Chicken with Mushrooms

This is so easy and so flavorful. You could make this, and freeze before the baking step. Then, thaw and bake for easy dinner night. So yummy.


Ingredients

• 3 cups sliced mushrooms
• 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup seasoned bread crumbs
• salt, pepper and Italian seasoning to taste
• 2 tablespoons butter
• Garlic
• 6 ounces mozzarella cheese, sliced (I used pre-shredded pizza cheese)
• 3/4 cup chicken broth
• 1  can cream of mushroom soup

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Saute the mushrooms in a little oil and garlic to desired tenderness.
3. Place the mushrooms in a 9x13 inch pan.
4. In separate bowl, mix the chicken broth with cream of mushroom soup. Set aside.
5. Dip chicken into beaten eggs, then roll in bread crumbs, salt, pepper and seasoning.
6. In skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Brown both sides of chicken in skillet. Place chicken on top of mushrooms, then pour the soup/broth mixture over the chicken, and top with mozzarella cheese. 
7. Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until chicken is no longer pink and juices run clear.
8. Serve over noodles or rice.

Twice Baked Potato's

Such an important detail here with regards to freezer cooking...don't forget the sides! I have lots of breadsticks and things frozen, some rice, and lots of veggies. But, why not potato's? Well, yes potato's!


I bought a bag of large potato's at 15lbs for $7.50. Not bad. I simply scrubbed the skins, and baked for an hour at 425. Once cool enough to handle, scoop out most of the insides, and make your favorite mashed potato's. I used butter, dash of milk, sour cream, garlic salt and pepper. Mixed it up with my hand mixer in a bowl, then scooped back into the potato skins. I didn't have any cheese, but if I did, I would have shredded it, and frozen it all together. Once completely cool, I laid wax paper over the top, then wrapped tightly with foil, and sealed in freezer bags, removing most of the air. Label, and store, and you've got side dishes! I still have the other half of the potato's to do tomorrow. I was thinking, why not just freeze mashed potato's? :)

Homemade Chicken Broth

Well, I figured since I needed to boil chicken for my freezer stockpile, may as well use the broth too! I'm going to freeze it in 1 cup portions in freezer baggies and use as needed. There is a ton left from boiling 8 chicken breasts today.

I diced 1 onion, 2 celery stalks, and 2 carrots and boiled in enough water to cover until soft. Then I added the chicken breasts and covered with water. Boiled the chicken for an hour, then shredded and removed the bones. Added the bones back to the liquid and continued to cook for a couple hours. Then, I strained all the broth in a colander and set out to cool.

And just for organization purposes, the extra shredded chicken from tonight.

King Ranch Chicken

This is a recipe from an old church recipe book I have. I was too obsessed with sweets as a child to really get into this kind of cooking, but I'm so glad I got that book! This is a great recipe, that I tend to have most ingredients for at any given time. You can always boil chicken in larger quantities, shred, and freeze in meal size servings for ease in the kitchen on other nights.
















This recipe can also be assembled and frozen before or after baking!

King Ranch Chicken
1 chicken or 2-3 chicken breasts
1 bay leaf
1C chopped onion
1C chopped green pepper
1 stick butter (1/2C)
2 cans cream of mushroom
2 cans cream of chicken
1 can diced tomato's
1 small can diced green chilli's
12 corn tortillas, torn into pieces
1 1/2 C shredded cheddar

Boil chicken with salt, pepper and bay leaf. After cooking, bone the chicken and cut into bite sized pieces (return the bones to the pot to continue making homemade broth!).

In a large saucepan, saute onions and green peppers in butter until tender. Stir in soups, tomato's and chilli's.

In a 9x13 pan, arrange alternate layers of tortillas, chicken, soup mixture, and cheese, using 1/3 of all ingredients. Repeat layers 2 more times.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes until hot and bubbly and cheese just starts to brown.

May be frozen before or after baking.

