It is Sunday night, 9:33 pm, I just finished cooking my challenge and I am about to have my dinner a. It has been a 2 weeks of procrastination, of being a general recluse. Blame it on fall? But I can honestly say I Gosh, cannot remember the last time I have been salivating over a home meal like this one.
Once again the cooking gods were with me and 2 challenge’s deadlines crossed paths…2 challenges one post. The first challenge is the always inspiring and noggin crunching 5 Star Makeover where a theme or ingredient is announced and must serve as the inspiration of our dish. This month the theme was Cooking with Wine, this being the season of the wine harvest (sorry Maya yes there is booze again).
hosted by 5 Star Foodie & Lazaro Cooks!
The second challenge is the Secret Recipe Club and this is my group’s reveal day! What is the SRC? Basically you are assigned a fellow participant’s blog by the organizer and then you pick a recipe of your choice from that blog and make your version of it. But it is a secret, you cannot reveal whom you picked and what you made until the established posting date and time…. which is today! I can’t wait to see who picked me.
This month I feel like I hit the jackpot with Taking on Magazines. This is a beyond entertaining blog authored by Christiane who has self baptized herself “The Mom Chef”. The concept around her blog is brilliant: does that pretty magazine recipe really look and taste as good once you make it with kids running around you, your spouse hovering over your shoulder and the dog peeing in the corner. Well you get the idea!
Christiane and I share one thing in common, being the occasional lush. I found so many recipes with wine on her blog. Finally I settled on her Sangria Chicken. Sangria requires a simple wine actually but I did go for a traditional pick, a Tempranillo. The dark grapes produce a ruby red wine with earthy notes of berries, plum, tobacco, leather and herb. I felt a Spanish meal was in order. I was just telling a friend today the only city I have traveled to that really felt like home was Barcelona. I had visions of enjoying a light lunch in a eatery along the beautiful main entertainment street, Las Ramblas.
Sangria Chicken
4 chicken breast halves
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups dry red wine
1 cup sweet orange marmalade
1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 cups seedless red grapes, halved lengthwise
Preheat oven to 450°F. In a heavy skillet, briskly simmer wine and marmalade for about 50 minutes, stirring occasionally, until reduced to about 1 cup. Off heat, stir in lemon juice to taste.
In a large bowl, toss chicken with oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Lay chicken, skin side up, in a large rimmed sheet pan and cook until pale golden, about 20 minutes. Pour off juices.
Brush chicken with the glaze and put grapes around the pieces. Roast another 10 minutes. Brush with remaining glaze and roast until chicken is just cooked through, about 10 minutes more.
In this fantasy I saw on my plate an open faced baguette first lined with a gorgeous layer of caramelized fennel strips and then topped with the Sangria chicken nicely sliced on the diagonal. I made my own baguette from a traditional Spanish Rustic Bread recipe, the quickest bread recipe ever but not the most successful this time around. Finishing touches included slices of lime and mandarin. This is truly the closest recipe possible to glass of Sangria on a plate. Salud!
LOVE the idea of Sangria Chicken! Brilliant. Kudos to ya for all that you are doing.
Such a great idea, sangria chicken! Love the colors. Terrific contribution to the cooking group. Now, what are you going to make for the tailgate??
LL
what a great dish. did you consider using a Rioja?? I love that wine! I really feel like anything in Spain does the job in satiating my palate. A sangria chicken— a perfect dish to entertain!
I feel like I could be right there in Barcelona too with this dish 🙂 Love the fennel, the grapes and the whole Spanish feel.
Just seeing the word sangria get me excited about your chicken. It looks like it is just exploding with great flavors! Delicious!
Looks delicious and I love the presentation!
<
Concetta
What a super creative recipe and tasty too. Love the flavor combinations. Glad to be part of the SRC with you and it was fun to have your blog this month! Have a terrific weekend!!!
