Chile Glazed Chicken Hoagies with Slaw

I have been cleaning my freezer out because we just purchased half a cow, all nicely wrapped pieces of meat, labeled, and ready for the freezer. I took everything out of my freezer, organized all the contents, took out what was getting to look a little old, cataloged everything on a list to be posted in the kitchen, and put everything back. What a great feeling and I have to say a first for me! I am hoping to get the whole beef story and pictures up this weekend; I also need the reference so there is a starting point to make notes for what I do and don't like this time around. The feeling of having a stocked freezer is very heady. I feel "almost" ready to go out and buy a whole farm. . .except hubby might have a slight heart failure over this idea =D.

Anyhoo, we ended up with a small pile of meat that really needs to get used up. Frozen chicken breasts are included in my pile of need to use "but" I don't want to just cook anything to use all this meat up. (All this meat includes 3 black Angus ribeye steaks; half a bag of Costco frozen, skinless, boneless chicken breasts reserved for when I was going to make all these chicken sandwiches ahead of time for lunches; ready made dinners I forgot about, like split pea soup, homemade pork and beans, and a chili rotini; a half bag of frozen shrimp; and some odd-and-ends pieces of chicken.) I decided I was making Mexican chile glazed chicken breast hoagie sandwiches. I found the recipe in a Bon Appetit magazine for last month and the meal takes about 45 minutes to make. I can handle that.

The sandwich is absolutely delicious. I would hold back on using quite so much chile sauce on the chicken breasts next time "or" use a little less pickled and sliced jalapenos. Yep, I said pickled jalapenos. This is a first for me and I loved them in the coleslaw. There is no pickled flavor that could be tasted. Just great crunch and a little heat. Awesome football Sunday food!

Chicken Hoagies with Chiles, Cheese, and Romaine Slaw


Ingredients~
4 large dried New Mexico chilies, stemmed and seeded
5 Tablespoons olive oil, divided
4 skinless boneless chicken breast halves
3 cups thinly sliced romaine hearts
1 cup thinly sliced sweet onion "or" red onion
1 7-ounce can or jar of pickled sliced jalapenos, drained, 1/4 cup juice reserved
4 6- to 7- inch-long French baguettes or what ever hoagie rolls you prefer
8 ounces feta cheese. . .The cheese totally makes this sandwich too. . .YUM!



Directions~

Place New Mexico chiles in a medium saucepan; add enough water to cover generously and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until soft, about 15 minutes. Drain; reserve cooking liquid. Place chiles in process; add 1/4 cup reserved cooking liquid and 4 tablespoons oil and puree until smooth. (This takes a little bit of doing). Transfer chile sauce to bowl; season with salt and pepper.

Reserve 6 Tablespoons chile sauce for sandwiches. Brush remaining sauce all over chicken; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken and cook until cooked through, 6 to 7 minutes per side. Let chicken rest 5 minutes, then slice thinly crosswise.



Mix lettuce, onion, and jalapenos in medium bowl; add 1/4 cup reserved jalapeno juice to slaw and toss. Spread reserved chile sauce over cut sides of bread. Top bottom halves with chicken, then cheese, then some slaw. Cover with top halves of bread and serve with remaining slaw alongside hoagie.

Chicken breasts waiting to be fried up with the chile glaze spread on them. Salt and pepper have also been sprinkled over all.

Up close look before cooking. You can see the pretty chile pepper red coloring.