Womans Day magazine recipes

We are finally back in our home. Unpacking is continuing and I have no idea where my church cookbook is but I hope to find it soon and resume my testing of each recipe in the book. Until then I have been looking for healthier ways to feed the family.

The March 2017 issue of Womens Day has four recipes that are 400 calories or less. The first one I made tonight was the Meatball soup. It was a little bit labor intensive because of the grating of the fresh ginger. Outside of grating the ginger, it was a fairly easy recipe to make. I admit I was a little nervous broiling the meatballs but it worked very well. I am not going to list the recipe but instead I have provided the link to the website as this is not mine.

Gingery Meatball Soup with Bok Choy

My take aways for this recipe:

• I only bought one head of Bok-Choy. Truthfully the recipe was not exactly clear. It said four heads and about 12 ounces. I believe it actually needed four separate ones but not sure. I felt like the one I bought did not provide enough greens for the soup. Next time I make it I will use more Bok-Choy. 
• It was the very first time I have ever tried Bok-Choy and was not sure how to use it. My little friend Google told me that the stem parts are edible as well so I tore the leaves into the pan but chopped the stems up so that they would cook quicker.
• The ground chicken was very, very sticky. I have no idea what I should have done to make it easier to roll the meatballs.
• I made my meatballs too big so the cooking time under the broiler was longer for mine.
• I did not chop the cilantro up well enough. Mine had large pieces of the leaves and that just did not work out well. Next time I will chop finer. 
• The husband liked it but the son did not. I liked it but felt the cilantro was too strong and that it needed more garlic.

As if trying one new recipe was not enough, I also tried a second recipe from the same magazine and same set. I have provided the link to the website as this is not my recipe.

Sweet and Sour Pork and Vegetable Stir-Fry

My take aways for this recipe:

• This recipe was quite delicious. The only problem is it did not have enough sauce. I do not know if it was the recipe or if it was me as I followed it completely except for the bean sprouts.
• The only reason I did not add the bean sprouts was because Kroger did not have them today.
• I think next time I will try this with chicken as my hubs cannot have very much pork.
• I will also double the hoison sauce mixture
• Everyone like this one - hard to believe a serving is only 317 calories.

Overall it was a successful meal. It was very challenging for me to use new ingredients I had never tried before. I hope you give it a try and I sure wish Womens Day would let me know some more info on both recipes.

Glad to be back!!

The shepherd didn't do this one...

I ripped off the shepherd's pie tonight. No ground meat, no peas.  Tonight was "use what you got" night. What I had was split chicken breast and time on my hands.  It was one of those weird Saturdays where I had a lot of different things to accomplish but still wanted to make a hearty dinner.  Shepherd's pie seemed to be the ticket! It seems more appropriate to call it Farmer's pie since I used a chicken!

I put four split chicken breasts on to boil and ran off to vacuum the husband's truck out. Okay, I don't really recommend you leave your chicken boiling alone. I have a small house. I kept coming back inside to keep an eye on my chicken. I did not want it flying the coop while I was making my husband happy!

Once the chicken was done, I carefully removed it from the bones and skin and shredded it.

Next I chopped about 2 pounds of gold potatoes (left the skin on) and put them to boil in the remaining chicken broth until tender.  While they were boiling I opened two cans of Campbell's Cream of Chicken and Herb soup and mixed it with one soup can of milk. I put this in the bottom of my 13" x 9" glass dish.

I added my shredded chicken to the soup/milk combination. Next I defrosted frozen Lima beans. I was out of peas. I am NEVER out of peas but for the first time, I was out of peas. I had to chose between edamame or Limas. I chose the Limas. I defrosted them to keep them from causing the casserole from taking to long to heat through.  I did this in the microwave.

Next I defrosted some crinkle cut carrots.  I like to keep frozen carrots on hand as I just don't always get to use fresh ones up before they go bad.  Sometimes I feel guilty about this but then I shrug my shoulders and am grateful that I have the modern conveniences of a freezer and frozen vegetables!

By this time, my golden potatoes were tender. I drained them and added one stick of REAL butter and a splash of milk and mashed them with a hand masher.  A liberal dash of salt and heaping dash of pepper was also added.  Spreading them over top the carrots, Limas and chicken mixture, into a 350 degree oven it all went for 25 minutes.  It heated through very well and came out hot and tasty!

