Frozen Chicken and Tears

I wanted to make a nice dinner.  I decided I would make a whole chicken in the crockpot. That should be quick and easy, right?  This is coming from the woman who NEVER defrosts her meat ahead of time.  You know, like the night before.  That requires thinking ahead and I don't tend to do that.  I make a meal plan every week, but I don't decide which days we are going to eat which meals.

Anyways, I went to the deep freezer and grabbed my whole chicken.  My whole frozen solid chicken.  My plan was to cut the wrapper off and throw it and the other ingredients into the crockpot.  Dinner done.  Yeah, that was my plan.

This is what happened.  I cut the wrapper off and threw it away, but there was something stuck to the bottom of the frozen chicken.  You know the thing that thing the manufacturers put in there to catch all the juices, it had become a part of the chicken.  In my infinite wisdom I grabbed my knife and started prying the "chicken juice catcher" (yes, that's my technical term) off of the chicken.  As you can imagine this wasn't working very well.  Parts of the chicken juice catcher were coming off, but some of it was still stuck to the chicken.  So, I did what any sane (using the term loosely here) woman would do an screamed at the chicken.  I'm really hoping that I'm not alone in this.  I hope that I'm not the only one that has screamed at her chicken.  Then, I grabbed the knife and stabbed it.  I'm not proud.  Plus, the screaming and stabbing didn't get that darn chicken juice catcher off of the chicken!

I scream, "I hate cooking!  I hate food!"

Now, I'm in tears.  Frustrated.  Feeling alone.  Overwhelmed.  I cry out to Jesus.  Help me!

Then comes this thought.  This frozen chicken is a metaphor for my life.  I had an idea in my mind about how I wanted making dinner to go.  I had a plan, my plan.  I wanted to do it quickly and get it done.

But, God He wants us to savor life.  He wants us to slow down.  Maybe we even have to stop and lay it all down at his feet.  Maybe that involves screaming and tears. He knows the plans He has for me and he wants good for me, for you. (Jeremiah 29:11).  

Defrost the chicken to get dinner made.

It's genius!  It was outside of my thought process, which seems ridiculous in hind sight.  I tossed the chicken in the microwave to defrost and that chicken juice catcher came right off.  And now, a few hours later my house is starting to smell amazing.  All because I chose to go on a different path and switch gears.

I was just going to toss that stupid chicken in the trash.  Throw it away.  But, I stopped.  I prayed.  I asked for help.  The surrender (even on something as small as making dinner) allows Him to take the weight off of our shoulders.  He stands there waiting for us to allow Him to yoke to us.  His yoke is easy and the burden is light (Matthew 11:30).  We just have to ask.

So, I thought I would share the recipe with you.
Crockpot Chicken Dinner
1 Whole Chicken without innards, defrosted (at least slightly)
salt
pepper
sage
Put the chicken in the crockpot and season to taste with salt, pepper and sage.  Or whatever you would like.
celery, I just used what was left in my fridge
carrots, I used 4 large
onion, I used 1/2 of a large white onion
Chop the celery, carrots and onion and add to the crockpot.  I just used what I had.  I'm horrible, I hardly ever measure.  Add 1 cup of water into the crockpot.  Cook on high 6-8 hours.

I'm serving our chicken with butternut squash and a kale salad.

Favorite DF/GF Meals (Fall 2012)

So, I decided since I'm always looking for an easier way to make good meals that we all can eat in this house I thought I would share my favorites from this fall with all of you.  None of these are my own recipes, just fabulous finds.  If you want the recipe, click on the link to the website. 

1. Indian in the Slow Cooker 

(Skinny Mommy)

This is a delicious mixture of potatoes, cauliflower and garbanzo beans!  Serve it over brown rice with plain yogurt (I skip this) or green salsa and cilantro.  It is so delicious!

(source)

2. Millionaire Rotisserie Chicken Salad 

(Rachel Ray)

In the words of Rachel Ray... YUM-O!  Cabbage and rotisserie chicken in a delish sauce!  We rolled it up in tortillas and everyone gobbled them up.

