Garlic-Lemon Double Stuffed Chicken

This recipe is adapted from Allrecipes.com

This recipe is definitely NOT LOW FAT!! Yikes!  But...of course...delicious. I didn't take a picture of my last 2 creations, so you'll have to enjoy the pictures provided by the original websites if you're curious.

Make this!  You won't regret it!

Garlic-Lemon Double Stuffed Chicken

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

4 oz. cream cheese, cut into 4 slices

About 8 oz Cheddar Cheese cut into 4 slices or grated

1 C. milk

1 C. Italian seasoned bread crumbs

½ C. Panko bread crumbs

½ C. grated Parmesano Romano cheese (or regular parmesan cheese)

1 Tbsp. minced garlic

¾ C. butter, melted

4 Tbsp. lemon juice

½ tsp. garlic salt, or to taste

½ tsp. paprika (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Coat a large casserole dish or 9x13 pan with cooking spray.

Butterfly each breast by slicing in half horizontally through the center, cutting almost but not completely through (or pound really thin so you can stuff the chicken breast and roll up).  Place one slice of cheddar cheese and cream cheese inside each chicken breast.  Close each chicken breast and set aside (or if pounded thin, then roll up and secure with toothpicks).

Pour milk in a shallow bowl.  In a separate bowl, combine both breadcrumbs and Parmesano Romano cheese.  Dip each chicken breast in the milk, then the breadcrumbs (pat lightly to coat them better if needed). Place breasts side by side in a single layer in casserole dish, tucking edges under to seal.

Melt butter.  Stir in lemon juice and minced garlic.  Drizzle evenly over chicken. Season breasts with garlic salt and paprika (if using).

Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes or until no longer pink in the center and juices run clear

Tortellini Sausage Soup--picky husband style

Hello Cousins! 

I've decided to try to post recipes I've tried/created on here more often.  I usually attempt to try at least 1 new recipe every 2 weeks so that I can bulk up my recipe list.  Wouldn't it be nice to get to the point where you wouldn't have to think very hard at all when preparing your weekly menu -AND- you also mixed things up enough that it didn't get boring?!?!?  I'm trying to get to that point.  I think I'm almost there because I asked Jereld if he had any menu requests for the next couple weeks and he couldn't come up with anything.  I told him I was trying to not repeat stuff very often.  He said, "I can't remember the last time we ate some of our usual dinners."  (or something close to that!) WOO HOO!  Anyways...without further delay, I tried an Our Best Bites recipe...with my special twist (since my husband doesn't like a few things) and it was GREAT!  Definitely a keeper!  

Tortellini Sausage Soup

adapted from Our Best Bites

1 lb sausage

2 tsp. minced garlic
1 onion, diced (or cut into HUGE chunks like I did so that the picky eater can remove)
½ c. water
4 C. chicken broth (I used 4 C. water and 4 tsp. chicken bouillon granules)
½ c. apple cider (the original recipe says not to leave this out!!  I realized that I was fresh out of apple juice...and had to get out my juicer to make some...can't get better juice than that!)
3 8oz. cans tomato sauce
1 c. sliced carrots
1 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. dried oregano

2 medium zucchini, grated

2 tablespoons dried parsley

8-10 oz. package cheese tortellini

2 Tbsp. dried parsley

Crumble sausage into a large soup pot and brown.

Chop onion and add to pot with garlic and a drizzle of olive oil.

Continue cooking until onions are translucent and your sausage is cooked. Add tomato sauce, cider, water, chicken broth, carrots, oregano, and basil. Cover and simmer for 1/2 hour. Add parsley and zucchini and simmer for another 15 minutes or so. Add the tortellini and cook until tender, and then serve with bread and freshly-grated Parmesan.

Sweet & Sour Chicken Brewer Style

I have been seeing a lot of recipes for Sweet & Sour Chicken floating around on Pinterest.  While alot of them are good, they just aren't what I was looking for.  I was looking for something that reminded me of chinese takeout.  I like chinese, but I don't like to pay for it for my whole family. 

So, I took a recipe that I sort of liked and made it my own!  Thus, this recipe was born, and is now a staple around our house! 

Hope you enjoy it as much as we do! 

To begin:  Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.  Line a cookie sheet with tinfoil.

Put your cornstarch in a Ziploc bag. 

Chop your chicken into bite size pieces and toss it into the bag as well. 

Shake the chicken around in the bag until it is all coated! 

Heat oil over medium heat in a large skillet.  

Meanwhile...

Whisk the eggs together in a shallow dish and coat your chicken pieces with egg. 

When oil is hot, place chicken pieces in a single layer in frying pan.  

Cook chicken until outside is brown, turning once.  The inside of the chicken does not have to be cooked through at this point, because you're going to bake it...and therefore it WILL be cooked through--just not yet!

Put your chicken on the cookie sheet.

Here's what your chicken should look like this far!     

Put chicken in the oven for 30 minutes. 

While the chicken is baking:

Combine all sauce ingredients in a saucepan. 

At this point, you can see I had a little extra help in the kitchen...looks like someone needs to call their insurance :( he he. 

Before heating at all, your sauce will look like the picture below.  

Cloudy and weird.  It will get better! Trust me! 

Bring the sauce to a boil.  

Turn down the heat and allow the sauce to simmer until it becomes a syrup.  This might take a little while, be patient. 

Once it has simmered for a while, the sauce will be much much prettier!  

When the chicken is done, pull it out of the oven.  It should look like this: 

Drizzle with 3/4 of the sauce and lightly toss.  It will look like this:

Bake for another 20 minutes.  

When chicken is done, lightly toss again.  

Serve over rice!  We enjoy it over Our Best Bites Coconut Rice Yum Yum! 

