Tag Archives: chicken

Slow Cooker Italian Chicken

19 Nov

This meal was a bit of an experiment, and luckily it turned out good!  It was very easy to put together and not very many ingredients.  You don’t have to use carrots, you could use another vegetables, like broccoli or cauliflower, maybe even green beans.  I thought about adding potatoes to this too, but decided I would serve it over angel hair pasta, that way, I would have the pasta for the kids if they didn’t want much of the chicken or carrots.  They ate some chicken, only tried the carrots.  My husband thought it was great.  Parmesan Garlic Pull Apart Bread would be a great addition to this meal too, but my oven was already taken with Persimmon Cookies (recipe coming soon), so no bread for us tonight.

Slow Cooker Italian Chicken

What you need:

1.5 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 lb carrots, sliced, or a vegetable of your choice
1 cup Italian dressing
1/2 box angel hair pasta, cooked

How to make it:

Spray your slow cooker with cooking spray.  Add chicken to slow cooker, and fill in around chicken with the vegetable.  Pour the Italian dressing over all of it.  Cover, and cook for 6-8 hours on low, 3-4 hours on high.  Remove from slow cooker and serve over the cooked pasta.

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Baked Egg Rolls

16 Oct

A few weeks back, I made egg rolls for the first time.  I had another package of egg roll wrappers still, so I decided I wanted to try baking them instead of frying them.  For the filling, I julienne cut one of the 1 pound bags of carrots I got from Bountiful Baskets this week.  Next, I diced up the stems and leaves of the bok choy, then removed the meat from the bones of the rotisserie chicken.  I put a little vegetable oil in my wok, then added the carrots and the bok choy stems.  I cooked them until they were tender, then added the bok choy leaves and the chicken.  I added in soy sauce, and cooked for a few minutes.  Then, I assembled the egg rolls.

To bake them, I lined a baking sheet with aluminum foil and sprayed it with non-stick cooking spray.  I arranged the egg rolls on the baking sheet, then brushed them with olive oil  I put them in the oven at 400 F for about 15 minutes, when they became golden brown.

They turned out well.  I think I prefer them fried, but have no problem with the baked ones.  After I used up the filling, I still had 4 egg roll wrappers left, so I filled them with shredded mozzarella cheese, and baked them the same way.  They turned out pretty tasty too.

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Slow Cooker Sour Cream Salsa Chicken

14 Oct

I can’t remember where I first got this recipe, but I used to make it quite often.  I hadn’t made it in quite a while, so my husband suggested it for dinner this week.   It is a short ingredient list, and once you make it, there are a variety of things you can do with it.  I make a package of Spanish rice to mix in with it, then make burritos.  You could make tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas.

Slow Cooker Sour Cream Salsa Chicken

1.5-2 lbs boneless, skinless, chicken breasts
1 packet taco seasoning mix
1 16 oz jar salsa
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 8 oz package sour cream

Spray slow cooker with cooking spray. Add chicken breasts. Sprinkle chicken with taco seasoning, top with salsa. Cook on low for 6-8 hours, or on high for 3-4 hours. When ready to serve, remove chicken and shred. Put the cornstarch into the salsa mix in the slow cooker and stir well. Stir in sour cream and mix well. Place chicken back in slow cooker and blend in with salsa mixture.  Serve as desired.

How I use this:

Prepare 1 package of Spanish rice according to package directions.  Stir in with chicken.  Heat a large skillet over medium-low heat.  Add a large tortilla (I use the 12 in flour tortillas from Bountiful Baskets).   Place about 1 cup of the chicken/rice mixture toward one side of the tortilla.  Sprinkle Mexican blend shredded cheese over the mixture.

Fold the side, top and bottom over the mixture, then fold it all over on the remaining flap. Cook for a few minutes, then flip and cook for a few more minutes, until both sides are golden brown.

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Lemon Herb Chicken

4 Oct

When I got lemons this week, I knew I would make Lemon Herb Chicken.  It’s nothing real fancy, but it’s easy and the chicken is so moist, we love it.  Here is how to do it.

Lemon Herb Chicken

1-2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3 lemons, cut into fourths
Italian blend seasoning

Spray a 9 x 13 dish with cooking spray.  Arrange chicken breasts in dish.  Squeeze lemon quarters over the chicken, then added the lemon quarters in around the chicken breasts.  Sprinkle chicken breasts with Italian blend seasoning.  Bake at 450 F for 30-40 minutes, or until chicken reaches an internal temperature of 165 F.

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Egg Rolls!

30 Sep

I have been working all week on a way to use the daikon radish I received in the Asian themed veggie pack that I bought with my Bountiful Baskets this week.  I decided I would try egg rolls, which I love, but have never made.  For the filling, I julienne cut some daikon and some carrots.  Then, I chopped 1 bunch of green onions and some leaves of bok choy.  I had bought a rotisserie chicken at Fry’s since I had a $2 eCoupon, so I removed the chicken from the bones and shredded it.  I added some vegetable oil to my wok, and put the daikon, carrots, and green onion in first.  Once they started to get tender, I added in the bok choy and chicken.  Once the bok choy started to wilt, I grated fresh ginger into the wok and poured in about 2 Tbsp of soy sauce.  It looked like this.