So, I don't think the shepherd would have made this pie, but definitely the farmer! Or at least this silly wife and mother who wanted to feed her family!!

Honey Lime Glazed Chicken Thighs with a Lime Dill Sauce

Tonight's dinner was an experiment for an upcoming event.  I needed to bake chicken. It needed to be easy, juicy and tasty. I think I succeeded with the recipe as evidenced by the way my family fought over the few extra pieces that was left!

For the chicken:
(8) boneless, skinless chicken thighs
(1/3) cup of local honey
(2) tablespoons of lime juice
(1 1/2) tablespoons of soy sauce

For the sauce:
(3) tablespoons of lime juice
(1/2) stick of real butter
(1/2) can of evaporated milk
(1) tablespoon of cornstarch
(2) teaspoons of dill weed

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.  Mix the honey, lime juice and soy sauce together.  Dip the chicken thighs into the mixture and place in a glass baking dish and put in the pre-heated oven for 15-minutes. After 15 minutes, spoon remaining sauce over top of chicken and cook additional 15 minutes.  After 15 more minutes, flip chicken over and spoon pan drippings over chicken. Be careful as it is very hot!  Continue to cook until chicken is done.

While chicken finishes to cook, prepare the sauce. Now truthfully, I did not want to use the evaporated milk. I wanted to use chicken stock but I was out and I felt like plain water would just be too tasteless.

Melt the butter in a saucepan.  Sprinkle with the cornstarch. Whisk to combine. Add the milk and lime juice and continue to whisk. Add the dill. Taste to see if more dill and/or lime juice is needed. Be careful at this stage to make sure you do not let your sauce break. It could easily break using milk.  I am anxious to re-make the sauce using chicken stock. I think it will be very smooth with the stock.

When the chicken comes out of the oven serve with the Lime sauce.

Chicken and Sausage Soup

It's a cold snowy day here in Virginia Beach, VA so it seemed like a good day for soup.  Yesterday I picked up some bone-in split chicken breasts on sale plus some Andouille sausage.  It sounded like an interesting marriage!

Here is what went in my big green soup pot:

(4) bone-in split chicken breasts
(1) medium onion, chopped
(8) cloves of garlic, smashed and chopped
(2) packages Johnsonville New Orleans brand Andouille Recipe smoked sausage
(1) package crinkle cut carrots
(1) package peas
(1) package roasted red & green peppers
(2) cans of Hunt's diced tomatoes
(1) small can of V-8
(2) drops of Texas Pete
chili powder

Boil the chicken until done and no longer pink.
While the chicken is boiling, saute the onion and garlic in 1/2 a stick of butter until tender.
Slice the Andouille sausage into about 1/2" thick rounds and toss with onions.
When the chicken is done, remove from bones and discard bones and skin.
Chunk the chicken and add back to the broth, keep at a low boil.
Add the sausage and onions to the pot with the chicken.
Add the remaining ingredients, the chili powder and Texas Pete are to your liking!

I served this with jalapeno poppers! It was very good.

Bacon-wrapped Stuffed Chicken with Spinach & Cream Cheese with Sauteed Brussel sprouts and rice

I finally felt creative in the kitchen again after about two months of hitting a brick wall.  Yesterday's grocery shopping trip netted quite a lot of things on sale, one of the most exciting items was the bacon!  I decided I needed use it for dinner. I poked around the kitchen to see what I could add to it.  This is what I came up with:

(6) thin sliced chicken breasts
(1) block of cream cheese, softened
(1) pound of bacon
(1) thawed package of spinach

Spread the cream cheese on the chicken breast and press some spinach into the cream cheese. Make sure you squeeze any water out of the thawed spinach before you add to the cream cheese.  Roll the chicken up and the wrap with a piece of bacon.  Place in a baking dish that has been sprayed with non-stick spray.  I wanted to secure these with a toothpick but I could not find them! Fortunately they ended up not needing the toothpicks.  I baked them in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes and then switched to broil for approximately five minutes just to further crisp the bacon on top.

While the chicken was baking in the oven, I took the last two leftover pieces of bacon and put in a saute pan to fry with half a small yellow onion chopped small.  I let the bacon get crisp and then drained a small portion of the bacon fat off, but not all.  I then added three servings of frozen brussel sprouts and 1 tablespoon of butter to the saute pan, put a lid on and let gently saute for about 10 minutes while the chicken finished baking.  I do not think I will EVER eat brussel sprouts any other way again! They were the best I have ever had!