(source)

3. Crockpot Falafel and Dairy Free Tzatziki 

(A Year of Slow Cooking and A Gluten and Dairy Free JT)

I LOVE falafel and I had no idea how easy it could be!  You can use the plain yogurt tzatziki recipe on A Year of Slow Cooking (it's really good) or if you need to go DF like me the one from A Gluten and Dairy Free JT is awesome!  We roll these up in tortillas and add lettuce and tomatoes.  So yummy and healthy!

(source)

(source)

4. White Beans and Cabbage and BBQ Salmon

(Steamy Kitchen and Skinny Mommy)

Yep, another cabbage recipe.  We love it around here and this one is probably my favorite!  I always make BBQ Salmon with it.  Such an awesome meal and everyone is always asking for seconds.

(source)

(source)

5. Slow Cooked Ruby Chicken

(Moms Who Think)

This is SO good.  It's an awesome easy meal and it's SO good.  Did I already say that?  Well, it's true.  

(source)

There you have it.  My favorites from this fall.  I hope you enjoy them as much as we do.  

Happy Cooking!

Fried Pickles

Back in December I stumbled across the blog Schilling Times by way of a fried pickles pin on pinterest.  Little did I know that it would become a blog that I love following.  

I finally made the fried pickles.  You can find the recipe here.  They were delicious! 

This is how I made the pickles (due to what was in the pantry)...

Ingredients
1 jar pickle slices ( I just used enough to fill one cookie sheet)
2 eggs
1/3 cup flour
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp hot sauce
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp pepper
1 1/2 cups plain bread crumbs
Creamy Spinach Dip for dipping (recipe found here, I made it differently and will tell you about that sometime too)


Directions
-Turn oven broiler on high.
-In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs and flour. 
-Add Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, garlic powder and pepper and mix well.
-Place bread crumbs in a shallow dish. 
-Dunk each pickle slice into the egg mixture, than dredge it in the bread crumbs.
-Spray a baking sheet with non-stick cooking spray.  
-Arrange pickles on baking sheet and place in the middle rack of the oven. 
-Broil for about 3 minutes on each side.  Watch them closely... it goes fast!
-Serve with Creamy Spinach Dip or Ranch Dressing.

I almost forgot to take a picture of them, so this is the few that were left.  Sorry about the bad lighting.

Happy Cooking Everyone!

Megan

Update: Fancy Hot Dogs

So, last time I told you about Fancy Hotdogs I didn't have my own pictures.  Today, I do!  So, I really wanted to share them with you.   

Here's the recipe from my original post...

1 Tbsp butter

5 turkey hot dogs, sliced into 1/4 inch thick slices

1 red onion

1/2 cup pureed low fat cottage cheese

1/4 cup non-fat plain yogurt

1/4 cup pureed acorn squash

Dash of garlic powder

Sprinkle of dried parsley

Sauteing the hot dogs and onion in a frying pan.

Hot dogs and onion with pureed cottage cheese/plain yogurt mixture and acorn squash. 

The finished (and DELICIOUS) product!

Happy cooking everyone!  Do you have a favorite an EASY go to meal?  Please share it with me!

Megan

Stuffed Baby Peppers

I decided to try out a new recipe for my family Christmas this year, Stuffed Baby Peppers.  They were so good, I had to share them with you!  You can find the original recipe here.  I did make a few changes, which I will share a little later.

Start by washing your mini bell peppers, cutting off the stems and cleaning out the seeds and veins.  This takes awhile, but they are sooooo good it's worth the time.

When you're ready to stuff your peppers this is what your filling will look like.  I used turkey bacon instead of pancetta because it's what I had on hand.  I also completely forgot to add salt and pepper, but they were still amazing.

After reading reviews on the site I decided to use a ziploc bag with the corner cut off to fill my peppers.  I thought it would go much faster (I had 48 to fill) and be much neater.  This didn't work for me.  It was messy and I wasn't able to get filling all the way to the tips of the peppers.  So, I grabbed my icing bag with a coupler.  I didn't put a tip on it because my peas and bacon wouldn't be able to come through.  This worked GREAT!    

Here are my beautiful peppers filled and ready to go in the oven.  They were fabulous and I think I could have eaten all of them.  

I will definitely make this again... I just have to find a day when I have time :)

So, because it took me so long to make them (I enjoyed every second) we were running a little late to get to the Christmas party.  I didn't get a chance to take a picture of them when they were done in the oven.  Here's a picture of them from foodnetwork.com

(source)

Happy Cooking!

