Garlic Cheddar Chicken

This is a recipe I got in my email a while back and decided to try last night. It's from Allrecipes.

Garlic Cheddar Chicken

Ingredients:

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp olive oil

3 cloves garlic, grated or minced

1 cup flour

⅔ cup Panko bread crumbs

¼ cup Parmesan

1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

¼ tsp dried thyme

¼ tsp dried oregano

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°. Cover a baking sheet with foil and top with a baking rack. Coat with cooking spray.

Melt the butter and olive oil in a saucepan over low heat. Add the garlic and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Spread the flour out in a shallow bowl or plate. In another shallow bowl, combine Panko, Parmesan, cheddar, thyme, and oregano.

Dip each chicken breast first in the flour, shake off excess, then dip in the garlic butter, then press into the bread crumb mixture. Arrange the coated chicken breasts on the prepared rack.

Bake 30 minutes, or until chicken is no longer pink.

Makes 4 servings.

Mmmm, this chicken is so good! Tender and juicy on the inside and garlicky, cheesy, and crunchy on the outside. Really tasty!

A few notes: The chicken breasts I use are actually cutlets, where I cut them in half so they aren't as thick. So I would suggest pounding them out if you have regular-sized ones. If not, they will take a lot longer to cook.

The garlic butter was supposed to be all butter, but I have been trying to cut back on using butter when I cook, so I did half butter and half olive oil. It worked just fine. I think it would probably even work with all olive oil. I'll try that next time.

I also increased the breading ingredients. It was supposed to be enough for four chicken breasts, but I got it to barely coat three. I also increased the garlic by a clove (we love garlic) and the thyme was originally parsley.

The original recipe said to bake this in a 9x13" baking dish, but a lot of the reviewers said that it got soggy on the bottom, so I did mine on a baking sheet with a rack. That worked out really well. Make sure you put foil underneath the rack on your baking sheet because a lot of breading falls through and that would be a big pain to scrape off.

If you like garlic and you like cheese, this recipe is for you! It reminds me of that old Taco Bell commercial: "Cruncheweesy!" :)

Read More

Silky Cauliflower Soup

I saw this recipe on a blog one afternoon and it sounded so good that I made it for supper that night. I was planning on roasting some cauliflower for a side anyway, so I already had everything on hand.

Silky Cauliflower Soup

Directions:

1 head cauliflower

2 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

4 cups low-sodium chicken stock

½ cup finely grated Parmesan

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Remove the leaves and thick core from the cauliflower, coarsely chop, and reserve.

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan or soup pot over medium heat and add the onion and garlic. Cook until softened, but not browned, about 5 minutes.

Add the cauliflower and stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover, and cook until the cauliflower is very soft and falling apart, about 15 minutes.

Remove from heat and, using a hand held immersion blender, puree the soup, or puree in small batches in a blender and return it to the pot.

Add the Parmesan and stir until smooth.

Season, to taste, with salt and black pepper. Keep warm until ready to serve.

Makes 4 servings.

Not much to say about this recipe except that it's awesome and so easy. Mine came out a little thin and I think it was because my cauliflower head was on the small side. I should have realized that and not added as much liquid, but I didn't think about it. It was easy to fix; I threw in some instant mashed potato flakes that I like to keep on hand. That thickened it up perfectly. It wasn't any more work than roasting it would have been. And on a cold January evening, nothing hits the spot like soup!

Read More

Turkey and Wild Rice Soup

This is a soup I made using leftover Thanksgiving turkey. I started with this recipe on Food.com, but changed it enough that I'm not sure you can call it the same recipe anymore.

Turkey and Wild Rice Soup

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil

½ large onion, chopped

8 oz. mushrooms, sliced

5 cups chicken broth

1 (6 oz.) package long grain and wild rice blend (Uncle Ben’s)

2 cups diced cooked turkey

Directions:

Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and mushrooms; cook 5 minutes, until onion is translucent. Add broth; stir in rice mix, seasoning packet, and turkey; bring to a boil.

Reduce heat; cover and simmer 10 minutes until rice is tender.

Makes 6 servings.

