Chicken Recipes: Lemon Rosemary Chicken and Roasted Vegetables

Last night, I made one of my favorite chicken dishes. This recipe is one that I’ve written about before, but I just felt the need to once again let you know how sensational it is. I usually make this recipe during the late fall to early spring when the weather is too cold to enjoy outdoor grilling. See my blog post from May 2, 2008 for the complete recipe; then enjoy this fantastic one-pan meal.

 

Chicken Recipes: Chicken Pot Pie (Number 9)

I love chicken pot pie, and this recipe, which I found on AllRecipes.com, is particular good. Maybe it’s the combination of the simple ingredients with the fresh chicken (don’t use precooked) that made it so good, or maybe it was the premade piecrusts that I chose (I used Pillsbury), but whatever it was, this chicken pot pie was hard to beat. It’s called “Chicken Pot Pie IX” and was submitted by Robbie Rice, who I would like to thank for providing me with the best chicken pot pie I’ve eaten in a long time.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cubed
• 1 cup sliced carrots
• 1 cup frozen green peas
• ½ cup sliced celery
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1/3 cup chopped onion
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper
• ¼ teaspoon celery seed
• 1 ¾ cups chicken broth
• 2/3 cup milk
• 2 unbaked pie crusts (9-inch size)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 425ºF.
• In a saucepan, combine the chicken, carrots, peas, and celery. Add water to cover. Boil for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat, drain, and set aside.
• In the saucepan over medium heat, cook the onions in butter until soft and translucent.
• Stir in the flour, salt, pepper, and celery seed.
• Slowly stir in the chicken broth and milk. Simmer over medium-low heat until thick. Remove from the heat and set aside.
• Place the chicken mixture onto the bottom piecrust.
• Pour the hot liquid mixture over the chicken mixture.
• Cover with the top piecrust, seal the edges, and cut away the excess dough. Make several small slits in the top to allow steam to escape.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown and the filling is hot and bubbly. Cool for 10 minutes before serving. Delicious!

 

Chicken Recipes: Baked Chicken with Pasta

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!

 

Chicken Recipes: Honey Fried Chicken

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!

 

Food Memories: My Least Favorite Foods as a Child

I had such fun compiling my list of favorite childhood foods (see “Food Memories: My Favorite Foods as a Child”) that I’ve decided to list my least favorite childhood foods to see whether or not they are still on my list of all-time most disliked foods.

• Least Favorite Breakfast: Boxed dry cereal with milk poured over it. Yes, let’s start with the absolute worst food item on my list. I hated it then and I hate it now. As a child, I liked to eat many different cereals right out of the box—I just didn’t like it submerged in a disgusting bowlful of milk. There’s nothing more repulsive or nauseating to me (concerning food) as boxed dry cereal becoming soggy and lifeless, depositing all kinds of gunk into the milk. I used to gag whenever I was near somebody who was eating it. When my mother ate it, I’d have to leave the room before she was finished, because I knew she would be lifting the bowl to drink the milk that was leftover—the milk that was full of particles and slop and…just the thought of it still makes me queasy. Yuck!
• Least Favorite Lunch: Grandma’s home-canned mystery meat, a slice of bread, and her home-canned peaches. Whenever we stayed with Grandma, she would serve us this horrible lunch. With her questionable canning techniques (it’s amazing that we weren’t all poisoned), her canned meat had the flavor of a damp cellar and the color of road kill. I hate to pick on Grandma, but that lunch was enough for anyone to lose their appetite. I usually stuck with the bread—it was the only thing that I considered safe since it was commercially made and came from the supermarket. Remember, if you’ve read my other posts about Grandma’s cooking, she did not fit into that stereotype of all grandmothers being good cooks (unfortunately). Since I am no longer forced to experience the misery of her canned lunch, I can’t think of a lunch that I would now consider being among my least favorites, but if Grandma were still here, her infamous home-canned lunch would still take the prize, hands down.
• Least Favorite Dinner: Sauerkraut and spare ribs. Dad insisted on having this once a week (his favorite meal), but I hated it, especially the sauerkraut. Today, I’m still not a fan of sauerkraut, but I like spare ribs very much—just not covered in mounds of sauerkraut. I much prefer the ribs covered in barbecue sauce.
• Least Favorite Side Dish: Canned creamed corn. Why wreck perfectly good corn with all of that milky horribleness? That’s what I’ve always thought about canned cream corn. Since corn was the only vegetable I would eat as a child, it was a real disappointment when it was ruined by that awful milk bath. I still hate canned creamed corn with a passion.
• Least Favorite Fresh Vegetable: All vegetables, except corn. I still like corn, but today, I like most vegetables and actually prefer them over several types of meat (except chicken, of course).
• Least Favorite Fresh Fruit: Peaches. I think my hatred of peaches as a child was definitely because of Grandma’s home-canned peaches that she served at lunchtime. They looked old and rusty and most unappetizing. Today, I like peaches very much as long as the peaches are not home-canned.
• Least Favorite Dessert: Chocolate cream pie. When I was a kid, I happened to get violently ill after eating chocolate cream pie, so I never ate it again. More than likely, I got sick because of something else—a germ or virus or, perhaps it was because of Grandma’s infamous home-canned mystery meat. Now, whenever I see chocolate cream pie, I continue to associate it with being ill, so I still can’t make myself eat it.
• Least Favorite Candies: None. If it contained sugar, I loved it, and I still do.
• Least Favorite Between Meal Snack: Raisins. Mom was determined that her children were going to eat healthy for as long as she was able to force it upon us. She managed this very well until we were about twelve or thirteen years old. Raisins were another of the healthy between meal snack choices that she offered, but I couldn’t stand them. As a kid, I thought raisins looked like wrinkly dead bugs. Today, raisins are among my favorite snacks.
• Least Favorite Beverage: Milk—still is. As a child, I had to hold my nose to force it down. I could tolerate it when I added chocolate syrup to it, but it was a rare occasion when we were allowed to do that. When I was about fourteen or fifteen, my mother no longer forced milk on me (Hallelujah!), and I haven’t touched it since.
• Least Favorite Childhood Foods—Period: Cereal with milk, canned creamed corn, and plain milk. I have never budged in my intense dislike of this terrible trio.

