Tag Archives: food.com

What’s For Dinner Wednesday: Sweet and Sour Turkey Kielbasa

23 Jan
We've been on quite the kielbasa kick lately!

We’ve been on quite the kielbasa kick lately!

Our family has always loved kielbasa. I can remember being in high school and buying “hot lunch” on the days that kielbasa was on the lunch menu.

Lately we’ve been buying it to use every once in a while for our meals, just to break things up, as long as it’s a lowfat turkey kielbasa, not the regular kind. All of our kids like it and it’s affordable. We find ours at Aldi’s.

Recently Don found a recipe for a lowfat sweet and sour sauce for chicken, on food.com, and he used it to make the kielbasa. It was delicious. We served it with a lowfat couscous and a side of broccoli. Everyone loved it, we’d make it again, and I’d make it for chicken too!

Today I share that recipe with you for my What’s for Dinner Wednesday post. It might make a healthier option for a Superbowl Sunday game dish in a couple of weeks, if you’d like to give it a try.

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup chicken stock
2 stalks celery, diagonally sliced
1 onion, thinly sliced lengthwise
1 small red bell pepper, cut in strips
1 small green bell pepper, cut in strips
1/3 cup pineapple juice or 1/3 cup orange juice
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar (can use more)
2 tablespoons white vinegar
3 tablespoons soy sauce (or to taste)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 cup mangoes or 1 cup pineapple chunk
1 pinch salt and pepper

I love how pretty this dish looks. Don threw in the cherries as a treat for the kids, but I loved what it did for the colors in the dish too!

I love how pretty this dish looks. Don threw in the cherries as a treat for the kids, but I loved what it did for the colors in the dish too!

DIRECTIONS:
1
In a large skillet, bring chicken and stock to a simmer over med-high heat.
2
Add celery, onion and sweet peppers; cook, stirring often, for about 5 minutes, or until chicken is no longer pink inside, and veggies are almost tender-crisp.
3
Mix together the juice, brown sugar, vinegar and soy sauce until blended.
4
Stir into skillet; bring to a boil.
5
Cook, stirring for about 2 minutes, or until glossy and thickened.
6
Mix the cornstarch with a small amount of cold water and add to the simmering sauce to thicken.
7
Add mango or pineapple chunks (if using), salt and pepper; simmer for 2 minutes, or until heated through.

Read more at: http://www.food.com/recipe/extreme-low-fat-sweet-and-sour-skillet-chicken-78288?oc=linkback

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Chicken and Dumplings

7 Nov

Don made Chicken and Dumplings for us, for the first time ever.

Recently I wrote a post showing our dinner in the Pampered Chef Deep Covered Baker, and I mentioned that I’d show you what we did with our leftovers, one day soon.

Well, today’s that day.

Don had been dying to try making Chicken and Dumplings when we had some leftover roasted chicken, and this last time we made it, that’s exactly what he did.

As an aside, we try to plan a roasted chicken or turkey at least once a month during the fall/winter months because that equals two meals for us and even sometimes chicken salad for lunch. When you’re on a tight budget, you try to stretch your meals as much as you can.

Since Don had never made dumplings before, he looked up a recipe and found this one on Food.com that looked appealing to him.

Caroline did the dumplings all on her own.

He put Caroline in charge of making the dumpling batter while he put together the rest of it.

Here’s the recipe. Keep in mind that we used our leftover roasted chicken, but I’ve left the entire recipe here as is, in case you don’t have leftover chicken but still want to try this out.

Let me know how you like it! It’s a great alternative for leftover roasted chicken!

CHICKEN AND DUMPLINGS
INGREDIENTS

1 large broiler-fryer chicken, cut up
2 celery ribs, sliced
4 carrots, peeled and sliced
1 medium onion, diced
1 (14 1/2 ounce) can chicken broth
2 tablespoons dried parsley
2 teaspoons chicken bouillon granules
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2-1 teaspoon pepper
water
DUMPLING INGREDIENTS
2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup milk
4 tablespoons oil

Dumplings right into the sauce to cook.

DIRECTIONS

Combine chicken, celery, carrots, onion, chicken broth, parsley, chicken bouillon granules, salt and pepper in a large pan or dutch oven; add enough water to cover chicken.Bring to a boil; reduce heat, cover and simmer for 2 hours or until chicken is done.Remove chicken and let stand until cool enough to handle.Remove skin from chicken and tear meat away from bones.Return meat to soup; discard skin and bones.Add more salt and pepper to taste, if desired. (Don made a roux to thicken his soup, using equal parts flour and melted butter.)Return soup to a simmer.In a mixing bowl, combine dumpling ingredients and mix well to form a stiff dough.Drop by tablespoonfuls into simmering soup.

Cover and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes.

Serve immediately.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings.

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What’s For Dinner Wednesday: Easy Garlic Chicken

19 Sep

This recipe got a thumbs up from all five of us, which is a rarity! Even the leftovers went quickly!

Last week I was on Facebook when a friend of mine posted a very simple recipe for garlic chicken. I absolutely love garlic, and I love brown sugar, which it called for, and I even had all the ingredients for the recipe already. I decided to make it the very next day. She had gotten the recipe from Food.com and you can see the recipe here. It was called Easy Garlic Chicken, and I love Easy as much as I love Garlic and Brown Sugar.

Originally, when I saw the cooking temperature, 500 degrees, I asked whether or not that was too high, but it wasn’t. We cooked ours at that temperature and we actually had to use the entire 30 minute cooking time because our very large chicken breasts were still partially frozen in the middle. We also differed from the recipe by using bone-in, with skin, rather than boneless, skinless. Every so often I like to mix it up a bit and buy bone-in breasts.

A side of sauteed asparagus and brown rice completed the meal. I’d definitely make this again and I encourage you to give it a try too!

EASY GARLIC CHICKEN

It was tempting for me to keep tasting the brown sugar rub. Very tempting.

INGREDIENTS

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
4 garlic cloves, minced
4 tablespoons brown sugar
3 teaspoons olive oil
DIRECTIONS
1) Preheat oven to 500°F and lightly grease a casserole dish.
2) In small sauté pan, sauté garlic with the oil until tender.
3) Remove from heat and stir in brown sugar.
4) Place chicken breasts in a prepared baking dish and cover with the garlic and brown sugar mixture.
5) Add salt and pepper to taste.
6) Bake uncovered for 15-30 minutes.

We couldn’t wait for these to be done, the whole house smelled fabulous the entire time they were cooking!

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A new pork chop recipe to try

20 Mar

This recipe was super-easy, and delicious too!

As you know, pork chops aren’t our favorite “other white meat” here. I love them though, and I get tired of chicken over and over again, and pork is very affordable, so I’m always trying out new recipes. Here’s one I read on a food page I’m part of on Facebook, and from the link I can see the person who posted it found it on Food.com. I liked it and it was easy.

If you try it, let me know what you think!

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 -4 pork chops , 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch thick
  • ¼ cup chicken broth
  • 1⁄8; cup honey
  • 1⁄8; cup soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon ketchup
  • ¼ teaspoon ginger
  • 1⁄8; teaspoon garlic salt

    I love it when you can mix everything in one measuring cup. Less dishes to do later.

    DIRECTIONS

  1. Brown pork chops on both sides.
  2. Place in greased casserole dish.
  3. Mix all remaining ingredients and pour over pork chops.
  4. Bake, uncovered, at 350 for one hour.

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