Cooking with Dr. Monkey

I decided that what I'm going to do with this semi recurring feature is to show you my stock repertoire of things that I cook the most, so here's a recipe I like to make during the colder months.

The chicken stew I made tonight is from a recipe I got out of a copy of Cooking Light magazine.

I began by dicing two organic chicken breasts.


Then I coated the chicken with a mixture flour (a third of a cup), a tablespoon of cracked black pepper, a tea spoon of marjoram, a tablespoon of dried oregano, and a half teaspoon of cardamom.
Next I put about three tablespoons of olive oil in a big ass soup pot and let it heat up. After it got sufficiently hot I put in my chicken and began to brown it.


After the chicken had cooked a bit I put in 3/4 cup of white wine. Don't worry if you are serving this stew to kids, the alcohol cooks off and you are left with only the flavor of the wine.

Then I added two cloves of garlic and some fresh thyme.

I popped in one small roughly diced onion, a third of a diced yellow pepper, and a diced banana pepper.I added in about a half dozen roughly diced organic mushrooms. For my vegetarian readers if you wanted to you could coat mushrooms in the flour/spice mixture and use them in place of the meat. If you do that I'd skip adding more mushrooms unless you add a different variety in.

Next I added a cup of organic chicken broth (use veggie broth if you like) and three cups of water.

Next I tossed in about 6 or 7, you guessed it, roughly sliced new potatoes.

Then half of this pack of cherry tomatoes went in. Sometimes I'll use canned tomatoes in this step and I've found Muir Glen Organic brand to be mighty tasty.

After all that stuff is in there I turn the heat down to simmer and let it all cook up for about an hour and a half. I check it from time to time and I give it a stir to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pan. The liquids will become thicker as it cooks due to the spice/flour mixture so don't freak out when it thickens. If it does not become thick then you'll need to add a bit of flour or corn starch right before you serve it.

I usually serve this stew over raw spinach. Tonight since I had cilantro to use up I also tossed some of it in there as well.

Here's a shot of the finished product before I served it. I garnished it with sliced green onion and then I said, "Hon, let's eat!"

You can make this dish with lean beef as well if you like. Simply use it in place of the chicken and instead of white wine in the broth, use red wine, and use beef broth instead of chicken broth. It's a great fall/winter time stick to your ribs kind of meal and I usually make enough to have at again the next night.