Sweet & Sour Chicken

I apologize for my lack of new recipes.  I am 4 weeks away from having twin boys!  Finding or coming up with new recipes hasn't exactly been my top priority the last few months.  But this one is awesome.

 

 

Ingredients:
2-3 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
1/2 cup Flour
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 cube butter

1 Green Pepper
A bunch of Baby Carrots
1 large can of Pineapple, save the juice
2 cups Sticky Rice or Minute Rice

Sweet & Sour Sauce:
1 cup Pineapple Juice
1/2 cup Vinegar
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1/4 cup Ketchup
4 Tbsp. Soy Sauce

Taste the sauce and adjust to your liking.

Cut up your chicken into bite size pieces.  Mix the flour and salt in a bag.  Add chicken and shake until completely coated.  Melt butter and place on tin foil in pan.  Put the chicken on the melted butter and mix around until all of the chicken is covered.  Cook for 20 min at 350 degree.

Cut up washed green pepper into large chunks.  Cut up baby carrots into half or fourths.  When chicken is finished put those and the drained pineapple on. 

Sauce: Combine all ingrediencts and pour over chicken mixture.  Stir to make sure everything is covered in the sauce.  Cook for another 20 minutes.  While this is cooking, make the rice.

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

This is a super easy recipe.  I don't do mine in the crock pot but you easily could.

Ingredients:
About 40 ounces of Chicken Stock
2 Chicken Breasts
1/2 Tbsp of Salt
1/2 Tbsp of Pepper
A few shakes of Oregano and Basil
4 large carrots, peeled and sliced
3 celery sticks, chopped
1/3 of a bag of Egg Noodles


In my cast iron pot, I add about 40 ounces of Chicken Stock and 2 Chicken Breasts and seasonings.  I put the lid on and cook in the oven at 350 for about 30 minutes.  I take it out and shred the chicken into large chunks.  I then add the vegetables and cook for 20 minutes.  I take that out and add the noodles and cook for another 10 minutes.

If you wanted to do it in the crock pot, you basically just follow the same directions but obviously cook each interval for longer.  Don't add the veggies in the beginning of you will end up with pure mush.  And let's be real, no one likes mushy veggies.  Or hard ones so don't put them in too late, either.

Apple Craisin Salad

I never should have put this salad in a yellow bowl for the picture.  It makes it look weird.  Anyway, I have some friends (Christie and Nicole) who make the most awesome salads.  When it comes to salad, I am hard to impress so this says a lot.

Ingredients:
Romaine
Clementines
Apples - Honeycrisp are the best
Craisins
Roasted Almond Slices
Mozzarella Cheese
and a Poppy Seed Dressing

Oh my gosh it is so amazing, I've pretty much had this for lunch every day this week.  I'm not joking.  It is so easy to throw together and so worth it.  I like to think I'm being healthy by eating it, but the truth is that by the time I get the dressing on there, I've pretty much undone all of my effort in eating healthy.  Oh well, we'll pretend like I only use a little spoon full.

Zucchini Bread

When we were in Utah this summer, we went to Park City with my mom, sister and her family.  My sister brought with them some zucchini bread that her friend, Jenny Williams had made.  My kids went crazy and I'm pretty sure ate the whole thing.  Sorry, Suz.  So I wrote to her and begged her for the recipe.  It is pretty amazing.

3 Eggs
1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
1/2 cup Applesauce
2 cups Sugar
2 cups Zucchini, grated
3 tsp. Vanilla
3 cups Flour
3 tsp. Cinnamon
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1/4 tsp. Baking Powder
1 tsp. Salt
If you have any Flax Seed throw some of that in, too

Preheat Oven to 325 degrees.  Grease and flour 2 loaf pans.  Beat eggs until frothy.  Mix in oil, applesauce, and sugar.  Stir in zucchini and vanilla.  mix in flour, cinnamon, soda, powder, salt, and flax seed.  Divide into 2 pans.  Top with a cinnamon streusel.  Bake for 60-70 minutes.

