden skewers in cold water for about 30 minutes to keep them from burning on the grill.  And if you are useless with a grill like I am, an indoor grill pan works well, too.

And now, with no further ado, here is our family contribution to the August Kosher Connection:

The cast of characters, minus the chicken -
and yes, that is a lemon.
Welcome to Israel in August.

Dijon and Thyme Grilled Chicken

Ingredients:

3 cloves garlic, finely minced

1/3 cup Dijon mustard (if you prefer a little more mustard kick, use whole grain Dijon for part of the amount; I used smooth only)

1 tablespoon honey

2 tablespoons lemon juice (fresh is best, of course, but in a pinch or a rush, bottled is fine, too!)
8 turns of the pepper grinder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves, stripped from a couple of sprigs, or 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme (here, fresh is much more delicious - go for it!  And save the rest for the best French onion soup you will ever make...)
¼ cup olive oil
1 kilo (about 2 pounds) boneless skinless chicken – breasts or thighs, trimmed and cleaned

Directions:

Take out all your aggressions on your garlic, and chop very finely.  You can, of course, use a garlic press, but I prefer a large, sharp knife, both for therapeutic and flavor reasons.  Combine the garlic, mustard, honey, lemon juice, pepper, salt, and thyme in a small mixing bowl. 

Whisk in the olive oil. 

You can whisk with a fork, I won't tell!

Place the chicken in a gallon-sized plastic zipper storage bag or a large bowl. Pour the marinade over the trimmed chicken and mix to combine.  Seal the bag or cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about an hour.

Preheat your grill (that’s what my husband does, so it must be right!), then grill the chicken pieces about 5-7 minutes per side until you have beautiful grill marks and the chicken is cooked through, but not at all dried out.

Smoky grilling.  Thank you, honey!

Serving suggestion:

Serve alongside Joyce’s Dijon Roasted Potatoes, which echo the flavors in the marinade beautifully, and need very little attention once mixed together and thrown into the oven.  A green salad on the side, maybe even some grilled veggies if you want to carry the whole grilling theme through, and you have an unbelievably delicious meal.  B’tayavon!



Yes, the photography could be better, but my specialty is food, not cameras.
Please bear with us as we try to improve! In the meantime, take it on faith - it's delicious!!!