Fiesta Chicken Enchiladas

This week's Table Time Tuesday is a recipe I tried back in July when I got my Kraft Food & Family magazine. I used leftover grilled chicken for my filling. We also put sour cream atop our enchiladas and I really liked it that way. Anyway, here's the recipe:

What you need:

1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
4 cooked small chicken breasts (about 1 lb.), shredded
1 cup salsa, divided
4 oz. (1/2 of 8-oz. pkg.) cream cheese, cubed
1 Tbsp. chopped cilantro
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 cup shredded cheddar & monterey jack Cheese, divided
8 flour tortillas

How you do it:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Heat large skillet spayed with cooking spray on medium heat. Add onions and garlic; cook and stir 2 min. Add chicken, 1/4 cup of the salsa, cream cheese, cilantro and cumin; mix well. Cook until heated through, stirring occasionally. Add 1/2 cup of the shredded cheese; mix well. Spoon about 1/3 cup of the chicken mixture onto each tortilla; roll up. Place, seam-side down, in 13x9-inch baking dish sprayed with cooking spray; top with remaining 3/4 cup salsa and remaining 1/2 cup shredded cheese. Bake 15 to 20 min. or until heated through.

Pasta!

Today is Table Time Tuesday! I know, I know, I haven’t posted a new recipe is two weeks. That’s why this post is just called: Pasta!

A few years ago, my friend’s husband taught me how to make two different pasta sauces. I’ve already shared one (I call it: Chunky Red Pasta Sauce), and now I’ll share the other one (of course with my modifications), plus one of my own creation.

This first one is an alfredo sauce (or as my family calls it, “white sauce”). If you like alfredo sauce, this is the sauce for you! Well, that is if you want to gain a few pounds. It is rich, creamy, and THE BEST homemade alfredo sauce I’ve ever had, if I do say so myself. We prefer it over the bottled sauces you can buy in the store. And, when I’m in a time crunch, or I just can’t think of anything to make for dinner, I make this and it’s on the table in at least 20 minutes, sometimes sooner.
ALFREDO SAUCE

What you need:

¼ cup butter
1 clove garlic, minced or chopped finely
¼ cup flour
½ tsp. salt
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded (fresh is best)
½ tsp. basil
Dash of pepper
¼ cup frozen peas, optional
¼ to ½ cup water from pasta, optional
Pasta (my favorites are linguine, mini penne, or mini farfalle)

How you do it:

Saute garlic in butter in saucepan until butter is melted and garlic is soft. Whisk in flour and salt, and cook until bubbly. Continue stirring the roux for 3-5 minutes. Slowly, pour in whipping cream, stir until thickened, then add Parmesan cheese. When cheese is melted, add basil, pepper and peas. If sauce is too thick, add water from the cooking pasta (be sure to reserve the water if your pasta is finished cooking before your sauce is ready). Serve over pasta.

Tips:
· Always, always, always taste this sauce before you serve it. My measurements aren’t exact because I usually make it according to taste, so you may want more parm or more salt.

· When you cook pasta, do not rinse it off after you have drained it. Rinsing it releases the starches and makes the pasta really sticky. All you need to do is drain it, then pour about 1-2 tsp. of olive oil (depending on how much pasta you cook) over the pasta and toss it. That keeps the pasta from sticking together.

· You can keep this sauce in the fridge for about a week. I haven’t tried freezing it yet; but, I think it will separate even more than it does when it is in the fridge. The trick to avoid major separation is to scrap reheating in the microwave and just heat it up on the stove on a low heat. Slowly reheating the sauce will prevent the fat from separating the sauce. (I do reheat it in the microwave sometimes and it seems to be fine … I think that’s because there is flour in this recipe as opposed to other recipes that just combine butter, cream and Parmesan cheese.)

· If you don’t have, or use, a garlic press (I prefer not to), here’s how to get that pesky peel off the garlic clove (which, btw, is just one little bulb off the head of garlic you’ll end up getting in the produce section at the store): Place the clove on the cutting board on one of its flat sides. Take a wide-bladed knife and place it atop the clove. Hit the knife with the heel of your hand really hard, and push down on the clove. This should smash the clove a little bit … and that separates the peel from the clove. The peel should come right off, then you can chop up the clove (fair warning: garlic is sticky when it’s chopped).