This version is way simplified from the original. The original called for sherry, heavy cream, egg yolk, a handful of herbs, and soy sauce. I thought the seasoning packet that came with the rice blend was sufficient seasoning, so I skipped the other herbs, and I wanted a brothy soup, so I skipped the ingredients that made it creamy.

I loved this soup. The only complaint I had is that the Uncle Ben's rice mix had very little wild rice in it. I would have liked a lot more. So next time I might make my own blend of long grain white and wild rice. I will have to adjust the cooking time, however, because I'm pretty sure the Uncle Ben's rice is parboiled because it only took 10 minutes to cook. And I think wild rice usually takes longer than that. But the rest of the soup prep is so simple and fast that I wouldn't mind adding to the cooking time to get more wild rice in there.

Awesome use for leftover Thanksgiving turkey!

Read More

Slow Cooker Pork and Edamame Soup

This is a soup I made on New Year's Day. I was trying to keep with the tradition of eating pork and cabbage on New Year's Day, so I made this pork soup and then a cabbage side dish. I got this recipe from Food.com, but it's originally from Better Homes and Gardens.

Slow Cooker Pork and Edamame Soup

Ingredients:

2 lbs. boneless pork, cut into ½” cubes

1 tbsp oil

3 cups chicken broth

1 (12 oz.) package frozen edamame, thawed and shelled

1 (8 oz.) can sliced water chestnuts, drained

2 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp hoisin sauce

2 tsp fresh ginger, grated

½ tsp crushed red pepper flakes

6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1 (3 oz.) package ramen noodles, broken (discard seasoning packet)

Directions:

Place pork in slow cooker. Stir in chicken broth, edamame, water chestnuts, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, ginger, crushed red pepper, and garlic. Cover and cook on low for 7 to 8 hours or on high for 3½ to 4 hours. Skim off fat. Stir in ramen noodles. Cover and cook for 5 minutes more.

Makes 6 servings.

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size: 1 (440 g)

Servings Per Recipe: 6

Calories 613.4

Fat 40.1g

Saturated Fat 12.6g

Cholesterol 107.5mg

Sodium 1103.4mg

Carbohydrate 24.9g

Fiber 4.0g

Protein 38.3g

This was really good. I liked it a lot, but Jim went so far as to say that it is the best soup he's ever had. Wow!

I only changed a few things. It originally called for the pork to be in 1" cubes, but I thought the chunks were a little big, so next time I will do ½” cubes. Also, it called for browning the pork in a skillet before adding to the slow cooker. I didn't really think that was necessary, so I tried it without and it was just fine. Maybe not as pretty, but I don't care.

Other than that, I didn't really change much. It called for a red bell pepper, which I left out because of personal preference, but if you like peppers you should add it because it will brighten the color a bit.

I'm sure I'll be making this soup many more times in the future, based on Jim's review!

Read More

Slow Cooker Apple Cheddar Turkey Meatballs

This is a recipe I got from my favorite slow cooker food blog, A Year of Slow Cooking. These are hands-down the best meatballs I have ever made, possibly ever had. I never would have thought making meatballs in the slow cooker would work, but it does!

Slow Cooker Apple Cheddar Turkey Meatballs

Ingredients:

1 lb. extra-lean ground turkey

1 large egg

1 tsp salt

½ shallot or ¼ onion, finely minced

1 apple, peeled, cored, and grated

½ cup sharp cheddar cheese, shredded

Directions:

In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients. Make slightly smaller than golf ball sized meatballs and place into the slow cooker. They will fit in one layer in a large 6 quart cooker, but if your cooker is smaller, you can stagger-stack them and they won’t stick together.

Cook on high for 4 to 6 hours. While they cook, juice will collect on the bottom of the crock and the meatlballs will get covered with white slimy stuff. Don’t be alarmed—they will continue to cook and will brown.

Makes 24 meatballs.

It may sound like a weird mix of flavors, but you don't actually taste the apple. It just kind of disintegrates and provides moisture to the meatballs. And even though you can't see the cheese (it doesn't ooze out or anything), they have a distinctive cheddar flavor running through them. So good.

The recipe calls for extra-lean ground turkey. I'm not exactly sure what that means. My turkey was 93% lean. Between the middle and end of cooking, I noticed the meatballs were sitting in a lot of liquid. I got out the turkey baster and removed it. It didn't look like grease; I think most of it was liquid that came out of the apple and the shallot. They weren't the slightest bit greasy when I took them out. You will need to remove any liquid like that if you want the meatballs to brown properly.

