Chicken and Ducklings?

  Today I was feeling like homey comfort food so I decided to make chicken and dumplings.  My 3 year old was running around and stopped and said Mommy!  What are we having for dinner?  I said Chicken and Dumplings.  He went running off screaming Sissy!!!  We are having chicken and DUCKLINGS.  This is gonna follow him the rest of his life and his first date will know this story. :)  So I am gonna share my recipe for Chicken and Dumplings, or ducklings your choice.



Chicken and Dumplings


Chicken Base (however much you want I like a super rich broth so I use a lot)
Chicken on the bone (any kind you want, we use legs and or thighs)
2 cups of flour
2 teaspoons of Baking Powder
1 teaspoon of salt (or more to taste if it isn't salty enough for you)
1 cup of milk
4 tablespoons of flour


I get a large pot and put the chicken in it and cover with water, add the chicken base to it and bring it to a low boil.  While it is cooking I mix my dough.  I put all the rest of the ingredients into the mixer with the dough hook and mix it adding a little more flour here and there to make it not sticky and pliable.   CHeck on your chicken and see if its cooked.  If it is take the chicken out to set aside to cool. Now some people at this point will take the dough and  roll it and slice it into noodles.  I take a bowl of flour and my mixing bowl to the stove pinch off some dough, drop it in the flour and hand form the noodles.  The dumplings will rise to the  top when cooked.

Penne with Sage Cream sauce

  Tonight for dinner I did pasta again.  It is such as easy go to you can do so much with it and well the kids don't put up a fight. For the record a lesson learned tonight is to not crush garlic then use the finger you have a hang nail on to dig it out.  It will burn like acid.  Not fun.  To top it off don't yank it out and stick it in your mouth, raw garlic is good massive dose of raw garlic to your tongue not good.

Penne with Sage Cream Sauce

1 box of Mezze Penne (or regular Penne I have kids they like the baby Penne)
1 medium zucchini diced
1 medium yellow squash diced
4 pieces of proscuitto
1 medium onion diced
3 cloves of garlic crushed or diced fine your choice.
3 tablespoons of butter
a shot of white wine
2 cups of water
1tablespoon of Chicken base
4 sage leaves
3/4 cup of cream
1/2 cup of grated or shredded Parmesan.

Start the water boiling to add the Penne Later.  While putting together your sauce you will be cooking your pasta, come on you knew this.

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter when the pan is hot crisp up the proscuitto.  I did all of mine in a large dutch oven cause you are gonna bake this if you want once its put together.  Take the meat out add the onions.  Cook till brown. If you need to add another tablespoon of butter add it now.  Layer your flavors so add a little salt so that each layer will taste seasoned.  Once the onions are brown add the zucchini and squash.  After cooking for a few minutes add the garlic and a tad more salt.  Let it get brown, then put a good glug of white wine in there.  Cook for a few minutes, then add the tomato paste cook for a minute then add the water and chicken base.
   Let this simmer, check your pasta water add if its ready.  Add the 4 sage leaves, more if you like, you are gonna fish them out later so no need to chop them.  Unless you want to leave them in there then chop away  When your pasta is almost al dente reduce heat to low, add the cheese and the cream.  Take the pasta and drain it.  Fish out sage leaves if that is your choice, add pasta to the cream sauce.  Crumble the proscuitto and add to the pasta stir to combine.  Now what I did was take the other tablespoon of butter melt it and mix with some bread crumbs and paremesan and sprinkle on top and brown it.  Eat with yummy garlic bread.

Crazy for Lilikoi

  I have been living on the island for 8 months.  Wow has it really been 8 months? Anyway we have an abundance of lilikoi (or passion fruit) here.  As well as pineapple, coconut, and all kinds of yummy tropical fruits.  I have an obsession with passion fruit.  I make Passion fruit tea all the time before moving here.  Since getting here my go to drink is POG (passion fruit, orange and guava juice.)  If we go to the shaved Ice stands I get mine with passion fruit in it some how.  So yesterday we went to a BBQ at the dive shop to represent Justin while he was at school.  We were to bring a side dish and drinks.  Well I prefer to bake cause my side dishes are usually tailored to our families tastes and I don't know if others will enjoy it.  So I checked the cupboards and decided to make some Tiramisu Cupcakes (recipe is found at cookinchannel.com under Nadia G's Bitchin Kitchen) and a pineapple upside down cake.  I couldn't just leave it as pineapple upside down cake so I decided to make it up as I went.  I am gonna share the recipe with you but honestly I have no idea exact measurements, very sorry, I just eyeball it.  I am calling this a Tropical Salted Caramel upside down cake.