To continue making homemade broth, just boil the bones for several hours, then strain through cheesecloth or colander. Cool, and freeze in 1 Cup portions in freezer safe baggies.

Apple Cuties by Lauren P!!!

Pre-heat oven to 425'

To start-
3 TBS of butter in large pan
1/4 cup of brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

melt the butter and mix in the sugar and cinnamon

THEN you take 1 green granny smith apple and peel it, slice it and dice it into little bitty apple chunks and you add the apples to the cinnamon, butter, sugar mixture and cook on medium heat for a few minutes (like 4 minutes), stir frequently

In a sep. bowl- add
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tbs of sugar
1/8 tsp of salt
and whisk together until well beaten

-Pour the batter over the top cinnamon apple mixture (leave it in the large skillet/pan) and put it in the oven for 15 minutes. This will not hurt your pan. Cut like a pizza when finished and you can add powdered sugar or syrup over the top. Its SUPER yummy and a good way to get some apples in your kiddo for breakfast!

Basic White Suace and Cream Of_ Recipes

Tucking this in here for safe keeping. A friend of a friend posted this on Facebook.

Basic White Sauce (thick):
3 Tablespoons butter or oil
3 Tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
dash of pepper
1-1/4 cup liquid, milk or stock

Melt butter or oil in saucepan. Stir in flour and seasonings. Cook over medium heat until bubbly. Add liquid slowly, stirring with wire whisk to prevent lumps. Cook until thick. Makes 1 cup or 1 can of condensed soup.
Tomato Soup: Use tomato juice for the liquid. Add dashes of garlic, onion powder, basil and oregano.
Chicken Soup: Use chicken broth for half the liquid. Add 1/4 t. poultry seasoning or sage.
Mushroom/celery/chive soup: Saute 1/4 C chopped mushrooms, celery or chives and 1 T minced onion in butter before adding flour.

Homemade Granola Bars

These are absolutely perfect! The crunchy, the chewy, the easy. This recipe has it all, and I had it all in my stockpile! Sweet! But, speaking of sweet, these are very very sweet. Next time we will try cutting the sugar in half and limiting the chocolate/peanut butter chips to 1/2 Cup total. I will also vary this recipe another time using craisins and chopped dark chocolate...maybe even almonds as well. Yum yum!

Thanks again to Simple Organized Living for this recipe!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c. honey or corn syrup {I used 1/4 c. of each}
• 1/2 c. brown sugar
• 1/2 c. peanut butter
• 2 c. quick oats
• 2 c. Rice Krispy cereal
• 1/4 c. ground flax seed
• 1 or 2 T. wheat germ {optional — and I did not add this}
• 1 c. total of your favorite mix-ins {I used chocolate chips, but you could also mix and match dried fruit, nuts, seeds, etc.}

Directions:

:

In a small sauce pan, mix honey {or corn syrup} and brown sugar.
Cook over medium-high heat until sugar is completely dissolved – stirring constantly.
Remove from heat and quickly stir in peanut butter.
Mix the oats, cereal, flax seed, and optional wheat germ in a large bowl.
Pour honey mixture over dry ingredients — mix well.
Stir in chocolate chips, nuts, fruit, and any other “mix-ins”


Press mixture into a 9″ x 13″ pan that has been greased or lined with wax paper. {I find it works best when I put another piece of wax paper on top of the bars and press down with a measuring cup.}

Let cool and “firm up” —  kind of like Rice Krispy Bars

Cut into bars and store in an air-tight container. I cut mine into 24 bars that were about 1″ x 4″ {8 rows by 3 rows}. I used a pastry cutter/scraper because it cuts really straight lines — but a long knife would work just fine too.
And since I used chocolate chips, I figured it would be best to store our granola bars in the refrigerator so they don’t melt!

