New Family Favorite

I found this recipe on no other than Pinterest and never thought it would have gotten the reviews from my family that it did.  I was totally blown away...I mean, Paul was the first one to say how good it was and went back for seconds (which he doesn't do very often).  AND...this recipe is so ridiculously easy.

Here's what you need:

   4 chicken breasts

   1 pkt of Italian dressing seasoning

   1 - 8oz block of cream cheese (softened)

   2 cans of cream of chicken soup

   milk

   1 box of rotini or penne pasta

Here's what I did:

The night before, I cooked the four chicken breasts on the stove in a covered skillet.  After they were fully cooked, I threw them in my mixer and let it do the shredding (another helpful trick I learned from the many hours of research I've done on Pinterest).  I then let the shredded chicken cool and before going to bed, covered it and put it in the fridge to hang out overnight.

**Update (12/2/12) - I used the beater attachment on my KitchenAid Mixer.  When using this trick to shred chicken, it's a good idea to place a towel over the mixer to keep the chicken in the mixing bowl.

The next morning, I set out the cream cheese to soften while I got ready for church.  Before leaving for church, I got out the crock pot and dumped in all ingredients except for the milk and turned it to low and let it do it's thing while we were at church (recipe said cook on low for 4 hours).  When we got home from church, I put on a pot of water to cook the pasta.  While the pasta is cooking, stir the Italian chicken mixture...this is where you might need to add some milk to the mixture to thin it out a bit.  After the pasta is cooked, drain and then dump in a large bowl (I mean, LARGE, you're going to need a large one for all the pasta and chicken mixture) and add the chicken mixture and stir everything together.  OR you can do what I made my family do...mix it together on their own plates!

I didn't have any pictures of this delicious meal, but my family loved it especially with salad and homemade garlic bread.

I want to credit someone for this recipe, but the pin I found with this recipe doesn't actually link you to the recipe you see here...so, whoever you are, thanks for a great and easy recipe that is Karrick family approved!!!

Happy cooking!

Sunday Dinner

In my quest to start using my crock pot, I searched for a recipe that would be easy and delicious for a Sunday dinner.  And the recipe I found has now become my favorite for BBQ Chicken.  And it went well with the leftover sides we had from the night before.

Click here for the link to the recipe that I used.

I followed the recipe this time (except for using frozen chicken, I thawed mine first after reading some of the comments), but here are a couple of things I'm going to try differently next time:
   - use less vinegar
   - cut small slits in the chicken so the sauce will go into the chicken and flavor it even more


And for a little something a little special, I also whipped up some of these Cheesy Garlic Biscuits.

I also followed this recipe, but here are some things I will adjust next time:
   - add 1/4 tsp of garlic salt to biscuit mixture, and only use 1/2 tsp garlic salt in butter mixture
   - use only 1 tsp of oregano

Happy cooking!

Easy Weeknight Dinners

So, I realize I haven't been posting as much as when I first started this blog, but life gets crazy and hopefully it will all start to slow down in the next couple of weeks.

I wanted to share a couple of recipes with you that I have tried and are quite tasty!  I can't say that I've made both of them....my husband actually made the Easy Chicken Bake for us on a night when I didn't get off work until late.  I can tell you that if you make the Easy Chicken Bake and there is some left, the leftovers make a great lunch the next day!

The first recipe I made a few years back, but recently came across it again a couple of weeks ago and will be making it again soon.  Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo is an easy pasta dish that includes a vegetable!  Click here to go to the recipe site!

The second recipe is the one my husband made last week.  This recipe uses ingredients you are most likely to have in your pantry and freezer already!  Easy Chicken Bake is another one dish meal that includes the vegetables and doesn't necessarily need a side!  Click here to go to the recipe site!

Happy cooking!

Crockin' Hawaiian BBQ Chicken

I love chicken!  I could probably eat chicken everyday...however, my husband isn't as big a fan of chicken.  Which means I have to find lots of chicken recipes to change things up.  I pinned this easy recipe on Pinterest and have been waiting for the right time to make it AND to find the right bbq sauce.  The recipe calls for a bottled Hawaiian bbq sauce, which I can't find at any of my grocery stores.  We even ventured to a town that has a Target to look for the sauce the original pinner used...but guess what, that's the sauce they were all out of = bummer!  I then looked up a recipe how to make some homemade Hawaiian bbq sauce...and the repeating ingredients that the recipes called for were ginger, teriyaki, and soy sauce.

If you ask my family what my favorite store is they'll say Aldi's...and they'd be correct (favorite food store).  Paul and I did our weekly grocery shopping today and while at Aldi's I found bottles of ginger teriyaki bbq sauce...cha-ching!  I swipped up a couple of bottles, which were actually a specialty item on sale.  Guess what's for dinner?!

