Peachy Chicken

This is one of those recipes that at first glance I thought miight be too weird, but I was intrigued and wanted to give it a try. It was a hit, so we'll be keeping this one too! 

Barbeque Peach Chicken found HERE. 

I made some adjustments, lol. For one thing, when I showed my husband-the-cook the recipe he said that our grill has two temperatures- nuclear hot and almost nuclear hot. I suggested we bake it a while and then grill it at the end? He suggested we bake it and then broil it, so that is what we did. 

I had some leftover peach "jam" that had been made for a dessert. I wasn't sure it would work, and my husband said it didn't quite- the cinnamon and nutmeg didn't quite work with the bbq sauce for him. But everyone else liked it so it worked okay! 

I thawed two huge chicken breasts and cut them into sections of all sizes, lol... I made the marinade as directed: 
 - 1/2 cup peach jam

- 1 tbso apple cider vinegar 

- 1 tbsp ground ginger

- 1/2 tsp salt

- some black pepper

- 3/4 cup bbq sauce (we have Sweet Baby Ray's right now)

- boneless, skinless chicken breasts

I let it marinate in the fridge for about 8 hours. 

I put a cooling rack onto a foil covered baking sheet, and baked it at 350* for 8 minutes, then turned them all over, basting it as I went. Then baked it 8 more minutes. It wasn't very close to temp yet, so I turned and basted again, and baked it another 5 minutes before turning it up to broil. We broiled it 5  minutes on one side, basted again and broiled another 5 or so minutes til it reached about 165*. 

We served this with a quick pasta-roni mix, and vegetables and the whole family enjoyed it! 

Zucchini Enchiladas!

We tried a new dinner a few nights ago and it was worth keeping! We used THIS idea as the inspiration, but our own mix for the filling- mostly because we were using what we had on hand. 

For our family of five, I got three skinny zucchinis, about 8 inches long. I know the inspiration recipe says wide, but I figured once it was full of stuff that would be plenty of food... I cut them lengthwise and scooped out the middle, just like doing a stuffed baked potato.
Then we made our filling. I diced up the scooped out zucchini, minus any seeds. We had left over lemon pepper chicken, which we cut into bite size, or smaller cubes. We had about half a can of black beans in the fridge. We threw in possibly 1/4 cup of a diced red onion, and about half a bag of frozen corn. Then we made our own enchilada sauce with THIS recipe, and my husband added an ice cube worth of frozen roasted hatch chiles. 

I drizzled olive oil in the baking pan and rolled the zucchini in the oil to kind of coat them. We roasted the zucchini "boats" I believe 10 minutes, then filled them, and put them back in the oven for 20 minutes I think, to heat everything thru and fully cook the zucchini. Then added cheddar cheese on top and broiled it a couple of minutes. And that was our dinner! 

The whole family liked it, except the youngest wouldn't eat the "boat" part, haha. She didn't know there was zucchini in the filling she happily ate, which is just fine. 

Ingredients:

- three whole zucchini, hollowed out, seeds discarded and the meat diced.

- 1 cup cubed chicken

- 8 oz black beans

- 1/4 cup red onion

- 8 oz frozen corn

- 2/3 cup enchilada sauce 

Bake hollowed zucchini in 9x13" baking pan, at 400* for 10 minutes. Fill with your enchilada filling of choice. Bake for another 20 minutes. Add cheese and broil for 2 minutes, watching closely. Serve a yummy and nutritious dinner! 

A new favorite salad!

We actually made this meal in October, but since it's a new year and we are attempting to eat healthier, it was time to share it. And it was SO. Yummy!!!

I found this recipe on facebook, at least a couple of months ago. I started following the page for healthy dinner ideas to throw into our mix- I don't follow the Whole 30 plan at all.

This is the photo that was shared with the recipe below.