Here is how the finished dinner looked:

The cream cheese and spinach were warm and oozing inside the chicken. The chicken was moist because of the bacon.  The brussel sprouts were smoky and tender.  It was a wonderful dinner.  Even my pickest eater came back for seconds!  Mission accomplished for dinner!

Chicken Pot Pie....sort of

Tonight was all about fast. I had a bag of shredded chicken leftover in the refrigerator I needed to use.  I had a can of biscuits.  I had a conversation with my friend Shannon about what she was going to do with her chicken tonight. We talked about pot pie and I started craving it. But I did not feel like fixing it very much. So I dashed off to the grocery store for some frozen veggies (I did not feel like dealing with all the chopping and peeling of fresh so don't fuss!) and some Campbell's Cream of Chicken and Herb soup.  This is how I threw (and I really did just throw) it together.

In the bottom of a pan that I rubbed with some butter I put a layer of shredded chicken. To the top of that I sprinkled some Soul Seasoning, Garlic Powder and Parmesan cheese.

Pardon my shadow fingers in that picture!! Oh well.....I really stuffed the chicken in the bottom of the casserole dish.  Next came the layer of vegetables. I used two bags of an Italian vegetable mix that had zucchini, carrots, lima beans, peas, cauliflower, peppers, beans and who knows what else!

I mixed two cans of the Campbell's Cream of Chicken and Herb soup with one and half cans of milk well mixed together.  This became the next layer over-top the chicken and vegetables.

And then for the next "cheating" part, I took two cans of biscuits and put them on top of the casserole and put it in the oven at 400 degrees for 15 minutes until the biscuits are brown. I then put a sheet of aluminum foil on top to protect the biscuits from further browning and let it heat for another 10 minutes so that the vegetables and chicken and gravy could get good and hot.

As you can see from the picture I cheated even further....I used a foil aluminum pan so I did not even need to wash dishes! I had a fast, yummy stress-free dinner.

My mother's chicken and stuffing casserole

I was in need of a good casserole to take to some friend's home.  As a member of a close church family, it is a real privilege to help out another family. I was trying to decide what to make. That is when I remembered my mother's favorite casserole.  It was fast, easy and really good.  I forgot to take pictures this time but trust me, its yummy!  Here is what you need:

(1) box of Cornbread stuffing
(1) box of Herb stuffing
(1) can of Campbell's Cream of Chicken and Herb soup
(1) can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup (you can substitute the cream of chicken soup if you don't like mushrooms)
Chicken stock
Cooked chicken, shredded

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Into a large bowl combine both cans of soup with 1 3/4" soup cans of chicken broth.  Stir well until combined.  Add both boxes of dry stuffing mix and stir until mixed well.  Stir in the chicken.  Spread into a 13" x 9" pan and bake for approximately 30 minutes covered with foil and then for about 10 minutes without foil until the top is lightly brown.

Be careful about adding any salt to this recipe as it is quite salty enough from the dry stuffing mix.  I think my mom added a melted stick of butter too but I am not sure. I opted to not add it. (I know you are shocked!)

This is a great recipe for church suppers and company. I hope you try it. My mom used to make it all the time.

Dinner in the real world....

I don't know about you, but I don't always believe the TV chefs understand the realities of families on a budget. They often assume we automatically keep certain ingredients at the ready all the time.  The truth is, we don't have room for all of that in our budgets.

Tonight was a prime example of "what in the world do I do for dinner?" without having to go to the grocery store and spend more money. I am making chicken more often as I am trying to trim down the amount of red meat my family consumes.  Poking around my kitchen and I decided I had just about everything I needed to make Chicken with gravy over biscuits.

I put my frozen chicken breasts on to boil but I knew that without their skin the broth would not be quite flavorful enough.  I did not get any more chicken broth when I went shopping.  It is a little bit of a luxury item as it can be costly (and I really don't like to use any brand other than Swanson).  It was time to improvise.  I had a large can of Campbell's chicken and noodle soup.  Instead of opening it the normal way, I poked two holes in the top of the can and drained the liquid into a pot.  I put it on the stove with a stick of butter (you are not really surprised, are you?).  I let that come to a boil while boiling my chicken breasts in a different pot.  I added about a cup of milk to the gravy pot. Next I put about 1/4 cup of cornstarch in the bottom of a coffee cup and added about a half cup of hot chicken broth to it and stirred it up until smooth.  I added this to my gravy pot to thicken.  Various spices were sprinkled in, including garlic powder, onion powder, Mrs. Dash table blend and salt and pepper.  I added about a cup of the chicken broth from the chicken boiling on the stove as well.

