Tag Archives: recipes

The Power of Marketing and Advertising: Peach Muffins

8 Jun

We can thank a radio commercial for inspiring me to make homemade peach muffins!

Those of you who are friends of mine on Facebook, you may have followed this story last week through my status updates and I know you’ve been waiting for this recipe to post, but those who are not, it’ll be new to you. So if you’re aware of it, bear with me.

Last week I was running between stories for the newspaper, when I heard a commercial on the radio for Honeydew Donuts and their peach muffins. We have several Honeydew Donuts right in our area, and I love their peach muffins!

I was hungry. Starving, really.

I was going to get myself one of those peach muffins, ASAP.

I got out my gift card. I got ready to go to the next closest Honeydew. I could taste it.

But then, as I drove some more, I got to thinking, “I have frozen peaches in my freezer. I could just go home and MAKE peach muffins. Then, instead of having one, I’d have lots of them. Everyone could have one. They could be today’s after school snack and then tomorrow’s breakfast.”

I talked myself out of the Honeydew trip.

I put away my gift card and went home.

Only problem was, once I got home, it was now 1:30. I was of course, still starving and of course, I had no peach muffin and I had no recipe to make them either.

When one is starving, as I was, one chooses huge lunches. Well, at least I do. So rather than having a little peach muffin for lunch, I had Eggs Benedict, minus the ham/Canadian Bacon, since we had none.

As I sopped up my Hollandaise Sauce with my English Muffin, I browsed the internet for peach muffins. I came across this one on Allrecipes.com. When I read the summary from the original cook, it said, “just like peach cobbler in a muffin,” and I knew I’d found my recipe. I was sold.

These muffins were super-easy to make. My frozen peaches were already peeled and sliced. I get them for smoothies from the frozen food section at Aldi’s and I’d used half the bag for smoothies earlier in the week and had half the bag left. It was the perfect amount. All I had to do was chop them up.

My favorite thing though, about this recipe: it made 16 muffins. With a family of five, one dozen never seems to be enough. With 16 it was perfect. The girls and I all got to have one after school, and then we all had one or two for breakfast the next day, too. I even had enough left to give some to my friend Donna to try out.

I highly recommend this recipe. It got thumbs up from everyone, and I totally recommend using the Aldi’s frozen peaches if you don’t have fresh ones, (or try out whatever frozen peaches you have near you).

****OMG: Just as I’m about to post this recipe, I notice that it says you can also make this into a bread, two loaves!! I’m SO doing that next time! This is the best recipe EVER!!!!****

Enjoy!

Because this recipe yields so much, you need two good-sized bowls for mixing your ingredients.

INGREDIENTS

  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
  • 3 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 2 cups white sugar
  • 2 cups peeled, pitted, and chopped peaches (or in my case, Aldi’s frozen peaches)

DIRECTIONS

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease 16 muffin cups.
  2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, mix the oil, eggs, and sugar. Stir the oil mixture into the flour mixture just until moist. Fold in the peaches. Spoon into the prepared muffin cups.
  3. Bake 25 minutes in the preheated oven, until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes before turning out onto wire racks to cool completely.
    **For the two loaves of bread you can “increase the baking time to 1 hour at 350 degrees F and use 2 loaf pans.”***UPDATE: On June 17 I used this recipe to make one loaf bread and three mini loaves as end of year gifts. It worked out great!! I cooked the mini loaves until a knife inserted in the center came out clean, and then I continued on with the larger loaf until the same. The entire baking time was approximately one hour.***

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Balsamic & Parmesan Roasted Cauliflower

7 Jun

Besides the new recipe for cauliflower, this was also the first time I’d used Panko bread crumbs.

Veggies are great side dishes to your main meal, but finding new ways to cook them is always a challenge. A while back, I came across this recipe for Balsamic & Parmesan Roasted Cauliflower from the EatingWell website. Since I love both those ingredients, I thought I’d try out the recipe. I liked it, Don liked it, but the kids didn’t love it. They thought the balsamic was too strong, but did I mention that I liked it?? I’d make it again, but provide an alternate vegetable for the kids.

Additionally, Panko Bread Crumbs: am I the only person on the planet who had never used them before?? I love them!! They have so much more crunch to them than regular bread crumbs do.