Hawaiian Pineapple Salad - Whole 30 FB page 

Ingredients:
-mixed romaine greens
-grilled chicken breast
-fresh grilled pineapple slices
-diced avocado
-sliced cherry tomatoes
-diced purple onion
-lime wedges
-unsweetened coconut flakes

Directions:
1. Grill your chicken breast then slice after it is cooked
2. Grill your fresh sliced pineapple slices
3. Lay a bed of romaine lettuce on your plate
4. Then add the remaining toppings
5. Squeeze the limes over your salad as your dressing or you could add any whole30 compliant dressing you have. We love the lime with a little salt for a change up.
6. Sprinkle with shredded unsweetened coconut flakes

We have some picky eaters, lol, so we prepped the various ingredients and set it all out on the table for people to take what they wanted. I think we said something like lettuce and chicken plus at least two more things.

And I enjoyed it so much I ate it for lunch until all the ingredients were gone! We will definitely make this one again!
(and you can always grill your pineapple and chicken on the stove or under the broiler if it's too snowy at your house!)

Cheesy Chicken n' Ham Soup in a Bread Bowl

Ingredients Bread Bowl:
4 Cups White Bread Flour
3 Cups Stone Ground Wheat Flour
1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon dough enhancer
2 1/2 cups warm water
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
some butter to coat the hot bowls fresh out of the oven
grated Parmesan cheese to sprinkle on top of the buttered bowls

Soup Meat:
1 Ham Steak or 1 lb chopped cubed ham in 1/4 cubes
2 or 3 large chicken breasts (about a 1 1/2 lbs)
1/4 lb bacon for rendering and flavor

Soup Sauce:
1 onion diced
1 1/2 cups frozen mixed vegetables
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 cup chicken broth or stock
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup apple or white grape juice
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup sour cream, light or regular

Feeds 8 people one full serving. 6 out of 7 family members really liked it.

