chicken

Christmas Eve Menu

/ TaMara

Every year, around Thanksgiving, I ask my Christmas Eve guests what they want at our annual soiree.

This year we settled on fairly simple, yet tasty menu:

Oven Fried Buttermilk Chicken 

This will be a tweaked recipe – kind of combining two of my favorite recipes. I’ve done a couple of practice batches – can’t have too much oven fried chicken! – and once I have it perfected, I’ll post.

Loaded Mashed Potatoes

I’m doing my no boil mashed potatoes (recipe here) and serving it fully loaded with sour cream, bacon and cheddar cheese. Also gravy.

Cajun Gravy

This will be a spicy mix of sausage, bacon, minced chicken hearty gravy.

Bacon, Tomato, Green Beans

Pretty simple – tossing green beans with bacon (and bacon grease) and sliced grape tomatoes in a skillet until tender.

And finally, dessert will be the ever popular Ice Cream Sundae Bar

Premium vanilla bean ice cream served with choice of toppings – caramel, chocolate, peanuts, walnuts and sliced bananas

Photos and recipes to follow.

 

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Multi-Pot Recipes: Shredded Chicken, Two Ways

/ TaMara

My multi-pot electric pressure cooker is 6 qt, so I like to fill it up when I’m using it. I bought a large package of boneless chicken breasts and instead of freezing half, I decided to cook them all up. I used the steaming tray and add just enough water to come up to the bottom of the tray. I also added 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar. I seasoned the breasts with salt, pepper and garlic.

I layered them in the pot and pressed the chicken setting and walked away. That’s my favorite part of this, I don’t have to babysit it. It even has a warming feature if I need to be away from it for a while after it depressurizes.

Once it had depressurized, I divided the chicken in half, shredded both halves. I removed the liquid from the pot and saved it to add to my next broth session.

I added half the chicken back to the pot, stirred in a generous amount of barbecue sauce (we like Sweet Baby Rays here) and turned on the slow cooker feature. I let it simmer on the low setting for a couple of hours, just to get the flavors good and incorporated.  I then used it for BBQ Chicken Sandwiches.

The remainder of the chicken, I put into a bowl, coated with hot wing sauce – I happened to try Sweet Baby Rays wing sauce and it’s pretty good. I then refrigerated it and had for lunches as a Buffalo Chicken Salad, tossed with blue cheese dressing, and paired with my new favorite soup, Creamy Roasted Poblano, recipe here.

 

Chicken Ramen

/ jeffreyw

Ramen has a rap about it being a cheap as dirt staple of starving students.  While absolutely true, it makes a very tasty base for more upscale dinners.  I like poaching an egg or two in the broth.  I put a daub of sambal in mine.You could leave the egg in the simmering broth long enough to get beyond the runny yolk phase but that is not something I would do.  The yolk adds a richness to the broth that is hard to beat.

Fried Rice

/ jeffreyw

Fried rice is one of the easiest things, but be sure to use older rice that has dried out some.  This lunch was the happy result of finding a baggie of rice in the back of freezer beyond during an exploration this morning.  I also used up a single link of garlic pepper sausage left over from a breakfast a few days past.  Saute the sausage or ham or whatever in sesame oil, add the peas and carrots and chopped green onions and sweat those for a few minutes, add the rice and warm that up.  Lastly stir in some oyster sauce and a little soy sauce.  I usually add in some scrambled egg but this time I didn’t.The chicken was dredged in flour, fried, and set aside.  It has a sauce of honey, garlic, ginger, chili paste, and soy sauce that was simmered to warm and reduce.  Add the chicken to it and toss to coat.  The green beans were steamed and chilled, then re-warmed in a pan with garlic and sesame oil.

Pan Biscuits and Chicken Gravy

/ jeffreyw

 

This was a cross between biscuits and gravy and chicken pot pie.  I went with this recipe for the biscuits.  I’ve made it before but this time I used an 8×8 inch glass pan.  I should have stayed with my larger hotel pan because the biscuits took way longer to bake than the recipe indicated.  After I took the pic I tried to plate some biscuits for the dinner but they were not yet done, I had to give them 10 more minutes past the 25 I had set the timer for and they were still not quite right.

