Fried Chicken with Creamy Gravy and Cole Slaw

Tonight I made a delicious Sunday dinner!

Fried Chicken with Creamy Gravy:

1/3 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning or paprika; dried basil or marjoram, crushed; or 1/2 tsp garlic powder or onion powder
1/2 tsp salt
2.5 to 3 pounds meaty chicken pieces (breasts halves, thighs, or drumsticks)
Cooking oil
1 recipe Creamy Gravy (see below)

1. In a plastic bag, combine the flour, seasoning, salt and 1/4 tsp black pepper. Add chicken pieces, a few at a time, shaking to coat.

2. Add oil to a 12-inch heavy skillet to a depth of 1/4 to 1/2 inch. Heat over medium-high heat until hot enough to sizzle a drop of water. Reduce heat. Add chicken to skillet. (Do not crowd chicken. If necessary, use 2 skillets.) Cook, uncovered, over medium heat for 15 minutes, turning to brown evenly. Reduce heat; cover tightly. Cook for 15 minutes. Uncover and cook for 5 to 10 minutes more or until chicken is no longer pink (170F for breasts; 180F for thighs and drumsticks.) Drain on paper towels, reserving drippings for gravy. Transfer chicken to a serving platter; keep warm. Prepare Creamy Gravy. If desired, serve with mashed potatoes.

Oven Directions (This is what I did): Coat chicken pieces as above. Brown chicken in a 12-inch ovenproof skillet. (Or brown chicken in a regular skillet; transfer to a baking pan, arranging bone side down.) Bake, uncovered, in a 375F oven for 35 to 40 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink. Do not turn.

Creamy Gravy:
Pour off drippings in a skillet, reserving 2 Tablespoons. Return reserved drippings to skillet. Add 2 Tablespoons flour, 1/8 teaspoon black pepper, and, if desired, 1 teaspoon instant chicken bouillon granules or 2 Tablespoons Parmesan cheese, stirring until smooth. Add 1 2/3 cups milk all at once. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir for 1 minute more. (If necessary, thin with a little additional milk.) Makes 1 2/3 cups.

Granny Smith Apple Cole Slaw:

1 bag coleslaw mix
1 Granny Smith apple, cut into small pieces
1 cup Miracle Whip
1 Tbsp honey

Add all ingredients to a large bowl. Stir to mix well. Refrigerate at least 1 hour. Serve cold.

Tell me about your favorite Sunday Dinner!

Homemade Salsa & Tortillas

This is one of our current favorites! I love, love, love the home made tortillas, and the salsa is so refreshing!

We'll start with the salsa:

2 medium to large tomatoes
1/2 large onion (my favorite is a walla-walla sweet!)
1 small bunch of cilantro
lime juice squeezed from half of a lime
1 jalapeno (optional, for spice)
Chop everything up to make a yummy, fresh salsa!

Last year for Christmas I got this Kitchenaid food chopper. It's small, but I love how I can use it to make salsa in minutes!


Because of its small size, I chop each ingredient separately: onions, then tomatoes, then cilantro. We usually cut the jalapeno with a knife.

And here's the recipe for the tortillas:

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
3/4 cup shortening
3/4 cup hot water

1. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Either by hand or with a pastry cutter, cut in the shortening till the mixture is crumbly. If the mixture looks more floury than crumbly, be sure to add just one or two more tablespoons of shortening till it is crumbly. Add about 3/4 cup hot water (as hot as you can stand to mix with your hands) to the mixture, or just enough to make the ingredients look moist.

2. With your hands, knead the mixture making sure to rub the dough against the sides of the large mixing bowl to gather any clinging dough. If the dough still sticks to the side of the bowl, add a couple more tablespoons of flour until the dough forms a soft round shape. The dough is ready to roll out now. Roll into golf ball sized balls. I usually get 13 to 14 balls from one recipe.

Cover with a dish towel and let it rest for half an hour to an hour.

3. Lightly flour your rolling area, and roll each ball with a rolling pin to

about 1/8 inch thickness.
To get a nice circle shape, I press the dough down with the bottom of small cooking pot, then roll it the rest of the way with a rolling pin.

4. Place each tortilla on a medium hot cast iron skillet (I use stainless steel, and have my stove top set to 3 for a good cooking temperature). Cook for about 1 to 2 minutes on each side, or until the tortilla does not look doughy.