Slow Cooker Chicken Enchilada Casserole

Well, I had a baby and moved twice sooo there were very few recipes tried and even less blogging happening. Maybe this summer I can catch up...! And since I'm ready to make this a second time, here you go!
~~~
You know those videos on facebook of a recipe being thrown together? That's where this came from.

The actual link to the recipe is HERE.
We made some modifications, haha. As in, we added three ingredients. But here's how we did it:

Ingredients:
2 huge chicken breasts
30 oz enchilada sauce
6 oz olives, sliced
1 cup cheese
1/2 cup chopped yellow or white onion
1 can black beans
6oz ish corn
12 corn tortillas (I cut these in half then cut the halves into short strips)
top with more cheese and olives

Directions:
Put thawed chicken into crock pot, cover with enchilada sauce. Cook on high for 4 hours.
Shred chicken with forks, in pot.
Add sliced corn tortillas, cheese, olives, black beans, corn and onion. Stir.
Add enough cheese to cover the mixture and olives on top.
Cook 40 more minutes

Serve with sour cream, lettuce and salsa.

*I like to use an egg slicer to cut olives. Three fit in the cuppy spot perfectly and come out easily! 

YUM!

Quinoa Enchiladas

I found THIS recipe on Pinterest and have wanted to try it for quite a long time. I finally did!

First, I had to find out how to make quinoa, lol! it really is just about the same as making rice, but THIS is the recipe/instructions I used. Also, you have to rinse quinoa, apparently...until the rinsing water comes clear. My rinse water was clear from the beginning and it stayed that way, sooo maybe my package was safer?? haha...

So on that note, I found these two links very interesting and informative. HERE and HERE.

I adjusted this recipe...
And this is what my family ate:

olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 1/2 cups cooked quinoa
14 oz can chicken
15 oz can black beans
4 oz can green chiles
3/4 tbsp chili powder
2 cups enchilada sauce
1/3 cup pepperjack cheese
2 handfuls cheddar

I decreased the chili powder and I switched the amounts of pepperjack vs cheddar because I always have at least one child complain that flavorful food is "too hot", haha.

I started by cooking the quinoa like rice. I rinsed for a long time, haha, then I put them into a dry pot to roast-ish. That makes rice really tasty, so I figured it would work the same. Then I just added twice the amount of water, and let it cook 10 mins. Then I let it sit for 15 before "fluffing with a fork".

I chopped up the onion and put just enough olive oil to just cover the skillet, and then cooked it for 6 or 7 minutes. I added the chicken, the black beans, chiles and chili powder, and heated them all thru. I alternated dumping that mixture and the cooked quinoa into a big mixing bowl. I added the pepperjack cheese to the mixture, then the two cups of enchilada sauce.
I put all of that into a greased 9x13 baking dish, and topped it all with cheddar. I baked it for 15 minutes, and broiled it for about 2.
Then we served it!

I really liked it. I had two servings, which is not super common for me. My husband liked it, tho he did say it reminded him of the texture of tamales. Both kids preferred to eat it like a dip, with tortilla chips, and I think they both added sour cream.

However, if I make it again, I'll half the recipe. The leftovers stuck around for what felt like forever, and we all had some as left overs. So apparently that makes too much food for my family of four.

Kabobs in Tin Foil!

Last night we did something just a little different...I saw an idea to skip the skewering of kabobs, and instead wrap it all in tin foil and grill it! That's about perfect for the super busy nights we've been having- I prepped it all ahead of time and my husband put the packets on the grill as soon as we got home!

It was quite a bit like a tin foil dinner, but we used our kabob ingredients instead. This night was cubed russet potatoes, our marinated chicken, thinly sliced zucchini and frozen corn!
Super easy, super tasty!

Dinner was a hit!

So you know I gotta share it here! We made kabobs and flat bread, the kids loved assembling them and they even loved eating it!

We started by thawing two steaks and three chicken breasts.
We marinated the chicken for about three hours, with just:

• 1/4 cup olive oil  
• 1 tbsp granulated garlic
• 1 tbsp honey
• 2 tbsp lime juice

We quartered and boiled some "new harvest" red potatoes, and sprinkled them with seasoning salt and olive oil. Then we chopped up half a white onion, a package of button mushrooms, one zucchini and one corn cob. Then we set it all out and let everyone assemble their own kabobs. My husband made a few extras to use up stuff including a steak and potato only skewer, and we still ended up with two chicken-only skewers to cook the leftover chicken.

When we were done making the kabobs, and they were lined up on the cookie sheet at the top of this picture, he drizzled them all with olive oil and a sprinkling of seasoning salt. Then they all hung out on the grill til they were done! (the steaks were quite rare....)

