Chicken Recipes, Please?

“Out with the old—in with the new” seems to be an appropriate slogan for the coming year; however, let’s hope that it doesn’t end up like some other years when most of us were saying, “Back with the old—please! The new sucks!” Anyway, with the promise of positive changes coming in 2009 for all of us, I decided that this would be a good time to change the look of my blog. After much thought, deliberation, trial and error, and so on, I chose the “Contempt” theme designed by Vault9. I like the colors, the clean look, the customizable header option, and the way that the design is formatted. It seems to be well organized and easier to read.

I’m just somewhat puzzled, however, as to how and why “Contempt” was chosen as the name of the design. It’s fascinating, I think, to know why people have selected particular names and titles for various things—artwork, pets, babies, their pickup truck, their evil step-sister—anyway, I tend to ramble. I hope you like the new look of my blog—it’s nice to make changes occasionally to keep things interesting, don’t you agree?

I found an easy, great tasting fried chicken recipe on the AllRecipes.com Website that I’d like to share with you. It’s called “Chicken Fried Chicken” and it was submitted by “CASSJW.”

Ingredients List:

• 30 saltine crackers
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons dry potato flakes
• 1 teaspoon seasoned salt
• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 egg
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• 6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (I used wings, legs, and thighs as well.)

Directions:

• Place the crackers in a large resealable plastic bag, seal the bag, and the crush crackers until they are reduced to a coarse crumb.
• Add the flour, potato flakes, seasoned salt, and pepper to the bag and mix well.
• Beat the egg in a shallow dish or bowl, and heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
• One by one, dredge the chicken pieces in the beaten egg; then place the chicken pieces in the bag containing the crumb mixture. Seal the bag and shake to coat the pieces.
• Reduce the heat to medium, and cook the coated chicken in the skillet for 15 to 20 minutes, turning frequently until golden brown and the juices run clear.

Note: I doubled the recipe and used wings, legs, and thighs in addition to the breasts (I used only 4 boneless breasts rather than 6).

What I liked about this recipe was that it wasn’t overly seasoned, and it provided the skinless chicken pieces with a wonderful crunchy coating that almost made it seem as though the skin had been left on the chicken. I confess that I did fry up a few legs and wings with the skin, just as a comparison, but I must say that the skinless pieces were just as tasty (and I know, more healthful) as the pieces with the skin. Enjoy!

With winter upon us and the weather looking really ugly, it’s the time of year to treat ourselves to some of our favorite comfort foods. One of mine has always been chicken casserole—or casseroles, since there are so many variations that I enjoy. (Mom’s is still the best, however. See “Food Memories: Birthdays.”) The version I found on RecipeTips.com is certainly one of those that I have added to my list of favorites. “Baked Chicken with Pasta” is a thick, creamy, stick-to-your-ribs variety that I really enjoyed.

Baked Chicken with Pasta

Ingredients List:

• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced
• 3 stalks celery, chopped
• 8 ounces of mushrooms (use your favorite), sliced
• 4 ounces of pimento, drained and chopped
• ½ teaspoon of poultry seasoning
• 4 sprigs of fresh thyme (use just the leaves)
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1 – 10 ¾ ounce can of cream of celery soup
• 1 – 10 ¾ ounce can of cream of chicken soup (Use the kind with herbs if you can find it.)
• 2 cups of chicken broth
• 8 ounces of Velveeta cheese, cubed
• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts that have been seasoned with lemon pepper; then sautéed or grilled and chopped into bite-size pieces. You may also use 3 to 4 cups of leftover chicken, which is what I did. (Of course, I would have preferred to grill the chicken first, but the grilling season is now only a memory.)
• Freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 16 ounces of spaghetti, fettuccini, or angel hair pasta (I used the fettuccini this time, because it was what I had on hand.)
• 1 cup of seasoned bread crumbs
• ½ cup of Romano cheese, shredded (You can also use shredded parmesan cheese.)

