Instapot Chicken & dumplings

INGREDIENTS

3 Tbsp butter or olive oil

1.5 pound boneless skinless chicken thighs, sliced into 1" strips

1 Medium yellow onion diced

3 Ribs of celery washed and diced

4 Carrots diced

1/2 Tsp poultry seasoning

Salt & Pepper

6 Cups chicken stock

1 Cup frozen corn

1.75 Cups Bisquick baking mix

2/3 Cups milk

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/4 Cup heavy cream

DIRECTIONS

Turn Instapot to sauté, add butter or olive oil, chicken, salt & pepper, cook 4 minutes or until lightly browned.  Add in onions, celery, carrots, and seasoning, toss to combine and cook for one minute.  Add broth, lock the lid and cook for 8 minutes.  Perform a quick release.  Set pot to sauté or high and add in corn.  Taste soup at this point to see if it needs more salt & pepper, if so, season to desired taste.  Mix together biscuit dough and drop by rounded spoonfuls into soup.  Let dumplings simmer for 8 minutes.  Put lid on and turn to sauté, let cook covered for 2 more minutes to be sure the top of the dumplings cook.  Release, remove lid, stir in cream, and serve.  

I doubled the biscuit recipe and baked a set of cheese biscuits to serve with it also.  The next day for lunch I found that the dumplings had dissolved over night, so I put the biscuits on top of the soup, inside the kids thermos.

This recipe is adapted from the book (the only thing I added was cheddar cheese), "Great Food Fast" by Bob Warden.  You can get it on Amazon

Old fashioned fried chicken for beginners

I had a craving for some good ole fried chicken the other night. By craving I mean that as a vegetarian I was really wanting to make it for my husband so someone else could enjoy what was on my mind. I make fried chicken a lot, with skin and bones but these last two times I wanted something faster that cooked a little more even so I used boneless skinless chicken. This is also an excellent beginner recipe. Fried chicken with bones and skin can be tricky. It can burn since it takes long to cook it, or you have to learn to poach it. Many things can go wrong. But this chicken IS IDIOT PROOF. My four year old helped me make it tonight. Here is the recipe.

6-8 Boneless skinless chicken thighs*

1.5 Cups flour

1/2 Sleeve saltine crackers smashed finely

1 Tsp salt

1 Tsp pepper

2 Tbsp garlic powder

1 Tsp powdered ranch dressing mix (if you don't have leave out but your missing out)

1/2 cup milk

3 eggs

About 2 cups vegetable oil

Cayenne pepper to taste. I use a tsp in the flour and a tsp in the egg wash for my husbands chicken, and none for my kids

Fill a large skillet with about a half inch vegetable oil. Heat over medium low. In a bowl combine milk, eggs and half of each seasoning. On a plate combine smashed crackers, flour and remaining seasoning. To see if the oil is ready take a teeny pinch of flour and sprinkle it in oil, if it sizzles it's ready. If it POPS it's too hot, if it smokes or rolls it's too hot. Take your piece of chicken and lay it flat on each side in the flour. Then dip it in the egg mixture. Roll it in the flour again until evenly coated and then place in oil. I prefer to only cook 3 pieces at a time. This way the oil stays at temperature. Adding too much too fast will cool your oil. Preheat your oven to warm. Line a baking sheet with foil and place a cooling rack on it. Cook each piece of chicken about five minutes and then flip. Even if it isn't golden brown go ahead and flip. You want to cook it evenly. Cook for five minutes on the following side and then flip again. Use a knife and poke a small hole halfway into the biggest part of the chicken. If the juices run clear you are good. Put it on the cooling rack. If it needs longer continue turning it every 1-2 minutes. Once cooked through remove the chicken and place it on the rack and then put it in the oven on warm while you cook the rest of your chicken. If you keep the heat low and slow your chicken should cook evenly and none of it should burn.

You might notice little clumps of flour on your chicken after dipping it in the egg wash. This is good. That part gets tasty and crispy. It might look a little messy right before you put it in the pan but when it's done, KFC won't have nothin on you!

*(if you use breasts pound them out a little so they cook even, or butterfly them in half so they are a little bit thinner)

Crispy cheddar lays baked chicken

4 cups Lays cheddar sour cream potato chips crushed up
5 pieces of chicken bone in skin on
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tbsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 450. Also heat a large oven safe skillet over medium heat. Add olive oil to pan. Beat eggs and mix in buttermilk garlic powder, pepper & salt. Roll chicken in egg mixture then roll into crushed up chips. Place skin side down in pan. Cook only for about 2 minutes just to crisp it all up. Transfer to oven and cook uncovered about 20 minutes or until chicken juice runs clear when poked.

Broccoli chicken casseorle

This is the cheapest, easiest, most lazy meal ever, and somehow EVERYONE LOVED IT! It's one of those things where I was at the store, threw 6 things in the basket and prayed.

1 Store bought roasted chicken shredded
2 cups uncooked small shell pasta
2 cups mild shredded cheese shredded
1/2 cup frozen broccoli pieces
1 can cream of mushroom chicken
1 can cream of celery chicken

Preheat oven to 450. Boil pasta. While pasta is boiling mix everything else in a bowl reserving 1/2 cup of cheese. Combine pasta in with remaining ingredients and place in an oven safe baking dish. Cover with remaining cheese and bake for 20 minutes. Serve.

Literally that is it. I told you...cheap, easy LAZY. But really good.