While the kabobs were grilling, we also made THIS flatbread recipe. I added about 1/2 tbsp of dried basil to the mix, and since we have a jar of yeast, rather than packets, we used 3 tsp of yeast as our guessed amount. We pinched off blobs of dough and then rolled it very thin. We brushed the electric griddle with olive oil and threw the dough on sort of like a pancake, flipped it once and that was that!

This is my plate, to give you an idea! (a potato fell off from the middle...) My husband pushed the contents of his skewers onto his flatbread, and ate it sort of like a taco, and my kids discovered they could deal with the mushrooms better if it was with the flatbread.

The chicken was amazing! The flatbread was amazing! The potatoes were fabulous! The zucchini was rather bland, and the corn wasn't great, but the meal was a hit! We have leftovers and definitely plan to make it again!

Food Lately...

Its really, really hot. I don't want to eat food, much less cook it. So mostly we're eating our favorite stand-bys, or grilling burgers/hot dogs, or yes, even eating out. One night the kids got pbjs and my husband and I ate about 3 hours later after we'd cooled off!
But, we have tried a few new recipes in recent weeks, that I thought I'd link up here and let you know what we thought about them. You're welcome! (most of them come from one of my husband's fav food blog)

Crock Pot Nachos: This was a hit with me and the kids. I took the leftovers with me to my parents and they enjoyed it too! Not hard to make at all, but you have to accept that nachos are dinner, haha.

Black Beans & Rice: My kids didn't love this, but they ate it. My husband and I enjoyed it, but I was definitely done with it when I finished my plate. So, its great, in one serving portions.

Creamy Fettucini with Ham and Peas: The pasta was just fine, a lot like the Swedish meatballs and alfredo my husband makes. The kids were happy to eat it tho.

Asian Lettuce Wraps: I'm the first to admit I don't like Asian food. My husband knows this, but sometimes we all take turns picking our favorite, right? And that's ok! He didn't love this one tho, and I didn't like it even a little bit. Our kids sure did though!! At first they thought it was weird that we were rolling lettuce around food "like a crepe!" but they gobbled them up! Parts of the meat and rice fell out, like when you eat a taco, so they just got more lettuce, tore it up, and ate it all like a salad! Of course they like a meal I did not! haha... Also, we substituted in ground turkey for the ground chicken.

"Chicken Cordon Bleu - The easy way." This one was very tasty! We all enjoyed it and it really was so easy to make- hooray for that! I'm sure this will live on in our "regulars".

Bacon Wrapped Chicken

Have you seen this one on facebook yet? My husband decided we needed to try it and it was a hit! I'll let him type it:

Bacon Wrapped, Cream Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breasts-Burt's Version:

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 block (12 oz?) cream cheese
1 bunch of 12 green onions, chopped up
1 tbsp. of onion powder
1 tbsp. of granulated garlic or garlic powder
1 tbsp. of sour cream
2 tbsp. of chives
2 strips of thick sliced bacon

Directions:

Pound out each chicken breast so they are about 1/4" thick or less than a 1/4" thick. Be careful not to make chicken pate. Not the point. You may need to trim the chicken pieces a bit so that they have a semi uniform shape that will be easy to roll.

Whip together using a electric hand mixer the cream cheese, green onions, onion powder, garlic powder, sour cream, and chives until it has taken in some air, is lighter in consistency, and is easily spreadable.

Taking great care to not contaminate the cream cheese spread with raw chicken, put a good size dollop of the mixture on one side of chicken breast and spread it so it evenly coats the one side. Then roll up each flattened piece up to look like a log or a pinwheel as best you can. You may need to use toothpicks to keep them rolled up. Which is fine because you will use the toothpicks with the bacon anyways.

You should have some of the cream cheese mixture left and it will be really good with crackers, so long as you don't poison yourself with salmonella by getting raw chicken juice into the rest of it.

Take each piece of bacon and wrap it around each chicken log in a way that makes the most sense to you. The bacon should be raw and if you use a good thick cut type of bacon, you can even stretch out each piece a little so that it will wrap easier.

Put in a baking dish and cook at 375 for 30 minutes, then turn your oven to broil and cook for another 5 minutes. There is no need to pull the pan out of the oven when you do this. The broiling will help make everything crispy and yummy.

Someone said on the internet that you can sub turkey bacon for the bacon, and a low fat cream cheese to make this healthier, but I think that is just cheating. One other note, there was quite a bit of liquid in the pan after the chicken was done cooking. As I look at this, those drippings probably could have made a really killer gravy if I'd thought of that at the time. Chicken, cream cheese, and bacon drippings. Yes, really killer gravy.

The rest of the meal included sautéed green beans:

1 16oz package of frozen green beans
1 cast iron frying pan (my favorite cooking pan of all time)
