Loaded Chicken and Potatoes

For the sake of being as difficult as possible, the kids wouldn't even give me a thumbs up even though they REALLY liked this one.  Brayden couldn't even stand still for the photo because he wanted to get back to eating it.  I think that's a bigger compliment than the thumbs up.

This dish is quite possibly the most unhealthy thing any person could ever eat..... and it was fantastic!  One spoonful is all I could do though, because it's very heavy.  After only a few bites, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to finish.  It's rich and spicy and pure heaven.  Just about anything with bacon is heavenly. 

Loaded Chicken and Potatoes - Serves 6 - 8 
1 lb boneless chicken breasts - cubed
6 - 8 medium, skin on, red potatoes - cubed
1/3 cup olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon paprika
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons hot sauce (more if you like it hot!) 
 2 cups fiesta blend cheese
1 cup crumbled bacon
1 cup diced green onions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Spray 9 x 13 baking dish with cooking spray.

2. In large bowl mix together olive oil, salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder and hot sauce.  Add cubed chicken and potatoes.  Stir to coat. 

3. Scoop the potatoes and chicken into prepared baking dish.  Bake for 60 minutes, stirring every 20 minutes, until cooked through, crispy and browned. 

4.  While potatoes/chicken are cooking - fry the bacon and chop into fine pieces.  About half a pound makes the 1 cup necessary.

5. Remove potatoes/chicken from oven.  Top with the cheese, bacon and green onions.  Return the casserole to the oven and bake an additional 5 minutes or until cheese is melted.

3 Ingredient Chicken

This is yet another recipe that I screwed up.  Apparently, I lack basic reading comprehension skills.  When the recipe calls for a packet of Italian dressing, that does not mean a packet of ranch dressing.  Even typing this out just now, I typed ranch instead of Italian!  I'm sure it would make quite the taste difference with this recipe, but since I made it with ranch, that's the review I have.  And it was WONDERFUL.  It caramelized in the oven and the chicken was so tender.  Gabe, my pickiest eater of all, had seconds.  Brayden did too.  It was really good. 

Unfortunately, yet again, I didn't take an "approval" photo.  I should have.  I would have finally had one with more thumbs up than thumbs down.  Haven't had one of those in awhile.  I got quite the lecture from the children though about how dumb and annoying my blog pictures are.  I didn't have a particularly great rebuttal, so I just agreed and let them be. 

3 Ingredient Chicken - serves 6 - 8   packet of chicken (we used 3 pounds)

packed of dry Italian seasoning mix
1/2 cup brown sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl.

3. Toss chicken in dry mixture.  Make sure it's coated on all sides.

4. Line pan in foil.  Place chicken on pan.

5. Bake 25 minutes on each side.

Beef and Broccoli

Billy and I loved this one, but the kids just picked at it.  Brayden ate all the meat out of it and the other two just shoved it around on their plate.  In their defense, the noodles were a little over cooked and I forgot to add the broccoli.  Oopsie.  So we'll just let this be a free pass.  I messed it up, they didn't like it, whatever.  I didn't even make them take a picture for this one.  Thumbs down.  We all get it. 

I will say that it was VERY easy to make though and quite delicious.  The recipe calls for putting it over rice, but I thought noodles would be better.  After the fact, I regret that decision.  It really would have been better over rice (and with broccoli!). 

Beef and Broccoli - Serves 5/6  

1 pound boneless beef chuck roast - sliced into thin strips or cubed.
1 cup beef consomme
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
3 garlic cloves - minced
2 tablespoons cornstarch
broccolie florets (as many as desired)
hot cooked rice

1. Place beef in crock pot.

2. In a small bowl combine consomme, soy sauce, brown sugar, oil and garlic.  Pour over beef.

3. Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.

4. In a cup, stir cornstarch and 2 tablespoons of sauce from the crock pot until smooth.  Add to crockpot.  Stir well to combine.

5. Add broccoli.

6. Cover and cook an additional 30 minutes on high.

7. Serve over hot cooked rice.

Balsamic Chicken

I don't like this one as a crockpot recipe.  While it was tasty and relatively easy, I think I'd rather just marinate it in the mixture and grill it rather than let it sit in the crockpot all day. 

I was pleasantly surprised that the boys really liked this one.  Alyssa just barely nibbled at it, but anytime Gabe asks for seconds, I am floored.  (Side note: I forgot to take the thumbs up/down pick for the previous dinner, so we did them both this night.  That's why they are in the same clothes.  lol)

Balsamic Chicken - 8

1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons dried minced onion
4 garlic cloves - minced
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs or breasts

1. Combine dry ingredients in a small bowl and spread over chicken.

2. Pour olive oil on the bottom of crock pot and place chicken.

3. Pour balsamic vinegar over the chicken.


4. Cover and cook on high for 4 hours.

Ranch Pork Chops

This one was super easy and one of my new personal favorites.  Surprise, surprise - it wasn't a hit with the kids, but Billy and I gobbled it up.  Brayden had a whole piece, Alyssa tolerated her "try at least 7 bites" rule and Gabe only liked it and decided it was a no go.  It was really yummy though.  With only three ingredients and the crockpot, it was also super easy.  The pork chops were amazingly tender and the gravy that it made was heavenly.  I had to adjust the cooking time a little.  I don't know if we just have a super good crock pot or what, but they were done much quicker than the recipe stated.  Which is a good thing, now that I know! 

