Lion House Chicken and Wild Rice

This recipe came from the Lion House Christmas recipe cookbook. Dh and I really liked the dish. The kids not so much. I will admit it was a little spicy but only because I had a cold and couldn't taste it so I kept adding spices to the sauce. Dh loved the fact it was spicy. I did not use the lemon juice as I don't really like lemon flavoring with my chicken, weird I know, so I subbed 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar. Overall its a recipe that will be used often in our house but I think I will be tinkering with the recipe some to cater it to our tastes. If your not familiar with the Lion House its a local resturant in Utah that is a popular place to eat.

6 to 8 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

6 cups flour

2 tablespoons chili powder

1 teaspoon cayenne powder

1 teaspoon paprika

1 tablespoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper

4 cups milk

2 cups oil

1 recipe sauce, see below

1 recipe wild rice, see below

Divide the flour in half and put in two separate bowls. In the first bowl add chili powder, cayenne pepper, paprika, salt, and pepper. Mix well. Place raw chicken into the other bowl and coat evenly with flour, making sure to remove any excess flour. Pour milk into a third bowl. Place chicken from flour into milk, one at a time. Remove and put each breast into seasoned flour to coat. Heat a large frying pan with oil on medium high heat. Place each piece of meat in oil and cook approximately 2 minutes on each side or until golden brown. When browned, place chicken on a baking sheet in a 365 degree oven. Cook until internal temperature of chicken reaches 165 degrees on meat thermometer.

Sauce

1/2 cup butter

1 1/2 cups diced onion

3/4 cup flour

8 cups milk

1 1/2 teaspoons cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon Tabasco sauce

1 lemon, juiced

salt and pepper to taste

Melt butter and saute onions until translucent. Add flour and stir until smooth. Let cook until slightly browned (about 5 minutes). Add milk, cayenne, paprika, Worcestershire sauce, and Tabasco Sauce. Simmer over medium heat until thickened. Add lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Pour over baked chicken just before serving.

Wild Rice

1 tablespoon butter

1 cup white rice

1/2 cup wild rice

3 cups water

1/2 teaspoon salt

Melt butter in saucepan. Add white and wild rice and stir over medium heat until white rice begins to brown. Add water and salt. Bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to low. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes or until tender. Serve with chicken.

Crockpot Creamy Ranch Chicken

This is one of my standby recipes. I can get everyone in the house to eat it and its an easy meal to make. You can serve it with rice or noodles, whichever your in the mood for that day.

1 1/2 lbs chicken breast (boneless and skinless) or tenders

8 ounces cream cheese

3 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons italian salad dressing mix, from a package or your own mix

1 package ranch dressing mix or 1/4 cup of your own mix

Brown chicken on stove and then place in crockpot. Add about 2 tablespoons water and sprinkle the italian salad dressing over the top and the butter. Cook for 3-5 hours on high or 7-9 hours on low. One hour before serving shred the chicken and put back in the crock pot with the juices. Add the cream cheese and mix. Add the ranch dressing and cook for another hour. Serve warm over rice or noodles.

Twice Baked Potatoes

I was watching Cook's Country on PBS the other day and they made twice baked potatoes. Now I didn't follow their recipe but I did take a few things they did to make my potatoes. These were really tasty and loved my everyone who ate them. I wish I had some roquefort cheese to add because it would have made these potatoes the best I've ever eaten.

5 potatoes, russets are best but I used red

Bake them until tender. Allow to cool. Turn on side and cut off the top 1/4 of the potato. Reserve the cut off section.

Scrape the insides of the potato but not all the way to the edge. Save some potato near the skin so the potato won't collapes. On the fifth potato no need just scrape out all of the potato.

Add all the scraped out potato plus scrape the potato off the sections you cut off. Place in bowl and add about 3 tablespoons butter. Mix together with a mixer. Add about 1/3 cup half and half or until the potatoes reach the consistency you prefer. Add one garlic clove minced. Salt and pepper to your taste.

Optional- add 4 slices of cooked bacon chopped

Add 3 tablespoons fresh chopped chives. You can sub dried chives if you want but don't add as much. Mix everything together then add about 1/4 cup sharp cheddar cheese.

Take the potato shells and spread melted butter on them. Place in 475 degree oven for 15 minutes to crisp the shells. Remove from oven and

add the potato mixture to the shells. Top with some fresh chopped chives and sprinkle with cheese. Cook at 475 for 15 minutes or until it starts to brown.

Serve.

Winner of the contest

Louise!! Email me at n_baron@msn.com with your address and I'll get those in the mail to you next week.

Diner Style Pork Chops and Gravy and A Contest

First the contest, just respond to this post with your all time favorite dish to make for Thanksgiving (post the recipe if you want) and on Friday I'll draw a name to win a package of Ziploc Zip n' Steam bags. There are 7 large bags in the package.

Second the pork chops. I found the recipe in the 30 minute section of December's Cooks Country magazine . I looked at the picture and knew my husband would love the recipe. I was surprised myself when I liked the dish. The kids ate everything put in front of them although I didn't give them gravy. The flavors melded together well and this recipe will be a favorite pork chop recipe of mine. I had never had never used fennel before when cooking gravy so it was a new twist and one that I liked.

8 slices bacon, chopped

4 bone in rib or center cut pork chops about 1 inch thick

salt and pepper

1 onion halved and sliced thin

2 tablespoons all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons ground fennel

1 1/2 teaspoons ground sage

1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth

2 cups whole milk

1. Cook bacon in large nonstick skillet over medium high heat until crisp; about 5 minutes, transfer to paper towel lined plate. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons bacon fat from skillet. Pat chops dry and season with salt and pepper. Cook chops in skillet until well browned and meat registers 145 degrees, about 5 minutes per side. Transfer to serving platter and tent with foil.