This meal was a meal of chicken thighs, which I don’t buy often because they’re fattier than some of the other kinds of chicken parts I buy, but every once in a while I just want a change so I buy them.

Anyway….here is the recipe for the cauliflower. If you try it, let me know what you think!

INGREDIENTS

  • 8 cups 1-inch-thick slices cauliflower florets, (about 1 large head; see Tip)
  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon dried marjoram
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • Freshly ground pepper to taste
  • 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
  • 1/2 cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS

  1. Preheat oven to 450°F.
  2. Toss cauliflower, oil, marjoram, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Spread on a large rimmed baking sheet and roast until starting to soften and brown on the bottom, 15 to 20 minutes. Toss the cauliflower with vinegar and sprinkle with cheese. Return to the oven and roast until the cheese is melted and any moisture has evaporated, 5 to 10 minutes more.

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What’s for dinner Wednesday: Garlic Chicken and Shrimp

6 Jun

An internet search provided me with this recipe. We all enjoyed it!

A lot of times when I post a recipe, it’s not something I’ve just made this week. Sometimes it’s something I had a while back, took a photo of and waited to post it. This is one of those recipes. We had it in November and I’ve been waiting to post it ever since!

Way back in November I was sitting one afternoon trying to think of something different to make for dinner. We had pasta, shrimp and chicken on hand so I did an internet search for recipes using chicken and shrimp, and on About.com, under the “Southern Food” category, this recipe for Garlic Chicken and Shrimp came up. It can be served over rice or over pasta.

It was delicious and got a thumbs up from everyone all around, which is rare.

Here is the recipe so that you can try it out too!

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 to 3 boneless chicken breast halves or tenders, about 1 pound
  • 1 pound large shrimp
  • 6 tablespoons butter
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 4 medium cloves garlic, smashed and minced
  • 1 tablespoon fresh chopped basil, or 1 teaspoon dried leaf basil  (In my opinion there was too much basil, I’d use slightly less next time.)
  • 1 tablespoon fresh chopped parsley, or 1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon Creole seasoning or seasoned salt blend

If Alex gives a recipe a thumbs up, you know it’s got to be good. She’s a tough customer. She hates chicken but loves “strimp” and pasta, so this was a winner in her book.

DIRECTIONS

Lightly pound chicken between sheets of plastic wrap to an even thickness. Cut in strips about 1-inch wide.

In a large skillet, melt the butter with olive oil. Add garlic, basil, parsley, salt, and seasoning. Heat over medium low heat and add the chicken and shrimp. Cook the shrimp and chicken mixture, stirring, for about 10 to 15 minutes, until cooked through. If shrimp are small, add a few minutes after adding chicken. Serve with hot cooked pasta. Sprinkle with fresh chopped parsley, if desired.
Serves 4 to 6.

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Experiences like no other

4 Jun

Girl Scouting has provided our girls with experiences they might not be able to get anywhere else.

I’ve just returned from a Girl Scout camping weekend. Not quite a whole weekend, but about 36 hours.

Long enough.

It was not my first time going to, participating at or working for a Girl Scout Camp. I’ve been a leader for five full years now, and as a kid I was a Girl Scout for many years. I went to camp then, I’ve worked there as an adult so my kids could go, and I’ve chaperoned camping trips for all my daughters with this weekend being the most recent one.

Of course it rained like crazy yesterday, poured actually. Again.

And in my head through much of the trip I was thinking, “I’m getting too old for this ‘job.'” I thought it as I drove half the troop down there in the rain yesterday with my co-leader driving the other half down right behind me, and I thought it as I traipsed all through the camp in the rain, and I thought it as I laid awake in our leader “cabin” until 4am listening to them laugh and giggle and tell stories.

Four A.M.

But, throughout the whirlwind weekend I also watched them in amazement, thinking and talking with my co-leader (who was a saint to spend her wedding anniversary at a rainy camp in a cabin with me rather than at home with her husband of 16 years) about how much these girls have grown and matured and changed from when we first started this troop together as Brownies, second graders, five years ago. We looked at them all, not even believing it.

