Chicken and Dumplings

Growing up I was quite deprived in my food choices. My Mom is kind of picky so I didn't know I liked a lot of food until I left home. Luckily, my Aunt Julie always sent my Dad home with his own container of Chicken and Dumplings and he was nice enough to share with me. Sunday's are my favorite cooking days because I have time to cook meals that take a little too long to cook during the week. Chicken and dumplings is one of those meals!

I started off with a two chopped onions in some oil in my already hot cast iron dutch oven. I cut up a whole chicken and put the pieces on top of the onion once it was translucent. You don't really have to cut up the chicken, you can throw it in there whole; I cut it into pieces so I can get more of the fat off. I used seasoned salt and pepper to season the chicken and onions. I used 32oz of chicken stock plus another 32oz of water so the chicken would be completely covered, put the lid on, and left it to cook for an hour.

Once your house smells delicious it's about time to take the chicken out. I pulled the meat off with a fork and then used my fingers to shred it into smaller pieces. I recommend using your fingers to do this so you can make sure you haven't missed a bone somewhere!

Put the chicken back into the chicken stock and start adding pieces of biscuit dough. There are multiple ways to speed up the process here. You can buy pre-made biscuit dough and chop it up; use Bisquick to make biscuit dough or you can do it the hard way and make your own biscuit dough from scratch. Since I never do anything easy can you guess which way I went? Exactly, I made my own dough. I made enough for 30 biscuits (based on my Aunt's recipe) because I wanted it to be thick (and hers is always thick!). You'll need to stir while you add and the dough will float. Let it cook/simmer about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Once the dough stays in the mixture you're ready to go. Probably you'll want to add more salt and pepper. You could also add carrots, celery, and garlic to give it some more flavor!

Southwest Chicken Wraps

I'm excited to put another pinterest find to test! This was quite easy and quite good. It reminds me of a Grilled Stuffed Burrito from Taco Bell, but I know what the meat is in this case :-)

I made some changes to the original recipe. Instead of black beans I used refried black beans. I liked the turn out because the beans were a good way to keep all the ingredients stuck to the tortilla. I think that might be the only change.

Here's how I did it!

I started with a tortilla.

To the tortilla I added the refried black beans. I scooped these straight from the can to the tortilla.

Next I added the rice chicken mixture. To about a cup of cooked rice I added 1T chili powder, 1t cumin and 1/2t garlic salt. I boiled a chicken breast and shredded the meat (it's a little over a cup of meat I would say) and mixed it with the rice. The rice is delicious, btw.



Next was the cheese. I used Colby jack and cheddar and sprinkled it all over. Then I added some dollops of sour cream and folded the wrap up.

Put your skillet on the stove and get some heat going. Spray both sides of the wrap with cooking spray and place it seam side down in the pan. Let it cook until it's nice and crisp, about 2 minutes each side. Delicious!

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.