Melt in your mouth Chicken

I'm on another health kick, hopefully this one is for good. I feel like it is, I'm very motivated to try eating healthier. Not just for myself but for my family as well. I want my kids to learn to love all things good for them, but also my husband has high cholesterol and I would like to get that under control without the use of medications. So I've been searching for healthier recipes. I found this one on pinterest, I am trying to incorporate more Chicken into our diet and not so much red meat... In fact I would like to do away with red meat almost all together eventually. This one is pretty simple, here is the recipe...

• 4 boneless chicken breast halves
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• ½ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
• 1 ½ teaspoons seasoning salt
• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder

Directions:

1. 1
   Mix mayonnaise, cheese and seasonings.
2. 2
   Spread mixture over chicken breast and place in baking dish.
3. 3
   Bake at 375°F for 45 minutes.

Read more: http://www.food.com/recipe/melt-in-your-mouth-chicken-breast-37336#ixzz1prqqTJqK

I did make a few small changes to this recipe. I used "light" mayonnaise instead of regular. Since I haven't tried this recipe any other way I can't say you didn't notice a difference but it tasted pretty darned good so I'm not going to use real mayonnaise. I cut the recipe in half since its just me and my husband and it worked fine.

I also added a little bit of onion salt to the mix as well as some poultry seasoning but just a tad of each.

It says to bake at 375 for 45min, now let me tell you that for us that was not long enough. I checked temperature of the chicken and I was glad I did. After finding that it was only around 150 on the inside (should be 190) I popped it back in the oven. I turned the oven up to 425 and it took about another 15-20min or so. I also had baked potatoes going at the time so maybe that was part of it. Regardless it came out wonderfully and my husband really liked it. The chicken was tender and moist and the flavor was awesome. I personally felt like it was a tad heavy on the pepper but my husband thought it was perfect.

Needless to say this came out really nice and even made a pretty picture with the mixed veggies! Hope you enjoy!

BBQ Pulled pork

Recently my husband put in a request that I find a BBQ Pulled pork recipe to try. Said it would be something different he'd like to try. So I logged into my trusty allrecipes.com and searched it. I found a simple recipe that would be easy to try. So first I'll post the recipe and then I'll blog on how I did it.

Like I said the recipe is very simple.
1 12oz can root beer
1 2lb pork tenderloin
1 18oz bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce.

Place root beer and tenderloin in crock pot and cook on low for 7-8hrs till the pork will pull apart with a fork.
Drain, shred the pork and mix in your BBQ sauce.

So this is how I did it, was so easy!
We have had a sick little boy here at our house so after getting the kids down for the night I went ahead and got the tenderloin and the root beer in the crock pot and just let it cook on low all night long.

The next morning when the kids and I got up I drained it and shredded the pork with a couple of forks. It was so juicy and tender!

This is what the tenderloin looked like just out of the crock pot. Yummy!

Shredding the pork with forks.

The shredding took a little time, I'd say probably about 20min and it made a ton. I did end up getting like almost a 3lb tenderloin instead of just a 2lb. I also didn't actually measure the root beer or the BBQ sauce. With the root beer I just bought a cheap brand of root beer figuring it would cook out and you wouldn't taste it. I also put some seasoning salt on the tenderloin on all sides before placing it in the crock pot.

After shredding the pork I placed it all back in the crock pot and added my favorite BBQ Sauce which I have to say is the best in the world! :)

KC Masterpiece..... Need I say more? In my mind one of the best sauces there is. But you might only be able to buy it in the Kansas City area I'm not sure if its global or not.

Finally since it was like 10am in the morning instead of serving it right away I put it on low and let it just simmer in the sauce. Again I didn't measure the sauce, I just added how much I thought it looked like it needed. Ended up being more then the 18oz though as I used more then half a 40oz bottle! I made sure I stirred it every hour or so to keep it from burning and would alternate between the warm setting and the low setting. Now it would have been perfect had we eaten dinner on time, but as it turns out our son spiked a huge fever and we rushed him to an urgent care center leaving the dinner in the crock pot for several more hours unattended. But even so it was still yummy! Just the edges touching the sides of the crock pot were a little well done. I'd say this recipe is a keeper for sure, I really liked it. Now a fair warning for those that don't like root beer (like myself) you CAN taste it a little. So you might want to make sure you use a root beer you do like. My husband said he thought I should try it with A&W root beer as it has a different taste and it would give it a little more zest. He said he could tell I used the cheap root beer. But other than that he enjoyed it!
I think we'll be serving it at our sons birthday party instead of the planned pizza. :)

Pizza and Chicken fried Chicken

So 2 posts in one because I didn't have time to blog about my latest attempt at something different.

