Dinner with the Browns

Dinner tonight was easy and delicious. I had chicken legs that I covered in barbecue sauce and then covered and put in the oven at 500 for 15 minutes and then 300 for an hour. I rubbed seasoned salt into the skin of two potatoes and placed them in the oven as well. I found the BEST corn bread recipe. Follow this recipe for absolute delight:

1 cup flour

1 cup corn meal

1/3 cup white sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 tsp salt

3 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 egg

1 cup milk

1/3 cup vegetable oil

Mix all the dry ingredients and then mix in the egg, milk and oil. Pour into a greased muffin tin (or 9in round pan if you prefer) and bake four 20-30 minutes at 375. I turned the oven up and added these in when there was 20 minutes left on the clock. Once the chicken had baked an hour I removed the foil covering and put it back in. I also took the potatoes out. I cut each potato in half and scooped out the insides, mixed them with butter and cheese and put them back in the potato for twice baked potatoes! I put each half on a cookie sheet and put them back in the oven about 3 minutes. You WISH you were a Brown tonight, I know! 

Cheesy Bleu Cheese potatoes

Yesterday on Pinterest (my new addiction thanks to Katrina), I found a recipe for Cheesy Ranch Potatoes. I was super excited to make them today and then realized two things. 1) I didn't have any ranch dressing. 2) I didn't have any chili powder. Now, the first one didn't surprise me too much. I don't really use dressing too much so it was really dependent on what my husband was using this month. The second one surprised me a lot. I must have used the last of it with the chili I made last month. Well, that couldn't stop this desire for cheesy potatoes.

First, I used some spices from my cabinet to replace the chili powder. These are pretty much my fall back spices when I'm not feeling super creative. They're always good though. I peeled and chopped two very large potatoes (the recipe called for red potatoes but I don't use them very often and I always have white potatoes so that's what I used!) and added the spices and some butter. Into the oven they went at 400 degrees for an hour.

When the hour was up the potatoes came out and I added a handful of cheddar jack and probably about 2-3 tablespoons of Bleu Cheese dressing! I don't tend to like bleu cheese unless it's mixed in something so I figured it was pretty safe to mix it with some other cheese and potatoes. Mix it up and put it back in the oven for about 5 minutes.

It looked yummy. Tastes pretty good too!

Easy Apple Turnover

I read lots of recipes regarding apple turnovers today. I wanted to make them and I wanted them to be simple and I wanted to make them from what I had in the house. So here's what I took from the recipes I read. One apple, peeled and chopped; a little less than 1/4c of brown sugar; 1 tbsp of flour; 1 tsp sugar; 1 tsp vanilla. I mixed them all up and opened a package of crescent rolls. Unfortunately, my crescent rolls got cut weird. They weren't in triangles they were in long diagonal strips. Weird. I kept them in four large pieces and split the apple mixture in all of them. I sprayed them with a couple squirts of spray butter and folded the crescent roll over, pinching the sides together. I sprayed the tops of each with butter and sprinkled with a cinnamon/sugar mix. Into the oven they went at 400 for about 12 minutes. The apples weren't cooked all the way. Probably I should have sliced them thinner. Regardless, they were good!

Quick Chicken Wings

Just a quicky tonight. Mix 1 cup bread crumbs with 3/4 cup Parmesan cheese (I used freshly shredded but grated will work) with about 2 tbsp lemon pepper and 2 tsp thyme. I soaked 12 wings in Chipotle lime marinade, pressed them in the dry mix and put them in the oven for about 50 minutes at 430F. They came out really crispy and pretty decent tasting with a nice little bite at the end. Josiah always yells at me for doing crazy things with wings (because clearly chicken wings are great without all the fancy stuff) but even he liked them (or at least he said he did!)

Huevos Rancheros

This is probably one of my favorite meals. We almost always have the ingredients needed to make and best of all, none of them require defrosting (which is really good for forgetful people like me!)

 Start with a tortilla. Spray your skillet with whatever spray oil you have and put it over medium heat. Once it's hot throw a tortilla on and spray the other side with oil. Flip it after about 2-3 minutes and let it crisp on the other side. The goal is to make it crunchy but not chip crunchy, make sense?

Add some fried potatoes. These are simply just chopped potatoes seasoned with season salt and pepper.

To those add some beans. I used black beans here. I've made these with refried beans, refried black beans and just regular pinto beans. They're all good. I like the refried beans better though because they make everything stick. If I have them I will generally put them on the tortilla first.

Next add cheese. We're out of shredded cheese. It may be the first time. Ever. So, I made due with a slice; however, that is not American cheese, it is a Colby, cheddar, jack blend. :-)

Huevos. Or eggs for you gringos. I like them over easy so the yolk mixes in with everything. My husband likes scrambled. Take your pick.

Add salsa and you have yourself some huevos rancheros. I sometimes add sour cream, too. Simple. Easy. Delicious.