Another Easy Chicken Recipe.

When it comes to bone-in chicken, there is only two ways I usually use it; deep fried or baked in barbecue sauce.  So, when I received a ten pound bag of chicken leg quarters, all I could think was, "That's a lot of chicken to fry up."  Yes, when it comes to bone-in chicken, I don't have much imagination for its use; Roy and I are more prone to eat boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

Ah, then an idea hit me, why not make the chicken and stuffing crock pot recipe, but use this chicken instead.  I layered the chicken on the bottom of a six quart crock pot, covered it with whole kernel corn, stuffing mix and a soup mixture.  Six hours later, on low heat, the meal was done; miserable part was, the chicken came off the bones.  As I spooned out stuffing with chicken, included were pieces of bone that had to be picked out before serving.  Talk about a mess and nuisance!  The chicken was parboiled to remove skin and fat, so I wonder if I should have simply cooked it for four hours instead, to keep the chicken intact.

Alas, I have no photos of that cooking mishap; hint, do NOT allow your spouse to use a camera without taking photos off of it first!  He doesn't know how he did it, but all my photos had been deleted while he was recording a snowfall outside.  Fortunately, I used the loss of the photos as an excuse to make the dish again, but in a different fashion.

After parboiling, skin and fat removal, seasoning, the chicken was placed into a baking dish.  Corn, stuffing and soup mixture went into a separate baking dish.  The corn stuffing finished 10 minutes earlier than the chicken, but this gave it time to settle.  Now this meal was so much better; the chicken came easily off the bone, but didn't have to be picked out of the stuffing.  Roy brought over some to his mother and brother to try; they cleaned their plates and wondered if more was available.  I'd definitely say it was a huge hit!

Trial and error; sometimes cooking is a fail, but it spurs you on to try again and find a delicious solution.

Baked Chicken with Corn Stuffing

Ingredients:

8 chicken leg quarters

2 tsp. each salt and ground black pepper
2 Tbsp. paprika
2 cans (14.5 oz.) whole kernel corn
4 Tbsp. butter
2 boxes (6 oz.) chicken flavored stuffing mix
1 can each (10.5 oz.) cream of chicken and cream of celery soup
1 and ½ cups milk

Preparation:

Parboil the chicken for 15 minutes; let cool slightly before removing skin and any remaining pieces of fat.  Preheat oven to 350F; spray inside of two 9” x 13” baking dishes with nonstick cooking spray.

Mix together salt, black pepper and paprika; split mixture in half and sprinkle over both sides of chicken.  Place chicken, bone side down, into one baking dish; place inside preheated oven.

In second baking dish, pour corn (with liquid) inside and place butter in four corners of dish; spread stuffing mix over corn.  In a medium bowl, mix together soups and milk; pour over stuffing and spread out evenly.  Place in oven alongside baking dish with chicken.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chicken will take about 40-45 minutes to bake (internal temperature of 185F); corn stuffing will take about 30-35 minutes to bake (soup mixture firmed up, liquid from corn entirely absorbed by stuffing).

Makes 8 servings.

Mary Cokenour

Crock Pot Comfort Food.

This year, summer in Monticello, Utah seemed to consist of two weeks in July and two weeks in August.  The rest of June, July, August and even September has been cool and rainy; not that I'm complaining mind you.  The primary source of our water is from the Abajo Mountains, that's right, real mountain spring water flows down, gets filtered and pours out of our faucets...jealous much?  Now what we didn't expect was to see snow on the tips of the peaks in June and July; and this past Friday the mountains themselves were covered in a light blanket of snow.  Down in Monticello, it was, what the locals call, very breezy; while visitors kept asking, "Why is it so windy?"

