Kung Pao Chicken

Who needs to get take out when you can make it yourself!  This was really yummy and super quick/easy to make.  Served this with a green salad and it was the perfect amount -- maybe some peppers / snap peas would be a good side too.  Thanks to chef Tiffany for this recipe!!

Serves 4

Ingredients:
1 lb boneless chicken breast (cut into chunks)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons green onion
2 cloves garlic
1/4 to 1 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ginger
4 tablespoons wine vinegar
4 tablespoons soy sauce
4 teaspoons sugar
1/3 cup unsalted roasted peanuts
4 cups rice (cooked)

Combine chicken and cornstarch to coat


Heat oil and stir fry until not pink (5-7 minute). Add onions, garlic, red pepper, and ginger. Stir fry 15 sec. and remove from heat.


Combine vinegar, soy sauce, and sugar in a bowl (my sister recommends doubling this combination). Stir well and add to the skillet. Stir in chicken, while heating. Stir in nuts right before serving

Green Beans with Red Onions and Feta Dressing

This was amazing!!  So part of my issue with cooking is that I always want complete meal ideas - so we had this with steak and baked potatoes, and we were the perfect amount of full when we were done!!

Serves 4

Ingredients:
16 oz of fresh (not frozen) green beans - cleaned, stemmed, and steamed

1/2 of a red onion sliced

Dressing:

1/2 cup of plain yogurt

1 tablespoon Lemon Juice

3/4 cup feta cheese, crumbled

Freshly ground pepper

Steam the green beans (We have a veggie steamer which makes this really slick)


Place the green beans on a serving platter, sprinkle with red onions.


Whisk together the dressing, it will be thick due to the feta.  Drizzle the dressing on top of the green beans.

Crab Stuffed Chicken Breasts

So I was apparently SO hungry that I forgot to take a picture of this meal BEFORE eating - so you get the "halfway" shot :)  It was super good - and the Apple Romaine Salad and chicken breasts went really well together. 

Ingredients: 

6 boneless chicken breasts

Salt / pepper

½ cup celery, chopped

½ cup onion, chopped

3 tablespoon butter

3 tablespoon white wine

6 oz canned crabmeat, drained, flaked 
½ cup herb seasoned stuffing mix
2 tablespoon flour

½ teaspoon paprika

2 tablespoon butter, melted

For the sauce:

1 envelope hollandaise sauce mix(Durkee/McCormick brand)

2 tablespoon white wine

½ cup Swiss cheese, shredded

Rinse chicken and pat dry.  Place between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and gently pound to flatten to ¼ inch thick. Season with salt and pepper. 

Sauté celery, onion, and butter in a skillet over medium heat until soft and translucent but not browned.  Remove from heat.  Add the white wine, crab, and herb stuffing – mix all together.

Divide the crab mixture and shape into 6 rod-shaped pieces.  Place one rod on top of each piece of flattened chicken.  Roll or fold chicken to encase the filling, secure with toothpicks or string.

Combine the flour and paprika.  Roll the chicken in the flour mixture and place in a 9x13 inch pan.  Drizzle with the 2 Tablespoon melted butter.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 45 minutes.  Remove pan, cover with foil, return to oven and bake for an additional 30 minutes.  Transfer chicken to a heated platter.

Meanwhile, prepare sauce by following the directions on the hollandaise sauce mix, except; reduce the liquid by 2 Tablespoons.  At the end of the cooking time, add 2 Tablespoon white wine and the cheese, stirring until cheese melts.  Pour half of sauce over the chicken, pass the remaining sauce in a container.