We had eight really great stations to rotate through at camp yesterday which took us from first thing in the morning until the movie and campfire at the end of the night. We watched them create beautiful beaded jewelry at the jewelry-making station, being instructed in the craft by some of the leading women in the jewelry industry here in our state. We listened along with them as they learned about how to write a check and a deposit slip at the financial literacy class, from an instructor at one of the local universities. We cheered and encouraged them as they shot their bow and arrow during archery class, knowing full well that some of them were doing it for the first time. There was a science class, a tie-dye station, a dance class where they learned the moves to an upcoming flash mob taking place this summer, S’Mores, and they were laughing and smiling, and hugging, and chatting, and laughing some more, the entire day.

And night.

Did I mention they were awake in their tent til 4am?

Many of them haven’t slept too far away from home before. Many of them have never slept in a tent or cleaned a latrine (there are some benefits to being a leader and not having to do the camp “kapers” is one of them) many of them have never shot a bow and arrow or a bottle rocket or been in a flash mob before.

Being a Girl Scout has allowed our own daughters and the scouts we lead, to experience things they couldn’t experience in the normal course of their days. With us as leaders, our troop has taken field trips, had a scholarship named after our troop, done community service projects, slept inside an aquarium near the shark tank, gone behind the scenes on movie sets, at radio stations, TV shows, movie theaters, stage theaters, been on the news, in the newspaper, met the mayor, a city councilwoman, a comic book designer, learned how to collect, categorize and display postage stamps, sold cookies, cookies and more cookies-showing a business sense and dedication like you wouldn’t believe- and they’ve loved every minute of it.

And now, they’ve gone camping. Overnight.

All because I chose to be a Girl Scout leader five years ago so that my daughter could be a Girl Scout.

So as I laid in my cabin last night, chatting with my co-leader til I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer, someone I hardly knew before scouting, as we were listening to them laugh and giggle and shriek, I knew that this was the reason I was there at that moment.

Thank you Girl Scouts!

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Cookies for a Cause: The Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie that started it all

1 Jun

Baking cookies to help fight kids’ cancer might be the most worthy cause I’ve ever baked for.

Have you ever heard of Cookies for Kids’ Cancer? If you haven’t, you should check out the link and read more about it. It’s a very worthy cause: bake sales to help find a cure for kids’ cancer.

Earlier this year I did a story about a local bake sale event hosted by Heather Wirtz, the editor of the Macaroni Kids newsletter for the Cranston/Kent area. The sale raised money for the Cookies for Kids’ Cancer non-profit organization and it was hugely successful. I baked one of my favorite Christmas Cookie recipes, Brown Eyed Susans, for the bake sale.

At the event itself I was given several handouts to help me in writing my article and I met one of the family members, Bonnie Soper, who told me how her cousin Gretchen lost her son to childhood cancer several years ago. Gretchen and her husband founded Cookies for Kids Cancer as a way to fight back, and they started with a simple bake sale.

One of the handouts that was given to me was for the “Cookies for Kids’ Cancer Best Bake Sale Cookbook” and on the flip side was a recipe for Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies and it was entitled, “The Cookie That Started It All.”

Other than the baking time, which was cut off, the full recipe was there, and I decided that I wanted to try out the recipe some day, in honor of Cookies for Kids’ Cancer. I wrote the news story about Heather’s bake sale in January and it was almost June before I had the chance to try out the cookie recipe.

They were delicious and with every bite I thought of this important cause, and I knew I had to write about it. I’m so grateful and thankful every day that my family has its health. Those who know me well, know my kids are sick constantly, weekly, and it’s exhausting keeping up with it all. But they’re not terminally ill, and I keep that in mind daily as well as every week when I’m running someone to a doctor for one ailment or other. We are very, very lucky. In the big picture, they are healthy.

Caroline was a big help with these cookies, scooping and pressing the batter for each and every one.

Speaking of my kids, my daughter Caroline was a big help to me this past weekend as I made these cookies to take with us to a Memorial Day cookout. The recipe yields quite a few cookies and that’s one reason I made it. There were enough to bring and enough to leave some home as well. I made all the batter and she scooped it onto the tray and flattened them to go into the oven.

The recipe, as I said above, did not have the bake time on the card, which was an advertisement for the cookbook. But, I looked up a similar recipe in one of my cookbooks here and found that 10-12 minutes on a cookie sheet was the perfect time. The only time I went over that time was when I used a baking stone. I find that those take longer for cookies to bake than the metal trays.