Cinnamon Streusel:
1/4 cup Flour
1/2 cup Brown Sugar, packed in
1 1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
2 T. Butter, melted

Combine all ingredients with fork until well mixed.  Place on top of whatever you wish!

Chicken Tortilla Soup

One of my friends, Stephanie, brought me some of her Chicken Tortilla Soup.  I loved it!  One night, I was desperate to make it but didn't have her recipe.  So I googled it and the first one I came to was The Pioneer Woman's recipe.  Of course it would be awesome, so I did it.  Kind of.  Since it was so last minute, I didn't have all of the ingredients so I made it my own.  And I loved it.  Plus she cooks hers for a really long time and I am not that patient.
Now, there are a lot of ingredients but it's not that hard.  Don't be deterred, just do it.  You'll thank me later.

Ingredients:
2 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
1 T. Olive Oil
1 1/2 tsp Cumin
1/2 tsp. Chili Powder
1/2 tsp. Garlic Powder
1/2 tsp. Salt

1 T. Olive Oil
1/2 Onion, diced
1/2 Green Bell Pepper, diced
1/2 Red Bell Pepper, diced
1 clove of Garlic, minced
1 can Rotel Tomatoes & Green Chilis
32 oz Chicken Stock
1 can Black Beans, drained
1 can Pinto Beans, drained
4 Tortillas, cut into strips
1/4 cup Cilantro, finely chopped

Garnishes (optional):
Sour Cream
Avocado
Red Onion
Pico de Gallo
Cheese

Preheat oven to 375.  Mix cumin, chili pepper, garlic powder, and salt.  Drizzle 1 T of Olive Oil on chicken breasts, then sprinkle a small amount of your spice mix onto both sides.  Use about half of it.  Set aside the rest of the spice mix for later.  Wrap the chicken in foil to make sure it is perfectly moist.  Place wrapped chicken breasts onto baking sheet.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until cooked through.  Use 2 forks to shred then set the chicken aside.
Heat 1 T of Olive Oil in a pan over medium high heat.  Add onion, peppers and garlic.  Stir and then mix in the rest of the spice mix.  Then add the shredded chicken and stir.
Pour in the tomatoes, chicken stock, and beans.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer for about 30 minutes.  Add more spices if needed.  At the very end is when you will want to add your tortilla strips and cilantro.  Stir in and serve.  Top with any garnishes you might like.  I only added cheese to mine but that was mostly because of lack of ingredients.

Pomegranates, Cranberries, & Artichokes

For decorations of course!


Not only are these all delicious, but they are awesome holiday decos, too!

Here's a quick trick to getting the pomegranate seeds out.  Soak the pomegranates in water first.  It's much easier getting the seeds out if you do this.  Trust me.  I soaked mine for a full 24 hours first.  Not on purpose, I just didn't have time to get to them before that.  I'm not sure what the least amount of soaking time would be.  But it's worth it.  My kids LOVE to snack on these.  I guess I do, too.  They are really yummy

Roasted Green Beans & Mushrooms

For Thanksgiving, one of my friends, Christi and her family celebrated with us.  She brought roasted asparagus topped with mushrooms. And another time when we had dinner together, she brought roasted green beans.  So I combined both of her ideas and did this.  I've only ever done green beans not out of the can once other than this and failed miserably.  I never thought to roast them or to top them with mushrooms.  They were delicious, easy, and they look super elegant.

Green Beans
Mushrooms - out of can or fresh, I used canned
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper

Snap ends off of green beans and wash them.  Place on cookie sheet and cover in olive oil and salt and pepper.  Cook at 400 for 15 minutes.
This time, I first sauteed the mushrooms in a little olive oil and then also roasted them when the beans were about halfway through.  I don't know if the sautee-ing was necessary. Next time I might skip that.  I wasn't planning on roasting them at all and then it hit me that it would be a good way to do it.  So I did and it was awesome.