Pan roasted chicken with mushroom garlic gravy

Ingredients
5-6 bone in skin on chicken thighs
2 cups chicken stock
1 cup water
1 package mushrooms (chopped up)
3 tbsp unsalted butter
3 tbsp flour
7 cloves garlic chopped
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt

In large deep skillet brown chicken on both sides. If you are married to my husband remove one piece of super crispy skin and stick it on a plate for him to dunk in hot sauce. Otherwise the skin should remain on the entire time. Add in chicken stock, salt, pepper and garlic. Simmer for about 15-20 minutes until chicken is cooked through and has clear juices when you poke it. Remove chicken and pour stock and garlic in a separate container. Add mushrooms to pan and cook down until brown. If you like you can put a small amount of cooking spray in the pan so they don't stick but they don't need oil or anything else. Once they brown reduce heat and add in the butter. Once the butter is melted sprinkle in the flour and combine. Cook for about a minute until it is all a golden brown. Don't burn it but you don't want the flour to taste like paste so it needs to cook a little. Crank the heat up to high and pour your liquid and garlic back in, whisking vigorously. It should start to thicken right up. Put the chicken into the gravy reduce heat to low and simmer it for about 2 minutes so it gets all good and coated and the skin absorbs all of the flavor. Then pour it all over a giant helping of mashed potatoes.

Only use the water if your gravy turns out too thick. Gravy is kind of a science. If you don't have the right amount of flour it will either be too runny or too thick. I prefer to err on the side of too thick because I can just add some cream or water too thin it. If it is too thing (I've done this) you have to pour it all back into your container do the butter and flour thing all over again and then mix it all back up again!

Technically cooking the chicken in the broth is poaching it. But since I pan roast it first I used that in the name. I like poaching meat like that though because it stays so moist.

Creamy Chicken Pasta With Mushrooms and Spinach

INGREDIENTS

4 boneless skinless chicken breast

1/4 cup butter

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup with roasted garlic

1 tablespoon Italian seasoning

salt

pepper

1/2 cup half and half

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

1 bag baby spinach

1 cup mushrooms, sliced

4 slices cooked bacon, crumbled

1 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded

1 pound linguine noodles

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Season chicken with salt and pepper. In a large skillet melt butter over medium heat then add in chicken and garlic. Cook for chicken 5-7 minutes each side, or until each side is browned. Stir in the lemon juice, soup, Italian season, half and half, and Parmesan cheese.

3. Arrange spinach along the bottom of a 13x9 inch baking dish then top with sliced mushrooms. Pour chicken and sauce over the top and sprinkle with bacon then mozzarella cheese.

4. Bake 25-30 minutes.

5. In a boiling pot of salted water cook the linguine noodles 8-10 minutes, or until al dente.

6. Serve chicken on top of pasta.

Hot wings

1 Package party wings/chicken wings
1/2 cup hot sauce (I used Red Devil, Tapatio is similar)
2.5 cups flour
2 tbsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp ranch dressing mix
1 tbsp favorite chicken seasoning
2 tsp pepper
2 tbsp garlic salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil

One hour before cooking add chicken and hot sauce into zip lock bag. Allow chicken to marinate in hot sauce. Combine flour and all remaining ingredients, reserving oil. Heat oil over medium heat in deep skillet or frying pan. Remove wings from sauce (don't wipe them, keep them saucy as possible) and drop in flour. Fully coat in flour, then using tongs gently tap off excess flour mixture, it is mostly used to trap the hot sauce. Once oil is hot (hint: drop a bit of the flour mix in first, if it bubbles you are good to go) working in batches of ten fry chicken for about 5 minutes on each side until chicken is cooked and juices run clear. Dry on paper towels to get rid of excess oil, serve hot with your favorite side dishes. Hint, fries and tator tots.

Lemon Garlic Chicken

Yet another recipe from Rachel Ray. And yet another recipe I totally had to edit. Again, whenever I cook I TASTE AS I GO, this is important. If I didn't I would have had chicken that tasted like olive oil and THAT WAS ALL. Her recipe had no flavor, and not enough honey. There were a few reasons I picked this recipe. The main one? Chicken legs are cheap and pretty fucking big. One leg feeds Rob and if I cut one in half the drummy is perfect for Brandon. I got SIX legs for $4.48 this weekend and that will make two meals plus two lunches. Hell yeah. Plus anything that stuffs garlic under chicken skin is good with me. Also I only used 3 legs. I don't know how she thinks her recipe made enough marinade for 4 but whatever.

I will put my edits in italics

• 3 Chicken legs
  
• 4 tablespoons honey
• Grated peel and juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tbsp terriyaki marinade
  
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 8 cloves garlic, grated
• 2 tbsp butter
  
• 4 chicken legs, patted dry
• Salt and pepper
  

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 450°. In a small bowl, whisk together the honey, lemon juice, terriyaki sauce and olive oil. In another bowl, stir together the garlic and lemon peel. Add butter and microwave for 25 seconds. With a fork mash butter, garlic and lemon juice together. Place the chicken in a greased 9-by- 13-inch baking dish. Using your fingers, spread the garlic mixture underneath the chicken skin. Rub the chicken all over with the honey mixture, season with salt and pepper and arrange in a single layer. Cover the pan with foil and roast for 15 minutes, then turn the chicken, cover the pan and roast for 10 minutes more. Uncover and roast until golden, 8 minutes. Turn broiler to low and place chicken skin side up under broiler. Baste chicken with pan drippings and sauce every couple minutes (if you are anal like me you will set the timer for every 2 minutes) until skin begins to bubble and brown. Serve and enjoy.

You will notice in the early pictures my chicken was nowhere near as brown as Rachels. I think she is full of shit. First, it wouldn't have browned cooking her way with simply flipping it and no basting. Second mine even had the dark terriyaki sauce on it and it still didn't brown like hers until I basted it.