I put some biscuits in the oven (yes, from a can, I really do not have time to make them from scratch unless I have a whole lot of time or it is a really special occasion).  After they came out, onto a plate, shredded some of the boiled chicken over it and then poured the chicken gravy over it.  The result was a very happy husband and son.  That's my boys! They love their meat and gravy.

No, I did not fix an veggies tonight. This was a mad dash dinner and it is what it is.  Dog-gone gravy goodness!

As for staples in my kitchen? Here is a list of things that I cannot do without:
1. frozen chicken in the bag as I don't always have money during the week to go buy it fresh
2. butter - plain and simple, can't do without it
3. fresh garlic cloves
4. russet potatoes
5. rice ( I prefer white but I am slowly working my way into using brown)
6. eggs ( a must in my house, trying to get my sweet husband to gain weight)
7. cheese (the type varies as my family goes through stages of what they prefer, currently we are on a provolone run)
8. milk - we use 2%
9. wheat bread
10.  ice cream.....another must have for the husband :o)

What do you keep in your kitchen as must haves?

Chicken and brown rice

Day two of healthier dinners for me and my family.  I am feeling pretty good today. I have not ingested a single "food-like" substance, white sugar or white flour thing so far.  It has taken some serious will power the later in the day it gets because I find myself craving the empty calories of soda and candy.

On a serious note, it has been discovered my husband has diverticulosis.  I am going to have to watch this man's diet a little closer and one of the first things we are going to eliminate is corn. That is kind of sad but kind of not. I reckon I will have it on special occasions but it is empty calories anyway so it is the first item to go!

Tonight is baked chicken.  I have skinless, boneless chicken breast with some Mrs. Dash table blend sprinkled on it in the oven baking.  As I am staying away from white stuff, brown rice is cooking on the stove.  This is a little bit of a problem for me as I have never really liked brown rice.  I am hoping that I will like it better now. It has been about 10 years since I tried it last.  I never realized how much of my eating involved chemicals and process.  Now don't go thinking I have jumped on the band wagon. I highly doubt I will ever give it all up for good. But for right now, it is time to get a lot healthier. I am a 47 year old, overweight woman who has a family history of diabetes and heart disease.  It's time to get real.

Tonight I actually made dinner without any butter.  Yes. I did.  NO BUTTER.  I have discovered something important.  First, I like my green beans just as they are.  I did not miss the butter I usually put on them.  Second, olive oil is a good substitute for butter.  I used olive oil to saute my veggies in and I also added a little bit of oil to the brown rice in lieu of butter.  It was pretty successful overall.

All things being equal, I would really love a nice fat piece of cake or a big bowl of ice cream right now.  I know it is going to take time to get things the healthy way.  I won't always deprive myself of these things, but for now, I will be okay.

Now it is time to go take a walk as I only have 6085 steps on my pedometer and I would really like to hit 10,000 before bedtime.

Pasta, Salad and stuff

Today was a long day.  We had an Evangelism Tea at our church.  It was a lot of fun. My big sissy came all the way down from Richmond and sat with me.  It was a good time.  Unfortunately, I was rather melancholy when I got home.  I think it was because the speaker's message really struck a chord with me topped off by the fact that I guess I am worried about my husband's test results and my current job status.  WHEW....that is a lot!

This morning while lounging in bed before hitting the shower, I watched the new episode of Trisha Yearwood's cooking show on Food Network.  I love her cooking show but I was especially interested in it today because she was having her husband, Garth in the kitchen.  I really like him and I love Trisha because she is so REAL.  Her recipes on the show today were very diverse.  I have to admit I will never try her black bean & tofu lasagna.  My family would probably run me out of Dodge if I served tofu!  The Ty's Thai Salad sounded lovely.  The peanut butter balls looked delicious and deadly!

After the tea today, I headed to the grocery store alone with my melancholy self to buy milk and eggs.  After hugging my favorite cashier  Oshaine ( and trying to remember to only call him Shaine) I meandered through the produce department.  I suddenly found myself craving the salad I saw Trisha make.  I started throwing things in my cart and trying very hard to keep a count on the amount of money I was spending.

