Recipes: Roasted Whole Chicken with Veggies and Tuscan Chicken Skillet

So - first off, sorry for the mini hiatus. My husband and I moved two weeks ago, and we are just now hooked up to the internet. To be fair - the internet company threatened it would take over 40 days (gotta love the Polish efficiency!), but after harassing them for a few days - they miraculously showed up at our door.

The weird thing is that we are still getting letters that are saying the internet won't be turned on for another month. I think these guys are way confused.

Anyway - that is mainly the reason why I was gone. It's hard to run a blog when you don't have a connection! Plus - between the movie, 4th of July, and just being plain lazy I haven't actually been cooking that much, and what I have been cooking hasn't been earth shattering enough to post about.

But never fear! That is about to change! For starters - I need to lose some weight. I finally weighed myself after a month and a half back in Texas followed by two months of just not giving a shit and found out that I have gained A LOT.

So yeah - I basically need to lose a 3 year old before Christmas (We have a very important ski trip that I need to fit into my ski pants for), and a big part of that will be due to me cooking in a whole lot more than I am now. It also means that I will be posting more scale friendly recipes. Don't worry, I will try my best to not get all preachy, and I also promise you I won't "fad" out. You'll enjoy this trip with me, I promise.


Anyway, lets get to the recipes, shall we?


Roasted Whole Chicken with Veggies

This Recipe  is very basic, but very good. I got it from my sister years ago and it is perfect for Sunday dinner or when you don't want to cook for the next few days. It makes a TON of leftovers if you are a family of two (like my husband and I are).

Ingredients
1 whole chicken
1 can of beer
1 lemon
3 stalks of celery
2 carrots
baby red potatoes
3 cloves of garlic
Salt/Pepper (or Season All seasoning - that is what I use)
Butter

Instructions
Pre-heat your oven to 350 F
Cover the entire chicken in butter - this helps keep the seasoning on and also gives it a nice roast.
Put the chicken in a Roasting pan.
Slice the lemon in half - and shove one half of the lemon in the chicken.
Chop up celery, carrots, potatoes, and garlic. Place around the chicken (you can even shove some up in the chicken - it gives it a really nice flavor).
Pour the beer over the chicken and veggies.
Season chicken and veggies with salt/pepper liberally.
Put in oven and cook uncovered for about 3 hours (or until chicken is cooked through).


Tuscan Chicken Skillet

Credit: The Wonderlust Kitchen

Find the blog post about it here.

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp. olive oil, divided
• 1 lb. chicken breast tenderloins
• 1 tsp. kosher salt
• 1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp. oregano
• ½ tsp. thyme
• ½ yellow onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 12 oz. mushrooms, sliced
• ⅔ c. sundried tomatoes, chopped
• 1 (15 oz) can Cannelini Beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 (15 oz) cans fire roasted diced tomatoes
• 1 Tbsp. sugar
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Parsley for garnish

Instructions

1. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large sauté pan or cast iron skillet over medium-high heat, then add the chicken and brown for 3 minutes on each side.
2. Remove chicken and set aside on a plate. Add the remaining tablespoon olive oil to the pan. Add the sliced mushrooms in a single layer and brown, working in batches, a few minutes per side. Remove from the pan and set aside.
3. Add the onion and sauté for 3 minutes. Add the garlic, and sundried tomatoes. Sauté for 2 minutes. Stir in the diced tomatoes, spices, beans, and sugar.
4. Transfer the chicken back to the pan and spoon some of the sauce and vegetables over top of the chicken. Cook, covered, on the stove top until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce is bubbling, about ten minutes. Return the mushrooms to the pan. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed. Serve hot, garnished with parsley.

Recipe: 30 minute dinner rolls and Crockpot Buffalo Chicken Sliders

Who doesn't like homemade dinner rolls? Fresh out of the oven, warm, with a slab of butter in between. I mean - YUM right?

The problem is they take forever to make. You have to make the dough, let it rest, knead it again, let it rest some more - depending on the recipe the resting could last as long as overnight!

