Posts tagged ‘chicken’
Recipe of the Week – Chicken Paprikash and Dumplings
From the Chicken Entrée Collection at emealsforyou.com
Chicken and Dumplings
Our driving trip to the Eastern Shore of Delaware, then on to NJ and finishing up in Washington, DC was a success. While we left in hot weather, the weather turned cold and rainy the last few days. Coming back home after too many hours behind the wheel and too many dinners out I find myself embracing Fall and all that that entails in good, homemade cooking. We enjoyed a good plate of spaghetti last night and tonight I am making one of my favorites, Chicken Paprikash and dumplings. Good old-fashion comfort food to get us back in the homefront mode.
These dumplings are not the puffy, dry type; these are the full-bodied, stick to your ribs, I want more type. Give this recipe a try on one of those cold, rainy days I am sure are on the way.
Chicken Paprikash
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 4 |
| Category: | Chicken Entrée |
| Meal: | New Neighbors (Share-a-Meal Plans) |
| 2 | Tb | oil, olive |
| 2 | large | chicken breasts cut in half |
| 4 | medium | chicken thighs |
| 4 | medium | chicken legs |
| 1 | large | onion, yellow ,quartered |
| 1 | 15 oz can | chicken broth |
| 2 | Tb | paprika, sweet |
| 3 | Tb | flour |
| 8 | oz | sour cream |
| 3 | Tb | water |
Place oil in large pan, brown chicken, add onions and sauté for 3 minutes. Add broth to just cover chicken, sprinkle paprika on chicken. Reduce heat to simmer, cook for 20 minutes, until chicken is tender. Remove chicken to platter. Mix flour, sour cream and water in bowl, add some of the juice from the pan to temper, add to gravy to thicken. Salt to taste. Spoon over chicken and serve with dumplings.
Dumplings
Dumplings
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 4 |
| Category: | Starch/ Pasta |
| Meal: | New Neighbors (Share-a-Meal Plans) |
| 3 | cup | flour, all-purpose |
| 0.25 | tsp | salt, table |
| 0.25 | tsp | baking powder |
| 2 | large | egg |
| 4 | oz | water, hot |
Mix flour, salt, baking powder and eggs in mixer or food processor. Add just enough water to make a loose dough. Drop teaspoonfuls into salted, boiling water. Cook for 3-5 minutes. Dumplings will float. Drain and serve.
Serve with a small side salad.
Get more great Fall recipes at emealsforyou.com
Keeping It Simple – Warm Chicken Salad
From the Salad Collection at emealsforyou.com
Warm Chicken Salad
After a weekend of large meals we couldn’t decide on Sunday night’s dinner. We really didn’t feel like eating too much but knew if we skipped dinner altogether that wouldn’t work either. Maybe because we have been on a “heavy” meal trend lately; something simple and tasty seemed perfect. Fresh salad with some leftover chicken hit the spot; we did add a piece of garlic bread.
On another note a friend recently apologized for making a crock-pot meal for her family while she was at work. She thought because I cook I would not approve of crock-pot meals. I told her that the crock-pot chicken she was making would be just fine and by far better then all the additives she would be feeding her family had she purchased take-out. We advocate making good food for your family. The cooking method doesn’t matter; sitting down for a family meal is what matters.
Warm Chicken Salad
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 2 |
| Category: | Salad |
| Meal: | Other (General) |
| 4 | cup | lettuce, mixed |
| 0.5 | tsp | garlic powder |
| 0.125 | Tb | oregano, dried |
| 2 | Tb | oil, olive |
| 1 | Tb | vinegar, red wine |
| 6 | oz | chicken breast, cooked , skinless and boneless with pan juices |
| 1 | pinch | salt and pepper to taste |
Place lettuce in a bowl; add garlic powder, oregano, oil and vinegar. Toss and place in center of plate. Heat chicken and pan juices. Cut chicken into slices and place on salad. Spoon pan juices on top and serve.
More simply delicious meals and recipes at emealsforyou.com.