Here's what I changed from the original recipe. It called for 1½ lbs. of ground turkey, but I have all of mine split up into 1 lb. packages. And I usually figure that 1 lb. of ground meat is sufficient for 4 servings. It called for 1 tsp of black pepper, but that seemed like way too much and I don't really like it anyway so I just left it out. It called for 1 tsp of onion powder, but I had some shallots that needed to be used up, so I threw one of those in there. I really liked it that way. It also called for dried cranberries, but I thought that would be a little too much going on. And I didn't think that Lena would like them (she picks them out of my cranberry muffins).

I put in the recipe to cook on high. You can cook them on low, but I would guess that they wouldn't brown as nicely on low. I really liked how they got brown around the edges.

I served these with stuffing and green beans.

The raw meatballs getting all nestled in and cozy!

Read More

Peppermint Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is a variation of a Betty Crocker recipe that I saw in a magazine. They were creme de menthe flavored with green food coloring, but I thought it would be fun to do peppermint flavor with red food coloring for our holiday open house this year.

Peppermint and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

1 pouch sugar cookie mix

6 tbsp butter

½ tsp peppermint extract

1 egg

1 cup chocolate chips

6 to 8 drops red food coloring

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°.

Mix cookie mix, butter, extract, egg, and chocolate chips in a bowl until soft dough forms. Drizzle the food coloring over the dough and lightly stir to swirl it in; don’t mix it in completely.

Using a small cookie scoop or teaspoon, drop dough 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes. Cool 3 minutes; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack.

Makes 3 dozen cookies.

I am going to use less butter next time. It called for ½ cup and that's what I used this time, but reviewers on the Betty Crocker website suggested using less will reduce the amount that they spread out. They did spread out a lot. And I have a tendency to make them too big, so the less they spread, the better! So I will try using less butter next time.

But other than that, they turned out great. Be careful not to mix the food coloring in too much. Light stirring will give you a red swirl while too much mixing will give you a general pink. The swirl is what I was going for.

Read More

Blue Cheese and Bacon Dip

This is a dish I made for a Thanksgiving appetizer and for our St. Nicholas Day Open House this year. It's from The All-New Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook.

Blue Cheese and Bacon Dip

Ingredients:

8 bacon slices

2 cloves garlic, minced or grated

2 (8 oz.) packages cream cheese, softened

¼ cup milk

4 oz. blue cheese, crumbled

¼ cup fresh chives, chopped

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°.

Cook bacon until crisp. Drain, reserving 1 tbsp drippings in skillet. Chop bacon and set aside. Add garlic to skillet and saute for about a minute.

Beat cream cheese until smooth. Add milk, garlic, bleu cheese, chives, and bacon. Spoon mixture into a lightly greased 1 quart dish.

Bake for 15 minutes or until bubbly. Serve with crackers.

Makes 4 cups.

If you like blue cheese and bacon, you can't go wrong with this dish. Everybody seemed to like it. The picture above is a double recipe; that's a 2 quart dish. (I forgot to take the picture before everybody dug into it. Whoops!)

The original recipe called for walnuts, but I don't really like them so I left them out. It also called for putting only half of the bacon in the dip and topping it with the rest. But it seemed easier to just put all of it in.

On Thanksgiving I served it with Toasteds crackers and at our open house I served it with Club crackers. I just use whatever is on sale that week!

I think it's quite festive looking with the red bacon and green chives!

Read More

Breakfast Kebabs

This is a recipe I got from the magazine, Cuisine at Home. Pieces of bacon threaded around chunks of smoky links on a skewer and basted with a flavorful glaze. Roasted in the oven until brown and delicious.

Breakfast Kebabs

Ingredients:

½ cup barbecue sauce

½ cup apple jelly

¼ tsp cinnamon

12 pork smoky links (10 oz. pkg)

8 strips thick-sliced bacon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°. Line a baking sheet with foil and top with a cooling rack. Coat rack with nonstick spray.

Combine barbecue sauce, jelly, and cinnamon in a small saucepan over low heat until jelly melts and sauce is warm.

