This is more than just easy….it’s really more like ghetto style Chick-Fil-A…but my picky family chomped it up and told me I was great…so it now in my rotation.
Just in case your families taste buds are pedestrian as mine…here’s how I threw this new family favorite together in about thirty minutes on a night that I thought we were going to be eating ramen noodles for dinner because there was nothing else left in the house.
Before I give you the ingredients, let me reiterate that this is ghetto…but its GOOOOOD.
You Need:
1 can grands style biscuits
chicken breast
extra crunchy (wait for it) shake n bake type product
That’s it. I told you it was ghetto. But I am so not above going ghetto to get the kids fed.
I cut the chicken with my kitchen scissors (seriously if you don’t have a pair of scissor designated for food only you are selling yourself short) to biscuit size…doused them heavily in the shake and bake and cooked according to package directions.
I put the biscuits in the oven for the last 13 minutes of the chicken time so they would done at the same time and viola!
I said after the labor intensive Strawberry Pretzel Salad fiasco of Thanksgiving 2011 that I would never make another Paula Deen recipe again. But this one looks easy enough that even a time-challenged mom like me can’t mess it up. So this is officially on my Super Bowl Sunday Menu. I will be using organic chicken and bacon as per my new family nutrition rules…FYI..if you haven’t tried organic bacon you really aren’t living.
Go Giants!
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Cut chicken breasts into 1-inch cubes. Cut each bacon slice into thirds. Wrap each chicken cube with bacon and secure with a wooden pick. Stir together brown sugar and chili powder. Dredge wrapped chicken in mixture. Coat a rack and broiler pan with nonstick cooking spray. Place chicken wrap on rack in broiler pan. Bake 350 for 30 to 35 minutes or until bacon is crisp.
I try to always live by the rule of KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid. Anytime in my life the more complicated I make something the more of a mess I make.
That applies to everything in my life, but especially in the kitchen. I’ve been trying to for years to make a hipper, cooler version of the old Chicken Pot Pie we’ve had one hundred times in our lives.
I’ve tried the healthy route, the organic route, the rustic route, the single pie in a souffle bowl route, the fancy route…all big kitchen FAILS. So I decided to go KISS on this one. I googled the classic recipe for Chicken Pot Pie. I baked it old school style. And it turned out to be like chicken crack for my family!
Seriously. I normally don’t even really like Chicken Pot Pie and I found myself sneaking extra forkfuls as I was cleaning up after dinner saying ‘yummmm’ to myself like I was eating a Paula Dean chocolate cake.
Here’s the recipe I used.
1 deep dish refrigerated pie crust (2 crusts in the pack)
3 -4 boiled and chopped thin chicken breasts
1 cup frozen mixed veggies (corn, peas and green beans)
1/2 cup milk (I actually used half and half ..we NEVER have milk around here)
1 can of cream of chicken soup
salt and pepper
I boiled and chopped the chicken while the girl was napping in the afternoon so all I had to do was throw this all in the shell and in the oven about a half hour before dinner.
Mix the chicken, soup, milk and salt and pepper in a bowl….then ..I bet you can’t guess what’s next? Throw in the shell.
Put the second shell on top of the whole thing..poke a few holes and viola! You are done and have plenty of time to play Hanging with Friends while the kids are playing Wii before dinner.
Bake at 425 for about 30 minutes.
**Make sure you bake it on a cookie sheet to prevent any bubbly leakage.
And now that my cookie sheet has been photographed I am painfully aware that I need a new one.
My family loves Chinese food. American-ized Chinese food that is. Think PF Changs…or even more pedestrian (and the hubs and the boy both love this place and have to go there without me) Panda Express. Mongolian Beef, Fried Rice and Sesame Chicken is about as far in Chinese food as my family is willing to delve.
Since I do love my family, we don’t eat fast food Chinese very much because I don’t want them to dehydrate and die from all the sodium, sugar and MSG in most take-away meals…so I think I am going to add this healthy version of Cashew Chicken to the rotation. Inspired by this…I must find a healthy swap for Mongolian Beef.
To make Healthy Chines Cashew Chicken you need:
2 teaspoons canola oil
1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 teaspoon finely chopped gingerroot (can be found on spice isle already ground)
2 cups fresh broccoli florets
1 cup low sodium chicken broth
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
2 cups frozen sugar snap peas
3 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce
2 teaspoons rice vinegar
Heat oil over medium heat, add chicken and ginger..cook while stirring about 5 minutes until chicken starts to brown.