I hope you’ll consider doing a Cookies for Kids’ Cancer bake sale for your organization’s next fundraiser, or that the next time you’re looking for a unique gift, you go to their site and order some Cookies for Kids’ Cancer cookies to be sent to that special someone.

And now, here is the recipe, the Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie that started it all.

This recipe makes a lot of batter so you need a good, strong mixer to mix it up.

CHOCOLATE CHIP OATMEAL COOKIES

Yield: 3-4 dozen cookies
INGREDIENTS

2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 cup light brown sugar

1 large egg at room temperature

1 large egg yolk, at room temperature

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup quick cooking oats or old fashioned rolled oats

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. kosher salt (I didn’t have kosher)

3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cookies bake until lightly browned around the edges.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Place butter and sugars in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle and beat until smooth and creamy.

Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla, one at a time, beating well between additions.

Place the flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl; mix well and add to the butter mixture.

Beat until everything is well incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the chocolate chips and beat again.

(You can cover this and refrigerated up to one week.)

Form the dough into heaping teaspoon sized-balls and place them about two inches apart on the prepared cookie sheet. I used the smaller Pampered Chef scoop to scoop out my balls of dough.

Using your palm, gently press down.

*At this point the recipe begins to say how you can alternately roll the dough into a log, and it gets cut off here. I assume it says you can slice and bake them. The baking time is cut off as well, since this was an advertisement for the cookbook. However, I can take it from here.*

Bake 10-12 minutes on a cookie sheet, slightly longer on the baking stones, until lightly browned around the edges.

Let sit 1-2 minutes on cookie sheet to cool before removing to cool completely on wire racks.

Consider hosting a Cookies for Kids’ Cancer bake sale for your organization’s next fundraiser.

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The Big Salad

31 May

You can load almost anything into a salad.

Anyone out there a Seinfeld fan?

Anyone remember the episode with “The Big Salad?” According to The Big Salad’s very own Wikapedia page, “”The Big Salad” is the 88th episode of the NBC sitcom Seinfeld. This was the second episode for the sixth season. It aired on September 29, 1994.”

So there you go. More information than we needed to know about that episode, and there’s even more if you click on the link to the page itself if you so desire, but that’s not crucial today’s post.

I recently got one of those AllRecipe.com emails for a Wonderful Berry Salad and when I clicked on it to see, it was a Raspberry Walnut Dinner Salad which looked so good and reminded me of my Strawberry Salad from a few weeks back. But it also reminded me of The Big Salad episode on Seinfeld and the fact that we often will make a Big Salad ourselves either as the dinner or to go alongside the dinner.

The one shown here is one we made a few weeks back. The thing I like about salads is 1) you can put just about anything you want in them and 2) people can eat what they want to and skip the rest that they don’t like, so basically it’s something everyone likes. I often get tired of the traditional lettuce/tomato/cucumber salad, and throwing in random “stuff” makes it more fun to serve and eat. I like hearing my family say that the love this part or that part of the salad. The salad above has lettuce, olives, craisins, cheddar cheese, strawberries and grape tomatoes.

So the next time you’re at a loss for what to make, consider The Big Salad. See what you have in your house and throw it all in there!

Enjoy!

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What’s For Dinner Wednesday: Chicken and Veggies with Rice

30 May

This may not have been on Alex’s Like List, but it sure was on mine!

If you’re a regular reader, you know I’ve been going through my friend Karen’s cookbook from college almost page by page, making all my old favorites again. Last week I made one that was a big hit with everyone, except Alex, who took one look and said, “THIS is NOT on the Like List.”

But for the rest of us it was. Don even had it leftover a day or so later for dinner and said it was just as good leftover as the first day.

Like List or not, I’d make it again. According to Karen, she still makes this at her house too, and she sometimes adds shrimp, which does happen to be on Alex’s Like List, so maybe next time I’d throw some in. It’s the kind of thing you can put in whatever you want, as you’ll see from the recipe.

Super easy, super delicious, super good.

CHICKEN AND VEGGIES WITH RICE

I put all my fresh cut veggies into one bowl and threw the whole thing in at once when it was time. Saves on cleanup.

INGREDIENTS

1 lb. chicken (I used tenders)

2 cups fresh veggies, cubed (she suggested broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, peppers, squash etc. I used broccoli, peppers, mushrooms and carrots. I almost did onion too, but quit while I was ahead.)