A few posts back I posted about making pizza from scratch. I was going to make that recipe again and since I had read some helpful tips on another site I thought I would apply them to the recipe.
One of the things the other site suggested was making sure you knead the pizza dough 6min to give it lots of gluten. I had also noticed by their pictures they posted that they used their stand mixer with the dough hook to do all the hard work. Genius! I hadn't thought of that! That was the only down side to making homemade pizza was the work that went into kneading the dough! The only thing I noticed was that due to not having the oil in my hands combine with the dough I had to add more flour to get the dough to not be sticky. Eventually I gave up adding more and more flour and just set the dough in a bowl and let it rise. That is of course after kneading it for 6min.

It rose to nearly double the size it had the first time I made it. The other site also suggested using a pizza stone but said if you don't have one you can get the same effect by turning a cookie sheet upside down and cooking the dough on that. We have a large round pizza pan that has sides like a cookie sheet so I just used that. I rolled the dough out on the inside of the pan (place it on wax paper to help transfer the dough to the back of the pan) then I took the formed pizza crust out of the pan and flipped the pan over and put the pizza on the bottom. Then you crank the oven to 500 and put the pizza in the cool oven. I noticed the crust was VERY thick but it was VERY good too. This time the crust actually tasted lighter and you could see little air bubbles in it. Since it was very thick my next thought is next time I'm going to try taking some of all that dough (as it makes a LOT) and making bread sticks to go with the pizza.... I might even attempt to makes stuffed bread sticks! So I guess be looking for a blog about that in the future. :)

So this week my new recipe to try (and I have a few this week) was a "Chicken Fried Chicken" recipe from allrecipes.com
It sounded good and the reviews on it were good. Although I have to admit as I was making it I started to wonder about using the 30 saltine crackers. Those reservations were valid and lets just say I will be looking for another recipe. Now don't get me wrong, it was decent but it wasn't good and I felt like if I was going through all that work that it should taste better. My husband actually scraped the breading off the chicken cause he didn't care for it. Well I know I got that recipe off of allrecipes.com but I think thats one I found while using my tablet computer and I didn't actually SAVE it to my recipe box online and just transferred the recipe to my tablet. That being said I don't have the recipe but you won't want to use it anyway. Just avoid one if it says to use 30 saltine crackers.



The recipe was pretty simple in itself. It called for the crackers, seasoning salt, flour, oil, pepper and of course egg. Of course you used the egg to dip the chicken in before coating it in the cracker/flour mixture and then cooked it in a skillet  in the oil. I had read on some of the reviews that people had trouble getting the breading to stay on the chicken and they had actually solved that problem by first sprinkling flour on the wet chicken before dipping it in the egg. So I did that, then I coated and cooked. I noticed right off the bat that still the breading was coming off in chunks on some of the pieces. Also I noticed that in order to make sure the chicken was well cooked you had to pretty much burn the breading. Needless to say this recipe wasn't that great. Have I mentioned that? I was very disappointed. My thought on the chicken was it just tasted like fried saltine crackers that were burnt. Yuck. So on to try a different and hopefully better tasting Chicken fried Chicken. :)

Again, no pictures of this dinner as I felt like it was to ugly and to burnt to mess with taking a picture and posting it. Also I will note here that I kept a close eye on the chicken the whole time, turning it a lot to try and keep it from burning and it still did. So it wasn't just a case of my getting distracted and forgetting I was cooking.... Which I'll admit happens often! Haha

Most awesome Pot Roast

What a perfect dinner to cap off my "Slow Cooker Week" Ok so I know its only Thurs but we go to my mother in laws every Fri for dinner so that means its only a 4 night cook week for me. Now You may notice I also haven't blogged any other recipe's this week except 1. Well that being because the first one was nothing really to blog about. Simply throw some chicken in the crock pot and pour BBQ sauce over it and let it sit and cook for a few hours. I prefer to use KC Masterpiece but that's probably just the Kansas City girl in me. :) Tues' dinner I blogged about and last night well I wasn't feeling good so I skipped "cooking" and just did chicken nuggets and fries...... A Good back up plan for when you don't feel well. Haha

