Category Archives: lunch

Creamy crockpot chicken

lunch, supper 5 Comments

You know what I hate? When a recipe tastes SO GOOD but photographs SO POORLY. Le sigh.

Shall I just spare you the picture? Because really, it doesn’t do it justice. Just try this (it’s so crazy easy — you just have to try) and then come back and tell me what you thought.

Creamy crockpot chicken

Ingredients

  • What you need:
  • A slow cooker
  • 1 can of corn
  • 1 can of black beans
  • 1 jar of salsa
  • 1 block of cream cheese
  • frozen chicken breasts — I used 2 but you could do up to 4 or 5 without adjusting ingredients and be fine

Instructions

  1. Put chicken breasts, corn (drained), beans (drained and rinsed) and salsa into the slow cooker and stir it up a bit
  2. Cook on high for 4-5 hours or until chicken is cooked through
  3. Add in block of cream cheese and cook another 30 minutes
  4. Stir up mix to make the whole thing creamy, then serve chicken and sauce together

Do you see how easy that is? And that you must try it? Please do. Make it, eat it, love it, and agree with me that a picture of it is no indication of its actual greatness.

Chicken & dumplings

lunch, soup, supper 8 Comments

Another classic Southern comfort food dish. Ahh…. so fabulous.

I learned to make this dish when I was just out of college and had a job that was more handling customers than washing diapers. For the record, I’ll take Cheerios over conference calls any day. 😉  This was one of those “oh I use some of this and a little of that and sometimes those — should I write this down?” sort of things, so I’m doing my best to turn it into an actual recipe.

Chicken & dumplings

Ingredients

  • 4 chicken breasts or one roasted rotisserie chicken
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/4 cup butter, cold
  • Chicken broth — about 2 quarts
  • 2 Tbsp. or so cornstarch
  • Salt, pepper, onion powder

Instructions

The chicken
    1. Either boil or slow cook the chicken breasts, saving the water it was cooked in, or (time saver alert!) buy a lovely already-roasted rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. Viola, my Grandma would wittily say, you’re halfway there. With either method, wait till the chicken is cooled and chop it into chunks; set aside for now.
The dumplings
    1. While the pot of broth is heating up, cut the butter into the flour like you’re making biscuits using either a pastry blender, a fork, or a few pulses of the food processor. Now sprinkle in some salt and pour in chicken broth, a little at a time, till the dough holds together enough to be able to roll it out — this will take somewhere around a cup or cup and a half, but it’s not a science. When the dough holds together, roll it out very thin and cut into strips about an inch wide, and two inches long. A pizza cutter is great for this! These, obviously, do not have to be anywhere near perfect.
    2. Returning to your chicken broth: get a big pot of chicken it simmering — either the water you reserved from cooking the chicken breasts, or some homemade you might have in the freezer. If you’re using quarts of chicken broth, pour in one full quart plus whatever is left after making your dumplings. Bottom line: you want plenty in there so the dumplings have room to cook.
    3. After the broth has come to a nice simmer, start carefully dropping in the dumplings; they’ll all sink to the bottom at first and that’s fine. Let them simmer gently for about half an hour, swirling the pot around every so often. You don’t want to do too much stirring because the dumplings are delicate as they’re cooking and you don’t want to make them all into a giant ball of mush; some gentle moving around with a wooden spoon is fine.
Thickening time!
    1. Whisk about 2 Tbsp. of cornstarch into 1/4 cup of cold water till it’s all dissolved and there are no lumps. Pour this mixture into the pot of dumplings and stir gently, then add in your chopped chicken.
Seasoning
  1. Sprinkle in some salt, some pepper and some onion powder, bring the whole mess back up to a simmer, then reduce heat so it’s just below simmer. Let it cook another half hour or so to give the cornstarch time to work its magic and thicken things up and for all the flavors to get to know each other properly.

Now serve! This is crazy good with green beans (cooked with bacon fat, duh) or just on its own. It also freezes like a dream so I make a giant pot once a month or so and freeze quart size bags of it.

Tamales

lunch, supper 5 Comments

It’s another recipe from The Cousin! You remember her, right? The Cousin of Salsa Roja fame? Yeah, that girl. So you know it’ll be good. Let’s get to it!