Here is the link to the original Trisha Yearwood recipe:

Trisha Yearwood's Ty's Thai Salad

So I started out by chopping up my cilantro.

There is something earthy and luscious about the smell of cilantro.  It speaks to my heart somehow and I truly love it.  Lately I have been trying to find different ways to use it.  Next I smashed three cloves of garlic. I confess, the Italian in me had me adding more garlic.  Her recipe only calls for two but I added one more.  I love it when I get the smell of garlic on my hands.  I know I am weird.

The dressing for the salad is the strangest I have ever tried.  Two cups of olive oil and one whole cup of sugar!  It was actually very tasty, not to mention a vibrant green!

Here it is in all of its green glory!  It was very, very sweet.  The ingredients were few and basic, olive oil, sugar, cilantro and garlic.  Quite the dressing!

After making the dressing I began to chop up my red cabbage, Napa cabbage and cucumber.  Now I have to make a confession:  as I chopped away (at the same time making my main dish of chicken and pasta) I completely forgot about the edamame. I also had neglected to buy a green onion while at the store, although I am proud of myself as I bought all the ingredients from memory with the green onion the only thing I forgot.  But alas, I forgot to include the edamame in my salad.

I threw some fresh, ripe avocado on top of my salad and three tablespoons of the cilantro lime dressing.  It was a yummy salad.  This was my very first experience with Napa cabbage.  I did not like it very much.  It was kind of curly and weird.  I am not sure what I should substitute it with? Any ideas?  I did like the red cabbage and the addition of the avocado.

I guess I am off to clean up my disaster I left in the kitchen from trying a new recipe.  Sometimes I turn into a tornado of disaster when trying a new recipe!  Don't forget to set your alarm to get up in time for church tomorrow!

Old Fashioned Chicken & Dumplings

Talk about an epic fail! I had planned to make my sweet husband some Healing Chicken Soup tonight and did not realize I was out of most of the ingredients! I guess I need to make a trip to the Farmer's Market!

Instead of the soup, I am making old fashioned chicken and  dumplings.  My husband generally prefers the flat dumpling but I do not have any.  And, as I am OUT of all the ingredients for the soup, I am making the old fashioned biscuit type dumplings.

Of course, I generally use Bisquick to make the dumplings but I have not bought any Bisquick in a while.  I opened up my old Pillsbury cookbook and used the baking powder biscuit recipe.  I did look at their dumpling recipe but did not like it.  It is all bubbling away on the stove right now.  Hopefully it will turn out nice and fluffy and yummy.

My sweetheart had outpatient surgery today to remove two areas that were determined to be possible skin cancer.  The one on the front of his chest is most likely a squamus cell cancer and the one on the back (and the bigger of the two) is not determined yet. 

This pot of chicken and dumplings will hopefully be just the comfort food he needs.  I am thankful for church family members and friends who were kind enough to pick up my kids for church and understand that I did not want to leave my baby alone. 

I hope you are all doing well.  Never forget to tell those you love that you do love them.  Our time on this earth is short, live it well, with love and in Jesus' name.

Secret Jambalaya

A friend gave me his family's secret recipe for jambalaya.  I cannot break his confidence so I will not post the actual recipe, but I will share with you some of what I made.  I followed the recipe exactly, as I usually do when trying something for the first time. 

This is pretty much all of the ingredients that I used (plus rice, of course).  I resisted the urge to add things! I even managed to curtail my inside Italian and did not add too much garlic! 

This is what the finished product looked like:

It was quite tasty.  When I make it for a second time, I will probably add some of my favorite Soul Seasoning and more diced green onion.  I get why they said to use the chicken thighs as the meat is more flavorful but I think I will prefer the breast meat.

Do you guys have any favorite recipes for cajun food you can share? I would love to try more!

Hurricane Sandy and Monday's dinner

Today is Monday, August 29th.  Hurricane Sandy has been blustering and showing off since yesterday.  She has been a naughty girl, that Sandy!  We are safe and dry here in Virginia.  We have not yet lost power (thank you God) and so far even though our canal has turned into a river, we have not had a flooded house or vehicles.

Instead of the usual three teenagers tonight, I had four.  I needed a way to make dinner stretch.  My initial thought was to make scallopped potatoes and fried chicken.  I decided against it as I just did not feel like standing at the stove for a long time.  I had already sliced the potatoes thin.  That is when it came to me to do a variation of the Hobo dinner I made a few weeks ago.