This weekend I was craving buffalo chicken wings, but I didn't want to order from the local American restaurant (Warsaw friends - Bert and I have tried every place for wings during football season. Jeff's is the only place that has decent wings!). I had chicken breasts, dry ranch dressing, and Frank's wing sauce (yes - you CAN get Frank's here at the international store. Sure it's probably $10 bucks for a small container of it - but sometimes, you just gotta pay the money!) and I just knew I could make a decent chicken buffalo slider from that, as long as I had rolls.

Rolls are impossible to come by here in Warsaw. I have yet to find the frozen kind you can just pop into the oven. Convinces like frozen rolls or clothes dryers (don't even get me started on clothes dryers) just don't exist in Europe. So I have to make them myself. So far, in the year that I've lived in Poland, I have attempted dinner rolls 3 times. Once, during football season, when I decided to make sliders. Once during Thanksgiving, and Saturday. Each time I used a different recipe,and each time they turned out incredibly dense except for this last time.

Granted - they weren't perfect. According to my good friend Joy who is a professional pastry chef and all around bad ass expat wife, I was using the wrong type of flour. (You can check out her amazing award winning food/travel blog here: My Traveling Joys). In Poland they categorize their flour based on a number. The amount gluten in the flour dictates the number on the flour. I am not a baker (not much of a carb fan), so I didn't think it really mattered. But it totally does. Here in Poland I need to use a flour that is over 500. Then apparently I will have the fluffiest rolls imaginable!

This recipe is awesome though, because it takes 30 minutes to make them - from start to finish. It is an easy recipe too! Perfect if you decide last minute you want homemade dinner rolls (or in my case - buns for sliders!). Sunday morning I also used them as biscuits (because they were a bit dense from the wrong use of flour) and were AMAZING.


 30-Minute Dinner Rolls

Picture credit: Kitchenmeetsgirl.com

Ingredients

• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons warm water
• 1/3 cup oil
• 2 tablespoons active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup sugar
  
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 3 1/2 cups flour (either bread flour or all-purpose will work)

 

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In the bowl of your stand mixer, combine the warm water, oil, yeast, and sugar. Allow the mixture to rest for 15 minutes.
3. Mix 2 cups of the flour, the salt, and the egg into the yeast mixture using a dough hook. Add the remaining 1 1/2 cups flour 1/2 cup at a time.
4. Shape dough into 12 balls and place in a 9x13 pan. Let dough rest for 10 minutes.
5. Bake for 10 minutes or until tops are just golden brown.

Crockpot Buffalo Chicken Sliders

Ingedients:

• 2 chicken breasts
• 1 bottle of franks hot sauce (I used 1/2 a bottle because my husband is not a spicy food fan)
• 1 package of dry ranch mix
• 1/2 stick of butter

Put all ingredients into a crockpot and cook on low for 6 hours. Shred the chicken in the crock pot before serving.

Recipe: Chicken Spaghetti

Recipe: Chicken Spaghetti

 When I was in college my roommate, Andrea, would make the best chicken spaghetti I've ever had in my life. It was cheesy, delicious, and it always made enough to last us for a couple of days. Being college students, we were always broke, but this chicken spaghetti recipe was also really inexpensive. 

I haven't had it in at least a year, probably longer, and I woke up yesterday morning craving it. I messaged Andrea on FB and she was happy to give me the recipe. The only problem is that it required some ingredients that I could not get here in Poland - mainly velveta, condensed cream of chicken, and condensed cream of mushroom.

Luckily I had smuggled some velveta across the border (we aren't supposed to bring cheese into Poland - but lets be honest, velveta can hardly be considered cheese) so that was not going to be an issue for me, but I did not have the cream of chicken or mushroom needed for the recipe so I had to make that from scratch.

This is pretty much the Velveeta situation for expats in Poland.

Turns out - made from scratch cream of chicken and mushroom soups are incredibly easy to make! It look me less than 5 minutes, and I had condensed soups without all of the chemicals!

