BBQ Chicken Pasta

A few weeks ago, my sister and her family took a mini vacation to their family cabin for a few days. While they were gone, Daniel, Juliet and I house sat, and took care of their extremely low maintenance dog. On one of the first days, before Daniel and I had grocery shopping, I needed to make lunch. The ingredients available to me were pretty sparse, since they had taken most of their food with them to the cabin. While looking through what was accessible, I came up with an idea: BBQ Chicken Pasta. It was just crazy enough to work, that, or be extremely disgusting. Lucky for me, it was a success. I'm pretty sure this will become a staple meal our house.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup BBQ sauce, separated (I very biased-ly think you should use this one).
1 large chicken breast
2 TBS flour
2 cups (skim) milk
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp pepper
Approximately 13 oz (uncooked weight) pasta of your choice. I use whole wheat penne.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Place your chicken breast in a small pan and pour 1/4 cup of the BBQ sauce over it.

Cook the chicken for 35 minutes. While the chicken is cooking, you can make your pasta and your sauce. Just make the pasta according to the box directions. I recommend Al-Dente, but you can cook to your desired softness. In order to make your sauce, place the remaining BBQ sauce and the flour in a medium sauce pan.

Whisk the BBQ sauce and flour together, while cooking on medium heat, until it gets slightly bubbly.

One it gets to this stage, whisk in the milk.

Continue to stir and cook until the mixture darkens in color and starts to thicken.

Add the remaining ingredients to the sauce and boil until you reach your desired sauce consistency.

Remove the sauce from heat and set aside. Cut your cooked (and slightly cooled) chicken into bite sized pieces and get ready to assemble.

 You can either serve individually, or family style. Family style is easier, but individually is a bit more visually appealing. Either way, the order should be pasta first, followed by sauce, and then topped with chicken. You may also add Parmesan cheese to the top if you wish.

Individual

Family Style

I realize this isn't the prettiest looking pasta ever, but the taste is seriously awesome. It isn't super great looking because everything is pretty much the same color. If you want some color contrast, you can use white pasta, and toss the chicken in BBQ sauce after you have cooked it instead of before. It will look a lot better, but won't have as much flavor. I'm letting you decide which one is more important to you. I'm pretty vain, but I chose the flavor.

Garlic Lemon Roasted Chicken

Daniel and I tend to have our 'Sunday Dinner' on Saturday. I have a lot more cooking time on Saturday, when church gets out at four, your dinner options are limited. The 'fancy' meal I make on Saturday, usually gets transformed into an easy meal on Sunday. It allows me to actually rest on the day of rest, instead of slaving over a feast. This past Saturday, Daniel had some friends coming over, so I opted to make the whole chicken that has been sitting in my freezer. I prepared it as follows.

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken
1 lemon
4 cloves garlic
1 1/2 tsp of lemon pepper
1/4 cup oil

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, see I'm getting better at remembering that step! Wash your chicken and pat it dry. Put the chicken off to the side and cut the lemon in half. Squeeze about 1 TBS of juice  from the lemon into a bowl. Take the remainder of the lemon, plus 2 cloves of garlic and stuff them into the chicken cavity.

Filled up cavity.

Place the chicken into a roasting pan (okay..mine was a cake pan, either should work), and tie it's little feet together. I used from beading string from my craft stuff, though most any type of string would work. Now, prepare the...rub. Dice the remaining 2 cloves of garlic, and add them, the lemon pepper, and the oil into the squeezed lemon juice. Stir until everything is evenly distributed.

Now we get a little messy. Use your hands to rub the lemon-garlic oil all over the chicken. Both the top and the bottom and both under and on top of the skin.

I broke the skin, try not to do that.

Roast the chicken in your pre-heated oven for 20 min per pound, or until the juices run clear. I basted mine about every 30 min, you can skip basting if you are busy.

Completed Chicken.

It would look better if I hadn't broke the skin...oh well. It was still tasty. I served it with whole grain fettuccine in butternut squash Alfredo(I don't currently have a recipe for that, but I could develop one), steamed broccoli, and sliced fruit. It made for a nice 'Sunday Dinner'. This chicken also makes a pretty good chicken salad, if you have leftovers.

Recipe Renovation: BBQ Chicken Sandwiches

There are lots of fun new things happening on the blog, and this post is one of them. This is the first in my recipe renovations, taking one of my old recipes, and showing you something else to do with it. This one is a very easy application using my Sweet and Tangy BBQ Sauce, let's go!

Ingredients:
Chicken breasts
BBQ Sauce (mine, or some other kind, if you wish)
Hamburger buns

Yes, I realize that none of these ingredients have specific values, and I will tell you why. This recipe is meant to be easily adjusted to the amount of food you need. It's simple really. Just your desired amount of chicken breasts (mine were actually chicken tenders, same concept) into a crock pot. Pour in BBQ sauce until it reaches the top of the chicken.