Roasted garlic-spinach dip

Makes 8 servings (1/4c)

133 Calories / 7g total fat

Preparation Time: 45 min

**Pretty good – very green….good idea for St Patty’s Day treat J

Ingredients:

1 whole head garlic

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 - 10 oz package frozen chopped spinach

¼ cup skim milk

Dash bottled hot pepper sauce

1 - 8oz package reduced-fat cream cheese (Neufchatel), cut up

Chopped tomato (optional)

1 recipe Toasted Pita Wedges **found these in the fancy bakery section – near Hawaiian bread at Rainbow.  You do need all 8 rounds in order to have enough bread/dip ratio

Directions:

Peel away outer dry leaves from head of garlic, leaving skin of garlic cloves intact.  Cut off pointed top portion of head (about ¼ inch) with a knife, leaving the bulb intact.  Place on a double-thick, 12-inch square of foil.  Drizzle garlic with the oil.  Fold foil to enclose garlic.  Bake in a 375 degree oven for 20 minutes or until garlic is soft.  Cool.

Toasted Pita Wedges: split 8 small pita bread rounds; cut each half into 6 wedges.  Place, cut sides up, on an ungreased baking sheet.  Bake in batches in a 375 degree oven for 7-9 minutes or until lightly browned.  Store any leftovers in an airtight container.

Cook spinach according to package directions, except omit salt.  Drain well; press out excess liquid.

Squeeze pulp from garlic cloves into food processor bowl, discarding skins.  Add the drained spinach, milk, hot pepper sauce, and 1/8 teaspoon of salt.  Cover and process until well blended.  Add cream cheese.  Cover; process until nearly smooth.  (used a blender and worked pretty good)

Transfer mixture to saucepan.  Cook and stir over medium-low heat until heated through.

To serve, transfer to serving bowl.  If desired, sprinkle with tomato.  Serve with Toasted Pita wedges.

Breakfast Sandwich

So I have to admit - I stole this from a friends blog, but I'm in NEED of some easy bfast recipes!  We never give ourselves enough time in the am to eat bfast - but that's the most important meal of the day!!  So if you are like us - then try this one....it's super easy and fast!

Toast up some wheat bread, spread a little Laughing Cow Garlic and Herb cheese, spread some avocado on top of that (remember you can just put some lime juice in your leftovers, so the avocado doesn't look all nasty brown), and then a scrambled egg to top it off!!

Chicken Enchiladas

Anyone in the mood for some Cha Cha Mexican ?!  Got this tasty recipe from my Uncle Rick!!  We made this with Spanish Rice (you can make your own OR quicker version - try the Rice a Roni Spanish rice) and of course beans.  It was really eask to make -- and 1 way to speed up the process is to make the chicken ahead of time and cool, so you can just throw everything together the day of....and you could always freeze these and then just bake them up at a later time too.

Serves 24

Ingredients:

24 large flour tortillas

5 chicken breasts cut into bite sized pieces

3 cans of cream of chicken soup

1 large can of Ortega green chilies (**for spicy – add 2 cans)

2 green onion tops/ scallions

1 small onion, chopped

1 can of sliced olives

1 pint of sour cream

1 pound of graded cheddar cheese

1 pound of graded monterey jack cheese

Optional: salsa and extra sour cream (for top)

Combine soup, chilies, onion tops, onion, sour cream, olives, and some of the cheese.  Set aside 1.5 cups of this mixture.

Add cut up chicken to remaining mixture.  Place mixture in tortilla and roll it up.  Place in baking dish.   Pour remaining 1.5 cups of remaining mixture over.  Place remain cheese on. 

Bake at 350 degree for 45 minutes covered and 45 minutes uncovered.

For topping – tastes really good with salsa, sour cream, or some Franks red hot (if you like spicy).  

Turkey Day Practice

So cookbook club decided to do a little Turkey Day practice - so if we ever had it at our house, we would be ready for the chaos.  It actually didn't go as bad as we thought - BUT it helped that we had a roaster to free up the oven for all the other loveliness.


For all you Greens out there - the dressing recipe is Grandpa's, so that brought back memories of playing bingo with buttons and racing around trying to find the "best lap" for the Sleigh Ride song....and you Ronhovdes - I'm not sure you can make the sweet potatoes without mom's "1974 handmade potatoe" serving dish - but it tasted ALMOST as good in a plain serving dish!  Thanks to all for the recipes!!