Tropical Salted Caramel Upside down cake

1 box butter recipe yellow cake mix
1 stick of butter
1 cup of pineapple juice (I use a can of pineapple drain the juice use it for the liquid since I am using the pineapple later)
3 eggs

Ok for the cake you just make the cake to the boxes specification.  It calls for a 1/3 cup of butter for the cake however its a freaking cake with carmel in it.  Go ahead your calorie count is blown for the day anyway the extra two tablespoons is nothing in the long run.  ALso instead of water use the juice from the can of pineapple you are using.  If for what ever reason you don't have a full cup then just add water to make it equal a cup.  I mix my cake ahead of time while the oven is preheating.

For the topping
2 to 3 tablespoons of butter
1/3 cup of white sugar
1/3 cup of dark brown sugar
the pineapple
1 tablespoon of coconut rum
1 tablespoon of Banana Honey (honey from the banana trees) I am sure any honey would be fine maybe Orange blossom would be better
ANd my final ingredient is a weird one.  I buy Lilikoi butter which is like apple butter only made with passion fruit.   I buy it at the farmers market but they have a website www.homemadejamsofhawaii.com  Well worth the ordering.  But I use 1 tablespoon of Lilikoi butter

In the skillet I am gonna cook it in I melt the butter.  While its melting I add the honey, the lilikoi butter and the rum.  Mix it all together and then I add the sugars.  Now at this time it may not look liquid enough if you need to add more butter go ahead like I said I am guessing the amounts I use.  Once it reaches a caramel color I add salt to taste (sea salt or regular salt what ever you have on hand) and the pineapple.  I let it caramelize the pineapple for a bit.  Then with out turning the burner off I add the cake mix to the screaming hot skillet.  I then turn the burner off, spread the cake mix around and then put it in the oven to bake at 350 for about 20 to 30 minutes  Once its done I take it out let it sit for about 3 or 4 minutes, then flip it out on a plate.  Serve immediately or let it sit in the fridge over night.  What ever you prefer.

Family Fave

  Justin has been at school the past 5 weeks so it has just been the kids and I.  I am lucky my kids are not terribly picky eaters.  Kiley fights with me now just to fight cause she has been doing it so long I think if she couldn't fight me or didn't fight me over dinner she would think the world was ending.  One thing she does is flip flop between what she doesn't like and what she does like.  Last summer she refused to eat corn unless it was on the cob.  So I have been buying corn on teh cob.  This summer she has determined that corn on the cob is horrible she will only eat it off the cob.  So I had to try different preparations of corn so it wouldn't get boring.  So I decided to combine two recipes I saw online.  One was a fried corn dish and the other was a cheesy corn.  And of course I gave it my own little twist.  So here is the recipe for my Cheesey Cream corn.

Cheesy Cream Corn

1 bag of frozen corn
15 cherry tomatoes (more or less if you like you can also use bell peppers or any kind of veggie you want)
stick of butter(this is not a healthy recipe my daughter and son are underweight I have to lay on the calories)
a wedge of Baby Bell Spreadable Swiss cheese regular or light
A little cream or whole milk.

I chop my veggies, I melt a little bit of the butter about a tablespoon or two in a skillet.  Once its hot I add the tomatoes that I have simply split in half.  I like the skillet to be screaming hot cause I want the tomatoes to give up some juice and get some carmelization on them.  You can salt them now or you can wait till later your choice as always on the amount of salt.  Then I add the bag of corn, it can still be frozen or thawed how ever you wanna do it.  I then basically stir fry it around.  I then add the wedge of baby bell in there after cutting it to get it to blend better.  Also here is where I Start adding butter.  You don't add the whole stick I always add a tablespoon at a time depends on how much liquid your tomatoes gave up and all of that you need a little liquid on the bottom of the skillet.  I am going to try a rich chicken broth this next time to lighten it a bit.  Once the corn is getting a little toasty I add the cream or whole milk just to make it creamy.  If using the cream don't bring it to a boil.  Your goal is to have the corn hot and the cheese to be melted and blended in.  I usually end up adding at most 1/2 a cup of cream or milk.