· Try adding chicken, or pork to this … it’s really yummy.

---

Now, onto sauce number two! This is one that I kind of made up. I’d gone to an Italian restaurant in our little Podunk town and the dinner I got was ravioli in a tomato-cream sauce. If you’ve not had tomato-cream sauce, you are totally missing out! It is so yummy! Anyway, when I asked what the sauce was like before ordering, the waitress told me that it was basically alfredo sauce mixed with marinara. So, I did some experimenting at home and came up with my Tomato-Cream Sauce (or “orange sauce” as my family calls it). My only problem is that I haven’t been able to scale down this recipe. I’ve tried other recipes for tomato-cream sauce, and I keep coming back to this one; so maybe one day I’ll figure out how to make a smaller amount.

TOMATO-CREAM SAUCE

What you need:

1 lb. ground beef
1/2 small onion, chopped; or
½ tsp. onion powder
½ tsp. garlic salt/powder (I use granulated garlic)
1 (12 oz.) can tomato paste
1 can tomato soup
½ can water
½ tsp. oregano, ground
½ tsp. salt
Dash of pepper
½ cup butter
2 garlic cloves, minced or chopped finely
½ cup flour
1 tsp. salt
4 cups heavy whipping cream
¾ cup Parmesan cheese, shredded
1 tsp. dried basil leaves
½ cup water from pasta

How you do it:

Brown ground beef and onion until beef is no longer pink and onion is soft. Sprinkle ground beef with garlic salt (and onion powder if you don’t use an onion). Add tomato paste, soup, ½ can water, salt and pepper. Simmer uncovered for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add oregano and simmer 10 more minutes. While sauce simmers, melt butter in separate saucepan. Add garlic and cook for 5 minutes. Whisk in flour and salt and cook until bubbly, stirring constantly. Cook for 3-5 minutes. Pour in cream and whisk together. Stir until thickened. Add cheese and basil. Sauce will be very thick. Add water from cooked pasta. Combine white sauce and red sauce according to taste. Serve over pasta.

Freezer Meals

My friend asked about freezer meals, which reminded me that I am planning on freezing a lot of the dinners that I'll be making in the next few weeks. So, I'm going to try to feature those as often as possible.

In the meantime, I've updated my Recipes entry with all of my old recipes (thanks goes to my little sis for saving my old blog: it made bringing back the old recipes a lot more efficient). I've also added astericks to the recipes that I've frozen before.


Here are some tips I learned for the recipes I've listed that I've frozen:

1. Let the dinner/bread thaw completely before warming it up. You can do this in the microwave, otherwise let it thaw completely in the fridge (which may mean taking it out of the freezer the morning of the day before you are going to eat it for dinner, make sense?).


2. When freezing a casserole, line the casserole dish with foil. After the casserole has cooled partly, place the dish in the freezer. When the casserole is frozen, lift the casserole out of the dish and wrap the casserole in foil. Then, place it in your freezer.


3. Soups can be frozen in freezer bags, or in rigid containers. These are great to have in the freezer because they are easily thawed and cooked in the microwave. (Tip: My Chunky Red Pasta Sauce can be dumped right into a crock-pot and cooked all day.)


4. Always, always, always label with the type of meal and the date! Never eat anything that has been in the freezer for more than three months.


5. When using a frozen cake, frost it before it thaws ... it cuts down on the amount of crumbs you get in your frosting.


6. If you use frozen chicken breasts, or frozen meatballs, just dump the meat into a freezer bag and pour the sauce on top.


7. If you can, flatten out what you put in freezer bags and place it on a shelf in the freezer. Once frozen, you can tilt them up on their sides to save space.


8. Do not freeze potatoes! You can freeze mashed potatoes okay, but any other kind of potatoes gets a little yucky. I wish I knew how they make frozen hashbrowns and such to turn out okay. Everything else I've tried doesn't. Oh, you can freeze twice-baked potatoes since you take the pulp of the potatoes out and mash it before you put it back in the skin.

Those are all the tips I can think of right now. If you have any tips, or if any I've put up here don't work for you, please let me know in the comments! And, if you have any freezer meal recipes you've tried, I want them!!! Send them my way! I would love this to be a place for idea sharing!

