Homemade Chicken Pot Pie a la Kristin

When discussing the simple lasagne recipe, Kristin told me about her easy family favorite chicken pot pie recipe. It too is a snap to make and truely enjoyed the the whole family. It's a great way to use up leftover turkey or chicken too. She didn't have any specific quantities so this is showing how I made it. Like most of these homemade recipes, they taste even better when you add your own flair. For instance, if you like more chicken, add it. If you prefer different veggies, go for it. This is what I did to use as a guide.

Chicken Pot Pie Ingredients:
Crust ingredients: 1 tube of buttermilk biscuits, 1/2 t. each parmesan, basil, and parsley

Pot Pie ingredients: cooked chopped chicken or turkey(I used about a cup)
one can of cream of chicken or mushroom soup
veggies (about one cup from bag of frozen veggies)

Homemade Chicken Pot Pie Instructions:
Chop each biscuit into quarters. Put all the quartered raw biscuits into a baggie with cheese and spices and shake. Bake according to biscuit instructions (minus a few minutes )

Warm the chicken, veggie, soup mixture on top of the stove. When warm, place in a casserole dish. Put the biscuit pieces on top. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.

Chicken 2 Ways - Chicken Noodle Soup and Baked Chicken

Now that the weather has turned, I'm back to cooking homemade easy comfort foods in the oven and crock pot. I love to come into the house when there is something slowly cooking in the kitchen. It feels like mom is cooking for me.

One of the quintessential comfort foods is baked chicken. It is so popular they sell it already cooked at just about every grocery store in the land now. If you don't have time to make one, you can buy it and it will taste great to you because someone else cooked it!

I find that the pre-cooked ones are usually on the small side (... like a good sized cornish hen!) so I try to cook my own if time allows. Plus, you can often get a good sized whole roaster chicken on sale for about $5 whereas the pre-cooked smaller ones are closer to $8.

There really is nothing to it. Two main tips - one, remove giblet bag!! and two, when in doubt, over cook it. Nothing worse than raw chicken.

Baked Chicken Recipe
Ingredients:
1 unstuffed whole chicken (giblets removed)
2 T. favorite seasoning
2 T. butter

Baked Chicken Recipe Instructions: Remove giblet bag. Rinse the inside cavity of the chicken. (Gross part is now over). Sprinkle the outside of the chicken with your favorite seasoning (mine is italian seasoning) and then spritz with spray butter. Bake, breast side up, in a shallow roasting pan. Ideally, you should put on a rack in the pan so the chicken doesn't stew in it's juices - but I just drain it regularly. (Keep the juices for your soup though).

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes per pound. A meat thermometer in the thickest part should read 185 or the juices should run clear when you cut the thickest part.

Homemade Easy Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe
Ingredients:
Chopped cooked chicken (leftovers from the baked chicken)
1/3 of a 16 oz. bag of egg noodles
Juices from the baked chicken
2 15 oz. cans chicken broth (or chicken bouillon and water)
20 mini carrots chopped (or to taste)
Magi liquid seasoning - about 20 squirts or to taste

Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe Instructions: Combine all ingredients except noodles. Bring soup to a boil and add noodles. Cook about 10 minutes.

This is so easy to make that you can cure your own cold. I have many times bought the pre-cooked chicken simply to make this soup for myself. Almost as good as having mom make it...

Chicken Do Over

I admit that sometimes the result of combining my favorite ingredients does not work out as well as I had originally hoped. That happened this week with crock pot chicken. The problem wasn't so much the way the chicken tasted but the way it looked. (Crock pot meat isn't always the most attractive presentation anyway). If you don't mind really white chicken, it's worth making it. In the crockpot, I combined 3 large chicken breasts, a can of chicken broth, a small container of ranch, and some garlic bits*. It was cooked on high about 6 hours. Again, it tasted fine and the texture was great. Shaking black pepper all over it worked wonders on the color too!

Since only half the chicken was used on day one, I whipped up a much better recipe for day two. This would work well with leftover turkey or (somewhat bland) chicken. It's a variation on a recipe Aunt Cheri made for us a few years ago and it tasted just as good last night.