Step one:  slice potatoes thin and put in the bottom of the roasting pan.

Step two:  rough chop an onion and put it on top of the taters.

Step three:  layer chicken breast on top

Step four:  sprinkle liberally with Soul Seasoning and a little bit of Chipoltle chili powder.

Step five:  Add one can of chicken broth

Step six:  Cover with aluminum foil and bake in a 350 degree oven for one hour.

It was very good.  The only problems I encountered with this were the following:

1.  I used very thin cut chicken breasts and an hour in the oven is a little too long for them.  The got a little tough.  I might should have put them under the potatoes?

2.  It was kind of bland.  It needed a little more "oomph".  I wanted to put carrots in it but I did not have any and because of the storm, I could not go to the store.

3.  I think next time I will use regular chicken breasts and not the thin ones.  I might even add some cream of chicken soup or whip up a bechemel cheese sauce for it.

If you have any suggestions, let me know.  I would love some help! 

I pray you are all safe and dry! Take care in this storm and in the everyday of things.
In all things give thanks!!

I did it again!

I was not sure what to cook for dinner tonight and really did not want to go to the grocery store.  So I stood around staring at my cupboard trying to figure out what to do.  I found, in the very back, a jar of pad thai sauce I bought at a specialty store and thought, "what the heck".  I spread it over some chicken and threw it in the oven.  I made some rice and stir fry vegies (frozen snap peas, carrots, onions, mushrooms). 

It was actually very good.  The chicken was sweet with a little bit of a kick to it.  Even my pickiest of picky eaters (the two girls) liked it!  Success! I guess the moral of this story is to keep a lot of variety in my cabinets for days I don't feel like going to the store!

Chicken Fried Rice!

So tonight's dinner went in the opposite of last night's heavy (and heavenly) gravy and Salisbury steak.  Tonight was the very first time I ever made chicken fried rice.  Here is how it started:

(1) large sweet onion, chopped
(1) store-bought oven roasted chicken, shredded (it was lemon pepper roasted)
(1 1/2) cups of frozen sugar snap peas and carrots
(1) bunch of scallions, chopped
(3) chopped and smashed cloves of fresh garlic
(1) small drained can of bamboo shoots
(4) large white mushrooms sliced

So into a very large skillet, I put 1 tbsp of veggie oil and started browning up the chicken a little.  Next, I added the entire bowl of chopped sweet onion and sauteed for a while.

Next, added the smashed garlic and sprinkled in some soy sauce and a little bit more oil.

Then the bamboo shoots, carrots and snap peas

I added the mushrooms.  I let it all saute on the stove until the carrots and snap peas were good and warm (they were frozen) and the mushrooms had wilted.

I dumped all the ingredients into a large bowl.

Added another drizzle of oil and added six eggs, beaten, into the pan
Stirred the eggs non stop until they were nice and fluffy and then tossed them into the bowl with the chicken and veggies.

Added more oil (about 1/4 cup) to the pan and dumped in my cold, cooked rice.  Broke up the rice and stirred to coat with oil, patted it down and let it cook for a while, to heat through and crisp up a little.  Stirred again and let cook some more.  Added the chopped scallions and stirred well.

Dumped it all in a big bowl and mixed in the chicken, egg, & veggies and looked like this:

I had to use my EXTRA large serving dish....accidentally made enough to feed an army.  It was tasty!  I needed to have used different rice, this was just regular white rice....I guess since it was not as hard as I thought it was going to be, I will get some Jasmine rice next time maybe? The family loved it.  I served it with some lumpia I got at the butcher that I fried while I made the rice!

Another Random Soup night

I like to make a hearty soup on Tuesdays for a friend of mine who needs some "motherly TLC".  Tonight I just was not exactly sure what to do so you know me! I just started throwing stuff into the pot!

I started with about two teaspoons of olive oil and chopped almost 2/3rd's of a sweet onion and put that on medium high.  After a while I added two heaping teaspoons of garlic.  After the onions got soft I added two cans of chicken broth.  Into that I put one very, very large skinless boneless chicken breast, cut up (I swear this bird was at least a double D!!!!).

After the chicken gets done I am going to add a can of Cream of Chicken with Herbs and some flat dumplings.  That should be good and hearty and do him well for the week.  I like being able to share this gift.  I enjoy cooking. I hope he enjoys it!