Also, this is one of my favorite websites for freezer meal recipes:

30 Day Gourmet

Fudge Sauce

So, on Sunday it was our turn to feed our missionaries. And, for some reason I hate having them come for dinner and not serving them some form of a dessert. The best part about dessert on this particular Sunday was that I had a craving ... and was able to follow through, even if I had to make a substitution. I was craving my grandmother's fudge sauce on ice cream.

Occasionally when we'd visit with my grandmother she would give us ice cream (in some glass dishes that I inherited from her when she moved), then drizzle on her homemade fudge sauce. It seriously is the best fudge sauce, ever! (It even makes great chocolate milk!)

GRANDMA’S FUDGE SAUCE

What you need:

1 large can evaporated milk
2 cups sugar
3 squares unsweetened chocolate
1 tsp. vanilla


How to do it:

Bring to boil over medium heat milk, sugar, and chocolate. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring vigorously. Remove from heat; add vanilla. Beat with rotary type beater for 1 minute. Add additional evaporated milk for a thinner sauce.


Okay, so if you look closely at this picture, you will notice some cocoa powder on the range next to the saucepan. That is my substitute. When I opened my box of unsweetened chocolate squares I only had one square. So, I substituted with 3 Tbsp. cocoa powder and 1 Tbsp. butter (for each square I needed, so a total of 6 Tbsp. cocoa and 2 Tbsp. butter because I needed 2 squares). Trust me, the sauce tastes much better if you don’t have to substitute. Not that it tasted badly, there’s just a distinct flavor that was only an aftertaste, rather than tasting it the whole time.



Now this picture is just to show you that you can’t use a small saucepan very well. My mistake. I couldn’t stir the sauce very vigorously because it was threatening to spill over. So, I just cooked it a little longer because I like my sauce thicker rather than thin.


Tip: Fudge sauce is basically a syrup, and to make your syrup/sauce thicker you need to cook it until it reaches between 230-235° on a candy thermometer. At least, this is what helped me to cook my mom’s syrup to the right consistency.


And, here’s how much fudge sauce you’ll get in the end! Please excuse the attractive vacuumer in the background … our floor was pretty crumbly. (Side note: isn’t it awesome that my hubby will vacuum for me so I can have fun cooking things like fudge sauce without having to walk all over the crumbs on the floor?)

I don't think everyone who had this on their ice cream appreciated it as much as I did ... but, I will always remember times in my grandma's kitchen eating ice cream with her sauce ... YUM!

Cheesy Chicken Noodle Soup

Okay, so I know I should probably wait until next Tuesday to post this recipe, but we had this tonight for dinner and it was so good I just couldn't wait to pass it along! You know when a recipe is good when your husband takes one bite and says, "Ooh, this is good." Anyway, enjoy!

CHEESY CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP

What you need:
4 chicken breasts
2 celery stalks, sliced
1 onion, chopped
1 lb. carrots, sliced
2 cans cream of chicken soup
8-10 oz. Velveeta, cubed
16 oz. frozen peas
1 (12 oz.) bag Reemes frozen egg noodles

(Optional: 1-2 cans chicken broth)

How you do it:
Cook chicken in boiling water for 30 minutes. Remove chicken and strain cooking water, replacing the water in the pot. Add celery, onion, and carrots to pot. Let cook until tender. Add cut-up chicken, cream of chicken soup, egg noodles and Velveeta. Let simmer until Velveeta is melted. Throw in the peas before serving.

What I did differently than above:
I used 2 cans chicken broth instead of the chicken water. I also used probably 13 ounces of Velveeta, and instead of the frozen egg noodles I used some mini fusili. I cooked the fusili separate from the soup, then added it later ... this made the soup thinner and more like a soup. (The first time I had this soup it was at a soup potluck and it was pretty creamy, almost stew-like.)

White Chili

I started a tradition a few years ago: chili for dinner on Halloween night. The first couple of times I did this, I tried two different recipes and we weren’t really keen on either. Then, I had this White Chili at my friend’s house during a card exchange. So, I got the recipe from my friend, and the last couple of years this is what we’ve had for our traditional Halloween Chili Dinner. It’s super yummy … you just have to try it.

WHITE CHILI

What you need:

2 lbs. chicken, cooked and cut into bite-sized pieces
1 onion, diced
1 lb. Velveeta, cubed
½ lb. Monterey Jack cheese, cubed
1 can white corn, or 1 cup frozen corn
1-3 cans tomatoes with green chilies, drained really well*
2 cans white beans (great northern)
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 can chicken broth

*This is what makes it spicy; the more cans you use, the spicier it will be.