I love recipes that have very few ingredients...this one has a total of 3!

The original recipe calls for crushed or tidbit pineapple, but all I had was sliced...so I ran a knife through them before dumping them in the cooker.

The recipe said to turn the cooker on low for 6 hours...but since I didn't have 6 hours, I turned it on high for 3  hours and then down to low for the last hour, but you can do whatever works for you...as long as the chicken is no longer pink.

After completing this recipe, there's something I'll do differently next time.  The recipe calls for everything to just be dumped in...since my pineapple wasn't the crushed kind, I don't feel I got as much flavor as I was wanting from the sauce because of how much pineapple juice there was.  I'm probably going to add the pineapple and bbq sauce and then save the pineapple sauce to add gradually as the chicken cooks.

I also wasn't as pleased with the sauce that I got...I think I'll try adding some brown sugar and soy sauce to it to bulk it up a little.  The sauce probably would have been fine had I been able to fine the Hawaiian bbq sauce at Target...I'll just have to keep looking.

Happy cooking!

Crispy Cheddar Chicken and Cheesy Ranch Potatoes

This was a weekend for cooking at home.  I had several recipes I wanted to try and this was the weekend.  I found this recipe on, where else, Pinterest.  Ok, so when it comes to cooking, there's something you should know about me...I very rarely follow the recipe.  Baking is another story...there's too much science involved in baking to mess to much with the recipe and get a good ending result.

One of my favorite foods is crispy chicken, so when I find a recipe for crispy chicken I'm eager to try it out.

This dish calls for one of my favorite cooking techniques - dredging.  I have no idea why, but I love to dredge.

First you start by crushing the crackers...my tool of choice is a rolling pin.

The dredging station...this step is all about organization (which I love!).

When you see the recipe, you'll notice that I'm missing another bowl for the dredging station...the cheese.  (Next time I plan on making the recipe with the cheese, but this time I was also fixing Cheesy Ranch Potatoes and didn't want to have cheese with sides of chicken and potatoes for dinner.)  I also didn't use the milk to start the dredge...I used 2 whisked eggs (maybe this is why I didn't get the crisp that I wanted?)  You'll notice in the picture below that my chicken pieces look smaller...that's because I used chicken breast tenderloins.  I had them in the freezer and that's what I pulled out...it also saved the step of cutting the chicken breasts into chunks.

Here's the final product...

Even after putting the chicken back in the oven without the foil, the top didn't crisp like I thought it would (possibly because I used egg instead of milk in the dredging process...hmm?), so I put it under the broiler for several minutes.

The recipe also calls for a sauce, which I didn't make for the dinner, but made it for the left over chicken.  When I made the sauce, I added more sour cream and some milk to thin it out some.  (The step-daughter who had some of the left over chicken said the sauce was good...yay!)

Crispy Cheddar Chicken

   4 large chicken breasts

   2 sleeves Ritz crackers

   1/4 tsp salt

   1/8 tsp pepper

   1/2 c. milk

   3 c. cheddar cheese, grated

   1 tsp dried parsley

Sauce

   1 can cream of chicken soup

   2 Tbsp sour cream

   2 Tbsp butter

1. Cut each chicken breast into 3 large chunks.

2. In a small food processor grind up the Ritz crackers.

3. Pour the milk, cheese, and cracker crumbs into 3 separate small pans.  Toss the salt and pepper in with the cracker crumbs and give a little stir.

4. Dip each piece of chicken into the milk then the cheese and finally the cracker crumbs.

5. Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray and lay the chicken inside the pan.

6. Sprinkle the dried parsley over the chicken.

7. Cover the pan with tin foil and bake at 400 degrees for 35 minutes.  Remove the foil and bake an additional 10 minutes, or until the edges of the chicken are golden brown and crispy.

8. Into a medium sauce pan, combine the cream of chicken soup, sour cream and butter with a whisk.  Stir over medium heat until the sauce is hot.  Serve over the chicken.

Click here for the printable recipe, thanks to Jamie Cooks It Up!

Cheesy Ranch Potatoes

Now you're probably going to freak out when I tell you this, but I HATE ranch...anything ranch.  I always have.  I've tried it several times over the last couple of years and have no idea what all the craziness is with putting ranch on absolutely everything you eat.  I have my sauces of choice and they are probably ones that you detest...most of my family does too.  It's okay, I don't mind being different.

Again, I didn't follow the recipe exactly...red potatoes were $2.49 for 5 lbs and russets were $1.39 for 10 lbs.  I'm a bargain kind of girl, so I went for the cheaper, bigger bag.