So tonight's dinner I wasn't real sure about, I'm not normally much of a roast person and after the somewhat flop of the Stew I was worried that it might not turn out as good as I originally had thought. However I kinda feel like we'll try it once and if we don't like it we won't do that recipe again. I have to say it was SO easy too! I started it in the crockpot around 10am. I mixed the simple ingredients together, then threw in the roast. I left it in till about 2pm on low then I kicked it up to high. Then around 4pm I added some potatoes and carrots. Around 5:30 we were ready to eat and it was DELISH! So far my husband hasn't been really commenting much on the new recipes I've tried. He tells me "Its good babe" but that just means its not nasty! LOL Tonight he was like "This is REALLY good!" So I asked him "So is this recipe a keeper to you?" he was like "YES!" Then I asked him if he would feel like having the left overs on Sat for dinner or should I store it in the freezer for another night next week? He was like "Yes! Sat sounds great!" Hahaha So its a keeper. Now the veggies were add on's to the recipe. My husband also enjoyed having 2 slices of bread open and the meat on top with sauce all over it. I had 1 slice of bread on the side and used it to sop up the extra very thick yummy gravy. Our plates were clean in record time! Eli however took a bite, spite it out and proclaimed "YUCK!" But we have had trouble getting him to eat meat so far at this age. I'm sure as he gets older he'll like it. :)

Hubby's roast on bread and covered in sauce! 

Ok so here's the recipe.... Again taken from allrecipes.com
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/awesome-slow-cooker-pot-roast/detail.aspx

• 2 (10.75 ounce) cans condensed cream of mushroom soup
• 1 (1 ounce) package dry onion soup mix
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 5 1/2 pounds pot roast

Directions

1. In a slow cooker, mix cream of mushroom soup, dry onion soup mix and water. Place pot roast in slow cooker and coat with soup mixture.
2. Cook on High setting for 3 to 4 hours, or on Low setting for 8 to 9 hours.
   
   I forgot to mention above that the only changes I made to this recipe was that I added some seasoning salt to the roast on both sides before putting it in the crock pot. But again thats optional. Well I guess the whole recipe is optional. Haha Enjoy!

Pork Tenderloin

So as I've said this week is slow cooker week in our house, Monday started with an easy to make BBQ Chicken in the slow cooker. Easy because you just add chicken and pour BBQ sauce over it and let it sit for several hours. However last night was Pork Tenderloin, again I've never cooked this but the recipe sounded so good!

This weekend has been a rough one for our family, Fri Casey didn't have work so stayed home. We decided to get him in to see the Dr because he's been sick. Turns out he has bronchitis and I have a sinus infection. Casey has been home ever since till today when he finally went in. Having a sick man in the house is like having another child in the house. Its been exhausting, so yesterday as I prepared the pork tenderloin in the crock pot I wasn't feeling well. As I added ingredients I felt worse because the last 3 added smelled HORRIBLE! They were, Red Wine (a cooking red wine), Soy Sauce and minced garlic. YUCK, as I covered the pot I looked at that expensive dinner and thought "You'd better taste good!" I was worried that it would taste horrible. As it cooked the smell changed and wasn't as horrible, although you could still smell the cooking wine. I think its cause it seems to be mostly vinegar which I hate the smell of.

So finally the 4hrs passed and dinner was ready, now being in a haze the last few days I totally didn't think about what side to go with it till it was done! As I was dishing up dinner I thought at how potatoes and carrots would probably compliment this VERY well. Note to self, instead I steamed up some broccoli. The recipe called for a 2lbs pork tenderloin which is a lot for 2 people to eat. So I put it in a vacuum bag and sealed it up and stuck it in the freezer.... I also put the rest of the sauce in a bowl and stuck it in the freezer for future use. So now if I don't feel good one night I can take those out, stick them in the crock pot for like an hour with potatoes and carrots and viola! I'll have dinner!

Sadly I'm just now realizing I forgot to take pictures of dinner last night! Ha oh well. Again this one came from allrecipes.com
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/amazing-pork-tenderloin-in-the-slow-cooker/detail.aspx

Ingredients

• 1 (2 pound) pork tenderloin
• 1 (1 ounce) envelope dry onion soup mix
• 1 cup water
• 3/4 cup red wine
• 3 tablespoons minced garlic
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions

1. Place pork tenderloin in a slow cooker with the contents of the soup packet. Pour water, wine, and soy sauce over the top, turning the pork to coat. Carefully spread garlic over the pork, leaving as much on top of the roast during cooking as possible. Sprinkle with pepper, cover, and cook on low setting for 4 hours. Serve with cooking liquid on the side as au jus.

