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!

11/20/2012- REMAKE- BBQ Meatloaf

The first time I made the BBQ meatloaf, it was in muffin tins so they were a lot smaller.

This time I laid it out like the original recipe said to do, formed it into a log and cooked it.

It smelled good and tasted good, but it didn't look good. When I "cut" it to slice it up it was very crumbly. We're not complaining, it tasted good, so that's really all that mattered. It just looked like a giant pile of mush is all.

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!

11/08/2012- 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.

11/04/2012- Apple and Honey Pork Loin

I like pork and I like apples. I had pork and I had apples. Seems to work well, right? Well, it smelled good, and looked ok and fell apart wonderfully. Honestly though, it didn't taste all that great. I put it on a Grand's Flaky Biscuit with some honey BBQ to give it flavor. The apples and honey didn't do that much for it. I recommend trying it because you must might like it.

It was pretty simple sounding, but I think I made it more complicated than it should be. My pork was actually two put together. I didn't know that until I opened it. So, instead of cutting it in half to have two shorter ones I had two long ones. I followed the directions like it said, but the apples didn't cover the bottom or the top. I also think I put too much cinnamon on.

In the end, it was mushy from the apples and my house smelled like apple cinnamon. Ha, can't complain much about the smell.

This was after it was all cooked and before it was pulled apart/out.

And after it was pulled apart. It literally fell apart as we took it out.

See The Pin!

11/01/2012- Baked Meatballs

Aaron loves meatballs. I mean, straight up love! We used to buy bags of meatballs (Cooked Perfect are his favorite brand) and he’d eat upwards of 8 at a time with his pasta. So, what better reason to make some myself?! I was intimidated by the ones I saw where you cook them in a skillet and roll them. I’d tried it once and the middle never got cooked. This recipe looked promising, though. It was simple to do and you just bake them. Two things, though. Make them all as close to the same size as possible and do NOT use wax paper. I learned the hard way about that one! They were absolutely delicious! Aaron and Noah kept asking for more and I found myself randomly snacking on them the next day. They’re good cold, too!

See the pin!

10/29/2012- Slow Roasted Beef

Superstorm Sandy (Hurricane) was due to hit us later in the day, so we invited our neighbor, Chris, over for dinner. It was pretty intimidated by the recipe for this, but I think I did well. It started out the day before, with me realizing I needed to wrap the beef in salt and plastic wrap for 18-24 hours. I had actually wanted to make it the day before, but had to wait so I could do it “right”. On the 29th, I started out by searing it as suggested. Well, Aaron did that while I did something else – can’t even remember what it was now…. After it was seared, I read that I needed a roast rack. I had no clue what that was! Thankfully, a friend of mine from four doors down was on Facebook chat and said she had one. The beef was so big, I had to cut it in two. I had one on her rack and one on a cookie sheet. Sounds funny, but it worked!

On one of the racks, I rubbed it in garlic butter with some oregano mixed in. At first, I put it in for 2.5hrs on 225 degrees. I then turned it off and let it sit in there, just like the directions said. When I cut it, though, it was still all bloody. Looked delicious to me, but I wasn’t about to feed it to Noah. So, I wrapped it in foil and popped it back in for another hour. Came out perfectly!

See The Pin!
In the end, we had rolls, beef, mashed potatoes, green beans and mixed fruit. It was so yummy and the perfect way to listen to the “hurricane” pick up!