Haha, I am an occasional lush too!! So this sangria chicken looks AWESOME to me. Love it on the baguette. And have you noticed all of our challenges seem to be at the same time?? lol
I see we both went for color this challenge! Love the sangria on a plate… well how can anything with scads of wine be bad? Gorgeous dish and flavors. I love the photo of the dark wine cooking… looks positively diabolical!
Sangria on a plate – love it! I have not been to Barcelona, but with this lovely dish I too can imagine myself people watching while sipping sangria and savoring lunch in a cafe patio along Las Ramblas. Great contribution to SRC and 5-Star Makeover!
Wow, what a wondrous-looking baguette sandwich! Who cares if this is yet another boozy recipe? It’s certainly a feast for the eyes, I tell ya! Oh, I know what sangria is… I dated a boy from Alicante once, a long time ago *winks*. Great multi-tasking job here, Evelyne. Both the SRC and the 5-Star Makeover teams should be proud of your contribution!
I never would have thought of sangria chicken..but it’s so clever and right there – chicken with wine and fruit! It looks delicious, Ev..dying to taste it! Great that you got both challenges in ‘one’ 🙂
Not sure if I’d enjoy this. I’ve had sangria’s before and I didn’t care for them that much.
Oh, you are amazing!!!! Combining 2 challenges? Wow. And coming up with such a delicious post? Hooray for you. And I do think you hit the jackpot with your SRC blog…I’m loving this sangria chicken.
Such a creative chicken recipe 🙂
Awesome to be in the Secret Recipe Club with you. Here is my post from group C – http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2rtACr/www.familyfreshcooking.com/2011/09/26/rustic-tomato-cheese-margherita-tarts-recipe/
Sangria on a plate – I love it! I’ll have a large, erm, plate please! Beautiful post, and so happy to be a part of the 5 Star Foodies group with you!
Evelyne, that chicken looks amazing! Love the idea of the secret recipe club, so much fun!
Oh… and please, be my guest for a morning croissant straight out of the oven!
looks delish!!! yum!! Glad to be in Group C with you!!
Awesome recipe! all these flavors take me back to my youth growing up in south Florida. Super creative!
What a creative use for sangria! Wonderful addition to the 5 Star for this
month 🙂
Oh my! You had me with sangria! This is such a great post for SRC, looks delicious! 🙂
I love Christiane’s blog. You got a great one for SRC. You also picked a wonderful recipe from there. Trust me there are many to choose from. Thanks for sharing with us.
This chicken sounds so good. I bet the flavors were amazing. Great SRC pick!
You know, I tend to collect bottles of wine and then never drink them. I should really start cooking with them! Brilliant. (Okay, I’m a little slow on the uptake sometimes.) Your dish looks delicious.
When a recipe starts with the word Sangria, you’ve got me hook line and sinker or I should say drinker!
Wow you ate dinner so late, Evelyne! SRC sounds like a fun group. Sangria reminds me of Spain. I had a great time there; thanks you reminding me of it! Great dish for the 5 star makeover challenge!
Congratulations in tackling both challenges!! This looks simply amazing. I love the rustic baguette. Such a beautiful and unique dish!
Wow….I’m going to put mine back in the fridge and eat yours instead. It looks phenomenal! Your dish is beautiful.
A DELICIOUS post. great use of ingredients and you did the challenges proud! Thank you so much for being active with eRecipeCards.com Love all of your posts (looking for a great night to make that bread pudding!). I have set up a page for just your recipes you can find at…
http://erecipecards.com/account/userrecipes.php?id=557
Thanks again, looking forward to seeing more (backstock maybe???)
Dave
I definitely will have to check out this blog. AND, I will have to make this amazing looking dish! Great SRC post. (I procrastinated a bit as well!) 🙂
What a great entry Evelyne. Althohg I’ve never had it but it looks great 🙂 You’ve done a wonderful job.
Sangria Chicken sounds unusual but very delicious.