Thread sausage pieces and bacon onto 8 10” long skewers. Brush kebabs with sauce and transfer to the prepared baking sheet.

Roast kebabs until both meats are browned and cooked through, 40-45 minutes. Baste and turn the skewers every 10 minutes to ensure even cooking. Remove from the oven and serve immediately.

Makes 4 servings, 2 skewers each.

Mmmm, so tasty! The barbecue sauce I used was really vinegary, so I thought that it wouldn't taste quite right on these, but it didn't end up tasting vinegary at all. In fact, they really don't taste like they have barbecue sauce on them at all. They just have a nice sweet, slightly tangy flavor.

You can use any kind of meat you like. The original recipe called for sausage and ham, but I used the ham for something else and I had more sausage than what the recipe called for, so I just simplified things and used all sausage. I think ham would be good too.

This is a nice spin on the usual bacon or sausage to go along with eggs for breakfast. I served them with scrambled eggs and waffles. My mom had a good idea: she suggested using smaller skewers and putting just a bite or two on each one for a party appetizer. I might have to try that at my holiday open house next year (I already have the menu set for this year's).

Read More

Maple Mustard Baked Chicken

This is a recipe I got from Eating Well Magazine.

Maple Mustard Baked Chicken

Ingredients:

1½ tbsp brown or Dijon mustard

1 tbsp pure maple syrup

1 tbsp canola oil, divided

1½ tsp finely chopped fresh thyme, or ½ tsp dried

¼ tsp salt

4 chicken breasts

¾ cup fresh breadcrumbs

Directions:

Whisk mustard, maple syrup, ½ tbsp oil, thyme, and salt in a large bowl. Add chicken and turn to coat evenly. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes and up to 6 hours.

Preheat oven to 400°. Set a wire rack on a large baking sheet.

Combine breadcrumbs and the remaining ½ tbsp oil on a plate. Dredge each chicken piece in the breadcrumbs and arrange on the wire rack leaving at least 1” between pieces.

Bake until golden brown and an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the meat registers 165°, about 35 to 40 minutes.

Makes 4 servings.

This was good, but nothing special. It's a nice twist on the usual honey mustard marinade. The chicken was very moist and tender (I marinated it for 4 hours), and the coating gets nice and crunchy. It was an easy dish to throw together; good for a busy weeknight.

Read More

Slow Cooker Mongolian Beef

This is another recipe I tried from The Everything Healthy Slow Cooker Cookbook. (Check out the author's blog here.)

Slow Cooker Mongolian Beef

Ingredients:

3 cloves garlic, grated

1” fresh ginger, peeled and grated

1 tsp onion powder

½ cup water

½ cup low sodium soy sauce

2 tbsp vinegar

2 tbsp hoisin sauce

1 tbsp five spice powder

1 tbsp cornstarch

½ - 1 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp sesame oil

3 lbs. beef chuck or bottom roast, extra fat removed

Directions:

Combine all ingredients except for beef. Place into slow cooker. Add beef and turn to coat in the sauce. Cover and cook on low for 5 hours or until the meat is thoroughly cooked through and tender.

Remove the roast to a cutting board. Slice thinly and return to the slow cooker. Cook for an additional 20 minutes on high. Stir the meat and the sauce before serving. Serve over cooked white rice.

Makes 6 servings.

Nutrition Information Per Serving

Calories: 490

Fat: 27g

Sodium: 930mg

Carbohydrates: 10g

Fiber: 0g

Protein: 49g

While the fat and sodium look high, it's much better compared to take-out Mongolian Beef. And it makes your house smell really good as it cooks!

The original recipe called for bottom roast, but I couldn't find anything in my freezer called that. I had lots of things called chuck roast, so I used that. I have no idea what the difference is. I am pretty clueless when it comes to the different cuts of beef. I would say, just use whatever you can find!

It calls for 1 tsp of red pepper flakes, and I think it was a tad spicy for us. If you like things spicy, it will be just fine for you. But I think next time I make it, I will only use ½ tsp.

I steamed some broccoli in the microwave, tossed it in the sauce, and sprinkled some sesame seeds over it to go along with the beef. It was a super easy meal.

Again, I highly recommend this cookbook. It's full of great recipes like this one.

Read More