1pkg. rice pilaf (I might double it next time, I felt like we needed more rice for all the other stuff we had in there.)

1/4 cup parm. cheese

Italian Dressing

DIRECTIONS

Marinate chicken in the dressing.

Cube and cook in large skillet on stove.

Remove.

Prepare rice according to stove top directions in the same skillet.

Halfway through the cooking, add veggies. Cover and cook until rice is done. (This steams the veggies right in the rice.)

Add chicken and parm cheese, toss and simmer 5 more minutes and serve.

Quick, easy and delicious!

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Top 10 Worst Foods for Kids to Eat

29 May

Do we cut them out altogether or just keep eating them once in a while?

It’s been a while since I’ve seen one of these lists and shared it with you, but since we’re just coming off a holiday weekend, I thought it’d be a good time to post this.

The list came from the Livestrong website. I see several foods we eat on this list. Do you?

I wonder to myself: do I stop feeding my kids these foods or do I continue to do so in moderation?

What do you think? No more hot dogs and mac & cheese???

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TOP TEN WORST FOODS FOR KIDS TO EAT

Hot Dogs

Soda

Sticky Candy

Doughnuts

Prepacked lunch kits

Sugary breakfast cereals

Microwavable prepackaged dinners

Juice Drinks

French Fries

Toaster Pastries

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The dessert that almost wasn’t: Brownie Dessert Pizza

25 May

The final product was well-worth the journey, although at the time I was questioning it!

Ever have one of those days where nothing seems to go quite right? Well Sunday was one of those days and we almost didn’t have dessert for our dinner company because of it.

It started out that I was supposed to hit the store on my way home from our troop’s car wash at 1:00 that afternoon to pick up the stuff I needed to make the dessert: brownie mix, strawberries and cream cheese.

I forgot. I hate that.

I got all the way home and I realized I hadn’t gone to the store.

I went back out to Aldi’s at 2pm.

Strawberries: check. Brownie mix: check. Cream cheese: check.

Go home, start the recipe, which I’ve had before as a Pampered Chef recipe, but came across my desk in an email from the 24/7 Moms blog that I follow, which listed five outrageous dessert pizzas. (Of course I had to check them out!) The email directed us to Simply Healthy Cooking with Pam to get the recipe, which I did. Apparently she changed it slightly to make it healthier. (Me throwing chocolate chips into the brownie mix probably canceled out whatever she did to make it healthy.)

The recipe said to use a 15″ round pizza stone and parchment paper so that the mix won’t run off the stone and into the oven. I didn’t have a round pizza stone but I had a large rectangular stone, so I used that.

Parchment Paper: check.

Big mess in the oven: check.

Using the stone didn’t quite go as I’d planned.

About five minutes into the bake time, I smell something burning. Sure enough it’s dessert. I peek in and the brownie is literally dripping down in big, huge, chunky drips, into the oven. I quickly pull out the stone, throw the whole thing into the sink next to me and proceed to wash the brownie mix down the drain.

“Hmmm…technical difficulties with dessert,” I post on my status update on on Facebook as I decide what to do.

Don volunteers to run back out and get me another brownie mix. I take him up on that (he’s such a good guy) and off he goes.

He comes back around 3:30, and in the meantime I’ve decided to use the large bar pan that Pampered Chef sells. It’s long like my pizza stone but has low edges, which apparently I needed to keep the  batter IN the pan.

So I try again. All goes well with the baking, the brownie pizza comes out looking just fine.

Brownie Pizza, Take II

I begin making my cream cheese topping with my block of cream cheese. But now, I’m looking at my topping and looking at my very long brownie pizza and I’m thinking, “I don’t have enough topping.”

My next thought: “I have to go back to the store for more cream cheese.”

I won’t write what my next thought was after that, but it’s at this point where I decide that I should’ve just put a bag of Oreo’s on the table for dessert and called it a day.

It’s now 5:40 pm as I sneak out the door while Don showers, and our company was due in 20 minutes.

This time I ran to Price Rite and got my second block of cream cheese and came home.

The good news is, it all worked out and everyone liked the dessert except Elizabeth who picked off the cream cheese layer and put the strawberries back on top.  Whatever…

I’d definitely make it again and you can too, in fact, I highly recommend that you try it. It was incredibly delicious.