- Warm Chicken Salad
Recipe of the Week – Coq au Vin
From the Chicken Entrée Collection at emealsforyou.com
Coq au Vin
I have a friend who says it is too hot to cook starting about Memorial Day and finishing up sometime after Labor Day. I believe this is a carry-over from her youth when A/C wasn’t what it is today. Anyway, there are some meals that we associate with chilly fall meals and some we associate with summer. I don’t buy off on these theories. I cook and eat what I feel like regardless of the weather.
If I were sitting in a Paris bistro and found Coq au Vin on the menu it probably would be the first thing I would order; Summer, Winter, Spring or Fall. Simple to make, this is one of those meals you start and then just let it cook until you are ready to eat. The smell of the garlicy, wine sauce will spread throughout the house. Add a small tart salad and some crunchy bread with just a little wine and it’s a mini-trip to Paris. Julia Child would be so proud.
Coq au Vin
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 4 |
| Category: | Chicken Entrée |
| Meal: | Welcome Home (Celebration Meal Plans) |
| 2 | slices | bacon |
| 2 | Tb | oil, olive |
| 1 | whole | chicken, whole, cut up |
| 6 | cloves | garlic, chopped |
| 8 | oz | onions, pearl frozen |
| 8 | oz | mushrooms, white button |
| 1 | 10.5 oz can | beef consommé |
| 8 | oz | wine, dry red |
| 8 | oz | chicken broth |
| 3 | Tb | tomato paste |
| 3 | medium | bay leaves, whole dried |
| 2 | Tb | butter, salted |
| 2 | Tb | flour |
| 0.5 | tsp | salt and pepper to taste |
Cut bacon into small pieces, brown bacon in large pan, add oil. Brown chicken in pan, remove chicken, add garlic and onions, sauté for 3 minutes. Add mushrooms, chicken, consommé, wine, bay leaves, tomato paste and enough of the broth to just cover chicken. Reduce heat to simmer, cook for 25 minutes, until chicken is tender. Remove chicken to platter. Add flour to some of the juice and add to gravy to thicken, add butter. Salt and pepper to taste. Spoon over chicken and serve.
Serve with crusty bread.
More flavorful recipe ideas at emealsforyou.com.
Recipe of the Week – Brick Grilled Chicken
(From the Chicken Entrée Collection at emealsforyou.com)
Brick Grilled Chicken
Rainy, cold weather this weekend so I made a comfort meal. More like a diner meal: meatloaf, mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy and peas… and rice pudding for dessert. On Sunday we overdid the beef theme and made a rib roast in Grandmother Story’s 100 year old Dutch Oven. So we are pretty “beefed out”. Looking for something a little lighter but with all the flavor a Brick Grilled Chicken seemed like a likely candidate.
This is a really great way to make a chicken that the whole family will enjoy and be easy on you. Simply split the chicken in half; at the backbone. Remove the backbone, season and put it on the grill and plop a brick wrapped in foil on top. Crispy, juicy and fulfilling this chicken is just what we needed; and we had no beef with that.
Brick Grilled Chicken
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 6 |
| Category: | Chicken Entrée |
| Meal: | Grill Baby Grill (Picnic Meal Plans) |
| 4 | lb | chicken, whole |
| 1 | pinch | salt and pepper to taste |
| 0.5 | medium | lemon, juice of |
Cut or have your grocery store cut the backbone out of the chicken. Flatten it and rub oil and salt and pepper evenly over the skin. Heat grill to high, place chicken, skin side down on grill, place a brick covered with aluminum foil on top and cook for 20 minutes, turn over and cook for 10 more minutes. Remove and squeeze the juice of half a lemon on top, carve and serve.
More easy recipes and meal plans at emealsforyou.com.
