Chicken Fried Rice - Dinner is served

Tonight's dinner is an old standby that we enjoy. Its easy, quick, and best of all...good!
Chicken fried rice. The picture isn't that great. It really doesn't do it justice. I need to brush up on my food photography skills.


Cut chicken cutlets into small pieces. Cook until done. Add the green onions and cook for about a minute. Transfer to a bowl.


Meanwhile, get your rice cooking. It's no secret I use boil in bag rice. You will need two bags for this recipe.

Once you have removed the chicken and green onions, get the eggs cooking. You want to get them to a nearly dry scramble.
Here's my tip for the day: Poke your egg with a fork a couple of times to get it to start to break, then whisk. I also add about a teaspoon of water to the eggs.



Add the chicken and onions back to the egg.

Finally, add your rice and soy sauce. Stir together and serve.

Chicken Fried Rice

2 bags of boil in the bag rice (or 2 cups uncooked rice, cooked)
1 Tablespoon butter
1 package chicken cutlets or 2-3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into small pieces
2 eggs, beaten
2 green onions, chopped
1 1/2 Tablespoons soy sauce

Heat butter in skillet. Cook chicken until done. Add green onions and cook for about one minute. Place chicken and onions aside.

Add eggs to skillet and cook to a slightly dry scramble.

Add chicken and cooked rice back to skillet and combine.

Add soy sauce, stir together and serve.


Enjoy!

Recipe of the Week - Week 2

Chicken Pot Pie

This is an old stand by for us. As I type that though, I realize its been a while since I made it. Credit is to my stepmom.

This is comfort food for me. It's great reheated, making it an easy meal to drop off to a friend who is under the weather, just had a baby, etc.

Preheat oven to 350, grab a skillet and a pie plate.

One package Pillsbury pie crust (you need two crusts)
1lb boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into cubes
1 can mixed vegetables, drained (I always use veg-all)
1 can cream of potato soup (I use healthy request to reduce sodium)

Place one pie crust in pie plate, lining the pie plate
Cook cubed chicken until done in skillet. Added mixed vegetables (drained) and cream of potato soup. Mix together.
Spoon into pie crust
Place remaining crust on top and seal edges. Cut slits in top crust

Bake 30 - 45 minutes, until crust is golden brown.***
Serve with salad for an easy yummy meal. Its great in the winter!

When I am taking to someone for dinner, I cook til the crust is done, but light in color. When the reheat, the crust will brown.

By the way, this is veg-all.

Coq Au Vin

I was recently inspired while watching The Next Food Network Star. The contestants had to take a complicate meal and prepare in like, an hour. One of the dishes was Coq Au Vin, which they commented takes two days to prepare. Why in the world this inspired me, I have no clue. But, it did.
So, I set off to create Coq Au Vin. I used Alton Brown's recipe, and set off to clear the shelves at Publix of all the pinot noir they had.
It takes two days because you do most of the prep work a day ahead and let the partially cooked chicken set in more wine than most people consume in a year overnight.

So gather your ingredients. Here is part of the team. I only allowed one bottle of wine in the picture. And by the way...Rachel Ray is right. Tomato Paste in a tube is AMAZING. I can't say its yumm-o, because I didn't eat it, however, it is easy to work with and stores for a gazillion years in the frig. And by gazillion, I mean indefinitely, which is what the package indicates. So, its great to have on hand for recipes like this that only require 2 Tablespoons. You don't waste it.

The flour coated chicken waits its turn:

The pearl onions brown up in the grease left from frying up the bacon. This part smelled divine.

The dutch oven waits patiently.

So, after the prep, you place all the ingredients (except the pearl onions, mushrooms, and bacon) in dutch oven and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.
Then you cook it for about 2 1/2 hours.
What was the final verdict:
Its a mixed review, and here is why.
My husband and I both like the flavor. I was really nervous at the amount of red wine you used, but there was no winey (I like to make up words) flavor at all. So, that was great.
The chicken was moist and there were no dry portions. Jim even like the dark meat.
I liked that it easily pulled from the bone (Jim usually has to remove chicken from the bone for me on the rare occasion we have it, and I went into making this recipe with that in mind).
My "issue" was that it was not this amazing, knock your socks off dish that I was expecting. For all the work and prep, I was expecting more. I want to take a bite and fall off my chair.
I think I will work with the ingredients and try something like this again, but I was a little disappointed in the end.
Have you ever had this happen to you? High high hopes that fell short when cooking or baking?

Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day.....

But -
Give him a can of beer, and you have dinner for two!


The chicken is blushing.....

I took a small break from dinner duties and let Jim work his magic. And magical it was.

Beer Can Chicken
(or soda can chicken)
There is no set way to do this, but here is what Jim did

One 31/2 - 4lb chicken
One can of beer (you can use soda as well - cola or lemon lime will do)
One small whole onion OR potato
Seasoning Rub - We used McCormick Montreal Chicken
Butter
One aluminum, disposable pie plate

We have a beer can chicken rack that I picked up at Linens and Things for about $5. It is a metal contraption that has three legs and a support for the can of beer.

Rinse your chicken
Empty half of the can of beer into the pie plate...NOT your tummy!
Place can with remaining beer in the rack.
Generously rub chicken with butter and seasoning rub outside, as well as the inner cavity.
Place chicken down over the beer can on the rack.
Place the potato or onion in the neck cavity to seal in vapors.
Place the pie plate with beer on the grill. Place chicken and rack in plate. Cook for 2 hours until skin is dark and very crisp.

We have a charcoal grill and Jim allowed the coals to get hot, slid them around to form a ring around the pie plate and added a few charcoals every 30 minutes to keep it hot. As you can see in the picture, the top rack is removed and the chicken is down with the pie plate sitting on the base rack where the charcoal sits.

According to the chicken rack packaging if you have a gas gril, place the chicken on left side of grill and set the right side burner to low-medium.

When done, CAREFULLY remove, secure the base with a hot pad and gently lift chicken from rack. Seriously...be careful here, there is REALLY hot beer in the can.

I served this with roasted red skin potatoes and cucumber salad