Olive Oil, enough to coat the bottom of the pan
1 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. margarine (yes use both if you have them)
Whatever seasoning you would like to use with the green beans. Lemon pepper would work great.

Put the pan over med high heat. When it is hot, put in the oil, butter, and margarine. Let them melt completely and wait until the butter starts to turn brownish. It should have a nutty smell to. Be careful here, because browning butter turns to burned butter quickly. Add the frozen green beans. Toss around so they get coated. (You can pretend you are a chef on Food Network.) Add your seasoning. Add a little more than you think you need. The beans and heat will absorb and mute the flavors. Cook, tossing and stirring continually, until the beans have thoroughly cooked through and even have little black strips on a few of them. That is flavor, not burned bits. A lot of black strips would be burned. Taste them as you cook. When they taste good to you stop cooking them.

And the really good spinach salad that Tanya made:

I just bought a bag of baby spinach leaves and dumped that into the bowl. I hulled and thinly sliced 10-12 strawberries and sprinkled them in, and chopped up a tomato too. Then we chopped up some honey roasted peanuts and sprinkled that over it. We have some Litehouse Huckleberry vinaigrette that we served with it and it was very tasty.

Some craisins, cut up grapes or any other berry would be great with it. Any fruity vinaigrette would go well with this salad.

YUM!

Cheesy baked chicken

Have you noticed the plethora of recipes posted all over facebook? Well this is one such recipe! Since I can't link you to my friends' wall and there is no source listed, I'm copying and pasting!

It starts with a photo and then this:

You may never fry chicken again after tasting this baked crispy chicken.

Crispy Cheddar Chicken

2 lbs chicken tenders or 4 large chicken breasts
2 sleeves Ritz crackers
1/4 teaspoons salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup whole milk
3 cups cheddar cheese, grated
1 teaspoon dried parsley

Sauce:
1 10 ounce can cream of chicken soup

2 tablespoon sour cream
2 tablespoon butter

Crush crackers. If using chicken breasts and not tenders, cut each chicken breast into 3 large pieces. Pour the milk, cheese and cracker crumbs into 3 separate small pans. Toss the salt and pepper into the cracker crumbs and stir the mixture around to combine. Dip each piece of chicken into the milk and then the cheese. Press the cheese into the chicken with your fingers. Then press the cheesy coated chicken into the cracker crumbs and press it in.

Spray a 9×13 pan with cooking spray and lay the chicken inside the pan. Sprinkle the dried parsley over the chicken. Cover the pan with tin foil and bake at 400 degrees for 35 minutes. Remove the tin foil, bake for an additional 10-15 minutes, or until the edges of the chicken are golden brown and crispy.
In a medium sized sauce pan combine the cream of chicken soup, sour cream and butter with a whisk. Stir it over medium high heat until the sauce is nice and hot. Serve over the chicken.

Well, I don't know about you, but I read the quantities they wanted me to get raw chicken all over and then toss and I was not about to use {waste?!} that much!! I measured out 2 cups of cheese and figured if I needed more I could get more. Yeah, I probably used 1 1/4 cups of cheese. I smooshed up one sleeve of ritz crackers....I bet I could have used half of one. I also only added half the salt and I never measure my pepper because I like it freshly ground.
I want to note that it was not easy to get the cheese and then the crumbs to stick to the chicken, and it seemed like a lot of cheese fell off into the chicken...which doesn't matter a lot, but the process was a little frustrating...

My husband put together the sauce. He followed the instructions as listed but he added about 3 tbsp bottled alfredo sauce. Mixed and heated it up and we put it on the chicken! YUM!
Then! He cooked up some shaped pasta and mixed about half the sauce with the pasta, which we served on the side!

Add a helping of veggies and there was dinner tonight! Dinner was great. The recipe is worth keeping and doing again. Everyone enjoyed it- hooray!

More like a SPLAT

..than a flop... haha.
So, my husband was helping me plan out our menu so that I could get the grocery shopping done, and suggested we start putting at least one recipe each round that comes from a cookbook we have taking up space. brilliant! :) So last week we tried this recipe...

Which came from this book...

It was very simple to put together, as everything I've ever seen from Pampered Chef is. My can of chicken is more than 10 oz...maybe it was 15? I used 1 tsp of lemon juice rather than zest, and the bell peppers I had were frozen slices of red, yellow and green, and everything we had didn't quite total 1/2 a cup, so we had all three kinds in our mixture. Then I ran in to a snag...
I don't own a pizza pan, or any round pan!
...and neither do the two friends I called, haha!
So, I ended up doing sort of half circles on the rectangular pans I do have, like this...