Recipe of the Week – Back to Basics – Sunday Roasted Chicken
(From the Chicken Entrée Collection at emealsforyou.com)
Sunday Roasted Chicken
We found some New (red) potatoes at the local farmers’ market on Saturday and my wife said she would like to have some new potatoes with butter and parsley, just like her mom used to make. After a couple of weeks of high “intensity” food feasts it made sense to get back to basics. For me there is nothing like a great, roasted chicken to bring it back down to the ah!!!! refreshing dinnertime we all need once in a while.
Moist chicken, crisp skin and smooth, tasty gravy; there is nothing better to renew your belief in simple is good cooking. Homemade bread, some fresh tomatoes and capers rounded out a quick and easy panzanella salad. We even skipped dessert.
Sunday Roasted Chicken
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 6 |
| Category: | Chicken Entrée |
| Meal: | Mom’s Out of Town (Share-a-Meal Plans) |
| 6 | lb | chicken, whole, oven-stuffer |
| 2 | Tb | oil, olive |
| 1 | tsp | salt and pepper to taste |
| 2 | medium | lemons |
| 1 | medium | garlic, whole head |
| 1 | 14 oz. can | chicken broth |
| 1 | Tb | cornstarch |
| 1 | pinch | salt and pepper to taste |
Rinse and dry chicken thoroughly. Cover outside with olive oil, sprinkle salt and pepper over skin. Cut one lemon in half; cut garlic head in half, and place both inside cavity of chicken. Place in an over-proof roaster pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, roast chicken for 15-17 minutes per pound or until juices run clear. Place broth and lemon, cut in half, in a saucepan on stove, and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove chicken from pan, place pan on top of stove. Remove lemon from broth, add chicken broth, reserving 1/2 cup, to roasting pan and stir. Add cornstarch to reserved chicken broth, stir broth into roasting pan, and cook on low until thickened. Salt and pepper to taste. Remove garlic, discard garlic skin, and add cloves to gravy. Remove and discard lemon halves inside of the chicken.
Serve with gravy on side.
Meal Planning – Let’s Start with the Chicken
In Why Meal Planning – The First Step we discussed putting a little money aside to fund those sale items that you can stock up on and use latter. So, let’s begin there with chicken. I see tons of requests from harried housewives complaining about the high cost of feeding their families and then in the same breath they are asking for some recipes for boneless, skinless chicken breasts. I guess their thinking is that they bought them on sale, you know in the freezer section, Tyson breasts on sale, $3 off. Well how about we do the math; divide the sale price by the total weight, i.e. $9.99 divided by 3 lbs equals $3.33 per pound. Wow! Actually not picking on Tyson, they all do it, they usually put 2.5 lbs in a bag; just to make the math harder. If you must buy boneless, skinless chicken breasts I strongly suggest you wait until they go on sale. Usually once a month or so you will find fresh chicken breasts at around $1.39 per pound or less. Buy them and put them on a cookie sheet in your freezer for about an hour. Once they firm up you can put them in a large baggie in the freezer and they won’t stick together. Now you have the convenience of just using what you need and the cost savings of doing this small task yourself; I am sure Tyson will survive without the $5 profit you denied them.
But seriously folks; there is a lot more to chicken then skinless, boneless breasts. Watch for sales on leg quarters; thighs and legs together. A quick sharp knife stroke and you have chicken drumsticks and thighs that can be boned and stir-fried or BBQ’d. Still want those chicken breast? Buy them on sale with the skin on and remove the skin and bones yourself. I know, gross; you will get over this just as you got over changing diapers. Lastly, buy the whole chicken, learn to cut it up and save a bundle.
As a final point I want to take you back to your grandmother’s or maybe for some of you, great-grandmother’s day. Back then nothing was waisted; you cut up the chicken and anything you didn’t use became soup. Save the tops off the celery stalks, the end pieces off the onions you use and some pieces of carrots in a baggie in the freezer. Now when you buy that whole chicken put anything that is left over, the back and icky stuff, into a large pot with a little oil. Brown the bones and skin and add the frozen veggies, , stir until they begin to color. Now add some water to cover them, maybe some salt and a little pepper, and cook for 25 minutes or so. don’t worry if you put in too much water, just cook it longer to concentrate it until you like the taste of it. Remove the bones and skin and add some noodles and you have a great lunch or broth for cooking. If you really are adventuresome, pick the meat off the bones to add back to the soup or for a chicken salad sandwich.
