Chicken Parm Burgers

Dear friend, please promise me that you will make this as soon as possible. Because I love you. And I don't want you to miss out on something that will make your tastebuds sing.

And what will make your tastebuds sing, you ask?

Chicken Burgers + Parmesan Cheese + Breadcrumb Coating + Mushroom Marinara + Mozzarella = The Hallelujah Chorus

For the marinara sauce, simply saute one pack of sliced mushrooms, then add to the saucepan one can of crushed tomatoes and season with salt, pepper, basil, and oregano.



Mix one pound of ground chicken breast, 1/4 cup breadcrumbs, 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, and a couple of dashes of Worcestershire sauce just until everything is incorporated. Pat out your burgers; I divided one pound of meat into 6 burgers and made them fairly thin. I think for this recipe, thinner is better, so that it more resembles traditional chicken parmesan.

Once you have your patties made, coat them with breadcrumbs on both sides and then cook them for 4-5 minutes on each side, in heated olive oil in a skillet on medium heat.


To assemble, just place the burger on the bun, spoon some marinara on the burger, and top with a sprinkle of mozzarella cheese.


Please try these tonight.

Please.

Enjoy!

Crock Pot Chicken Teriyaki

Once again, this idea came from Rachael Ray, with a few adjustments. Sometimes I sign my checks "Rachael Ray" and then tear them up. Not really. Not really at all.

Dump the following ingredients into the crock pot...

2 cups brown rice (I used brown basmati rice and it was great!)
1 onion, sliced
3 carrots, cut into matchsticks
1 red or orange bell pepper, sliced
1 cup Teriyaki sauce
2 cups chicken broth
3 cups water
1/4 cup honey
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
About an inch and a half of ginger root, grated

If using raw chicken pieces, go ahead and add it now. I used previously cooked and shredded chicken breast, so I added it much later, just an hour or two before serving. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. Check on the liquid levels as time gets closer to 6-8 hours; you may need to add a little more water to keep the rice from drying out, depending on how long you plan to cook it.

Apparently I did not take a picture of this one! I'm so sorry!

But...enjoy anyway!

Easy Beef Stroganoff

Super good. Super easy. Try it.

Brown one chopped onion and one pound of ground sirloin or venison in a pot. Once these are cooked through, add 1 pack of chopped mushrooms and cook for five more minutes. Sprinkle 1/4 cup of flour over everything, stir for a minute, then add about 1 and 1/2 cups of beef broth, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, and salt and pepper.

While the beef mixture thickens, cook one pound of whole wheat egg noodles.

5 minutes before serving, add a few handfuls of fresh spinach leaves and let them wilt down into the meat mixture. Just before serving, stir in 2 ounces of reduced fat cream cheese.


Enjoy!

Crock Pot Chicken and Dumplings

So, I am a Rachael Ray junkie. And this week she is doing an awesome thing...every day she is introducing a new slow-cooker recipe. I loooove slow cooker recipes. It is so satisfying to do the work in the morning and then have the aroma of home-cooked food drifting throughout the house all day. Well, old Rach gave a slow-cooker chicken and biscuits idea the other day that inspired me. I liked her idea, but I modified it and added dumplings instead of biscuits. Because everyone loves dumplings. Or at least they should. They should especially love this version, because it has relatively little fat, and is full of nutritious vegetables.

Start by chopping up...
5 carrots
2-3 ribs of celery
1 butternut squash

Put these vegetables in the crockpot, along with a bag of frozen peas.


Sprinkle about 1/4 cup flour over the veggies. Cover with chicken broth - about 3 to 4 cups. Add salt and pepper; turn it on low and forget about if for about 6 hours.

An hour before you are ready to eat, turn the temperature on high and add your cooked, shredded chicken to the pot. Then make the dumplings...

2 cups whole wheat flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk

Mix together and drop little pieces of it into the hot crock pot. Stir to incorporate and then pop the lid back on and let it cook for 45 minutes to an hour.

And then...


Thoroughly enjoy!

Chicken and Pesto Pasta

When I got married nearly five years ago, I never would have touched anything called "pesto." Actually, I wouldn't have been able to even identify the food, but by virtue of its green character, I would have stayed away from it. My, how things have changed. This is now one of my favorite meals.

Now, store-bought pesto is good, but nothing compares to homemade pesto. In my version, I use considerably less oil...most recipes call for at least 1/2 cup, but I use less than half of that. This results in a thicker, bulkier pesto, but for this dish I think the texture is perfect.