Directions:

• In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and sauté the onion, pepper, mushrooms, and celery.
• Add the pimento, poultry seasoning, thyme leaves, garlic, and green pepper. Stir to combine and cook for an additional 1 to 2 minutes.
• Stir in the soups, chicken broth, and Velveeta cheese. Stir until the cheese is melted.
• Add the chicken to the skillet and stir it into the other ingredients until well blended; then lower the heat to low.
• While the chicken mixture is simmering, bring water to a boil in a large pot, and cook the pasta according to the package directions.
• When the pasta is cooked, drain it; then add it to the chicken mixture. Gentle stir to combine the pasta with the other ingredients and heat thoroughly.
• Pour everything into a greased casserole dish.
• In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the bread crumbs and the shredded Romano or parmesan cheese; then sprinkle this mixture on top of the casserole.
• Bake the casserole at 375°F for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden brown.

If you would prefer, you can use some of that Thanksgiving turkey that you may have stored in the freezer rather than using chicken. (I stuck with the chicken.) I suppose you could serve the casserole with a salad and bread and side dishes and all that extra stuff if you would want to, but I thought it was so filling and satisfying, that it really was enough by itself. Enjoy!

Talk about easy, this recipe is so simple that even a first time cook could make this with no trouble whatsoever. And the results—well, in a word, fantastic! “Slow Cooker Russian Chicken” is a recipe I found on GroupRecipes.com, a Website that I’ve been using quite often when I want to find a new chicken recipe.

Ingredients List:

• 1 – 16 oz Bottle of Russian dressing (Note: if you can’t find Russian dressing, you can use Catalina, but the flavor of the dish will not be as rich.)
• 1 envelope of dry onion soup mix
• 1 – 10 oz. jar apricot jam or preserves
• Assorted chicken pieces (Note: the recipe didn’t describe how much chicken to use, so I simply cut chunks from the breast, leg, and thigh meat of a whole 3-pound chicken.)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

• Combine the first three ingredients in a medium size bowl.
• Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper.
• Place the chicken on the bottom of the slow cooker and pour the dressing mixture over the chicken.
• Cover the slow cooker, turn the temperature setting to low, and cook for 6-8 hours. You may also cook it on the high temperature setting for 3-4 hours.

The author of the recipe noted that the dish can also be cooked in the oven. The steps are followed exactly except that everything is placed into a casserole dish and baked at 350ºF for one hour. It seems that this is quite a versatile dish. I served it over plain white rice as suggested and found that it was a big hit. Bon Appétit!

Five days of leftover Thanksgiving turkey—in sandwiches, casseroles, and soups—it’s about all I can handle. Although I really like turkey on the day it’s roasted, I really get tired of it in a hurry. Some people tell me, “You can eat chicken seven days a week and never get bored with it, why not turkey? What’s the difference?” Well, I can tell the difference, and for me, the taste of turkey just can’t compare with that of chicken. With that said, I’m happy to be getting back to preparing one of my favorite foods using my tried and true recipes, as well as new recipes that I hope I’ll be able to include among my favorites. The following chicken recipe is one of those new ones that I’ll definitely be adding to my list of favorites.

“Honey Fried Chicken,” a recipe I found on the AllRecipes.com Website, is one of the best fried chicken recipes I’ve ever tasted—so simple to make and so good. The person submitting the recipe said that it was one that he or she tried to copy from a recipe served at a New England restaurant. (I’d sure like to know the name of the restaurant, since I travel to New England at least once a year.)

Honey Fried Chicken

Ingredients List:

• 1 whole chicken (about 4 lbs.), cut into pieces (I used precut chicken pieces)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 packet of chicken bouillon granules
• 2 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 quart vegetable oil (for frying—I used a bit less because the oil should be no deeper than one inch in the pan, so apparently, my pan must have been smaller than what was used by the creator of the recipe).

Instructions:

• Sprinkle salt and pepper on the chicken pieces.
• After the chicken is seasoned, coat the pieces with the honey
• Stir together the garlic powder, chicken bouillon granules, and the flour in a shallow dish or bowl.
• Dredge the honey-coated chicken pieces in flour mixture until the pieces are completely coated.
• Add vegetable oil to a depth of one inch in a large heavy skillet. Heat the oil on the stovetop using a medium-high heat setting.
• Fry the chicken for at least five minutes per side or until the meat is no longer pink and the juices run clear.

Enjoy!

I love Gouda cheese, and I love chicken (of course), and spinach—well, when eaten plain, I can take it or leave it. For me, spinach is among those vegetables that really aren’t any good when served plain—rather bland and boring—not really appropriate as a vegetable side dish like corn or green beans or asparagus. Spinach always seems to be better when it’s used as an ingredient in something else, such as in lasagna or chip dip or this recipe. With that said, while browsing through the BettyCrocker.com Website, I found a recipe that combines the three ingredients in a really tasty chicken dish appropriately named “Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Gouda and Spinach.” It looks like one of those recipes that requires a lot of time and fuss but is actually so quick and easy that you can make it even when you’re stretched for time.