2. Add onion to fat in skillet and cook, uncovered, until softened and browned, about 4 minutes. Stir in flour, fennel, sage, and cook until flour is absorbed, about 1 minute. Whisk in broth and milk, then reduce heat to medium and simmer until sauce thickened, about 8 minutes. Stir in reserved bacon and any accumulated pork juices and season with salt and pepper. Pour gravy over chops. Serve.

Ranch Style Chili

I've been looking at this recipe in my Cook's Country magazine for at least a year now and I finally decided to make it. I'll admit I wasn't too into this chili. The flavors just seemed "weird" to me. However my dh and father loved the chili.

I did make a few changes to the original recipe. I used pork stew meat in place of the Boston Butt roast, mainly because I had it on hand and I am trying to use things up from my freezer. I also used dried pinto beans that I cooked before adding them to the chili. Again because I didn't have any canned pinto or kidney beans in the house.

3 1/2 lbs boneless Boston Butt roast, trimmed of excess fat and cut into 1 inch cubes
salt and pepper
8 slices of bacon, chopped fine
1 large onion, minced
3 large jalapeno chilies (about 2 1/2 inches long), seeded and minced
3 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
5 medium garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 28 ounce can diced tomatoes
3 cups water
2 16 ounce red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1. Toss pork cubes with salt and pepper; set aside. Fry bacon in large, heavy soup kettle or dutch oven over medium heat until fat renders and bacon crisps, about 10 minutes. Remove bacon with slotted spoon to plate lined with paper towels; pour all but 2 teaspoons into small bowl; set aside.

2. Increase heat to medium high, add half of meat to now empty pot and cook until well browned on all sides, about 5 minutes. Transfer browned meat to bowl. Brown remaining meat, adding another 2 teaspoons of bacon fat to pot if neccessary. Transfer second batch of meat to bowl.

3. Reduce heat to medium low and add 3 tablespoons bacon fat to now empty pot. Add onion, jalapenos, chili powder, cumin, and oregano; cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are beginning to turn brown, 4 to 5 minutes. Add garlic and brown sugar; cook until just fragrant, about 15 seconds. Add diced tomatoes and scrape pot bottom to loosen browned bits. Add reserved bacon, browned pork, and water; bring to a simmer. Continue to cook, uncovered, at slow simmer until meat is tender and juices are dark and starting to thicken, about 2 hours.

4. Add beans, reduce heat to low, and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes. Adjust seasoning with additional salt and serve with condiments.

Some good choices for condiments:
diced fresh tomatoes, lime wedges, diced avocado, sliced scallions, chopped red onion, chopped cilantro leaves, sour cream, and shredded Montrey Jack or cheddar cheese.

Scoop and Bake Rolls

Easy to make rolls that taste pretty good too. I don't remember where I found the recipe but I've had it for awhile now.

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 envelope (2 1/4 teaspoons) instant or rapid-rise yeast

1 cup water , heated to 110 degrees

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1 large egg

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 200 degrees. Maintain temperature for 10 minutes, then turn off oven. Grease muffin tin.

2. Whisk 1 1/4 cups flour, sugar, salt, and yeast in large bowl. Whisk in water, butter, and egg until very smooth, about 2 minutes. Add remaining flour and mix with rubber spatula until just combined. Cover bowl with greased plastic wrap and place in warm oven until batter has doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

3. Remove batter from oven and heat oven to 375 degrees. Punch dough down. Scoop batter evenly into muffin tin. Cover with greased plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until batter nearly reaches rims of muffin cups, about 15 minutes. Remove plastic and bake until rolls are golden, 14 to 18 minutes. Serve. (Rolls can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for 3 days.)Make Ahead: After being covered with greased plastic wrap in step 3, the batter can be refrigerated in the muffin tin for up to 24 hours. When ready to bake, let the batter sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before proceeding with the recipe.

Fun contest

A friend of mine is having a fun contest over on her blog. Enter her contest and check out her great blog.
http://thelittleredhenfoodsite.blogspot.com/2008/10/menu-planning-and-contest.html

Halloween Night Dinner

"Eyeballs over ants"

"Bones"

I decided to try something different and fun for dinner on Halloween. I settled on meatballs with rice and breadsticks. The dinner turned out cute and I had fun making it even if I ended up making the breadsticks from canned dough (ran out of time).

Breadsticks, I saw this in a magazine but not sure which one probably Family Fun
1 can of refrigerator breadsticks
3 tablespoons butter
seasonings of your choice
Unroll breadsticks, cut in half. Take each half and cut up about 1/4 of the way on both sides. Roll the cut edges into knobs so they look like bones. Cook according to package directions. After cooked spread melted butter over the bones and add the seasonings of your choice.


Meatballs adapted from The Lion House Christmas cookbook
3 slices bread (white or wheat)
2/3 cup milk
2 eggs, beaten well
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon Worcehstire sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 onion, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In a large bowl, soak bread slices in milk until soft. Add eggs, ground beef, onion, and seasonings; mix until well blended. Shape mixture into 3/4 inch or 1 inch balls, place meatballs on shallow baking sheets and bake 10 to 15 minutes.

2 cups ketchup
1 cup grape jelly
Mix well.

Add meatballs to crockpot and pour ketchup mixture over the top and cook on high for about 2 hours. Serve over rice.