Okay, I admit it......

I use Campbell's soups to cook with.  I am not a sauce genius yet and sometimes I just don't feel like whipping up a bechemel sauce or gravy from scratch.  Tonight was one of those nights but I have discovered that Campbell's has this Cream of Chicken with Herbs soup.  It is WAY yummier than regular cream of chicken.

I poured it over three very large bonelesss chicken breasts, put foil over it and put it in the oven at 350 degrees for about an hour until the chicken was done. Oh! And I used two cans of soup with about 1/2 of can of water...that is all you need.  I poured it over rice although it is really luscious over mash-a-taters but I was too lazy tonight to do that.

The picture does not do it justice.  The gravy is good enough to just drink by itself....it was quite the yummy, no fuss dinner.  I hope you try it sometime!

THE GREAT DEBATE: flat dumplings versus biscuit dumplings

Which do you prefer snake or bison meat?  That lovely sentence was typed by my son when I turned my back to stir the dumplings.  My original sentence said "Which do you prefer, flat dumplings or biscuit ones?"

I am making chicken and dumplings for dinner tonight but it is not the way my mother taught me.  It is the way my husband likes.  He has always had his dumplings from Anne's Old Fashioned dumplings.

I have never used this before I got together with my sexy Italian husband.  I am still on a learning curve using them.  My mother always used Bisquick and made biscuit dumplings.  They are my favorite, especially when I put a stick of real butter in right before I start dropping the biscuit dough because it creates a line of butter through the dumpling.  My middle child does not like the biscuit kind but she does like the flat ones.

So.....I just boiled my boneless chicken thighs (I like using them because they have more flavor than the white meat in my opinion) and then pulled them out to shred them.  I added the dumplings plus (I know my step-kids will shake their heads at this next statement LOL) I added a can of Campbell's  Cream of Chicken Soup.  I added the chicken back and now it is boiling. Soon the dumplings will be done and we will eat.

I think I may make biscuit ones soon.....

Another kitchen adventure with The Crystal Chef!

Tonight was the youth group party.  I was not really sure what to do so I made my first attempt at white chili - truthfully, I was trying to use ingredients that I had on hand without having to go to the grocery store.  Here is what I did:

I soaked one package of baby lima beans overnight and then drained and rinsed them and set them to boil.

I put six boneless chicken thighs in water to boil until done, reserving the broth when they were finished.  Shred the chicken.

Saute one medium yellow onion chopped and four cloves of garlic minced in two tablespoons of olive oil for about 10 minutes until soft.

Add the shredded chicken.

Add the following:

(2) teaspoons of Cumin
(2) teaspoons of dried oregano
(2) teaspoons of red chile flakes
(2) teaspoons of red chile powder
(1) cup of the reserved broth

Stir well and let bubble and cook for another 10 minutes.
Add:

(1) cup of the reserved broth
(1) large can of Old El Paso Enchilada sauce (what? It was in my cabinet and had all the right flavorings without adding a bunch of tomato flavor! Don't judge, I was a desperate woman trying to feed a bunch of people without spending any money!)

Stir.  Check your lima beans to see if they are done.  When they are soft, drain them and add to the chili mixture.  If you need more liquid, add more chicken broth.  Otherwise, let the beans cook in the chili for a while before serving.

That's it! That was my adventure in cooking tonight.  I am not convinced it was spectacular but my husband and children all liked it so I am glad for that.

My soup is growing and changing.....

So I am making some soup for a friend who is going through a rough time.  It started out to be ordinary chicken soup but it is changing fast.  Here is what I have done so far:

Melted a stick of butter and softened up one good size yellow onion and about 6 minced cloves of garlic.  I then added three good size boneless chicken thighs that had been well salted and peppered.  I let them saute in the butter mixture for a while.

Next I added two cans of chicken broth.  A few cups of water too.  I let that boil until the chicken was falling apart and done.

Next was the addition of about two cups of baby carrots.  Then I added about four peeled and chopped russet potatoes and some rough chopped cabbage.  I tasted the broth and was not too happy. 

Next I added a can of Hunt's chopped tomatoes (they are my favorite because they are flash steamed to peel not chemical treated) and one can of Hunt's tomato paste.  I sprinkled in some dried basil., and oregano.  NOW it smells good! I have to let this simmer awhile to let the potatoes finish cooking and then I think I will be able to quit adding things to it!!