Conclusion: Some of the foods that I hated as a child, I now like very much: spare ribs, vegetables, peaches, and raisins, but the three foods I most disliked—cereal with milk, canned creamed corn, and plain milk—are still tops on my list of foods that I can’t do. And, of the three, boxed dry cereal with milk is still the champion—I can’t even look at it without feeling sick.

 

Food Memories: My Favorite Foods as a Child

Assumption: Many of the foods we enjoyed as children are no longer among our favorites, while only a few have remained staples throughout our lives. This may not be such an earth-shattering statement. It is, I suspect, true for most of us; nevertheless, I compiled a list of the foods that were among my favorites as a child to find out just how many of those foods are still among my top favorites.

 

• Favorite Breakfast: Lucky Charms cereal without milk. I would eat every one of the marshmallow “Charms” and avoid most of the healthy grain goodness of the “Lucky.” I haven’t touched Lucky Charms since I was about twelve years old, so I can safely say that it is no longer on my greatest hits list; however, if somebody place a bowl of it before me, I’m sure I would still gobble up all the “Charms.”
• Favorite Lunch (called “Dinner” when I was growing up): Grilled cheese sandwiches and canned cream of tomato soup. A grilled cheese sandwich is still one of my favorites for lunch, but it isn’t my top favorite, and I have developed an intense dislike of canned cream of tomato soup.
• Favorite Dinner (or, as we called it, “Supper”): Chicken hot dish (Minnesotan for casserole), buttery rolls, and canned fruit cocktail. Mom’s chicken casserole was the best (see “Food Memories: Birthdays”), and I loved any type of dinner roll made from that precut dough that popped out of the cardboard container when you banged it against the edge of the countertop. Fruit cocktail was my favorite canned fruit. I always hoped that I would get one of the red maraschino cherries in my serving. I never understood why there were so few of them in the can. While this meal is no longer the ultimate dinnertime experience for me, I still like it very much.
• Favorite Side Dish: Mashed potatoes with lots of butter. I still like mashed potatoes occasionally, but it is no longer one of my favorites. When given a choice, I always select something else.
• Favorite Fresh Vegetable: Corn, and only corn, especially corn on the cob. Corn is no longer my number one favorite vegetable, but it is still like it very much (especially grilled corn on the cob). Since I now like most vegetables, it’s very difficult to choose an absolute favorite, but I suppose if pinned down, I would select asparagus. Note: check out the nifty instructions for grilling corn that I found on RecipeTips.com.
• Favorite Fresh Fruit: Seedless green grapes. I considered them to be a real treat—the next best thing to candy. Today, I still like them very much, but I would say that fresh pineapple is probably the ultimate.
• Favorite Dessert: Ice cream, especially chocolate chip, vanilla, and cherry nut. Ice cream is still my favorite dessert, but it’s difficult to choose one favorite flavor. Vanilla would still definitely be on my short list, but chocolate chip and cherry nut would not. Among my other current favorites are maple nut and blueberry.
• Favorite Candies (in order of preference): Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Boston Baked Beans, Maple Nut Goodies, Mars Bars, and Starbursts. I still love candy and I still like all of the candies I enjoyed as a child; however, I stay away from Starbursts. After experiencing a number of dental mishaps while chewing them, such as pulling out two fillings, part of a cracked tooth, and even a crown, I felt it best to give them up a few years ago.
• Favorite Between Meal Snack that Mom Would Allow Me to Have: Fruit. I always chose seedless green grapes or when they weren’t on hand, I would choose a tangerine or a banana.
• Favorite Between Meal Snack that Mom Didn’t Know I Had Purchased at the Stop-n-Go While Walking Home From School: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups or Hostess Twinkies. Sometimes I ate them as soon as I left the store, but most of the time, I smuggled them into my bedroom and ate them leisurely as I did my homework. I still have an occasional peanut butter cup (maybe once a month), but I haven’t had a Twinkie for so long that I can’t remember when I last savored the whipped cream sugariness and the golden sponge cake goodness. Although I try to eat healthy (most of the time I succeed), if somebody offered me a Twinkie today, I don’t think I would turn it down, and I think, perhaps, I’ve just talked myself into going to the store and getting one or two or….
• Favorite Beverage: Black Cherry Kool-Aid. As a kid, I loved it—I could have lived on it—but now, it sounds rather nauseating.
• Favorite Childhood Foods—Period: Ice cream, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and Hostess Twinkies. They were sweet and they were sugary, so what’s not to like? I still love ice cream and I enjoy it often. Although I still like peanut butter cups and I’m sure I would still enjoy a Hostess Twinkie, I can’t say that either one would make my current short list of top favorites.

Conclusion: I was surprised to discover that I still like so many of the foods I favored as a child. I’m somewhat embarrassed that since I have given up a number of unhealthy foods loaded with sodium, fat, and cholesterol, I haven’t been able to kick my sweet tooth. It’s a bit shocking to realize that ice cream and candy are still among my absolute favorite foods, but I suppose each of us has something we never get tired of, even when we know that it isn’t good for us. This was a fun exercise. Make your own list and see how your tastes have evolved.