The bottom line you need to get a little more resourceful to stretch your budget. I am betting that once you get the hang of this it will become second nature and you will take pride in your new-found cooking skills.
Recipe of the Week – Chicken Paprikash
(from www.emealsforyou.com/Chicken Entrees/Chicken Paprikash)
Tradition, not quite the loud and strong TRADITION sung about by Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof; but tradition none the less. Most of us probably have a meal that remains in our memory from our youth. One of those meals that always brings a smile to our lips. One we hopefully have continued today, passing along the comfort to the next generation and possibly, no hopefully, the one beyond that. Tradition.
My father had a rather large, 15 inch, copper-bottomed frying pan. About twice a month he would put that “puppy” on the stove and make wonderful, comforting Chicken Paprikash and dumplings. You knew what he was cooking as soon as you opened the back door. It was always amazing how many of us could get around the kitchen table and eat the seemingly bottomless pan of wonderful chicken and sour cream gravy. The chicken was always complimented by an endless supply of dumplings; solid, toothsome dumplings; not the light and fluffy kind made with Bisquik, but belly bombs, fulfilling, satisfying.
After my father died I beat my siblings to the pan; they still don’t forgive me. We continued to make the chicken and dumplings when our kids were growing up. It soon became their favorite as well; the “birthday” dinner of choice, in fact it became the dinner of choice of our neighbors’ kids. I am now happy to inform you that our kids make chicken and dumplings all the time themselves. I am sure that when their kids are old enough to ask for their own” birthday” dinner they too will choose the Chicken Paprikash. Tradition!
The dish is good, in fact it is very good, but I am not sure whether it is the food or the tradition that makes it special. Either way I invite you to start a “Tradition” in your home.
P.S. I have included the dumpling recipe as well, just in case.
Chicken Paprikash
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 4 |
| Category: | Chicken Entrée |
| Meal: | New Neighbors (Share-a-Meal Plans) |
| 2 | Tb | oil, olive |
| 2 | large | chicken breasts cut in half |
| 4 | medium | chicken thighs |
| 4 | medium | chicken legs |
| 1 | large | onion, yellow ,quartered |
| 1 | 15 oz can | chicken broth |
| 2 | Tb | paprika, sweet |
| 3 | Tb | flour |
| 8 | oz | sour cream |
| 3 | Tb | water |
Place oil in large pan, brown chicken, add onions and sauté for 3 minutes. Add broth to just cover chicken, sprinkle paprika on chicken. Reduce heat to simmer, cook for 20 minutes, until chicken is tender. Remove chicken to platter. Mix flour, sour cream and water in bowl, add some of the juice from the pan to temper, add to gravy to thicken. Salt to taste. Spoon over chicken and serve with dumplings.
Serve with a small side salad.
Dumplings
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 4 |
| Category: | Starch |
| Meal: | New Neighbors (Share-a-Meal Plans) |
| 3 | cup | flour, all-purpose |
| 0.25 | tsp | salt, table |
| 0.25 | tsp | baking powder |
| 2 | large | egg |
| 4 | oz | water, hot |
Mix flour, salt, baking powder and eggs in mixer or food processor. Add just enough water to make a loose dough. Drop teaspoonfuls into salted, boiling water. Cook for 3-5 minutes. Dumplings will float. Drain and serve.
From the New Neighbors (Share-a-Meal Plans) at emealsforyou.com
What’s in it? Rant
Maybe it’s a generational thing; the inability to ask questions to become more informed regarding things that effect our health. We have been conditioned over the years to accept what is presented. No. I am not talking about the doctor/patient relationship; although it fits the pattern. What gets to me is our inability to ask simple questions at our grocery stores about the foods they offer us. We go blindly through the pre-packaged meat cases, selecting what “looks” good. Do you really know what had been added to that package to make it look more appealing? Is there gluten added, how about water and more importantly salt?