Let me explain, "10 to 30 mph = slightly breezy", "30 to 50 mph = breezy", "50 to 80 mph = very breezy".  As to the question, "Why is it so windy?"  Well scientifically, "Warm air, which weighs less than cold air, rises. Then cool air moves in and replaces the rising warm air. This movement of air is what makes the wind blow. A windstorm is just a storm with high winds or violent gusts, but little or no rain."  Or I could give you one of my snarky (yes, I'm snarky, not snippy) answers, "See the windmills at the north end of town; that's our wind farm making all the wind.", or even better, "Go to the BLM office on Main Street; they have the weather machine and can adjust it for you."  Hey, ask a silly question...

Anyway, with temperatures dipping into the 30s at night, and low 60s during the day, it seems a good time to begin thinking about fall and winter meals, especially the comfort food type.  Comfort food, that which wraps itself around you (figuratively), making you feel warm all over and it's soothing to the soul.  I remembered a recipe from my first crock pot cookbook from the 1990s, "Swiss Chicken Bake" and knew this would be a perfect comfort food for a cool day. Bad news though, while I was in the process of divorcing my first husband, he broke into the storage shed and stole a box full of my cookbooks.  Why did he do this?  To hurt me of course, but they were only books, material items that could be replaced, or replaced with similar items.  I looked in my current crock pot books, but couldn't find this recipe, so here's where memory had to take over, and I did a pretty good job at remembering!

 

 

Creamy Swiss Chicken Bake

 

Ingredients:

6 frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. ground black pepper
1 (10.5 oz.) package herb seasoned stuffing cubes
1 (10.5 oz.) can cream of chicken soup
1 (10.5 oz.) can cream of celery soup
1 cup milk
8 slices Swiss cheese

Preparation:
 

Spray inside of a 4 quart crock pot with nonstick cooking spray; place frozen chicken in bottom and against sides of crock pot; sprinkle salt and pepper over chicken.  Pour stuffing cubes into the “well” made by the chicken.

 

In a medium bowl, whisk together soups and milk; pour over stuffing cubes and spread out to edges of crock pot.  Cover the “sauce” with slices of Swiss cheese.

 

Cover crock pot, set on low; cook 4-5 hours; chicken will be fork tender and easily come apart.

Makes 6 servings.

Option: use cornbread stuffing cubes with Cheddar cheese instead of herb seasoned stuffing cubes and Swiss cheese.

Enjoy the comfort!

Mary Cokenour

Pork - Fry or Bake vs. Crock Pot

Roy: Hunny, can you fry the pork chops?
Me: Ugh, all that mess from the grease. Really?
Roy: Alright, can you put bread crumbs on them and bake them in the oven, like "shake and bake"?
Me: Fine...whatever.

An hour later, Roy comes into the kitchen and sees me put the pork chops inside the crock pot.

Roy: I thought you were going to bake them in the oven, or change your mind and fry them?
Me: No, I felt inspired; pork chops in the crock pot smothered in cream soups and topped with stuffing. What do you think?
Roy: I think that sounds delicious.

...and so another crock pot recipe was born in my kitchen.

Pork Chop and Stuffing Bake

Ingredients:

8 boneless pork loin chops

1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. ground black pepper
½ tsp. garlic powder
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 can (10.5 oz.) cream of mushroom soup
1 cup milk, divided in half
1 (6 oz.) package seasoned stuffing cubes
1 can (10.5 oz.) cream of celery soup

Preparation:

 

Spray the inside of a 4 quart crock pot with nonstick cooking spray.

Season chops with the salt, black pepper and garlic powder; layer into the crock pot; spread mushrooms over the pork chops.

 

When you layer the chops, place each one over the ends of the others underneath.  This makes a well and the creamed soups can flow down to all the layers of chops, not just the ones on top.

 

 

 

Mix the cream of mushroom soup with a half cup of milk; pour over chops and mushrooms.  Spread out the stuffing cubes; mix the cream of celery soup with other half cup of milk; pour over the stuffing cubes.

 

Cover, set on high; cook for four hours.

Makes 8 servings.

 

After eating two servings, and making lots of "Hmmm" sounds; Roy decided that "Yeah, this was much better than frying or baking."  I already knew that, but let him believe he'd made a great culinary discovery.

 

Mary Cokenour