Chicken Cream Sauce Recipe
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup cooked turkey or chicken - chopped
chopped vegetables (1-2 cups total)
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup white wine
1 cup chicken broth (or bouillon and water)
2 T. flour
1 can cream of anything soup
1/2 t. celery salt
2 T. butter or margarine

Chop fresh vegetables and cook in a frying pan using the margarine. In a separate container, combine the sauce ingredients (milk, soup,wine, broth, celery salt and flour) and whisk. Add to vegetables and add in chicken and any canned (or fully cooked) vegetables. Cook for 5-10 minutes.

Great served over rice or those frozen puff pastries.

Since I was, in effect, putting perfume on a pig for this recipe, I just used what I had in the fridge for the veggies which was green onions, celery and red pepper. I then added some leftover peas and chopped some cooked corn off the cob. Colorful and tasty.

And even better yet, there's still enough left over for tonight now that all the vegetables are combined in there too.

*I love the crispy garlic bits from the Garlic Co. They are fun in salads, soups and just about any recipe.

White Bean Chicken Chili in a Pinch

We are in the midst of a power outage from the storms that pummelled the midwest. The initial storm was the craziest thing I have ever seen. The skies got black and then within five minutes, we happened to look out as a wall of rain was blasting at us. My son was sitting on the porch under a big golf umbrella (like a fort)and we had to scream at him to run in. He had no clue anything was going on outside. He got in just in time with the rain coming in sideways behind him. (In the meantime, my daughter felt the need to run back out in it to grab her new jelly shoes from Target.) Fortunately, everyone is fine but we have no power.

Since we have a generator, I'm blessed to have a working refrigerator and a couple outlets that I can use. Each morning when I make my pot of coffee, I'm especially thankful! Since I can't use the stove or oven, I decided to find something I could make in the crock pot. I'm at the public library typing this but I think it is going to be a tasty compromise for white bean chicken chili. The main difference is that I had a pound of chicken sausage in the freezer so that is substituted for chicken. Lucky me, I had the rest of the ingredients in the pantry.

White Bean Chicken Chili Recipe
1 can white beans (rinse very well and drain)
1 lb. chicken sausage, chopped into bite sized pieces
2 cans chicken broth
1/2 large vidalia onion, chopped
2 small cans chopped green chilis (found in mexican food aisle at any grocer)
2 T. cumin
1 1/2 t. ground oregono
1/2 t. cayenne pepper

Crock pot for 8-10 on low or 4-5 on high. Serve with tortilla chips, monterrey jack cheese, sour cream and/or salsa.

This should last us a day or two but hoping for power by Friday!

Crock Pot Italian Chicken Still Great in Summer

There are a lot of these crock pot dishes that may at first glance seem like odd choices for summer. In reality, it's still nice to have a home cooked meal waiting for you when you get home instead of having to stoke up the grill every night. It's especially handy if you have a variety of different schedules too. Everyone can just help themselves.

When made in the summer, this chicken recipe can also make great use of fresh tomatoes. In my case, I used 1 14 oz. can of the diced tomatoes with italian seasonings and also chopped up one very large fresh tomato. I'm going to write down the way I did it but any combination of fresh and canned is perfectly fine.

Crock Pot Italian Chicken Recipe
1 package boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 (14 oz.) can diced tomatoes with italian seasoning
1 small jar mushrooms
1/3 of a huge vidalia onion, chopped
1 can green beans
1/2 can chicken broth
2 T. italian seasoning (or more if you use all fresh tomatoes0
2 T. minced garlic. I actually used the garlic garlic spice from Tastefully Simple

Layer, green beans, mushrooms, fresh tomatoes (if any), chicken, and cover with diced tomatoes. The pour the chicken broth over it all. Cook on low 8 hours or on high for 5 hours. Not necessary but a little bit fancier...I used a mini food processor (I call it a mini chop) to grind up some of the ingredients to make them more of a traditional sauce consistency. I left many of the ingredients as large chunks though too. Serve on cooked noodles.

Quick Crockpot Tip

This one's for you Lynda! You can convert any of my easy oven recipes to crock pot or crock pot recipes for oven using these simple conversion tips. Of course, all crocks cook a bit differently and so do all ovens so these are just approximate. Use whatever method works best with your timing that day.