How you do it:

Combine all ingredients. Let simmer until warmed through. Serve with tortilla chips.

Semi-Step by Step:

I’ve combined my steps. The following are in the pot: chicken, onion, Velveeta, Monterey Jack cheese, and frozen corn.

Now I’ve added: 1 can petite diced tomatoes, 1 can diced green chilies (this is how I control the spiciness), 2 cans great northern beans, and 2 cans cream of chicken soup.

Note: The first time I made this I did not drain my tomatoes and the chili turned out a very orange color (not very aesthetically pleasing … totally made me lose my appetite). So, since then, I get out my strainer and get rid of as much liquid as possible (both the tomatoes and the chilies). Seriously, it makes a difference.

Then, I poured in the chicken broth and stirred it together.

I let it simmer for a few hours, then I couldn’t wait for the trick-or-treaters to come home before I dug in. My favorite chips with this are the scoop-like tortilla chips. My friend, who gave me the recipe, served this with Fritos.

Chicken Cordon Bleu

(*Side note: I apologize for the time stamp in all of the pictures ... I still haven't figured out how to get that to go away!)

I first had this shortly after my husband and I were married and my sister-in-law served it to us. I had no idea how to make it at home until then. My sister-in-law took her chicken breasts to the butcher at the grocery store and had him tenderize the chicken breasts for her. But, we liked it so much, we invested in a meat mallet so we could do it ourselves. (Yes, WE; my husband has made this before.) It's actually a lot of fun to make when I'm stressed out or upset about something! Hee hee.

What you need:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
4 deli-thin ham slices
4 deli-thin Swiss cheese slices
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1 1/2 cups cornflake crumbs (more or less)
toothpicks
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese
rice

How you do it:

Tenderize the chicken breasts. Place one slice ham and one slice Swiss cheese in middle of chicken breast. Roll up and secure with toothpicks. Beat egg and milk together; dip chicken in egg mixture, then roll in cornflake crumbs. Bake at 350° for 45 minutes, or until chicken is done. Meanwhile, make rice, and heat together soup and cream cheese. Serve chicken and rice with gravy.

Step By Step:

First, start by placing your chicken breast on a piece of parchment paper. Make sure the parchment paper is large enough to fold over the chicken breasts. I have used waxed paper in the past, but it gets torn apart by the mallet much faster than the parchment paper, so I can usually only tenderize two chicken breasts for each sheet of wax paper, but on parchment paper I can get through four or so.

Fold over the parchment paper, hand the meat tenderizer mallet to your 8yo and let her go at it! Or, if you prefer (or don't have an 8yo to do it for you), start pounding away. Make sure you tenderize the thickest part of the chicken the most, and don't hit it too much in the super thin areas because you'll break apart the meat.

Once you've tenderized all your chicken breasts, place a thin slice of ham in the middle of each chicken breast.

Place a deli-thin slice of Swiss cheese atop the ham. And, I thought we took pictures of the next step, but I guess we didn't. I start by folding in the sides of the chicken, and the bottom. Then, you roll it up and secure it with two to three toothpicks. Set it aside.

Here's a trick to really good coating. Beat one egg in a bowl. Add 1/2 cup evaporated milk, and mix together really well. Set it aside. This mixture helps the crumbs to stick to the chicken better than just milk, melted butter, or a beaten egg.

Pour some cornflake crumbs in a dish. You can use bread crumbs if you prefer. I like the crunchiness of the cornflake crumbs. I used to find a box of cornflake crumbs at the grocery store when we lived in Utah, so for the last five years I've been crushing my own crumbs (which is fine, except the flakes are either not finely crushed enough, or they are too powdery). However, the last time I was at the store, I saw a box of cornflake crumbs in the baking aisle ... if you can't find them, be sure to check the bottom shelf (seems like all the goodies are down there).

Take your rolled up chicken and dip it into the egg-milk mixture.

Roll the chicken in the cornflake crumbs. This can get a little messy. I usually use my right hand for the dipping, and my left hand for the rolling. And, after I place the chicken in the pie dish (with my right hand), I roll it slightly on its side, then take a spoon (in my left hand) and scoop some crumbs on the top of the chicken, then I roll it with my left hand and pick it up to press the ends in the crumbs.

