Chicken with Potato Pierogies

This recipe comes from the book Betty Crocker's Best Chicken Cookbook. It's easy and tasty. Mrs. T's frozen pierogies are one of the foods I remember my dad eating a lot. Jason said he had never had them before until I prepared them, and he loved them. What's not to like? Mashed potatoes stuffed inside pasta? Mmm...

1 package (16 ounces) frozen potato-filled pierogies

2 tablespoons margarine or butter

6 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (about 1-3/4 pounds)

1/2 cup chicken broth

1/4 cup half-and-half

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 can (4 ounces) sliced mushrooms, drained

Cook and drain pierogies as directed on package. Melt margarine in 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Cook chicken in margarine about 5 minutes, turning once, until light brown. Add broth. Cover and cook 15 to 20 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink when centers of thickest pieces are cut.

Add potato pierogies and remaining ingredients to chicken. Cook uncovered about 5 minutes or until hot.

Holiday Baking

Back in December, I signed up to bake cookies for two events: Christmas Eve service at my church, and the Charity Newsies cookie sale at my work. I decided to bake two recipes from a book I had gotten from the library: More from Magnolia by Allysa Torey. The cover of this book is so mouth-watering I have to share it (courtesy of amazon.com):

I have to say that I think I am in love with this cookbook. Generally when I look at a cookbook to see if it's something I would be interested in, I give it a flip test. I flip to about five random pages and see what recipes I land on. If a majority of those are foods I would NOT be interested in eating or making, then I know it's not a book for me. Well when I did a flip test with this book, every single page I landed on made me drool. And then when I flipped through every page from the beginning, I got really exciting about the baking possibilities. I think I will have to buy this one.

Anyway, for the two occasions for which I had signed up to bake, I decided to try two recipes: Snickerdoodles and White Chocolate Pecan Drop Cookies. I was disappointed in the Snickerdoodles (pictured second above). They were kind of a pain in the butt to make because the dough had to be refrigerated, and I wasn't too thrilled with the results. I actually don't know that I have ever had a Snickerdoodle before, so I'm not even sure if they tasted like what they were supposed to. So I'm not going to post that recipe. But the White Chocolate Pecan Drop cookies were delicious. They were a really nice variation on a basic chocolate chip cookie.

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup (1-1/3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1 large egg, at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup coarsely chopped toasted pecans

2/3 cup coarsely chopped white chocolate

Note: to toast the pecans, place on a baking sheet in a 350-degree oven for 15 minutes, or until lightly browned and fragrant.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream the butter with the sugars until smooth, about two minutes. Add the egg and vanilla extract, and beat well. Add the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Stir in the pecans and white chocolate. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets, leaving several inches in between for expansion. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until lightly golden.

Cool the cookies on the sheets for 5 minutes, and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Spice Check!

I don't have a very organized system for storing my spices. Basically I line them up on two small shelves in the cabinet between the fridge and the stove. The frequently used ones are kept towards the front, and when I need something less accessible I have to stand on a kitchen chair to reach. Sometimes when planning to make a recipe I have to dig through all of the containers to see if I have the particular spice I need, and occasionally I have purchased a duplicate for whatever reason (I think I actually have three opened containers of garlic powder!).

Recently I decided that I needed to be a little more organized about things, so I took out all of the spice containers and made an alphabetical list of what I have, and taped it to the inside of the cabinet door. That way when I am not sure if I have what I need for a recipe, I can just check the list.

As I was digging things out of the cabinet to make my list, I am embarassed to admit I found this little gem:

If you can't read the text on the bottom, it says "Sell By July 29 1985". The spice is more than 22 years old!!! But why I had that old spice (ha ha) is a mystery. I would have been six years old at the time of its sell-by date. And the first time I lived in a place where I would have had my own spices was in my junior year of college, in 1999! So it doesn't make sense that I would have had that spice before it was already 14 years expired!

Where did the mystery spice come from?? My theory is that maybe it happened to be left inside a cupboard of a house or apartment I moved into, and without noticing it I included it with the rest of my spices. Or perhaps one of my former roommates had it and left it for me when she moved out. Either way, it quickly found its way into the trash. And to anyone who has eaten cookies or cakes I have baked... don't worry, I have another NEWER container of allspice.

Maybe y'all should check your own spices! McCormick even made a website dedicated to it: http://www.spicecheckchallenge.com/

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Christmas 2007 included some great visits with family, lots of time to relax, and some new cookbooks!

[cover images borrowed from amazon.com]

1. The Everything Meals for a Month Cookbook by Linda Larsen

This was a Christmas gift from Jason! As a working woman, the concept of 'freezer cooking' appeals to me. Basically this means you prepare meals in advance and freeze them, whether putting together a complete meal that can go straight into the oven (like a casserole) or just doing some of the steps in advance, like preparing a sauce, to save time later. For awhile I had been doing that through Dream Dinners, but Jason and I found that the portions were too large and some of the meals unappealing to us, which meant that it wasn't cost-effective. I was interested in this cookbook in hopes that I could create the "dream dinners" solution at home. So far I have tried two recipes, but cooked both right away (I figured I'd better see if I like it "fresh" before I try it out of the freezer later!). The beef and bean enchiladas were a bust, but the garlic roast beef sandwiches were fantastic, though I don't think that's a recipe I would choose to freeze. I plan on trying a third recipe for dinner tonight. So far, my complaint with the book is that it seems that most recipes involve cooking the meal completely, and THEN freezing portions. To me, that is more like saving leftovers than using the freezer to help you save time later. With Dream Dinners, you didn't cook anything... you just prepared it and then froze it. So I think this may end up being used as more of a 'regular' cookbook than a freezer cookbook.