and it was a hit! It was a light meal, perfect for spring or summer. It was really good- everyone of us enjoyed it. I'm pretty sure my kids have never raved about anything I've made as much as they did this, haha.
Not so great as left overs- crescent rolls don't reheat very well.

But the story behind the title?
As I was rotating the pans in the oven, because the two rectangle pans didn't fit very well,
one pan was resting on the stove and started slipping....
and in my attempt to shove it back on and save it...
I flipped it over.
and it looked like this:

That was not happy.

Simple Chicken Soup

Today our corner of the world experienced something called Freezing Rain. And it was very cold, even in the house. Plus a couple of us were not feeling well, so it was the absolute perfect day for chicken noodle soup! I used this post as my starting point and here's what I did:

We had about 2.5 cups of frozen turkey stock left from Thanksgiving, which I put in the pot, on medium heat. Then I chopped up 1 onion, 8 carrots and 5 celery stalks, and put them in the pot as I completed each kind of veggie. I pulled out 4 boneless-skinless chicken pieces and put them in the microwave to thaw just a little. I cut them into very thin slices, similar to the carrot "coins", and chicken is easy to cut if its partially frozen. I put in two bay leaves, a tbsp of minced garlic, 3 cups of water, 2 cubes of chicken bouillon and some black pepper. My husband added maybe a tbsp of lemon juice too.

I was going to put in egg noodles, but I mentioned that I don't like noodles in my soup and my husband said it would be totally fine to leave them out! yeay! haha! With the chicken cut as thin as it was, it didn't take long to cook- really only until the carrots were done. We served it with biscuits and there was our dinner! I think my quantity will do 7-8 servings. And it was very tasty!

Chicken with spinach and mozzarella

It's been a while!! I've been just making more of the same for the last long while, or even (gasp!) eating out! But here's a post for you!

I needed a new idea for dinner and saw this linked on facebook. So, I tried browsing the links and we had the ingredients for this one so hey, hey! there was the winner!
Well, I sort of had the ingredients. I didn't know we were out of shredded mozzarella, so I used string cheese, haha! And because it won't get over 20* outside...and my grill is totally covered in ice and snow, I didn't grill the chicken- I just browned it on the stove. meaning I cut the frozen pieces of chicken into two (giving them all a flat side), laid the pieces in a hot cast iron pan, ground up some black pepper over them, and sprinkled on a bit of seasoning salt as the chicken cooked.
I used another pan to heat up the spinach mixture.
When the chicken was cooked thru, I put the pieces on a foil-lined cookie sheet, smothered each piece with the spinach mixture, and topped that with strings of cheese, haha. Most of the chicken pieces got a slice of frozen red pepper, but I knew the kids wouldn't love it so I left it off some. The spinach was SOO tasty with the garlic!

I served it with some not-totally-done brown rice, the crunch made it so tasty!! And then just some simple mixed vegetables on the side.
My son didn't love the spinach, even tho he loves garlic, but the rest of us enjoyed it a lot!

Too bad the lighting in our dining room is crummy, especially at dinner time...

Quick Chicken Pasta

This is the type of meal my husband would throw together, but its the first time I've ever done it. It was one of those days where we're waiting on payday to replenish the fridge and pantry, but I still need a meal that is going to fill up two growing kiddos. I used only one chicken breast, made a basic pasta sauce based off my spaghetti recipe, and mixed it up with an entire package of penne pasta! The best part? It fed my family of four, plus there were left overs for at least another 5 servings! Yeay!!

So, if you want to make it too...
1 chicken breast, thawed, cut into bite size bits, browned in pan with black pepper and salt, set aside.
Boil pasta, drain.
While chicken and pasta are cooking, pour 12 oz tomato sauce in pan, season with oregano, basil, minced garlic, onion powder and thyme.
When pasta is done, mix chicken into sauce, pour over pasta, toss to coat, sprinkle mozzarella cheese all over, dinner is served!

Grilled Chicken!

Last time I showed the yummy birthday treat. This was my husband's birthday dinner!

That's grilled chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy and mixed vegetables, with root beer! yum!

He made the chicken marinade based on what sounded good and what we had on hand.It turned out *really good! All of us enjoyed it. So that's today's recipe! You are welcome! haha!

He mixed together the following ingredients in a measuring cup:
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup bbq sauce
1/8 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp chili powder
1/2 tbsp onion powder
1/2 tbsp garlic powder

Then he put three large chicken breasts into bag, poured the mixture over it, rubbed it all around, and allowed the chicken to marinate a bit. He put the chicken on the hot grill, squeezed the remaining marinate mixture into a bowl, and thinned it out with A1. And he brushed the mixture on a couple times while cooking. It was juicy and flavorful and delicious! I strongly recommend you give it a try!