Megan

Baking Bug

I woke up the other morning with the baking bug.  We were planning to make Barrett's teacher's gifts this morning (cinnamon and sugar pretzel nuggets), but I've already made Honey Oat Quick Bread and Maple Whole Wheat Bread.  I'm thinking about making loaves of Peppery Onion Bread and White Bread too.  Those might wait til later on :)

The cinnamon and sugar pretzel nuggets are so fast, easy and sooooooo GOOD!  I got the recipe from my mother-in-law at one of my bridal showers (almost 9 years ago!).  They are a wonderfully easy gift to make or a good last minute thing to bring to a party.  In this house we're lucky if they make it out the door.

Here's the recipe...
15-18 oz bag of pretzels (nuggets are best, but I've used twists, rings and sticks before)
2/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

Dump pretzels into large microwave safe bowl.  Pour oil, sugar and cinnamon over the pretzels and mix well.  Microwave on high for 2 minutes.  Stir.  Microwave on high an additional 3-4 minutes until oil is absorbed (stirring every minute).  Let cool before serving or bagging up to give away.

And here's a picture of the Honey Oat Quick Bread.  The recipe can be found here.  

It's so easy and amazing... you have to try it!

Yes, that is Batman and the Joker in the background.  

In case you want to try it (I didn't take a picture before it got eaten) here is the recipe for the Maple Whole Wheat Bread.

Hope the baking bug bites you sometime soon!  

Megan

Double Peppy Pizza with Boz

(source)

My kids have recently found a new love (as far as watching tv goes) in Boz the Green Bear. If you haven't heard of this, you really need to check it out. It is an awesome preschool dvd series that combines faith and education. I even love watching this. If you've been around us during any meal you've heard Barrett say grace. The prayer he prays he learned from Boz the Green Bear. His version goes like this...

"Thank you God for my family and my friends.  Taking time to sit and pray, thank you God for this great day."  

And then he goes on and thanks God for whatever is on his mind that day.  Lately that's been letters since we got a new Boz video (B-O-Zs and 1-2-3s!).   Myles talks along with him and they do a joint "AMEN" with hands in the air (which they learned from Carol- our fantastic Children's Ministry Director at Messiah UMC).  It's adorable... I really should video tape it sometime so everyone can see it.

The first video we got was Bananas, Bubbles and Busy Bodies.  Boz makes "double peppy pizza" with Drew, Grace and Mrs. Baxter.  Barrett has been asking to make this for weeks (maybe months).  So, we finally did.  

They had so much fun adding peppers, onions and tomatoes to their pizza's.

Here's the finished product, pre-baking.

Put them in the oven.  (Ignore the dirty oven)

Final product.  They were delicious and so much healthier than pepperoni (which is usually Barrett's choice).  I'm so glad they made dinner for us and hope they do it again!

Maybe you'll have some double peppy pizza for dinner tonight!

Megan

Fancy Hot Dogs?

Have you ever had one of those days where you have several things you can make for dinner, but they all take too long or you didn't get around to cleaning your crockpot from yesterday?  These are the days that I love Google.  I had half of a package of turkey hot dogs in the freezer and wanted to use them up in an interesting way.  So, I googled "recipes with hotdogs."  Several things came up, but Fancy Hot Dogs Recipe stuck out.  So, I made it for dinner.  I think it took me 15 minutes total.

Since I always forget to take pictures when I'm cooking... here's the picture from Simply Recipes.  Mine, of course, didn't look as pretty and perfect.

I adapted it a little bit because of what I had on hand.  This is the recipe for how I made it...

1 Tbsp butter

5 turkey hot dogs, sliced into 1/4 inch thick slices

1 red onion

1/2 cup pureed low fat cottage cheese

1/4 cup non-fat plain yogurt

1/4 cup pureed acorn squash

Dash of garlic powder

Sprinkle of dried parsley

Why not use sour cream like the recipe calls for?  Well, I don't buy it.  We puree cottage cheese or use plain yogurt.  It's healthier and the boys love it!  Plus, cottage cheese gives a really creamy and cheesy texture/flavor to any dish you put it in.  I added the squash because I try to get in vegetables wherever I can.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Megan