Besides the three main ingredients listed in the title of the recipe, the only other ingredients are small quantities of ground nutmeg, salt, pepper, and butter. That’s it!

Here’s the complete ingredient list:

• 4 bone-in chicken breasts (1 ¼ lbs.)
• ½ cup shredded smoked Gouda or Swiss cheese (2 oz)
• ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 package (10 oz.) frozen chopped spinach, thawed, squeezed to drain excess moisture
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon pepper
• 2 teaspoons butter or margarine, melted

Simply mix the cheese, chopped spinach, and nutmeg until well blended and stuff the mixture between the meat and skin of four bone-in chicken breasts. Place the chicken, skin side up, in a greased, nine-inch square baking pan; sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper; drizzle melted butter over the chicken; then bake the chicken uncovered at 375ºF for about an hour. (Although the recipe calls for a cooking time of 45 to 55 minutes, the actual cooking time required in my oven was about an hour.)

“Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Gouda and Spinach” was a very satisfying recipe: rich tasting, lots of flavor, and a real hit with my dinner guests on Thanksgiving Eve. Give it a try and see what you think.

When I found this recipe on the RecipeTips.com site, it looked like it would be a tasty dish to make after the Thanksgiving holiday—one of those quick and easy recipes that allow you to use up some of that leftover Thanksgiving turkey. I decided to try it last weekend using chicken, as the recipe calls for, to find out whether it would worth making again after the holiday. The answer was yes, I will definitely be making “Chicken, Rice, and Green Bean Casserole” again after the holiday, substituting the chicken with turkey. With only nine simple ingredients—mushroom soup, milk, uncooked rice, chopped cooked chicken, frozen green beans, canned mushrooms, pimentos, shredded cheddar cheese, and French fried onion rings—this dish was prepared, baked, and ready to serve in just under an hour.

Chicken, Rice, and Green Bean Casserole

This recipe is basically a variation on the ubiquitous Thanksgiving side dish, “Green Bean Casserole,” but it’s so much better. With the inclusion of chicken, rice, mushrooms, and cheddar cheese, it’s hearty enough to be served as a main meal; in fact, I served it with just some crusty bread rolls and nothing else (oh, and maybe a glass of wine or two). The recipe states that the French fried onions are optional, but I can’t imagine making the dish without them. The onions provide terrific flavor, and the crispy golden brown topping that forms in combination with the shredded cheese is unbeatable. Give this recipe a try and you won’t be disappointed.

When I was a kid I remember that on Thanksgiving Day, Grandma would pull into town in her big Caddy (a three-bedroom house on wheels known as a Cadillac Sedan Deville) and arrive at my parents’ home bearing her contribution to the Thanksgiving feast: a gastronomic catastrophe that for lack of a better name, I’ll call, “Grandma’s Thanksgiving Jell-O Salad a la Awful.” Actually, I could call it a variety of more colorful names, but none of them are fit to publish here. My sister called it, “Ick!” my brother called it, “P-U!” and Mom simply called it, “Oh, God!” All I know is that whatever you chose to call it, the Thanksgiving dinner was not enhanced by the presence of Grandma’s ever-repulsive runny lime Jell-O with carrots and peas topped with mayonnaise and paprika. While it might be a hit in some quarters, it certainly wasn’t at our house. Why ruin perfectly innocent lime Jell-O with mayonnaise—and paprika, for Pete’s sake! And so, while feasting on Mom’s beautifully roasted turkey with sage dressing, homemade cranberry sauce, buttery mashed potatoes served with her excellent roasting pan gravy, delicious sweet potato hot dish, always popular green bean casserole, and of course, Dad’s famous baked beans; we were forced to plop Grandma’s Jell-O nightmare onto our plates. Nobody liked it; nevertheless, we all choked it down, not because we didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but because we would never hear the end of it if we didn’t eat it. With a smirk on her face, she always dished up an extra large helping for Mom and expected her to gobble it up. Poor Mom.

