A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Easy Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole

I'm a firm believer in Ecclesiastes' saying "To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.."  It's true for everything in life, including the sometime mundane things in life like cooking.  I love spending hours in the kitchen making long, complicated recipes....when I'm in the mood. But there are just as many days when I just want to put dinner on the table without a fuss or other days when I crave something cheesy, comforty, and gooey and uncomplicated.  Today was a comfort food day: all the taste of Chicken Cordon Bleu in a velvety sauce, without all the fuss.

I've made a couple of cordon bleu casserole recipes and the idea is pretty simple, very genius, really.  Instead of taking all the time and effort to pound out chicken breasts, fill them, roll them up, bread them, sauté' them, and then bake them....you layer those same ingredients in a casserole dish and serve it up.  Definitely not as elegant and pretty, but it's the same yummy eats in a fraction of the time. Some recipes go to the trouble to bread and pre-cook the chicken bits, some don't. Some heavily spice, some don't.  My recipe is different in one crucial way: the sauce.  Most Cordon Bleu Casseroles are put together with cream of chicken soup.  Mine uses alfredo sauce to pull those simple, easy layers together. 

Gene, the hubs, is my best taster.  He's always honest even if it's not what I want to hear.  Tonight, he thanked me at least three times.  He'd been in the mood for something cheesy, gooey, comforty too.

Oven Baked Tandoori Chicken

I don't pretend for even a minute to be any kind of authority on Indian cuisine.  My experience is limited to a few heavenly experiences at the local Indian buffet at Taj Mahal, a few jarred sauces I poured over chicken, and a family favorite recipe of Honey-Mustard Curry Roasted Drumsticks that Gene clipped out of the newspaper a long while ago.  But my curry roasted chicken and recent Indian buffet experiences were enough to get me interested enough to start reading and pinning recipes on Pinterest.

Tandoori Chicken by A Fridge Full of Food blog

 

 

Easy Apricot Jam Baked Chicken

What do you get when you baste baked chicken with Auntie Miranda's homemade low sugar carrot cake jam?  One DE-lish-ous dinner!  Super easy too. In the oven inside 10 minutes. If you skin the chicken, it's also a great diet recipe as well.

Gene said "You can definitely make this again!  You had me scared when you put jam on the chicken but this is GREAT!"   Love it when I scare him...but then make him happy. 

I used Auntie's carrot cake jam but most fruit jams would work (maybe not grape, so much) but apricot, peach, or pear would all be wonderful.  The olive oil keeps the chicken from drying out and the jam adds a nice but not overly sweet glaze.

 

Chicken and Veggie Quesadillas

Quesadillas are one of those Tex-Mex restaurant dishes that's just as good, if not better!, made at home. Perfect for a family, they're easily customizable, delicious, and both quick and easy to make. Anyone can make these and I'm talking to you, Aunt Kay!  All you need is some kind of already cooked meat (or skip it and go vegetarian!) and at least a vegetable (or not and go carnivorous) and a hot skillet.  But since the goal is to eat healthier and get in those 5 servings of veggies a day, I went with the cooked chicken breasts that I had simmered in the chicken and orzo soup I made earlier in the week, and the onions, mushrooms, and red and yellow peppers that magically appeared in my crisper. By magically, I mean that Auntie Miranda found on sale at Aldi's and was kind enough to pick up enough for both of our homes since they were so cheap--thanks Auntie! 

 
 For those who know what a Girl Geek/Trekkie I am, is it really a surprise to know that my pizza cutter is in the shape of the Enterprise?  Yeah, I thought not.  Makes me smile every time I use it. 

 

 

Chicken Bacon Pasta Carbonara

Pasta Carbonara is one of my favorite "go to" recipes for getting delicious food on the dinner table FAST!  The addition of the chicken breasts up the protein value and give a little more "bite" to the pasta for staying power so we're not back in the kitchen in an hour looking for snacks.  And my favorite part is that three simple eggs for a rich sauce that tastes decadent without the addition of butter and/or cream.   Simple. Easy. Delicious.  And good for us.  That's a winner.  The recipe is made for 2 but it's easy to double it for a family of four (or extra servings for lunch the next day.)

