Chicken Stew

Gotta love big cooking days. Something about dancing around the kitchen and accomplishing so much just makes you feel relaxed and down to earth.

So mom picked up a stewing hen for an experiment and we turned it into broth yesterday. It's not a bad broth either since the hen somehow has more chicken flavour for being so much older than normal fresh chicken. The only fun thing about the stewing hen was that we wanted to see if we could save the meat, so we had to boil it around 4 hours for the meat to fall off the bones. We ended up with a butt-load of meat though, more than we were expecting from all the internet info about how the hens are scrawny. Only problem is, the meat isn't so hot when it's not in a broth or a liquid of some sort. Therefore, chicken stew!

Chicken Stew


serves 6

150g bacon
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 medium onions, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 can 796mL diced tomatoes, with juices
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp sugar (to counteract the super sourness of canned tomatoes)
pinch hot pepper flakes
3 cups cooked chicken, diced
1/3 can water (rinse out the leftover juices in the can)
salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, add 1 Tbsp oil and the bacon and fry until crispy.
Stir in the rest of the oil and the onion and saute until clear and soft.
Add the garlic and hot pepper flakes and fry about 1-2 minutes, until the garlic starts to turn golden.
Mix in the tomatoes, oregano, sugar and water.
Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to low.
Simmer at least 30 minutes to infuse flavours, or until desired consistency.
Serve hot over noodles, or with bread or biscuits.

An interesting and yummy new (for me anyways) way to eat chicken.

Enjoy!

Sweet and Sour Chicken

Thawed chicken, a going sorta soft green pepper and a desire for sweet and sour stuff, our basic recipe for sweet and sour pork got a substitution, lol.

Coming from Betty Crocker's International Cookbook, you wouldn't think it would be good since it could be a la Kraft requiring you to use one of their products in every recipe, but it's from before the onslaught of super processed foods, so it just has their best versions of international recipes.

Sweet and Sour Chicken


serves 4

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 medium carrots
1 green pepper
1 can pineapple bites
2 medium onions
1 clove garlic
2 Tbsp oil
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2  cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp cornstarch
2 Tbsp cold water
salt and pepper to taste

Cut the chicken into 1/4 inch cubes.
In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium high heat.
Add the chicken, season with a bit of salt and pepper and brown on both sides, then remove from pan and keep warm.
Cut the carrots in thin diagonal slices and mince the garlic.
Cut the green pepper into 1/4 inch pieces.
Cut the onions into wedges about the same size as the green peppers.
Open the pineapple and drain the juice into a measuring cup. Add enough water to make 1 cup of liquid.
Add the brown sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, pineapple juice, garlic and carrots to the pan.
Simmer the mix about 6 minutes, until carrots are tender.
Mix the cornstarch and cold water together and add to the sauce, stirring well.
Add the remaining veggies, pineapple pieces and chicken to the pan and coat with sauce, seasoning with salt and pepper if needed.
Heat until everything is warm through.
Serve with your favourite prepared rice.

The green stuff is sauted bok choy since we had it kicking around and I wanted a leafy green too.

Enjoy!

Turkey Tetrazzini

Leftover turkey is yummy, but you can get sick of it after a couple days. That's okay, because the meat takes to freezing pretty well. Of course, it's a little gummy when thawed, which might make something like a turkey salad sandwich not that appealing, but it's perfect in pies and casseroles.

So we had leftover turkey in the freezer and wanted something simple: turkey tetrazzini came to mind. It's been one of those things we discovered a few years ago when we wanted something different with our turkey leftovers. The veggies vary (mushrooms work quite well, the peas, broccoli or something different) but the cream sauce remains the same. Of course, you don't have to leftovers to do this. If you score turkey parts on sale and just cook them to put in the casserole, that would work too.

Turkey Tetrazzini


serves 4

350g pasta, went with spaghetti noodles snapped in half this year
2 1/2 cups cooked turkey, in 1/2 inch chunks
1 large onion, diced
14oz can of peas, drained
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp butter
1/4 cup flour
a splash of sherry
1 can condensed mushroom soup
4 cans of milk
1/4 tsp garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste

Start prepping the pasta.
In a large saucepan (big enough to combine everything), heat the butter and oil over medium-high heat.
Add the onion and cook until soft, but not brown.
Add the turkey and cook about 1-2 minutes to start warming it up.
Sprinkle the flour over the turkey and onion and stir to get everything wet.
Add the mushroom soup and splash of sherry and combine. Cook a minute to burn off the alcohol.
Mix in the milk and spices and bring to a boil.
Add the peas and drained pasta and stir to coat.
Serve (or bake in a 350 F oven for 30 minutes up to an hour)

Filling and creamy, a nice alternative to a weekday default meal.

Enjoy!

Turmeric "Chicken"

So, we haven't had a chest freezer for over a year, not since it just died randomly one day...around the same time the fridge died. Now we just have the freezer over the new fridge, so we have to go through periods of eating through the freezer and just pulling things out to thaw if we need to put other stuff in (...like a bunch of on-sale ice cream, lol). So we had chicken drums in the fridge and I had to come up with a way to cook them.

We also have turmeric and fenugreek kicking around in our spice cupboard, so I went for an Indian themed supper. A brief internet search and I came up with another recipe to tweak.

Turmeric "Chicken"

serves 4 supposedly, lol

2 Tbsp oil
8 chicken drums
1 chopped onion
2 c basmati rice (or jasmine, which is what we had on hand)
2 cloves garlic, crushed (or chopped, depending on how you like your seasoning)
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger (or fresh if you have it)
1 Tbsp ground coriander
2 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp fenugreek
1/4 tsp cayenne powder (or if you have it, powdered chili)
4 c chicken stock
3 Tbsp tomato passata (or 1 Tbsp paste or original recipe called for a chopped tomato finish)
salt! to taste (not in the original and I totally forgot to add it...so my rice wasn't over-salted as it can be, but the dish needed it)

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
Season chicken with whatever you want (I used a buffalo chicken spice blend) and fry until golden on all sides.
While chicken is cooking, preheat oven to 350 F and lightly warm stock and passata.
Remove chicken from pan and saute the onion until light brown.
Mix all the spices in a small bowl so it evenly distributes when adding to the pan. (Don't want a lump of cayenne now, do you?)
Add the rice, garlic and spices and lightly toast.
Transfer to a large oven dish. (Original recipe said 4 L casserole, I went with a high 9" x 13" dish).
Put the chicken on top of dry rice.
Pour stock/tomato mix over the dish and put in oven for about 40 minutes or until the rice has absorbed all the liquid and the chicken is cooked, but not dry.

Luckily, there was some leftover rice for me to remember to photograph, lol. The nuttiness from the browning of the rice and the browned onion and garlic made it awesome, along with mixing my own curry powder essentially. The chicken had some seasoning from the spice on the underside (I didn't flip it, just set and forget) and it was a good idea to season before browning.

Enjoy!