My eyes were recently opened when I took that NJ trip a few weeks ago. The one where I cooked for a non-fish eater, a non-meat eater and the one that was gluten intolerant. Looking for an easy way out for the travel day dinner I asked my mother-in-law to pick up a couple of rotisserie chickens from Sam’s Club for the non-gluten eater of the group. The rest of us were more than happy to sample some of the fine NJ pizza we missed. Checking with Sam’s Club deli section I learned that both wheat gluten and corn syrup had been added. Who knew? I wound up doing what I advocate most times, buy a chicken, sprinkle it with salt and pepper and douse on some olive oil. Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour and you have a pretty darn good chicken. But I digress; the lesson here is without asking we would have served the Sam’s bird and found out later that we had contributed to a huge headache for the non-gluten eater.
Another example of this is a conversation I had with my local sausage maker. Cincinnati is the home of Findlay Market, supposedly the nation’s oldest open-air farmer’s market. Kroeger’s & Sons Meats has about 45 different types of sausages on display. I asked the owner whether they made a sodium-free sausage, unfortunately they don’t. In our discussion about salt in meat products she told me she had recently asked the local Kroger (national chain) store about the additives to their meats. She was surprised to hear they added both salt and water to their meats. The lesson here is how many of us on some sort of restrictive diet or just being healthier have just assumed meat was meat; nothing added.
Ask the question; what’s in it? What has been added to make it look pinker, to make it moister or just to add to the weight? You’ll be a bit healthier and a lot happier.
Recipe of the Week – Chicken Cacciatore
Chicken Cacciatore
(from the Chicken Entree collection at emealsforyou.com)
Growing up in central New Jersey we had many ethnic restaurants to choose from. In Trenton there is a section of town known by the locals as the “Burg”; short for Chambersburg. This area featured an Italian restaurant on just almost every corner. There was one restaurant in the “Burg” named Roman Hall. We would go there with family and friends to enjoy the great comfort meals usually cooked lovingly by the grandmother of the owners. Roman Hall’s specialty was Chicken Cacciatore.
Now, many of you have had cacciatore but I am betting it was chicken smothered in a heavy tomato sauce with black olives. Roman Hall’s was cooked in a white wine sauce with onions and mushrooms and lots of garlic. Traditionally it was served with a side of “pencil points”, penne pasta with tomato sauce. This way you got the best of both worlds, you actually tasted the wonderful stewed chicken in the wine sauce and still got your tomato sauce fix with the pencil points.
I have recreated this great comfort meal for you. Add some “pencil points”, a salad and some warm Italian bread and you have a meal that you will remember for quite a while. If you don’t have a favorite tomato sauce or want to try ours sign on to www.emealsforyou.com to view our scalable recipe. Enjoy!!!
Chicken Cacciatore
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 4 |
| Category: | Chicken Entrée |
| Meal: | I Need Comfort Food (Quick Meals Planner) |
| 2 | Tb | oil, olive |
| 4 | lb | chicken, whole, cut up |
| 3 | medium | onion, yellow ,quartered |
| 1 | lb | mushrooms, quartered |
| 8 | cloves | garlic, chopped |
| 0.25 | tsp | oregano, dried |
| 1 | tsp | celery seeds |
| 2 | medium | bay leaves, whole dried |
| 1 | cup | wine, dry white |
| 1 | 15 oz can | chicken broth |
| 0.5 | tsp | salt and pepper to taste |
Brown chicken in oil, add onions, mushrooms and garlic sauté for 3 minutes. Add remaining ingredients, simmer for 30 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.
Note: If you prefer red sauce, add 1 LB diced tomatoes, 2 TB tomato paste and substitute red wine for the white wine.
This is from the I Need Comfort Food (Quick Meal Planner) meal; for more meal plans and recipes like this go to emealsforyou.com
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