Crock Pot to Crock Pot:
Crock pot for 8-10 on low is the same as on high for 3-4 hours.

Oven to Crock Pot:
350 for an hour is about the same as 6-8 hours on low
300 for 30 minutes is about the same as 3-4 hours on low

And you can always cook longer in a crock pot as long as you add plenty of liquid. So, if you've got the whole day, use the crock pot; just an hour or two, use the oven. Either way, throw together a few ingredients and you'll feel like your mom was there cooking for you today.

A 3 Ingredient Crock Pot Garlic Chicken Recipe
1 package boneless, skinless chicken
1 bottle ranch dressing
2 t. minced garlic

Thow in the crock pot and cook on low 8-10 hours. I usually rinse the ranch bottle half full with water and put the water into the crock pot too since my current one cooks on the hot side.

Whip up some 90 seconds Uncle Bens rice (the pilaf is to die for!) and some canned vegies and you've got yourself a home cooked meal. How simple is that?

Baked Chicken in a Snap

I believe half of my cooking is done by throwing several things from my pantry into a dish and enjoying the results. You can almost always be assured you'll like the results when you use your favorite ingredients. I have a few personal favorites that you'll see again and again in these pages and one of them is chopped green chilis. Today's chicken recipe includes that favorite, a standard cream of (anything) soup and some cheese. That's it! Serve with tortilla chips, rice and a green vegetable. I happened to have some leftover corn on the cob (first of spring) that tasted just awesome with it. So, here you have it...

Baked Chicken with Chilis and Cheese
1 package boneless chicken breasts
1 can cream of mushroom, celery, chicken or anything soup
1 small can chopped green chilis
1 cup cheddar cheese
Combine soup and chilis in 9 x 13 pan. Add chicken. Spoon some of the mixture on top of the chicken. Cover with cheese. Bake at 350 for 1 hour.

In my case, I had to run out for my sons guitar lessons so I just turned it down to 325, added about 1/2 can of water and cooked for 2 hours.

Great either way! Enjoy the simplicity.

Super versatile chicken or beef recipe

Last night we had chicken using a marinade that doubles equally well for beef. I've especially enjoyed it with flank steak. For the chicken, I combined all ingredients in the crock pot, came back after 5 hours, and voila. Not even an extra bowl messed up - it doesn't get much better than that. Here's the versatile marinade recipe:
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup V8 juice
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 t. minced garlic cloves

I added four frozen chicken breasts and put in the crock pot on high for 5 hours. Very simple and unique. It tastes nothing like what it sounds like!

Enjoy and let us know what you think or other ways you've used it.

Parmesan Chicken and another great birthday party

Most of my main dish recipes are done in the crock pot but sometimes I don't get my act together early enough for the slow cooking. In those cases, I often also don't plan far enough in advance to have a lot of recipe ingredients either which is why I love this simple baked chicken recipe from our friend Alana. The three ingredients used are ones that just about everyone has in their pantry or fridge. And the other bonus of this recipe, it smells amazing while it's cooking. So without further ado, here is a gourmet tasting chicken recipe that you can make in a snap:

Parmesan Chicken Alana
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1 stick melted butter or margerine

Combine cheese and crumbs in a baggy. Melt butter and dip each chicken breast into the butter and then shake in the baggy. Place in a baking dish and bake uncovered at 350 for 45 minutes. Turn over about half way through.

This is great with rice pilaf. I swear by the 90 second rice from Uncle Bens. We also served it with leftover sweet potato casserole and green bean casserole (from my website http://www.pams-hams.com/) which created a nice presentation if I do say so myself!

Puppy themed 7 year old girls birthday party
We have such creative friends! Many of these cute little girl birthday parties are not only fun for the girls attending, but are a blast for the moms who are dropping them off and watching a few of the festivities. Julia's party last weekend was a real favorite with the puppy theme. And one of the best parts for the birthday girl's mom is the simplicity of these types of off-site parties. I'd much rather spend my time making prizes and planning fun games than setting up or cleaning up! So read on for some simple party tips:

Where: At a pet store in our area (Family of Pets). They have a build-a-bear type machine with which the party guests can make their own stuffed dog. Additionally, the kids spend much of the time playing with the puppies in little puppy run pens. Julia also brought her puppy who had just turned one and was from that very store.