Click for the chicken-less version: Pasta Carbonara recipe

Chicken Cacciatore (Cooked 3 Ways)

 

 Chicken Cacciatore is one of those dishes, that to me, always sounded a little exotic because I grew up, here in the Ozarks, calling it "Chicken Spaghetti".  At our house, Mom made "Spaghetti" two ways, either with a meat (ground beef) sauce or with full pieces of chicken in a tomato sauce served over spaghetti, fettuccine, or angel hair pasta, so to us Spaghetti Bolognese and Chicken Cacciatore were "Spaghetti" and "Chicken Spaghetti". 

One of the things I like about making Chicken Spaghetti is the versatility of cooking.  You can dump everything into the crockpot (without dredging the chicken), you can brown the chicken and sauté the vegetables and then put everything in the slow cooker and continue on, you can brown the chicken, sauté the veggies, and then let it simmer on the stove top for a little while to meld the flavors, or you can brown the chicken, sauté the veggies, and then slip the oven save skillet into the oven for 30 minutes to finish cooking the chicken and thickening the sauce.  My favorite is the last way.  I like the way the oven tenderizes and browns the chicken even more, while thickening the sauce, and it sort of gives me a mental don't-have-to-watch-it break to finish up the salad or putter around the kitchen for a few minutes while it finishes.

Chicken Parmigiana

 Chicken Parmigiana is one of those dishes that, to me, always sounds much more difficult than it is to make.  Variations also make it a versatile recipe.  If, instead of chicken breasts, you use whole pieces of chicken with the bones, it becomes the downhome, cozy "chicken spaghetti".  On the flip side, if it's served with the pasta plain, sauce poured over, and chicken breasts lined up domino fashion on top of a serving platter, it becomes an elegant copycat restaurant entree for company. But mostly, we like it simply because it tastes good and is fairly quick and easy to prepare, requiring little more to accompany it than some nice bread and a good salad. 

Chicken Enchiladas with Salsa Verde Sour Cream Sauce

Enchiladas are yummy any time of the year but I seem to really crave them in the winter as creamy, hearty eats on long, cold winter days.  I also love that they can be made ahead and baked later or even frozen and reheated later.  Double batch anyone?  Makes a quick dinner later, some night when I don't have time to cook but I don't want to run through a drive through.

Even though this recipe takes an extra ten minutes to make the sauce from scratch, it's so much tastier than using a "cream of" soup, and the white sauce is super easy to make--worth it!

Chicken and Brown Rice Soup

 

 Chicken and Brown rice soup with veggies. Perfect for both summer and winter, always nourishing, always comforting, makes a body feel better when well and when sick.  Be it ever so humble...there's nothing like chicken soup.

  

The Walking Dead Parody: The Snacking Dead Cookbook by D.B. Walker

The Snacking Dead: A Parody in a Cookbook, by D. B. Walker.  "Walker"?  Really?  D.B. as in "don't be a"?  It's like an extra parody in the parody!

This cookbook was a gift from my cousin Jenn for my f-f-f-fiftieth (my second favorite "f" word) birthday. I've had tons of fun with it so far. My first foray into it was two weeks ago for the premiere of the new season.  I made three of the recipes:  "Dripping Ribs with Bourbon", "Squirrel Poppers", and "Li'l Ass Kicker Punch". I also looked at "Sweet-sh Fleshballs with Red Berries". That will be our next Walking Dead/Snacking Dead Sunday night while-we-watch dinner.  Our review?  We both LOVED the ribs. The citrus in the marinade/sauce is a great counterpoint to the sweet, sour, and heat.  Pre-baking and then grilling (or broiling for us that night) caramelized the meat for a sweet, savory, and fall apart deliciousness. We'll be using this recipe again and again.  Gene loved the "squirrel" (chicken) poppers; I was ambivalent. We both loved the chicken base (prior to shaping/breading/frying) so I'm going to use that recipe, with added vegetables, the next time I make chicken pot pie.  And the punch? Oh yeah! I did make one more southern (by my definition) ingredient substitution that I talk about later in this post. I made a smaller quantity punch than the recipe (party-sized) calls for but even so, the bottom of the pitcher was dry by the end of the night. 'Nuff said!

The book is available at all major bookstores. You can easily find your favorite in the drop down menu on The Snacking Dead's website by clicking on "Grab a Copy".