Crockpot Ranch Pork Chops - Serves 4

1 package of boneless pork chops
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1 packet dry ranch dressing mix

1. In crockpot place pork chops, add cream of chicken soup, then sprinkle dry ranch dressing all over.

2. Cover and cook on high for 4 hours or low for 6 hours.

Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken

This was a really easy recipe that the kids loved helping out with.  Alyssa handled the chicken (I did the cutting) since she likes messy stuff and Brayden made the sweet and sour sauce.  Gabe made the rice and divided the chicken into servings.  It was fun to be in the kitchen all together.  I found that I did not need as large of a baking dish as the recipe calls for.  I used the next size down.  Heck if I know what size that actually is.  It's square though.  (Have I mentioned that I know very little about cooking?!) 

It was tasty, easy and fun to make.  The kids did not like it.  Which kind of surprised me, since sweet and sour chicken is a dish they love when we eat at a Chinese restaurant.  It didn't look the same though, so of course, that means it's disgusting.  *sigh*  I must admit that I was hesitant to taste a sweet and sour sauce made out of ketchup, but it was surprisingly good.  And apparently it's not that abnormal to use ketchup in fast sweet and sour recipes.  Who knew?  Not me, that's for sure.



Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken - serves 8

The chicken coating:
3 boneless chicken breasts
salt
pepper
1 cup cornstarch
2 eggs - beaten
1/4 cup canola oil


The sweet and sour sauce:
3/4 cup sugar
4 tablespoon ketchup
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon garlic salt

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Heat 1/4 cup oil in a large skillet.

2. Rinse chicken and cut into cubes.  Season with salt and pepper.

3. Dip chicken into cornstarch to coat then dip into the eggs. 

4. Cook chicken in large skillet until brown, but not cooked through.

5. Place chicken in a 9 x 13 greased baking dish.

6.  Mix sweet and sour ingredients together and pour evenly over chicken.

7.  Bake for one hour, turning the chicken every 20 minutes. 

Serve over rice or alone.

Garlic & Lemon Chicken with Green Beans & Red Potatoes

This one was interesting.  Let me start out by suggesting that you not put the lemon slices in the bottom like the recipe suggests.  I don't know if I did it wrong or what, but the green beans closest to the lemon slices tasted like straight lemon.  They were sour and kind of bitter.  Ick.  Everything else was delicious though.  The green beans on top were perfect, the chicken was moist and the potatoes came out just right.  I highly recommend this meal.  Not only is it delicious, but it's pretty too.  I also love any meal that can be cooked in one dish.  Less dishes that way.  Gabe was the only one that didn't like it.  He did give me a thumbs up for the PB&J that he substituted for his dinner.  I'll take what I can get. 








Garlic & Lemon Chicken with Green Beans & Red Potatoes - Serves 6

6 tablespoons olive oil
4 lemons - 3 thinly sliced and 1 juiced
4 cloves garlic - minced
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 pound green beans
8 small red potatoes - quartered
4 chicken breasts

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Coat a large baking dish with 1 tablespoon of olive oil.  Arrange lemon slices in a single layer in the bottom of the pan.

2. In a large bowl, combine the remaining oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper.

3. Add green beans to the mixture.  Toss to coat.  Using a slotted spoon or tongs, remove the green beans from the mixture and arrange them on top of the lemon slices in the large baking dish.

4. Add potatoes to the mixture.  Toss to coat.  Using a slotted spoon or tongs, remove the potatoes from the mixture and arrange them alonge the inside edge of the dish on top of the green beans.

5. Add chicken to the mixture.  Toss to coat.  Place chicken, skin-side up, in the dish.  Pour any remaining olive oil mixture over the chicken.

6. Roast for 50 minutes.  Remove chicken from the dish and place the beans and potatoes back in the oven for an additional 10 minutes or until the potatoes are crispy. 

Oven Fried Chicken

I really liked this.  To me, it tasted just like KFC's original recipe.  I should have dipped it back in the milk and into the batter a second time to get the batter a little thicker.  I'm sure that's incredibly less healthy though.  Let's be honest, I'm not all that concerned with health when I'm eating fried chicken!  It isn't technically fried though, so..... a girl can dream.

Everyone tried it.  Our youngest enjoyed it so much that he had seconds.  I loved it too, but was too stuffed to have seconds.  Everyone else wasn't a fan.  They rarely are of new things though, so I wasn't surprised.  I wonder if I put it in a KFC bucket if they'd suddenly enjoy it? 
 

Oven Fried Chicken - Serves 6+

4 chicken breasts cut in half
1/2 teaspon salt
1 tablespoon season all
3/4 teaspoon pepper
1 cup flour
2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 stick butter

1 - Put chicken into a bowl of milk to soak for about 25 minutes.  Put the salt, season all, pepper, flour and paprika into a large bowl or zipper bag.

2 - Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

3 - Melt the butter and pour into a 9 X 13 baking dish. Make sure the bottom of the entire dish is coated.

4 - Remove chicken from the milk and shake off any excess.  Dip (or shake) each chicken piece in the seasoning mix that's in the bowl or zipper bag.  Be sure each chicken breast is well coated with the seasoning and then place it in the baking dish.

5 - Bake for 20 minutes, then turn each piece of chicken and bake for an additional 20 minutes or until cooked through.

New Year

I've been sticking to our favorites the last few months and haven't tried anything new.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that my husband came home with a stack of new dishes to try.  He had some free time at work and took the initiative to do some research.  All of the recipes seem fairly easy and sound delicious, so I'm eager to try them out.  The next two weeks worth of meals (other than the days we do a routine spaghetti or pizza night) are brought to you by BILLY!  Well, I'll do all the cooking, but the recipes and dish choices are all him.  He's my pickiest eater of all, so if he thinks he'll like them, surely the kids will enjoy them too.  Stay tuned.  Here's hoping that 2014 is full of new dishes that everyone (or at least the majority) really enjoy!