English Muffin Bread

I made this delicious bread as part of my freezer stockpile. I am working very hard in the next few weeks to stock my freezer with ready to eat foods. I am on the breakfasts right now complete with oatmeal pancakes, cinnamon swirl pancakes, French Toast, homemade poptarts, breakfast burrito's and this bread of course. Stay tuned in the weeks to come for all those recipes!!!

I really enjoyed this blog where I found recipe for English Muffin Bread. Thanks Simple Organized Living!

INGREDIENTS:

{print recipe}

• 3 c. flour
• 2 packets active dry yeast {or 4 1/2 t. if you buy it in jars like I do}
• 2 t. salt
• 1 T. granulated sugar
• 1/4 t. baking soda

• 2 c. milk
• 1/2 c. water

• 2 1/2 c. additional flour

DIRECTIONS:

• In a large bowl, mix the first 5 dry ingredients together

• In a small bowl, combine milk and water. Heat in the microwave until hot {usually a minute or two}

• Pour milk mixture into flour mixture and beat well {I like stirring it with a wooden spoon}

• Stir in the remaining 2 1/2 c. flour until you have a very stiff batter

• Spoon batter into two WELL GREASED bread loaf pans

• Cover with a towel and let rise in a warm place for 45 minutes

• Preheat oven to 400*F

• After bread rises, bake {uncovered} for 25 minutes or until done

• Remove from pans immediately and let cool completely

• Cut both loaves into thin slices and freeze in air-tight containers or freezer bags {see picture above}

Once the bread is frozen, it will stay fresh for months, and whenever you want a slice, just pull one out of the freezer and pop it in your toaster — just like an English Muffin!

More Applesauce

Well, I promised and now have delivered. I sent hubby to the store for 50lbs of apples. Turns out he couldn't bear to fill another bag and brought home 40lbs instead. He's forgiven, both for the flowers he got for me while he was there, and the cashier accidentally wrung up the Honeycrisp apples at .69cents/lb like all the rest.

I borrowed help from friends, and their crockpots, to make them all in 1 day. I hate putting off until tomorrow, what can be done today!

 

So, I canned 18 Pints this morning using the same recipe as before. This time, I used 1/4C. packed brown sugar in each crockpot. 1 full crockpot made 9 jars. I'm a nerd...that's 55grams of sugar per crockpot. 9 pints means there is 6.11grams of added sugar per pint jar. Not bad! That's 1-2grams per serving. Told you...NERD!

I used a selection of about 6 varieties of apples. I have never bought Red Rome, and was delighted to see the flesh was red/pink! That was so cool. The Jonagold sprayed me in the face when they were chopped...each and every one of them! But, with the help of a friend, this went very quickly. Many hands make light work, eh?!

 

 

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Total of 24! Exactly what I wanted!

Chicken Parmigiana

This is from The Pioneer Woman. It's nothing short of fabulous! I am not going to post her recipe, as it is so beautifully written and photographed by her on her blog. This is definitely one to try and to keep in the dinner rotation. I think 2 necessities of this recipe are red wine and tenderized chicken!
Here's the recipe.

Homemade Applesauce

I was so thrilled this week when my store had all their apples on sale for .69cents/lb!!! I bought 15lbs, but will go back and get more. The recipe couldn't be any easier. Thank you Balancing Beauty and Bedlam!!! Since I don't own a food mill, I peeled, cored and cut the apples by hand. It didn't take very long, but if you have a food mill you will not have to do that and your sauce will be much more creamy. I don't mind a little bit of chunky. I used 7lbs in my crockpot, put 2 cinnamon sticks in the apples, and sprinkled a little more cinnamon on top of the apples.

I cooked it on low all night long to smell that beautiful smell in the morning! Then, I used my hand mixer and mushed it all up, and added a little brown sugar and cinnamon (about 1/3 Cup sugar and more cinnamon to taste).

It made almost 5 pints canned...and a few bowls fresh for the kids.

Processing time in the canner was 20 minutes according to my favorite canning site Pick Your Own! They have instructions for the way I did it, as well as if you use a food mill.