To make the pesto, put the following ingredients into a food processor...
2 cups (packed) fresh spinach leaves
4 cloves garlic (I go ahead and mince my garlic to avoid any pieces that may not get pureed)
1 bunch (a little less than 1/2 cup) fresh basil
Juice of 1 lemon, plus a little zest
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup slivered almonds
3 Tablespoons olive oil
Salt and Pepper

Process until all the ingredients are well-blended. The mixture will not be "smooth" but will have a thick and kind of chunky texture. If you make the pesto ahead of time, just store it in an airtight container in the fridge until you're ready to use.



For the chicken, you could cube a couple of boneless skinless chicken breasts and brown them on the stove, or use shredded or cubed boiled chicken. I used chicken that I had previously boiled, shredded, and frozen (see this post).

Spread one pint of grape or cherry tomatoes on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and put in a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes. Boil one box of whole wheat penne pasta according to package directions. Once the pasta is cooked and drained, stir in the pesto. Once the pesto is incorporated, add the chicken. Finally, add the roasted tomatoes, mix everything together, and...


Enjoy!

Money Saving Tip...Homemade Chicken Stock

I go through chicken broth like it's going out of style. It is ALWAYS on my weekly grocery list. I don't make my own broth all the time...but there are times when it would be wasteful not to! Last week I got two packs of bone-in, skin-on, split chicken breasts for $0.98 per pound. So tonight I took the time to make my own stock. This is time-consuming, but I ended up saving at least $15.00 (maybe more) and I love the feeling of controlling the quality of my ingredients. I know exactly what is in my chicken broth, and I can feel good about serving it to my family.

So...I started by dumping both packs of chicken in a big, beautiful stock pot that I got for Christmas (thanks Mom!) To the chicken I added some vegetables: two ribs of celery, chopped into big pieces; 4-5 carrots, peeled and cut into thirds; half an onion, leftover from something I made earlier in the week; and a handful of asparagus stalks, which I had saved from the last time I cooked asparagus (don't throw away those ends that you chop off - put them in a baggie and freeze them for making stock!) Cover everything with water, and then set it on the stove to cook! Bring to a boil (add salt at this point) and then let it simmer for a good 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

After a few hours, I pulled the chicken out one by one, took off the skin, and used two forks to pull the meat apart. Seriously, the meat was falling off the bone. It was so tender. I shredded it with my forks and set it aside to cool.


After cooling, store in ziplock bags in the freezer. I ended up with six bags of shredded chicken, not to mention the chicken that I went ahead and used tonight for quesadillas!

Now for the stock. This part is messy and time-consuming, but so worth it. I poured some in a glass storage bowl (pouring through a strainer) and put it aside. I will use that for some kind of soup, something that requires a lot of broth. But most recipes don't call for that much broth. Usually I need one to two cups for a normal recipe. So I ladled broth out and poured through a strainer into a measuring cup.


I stored one and two cup portions in ziplock bags and froze them. I ended up with 5 one-cup bags, and 6 two-cup bags, as well as the bowl of broth. That equals out to somewhere around 22 cups of chicken stock.

22 CUPS. Plus enough chicken for 7 MEALS. Hello? Can I get an "amen"???


I spent around $8 on the chicken, and less than $2 on the root vegetables used in this stock. That's $10.00 tops. And I got 22 cups of high quality chicken stock and 7 portions of meat out of it.

And it's soooo good. Try it! Enjoy!

Pizza Casserole

I heart pizza. Soooo much. We eat homemade pizza at least once every two weeks. I can't live without it. Please don't make me give up pizza, Lord.

Tonight I put the flavors of my favorite meal into a casserole.
Pizza + Pasta + Casserole= True Love

This dish has so many possibilities, I can't even begin to fathom them. But in my version tonight, here were my ingredients...

1. Ground Venison. I browned the meat and seasoned it to resemble sausage...a couple of tablespoons of fennel seed, some cumin, chili powder, and red pepper flakes, and of course, a few cloves of minced garlic.
2. Mushrooms. I chopped a whole box of them and threw them right in there with the browned meat.
3. Pizza Sauce. I used one 20-oz can of tomato sauce and seasoned it with marjoram, basil, and oregano.
4. Cheese. I used mozzarella and 2% sharp cheddar. Yummmmm.
5. Pasta. I used whole wheat rotini. I think whole wheat elbows would be just as delicious.

That's it! Just mix all your (cooked) ingredients together in a big pot, pour it in a casserole, top with more cheese if you like, and pop it in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes.


Mmmmm. Enjoy!