I always thought that Grandma’s only purpose in serving the unwanted green gunk was as a joke—just to get a rise out of everyone—because she must have known how much we hated it. Three moaning children and the shell-shocked expressions on the faces of my parents, aunts, and uncles made that fairly obvious. We loved Grandma for many things, but her cooking wasn’t one of them.

In my last entry, I reported that the weather during the first week of November was perfect for grilling: sunny and unbelievably warm for this time of year, but my schedule didn’t permit me to do any cooking that week except for the slow cooker meal I threw together on election morning. Well, I really think I’ve missed my last window of opportunity to enjoy grilled food outdoors this season, for the weather has turned really ugly, and this being Minnesota, it’s highly unlikely that we’ll see more days suitable for grilling unless you don’t mind wearing a parka and woolen mittens while tending the grill. It’s always a sad time when I have to put the grill away for the season, but I’ll be compensated with a whole winter’s worth of delicious baked, sautéed, pan-fried, stir-fried, and slow-cooked chicken dishes that will certainly suffice until next spring.

Among those dishes is a new chicken recipe that I made last night called, “Chicken Normande with Mashed Apples and Potatoes” that I found on the Epicurious.com site. It is actually a recipe posted there from the February 2000 issue of Bon Appétit. Although the preparation time is a bit lengthier than what I have been used to for the past several months, having made umpteen quick and easy grilled chicken dishes, it certainly isn’t complicated and it’s definitely worth the effort.

This recipe incorporates chicken thighs that have been cut into pieces; seasoned with salt, pepper, and thyme; dusted with flour; and sautéed until browned and cooked through. The chicken is placed into a baking dish and is layered with cooked parsnips, uncooked peas, cooked apples and Yukon Gold potatoes (my favorite variety) that have been mashed, and a rich cream sauce flavored with brandy; then it’s baked in a 350°F oven for 35 to 45 minutes. With its golden brown potato and apple crust, this dish is like a French version of a shepherd’s pie, only better. This is one chicken recipe that I’ll be making again and again during the upcoming winter months.

Wow! Just when I thought the grilling season was coming to a rapid end, comes the month of November and some of the best weather imaginable: a lengthy string of days (that actually began before Halloween) with highs in the seventies and lows in the fifties, which is more typical of September than November in southern Minnesota—perfect San Diego weather I call it. Feeling a dose of spring fever again, I was itching to grill out and dine al fresco, but since daylight saving time is over and I knew that it would be dusk before I would get home from work, that plan didn’t seem too realistic. Besides, it was election night, and being a political junkie, nothing was going to prevent me from parking my butt in front of the television and watching the election returns, so I went to plan B and cooked up a one-pot meal in the slow cooker that was ready to eat when I arrived home.

I’ve never really had a name for this chicken recipe, which I concocted several years ago: I always referred to it as simply, “Slow Cooker Chicken,” but now I’ve decided to name it officially, “Election Day Chicken.” I’m sure there are other recipes out there that are quite similar to this one; in fact, a friend told me that she made something almost identical to this, but her version didn’t include red bell pepper, and the liquid she used was just plain water rather than the chicken broth that I use. This simple recipe has been a real hit with everyone who has tried it.

Election Day Chicken

Ingredients:

• 4 to 5 pounds chicken pieces—any combination of thighs, legs, wings, and split breasts
• 6 to 8 red potatoes cut into quarters
• 1 yellow onion, coarsely sliced
• 1 stalk celery, chopped
• 24 (or more) baby carrots
• 1 red bell pepper, sliced into strips
• 8 to 12 garlic cloves
• 1 envelope onion soup mix
• ½ cup chicken stock or broth
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

• Place the quartered red potatoes, sliced onion, chopped celery, baby carrots, sliced red bell pepper, and the garlic cloves in the bottom of a slow cooker.
• Add the chicken stock or broth to the pot and sprinkle about half of the dry onion soup mix over the vegetables.
• Place the chicken pieces on top of the vegetables.
• Sprinkle the chicken with the remaining onion soup mix.
• Cover the slow cooker and turn the heat to high.
• Cook the chicken on high heat for about 6 hours, or cook on high heat for 2 hours and then turn the heat down to low and cook for an additional 8 hours.
• Season the chicken and vegetables with salt and pepper to taste.

How much more simple could it be? This is a perfect dish for a busy day, and the leftovers are great, too (if there are any leftovers, that is). I hope you’ll try it.