Orange Chicken with Steamed Kasha and Sautéed Escarole

This dinner came out a little bit hit and miss - I really enjoyed the chicken, found the buckwheat passable but not fantastic, and despised the escarole.

So, from the left. Buckwheat is an odd sort of grain, or at least it's odd to someone like me who'd never had it before. I'm not sure if I overcooked it a bit, but it sort of reminded me of a slightly mushier cooked barley (which I love, but nearly never eat, and can't anyway for the next little while). I've also made buckwheat as a hot breakfast, with cinnamon and banana and I really prefer it that way, so I think part of my reaction was disappointment that it wasn't as good as it was at breakfast. It was a passable side dish, though. Just boring.

The chicken was very nice tasting, though surprisingly sweet. It was made with a lot of chicken broth (Campbell's Organic, which I found on sale for the first time ever, and found to taste much more like a homemade broth than their regular broth), orange juice, orange zest, Dijon mustard (the crunchy kind) and figs. I was meant to use fresh figs, but couldn't find any at the market this week, so I bought and used dried instead. I suppose the sweetness came from the fig, which I'd never had before (except in a fig newton). Anyway, I'll be eating that again for dinner tomorrow, which is fine by me because it really does taste quite good.

The escarole, on the other hand... not so good tasting. I've never had escarole before, so I didn't really know what to expect. It was much more bitter than I like. (I can't imagine what I'd think of the more bitter varieties of endive, if escarole is not so bad as Belgian and curly endive.) I sautéed it with a bit of garlic and... ugh. I'll be throwing away the rest of the head of that stuff and eating some sautéed spinach tomorrow instead.