Kitchen Creations: Buttaaa Chicken

Seriously, ya'll there's nothing butta than this chicken.  (I had to share one of my many puns I dish out when making this chicken.)

There's a whole lot of healthier things to eat, but we put our butter chicken on top of salad so that kind of balances it out, right? 

This is my husbands favorite chicken recipe, but I only use it with salad. And since chicken salad is one of our weekly go-to's, as you can probably tell (I have at least 4 posts mentioning salad).  I probably cook this once or twice a month.  

Like I said the recipe isn't for the health conscious, but it is delicious and super easy.  And it's so perfect on top of salad.  

I  take a cup/one stick of butter, 3 chicken breasts cut into chunks, and my choice of seasoning, and throw them in a iron skillet on medium.  I stir every 3 to 4 minutes, and the chicken is done in 15-20 minutes. It's not a lot of work at all.  

If you're wondering, my seasonings of choice are: basil, onion powder, parsley, paprika, garlic powder, lemon pepper, pepper, and a little bit of spice (hot sauce, pepper flakes, etc.).  I skip the salt on this one because there's so much butter.  But I change my seasoning occasionally, and the butter chicken always comes out perfect.  So if you ever try it, just season to taste and do what's comfortable.

Deliciousness is butta few steps away.

  

Kitchen Creations: "Homemade" Croutons

Quick kitchen creation today! 

I had the displeasure of overcooking the garlic bread the other week. I've been having a lot of those kind of days lately.

Well, one man's trash can be the same man's treasure.  

My overcooked, but not quite burnt garlic bread may not have been the best bread, but it became the perfect croutons for our salad.  

Seriously, y'all we all loved the bursts of flavor; I'm never buying croutons again! 

Simply bake garlic bread until the top and bottom is hard, but not burnt. (I think it took me like 30 minutes to do this. I'm not completely sure, because I didn't over bake the bread on purpose.) 

Then cut it up, and toss it on top of a salad.  

Easy & you can add that you make the best homemade croutons to your list of cooking accomplishments! 

Kitchen Creations: Beef Teriyaki & Rice

There's a restauraunt nearby that serves Korean Beef Teriyaki over a spicy rice.  Well, it is delicious! It is also $13.  Which isn't very expensive, but it still isn't a price I am willing to pay every time I have a craving for it.

So I made it myself, and it's pretty delicious.  Now I'm going to share it, so I have a reference if I go a while without making it.  And because it's pretty good and cheap, and ya'll may like it, too! I've made this recipe twice for $7 - $10, and it feeds about 4 people.

The rice is super easy. I buy two boxes of jambalaya and follow the directions.  I just don't add any meat.

Then there's the beef: I buy whatever is on sale stew beaf or any steak.  If it's stew beef, make sure to cut it into small pieces, so the teriyaki flavor is in every bite.  Different cuts will have different flavors.  But if you're not a meat connosour, it isn't a big difference.  I season the beef with garlic powder, onion powder, and werchestershire sauce.  Just enough sauce that it's on every piece of meat, but not enough to wear the meat is swimming in it.

In a seperate bowl I make my own teriyaki sauce. I used to make teriyaki chicken a lot, so I have this down to a science.  I basically combine soy sauce and brown sugar until I reach my desired taste.  (If you don't have brown sugar, you can use a little honey and regular sugar.) You can make it to your own taste preference, so it won't be too sweet or too bitter.  You can also just use teriyaki sauce.

Then I drown the beef in the teriyaki sauce, and cooked it on medium in a skillet for about 30 minutes; I let the edges get slightly charred.

Plate the rice.  Top it with beef.

And it's an easy 30 minute dinner, that tastes like you went out to eat.

I made this scrumptious-ness twice in a week, and I am making it again next week.

Kitchen Creations: Sweet Potato Mash

I've taken on a lot of new projects this new year! Trying to get the boys in social settings more often, starting school, and I'm helping with a few things within the community.  Since I've got a lot more on my plate, I will only be blogging regularly Monday through Wednesday.  I'll probably still blog some on Thursday, Friday, and even some Saturday's; but I won't be blogging regularly on those days.

...

Since this year has begun, I have either been sick or on-the-go.  Some days I feel like I have to squeeze time in to make dinner! But luckily, I have quick(ish) and easy go-to recipes. Like last week, I made my sweet potato mash. We are the southern family that eats applesauce with our pork chops, but sometimes I want something more "dinner-y" than applesauce, so I make my sweet potato mash.
This recipe feeds 3-5, depending on how big of servings you eat.