Gobble Gobble!!

Turkey

For a 14-18lb fresh and THAWED turkey

The roaster oven cooks a turkey in about half the time of a regular oven, but use a meat thermometer to make sure your turkey is cooked through.  The roaster does not brown a turkey  The constant dripping of condensation from the cover of the roaster prevents the turkey from browning but also produces a turkey that is moist and juicy.

Remove the rack.  Pour ½ cup water into the insert pan, cover and preheat to 325 degrees.  Remove giblets and neck from cavities of turkey.  Set aside and use for giblet gravy.  Rinse bird inside and out with cold water.  Pat dry.  Place dressing inside turkey.  Paint turkey with the browning mixture.  Place in roaster – cover and cook at 325 for 2-2.5 hours.  Check meat thermometer reading.  Continue cooking until it registers 180 degrees.

Browning Sauce:

¼ cup melted butter

1 ½ teaspoons browning sauce (like kitchen bouquet)

1 teaspoon paprika

Gravy:

Package fresh mushrooms

Chicken bouillon

Juices from the turkey

Flour to thicken

1 teaspoon browning sauce

Mix all together  (shake in Tupperware container to mix well) – then heat in saucepan. 

Turkey Dressing from Grandpa Green

5 lb turkey (1 cup dressing per pound)

Ingredients:

4 cups dry bread cubes

1 teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper

3 tablespoons chopped onion (use white onion)

Sage to taste

¼ teaspoon poultry seasoning

1/3 cup melted butter

Hot water to moisten

1-2 stalks chopped celery

Use hands to mix – stuff turkey before cooking!

Sweet Potatoes from N-Ron

Makes 9 servings

Ingredients:

3 cans (1lb, 2-oz size) vacuum packed sweet potatoes

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup bourbon

½ cup butter

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups miniature marshmallows

Turn sweet potatoes into large saucepan.  Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until heated through.


Preheat oven to 350


Mash sweet potatoes.  Add sugar, bourbon, butter, and vanilla; beat until well blended.  Turn into 2-quart shallow baking dish.  Sprinkle marshmallows over top.


 Bake, uncovered 30 min – or until marshmallows are golden

Green Bean Casserole from the back of the French's can :)

Serves 6 or more

Ingredients:

¾ cup milk

½ teaspoon pepper

Can cream of mushroom soup

2 (9oz) packages frozen cut green beans (thawed)

1 1/3 cup French’s French fried onions

In 1 ½ quart casserole – mix all ingredients except 2/3 cups of the fried onions.  Bake at 350 for 30 minutes – stir – top with remaining onions and bake 5 more minutes or until onions are golden.

Pumpkin Pie from Miss Stephanie Hickel

Ingredients:

1 cup white sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree

1 2/3 cups evaporated milk

2 eggs

1 (10 inch) unbaked pie crust

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).

Combine the sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, cloves, pumpkin puree, evaporated milk and eggs; blending until smooth. Pour batter into the prepared unbaked pie shell.

Bake at 425 degrees F (220 degrees C) for 15 minutes then lower oven temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Continue to bake for about another 40 minutes or until pie is firm.

Mashed Potatoes from Auntie Barb

This recipe says it’s for 12 servings.  You might get by with 1 ½ for Thanksgiving with all the other food.

Ingredients:

9 large potatoes (5lbs)

2-3 oz cream cheese

1 cup sour cream (with chives, if desired – I use the chives sour cream) Whole thing

2 teaspoon onion salt

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

2 tablespoons butter

Cook potatoes and mash.  Boil and Cook in salt water for 30 min.  Add remaining ingredients and beat till light and fluffy.

Cover and place in refrig or put in oven and use right away.

To serve, place desired amount in greased casserole and dot with butter.  Bake 300-350 till heated (about 30 min) or crock-pot for 3 hours (on medium/high).

I make the day ahead, put in crock-pot in frig.  I’ve started them at home when I take to a holiday and finish at whoever’s house.