The recipe and directions are below, and now that you know my story, none of these trials and tribulations will happen to you.

See? So beautiful! Sooooo delicious and so just not my day that day!

BROWNIE DESSERT PIZZA

INGREDIENTS

1 box Ghiradelli Brownie Mix (I wonder if this was my first problem. I just bought any mix and I wonder if it yields more batter than Ghiradelli does. )

Parchment Paper

1 lg. rd. 15″ pizza stone or a round pizza sheet (you now know, I used the large bar pan.)

8 ounces cream cheese, softened (I’d grab two, just to be sure you have enough.)

1/4 cup powdered sugar (double for two blocks of cream cheese)

Handfuls of fresh strawberries, sliced or any fruit you like with chocolate  ( I also served a bowl of extra strawberries on the side so people could add more if they wanted to.)

Melted Semi-sweet Ghiradelli Chocolate Chips (I used Hershey’s syrup instead)
DIRECTIONS

Prepare the brownie mix as per the instructions on the box.

Cut the parchment paper to the shape of the pizza stone (I didn’t use parchment in the bar pan, I sprayed it with cooking spray.)

Spread the brownie mixture on the parchment paper within 1 ” of the edges. It’s important to use the parchment paper because it will help prevent the brownie mixture from seeping over the stone while in the oven cooking (we all now know how that worked out.)

Cook the brownies until the center comes out clean with a knife or toothpick (15-20 minutes).

Cool completely. Flip brownie crust over onto a cooling stone and carefully remove the parchment paper then flip the round brown crust back onto the stone or a nice plate for serving. (I did none of this and served it right in the bar pan.)

Mix the softened cream cheese with the powdered sugar well and spread on the brownie pizza base within one inch of the edge.

Layer cut strawberries around the crust and then drizzle with melted chocolate (or in my case, with Hershey’s syrup.)

Enjoy!

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: A new-to-me chicken recipe and an oldie but goodie

23 May

This meal was new to us, and we all gave it thumbs up. I’d definitely have it again.

For the past few months, my local paper has been featuring my blog’s recipes on their Facebook Page each Wednesday in a feature called “What’s for Dinner Wednesday,” so I have been trying to coordinate my blogging schedule to coincide with that feature by showing a dinner recipe each Wednesday.

Today, you’ll get a bonus, two recipes in one post.

The recipe in the photo to the left is one that was new to us, but I was inspired by an old recipe I used to make, one that was given to me by the math coach I used to work with in New Jersey when I taught there. It was a one-dish chicken and rice recipe. It called for cream of mushroom soup and rice. We used to make it a lot.

I wanted to make something similar to that, but not a baked casserole, so I searched for recipes using Cream of Mushroom Soup and Chicken until I found one here that was sauteed, and that’s the one we used and the one that is shown in the photo here. I wanted to be able to use brown rice with it, and be able to serve the rice “on the side” if someone didn’t want it all together, even though in this particular instance I do actually let my foods touch by putting the chicken on the rice.

I know, that’s big for me.

What I’ve decided to do is feature both recipes here and you can choose to make the one you’d like to make.

Enjoy!

ONE DISH CHICKEN AND RICE CASSEROLE

INGREDIENTS

3/4 cup rice (not minute rice)

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 cup water

boneless chicken breasts

DIRECTIONS

Combine soup, water and uncooked rice in layers with the boneless chicken on top, in a casserole dish.

Sprinkle with paprika and pepper.

Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes.

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This recipe is a great new addition to our family’s menu.

BIG OVEN CREAM OF MUSHROOM CHICKEN

INGREDIENTS

1 tablespoon Olive Oil

1 cup mushrooms (we had none so I skipped this part)

4 medium skinless/boneless breasts (I used tenders)

1 ten ounce can cream of mushroom soup

2 dashes salt

2 dashes pepper

cooked rice (I used Aldi’s Instant Brown Rice)

DIRECTIONS

Heat oil in a medium skillet.

Add chicken and brown both sides for 5 minutes over medium heat.

Add mushrooms and cook for 2 more minutes.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Add can of cream of mushroom soup (Do not add water).

Stir until chicken and mushrooms are well coated.

Cover and simmer for 10 minutes (or until chicken is no longer pink), stirring once or twice.

This dish is best served over rice.

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