The recipe says it takes about 15min to prepare and I found it was pretty close. This was very good! I also added some seasoning salt to the mix just to make sure it had lots of flavor. I think maybe if it cooked a little longer it would be falling apart on its own. As it was though it wasn't hard to cut at all. I will be keeping this recipe! :)

Store Adventures

So I have blogged about how I am trying to expand my cooking abilities. I have also blogged that this week is slow cooker week. Where I"m going to cook everything in the slow cooker. Should be easy right? Well that is until its time to shop for some of the ingredients for this weeks meals. So on the menu this week was pork tenderloin and pot roast.... So I found the tenderloin pretty easily, but the recipe also calls for red wine (to cook with). Now I have never bought wine before, so I look in the "beer" section at price chopper and I don't find any "WINE". So I figure I'll skip that and let Casey stop somewhere and get some anyway. Well in another section I find a "Cooking" wine. Which I guess you don't even have to be a certain age to get cause I didn't get carded! LOL Anyway next I had to find a "Pot roast". Harder then I thought.

With the pork tenderloin it said right on it "Pork tenderloin" so it was easy, with the pot roast I was looking for it to actually SAY pot roast. Also their selection was poor, so I finally settle on something that says "ROAST" on it but dang it was $16! Just as I was walking away one of the workers come out with a rack full of meat. He asks if I"m finding everything ok and I finally summon up the courage to tell someone I don't know what the heck I'm doing and what is it I need? He tells me that as long as its a "ROAST" its ok, just some people prefer certain kinds (arm or rump). He also tells me that I have an EXPENSIVE one because its all natural (no growth hormones etc). So finally I get some meat that is much less expensive... There was also a lady there looking at the meat and she overheard and was telling me the best way to cook a roast etc. Was all pretty funny if you ask me. Just another adventure in my learning to cook. :)

2-step inside out chicken pot pie= 2 delicious

Today was try a new recipe day again. Normally I'm not much of a veggie eater but what was in today's recipe I actually enjoyed.... All but the red peppers and I didn't mind the taste to much but with a 4mo old that is nursing and has been a very colicky baby I didn't want to risk it with the peppers. I didn't follow the recipe to the letter this time but pretty much.

I started out with 4 chicken breasts.... What I figured to be about a pound of chicken, I cooked the chicken till "brown" which is actually more of a grey like the directions says, the recipe doesn't call for it but I added a little poultry seasoning to the chicken to make sure it had lots of flavour it turned out really well!

After the chicken was cooked I also did another step that the recipe doesn't call for (so I guess I ended up with 4 step inside out chicken pot pie) and that was to cut the chicken up into little chunks. I figured that most chicken pot pie its not full chicken breasts and it would help the chicken cook faster.

Next I added the veggies and soup, for the veggies I got a "Red Roasted potatoes" mix, it has Red potatoes, red peppers, onions (although I never saw any) and broccoli. While it was all simmering I put the biscuits in the oven. It was simple, pretty fast and yet yummy! We even had enough to have some left over, for those of you who don't know my husband very well let me just say he can eat... and eat.... and eat some more. So unless we fixed a HUGE amount of food there isn't normally any left over. Either way this recipe is a keeper!

Everything simmering in the pot... Look at those yummy veggies!

Served up on the hot biscuits! Yummy!

Most of you might be surprised to hear that I said I enjoyed this, broccoli and all but I actually did! I like cooked broccoli I have found out I like it as long as its cooked and in something like this. :)

Next week we will be doing everything in the slow cooker! So stay tuned!

Oh and here is this recipe again taken from allrecipes.com
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/2-step-inside-out-chicken-pot-pie/detail.aspx

Ingredients

• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut-up
• 1 (10.75 ounce) can Campbell's® Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup (Regular or 98% Fat Free)
• 1 (16 ounce) package frozen vegetable combination (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots)
• 8 hot biscuits, split

Directions

1. Cook chicken in nonstick skillet until browned, stirring often.
2. Add soup and vegetables. Cover and simmer until done. Serve on biscuits.