Recipes
Easy Chicken and Dumplings
Get a giant pot of water. Boil 3 chicken breast with celery hearts (including leaves), salt, pepper (I even put whole peppercorns in there if I have them) and carrots. When chicken is cooked, strain broth removing the celery and carrots. Keep the broth, shred the chicken. Take a roll of cheap refridgerated biscuit dough (it will not do the same with a name brand), sprinkle each biscuit with a little flour, roll in out and cut into thin strips (I use a pizza cutter). Repeat this process with each biscuit. Put the strips into the boiling water with chicken. It is good for some of the flour to get in the water because this will thicken up the soup. You might need to salt and pepper again. I also feel that some thyme makes it perfect.
The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 cups + 2 Tablespoons all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup + 2 Tablespoons packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
1/2 Tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups milk chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)
1. Whisk together flour, salt & baking soda in a large bowl and set aside. Melt butter in a bowl in the microwave. Let cool. Add sugars; whisk until combined. Let it cool completely.
2. Whisk egg, egg yolk & vanilla into cooled butter mixture until combined. Fold into flour mixture until combined. Fold in chips and nuts. Wrap dough in plastic and refridgerate for 30 min.
3. Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees. Make into golf ball size mounds onto baking sheet. Bake for 12-14 min.
I make half the batch without the nuts and then I add the nuts and make the other half with nuts, this way if people don’t like nuts can enjoy too.
This is what we make for Santa and it is derived from, of course, a Martha Stewart recipe.
Candy Brownie Bites
http://picky-palate.com/2009/12/03/festive-candy-cane-kiss-centered-brownie-bites/
These are the cookies I made for my cookies exchange and I will have to add at some point some of the recipes I received. Yum.
There were some Egg Nog cookies that were really good.
My Granny’s Cornbread Dressing
1 batch of cornbread made the night before
2 slices of regular bread left out over night
1 cup each of chopped celery and onions and green onions
1 Tablespoon butter
1 cup + possible more of chicken stock
1 tablespoon of sage
Melt butter in a pan and saute celery and onions together until clear.
Crumble cornbread into a large bowl, add salt and pepper to taste, sage, and crunched bread that was left out over night.
Mix together and begin to slowly add chicken stock. It is important for the mixture to be soft. Add stock a little at a time because the breads will soak up the liquid. You want to be careful not to add so much stock that the dressing becomes gummy. Keept the mixture soft.
Cook at 350 in the oven for 45 min. to 1 hour. You want the edges to be brown.
Halloween Delights
I am in the process of making these at the moment and if they are good, it may become my stand-by dessert. It was super easy and can easily be traded with regular oreos for any old day. I did learn that I will never share an oreo with Missy Mack during this baking process. She took it apart, scraped out the orange center and then decided she doesn’t like oreos. She proceeded to wipe the orange cream all over her dress. YucK!
http://bakingbites.com/2009/10/halloween-oreo-cheesecakes/
The Most Delicious Whole Chicken EVER!
I made this a few weeks ago for my family when they were here for Missy Mack’s birthday. It was so very yummy! I stole the recipe from a blogging friend of mine. Everything I have ever tried of hers, is so good. Now, being the chef that he is, Mr. Mack did not agree with the direction of removing the chicken’s skin (we rarely follow the directions of a recipe), so I did it his way. I happen to agree with the original recipe so if I were you, I would take the skin off. Enjoy!
http://stephscafe.blogspot.com/2009/10/whole-chicken-in-crockpot-asian.html
A New Perfect Summer Salad
I saw this on Giada at Home with her cute little baby. It was so different than what she usually cooks but it looked so yummy I had to try it. I had a friend over this week and a left over grilled chicken breast so I decided to try it. I only forgot one ingredient, the bell pepper, and couldn’t find black sesame seeds and it still was delish. Here is the link:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/asian-chicken-salad-recipe/index.html
There is the great little joint in a fabulous neighborhood around here called Food!Food!. You can get sandwiches and then they have homemade dishes that you can order and eat there or you can pick up a homemade dinner for your family, quick and easy. When we were house hunting we stopped in for a snack. Mr. Mack loaded up on homemade oatmeal cookies, his fave and these lived up to his expectations because he actually moaned while chewing. I got this little cucumber and tomato salad. It was awesome! Here is my attempt at re-creating it. Turns out it, it really is the perfect summer salad.
Tomato and Cucumber Salad
1 package of Nature Sweet cherry tomatoes cut in quarters
1 cucumber de-seeded, cut in half length wise and then sliced to look like cresant moons
1 small container of crumbled feta cheese
mix together in a large bowl. Generously drizzle with good olive oil. 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar. Salt and pepper to taste. Careful with the salt because some feta is naturally salty. I ended up having to go back and salt again because those tomatoes love salt. Mix together and enjoy!
