Dinner Time - Easy Baked Chicken and Dressing

I love stuffing, and wish it was more common to eat year round instead of just at the holidays. To make up for it's lack throughout the year I find myself looking longingly at the Stove Top boxes when I walk through the grocery, but cannot bring myself to eat that crap. So periodically I make this dish to make a normal day feel like the holidays, just a little bit.  Chicken came out cooked perfectly, nice and juicy without any pink.  Dressing was flavorful and moist.

Easy Baked Chicken and Dressing

ACTIVE TIME
 20 minutes
TOTAL TIME
 80 minutes

INGREDIENTS

  • Stuffing

    • 1 lb bag of Stuffing Croutons
    • 2 1/2 cups Chicken Broth
    • 1 stick butter or margarine
    • 1/2 cup diced Celery
    • 1 Large onion - Diced
    • 1 Large Egg

  • For Chicken

    • 3 lbs Boneless Skinless chicken breasts (3-4 depending on size)
    •  Salt
    •  Pepper
    •  Garlic Powder

  • For topping

    • 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

INSTRUCTIONS

    1. Preheat oven to 375

  • For Stuffing

    1. Place croutons in a large mixing bowl
    2. Add liquid ingredients, mixing well
    3. Lightly beat egg and stir into the mixture
    4. Add veggies and mix well
    5. Pour mixture into large baking dish

  • For Chicken

    1. sprinkle chicken breasts with salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste
    2. place chicken on top of stuffing

  • Topping

    1. sprinkle cheese over the top of baking dish and cover with foil
    2. bake at 375 for 1 hour

Dinner Time - Baked Garlic and Brown Sugar Chicken with Southern Honey Corn Pudding

I was looking to do something different with Chicken the other night and found quite a few recipes for baked chicken, but I wanted something lighter than the breaded recipes I was finding everywhere.  The wife had put me on notice that with Thanksgiving coming, she wanted lighter meals, but that just doesn't happen in Fat Boy Heaven!  I threw this dinner together as a compromise.  The chicken came out light and delicious with great flovors from the brown sugar and garlic combining perfectly with some of the juciest chicken I've ever made.  The southern corn pudding is something you have to try to appreciate.  Think creamed corn, but taken to a new level.  Corn is mixed into a basic custard flavored with Jack Daniel Tennessee Honey Liquor to make a delicate and flavorful but not overly sweet side dish that your family will love.

Baked Garlic Brown Sugar Chicken

“A quick, easy chicken recipe for days when you don’t want to spend time in the kitchen. Even finicky people will eat it. Goes great with traditional potatoes or rice.”

YIELD
 4 Servings
ACTIVE TIME
 10
TOTAL TIME
 40

INGREDIENTS

    • 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
    • 4 garlic cloves, minced
    • 4 tablespoons brown sugar
    • 3 teaspoons olive oil

INSTRUCTIONS

    1. Preheat oven to 500°F and lightly grease a casserole dish.
    2. In small sauté pan, sauté garlic with the oil until tender.
    3. Remove from heat and stir in brown sugar.
    4. Place chicken breasts in a prepared baking dish and cover with the garlic and brown sugar mixture.
    5. Add salt and pepper to taste.
    6. Bake uncovered for 15-30 minutes.

Southern Honey Corn Pudding

This Tennessee version of a corn pudding recipe I created has Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey added to the ingredients. The results are peerless. Everytime I serve it, the dish is emptied and people want to know about that wonderful flavor. The alcohol cooks out in the 400 degree oven

INGREDIENTS

    • 5 large eggs
    • 1/3 cup butter, melted
    • 1 tablespoon sugar
    • 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
    • 3 tablespoons Tennessee Honey (Jack Daniel’s Whiskey)
    • 1 tablespoon orange juice
    • 1/2 cup half/half
    • 4 tablespoons cornstarch
    • 2 (15.25-ounce) cans whole kernel white corn
    • 2 (14.75-ounce) cans cream-style white corn
    • 1 small green cayenne pepper, chopped fine (remove seeds if you want less heat which I do for guests)
    • 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
    •  Dash onion powder
    • 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
    • 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

    1. In a large bowl, lightly beat eggs; add half/half and beat. Stir in the remaining ingredients, adding the corn last. Blend well. Pour mixture into a buttered 2 quart casserole dish. Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for one hour or until golden brown. Remove from oven and allow to sit for 10 minutes. Serve warm.

Dinner Tonight: Watermelon Feta Salad and Chicken Breast

I was trying to find something light for dinner tonight, and stumbled on this idea for a Watermelon and Feta salad.   At first the combination might seem a little strange, but the saltiness of the feta combines with the sweet of the watermelon juice to make a wonderful creamy dressing which is set off by the mint.  I paired it with a boneless skinless chicken breast to keep it light.  It really turned into a great summer dinner.