Place the chicken in a 9x13 baking dish and bake at 350° for 45 minutes, or until chicken is thoroughly cooked.

*Tip: I always use a foil-lined baking dish. Everyone has their own tricks to line the dish, but I've found this most effective: rinse the dish with water and semi-dry it before lining it with foil. The wetness left in the dish (not too much) will make the foil stick to the dish instead of moving around every time you place a chicken in there.

I like to serve my chicken cordon bleu with rice and a gravy. The gravy is so basic and yummy: one can cream of chicken soup, and one (8 oz.) package of cream cheese. Heat it up and pour it over the chicken and rice.

*Tip: It's easiest if you remove the toothpicks before you pour on the gravy or cut the chicken. Also, if you use colored toothpicks (like I did), your chicken will be slightly colored where the toothpicks were. Don't worry, it's not bad chicken, just food coloring!

Holiday Recipe #1: Mummy Dogs

Occasionally, I try to make the holidays a little bit more fun for my children by using some holiday recipes. Just thought I'd post some of my favorites here, in case any of you want to try them out!

Today all of my children stayed home from school because we are all sick. So, since my girls were eating lunch with us, I decided to make one of our favorite Halloween lunches: Mummy Dogs.

So simple, and so entertaining.

What you need:

1 can crescent rolls
8 hot dogs
pizza cutter
mustard & ketchup

How to do it:

Press the crescent seams together to form two long rectangles. Using a pizza cutter, cut each of the rectangles into four strips, cutting from one short side to the other (the length of the rectangle). Take a hot dog and starting on one end of a dough strip, roll the hot dog in the dough making sure to not overlap the dough (except at the bottom, which you'll pinch together to seal the end of the mummy). Bake at 350° for 15-18 minutes. Using a toothpick, make dots for eyes out of mustard or ketchup.

My Boschy Adventures: Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins

Okay, so I've been using my Boschy to make a lot of stuff. The most I've done is wheat bread ... I'm determined to find a good wheat bread recipe. But, I've also made white bread, rolls, pretzels (twice), and most recently Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread (Muffins).

I posted this recipe on my old blog, but I haven't been able to import all my old recipes here. So, I'm posting it again! I LOVE these muffins! I like to make them as mini muffins because they are perfect size for a snack (and less messy than cutting the bread). This recipe makes almost 100 mini muffins, about 50 regular-sized muffins, 8 mini bread loaves, or 3 regular-sized bread loaves. You'll have to adjust the baking time according to which pan you use. I don't usually make this recipe into regular-sized muffins, but I will tell you that I bake the mini muffins for 18 minutes each batch (I only have one 24-cup pan), and the mini loaves for about 45 minutes. Just about every time a friend of mine watches my children for me, I take a bag of these muffins for a snack (and a thank you). And, I don't think I've ever had a friend not ask for the recipe. So, I thought I'd spare all of you the chore of watching my children and just give you the recipe!

CHOCOLATE CHIP PUMPKIN BREAD

3 cups sugar

1 (15-oz.) can pumpkin puree

1 cup veggie oil

2/3 cup water

4 eggs

3 1/2 cups flour

1 Tbsp. cinnamon

1 Tbsp. nutmeg

2 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped walnuts, optional

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour three 1 lb. size coffee cans, or three 9x5-inch loaf pans. In a large bowl combine sugar, pumpkin, oil, water and eggs. Beat until smooth. Blend in dry ingredients, Fold in chips and nuts. Pour into cans/pans. Bake for 1 hour, or until an inserted knife comes out clean. Cool on wire racks before removing from cans/pans. (I actually immediately dump mine out and let them cool on the rack when I make mini muffins because I need the pan again.)

Zuppa Toscana Soup

Our family went to a friend's soup pot luck on Saturday night. I wasn't in the mood to make any of my regular soup recipes. That's usually how I work ... either I get a recipe suggested from a friend, or I try out a new recipe on a bunch of people (just in case we don't like it so we won't have to keep a ton of leftovers in the fridge that we won't end up eating).