It's been awhile....

  Sorry I dropped off the face of the earth there for awhile.  We moved to Hawaii which led to a lot of things needing to be done and writing about my yummy meals went to the way side.  But that is no longer.  I am here and ready to start blogging again.
  So last night I decided to make a home version of some taquitos.  I made some a few months ago with some left over Khalua pork and well it was amazing.  I had no pork this time but I had chicken so I decided to make my own chicken versions.  Upon completing and bragging about it online I had a few requests to blog it and pin it so here it goes.

You will need:
Chicken breast cooked (I poached mine but you can grill it or what ever you prefer)
A few packages of corn tortillas or flour your choice big or small
a block of cream cheese
tablespoon of butter
one green bell pepper
one small onion
taco cheese
Mcormick Recipe Inspirations in Chicken Lime Fajita


So I sauteed the onion and the pepper in the butter got it nice and brown and yummy and set it aside.  In the kitchen aid I put the chicken, the cream cheese, the onion and peppers, and the mcormick spices.  The Spice Recipe card says to add lime or lemon juice to the recipe for it.  Since I wasn't making the fajitas the traditional way and I didn't have any I left it out.  But you can add it if you like would be pretty good.  I then mixed it in the mixer letting my kitchen aid do the shredding of the chicken for me.  I then tasted, adjusted seasoning with Salt and pepper then added the taco cheese and mixed it some more.

While I was doing this I preheated the oven to 350.  I then took my tortillas place a spoonful of filling on it and rolled it up.  Laid it seam side down on the tray, and continued till the tortillas were gone.  I then popped them in the oven for 30 to 45 minutes rotating half way through cooking.  Now mine took this long cause the shells I go would not get crunchy.  However using a flour tortilla or traditional corn tortilla may not take that long.  You are only cooking long enough to eat everything through and to crisp up the tortilla.

You could dip them in what ever you want, and you can add salsa to the actual mixture before stuffing them as well.

Sorry

  It has been awhile since my last post.  Recently we had to travel to our home state cause my Father in Law passed away.  The man was amazing, he lived one of those lives you would swear was from a movie or a book. Born on the banks of the river in a tent, no money, nothing.  He had the most amazing talent in art and music, he was just a great guy.  He wasn't always that way, alcohol has a bad habit of hurting others not just the one who drinks, but he over came that as well.  The man was also a champ in the kitchen.
  He cooked the best fried catfish I have ever eaten.  And I have no idea how he made it.  Even my husband doesn't know for sure the way his dad did it.  Hubby can get it close but it is just missing something and we can never put our finger on it.  He also made a believer out of me for eating food that might not normally be found in my parents house.  Rooster 'fries' (the dangly bits on rooster for those that don't know) where a surprise once I found out that it wasn't exactly popcorn chicken I was eating.  And Squirrel.  Yes I have eaten it and yes it was not bad at all.  Quite enjoyable.  He was a hard living man, one to go out on his porch, shoot the squirrel and then clean it in the sink (I know this cause I walked downstairs one morning to see a sinkful of fur and bone kind of shocking.)
  The family is still getting things together and trying to get back into a routine after 2 weeks away.  Once that is done I will be more than willing to get back on here sharing things with everyone.  Right before we flew out the hubby and a friend bagged an antelope so we will be experimenting with that.

Grater = Greater

  I have two small kids and getting children to eat veggies can be hard.  Especially with the girl child.  She loves veggies but only if cooked the way she is used too.  So if the first way she remembers eating broccoli is raw that is how she will eat it from now on.  So I have been finding ways to sneak them into her food.  One thing I can always get her to eat is potatoes.  So I have started employing my box grater to slip the other veggie in all the time.  Like tonights meal.  I took three small potatoes and baked them off.  While the potatoes are baking I grated 2 zucchini, 1 squash, a carrot, and an onion.  Let the grated veggies sit in a strainer and the moisture drain away.  Once the potatoes are done I let them cool once they are cool enough to work with I grate those into the bowl and add the grated veggies.  I then mix it with some egg, flour and salt and cook them like hashbrowns.  So Baby Girl thinks she is getting yummy hash browns and Mommy knows she is getting little potato and a whole lot of hidden veggies.