The chicken was leftover from the “Winner, Winner..” post the other day, and the gravy was just a simple white sauce with powdered mustard, a few ounces of Parmesan, plus the remaining chicken gravy.  I steamed some more veggies to add to it.  I was hungry when I put the biscuits into the oven and ravenous by the time they were finally done.

Multi-Pot Recipes: Cooking In Two Layers, Shredded BBQ Chicken and Mashed Potatoes

/ TaMara / 1 Comment

I’ve been using my multi-pot electric pressure cooker a lot. I’ve been making my standard pressure cooker recipes, including a delicious pot roast  (recipe here – although I’ve been using  whiskey instead of wine and really liking the flavor)

My multi-pot came with both a steamer tray and a steam basket. The former is so you can steam instead of boil your food and the latter so  you can cook two items at once. On a busy day, I may not cook fancy, but with a pressure cooker  you can put together a quick flavorful meal in a few minutes.

I thought it was time to give the steamer basket a try.

First up – the steamer tray. The one that came with the multi-pot is basically a wire rack. The one from my stove-top pressure cooker is a flat tray.

I wondered if it would fit and sure enough it did. So I started with that one, since I was more familiar with it. What I love about the steamer tray is you can infuse whatever you’re cooking with lots of flavor by placing a spice packet (I use unbleached coffee filters and string) under the tray, add just enough water to cover the tray and cook as usual.  Super flavorful when pressure cooked.

I made Chicken in BBQ sauce and mashed potatoes:

Shredded BBQ Chicken

  • 3 small boneless chicken breasts
  • salt & pepper
  • red wine vinegar
  • water
  • spice packet: rosemary, sage, garlic, oregano – crushed together and tied into a flat spice packet to fit under the tray

Lightly salt and pepper chicken breasts. In the multi-pot add enough liquid (1/2 water and 1/2 red wine vinegar) to barely cover the tray. Add spice packet, steaming tray and then chicken breasts.

Now it’s time to add the potatoes in the steaming basket.

Mashed Potatoes

  • 4 potatoes (I like yukon gold, but any will do), washed and cut into eight pieces each)
  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • salt and pepper to taste

Place the steam basket into the multi-pot and add potatoes.

Now it’s time to attach the lid and cook according to directions – use the time for the longest cooking item, in this case the chicken (15 minutes vs. 10 minutes for the potatoes).

Once the cooker has depressurized, add potatoes to a large bowl to mash, heat milk and butter in microwave until butter is melted and add to potatoes. Mash and add salt and pepper to taste. Cover to keep warm.

For the chicken, remove from the pressure cooker to a plate. Remove spice packet and liquid (I save the liquid and freeze for soup base). Shred chicken (I use two forks, pulling in opposite directions) and then add back into the multi-pot along with BBQ sauce (Sweet Baby Rays – sweet & spicy – is my favorite) and turn the multi-pot to WARM. Let simmer until everything is heated through (a couple of minutes).

Serve with steamed buttered green beans for a quick evening meal.  It’s not fancy, but it’s also not fast food. 😉

This technique can be used with many items – instead of BBQ you can skip the vinegar when cooking and then use the liquid, along with milk, butter and flour to make a quick gravy after the chicken has steamed. Shred the chicken, add to the gravy and serve over potatoes.

Use this two-tier technique with pot roast, ribs, pork roast… etc.

I think I’m going to try lemon juice, chicken and rice for my next concoction.

Note on steamer tray – I made my first batch of mashed potatoes without it and the potatoes were watery. The next batch I switched to the steamer tray and they were smooth and creamy. Lesson: steam whenever you can instead of boil.

For all the Multi-Pot recipes, bookmark this link.

Next Multi-Pot recipe will be Sesame Chicken. Until then…

 

Roasted Chicken and Pear Crisp

/ TaMara

This is such an easy dinner. Season bone-in chicken thighs with salt, pepper and poultry seasoning. I gently pull up the skin and sprinkle spices underneath and replace the skin. I brush a bit of olive oil over them and then place them on top of halved potatoes and zucchini, also brushed with a bit of olive oil. Roast at 375 degrees.

Pear Crisp is delicious. It is my basic Apple Crisp recipe (here), added some walnuts and yum!