The tortilla will start to bubble on the uncooked side, then its ready to turn over (just make sure your pan isn't too hot or it will burn before it bubbles- click on the picture to make it big so you can see the bubbles)

Your finished stack of tortillas! So tasty served warm. Easily stored in a zip lock in the fridge, then pop them in the microwave for about 20-30 seconds on high to re-warm them. They should be soft and pliable.

It took me about 3 times making these to really perfect them. Its fun making them as a team with my hubby! I roll while he cooks, then we can modify the thickness if they seem to thick or too thin as we go.

Our favorite way to eat these is to boil one or two chicken breasts, shred them, and put the chicken, fresh salsa (hubby likes his with jalapeno, I like mine without!) and place on a warm tortilla. Then fold the tortilla in half and enjoy!

Turkey Noodle Soup

We made some really yummy, tummy warming soup... it was so good we didn't even have leftovers!!

Here's how we made it:


6 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup sliced carrots (we used sliced baby carrots)
1/2 cup sliced celery
1-1 1/2 cups cooked turkey pieces
1 cup egg noodles
oregano
basil
pepper
(I didn't measure the seasonings)

Saute the carrots and celery in hot oil or butter until tender.

Put all ingredients in a pot, bring to a boil, boil for 10 minutes, remove from heat, dish up into bowls, let stand to cool for a few minutes, enjoy!

Here's a picture of our 3 bowls of soup... I love how you can see the steam swirling around!

GINGERBREAD

As September inches ever closer, my mind starts to turn to fall, holidays, and yummy food! I love baked goods with spices in the fall, the aromas and flavors bring back floods of memories of family dinners, cooking with my mom and sisters, and eating yummy treats.

My mom always made gingerbread around the holidays. I finally tried it out myself last year. It turned out soooo yummy! This is from an old cookbook, I wish I knew the date!





Hot Gingerbread



1/2 cup of butter

1/2 cup of sugar

1 egg

1 cup molasses

2 1/2 cups of flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cloves

1 cup hot water



Cream the butter with the sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the well-beaten egg and molasses. Beat well.

Mix the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon and cloves.

Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture, beating until smooth.

Lastly, add the water and beat again until thoroughly blended.

Pour into a well-greased and floured 9x9x2 inch baking pan and bake in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes. Check center with toothpick.

Cut into squares and serve warm. Six servings




Gingerbread is good served warm with whipped cream or butter.



*Notes from Mom: after I add the molasses I use the measuring cup to measure the hot water that you add at the very end. I usually use hot tap water & then put it in the microwave for 10 or 20 seconds on high. You don't want it boiling but it should be a little hotter than warm. Try using only half the spice amounts for a less overwhelming flavor.



**Notes from Me: I only used half the spice amounts and it was just right, my mixer was broken so we used the power drill to cream the sugar, butter, eggs, and molasses, but then I stirred the rest in by hand and it turned out fine.

Asian style dinner

We made the best dinner! Here's a picture

Let me tell you about it!

First is the chicken. I found a recipe online to make batter for fried Chinese chicken (you know, like you buy at Safeway with sweet and sour sauce). So we boiled the chicken to cook it, then coated it in our homemade batter, and fried it in one of my fondue pots.

We then poured a warm "duck sauce" on it.

Explanation: we found a little whole-in-the-wall Asian foods grocery store on Saturday, and found this huge jar of sauce called "duck sauce". And, it was only like $4! It's made with peaches and/or apricots (seriously, that's what the ingredients label said!) and was labelled as a sweet and sour sauce good for pork or chicken. I have no idea why it was called duck sauce!!

Anyway, so we warmed up the duck sauce and poured it over the chicken.

Next is the white rice. We also found at the Asian grocery store some palm sugar. We had never had or heard of palm sugar, so we bought some. Then we looked up online what recipes it is good in. One suggestion was sweet sticky rice. So we cooked up some of our white rice and stirred in some palm sugar when it was done, and it was seriously sooooo good!!

Third was just some stir fry vegetables. We just scrounged in our fridge and came up with sweet mini peppers, sweet onion, sugar snap peas, and baby carrots. Delish!!

Finally was the fresh chow mein. We bought it frozen at the Asian grocery store and we really weren't sure how to cook it. So we sort of stir fry/steamed it and it turned out yummy, especially with a little of the duck sauce on it. It was uncooked when we bought it, so we weren't just re-heating it, we were actually cooking it.

Anyway, it was one of the best Asian food dinners we've had, even compared to going out to eat. I guess if we had put in some MSG it would have been a little more authentic, but, hey... you can't have it all, right? :)