Ingredients:
2 sweet potatoes
3 cups of applesauce (sweetened or unsweetened)
Cinnamon to taste

Like 3 Pinches of Ginger
2 Crushed Peppermints (*optional)
Brown sugar to taste (*optional)

Instructions:
1. Clean & shank/stab the sweet potatoes 10 or 45 times. I really dont think it matters how many times you do it, just make sure it's a good bit.

I was lazy the other day, and microwaved my sweet potatoes for about 24 minutes (at 7-8 minute intervals). But I usually bake them about an hour at 400. You can also boil them.  Just cook the sweet potatoes, it doesn't matter how.

2. Peel the skin off. It is always easier for me to skin the potatoes when they are still warm, and have been cooked. But you can do this first, if you prefer.

3. Mash the sweet potatoes.

4. Add apple sauce, cinnamon, ginger, brown sugar*, and peppermint*. Mix together.

5. Serve warm!

Makes a sweet, easy side with all the health benefits of the sweet potato.

Kitchen Creations: Mean Green Beans

Isn't my name catchy? It rhymes.  And I am pretty pleased with it. 

Anyhow, green beans are one of my favorite vegetables, and one of the few vegetables I can get Jeffrey to eat.  So we eat them pretty often.  And I wanted to share my no-fail (unhealthy) green bean recipe, since I get a good bit of compliments on them.  

Ya'll, I try to eat healthy and feed my family healthy food.  But I cook often with butter and salt, and that's like the very definition of unhealthy.  A salted green bean is still a green bean, so the good and bad cancel each other, right? (Well, that's what I tell myself.) 

Here's how I make my mean green beans! 

Ingredients: 

Everything is measured to-taste.  

1. Canned green beans (If you use fresh or frozen, you have to up the cooking time.)

2. Butter (I use 1/2 stick to a whole stick.) 

3. Garlic powder 

4. Onion powder 

5. Pepper 

6. Salt 

7. Hot Sauce 

8. Chicken Boilloin Cubes (I use one cube per can) 

9. A few tablespoons of vinegar 

10. Seasoning Salt 

Directions: 

1. Rinse and drain the green beans.

2. Throw all the ingredients into a skillet.  

3. Cook on medium high heat for 10 to 15 minutes, the green beans will be a darker shade of green when they are done cooking,  

Kitchen Creations: Beef & Potato Stew

Today I pulled out the crock pot! It's December, it's chilly, and the holidays are right around the corner! So I went for southern comfort, and decided to make beef and potato stew over cornbread and rice for dinner.  Tonight, I'm going to share my stew recipe with y'all. Spoiler alert...in involves wine!!

My recipe is super easy, and I set the crock pot on high so it took about 4 hours. You can set the crock pot on low, and it would take the same recipe about 6 hours. This recipe fed 4 adults and 2 preschoolers...So I'm going to say it feeds 5. But that's just a guess! 

Ingredients: 

Stew beef 

1 1/2 cup of Beef Broth

 1/2 cup of Chicken Broth

Seasonings of Choice

  2 Potatoes

1 Celery Stalk

1/4 cup of Butter 

1/4 cup of Flour

1 Onion (optional)

1/4 cup of Moscato...or any sweet wine, really (optional) 

Salt and Pepper (to taste) 

Directions:
1. Put stew beef in the slow cooker. 

2. Clean and cut the potatoes. (You can skin them, but we don't, We eat the skin. It's good for you!) If you are using real onions, cut those up. Then add them to the slow cooker. 

3. Using the seasonings ( I used basil, minced onion, seasoning salt, pepper, and salt-free seasoning) season the meat and potatoes to taste. (I never measure my seasonings.) And turn the slow cooker on high for one hour. Side note: You do not need minced onion if you're using a real onion.  

4. In a saucepan set on medium, mix the butter with the flour. Beat out all the lumps. Then slowly add beef broth,chicken broth, salt and pepper (to taste) and let it thicken. This takes about 5 minutes. Then add the gravy to the stew. If you are using the wine, add that too.

5. Chop celery stalk into little pieces and add to stew, and let stew simmer for a total of 4 hours. Stirring... and tasting, occasionally.

