Tag Archives: home cooked meals

company worthy, restaurant style meal

Posted on February 18, 2012 by Sharon ت

I planned to fix this for dinner the night of Valentine’s, but we decided to order pizza instead. So, the meal got bumped to Wednesday. It’s really pretty simple to put together, but the results are anything but simple.

Here’s the menu:

~baked chicken

~amatriciana sauce over angel hair pasta

~salad tossed with cracked pepper vinaigrette

Directions:

Chicken

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preheat oven to 375 degrees ( I prefer to cook chicken at this temperature)

line a baking dish with foil

season boneless, skinless chicken breasts with poultry seasoning

place breasts, thick side down, in the pan

set pan in oven

Amatriciana Sauce

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Once chicken is baking, you are ready to prepare the sauce.

heat a tbsp or so of olive oil in saucepan

cut 4 strips of bacon into pieces

chop about a 1/4 cup of onion-add to bacon in pan

mince 2 – 3 cloves of garlic

Add bacon to heated oil and saute, next add onions and then garlic

add 1 14.5 oz can of petite diced tomatoes to pan

pour 1 cup of red cooking wine into mixture

add a dash of sugar, cracked pepper and red pepper flakes

stir and set to simmer uncovered

Pasta

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Once the sauce is simmering, set water on stove to boil

Salad

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while you’re waiting on the water to boil, prepare your salad

toss together 1 can drained mandarin oranges, 4 oz. of crumbled feta cheese, lettuce ( I used bag of spring mix) and abut 1/4 cup of cracked pepper vinaigrette ( I use a prepared dressing by Cookwell and Company)

set the salad to chill in the fridge

Back to Pasta

add your pasta to boiling water and cook according to directions

When the chicken is done, you can slice each breast to serve over pasta, if desired.

Enjoy!

Until next time,

Sharon

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Posted in Uncategorized and tagged home cooked meals, italian food, recipe. Bookmark the permalink.

Fish Tacos

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Sharon ت

I just finished cleaning up the kitchen after a yummy dinner of fish tacos, with a side of black beans, and some chips with salsa and guacamole. This is such a quick, easy and enjoyable meal, that I wanted to share it with you.

You will need a light, flaky fish. I keep a bag of individually wrapped, frozen talapia filets on hand which is what I used for this recipe. I use four filets to feed a family of three. So, I would recommend that you use at least one filet per person.

While the fish is defrosting, heat up *grapeseed oil in a skillet. Once the filets are defrosted, use a southwest rub to season them. I use Adams Reserve Southwest Ancho Sear n Crust. After generously coating both sides of the filets, use tongs to place the fish in the hot oil. Cook 2 – 3 minutes on both sides.

After the filets are cooked, set them aside on a plate, and use the leftover oil to heat up corn tortillas. For my family, I heat up two tortillas per person. When the tortillas start to bubble a little, turn them over and heat them about a minute longer.

Once you have the first round of tortillas in the skillet, heat a can of black beans in a small sauce pan. This only takes a few minutes. We like to stir in a little salsa and cheese to add some flavor.

Set out your favorite taco fillings. We enjoy traditional fillings like lettuce, tomatoe, onion, cheese and sour cream. You could also mix mayo, slaw and southwest seasoning for more of a baja style taco.

Once the beans and tortillas are heated, dinner is ready.

*Grapeseed oil doesn’t overheat and burn as easily as olive oil and it also doesn’t flavor your food.

Enjoy!

Until next time,

Sharon

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Dumplin’s Chicken and Dumplings

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Sharon ت

About 12 years ago, I cooked some chicken and dumplings for my husband’s uncle. He reminisces over that meal as though it was the best he’s ever had. The dumplings I made for him were way too salty, but he gave me the ultimate compliment by going for seconds. He has been calling me Dumplin’ ever since that meal together. Since then, my recipe has become a combination of the recipe my momma gave me and that of a friend. While the recipe has evolved over the years, it’s been my daughter’s favorite meal since she was about 6 years old. But that’s enough talking. Let’s get to it.

Ingredients:

1 box of chicken broth

3 to 5 stalks of celery, chopped

1 cup of onion, chopped

a bag of baby carrots or carrot slices

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 can of cream of chicken soup

pepper

2 cloves of chopped garlic

2 cans of biscuits

Directions:

After you have diced the celery and onion, bring the chicken, celery, onion, and half the bag of carrots to a boil in the chicken broth. Boil until the chicken is cooked and the vegetables are tender.

Meanwhile, you can chop the garlic, open the can of cream of chicken and set out your pepper.

Once the chicken is cooked through, take it out of the pot and place it on a plate so that it will cool to the touch. Turn the heat down to low.

While the chicken is cooling, stir in the cream of chicken, chopped garlic and pepper to taste. Turn the heat to medium high and let the ingredients simmer.

While this is simmering, open the cans of biscuits, and cut the biscuits into quarters. If you like your dumplings soup style, don’t do anything else. If you prefer creamier style dumplings, sprinkle the biscuits and a rolling pin with a little flour and roll out the biscuits.

Once your biscuits are ready, gradually add them to the simmering pot. Cover the pot, turn up the heat and cook until dumplings have cooked through. While the biscuits are cooking, shred the chicken into bit sized pieces.

Once the biscuits are cooked through, turn down the heat to low and stir in the chicken.

Oh, yeah. Looking good. Go ahead and help yourself. There’s plenty. This recipe serves 8.

Enjoy! If you try this recipe, please let me know how it turns out.

Tip #1: I recommend putting your chopped vegetables in ramekin bowls to get them out of your way as you continue chopping, and it makes it easy to add them in the pot.