Your chicken to BBQ sauce ratio should be similar to this.

Put the lid on your crock pot and cook the chicken, on high, for 3-4 hours. At this point, it should be nice and tender. Take a spoon and proceed to beat up the chicken. It should be tender enough that it falls apart pretty easily when you start attacking it.

My pulverized chicken.

Keep the lid off the pot, and let the mixture cook 15 minutes longer. This step helps to cook out some more of the liquid, so that you don't end up with a soggy mess for a sandwich. Once the chicken has reached a desirable consistency, place it on a hamburger bun. "Paint" some BBQ sauce (some not used on the chicken) on the opposite side of the bun. Put them together, and enjoy.

Ready to eat.

If the pictures are bad, I'm pretty sure Daniel took them. Normally, I make my own buns, but the child was still being a screamer. (She is feeling better now though, I can tell because she has been wandering around destroying stuff.) It can be nice to have a simple, pretty much hands off, dinner sometimes, and this certainly fit the bill.

Lemon Pepper Chicken and Noodles

I said I was going to post a few things in week...yeah that obviously didn't happen. I get distracted by this:

Can you blame me?

Okay recipe time.

Ingredients:
2-3 chicken breasts
The juice of 2 lemons (you can just use lemon juice, but I don't know the exact conversion)
2 TBS vegetable oil
1 TBS vinegar
1 TBS sugar
2 tsp lemon pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp basil
A bunch of spaghetti noodles, cooked according to package directions. (I really don't know this exact measurement, Daniel boiled the noodles for me and I forgot to see how much it was...whoops.)

Mix all ingredients besides the noodles and chicken to make a marinade. Once your marinade has been concocted, marinade the chicken for 30 min, longer if wanted.  After you have marinaded, cook the chicken in a skillet over medium heat. Don't waste any of the marinade, poor that straight in the pan as you are cooking. Once the juices run clear, put the chicken aside. Take your cooked noodles and pour them into the pan. Cook and stir for just a couple minutes until the noodles have absorbed all the extra marinade the chicken left behind. They will be a nice light brown color. Return the chicken to the pan and you are good to go! I guess you really don't have to return to chicken to the pan, you could just eat it...yeah.

The flavor really yields better to the chicken than the noodles, so if you just want to make the chicken that is fine. The noodles are still pretty good, but some people may think they need a little salt.

So, you may have notice no pictures...*insert lame excuse here*. It really is a simple recipe. I have faith you can all follow it perfectly without pictures, and if you can't, too bad! Okay, kidding. I'm always happy to answer questions in the comments.

Orange Chicken

Hey, let's be different this time and jump right into the recipe. Sound fun?

Ingredients:
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/4 c corn starch
2 TBS flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
3 TBS olive oil
3 whole carrots

For the Sauce:
4 oranges
4 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp teriyaki sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp red pepper

Cut your chicken into about 1 inch cube-like pieces (I say cube-like because last I checked chicken isn't square shaped, so it's not going to be perfect). Mix the corn starch, flour, salt and pepper in a medium (size 4[heh, inside joke]) bowl. Toss the chicken into said bowl and mix around until the chicken is well coated. Your hands are really the best tool for this, sorry cooking can be yucky, that's why we invented soap.

My coated chicken.

After the chicken is coated, you are going to want to cook it. Heat a pan to medium heat and add the olive oil followed by the chicken. Brown the chicken nicely, stirring occasionally.

My browned chicken.

Since I only told you to stir occasionally, you can make the sauce while the chicken is cooking. It is really simple. Just juice your oranges (I do it over a sieve so no pulp gets in my sauce), then add the rest of the ingredients under the "for the sauce" section. A whisk is a great tool for this task. Also, take those 3 carrots, peel them and slice into 1/2 inch pieces. Once you have the sauce mixed, the carrots cut, and the chicken nice and browned, add the sauce and carrots to the chicken and slightly reduce the heat of the pan. Get out the pan's lid (uh yeah make sure you use a pan that has a lid), cover and simmer the mix for about 10-15 min. You will want to stir it a few times during this process. If everything goes well, it should turn out a bit like this:

My chicken has a little bit of a kick that hits you at the end. If you want a more kid or heat intolerant friendly dish, simply leave the red pepper out. I like my orange chicken better than most restaurant ones, mostly because it doesn't have super thick breading that has obviously been fried. Daniel said "I don't really like orange chicken, but this good." That is encouraging, but Daniel is easy to please. He eats most everything...other than cherries.

