11/21/2012- Roasted Chicken

I've never made roasted chicken. It always seemed too difficult for me. I thought there'd be more work to it than what I did.

This recipe....

Pat chicken dry
Put oil on it
Put salt and pepper in it (about 1tsp each)
Put salt and pepper on it (about 2tsp each)

DONE

May I just say......BEST CHICKEN EVER. I like skin sometimes, but I ate ALL the skin. If I could make just skin and eat that, I would.

I had a 7lb chicken and it was done after exactly 3 hours at 375 and was perfect. Next time, I'm going to make some stock from it!

Hawaiian Chicken Drumsticks

I really had my doubts about this, especially since it had peppers in it. I hate peppers, with a passion. But, I did my duty and followed the recipe. The recipe itself was difficult to follow, the wording and measuring wasn't consistent. So, I'll tell you what I did in effort to follow the original recipe.

Ingredients from original:

7 pieces chicken drumsticks, rinse and pat dry with paper.
50 g butter
1 green bell pepper, cut into strips.
1 can pineapple rings in juice, drained and set aside.
1 cup catchup
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup soy sauce
1 onion, cuti into strips
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ teaspoon powdered ginger or 1 teaspoon thinly sliced fresh ginger root.
½ cup water
a dash of salt and ground pepper to flavor chicken

What I did:
12 chicken drumsticks
1/4c butter
1 green pepper cut into strips
1 can pineapple rings
1 c ketchup
1/2c brown sugar
1/2c soy sauce
2T dried minced onions
1t minced garlic
1/2t ground ginger
1/2 c water

I didn't get the chance to put the salt and pepper on the chicken and put it in the fridge for an hour, so I picked up after there.

I melted the butter in my skillet and put in all the chicken, turning it to "brown" on all sides. It didn't really brown, more...yellowed....

When it was all yellowed, I put it in my giant dish into the oven (my skillet wasn't oven safe) for 28 minutes.

While it was in there, I mixed up my ketchup, pineapple juice, brown sugar, soy sauce and water.

I got really confused when it came to the rest though. I couldn't tell if I was supposed to take them out of the oven and keep them in the skillet or out...I put them in and then realized I was supposed to keep them out, so I set them to the side. In the skillet I mixed about 3T of butter, the garlic, minced onion and pepper.

After 3 minutes I added in the saucy mix and had it on med-high stirring occasionally.

The sauce never really "thickened" after 4 minutes on 8 of 10 heating so I added in the chicken and put the pineapple on top. I turned it twice, once every 2 minutes and then simmered it for 5 minutes.

Overall it turned out pretty good! Aaron had 6, I had three, took one to a neighbor, "tried" one out and gave one to Noah.

See The Pin!

11/09/2012- Lemon Garlic Chicken

So, I was in a bit of a rush this day and didn't get any actual pictures taken. Hey, it gets busy with two kids! Lol.

I did marinate it for 2 hours (the minimum time) because I actually forgot until later. But, it was very easy to throw together and get in the fridge. I used 4 chicken breasts because 1) That's what I had and 2)they were huge.

Also, I didn't use any lemon zest because I have no clue how to make that from a lemon. Cheese grater? Really, how do you do it? Please comment and tell me.

Anyway, you just put all that into a baking dish and cook it. They came out really tasty and made the house smell good. My only complaint, though, would be that the inside wasn't that moist. The skin had great flavor, but if you have thick breasts like I did, it didn't get through enough. Maybe marinating it more would help, but I'm not sure. It did go great with the scampi noodles though!

I'll be making it again, so I'll be sure to add pictures then!

This photo is courtesy of the creator.

See The Pin!

11/08/2012- Mini Chicken Pot Pies

What's better than getting veggies, protein and dairy all in one yummy muffin? Getting a toddler to eat it. These were perfect. Right size for Noah to eat and flavorful enough for Aaron to eat too. I forgot to put in some poultry seasoning, so I don't think there was as much flavor as there should have been, but it was still pretty good.

The recipe calls for about 1T mix on the bottom of the tin and then you put in your veggie/chicken/cheese mix and pour another tablespoon on top. Honestly, the last two that got filled and cooked were better than all the others. Why? Because I ran out of Bisquick mix and so I just stirred the mix around in what was at the bottom. It brought out the flavor more and every bite you got had something delicious in it.

The "recipe" that I used didn't give exact measurments, so here's what I did.

Follow the "pancake" directions on a box of Bisquick
Boil two chicken breasts for 10-12min and shred/cut into bite sizes
While letting chicken cool, add a can of pees and 2 cups shredded cheddar to a bowl
Cut carrots into small sizes (I used a whole carrot and cut it very small)
Mix cooled chicken in with veggie/cheese mix
Stir
Use 1/4c for each muffin spot

See The Pin!
They were so good, even cold, that Noah and I snacked on them the next morning. I'm surely going to make them again. The changes I'll make, however, will be to add the poultry seasoning, maybe a bit more cheese and only using 1T and stirring the mixture in with it.

10/28/2012- Balsamic Chicken and Pumpkin Pancakes

With Hurricane Sandy coming, I decided I needed to make as much food as I could. So, I started with 15 balsamic chicken drumsticks. That's a lot of chicken. Not so much, though, when it's absolutely divine.

I even wanted to eat the marinade. That's how good it was. Very simple too, balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, soy sauce and honey. The recipe says you don't have to marinade it, but I always find the skin only has the flavor. Hopefully, by letting it sit for a while, it'd soak it up.

See The Pin!
While those were cooking and Aaron had Noah downt he street at a birthday party, I decided to use the last of my pumpkin puree. I had used some of it for my pumpkin pie oatmeal and had about a cup left. If the power went out, I didn't want to lose that awesome pumpkin. I searched around Pinterest and found this pin for pumpkin pancakes! Perfect!

See The Pin!
I threw them into bags when they cooled and put them in the fridge. Thankfully we never lost power. Noah's been asking for them though, so they aren't sticking around long! Guess I"ll have to make more. I'm hoping to get a new waffle maker soon, so maybe this would make yummy pumpkin waffles?

10/22/2012- "World's Best" Chicken

The Worlds Best Chicken? Eh. It's ok.....Certainly not the worlds best. Honestly, the glaze/sauce/whatever would taste better on pork in my opinion. It's a simple mix of dijon mustard, maple syrup and red wine vinegar. You pour it on top of some chicken with salt and pepper on top. At the end, you put a bit of rosemary on.

if you eat it as soon as it comes out, it's nice and moist. Let it sit at all (like I had to do for Aaron since he hadn't come home from work yet) and it dries, but all chicken seems to do that. Overall, I'd make it again, but I'd probably make a few changes, like maybe more syrup? Not sure. Either way, Noah had fun making the sauce and pouring it on!

See The Pin!
I also made garlic bread for the first time. I had a Pin for it, but it was too hard to follow because the measurments were different. So, I melted butter, mixed in onion powder and oregano (thanks grandma for the advice!!!) and smothered the ciabatta bread. It was SO delicious! I also gave some to my neighbor a few doors down for her dinner.