Anyway, for some reason I thought it would be interesting to see if I could find a recipe to replicate the Zuppa Toscana soup served at Olive Garden. So, I tried this recipe; and it turned out pretty similar and very yummy. (In fact, one of the guys there asked if I was trying to win a prize [we'd just won "most original chili" at a chili cook-off].) This is definitely worth trying if you like that spicy sausage and potato soup.

Zuppa Toscana

1 lb. ground spicy Italian sausage, crumbled

1/2 lb. smoked bacon (6 slices), chopped

1 qt. water

2 (14.5 oz.) cans chicken broth (about 3 2/3 cups)

2 large russet potatoes, scrubbed clean and sliced 1/4-inch thick

2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed or minced

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cups chopped kale or swiss chard (I couldn't find either at the grocery store, so I used spinach)

1 cup heavy whipping cream (I added probably about another 1/2 cup)

salt & pepper, to taste

In a skillet over medium-high heat, brown sausage, breaking into small pieces as you fry it; drain, set aside. In the same skillet over medium-high heat, brown bacon; drain, set aside. Place water, broth, potatoes, garlic, and onion in a pot; simmer over medium heat until potatoes are tender. Add sausage and bacon to pot; simmer for 10 minutes. Add kale and cream to pot; season with salt and pepper; heat through.

Sweet Mingle Mix

I feel very blessed to be in a school district that fits snack time into the school schedule. The catch is that we have to send our children with their snacks. I always try to have something salty with protein of some form for Una's snack because that combo seems to help her with her hypoglycemia. I would LOVE to send just plain regular chex mix because of the salty nuts and lack of sugar, but she HATES that stuff. In fact, this is the only snack mix I've been able to make (find) that Una will eat and thoroughly enjoy. And, although it is rather sweet, it's not something she'll get everyday. (Thanks, Jessica, for sharing this with me!)

SWEET MINGLE MIX
1 1/2 cups pretzel sticks (broken in half)
2 cups Chex
2 cups Cheerios (not honey-nut)
1 cup peanuts
1 cup M&Ms
10 oz. vanilla candy coating

Line driper pan with wax paper. Combine all ingredients, except candy coating in a large bowl. Melt candy coating in microwave. Pour over dry ingredients. Pour mixture into dripper pan to cool. When cool, break apart. Store in covered container.

So, let's make this together!

I don't use the same ingredients; but, I'm sure you can mix it up according to what your family likes best.

Start off with the pretzels.

Then add the Kix and Crispix.

Now add the Kissables and peanuts (which are not shown).

Don't forget to let the little ones taste it first!

Pour Vanilla Candy Coating over everything. (My microwave died on me, so I had to use my double boiler.

Stir everything until it is well coated. Una and Dos were my helpers.

Maybe they'll grow up to be hand models?

Dump it all out onto wax paper to cool. Then break it apart and store in ziploc baggies. And, if you're like me, you'll place those baggies in the freezer. That way, when you pull them out they can go into lunch boxes and not get all melted and messy (and neither will the hands that dig into the baggies).

Easy Zesty Chicken Pot Pie

This week there are two TTT posts because I skipped out last week. This one is dedicated to a super easy chicken pot pie. Papa LOVES this pot pie for the flavor; I LOVE this pot pie for the simplicity.

ZESTY CHICKEN POT PIE

12 oz (1 1/2 [8 oz.] pkgs.) cream cheese, cubed

1/2 cup chicken broth

3 cups choped cooked chicken

2 pkgs. (10 oz.) frozen mixed veggies, thawed*

1 pkg. Italian salad dressing mix

1 refrigerated ready-to-use pie crust**

Preheat oven to 425°. Place cream cheese in large saucepan. Add broth; cook on low heat until cream cheese is completely melted, stirring frequently with wire whisk. Stir in chicken, veggies & salad dressing mix. Spoon into 9-inch pie plate. Cover wtih pie crust; seal and flute edges. Cut several slits in crust to allow steam to escape. Place pie plate on baking sheet. Bake 20-25 minuets or until golden brown.

Serves: 8

*I use a peas & carrots mixture for the veggies.

**The first time I made this, I used two pie crusts, placing one in the pie dish before pouring in the filling. I actually prefer it this way.

Una and I had fun using my mini cookie cutters (I originally got these to cut out marzipan shapes for a birthday cake) to make a design in the pie crust instead of just cutting slits.