So, for this blog post I am not only going to give you the Chicken spaghetti recipe, but also the condensed soup recipes I found. It's a three for one today - or we could call it a threesome if you want to get dirty with it. ;)

If you live in another country and do not have Velveeta, I have found a homemade Velveeta recipe here.  I have not tried it yet, as I still have a good bit of my Velveeta stash left, so I can't vouch for it. But it's probably good (and definitely better for you than the "real" stuff!)

Condensed Cream of Chicken

Photo credit: A Pinch of Yum

Ingredients:

• 2½ cups chicken broth (I used 2 cans)
  
• 1½ cups milk
• ¾ cup flour
• 1 tablespoon seasoning mix (or on your own, ½ tsp. onion powder, ½ tsp. garlic powder, ½ tsp. black pepper, 1 tsp. salt, ½ tsp. parsley, etc)

Directions:

1. Combine the chicken broth and ½ cup of the milk in a large saucepan. Bring to a low boil.
2. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk the flour and seasonings into the remaining 1 cup milk until a smooth, thick mixture forms.
3. Pour the flour and milk mixture into the saucepan with the broth mixture over low heat and stir continuously, whisking as the mixture simmers. Continue to simmer and stir/whisk until the mixture is smooth and thick, 5-10 minutes. The mixture will thicken a bit as it cools.

Condensed Cream of Mushroom

Photo credit: Simply Scratch

Ingrediants:

3 tablespoons Unsalted Butter
1 small Shallot, minced {about a quarter cup}
1/2 cup minced Crimini Mushroom
2-1/2 tablespoons All Purpose Flour
1/2 cup Vegetable Broth
1/2 cup Whole Milk
1 pinch Kosher Salt {go easy so you don't over salt when adding to the recipe}
2 pinches Freshly Ground Black Pepper

Directions:
In a 10 inch skillet melt the three tablespoons of butter over medium heat. Once melted add in the minced shallot, stir to coat in the butter and sauté until just about soft {3-5 minutes}.
Add in the minced crimini mushrooms, stir and cook for 2-3 minutes.
Sprinkle with the 2-1/2 tablespoons all purpose flour and let the flour cook for a minute or two. Whisk in the whole milk and vegetable broth until smooth.
Bring to a simmer and cook until it has thickened {about 5-8 minutes}.


Chicken Spaghetti 

Ingredients: 

3-4 Chicken breasts

1 pkg. spaghetti

1 lb (half a box) of Velveeta cheese cut into small pieces.

1 can of cream of chicken soup (10 oz)

1 can of cream of mushroom soup (10 oz)

1/4 cup of Milk

Salt and Pepper

2 cloves garlic minced

1 small onion diced

6 mushroom caps diced

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Fill large pot with water and add 1 teaspoon salt.
Add chicken breasts to water and cook over high heat. Bring to boil stirring chicken about every 10 minutes. Cook for 25-30 minutes (I cut my chicken up into small pieces before boiling to reduce time. I boiled for about 15 minutes). Remove chicken from pot.
Add 1 package (12 oz) of spaghetti to water you cooked the chicken in.
Cook according to directions on package (11-13 minutes) stirring occasionally.
Drain spaghetti.
Shred chicken. Put both spaghetti and chicken to the side.

In a separate skillet, saute 1 small white onion and 2 cloves of garlic minced with a teaspoon of butter.
Once the onion and garlic is soft and translucent, add diced mushrooms and cook until soft (about 5 minutes).
Slowly add the Velveeta to this mixture,  letting it melt and mix in with the mushrooms, garlic, and onion.
Add the milk.
Add the cream of chicken and cream of mushroom and mix well until a thick sauce is formed.

Combine spaghetti, chicken, and melted mixture into a large bowl and mix.

Pour into a casserole dish and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

Serve and enjoy! 



Also - check out Andrea's website http://www.agphotographix.com/ She is a wonderful photographer out of Houston, Texas.