Budget Week - Day Four: Nacho Chicken Bake

OK, was looking for something different, and found an idea here for a Nacho Chicken Bake that I thought I'd try.  I weighed the remaining chicken and had 12 oz, so I was all set.  I made some modifications to make it gluten-free, but they were minor (really just checking ingredients to get condensed soup that didn't have wheat).  I also changed some ingredients to fit what I had in the cupboard.  Here is MY version:

Ingredients:

12 oz Shredded Chicken (pre-cooked)

2 cups Sharp Cheddar Cheese - grated

1 can (10 oz) Ro-Tel tomatoes with green chilies

2 cans Gluten-Free Condensed Cream of Chicken soup

1 bag (15 oz) gluten-free corn chips

 

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 325

2. Pour chips into greased 13x9 baking dish

3. Mix chicken, 1/2 of cheese, and other remaining ingredients in bowl

4. Pour chicken and soup mixture over the chips

5. Top with remaining cup of cheese

6. Bake for 45-50 minutes

7. Let cool for 5-10 minutes so that caserole can setup before serving

So, the good news is I had another winning meal.  The bad news is I was only able to stretch the chicken for 4 nights worth of dinner.  If I hadn't used so much of it on the first night for the chicken salad I think I could have made it five nights.  Not bad at all for a budget concious family.

Budget Week - Day Three: Asian Shredded Chicken Coleslaw

I was looking for something light and a change of pace tonight, and found this great recipe for an Asian salad using more of the shredded chicken I made on Monday. If you didn't see yesterday's post, I prepared 3 pounds of boneless skinless chicken breast using my crock pot chicken recipe on monday. I am trying to see how far I can stretch $9.00 worth of meet to feed a family of four.

 

To see the recipe, you can read more here: http://www.food.com/recipe/asian-shredded-chicken-coleslaw-59985#ixzz1v5IzFc5l

 

Budget Week: Stretching your food budget

This week I wanted to see how far I could stretch one meat purchase.  I bought two full (both sides) chicken breasts yesterday, with a total of just over three pounds.  I cooked them in beer in my crock pot, and then put them in the fridge to cool off and stop them from cooking past their prime.

Night one: Chicken Salad

I took one half of a breast (yielding about 2 cups of chicken) and shredded it.  I mixed in 1/2 a cup of Greek yogurt, a bit of salt and pepper, and about a 1/2 cup of driend cranberries.  I had it on gluten-free bread and the wife and kids had white bread.  Rave reviews, and still 3/4 of my meat for the week is left.

Night two: Italian Baked Chicken and Pastina

I found a recipe on foodnetwork.com here, and thought I'd give it a try.  I used a nice brown-rice pasta and crushed corn flakes instead of bread crumbs.  The recipe only used a very small amount of chicken (I used 1/2 of one side of the breast, leaving plenty of chicken going into day three.  The blend of flavors was great, and the whole family enjoyed this quick meal.  Since the chicken was already pre-cooked yesterday, prep went real quick and easy as well.

Stay tuned, we'll see how far I can stretch 3 pounds of chicken!

Dinner Time - Bean and Honey Burrito Casserole

I was looking for a way to use some leftover shredded chicken last night, and found this recipe.  The combination of peppers and chicken with the honey sauce made this awesome!  To make it gluten free all I needed to do was use corn tortillas instead of flour.  The combination of textures provided by adding garbonzo beans to the traditional black beans and corn created a great contrast to the smoothness of the sauce.  Give this one a try, you'll be suprised.

Bacon Night! - Gluten Free Bacon Chicken and Dumplings

One picture sometimes really is worth 1,000 words. Creamy chicken soup with bacon, potatoes, and gluten free dumplings will warm anyone on a cold winter evening.  I love this recipe, and will definately make it again.  To deepen the flavors I used chicken thighs instead of the breast meat the original recipe called for.  The only other change I made was using gluten-free biscuit mix from BetterBatter, which worked exactly like it was supposed to, always a bonus for gluten free cooking.

The recipe is here, and you can find BetterBatter gluten free products here. 

Cooking with Beer Wednesday: Crock-pot Chicken

We had some chicken in the fridge that I needed to use tonight, but it was cooking with beer night.  I wasn't sure what to do, but I figured anything cooks fine in a crock pot, right?

The kids went back for seconds, and my Daughter said it was the best thing I've made since we started the cooking with beer segment here on FatBoyHeaven.com.  Enjoy!

As always, the recipe is here.