Orange Chicken

Panda Express sells it's orange chicken sauce at the grocery store.  I don't do much grocery shopping, my husband does, but a few weeks ago I ended u going to the store and happened across the aisle with the sauce and picked up a bottle.  Can I tell you, the sauce is heaven.

The other night I wasn't really sure what to fix for dinner.  I had chicken, a red pepper, some frozen green beans and some onions.  Voila!  Orange chicken in the making.  And if I do say so myself, it was delicious.

What you'll need:

Chicken

Cornstarch

Red pepper

Green beans

Onion, diced

Carrots, if you have them

Rice

Orange sauce

First, cut the chicken up into small chunks or strips.  Put the chicken in a zip lock bag and add a couple table spoons of cornstarch.  Shake the chicken in the cornstarch until it's completely coated and let it sit for 5-10 minutes.

While the chicken is resting in the cornstarch, start prepping your veggies any shape or size you'd like.

Heat up a skillet (or a wok if you've got one) and add enough vegetable oil to coat the bottom of the pan.  When the pan and oil are hot, gently add the chicken and let it cook on one side until it gets golden brown.  Flip the chicken and brown the other side.  When the chicken is finished, remove it from the pan, dump the excess oil and add the vegetables.  Cook the veggies to your liking.

Once the veggies are cooked, add the chicken and the orange sauce back into the pan and let it simmer for about 5 minutes so that the sauce really penetrates the chicken and the veggies.

Serve over rice with a little soy sauce on the side.

White Bean Chili

3-4 chicken breasts, cubed
1 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1 T. oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cans Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained
1-2 small cans green chilies
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 (14 oz.) can chicken broth
1 c. sour cream
1/2 c. whipping cream

Combine chicken, garlic, oil and onion in skillet and heat until chicken is cooked. Add beans, chilies, spices and chicken broth; bring to a boil. Simmer 30 minutes. Add sour cream and whipping cream and heat through.

Alterations: You can use canned chicken and any other kind of beans that you have on hand.

Pasta tonight!

Generally, I plan meals in advance so I know what's going to happen in the kitchen when it's time for dinner.

After a busy and sleepless weekend and a day ravaged by allergies and arthritis, I wasn't quite sure what to fix when the dinner bell would start to ring.

After poking around a few recipes I was inspired to make up my own thing.



It was pasta with bacon and leeks and Parmesan cheese and sauteed chicken.

Phew. Got all that?

Here's the low down if you want to try it on your own.
6 slices bacon, cut into chunks.
2-3 leeks sliced thinly
1/4-1/2 cup white cooking wine
3/4 cup milk (heavy cream would have been better but I didn't have any)
Frozen chicken tenders thawed, about 3 per person
Pasta of your choice (I used penne).


For the Pasta
First - start boiling water for your pasta and cook it following the directions on the package.

1 - slice your bacon and throw it into a hot skillet. Cook until almost completely browned, 5-7 minutes.
2 - remove bacon from the pan and add a tablespoon of butter to the bacon grease and all your thinly sliced leeks. Cook the leeks until they start to brown on the edges and get really soft.
3 - add the bacon back with the leeks and drench in the cooking wine. Let it cook and simmer for about 2 min, then add your milk/heavy cream. Let the sauce simmer until the edges start to boil. Once the boil gets to the middle, turn down the heat and keep stirring.
4 - when the pasta is completely cooked, drain the water and add it to the pan with the bacon and leeks. Stir everything around until it's all nice and happy and let it sit a few minutes so the pasta can soak up some of the sauce.

The chicken
While your pasta and sauce are cooking, start working on the chicken.

In a medium sized bowl add flour and any/all seasoning salts you like. Lightly coat each piece of chicken on both sides with the flour mixture.

Place the chicken in a lightly olive oiled (or buttered depending on how you groove) saute pan and brown it on both sides (3-4 min each) until it's beautifully golden brown.

Put the pasta and chicken in a bowl and enjoy!

Do you want fries with that?

Last night was one of those nights - a little too much fried food for my stomach, but everything still tasted good going down.

The main dish for dinner last night was chicken fingers.  Home made chicken fingers are honestly better than anything in a restaurant, when made well anyway.  I've invented my own methods, but last night's were some of the best I've ever made.



I start with frozen chicken tenders - thawed out of course.  Thaw out as many as you need but in our house with two grown-up eaters and 1 pint size eater, we usually need 6-8 tenders.