Add broccoli, ½ cup of the broth and the pepper flakes. Cover and cook on medium for 2 minutes, stirring once. Add peas and cook 4 minutes longer, stirring once until veggies are crispy-tender.
In a bowl mix the rest of the broth, soy sauce, vinegar, cornstarch and sugar. Stir into chicken mixture. Add onions, cook and stir until sauce thickens and bubbles. Serve over rice. Sprinkle with cashews.
Should make 4 servings. Chop sticks optional, ya’ll!!!
This is my ‘go to’ dish when I want to be June Cleaver.
I mean really, who roasts’ chickens anymore? Cooking a whole fowl is something that most of us only do on holidays. But this one is so easy that you can do it on any random Wednesday night and it really takes less time to prepare than spaghetti.
Making Roasted Chicken and Potatoes is as close to Martha Stewart as this mom is ev-ah gonna get.
PS-this picture is pre-cooked..like the Real Mom that I am…I forgot to take a picture of the cooked dish…I had to get dinner on the table.
You Need:
One whole chicken
3 carrots
3 potatoes
1 onion
2 Tablespoon Olive Oil
2 Tablespoons Butter
1 Cup Chicken Broth
6 crushed garlic cloves ( I use chopped garlic that I keep in fridge)
**My biggest tip for this dish is to make sure you take the freakin’ bag with the gross stuff out of the chicken before you cook it. Most of you probably already know to do this..but in case there is someone out there like me who innocently cooked an entire chicken before your husband asks where the bag is…..if I can just help one mom..it’s all worth it.
Mix the butter, oil and garlic. Season chicken with salt and pepper then rub entire chicken with butter/oil/garlic mixture
Place chicken, potatoes and carrots in roasting pan. Pour 1/2 cup chicken stock over veggies.
Halfway through cooking baste chicken with remaining broth.
Have you heard about the Engagement Chicken recipe? It’s a recipe for a citrus roasted chicken that at least 79 women made just before their boyfriends proposed to them.
Howard Stern’s wife Beth Ostrosky was on The Today Show along with some chick from Glamour promoting their new cookbook 100 Recipes Every Woman Should Know. Beth told her story of making the famous chicken and how she got busted by a radio listener the very next day…but she still got that big ring just a few months later.
See the recipe after the video. Since I am already WAY married with rugrats…I think I’m going to make this for Easter and call it Easter Citrus Spring Chicken. It sounds delicious. If you make it before me drop a note in the comment section to let us know how it turns out.
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice, plus 3 whole lemons—including 1 sliced for garnish
1 tablespoon kosher or coarse sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Fresh herbs for garnish (4 rosemary sprigs, 4 sage sprigs, 8 thyme sprigs, and 1 bunch fl at-leaf parsley)
1. Position an oven rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F. Remove the giblets from the chicken, wash the chicken inside and out with cold water, then let the chicken drain, cavity down, in a colander for 2 minutes.
2. Pat the chicken dry with paper towels. Place the chicken breast-side down in a medium roasting pan fi tted with a rack and pour the lemon juice all over the chicken, both inside and out. Season the chicken all over with salt and pepper inside and out.
3. Prick 2 whole lemons three times each in three different places with a fork and place them deep inside the cavity. Chicken cavity size may vary, so if one lemon is partly sticking out, that’s fine. (Tip: If the lemons are stiff, roll them on the countertop with your palm before pricking to get the juices flowing.)
4. Put the chicken in the oven, lower the oven temperature to 350°F, and roast, uncovered, for 15 minutes.
5. Remove the roasting pan from the oven. Using tongs or two wooden spoons, turn the chicken breast- side up. Insert a meat thermometer in the thigh, and return the chicken to the oven and roast for about 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes or until the meat thermometer reads 180°F and the juices run clear when the thigh is pricked with a fork. Continue roasting if necessary. Keep in mind that cooking times in different ovens vary; roasting a chicken at 350°F takes approximately 18-20 minutes per pound, plus an additional 15 minutes.
6. Let the chicken rest for 10 minutes before carving. And here’s the secret: Pour the juices from the roasting pan on top of the sliced chicken— this is the “marry me juice.” Garnish with fresh herbs and lemon slices.