Prizes: The cute stuffed puppy would have been plenty but Julia's mom is too creative to stop there! She had a paw print gift bag for each girl that contained a candy necklace (collar), a little doggy bowl with their name on it (made labels with the computer) filled with what looked like kibble but was really cinnamon cookies, dog ear headbands, a plastic bone filled with pretzels and puppy stickers. The pictures of these girls with their headbands are going to be precious.

Activities: Playing with the puppies and making the stuffed animals took up most of the time. The girls also had snacks*, played pin the tail on the puppy, and had a puppy coloring page.

Bonus: Julia doens't have a lot of the webkinz and littlekinz dogs so they were simple gift ideas that we knew she'd like. She also got a new Nintendo DS so games like Nintendogs were a super idea. *this particular store has a party room next door so you can eat - many of the pet stores do not which is also fine but just results in a shorter party .

Simple chicken recipe and simple beef recipe all in one week!

This was a banner week for experimenting with simplifying recipes. The result was the easiest sherpherds pie ever and fabulous baked chicken breast with a cheesy sauce. Both were prepared in 5 minutes or less - no joke. As is often the case with this simplified cooking, having the right ingredients on hand is half the battle. So without further ado, here's the recipes:



5 Minute Simple Shepherds Pie

1 1/2 lbs. ground beef
1 package dried onion soup mix
2 jars beef gravy (I like Boston Market)
1 package prepared mashed potatoes (you'll find them refrigerated at grocers)

Brown ground beef in a frying pan. Add in onion soup mix. Transfer beef mixture into 9 x 13 pan. Pour on the gravy and then drop on the mashed potatoes. Cook 400 for 30 minutes.
(We like it sauce-y but you can substitute one jar of gravy if you're conserving calories or don't like as much sauce.)

5 Minute Easy Cheese-y Baked Chicken

1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 package dried taco seasoning mix
1 4 oz. can chopped green chilis
8 oz. monterrey jack cheese

Combine all ingredients with cheese sprinkled on top. Bake at 375 for 1 hour.

(I didn't even mix the ingredients in a separate bowl - I just threw it all in a 9 x 13 and stirred a bit with a fork. It was THAT easy.)

Give them a try and let me know what you think. I know they were a hit in my house - even with the kids.

What's cookin' this week?

So simple baked pork tenderloin
We had one of our all-time favorite dishes this weekend. It's a baked pork tenderloin (or any cut of pork like roast, loin, chops. Your cook times would just vary depending on the size.) The key is the amazing sauce that it cooks in. It's almost one of those "guess what is in this" type concoctions because it really doesn't taste like what I'm about to describe.

We served it with the 90 second Uncle Bens rice that I always talk about and some lightly fried asparagus. The asparagus was leftover from the night before when we'd served it steamed (whole bunch only takes 7 minutes in the micro if you put just an inch of water at the bottom of a covered microwavable container.) Since we like our aspragus a little crunchy, it still had enough umph after that first day to allow it to be fried the second day. The aspragus was stored in a ziploc bag so I just tossed in some breadcrumbs, salt and pepper and then fried them on the stove top in a little bit of olive oil. Yummy!

Here is the recipe for the baked pork tenderloin:
1 1/2 lbs. pork tenderloin
1 can cream of chicken soup (can be cream of anything really - mushroom, celery, etc.)
coupla squirts catsup (say 2T)
coupla squirts worcestershire sauce (say 2T)
(I've made this a bunch of times with no measurement tool available and coupla squirts worked just fine.)
Bake in a covered baking pan for almost 2 hours at 325. I took the cover off for the last half hour.

I know it doesn't sound good but trust me when I tell you this one is a real crowd pleaser and as simple as can be.