Once they are thawed and your ready to bread them, pat all the chicken pieces with a paper towel to dry them out.

Next, soak them for 2-4 minutes in buttermilk.  Yes, buttermilk!  Regular milk works fine, but buttermilk is so thick that it's the best.  If I use regular milk, I usually end up breading twice, but with buttermilk I only had to do it once.

While the chicken is soaking in buttermilk, get your flower dredge going.  I use regular flour but I happen to have some self-rising flower so I used that last night.  It was good.  I'll use it again.  In the flour I add my seasoning: salt, pepper, garlic salt, chili powder, something I've got called "fiesta" seasoning and anything else that sounds good.  GENEROUSLY add the flavor to your flower.

Once the dredge is mixed, the rest is simple.  Take the chicken out of the buttermilk and coat it with the flour.  Work in batches of 3-4 at a time so that the flour doesn't get all goopy on the chicken.  Once you've got 4 done, add them to the oil.

I use regular vegetable oil in a very hot skillet.  You don't need a lot of oil - you don't want to submerge the chicken.  Just enough oil to brown it one side at a time.

That's it.  Maybe one day I'll try some beer battering like most restaurants do, but until then, these are a crowd pleaser every time.

Pasta dinner for four.....or more

I enjoy cooking for other people.  It's not something that I've always been able to say that I enjoy.  In my life right now however, I like it.  Cooking, baking. Food means a lot to me and so does sharing it with family and friends.

About a year ago I found a great baked pasta recipe.  After dozens of times making it, I dare say I've perfected it.  We had it for dinner the other night - and shared the batch with my sister's family.  If you ever need to fix dinner for someone else, but need dinner for yourself as well, this recipe is for you.  Or, if you just want to be a tad bit lazy - cook the recipe and eat one for dinner and freeze the other.  A second nights dinner for next week is already in the freezer.

Warning:  From start to finish, before baking, it takes about an hour.  A labor of love I tell you.

Here are your instructions:
1- Boil 1 lb. of penne pasta.  Leave it al dente so cook it a few minutes less than the instructions say.
2 - While your pasta is boiling, cook some bacon in a big skillet.  4-6 slices will do, depending on how much bacon you like.  Before cooking it, cut it into small pieces.  This will speed up the process and then you don't have to cut cooked bacon.
3 - Remove the bacon from the grease and cook 10-12 chicken tenders or 4 chicken breasts about 90% in your bacon grease.  (I never said that this recipe was perfectly healthy now did I?)  You don't want your chicken pink anymore, but don't cook it all the way or they'll dry up in the oven.
3 - While your bacon and chicken are cooking, cut up some sun dried tomatoes.  I use about 12 but that's because I like them.
4 - Once the bacon and chicken are cooked set the bacon aside with the tomatoes and slice the chicken into small chunks.  Set it aside as well.

5 - Now, in a really big, tall pan your going to make the sauce.  You start by making a rue (a fancy French sauce base).  For your rue, you'll need (gulp) 6 tablespoons of butter.  Melt the butter in your pan.  Once the butter is melted add 1/2 cup plus two tablespoons of flour and 2-3 teaspoons of minced garlic.  Mix all this together with a whisk.
6 - Once your rue looks like a paste, start adding milk.  You will add a total of 6 cups of milk (whole, 2% or 1%.  NOT SKIM!), one cup at a time.  You'll need to constantly whisk this so that the rue paste breaks up in the milk.
7 - After adding all the milk, continue whisking until your sauce comes to a simmer.  Once it's simmering add your bacon and sun dried tomatoes.  Cook for one minute, stirring with a wooden spoon.
8 - Next, turn off the heat and add the cheese.  1/2 cup of grated Parmesan and provolone.  Stir until the cheese melts.
9 - The final step is to add the chicken pieces and the pasta (remember I told you that you needed a really big tall pot?) and stir until all the pasta is coated with the sauce AND the tomatoes and bacon appear to be evenly distributed.  Sprinkle the top with Parmesan cheese

Pour the pasta mixture into to baking dishes, each smaller and deeper than a traditional 9x13 cake pan.  Dare I say a good casserole dish?

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes until golden brown.

If you are cooking from the freezer, bake at 400 for 35-40 minutes.

Serve with brushetta and crusty bread.  Which by the way, is great for a leftover lunch the next day.  Especially when you ate all your pasta at dinner the night before.