Mushroom Chicken Enchiladas

Awhile back I wanted to make chicken enchiladas. We ate them fairly often growing up, but I was without my mom's recipe. I was just going to make them from memory when I realized I had no cream of chicken soup. I decided to try my own variation, using cream of mushroom soup instead. I hate to say it, but I like these better than the original, sorry mom. I made the dish again tonight, so that, as per request, I could share it. Here is the recipe I came up with. Oh, guess what? This time, I took some pictures! Woot!

Ingredients:
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/4 tsp chile powder
1/4 tsp red pepper (the spice, not the vegetable)
1/4 tsp garlic salt
2 TBS butter (optional)
8 oz can can of mushrooms
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup grated cheddar cheese (divided)
A splash of milk (uh, yes that is a totally a technical food term...maybe like 1/8 cup)
Tortillas

First off, cut your chicken into strips, about 1/2" wide. This really isn't a necessary step, but it will make cooking much easier. Place your chicken in a preheated frying pan (I put a little drizzle of olive oil in the bottom of mine just to prevent sticking) over medium heat (350 on my electric frying pan) and season with the chile powder, red pepper, and garlic salt. I'm not a super huge spicy fan, but it is nice to have a little heat in "Mexican" dishes, plus we will counteract it later with the sour cream. Stir the chicken until it is cooked all the way through, if you cut into strips, this shouldn't take long, possibly 10 min. Because of the spices, the chicken gets a really nice color. Mine looked like this:

Once the chicken is ready, place it in a container and stick it in your freezer. We want it to cool down, and fairly fast, so that we can shred it later. In the meantime it is time to make the sauce. Before I make mine I like to saute my mushrooms. Canned mushrooms aren't known for fabulous flavor, so I saute mine in the 2 TBS of butter until they start getting golden brown edges. Like so:

Okay, it's hard to see the golden brown edges, but I swear they look different than when they came out of the can. This is a totally optional step, I just like the flavor a bit better. To the mushrooms add the cream of mushroom soup, sour cream and 3/4 cup of cheese. Simmer the mixture over low heat for about 10 min. While this mixture is simmering take your chicken out of the freezer. Things are about to get a little messy. Shred the chicken with your hands, the smaller the chicken pieces, the better it will incorporate into the sauce. After the sauce has simmered, take out 1/2 cup and save it for later. Add the chicken to the remaining sauce mixture. The combination of the two should look something like this:

Now is the time to get rolling. Pull out your tortillas and place a bit of mixture in the middle, like so:

I fold in the ends and then roll, but do whatever works for you. I was able to get 7 enchiladas, yeah I know 7 tortillas don't come in a pack, use a little less filling in each and you could get 8. Place the enchiladas in a greased cake pan. Remember the extra sauce we set aside? Well, whisk in the splash of milk and pour the mix over top of the enchiladas. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup of cheese (or more if you are feeling daring). Bake the dish at 350 for 15-20 min. The cheese should be melted and the sauce bubbly. This was my final result:

I love these enchiladas, maybe it's the whole mushroom part of it. I have already ranted to you guys about my love of squash..mushrooms are another food high on my list.

I'm going to say the difficulty of this recipe is easy, though I would raise it to intermediate if you have a screaming baby while making it, which I did.

Super EASY Parmesan Crusted Chicken

I decided to make chicken for dinner tonight. I didn't have a whole lot of time, so I just kind of threw something together. After I made it, I realized that I should have written everything down. Wasn't that the point of this blog? To get me to start writing recipes down? Oh well. It was very tasty, so I decided to blog about the chicken from memory anyway. This one is more of an entry level recipe, so if I scared you with the pasta, don't worry this one is much more manageable. However, since the post was an afterthought...I don't have any pictures.

Ingredients:
3-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 large egg
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 1/2 Tbs mustard
1 Tbs milk
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp pepper
Olive oil for cooking

First, if your chicken breasts are really thick, you probably don't need as many, but you will want to slice them so they are thinner. They will cook much better this way. I also tend to like smaller pieces of chicken, so I cut mine in half (the other way) anyhow. Once your chicken is pleasing to you, set it aside. Crack your egg in a shallow dish, and wisk it a little bit. Add the mayonnaise, mustard and milk and stir until smooth. In a separate shallow dish, combine the Parmesan cheese, flour, salt, basil and pepper.

Coat the bottom large frying pan with your olive oil and let it heat at medium heat for a few minutes. You always want your pan to be hot before you add food, especially meat. While your pan is heating, coat your chicken. First in the wet mixture; then in the dry mixture.  Add your chicken to the heated pan and cook, on medium heat, for about 6 min per side. The thickness of your chicken will affect cooking times. When the chicken is done, it should have a nice golden brown crust, and juices will run clear.

I served my chicken with a simple side of pasta in marinara sauce. You could put marinara on the chicken too, but it really doesn't need it.

Sorry again about no pictures. I'm still new to the food blog world. Things should improve as time goes by.