About 30 minutes, before the stew was done. I baked Jiffy cornbread in a pan, according to the directions. And I boiled  the rice. (Because I used two cans of broth, I boiled the rice in all the leftover broth, instead of water, to give it a bit more flavor.) 

When it was all done, I put a ladle of stew over my cornbread and rice.

It's southern and starchy, but it's most definitely a comfort food. It had us feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. It was just right for the weather and the season! 

Kitchen Creations: Steak Bites & Sides

I'm going to give you guys the entire dinner recipe today. Because some days I feel like I belong on the food network. 

I bought stew meat because it was on sale. But let's be honest here, it is literally cut up steak.  So I threw the stew meat in the crock pot (that's what it's made for!) and made a delicious, tender steak dinner.  

With the stew meat, I seasoned it to taste, added butter, and put it in the crock pot for two hours. I did one hour on high and one hour on low, because those are our only two settings.  I imagine you can just do two hours on medium.  This made the meat tender, pink, and juicy just like we like it. Obviously, if you like your steak well-done you'll have to cook it longer. 

I paired our meal with unsweetened applesauce. I warmed up my applesauce for a minute in the microwave and sprinkled cinnamon on top. My husband ate his plain and cold, like his soul. (Ha, I found that funny!) Seriously, y'all applesauce is a very versatile side dish, especially without the added sugar. It's slightly sweet, but not too sweet and it genuinely compliments most of our meals that aren't chicken or pizza. I love having it with dinner! 

Balancing out our applesauce we had no-bake baked potatoes. This idea came from my husband's awesome cousin! We boil the potatoes for 30 minutes (or until you stick it with a fork and it'a soft in the middle) and then microwave them for 5 minutes. The inside is perfect and soft, and the microwave gives the outside a slight crunch and makes it so easy to peel (if you don't eat the outside). It's quicker than a regular baked potato and just as good! 

And there you have it: Medium steak bites, baked potato, and cinnamon applesauce. From your wannabe bootleg food blogger of the day, Kayla. Enjoy! 

Kitchen Creations: Garlic Bread Salad

From now on I vow to blog regularly. Not daily, but regularly.  I know people love consistency: daily, monthly, weekly, etc. I aim for daily, but some days I may not make it to the laptop.  I'll be honest about my inconsistencies. 

That being said. This will be my simplest blog post yet. 

Today I heated up leftover baked spaghetti, garlic bread, and salad for dinner.  It's Monday. And if I can manage leftovers on Monday, it's a great day! But during dinner, I had a revelation: put my salad on top of my garlic bread, and it was the most delicious pairing. 

Two weeks ago, I thought of this- so I guess it was a re-revelation- but I was doing too much at once and burnt the garlic bread. But today I successfully tried it. And my taste buds are still ecstatic. 

I may have just changed the way I eat salads and garlic bread forever. I even think I'll be making mini chicken salads on top of garlic bread later this week! 

Kitchen Creations: Catalina Wine "Mincer"

I may or may not have seen a few scenes from Step Brothers recently. And from that movie, comes this chicken was made up only because of the name. The inspiration behind it is it played on the "Catalina Wine Mixer". 

Although I didn't mince the chicken (which I originally planned to) to make the name make more sense. 

But it's sweet, tangy & BRIGHT PINK! (I couldn't get a good photo of how pink it really is.)  Seriously, who wouldn't love trying fuschia chicken?!  (The answer is everyone; No one was eager to try the chicken. Everyone gave me really skeptical looks and asked 26 questions about why it was pink before actually eating the chicken. But that's not the point, everyone also enjoyed it, so I'm going to share my recipe, anyway!) 

I cut up 7 chicken tenders into little nuggets, seasoned them (to taste) with onion powder, garlic powder, and pepper. Put them in a skillet, and added 1/2 cup of Catalina dressing and 1/8 cup of Chardonnay. I let it cook about 10 minutes on medium, squeezed 1/2 lime in the skillet, and let it cook another 10 minutes (or just until all the sauce has soaked into the chicken). Making sure to flip and move the chicken around every 5 minutes or so. That easy & that quick. 

Because the chicken is made with salad dressing, it's perfect for salad.  We had it on top of salad with cheddar biscuits, and it was an extremely satisfying dinner for everyone.  As long as there is some chicken in every bite, you don't even need dressing! (Of course, that didn't stop me from adding it, but to each its own, right?)

UPDATE: For lunch, I fried the leftovers, and they were pretty good that way too!