Sweet and Sour Chicken

Chicken:

4-5 Boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Salt and pepper

1 Cup cornstarch

3 Large eggs, beaten

1/4 Cup olive oil

Sauce:

1 ½ Cup sugar

½ C. Plus 2 Tbsp. Ketchup

1 Cup Apple cider vinegar

2 Tbsp. Soy sauce

2 tsp Garlic salt

1/3 C. Honey

½ tsp. Red pepper flakes

2 Tbsp. Corn starch

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. While the oil is heating, cut the chicken breasts into 1-inch pieces. Season with salt and pepper. Place the cornstarch in a gallon-sized ziploc bag. Put the chicken into the bag with the cornstarch and seal, tossing to coat the chicken. Whisk the eggs together in a shallow dish. Dip the cornstarch-coated chicken pieces in the egg and place them carefully in a single layer in the hot skillet. Cook for 1-2 minutes and then flip each piece over to cook on the other side until nicely golden but not all the way cooked through. Place in a single layer on a foil covered cookie sheet and repeat with the remaining chicken pieces. Bake for 30 minutes.

While chicken is in the oven, mix the sauce ingredients together in saucepan.  Bring to a low boil.  Reduce heat and simmer until sauce thickens to a syrup. After chicken has cooked for 30 minutes, remove from the oven and pour ¾ of the sauce over the chicken on the cookie sheet and toss lightly. Return pan to the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Serve over hot, steamed rice (or the coconut rice from Our Best Bites…yum!). Use extra sauce as needed/wanted on individual servings.

Flour Tortillas

These tortillas are so good, you'll give up Mi'Casa.  I promise. 

This is the original recipe I got from my friend who got it from a real Mexican Tortilla Making Lady:

Lollie’s Tortillas 

4 C. Flour

¼ tsp. baking powder

1 Tbsp. salt

1/3 C. shortening or lard (if you use shortening, be sure to use Crisco brand)

1 ¾ C. warm water.

Mix dry ingredients. Cut in shortening. Add water and knead by hand. Pinch into 16 golf ball sizes of dough. Let sit for 10 minutes. Roll with flour and cook on stove.

Of course being my mother's daughter, I switched to whole wheat and olive oil, but Allison says Lard is really yummy.  Here's the revised recipe that I use now and it's bosh size:
16 C. flour (whole wheat)



1 tsp. baking powder


4 Tbsp. salt


1-1/3 C. olive oil


7 C. warm water.


Mix dry ingredients in bosh. Mix in oil. Pour in water all at once and mix til well combined. Dough will be extremely sticky. Dump out onto well oiled counter. Make sure your hands are well oiled. Split dough into four even parts. Split again and again until each of the original four are split into 16 balls. (64 total). Roll each ball in your well oiled hands. Place on an oiled cookie sheet or parchment paper and cover. Let rest for 10-15 minutes. Heat tortilla press for five minutes (open). Place balls one at a time just to the back of the center of press. Slowly close lid and handle with a firm but gentle pressure. Cook for about 5-10 seconds . Open press and slide tortilla off onto a towel. When all tortillas are cooked and cooled, dust with flour and freeze in Ziploc bags (you only need to dust one side and put dusted side of one to raw side of the next). When ready to use, cook tortillas on a really hot griddle just like the ones you get in the grocery store in dough form. You can cook up a bunch at one time and freeze or refrigerate them that way, but they won’t be quite as fresh.


Measure ingredients:

Dough is really sticky

Dump onto oiled counter

Split into four even sections

Keep splitting until you have 16 balls per section

Place balls on cookie sheet and cover for 10-15 minutes

Preheat press for 5 minutes

Place ball just to back of center

Press slowly

It's done, move off to towel

Let cool on towel

I made 10 dozen today

Dust with flour

Stack after dusting

Cook on hot griddle

Freeze in Ziploc bags.

If you are as talented as Camilee, try her method.  She presses while cooking up the tortillas on her stove all at the same time.  She's amazing like that, though.  I have to cook mine later.

Tortilla Demo Please!

Okay all you Payne girls that got the coolest ever tortilla cookers!  We need a demonstration of how these torts come to be!  Please one of you (or all of you get together) give us the download of tortilla making.  I'm contemplating on getting one but I need to see it in action first!
Tortilla Recipe needs to be included in the video/picture segment too!
Thank you so nuch.  I'll be checking back often to see it here! 
Love you all
Aunt Carole

DIY Laundry Soap and All Purpose Spray

 While I was in Mesa helping Shara with her new baby we made some Laundry Soap and All Purpose Spray.  It's super easy to make, lasts much longer, uses less and less expensive than store bought. 

LAUNDRY SOAP
(This was all found on the same shelf at Walmart in the laundry soap section)
website:  beingcreativetokeepmysanity.blogspot.com
1 - 4 lb. 12 oz. box Borax Powder
1 - 4 lb. box Baking Soda
1 - 3 lb. 7 oz. (55 oz.) Arm and Hammer Superwashing Soda
3 Bars Fels-naptha Soap (grated)
2 containers oxi-clean (or store brand) 3 1/2 lbs. total)
Optional: 1 bottle Downey Unstoppables (for added scent)
Mix altogether in bucket or large bowl
Use 2-3 TBS. per load - put in bottom of tub before adding laundry
(I use the scoop from the oxi-clean)

All-Purpose Spray (from Dr. OZ)
(Make this before the laundry soap to use the Borax powder)
2 c. water
1 TBS. Borax Powder
3 TBS. vinegar
1 TBS. dishsoap
essential oils for scent:
(10 drops tangerine, 3 drops peppermint)
(10 drops tangerine, 3-5 drops lemon)
(FYI - lemon doesn't smell good by itself!)

Cranberry Relish

Don't forget to make your Cranberry Sauce for Thanksgiving!  It's listed under "Holidays".