I also skipped reading the part about placing the pie dish on a cookie sheet .... big OOPS! This is a must, unless you want to clean your oven at least three times over the next few days. (That's why my cookie sheet looks so clean ... I realized when I started smelling burned filling that I needed the cookie sheet and slid it under the pie a little bit too late.)

Farmhouse Chicken

This week I'm posting one of my absolutely favorite dinners. Luckily for me, my sister was here while I made it, so she took pictures for you. (That's why they are so much better than the pictures I take!) She also said that she prefers step-by-step instructional photos, so that's what she took!

Originally I got this recipe from the Kraft Food & Family magazine a couple of years ago. Since then, I've altered it to my liking. (Actually, the original is much more health conscience: using things that say "reduced-fat," "light," "fat-free," and "reduced sodium." We're all about getting extra fat in our house [and flavor], so I just steer clear of such statements. But, to each their own; make it the way you want to make it!) So, I'll post the original recipe at the bottom in case you want that. Otherwise, this is the way I make it:

Start by heating about 1/3 cup Italian Salad Dressing in a skillet. Use more or less depending on how many chicken breasts you are using. I needed 6, so I used 1/3 cup dressing. Add your thawed chicken breasts to the heated dressing.


While your chicken in browning, start cooking some brown rice. I pour two cups brown rice into a pot, then fill the pot with water until the rice has about 1 to 1 1/2 inches of water above it. Then, I boil the water down until craters form atop the rice. It usually takes a while to get to this point. So, we'll skip to the next thing I do after I start the rice:

Peel and slice diagonally 5-6 carrots. Again, the number varies according to how much you'll need. In my case, we LOVE these carrots, so I think I used 6.

Then, cut one onion into wedges. Put both the carrots and onions in a bowl and set them aside to use once the chicken is done browning.

At this point, the chicken has probably been browning for a few minutes. Turn it over. Let the other side cook until it turns a golden brown.

Add carrots and onions.

Pour in one can chicken broth. (Because I was feeding many people, I actually used 1 1/2 cans chicken broth in my rice instead of water, then I poured the left over 1/2 can of broth in with this one can of broth.)

Cover, and let simmer for 20 minutes; or until carrots are tender.

Check your rice. Do you have craters??? I did. So, I put a cover on my rice and reduced the heat to low. (Ten minutes from this point the rice is ready. This is how I make white rice as well, except the water is only 1-inch above the rice.)

Use this time to cut up one package of cream cheese into cubes. (Again, I used one and half packages because we LOVE the gravy for this dish, and I wanted to be sure to have enough.)

When your timer goes off, or your carrots are tender, remove everything from the broth. Cover it to keep it warm.

Add the cut-up cream cheese to the broth in the skillet. Whisk it together with the broth on high heat until the cream cheese is blended in. Reduce heat to low and let simmer for 3-5 minutes or until it's thickened a little bit.



Pour cooked rice onto a platter.

Place chicken, carrots and onions atop rice.

Pour gravy over everything.

Take a good look at your very aesthetically pleasing dinner. Then, dig in and revel this yummy goodness.

FARMHOUSE CHICKEN DINNER

¼ cup flour
½ tsp. pepper
4 small bone-in chicken breast halves (1 ½ lb.), skin removed; or 4 skinless, boneless breasts
¼ cup light Italian dressing, reduced fat
2 cups Minute Brown Rice, uncooked
2 cups baby carrots
1 medium onion, cut into wedges
1 can (14.5 oz) fat-free reduced sodium chicken broth, divided
4 oz. Neufchatel cheese

Mix flour and pepper in shallow dish. Add chicken; turn to evenly coat both sides. Heat dressing in non-stick skillet and add chicken meat-side down; cook 5-6 minutes or until golden brown. Turn chicken over; add carrots, onions and 1 cup broth. Cover, and reduce heat to medium-low; simmer 20 minutes or until carrots are tender and chicken is cooked through. Meanwhile, prepare rice as directed on package; spoon onto serving platter. Use slotted spoon to remove chicken and veggies from stew; place over rice. Cover to keep warm. Add Neufchatel cheese and remaining broth to skillet; increase heat to high. Cook until cheese is melted and sauce is well blended, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer 3-5 minutes or until sauce is slightly thickened, stirring occasionally. Spoon over chicken and veggies; sprinkle with 2 Tbsp. chopped parsley.