Hominy Succotash with Bacon

I should start by saying I didn't actually cook this, Richard did.  But I would have had I not been carrying around a fussy baby. 

I like everything in this so I think it's pretty good.  We used milk instead of cream because we keep milk in the house and not cream.  I think it would be richer with the cream but it isn't worth the added expense.  Richard isn't a huge fan of lima beans so he's trying to figure out something to hide them a bit.  He thinks it needs a little bit more something and is planning on playing with seasonings or maybe adding some cheese to a little bit of it.  Or a different bean.  I'm thinking maybe half kidney beans and half lima beans would be good in the future.  And it needs more bacon, because everything is better with bacon and the more the better.

Long story short, it's a tasty little side dish.  I'm thinking we'll probably make it again but we will have to work on tweaking things a bit so Richard doesn't have to pick out all the lima beans.  And honestly while I like them, I don't want a whole bowl of lima beans because Richard picked them all out.
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Hominy Succotash with Bacon
from: Safeway kitchens

4 slices Bacon
1 15.5 oz can Golden Hominy, drained
1 15.5 oz can White Hominy, drained
1 15 oz can Lima Beans, drained
1/2 cup cream or milk

Cook bacon in a medium skillet over medium heat until crisp.  Remove to paper towels.  Measure 3 tablespoons drippings and return to skillet.  Stir hominy and beans into drippings.  Cook until hot.  Stir in cream or milk.  Cook 2 minutes.  Crumble bacon; sprinkle on top.  Makes 6 servings.

Crock-pot Cheesy Bacon Dip

It's been awhile since I've posted anything on this blog, don't worry I have been cooking I just haven't been feeling like posting things.  But here I am deciding maybe, just maybe I should resume this blog.  It is pretty nice to be able to come back and find most any recipe that I've tried before to make it again.  I do that quite often actually. 

So this last weekend my family had their second annual crock-pot party.  I made the Corned Beef and Cabbage recipe that can be found in this blog as well as this Cheesy Bacon Dip.  I loved the dip, Richard loved the dip, we'll have to find more reasons to make it.   It says to put it on chips or bread but I thought it was much better on the little bread rounds.  I also used some of the left overs as a topping on mashed potatoes today and that was very tasty indeed!  I cooked it on high at first but it was making the cheese a little extra crispy on the sides so I turned it down to low.  Make sure to stir it like it says too or you will have the cheese over cooked on the edges. 

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Cheesy Bacon Dip
From: Best Slow Cooker Recipes

2 8-oz. packages cream cheese, cubed
4 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup half-and-half cream
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon dried minced onions
1 teaspoon prepared mustard
16 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled
Tortilla chips or French bread slices

Directions: 
In a 1-1/2 quart slow cooker, combine the cream cheese, cheddar cheese, cream, Worcestershire sauce, onion and mustard.  Cover and cook for 2 hours or until both cheeses are melted completely; stir occasionally.

Stir bacon strips into dip right before serving.  Serve with tortilla chips or bread.

Chicken with "Cider" and Bacon Sauce

So I put the cider in parenthesis because I didn't use cider like the recipe called for, finding unsweetened cider is difficult.  And if I had found it I would have then had to make sure that the "spices" were something I could actually have, so I decided to just use the Simply Apple Juice instead and it is really just unsweetened apple with nothing added.

I really liked how this turned out, very tasty, if I'm feeling like chicken I'm bound to make it again.  Chicken isn't one of my favorite meats, I know I'm weird.  I paired it with a boiled artichoke which we dipped in lemon juice and butter.  I know it's a pretty strange combination, but that's what sounded good while shopping and they really did go alright together.  I decided to skip making any rice, quinoa or something of the sorts, I'm glad I did because the chicken and artichoke were enough for dinner without adding anything else.

I was thinking I didn't change to much up, that is until I retyped the recipe and now I realized I might have changed more then I thought.  I left the salt and pepper off the chicken, there was enough flavor without it so I didn't really miss it one bit.  I had read the reviews online and everything said that there wasn't enough sauce and it was recommended to double it, I also read something about adding chopped apples for added flavor.  So for the sauce this is what I really added: 13.5 oz bottle of Simple Apple Juice, 1/2 medium onion minced, 3 slices of turkey bacon chopped, 1 cup of low sodium chicken broth and about 3 slices of apple minced.  I added the chopped apples to the sauce at the same time as the bacon.
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Chicken with Cider and Bacon Sauce
from: CookingLight

Ingredients:
4 (6 ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 bacon slices, chopped
1/4 cup minced fresh onion
3/4 cup unsweetened apple cider
1/2 cup fat-free, less sodium chicken broth

Preparation:

Place each chicken breast half between 2 sheets of heavy-duty plastic wrap; pound to a 1/2 inch thickness using a meat mallet or rolling pin.  Sprinkle chicken evenly with salt and pepper.

Cook bacon in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat until crisp.  Remove bacon from pan.  Add chicken to drippings in pan; cook 6 minutes on each side or until done. Remove chicken from pan; keep warm.

Add onion to pan; cook 2 minutes or until tender, stirring constantly.  Add cider and broth; bring to a boil, scraping pan to loosen browned bits.  Cook until broth mixture is reduced to 1/2 cup (about 5 minutes).  Stir in cooked bacon; serve sauce over chicken.