Spray the baking dish with cooking spray and then start cutting the potatoes into chunks...make sure they're all about the same size, this helps with making sure all of the pieces are cooked evenly.  Then add a couple of dollops of butter, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and I added a dash of steak seasoning...it has a couple of more savory spices that I love and give just a bit more seasoning to the potatoes.  Then cover the potatoes with foil and pop them in the oven to roast.

After an hour of roasting, pull the potatoes out of the oven and remove the foil.  See that little dish?  That's my dish of potatoes WITHOUT ranch.  I added ranch dressing to the other potatoes, stirred and then added the cheese.  Gave everything one last toss and then threw on some bacon crumbles.  Put the potatoes back in the oven for about 15 minutes just to melt the cheese.

Potatoes on the top rack...chicken on the bottom

tada!

Cheesy Ranch Potatoes

   3 lbs potatoes, diced

   dash of salt

   dash of pepper

   dash of chili powder (or steak seasoning)

   4 Tbsp butter, divided

   Shredded cheddar cheese

   Ranch Dressing

   Bacon crumbles

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees

2. Spray 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray.

3. Dice potatoes and put in baking dish and season potatoes with seasonings.

4. Put the divided putter on top of the potatoes and cover dish with foil.

5. Bake potatoes for an hour.

6. Remove potatoes from oven.  Eyeball it when putting on the ranch dressing...you can always add more.  Stir potatoes to coat with dressing.  Sprinkle cheese (you can also just eyeball this...I think I used about a cup).  Stir one more time and then add the bacon (optional) to the top, and put back in the oven, uncovered, for 10-15 minutes to melt the cheese.

Click here for a printable recipe, thanks Mrs Happy Homemaker!

Happy cooking!

1st Official Recipe...Chicken Breasts with Creamy Mushroom Gravy

My first from-scratch meal in awhile...it's been a little crazy at our house the last couple of weeks.  Usually we throw something in the oven like little rolls of pizza (yummy) or just thaw some hamburger and add the other ingredients for "the helper" in and it's dinner time, BUT not tonight.

I found this recipe on the Betty Crocker website and have been wanting to try it for awhile now and tonight was finally the night.

As you can see, I had several things going at once.  I served the chicken with mashed potatoes and steamed green beans.  After the chicken was golden brown, I put it in the oven to finish cooking...no one likes pink chicken.  The recipe calls for the chicken to be gently pounded until about 1/4 inch thick...I skipped this step, but if you don't, you won't need to warm up the oven to finish the chicken.

You then use the skillet with the drippings to make the gravy...the recipe calls for fresh mushrooms, but they can be expensive and not easily stored in my pantry, so I used the kind from the can.  If you've never made a rue, then you're in for a treat because that's how you start the gravy to this dish.

I was a little worried that the from-the-can mushrooms wouldn't give as much flavor as fresh, but they're a perfect addition to this gravy that's really flavored with soy sauce.

Here's what your gravy will look like after adding the Bisquick, milk and soy sauce.  (The recipe calls for green onions, but I don't like onions and my husband is allergic, so they're out of every dish I make.)  After finishing everything I had going at once (not-from-scratch mashed potatoes, steamed the real green beans, got the chicken out of the oven), here's what the finished product looked like...

This little creation got excellent reviews from my husband and I even gave myself a pat on the back for the delicious meal.

Chicken Breast with Creamy Mushroom Gravy
   4  boneless skinless chicken breasts (4 oz each)
   1/2 c. Original Bisquick mix
   1/2 tsp garlic powder
   1 egg
   3 tbsp vegetable oil
   1 1/2 c. sliced fresh mushrooms (or 3/4 a can)
   3 tbsp Original Bisquick mix
   2 medium green onions, sliced (2 tbsp)
   1 c. milk
   1 1/2 tsp soy sauce

1.  Between pieces of plastic wrap or waxed paper, place each chicken breast smooth side down; gently pound with flat side of meat mallet or rolling pin until about 1/4 in thick.
2.  In a shallow dish, stir 1/2 c. Bisquick mix and the garlic powder.  in another shallow dish, beat egg.  Dip chicken in egg, then coat with Bisquick mixture.
3.  In 12-inch non-skillet, heat 2 tbsp of the oil over medium head.  Add chicken; cook about 3 minutes or until golden brown.  Turn chicken; cover and cook 4-6 minutes longer or until chicken is no longer pink in center.  Remove to serving platter; cover to keep warm.
4.  In same skillet, heat remaining 1 tbsp. oil over medium heat.  Add mushrooms; cook 3-4 minutes, stirring frequently, until browned.  Add 3 tbsp Bisquick mix and the onions; cook and stir until mixed.  Stir in milk and soy sauce.  Cook until mixture is thick and bubbly.  Serve over chicken.

Makes 4 servings

Click here for the recipe from the Betty Crocker website.

Happy cooking!