Today in my Crock Pot - Southwest style chicken
We're switching to chicken since we had pork the last two nights. I have great luck throwing all sorts of pantry items into a crock pot for something different each time. Some staples that work well with crock pots are the cream of (anything) soups, chicken and beef broth soups, french onion and golden mushroom soups, cheddar cheese soup, tomatoes (either soup or diced), roasted red peppers, and crushed green chilis. The dried soups or soup mixes like beef bouillon, chicken bouillon, onion soup and taco seasoning are also handy. Of course, your tastes may differ from ours but these are what we keep around and use every week. Today's crock pot chicken is going to have a bit of a southwest flair to it. This is what I'm cooking as we speak:
- 2 large chicken breasts
- 1 can cream of mushroom
- 1 can cheddar cheese soup
- about 2/3 of a 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
- 1 can crushed green chilis
Cook 8 hours on low, or in my case, 2 hours on high and 4 hours on low since I didn't put them in early this morning.

Party in the Planning
Just a few short days after our New Years fun, we're in the process of whipping up more festivities. This time for Kristin who is turning 40 at the end of the month (but SO doesn't look it). She had no desire to have a party but requested a girlfriend weekend with just a couple close friends with the preference of somewhere warm. Since the whole gang won't be able to attend the getaway, we're going to have a fun pseudo-spa night first so everyone can toast one of our youngest friends finally joining our ranks. We're going to follow Kelly's lead and request that one of our local nail places hold evening hours for our group of about 10. We can bring in a couple little simple munchies and some adult beverages (in plastic cups) while sitting around getting manicured and pedicured together. The real bonus in our case is that the salon is right next door to one of our nicer restaurants so we could tie in appetizers or dinner if the group chooses. A fun time should be had by all.

Then a week later, it'll be off to sunny (hopefully) Sanibel Island for a couple days in the sand with our new beach toes. Doesn't get much better than that. Thanks to all the hubbies for watching the kids so we can enjoy this girlfriend time.

If you try any of our party ideas or recipes, let us know what you think.

Chicken Appetizer and Faux Spaghetti

Here's two great recipes I've used or shared in the last week during this busy holiday season. And, of course, they are easy to make and liked by my family. This first one is a real crowd pleaser appetizer. I had gotten a variation of the recipe from a gal at work years ago and just gave it to Wendy to take to Beth's party. Then multiple friends asked for it at the party. It takes minutes to make and is a real hit when served warm with tortilla chips.

GREAT FOOD GIFT IDEA - Purchase a festive dip with spreader, or a chip and dip set and tape this recipe onto the wrapping paper or place in the card. They'll appreciate the great recipe as much as the cute gift.



Hot Chicken and Cheese Dip
1 large can shredded chicken
8 oz. cream cheese softened
8 oz. mayo
(or 4 each mayo and sour cream)
8 oz. shredded cheddar cheese
1 (4 oz.) can green chilis, drained
1 (4 oz.) can chopped jalapenos (optional)

Mix all ingredients. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Serve warm with tortilla chips.

Jalapenos make it pretty hot so use to desired flame factor. This is a really forgiving recipe. For instance, I’ve used it with just mayo and no cream cheese and it turned out just fine. Keep these items in your pantry for when guests drop by.


And this next one is great for a quick dinner - especially during the holiday crunch when no one wants to make yet another decision . This one was great for our family last week when everyone was racing around. it's even better the next day for leftovers.

Quick and Easy Faux Spaghetti
1 to 1.5 lbs. cooked hamburger (browned and drained)
1 cup uncooked macaroni noodles
2 small cans V8 juice or 1 can tomato soup
1 can cheese soup
1 cup water
1/2 package Lipton onion soup mix
1 t. dried basil
1/2 t. oregono

Mix all ingredients and pour into baking dish (like 9 x 12 pyrex.) Bake uncovered at 350 for one hour. (Is it just me or does it seem like 90% of recipes are baked at 350?). This recipe is a good one to make ahead of time and refrigerate.

Feel free to add chopped green peppers, celery and/or onions. As you know about me, my kids are picky eaters so we don't add a whole lot of added veggies. Also the reason I like to use V8 juice instead of just soup or tomato sauce.

That's it for today. Next up, I'm making one of my all time favorites, beef barley soup. I'll share that recipe as soon as I'm done. We're just finishing up the prime rib now and then that bone is going right into the soup pot.


Ciao for now!