Chicken and Dumplings

I have always loved Chicken and Dumplings, having cooked a whole chicken earlier in the week I decided to boil down the carcass and make some dumplings!  I losely followed a recipe I found online at cooks.com called Grandma's Chicken and Dumpling soup, but I added and subtracted based on what sounded good to me and recommendations from various dumpling recipes I had found.  The recipe below is as close to what I actually did as I can write it, I didn't change the dumpling part at all but the soup is quite different from what I found online.  I absolutely loved these dumplings and it made enough that we had left overs for a couple dinners and I had it for lunch most days I didn't have it for dinner.  I wonder why I never made this before!

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Chicken and Dumpling soup

To make Chicken Broth this is what I did:

In an 8 quart pot add 1 chicken carcass to about 4 quarts water, bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer for 1 hour, strain, remove chicken from carcass, place chicken in the chicken broth.  Then I stored the broth in the fridge until the next day when I was actually making the chicken and dumplings.

Bring chicken broth to a boil and add 2 chicken breasts and 2 bay leaves in from previous day, simmer for about an 1 1/2 hours until chicken is tender

Once chicken is tender:
Add chicken bouillon and herbs to taste
1 (10 3/4 oz.) can sodium free chicken broth
1 (10 3/4 oz.) can cream of chicken and mushroom soup
1 (10 3/4 oz.) can cream of chicken soup
4 stalks chopped celery
4 carrots chopped
1 c. chopped onion
ground clove to taste (2-3 shakes)
thyme to taste
seasoned salt to taste

Put cover on kettle; simmer soup on low heat for 2 to 3 hours.

Feather Dumplings:
2 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. white or black pepper
1 egg, well beaten
2 tbsp. melted butter
2/3 c. milk

About 30 minutes before serving, mix up feather dumplings by sifting dry ingredients together. Add egg, melted butter and enough milk to make moist, stiff batter. Drop by teaspoons into boiling liquid. Cook, covered and without "peeking", for 18 to 20 minutes or until the dumplings are done. Yield: 10 to 12 servings.

It's a new blog...

I decided to start my new blog and I'm super excited about it. I have another blog that is more like a journal where I've been posting the recipes, most people can't see that blog so I decided that it's about time I made a blog for all to enjoy.  Most of the recipes really are too good not to share.  I'll be adding in the posts from my other blog as well (hence this isn't the "oldest post"  Though I do believe I'll post this twice... once for today and once for the oldest date.  Either way, enjoy the recipes!

Cranberry Chicken

When I had my pampered chef party at the beginning of October, if you had told me I would actually roast an entire chicken in my new deep dish baker I was getting I would have told you that you were crazy.  I hate the feeling of raw meat so I have a few issues with taking a whole chicken and doing much of anything with it.  That being said, this was super easy and I managed to do it without creeping myself out!

This recipe came from my pampered chef consultant in a huge list of recipes that could be made in the deep dish cooker.  I love the gravy (and now understand why I might need a gravy separator someday, getting the fat out of the gravy was quite the task).  We had it with basmati rice and snap peas of some sort.  It would be FAR better with mash potatoes then the rice (we tried the gravy on mashed potatoes the next day, very good!) and the veggies didn't turn out all that great, but the chicken was super moist and the gravy was so good that the rice and veggies went fairly unnoticed.
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Cranberry Chicken 
From: Pampered Chef

Mix one can of whole berry cranberries w/ can of cream of mushroom soup & one packet of onion soup mix. Pour over top of chicken in baker. Cover with lid, place in oven; bake for 1-½ hours at 425 degrees.

That's what it looked like before cooking, can you believe I actually touched that and I'm even considering doing it again!

Sausage and Bean Casserole

I found this recipe online and it sounded really good, minus the sausage links that is.  So I decided to be a little adventuresome and make it with ground sausage instead.  I absolutely LOVED how this turned out, I call it sausage bean casserole candy, it was sweet and yummy and I just wanted to eat more and more of it!  I cooked up a thing of french fillet green beans to go with it, a very nice complement.  It made me kind of sad that my french fillet beans didn't grow in the garden last summer!

For the bread slices it says to use, I toasted the bread and then chopped it up with my food chopper, I'm not sure how they really expected this to be done but it worked out well this way so I would probably do it like that again. 

I made the entire thing in one of my new pampered chef cookware pieces it was handy that I could cook it all on the stove and then put the cookware in the oven.  I am really loving my new pampered chef stuff. 

This is a highly recommended recipe, at least with the substituted regular jimmy dean ground sausage like I used that is, I'm not sure how it would be with the turkey links it called for.

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Sausage and bean Casserole
Cooking Light, November 2007

Ingredients

Cooking spray
1  cup  chopped onion (about 1 medium)
1  (16-ounce) package light smoked turkey sausage (such as Hillshire Farm), cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices
2  garlic cloves, minced
1  (14-ounce) can fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
2  tablespoons  brown sugar
2  tablespoons  tomato paste
1/2  teaspoon  dried thyme
1/2  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper
3  (16-ounce) cans cannellini beans or other white beans, rinsed and drained
1  bay leaf
1/8  teaspoon  ground red pepper (optional)
3  (1-ounce) slices white bread
2  tablespoons  chopped fresh parsley

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375°.

Heat a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion and turkey sausage to pan; saute for 5 minutes or until browned. Add garlic, and saute for 2 minutes. Stir in chicken broth, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Stir in 2 tablespoons brown sugar, tomato paste, dried thyme, freshly ground black pepper, cannellini beans, and bay leaf. Add ground red pepper, if desired. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

Place bread in a food processor, and pulse 10 times or until coarse crumbs measure 1 1/2 cups.  Sprinkle breadcrumbs evenly over bean mixture, and lightly coat with cooking spray. Bake at 375° for 15 minutes or until browned. Discard bay leaf. Sprinkle with parsley.