Next comes the egg roll wrappers.  I found mine in the produce section of the grocery store, they may also be in your freezer section.  You take a wrapper and lay it out, then add some filling.  For this size wrapper, it was about 2 Tbsp of filling.

To fold the egg rolls, my previous experience as an employee at Subway wrapping sandwiches in paper came in handy.  It’s also how I roll my stuffed grape leaves (that recipe will be coming hopefully in the next week).  Notice in the picture above how I placed the filling closer to one corner.  The first fold is to bring that corner up over the filling.

Next, you fold over both sides.

Then, you roll it and brush the tip with a little water to make it hold shut.

Then, you deep fry or add about 1/2″ of oil to a pan.  If your oil doesn’t completely cover the rolls, then you need to flip them when one side is golden.

Remove rolls from oil to a baking sheet lined with paper towels.

This made 11 egg rolls.  I still had wrappers in that package, so I made more filling. The second filling was all veggies, bok choy leaves and stems, julienne cut carrots, julienne cut daikon, and chopped yellow onion, then grated ginger and soy sauce.  This made 7 more egg rolls.  They turned out great, both my girls ate 2 each!

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Sesame Chicken

24 Sep

I found this recipe in a healthier eating cookbook a while back and it was an instant hit in our house.  I have made it so often that I have the recipe memorized!  It is a lot lighter than sesame chicken you find at restaurants; this doesn’t have the heavy breading and the chicken is cooked in a small amount of oil, not deep-fried.  I actually prefer this a lot more to restaurant sesame chicken.

Sesame Chicken

1/4 cup unbleached flour or all-purpose flour
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, cut into 2″-4″ strips
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp dark sesame oil
2 Tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
Veggies of your choice
Cooked rice

Place flour and chicken in a gallon size zipper bag.  Shake to coat chicken in flour.  Heat olive oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium high heat. Add the chicken to the skillet in batches and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 to 4 minutes, or until white and no longer pink. Transfer to a plate.
Reduce the heat to medium. Combine the soy sauce and sugar in the skillet. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves. Stir in the sesame oil and sesame seeds.

Add the chicken and stir to coat.

Add in any chopped veggies you want.  For this batch, I used just broccoli.  Other times I have used different combinations of broccoli, onion, green, yellow, and red peppers, shredded carrots, bean sprouts, snow peas, water chestnuts, and mushrooms.  Cover your skillet and cook until veggies have softened.  I tend to leave the veggies a little crispy still because my husband likes them still crispy.

 Serve over cooked rice.

Note: You can buy toasted sesame seeds, usually with in the section with other Asian grocery items.  If you can’t find them, to toast sesame seeds, place in a dry skillet and toast, shaking the pan, over medium high heat for a minute or so, or until fragrant and lightly browned. Do this first and cook the chicken in the same skillet to pick up more sesame flavor.  Also, if you are using a lot of veggies, you may want to double the ingredients for the sesame coating so there is some for the veggies.

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BBQ Chicken and Cornbread

11 Sep

I had some broccoli left from 8/27 Bountiful Baskets that I had chopped and frozen.  I love making Broccoli Cheese Cornbread with it, so I needed to decide on a main dish.  I have a lot of barbecue sauce that I got free with coupons, plus we had some buns that we needed to use up. So, I decided I would make shredded BBQ chicken in my slow cooker, which was perfect because I was going to be gone all afternoon co-hosting a baby shower and needed a low maintenance dinner.

To make the BBQ chicken, I first sprayed my slow cooker with cooking spray.  Next, I took frozen chicken out of the freezer and ran it under cold water to remove some of the ice.  I didn’t defrost it first, I put it in the slow cooker still frozen.  I have found that it still cooks thoroughly, so I skip the step of defrosting if I forget to get it out of the freezer or decide last minute what I’m making.  I then poured a whole 18oz bottle of barbecue sauce over the chicken.  I set it to low and set my timer for 6 hours (my slow cooker is a programmable one that cooks for the set time, then switched to the Keep Warm setting until you are ready to serve).  Once I was ready to finish up dinner, I shredded all the chicken and stirred well in the sauce.  This was then served on hamburger buns.

For the broccoli cheese cornbread, the broccoli was already chopped, so I just had to mix the ingredients.  This recipe calls for cottage cheese, which I thought seemed strange  at first, but it helps keep the cornbread really moist.  Here is how it is made:

 

Broccoli Cheese Cornbread

What you Need:

  • 4 eggs
  • 1 cup cottage cheese
  • 1/2 cup shredded mild cheddar cheese
  • 1/2 cup butter, melted
  • 1 (8.5 ounce) package dry cornbread muffin mix (I use Martha White, but Jiffy makes a mix as well)
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1  1/2 cups chopped broccoli

How to Make it:

  1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly grease an 11×7 inch baking pan.  (You can use a 13×9 pan, but the cornbread will be pretty thin and you may need to adjust your cooking time.)
  2. In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs.  Mix in cottage cheese, shredded cheddar cheese and butter. Stir in the cornbread muffin mix and salt. Fold in the broccoli. Pour batter into prepared pan.
  3. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the pan comes out clean.
Here is how it all turned out.  Both girls ate it!

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