Before you do anything, get a bunch of corn husks soaking in water.

You will need for the tamale sauce:

  • 3 tablespoons oregano
  • 4 tablespoons cumin
  • 2 onions, quartered
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 3 oz. package dried Ancho chiles
  • 3 oz. package dried California chiles
  1. Bloom the oregano and cumin in olive oil: warm a bit of olive oil in a small skillet, and toss in the spices; stir till you just start to smell them, then remove from heat
  2. Put onions, garlic and chiles in a large pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then let it rest
  3. When cooled off, run through a food processor, then warm back up
  4. When hot again, add 2 tablespoons sugar, and salt to taste

For the tamale masa:

  • 1 cup grease, Crisco, or pork fat (I had bacon grease in the fridge, of course)
  • 3 cups dried corn masa (such as Maseca)
  • 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1/2 tablespoon salt
  • 1/2 cup tamale sauce (above)
  1. Beat grease in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment
  2. Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl
  3. Add tamale sauce to dry ingredients
  4. Add a bit of water if it looks too dry — you want it to feel kind of like Playdoh
  5. Slowly add mixture to grease in stand mixer and mix until smooth; add more water or dry masa as necessary

To make your tamales:

  1. Remove husks from water and pat dry (don’t have to completely dry, just make them a little easier to handle)
  2. Spread masa on smooth side of husks
  3. Put filling in the middle of the masa; roll the husk tightly, then fold up the end (see video here — not mine — for a very quick demonstration)
  4. Stand them upright, open side up, in a tamale or vegetable steamer for 90 minutes. Fantastic hint from The Cousin: put pennies in the bottom of your pot under the steamer; if they start clanging around you’ll know you need to add more water

After they’re finished cooking, discard husks and serve with your tamale sauce. SO YUMMY, and great comfort food for the cold weather upon us. Enjoy!

Mojo fajitas

lunch, supper 1 Comment

Hungry yet?

This was one of the prettiest dishes! We had a couple straggler peppers in the garden and some yummy skirt steak in the fridge.  Add in some shrimp, some onions, some mojo sauce and a squeeze of lime, and life is good.

It was the weekend so the Yankee and I made this together. Into a large bowl we put:

  • Thinly-sliced skirt steak (cut against the grain, not with it)
  • Sliced red peppers
  • Sliced green peppers
  • Chopped jalapeños
  • Enough mojo marinade to cover
  • Shrimp in mojo marinade in a separate bowl

And let that sit a couple hours. Then you’re ready to cook!

  1. Put a large skillet over medium heat and add about a tablespoon of oil
  2. Pour off most of the marinade (you don’t want things swimming in the skillet), then pour the meat/peppers mix into the skillet
  3. Cook and stir until meat is almost cooked and vegetables are starting to get tender
  4. Add in shrimp (you’re doing this last so it won’t overcook) and continue to cook the whole mix until everything is done
  5. Squeeze a lime over the whole thing and eat up! Serve with homemade tortillas, mashed black beans and fire roasted salsa or salsa roja.

Chili

lunch, slow cooker, supper 3 Comments

This, like a lot of my recipes, is cobbled together from so many different recipes and word of mouth that I’m not even sure where it started. It involves my Mama’s concoction of spices, though, so it’s awesome. And spicy. Feel free to tone down the spices and add more later if it looks like too much!

  • 1 lb. breakfast sausage
  • 1 lb. ground chuck
  • 1 medium chopped onion
  • 1 can condensed tomato soup
  • 1 can dark kidney beans
  • 1 can light kidney beans
  • 2 cans diced tomatoes
  • 1 can Rotel
  • 1 small can green chiles
  • 1/3 cup chili powder
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 tsp paprika
  • 1 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 2 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 1 tsp oregano
  • Water or beer

To assemble:

  1. Brown the meats and onion together till the meat is cooked through
  2. Add all the cans and all the spices and stir well
  3. Adjust consistency as you like it — add a little beer or water till it looks just right
  4. Simmer at will. I love this cooked all day in the slow cooker, or on the stove top in a heavy pan (such as a cast iron dutch oven)
  5. Serve with cheese, Fritos, and cornbread!