White Chicken Pizza

Tonight I tried a couple recipes from THIS site once again.
First I used their pizza crust recipe, and then I made the one titled "White Pizza with Chicken". To get to both recipes, click on step 2 and then choose Pizza for your Theme. Both recipes will be listed there.

I only needed 3 cups of flour, and I think stuff like that depends on the humidity level and whatever is in the air. So I did one cup wheat flour, then scooped about 3/4 cup wheat flour into the measuring cup, and topped it off with all-purpose flour, and the third cup was also all-purpose. I kneaded it right inside my bowl, instead of turning it out onto a floured counter. I also rolled it right on to my stone instead of rolling it out on the counter. I really don't like cleaning up, LOL!

Then, in following the pizza recipe, I spread the garlic butter all over the dough, and then baked it about 5 minutes, hoping it might set more, making it easier to spread the ricotta.
I did not mix the ricotta, parmesan and spices because when I complained about making lasagna, that seemed to be my biggest "error". Everyone else just tosses in this and that. So! I spread the ricotta, then sprinkled the parm, then sprinkled the spices.
I decided to use a can of chicken chunks for a couple of reasons...its quicker and easier, plus its cheaper to buy a can of chicken than to buy chicken breasts. So I drained the can, rinsed the chicken and crumpled it up? to make it lots of tiny shredded bits. I only used about half the 13oz can. Then I sprinkled on some mozzarella, and I didn't use anywhere near 3 cups worth! I had a package of 2 cups moz, that we'd already used some from, and I didn't use half of what was in the package. This is what it looked like ready to go in the oven...

and here it is, ready to eat!

I liked it just fine, but I think I would bake it at 350 or 375 so that it cooked more evenly throughout. My son ate without complaint or compliment, lol. My daughter told me that it was "good, but please don't make it again." haha!

Chicken Tacos

For 2011, I got a free Betty Crocker wall calendar, by responding to their email in time, lol. It was kinda fun because each calendar page featured a big yummy photo, and a recipe, that hung in the kitchen all month. In the middle (where the staples held it together) was a recipe card size copy of each month's photo and recipe.

Anyway, that's where this recipe comes from! I had never made chicken tacos before, I've never even had them! LOL! Sometimes I prefer to stick to what I know and with tacos, I like the beef thanks, lol! So this was a huge new change for me, and I liked it a lot! The kids liked it just fine, because I left peppers off theirs, haha.



titled Wild West Sizzlin' Chicken Tacos

2 cups cooked chicken strips

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp paprika

4 taco shells (Old El Paso Stand N Stuff - recommended)

1 medium red bell pepper, cut into strips

1 cup bbg baked beans

1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese

4 slices bacon, crisply cooked, crumbled

*I used frozen bell pepper strips, which come with green, yellow and red.

I left off the bacon.

Yvette's Chicken Salad

I saw a recipe for a chicken salad and decided I wanted to make one. After much discussion with my friend Yvette, this is what I ended up doing. And since most of it was her ideas, she gets the credit!

First, I made the Chicken Salad....
3/4 cup red/purple grapes, sliced in half or third
2/3 cup cashews sliced to tiny bits
1 12.5 oz canned chicken, drained, rinsed and cut finer than it comes
1/2 large granny smith apple, diced
2 stalks celery, sliced tiny
2 heaping spoonfuls miracle whip (a little more than 1/3 cup)
few grinds of black pepper

Then, I shredded some iceburg lettuce to bite size pieces in a bowl and drizzled with a mixture of olive oil and lemon juice. I mixed it in a measuring cup and by using more juice than oil, I had about 1/4 cup liquid, and with enough lettuce to serve three of us, I used maybe half the liquid. I mixed the lettuce and dressing together and put it on the plate, then a scoop of the chicken salad on top of that. Served it with a slice of cornbread and there was dinner! mmmmmmm!

(sorry for the lousy picture- it was late and dark...)

6/12/18 ETA: Most of the time we eat it on toasted bread as a sandwich and it is delicious!

Pepsi Chicken!

I made this the other day for the first time in years. Its easy and tasty and apparently there are other ways to make it but this is how my friend taught me!

Recipe courtesy Melissa Christensen:

1/2 cup bbq sauce
1 1/2 cans pepsi
1/2 cup ketchup

Put BBQ sauce, pepsi and ketchup in pan and boil. Add chicken and simmer for 45 minutes. Take lid off for additional 10 minutes. Serve over rice.
~~~~~
When I made it, I thawed three boneless/skinless chicken breasts and cut them into chunks. About the size that would take 3 bites to eat, if that makes sense. Also, we were surprisingly low on ketchup so there was actually more BBQ than ketchup.
I made brown rice again, and here's our dinner that night:

* I have also used Dr Pepper, and root beer, depending on what's in the house.