2. The Big Book of Easy Suppers by Maryana Vollstedt

This book was a gift from Jason's Grandma and Grandpa Harley! This was another book I requested for Christmas. :-) I had gotten this cookbook from our local library a few times, and after about the third time I checked it out I figured I might as well own a copy. My pet peeve with this book is that there are NO PHOTOS of any of the food. I do like to see what a meal is 'supposed to' look like. But the absence of photos means more pages for recipes, and there are a LOT of recipes in this book. They seem easy and delicious. I hope to post some more entries in the future about individual recipes from this book.

3. Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur

This book was a gift from my mom! I had never seen this book before but I love it! The recipes let you recreate popular dishes from restaurants at home. For instance, there is a recipe for the Pecan Crusted Chicken Salad from TGI Friday's. I've eaten the dish at Friday's and loved it, so I'm excited to try to make it soon!

4. Glorious One-Pot Meals by Elizabeth Yarnell

This cookbook was a gift to myself, to accompany the Le Creuset Dutch Oven I got as a gift from my dad. To explain what a 'glorious one-pot meal' is, I'll use this description from the technique's website:

The Glorious One-Pot Meal method cooks an entire meal of meat, grains, and vegetables from start to finish, all in the same pot. An enamel-coated Dutch oven provides optimum infusion cooking for all kinds of ingredients. This technique enables a busy cook to throw together a healthy meal in fewer than twenty minutes with only one pot to clean. Unlike other "one-dish meal" methods -- such as crockpot stewing or casserole baking -- which merge elements and meld flavors, ingredients prepared using the Glorious One-Pot Meal method retain their shape and integrity. In a Glorious One-Pot Meal, fish flakes like fish, pasta remains pasta-shaped, and even delicate tomato slices emerge intact for serving. Foods become infused with flavors and emerge moist, tender, and perfectly cooked.

I am really excited to try this method of cooking. I'll keep you posted on how it works! Jason's excited about it just so he can keep talking about cooking in the "dutch oven." If you don't get why that's funny, all I'll tell you is it's a fart joke. But it actually is a legitimate cooking vessel, and this is what it looks like:

I also recently received a few vintage cookbooks from my Grandma Cotterman. She knows I love to collect cookbooks and is always picking them up for me at rummage sales.

Thanks to everyone for the fantastic cookbooks!!

My(dining) Space

The Columbus Dispatch had an article in today's issue about food bloggers. Check it out here:

http://www.dispatchkitchen.com/?story=dispatch/2007/12/26/20071226-E1-00.html

It's been a busy last few weeks, but I have about five recipes worth of posts waiting for me to write! Stay tuned.

Chicken Pot Pie

After a busy week and weekend, I felt like cooking something homemade on Sunday. I decided to make this chicken pot pie recipe that I'd found online awhile ago and had been wanting to try. It was really tasty and pretty easy. If I make it again I will use a little less onion. I should know by now to err on the side of too little onion. It just tends to overpower the other flavors for me.

Here's the recipe:

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed
1 cup sliced carrots
1 cup frozen green peas
1 cup diced potatoes
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1-3/4 cups chicken broth
2/3 cup milk
2 (9 inch) refrigerated pie crusts

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. In a saucepan, combine broth, chicken, carrots, peas, and potatoes. Boil for 15 minutes. Remove cooked chicken and vegetables with a slotted spoon and set aside.
3. In another saucepan over medium heat, cook onions in butter until soft and translucent. Stir in flour, salt, pepper, garlic salt, and poultry seasoning. Slowly stir in chicken broth and milk. Simmer over medium-low heat until thick. Remove from heat and set aside.
4. Place the chicken mixture in bottom pie crust. Pour hot liquid mixture over. Cover with top crust, seal edges, and cut away excess dough. Make several small slits in the top to allow steam to escape. (I tried to be fancy and use my mini cutters, but should have made a few more cutouts closer to the edges because the crust ended up splitting there anyway.)
5. Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown and filling is bubbly. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Okay I have to admit something embarrassing now. I actually planned to make this recipe a month or two ago, and purchased all of the ingredients. But the thing is, the recipe didn't specify 'refrigerated' pie crusts (I added that detail). It just said "2 (9 inch) pie crusts" and I actually didn't know there was such a thing as refrigerated pie crusts. I had only ever heard of the frozen kind (the ones that come in the foil pan). So I bought those and put them in the fridge to defrost. I have to admit I was really confused about how I was going to use the second pie crust (that was already shaped in the bottom of the foil pan) as the top. When it was time to make the recipe I realized there was no way it was going to work and that there had to be some other kind of pie crusts I didn't know about. So I googled it and realized my mistake. The refrigerated kind are made by Pillsbury and are found with the refrigerated crescent rolls, cinnamon rolls, etc. I don't know how I hadn't noticed them before. But those bad boys are expensive. At my grocery store they were actually on sale for 2 packages (of 2 crusts each) for $10. So right there the pot pie costs at least $5. We were able to be somewhat frugal though, because Jason and I also ate the leftovers for lunch the next day.

Edited to add: the other day at Giant Eagle I noticed the pie crusts were on sale for 2 packages for $4. So... I must have been confused about the price when I posted previously!

for Aunt Nancy

Aunt Nancy, I stumbled across this blog today and thought you would love it:

http://sopressata.blogspot.com/

She's also a 28-year-old woman named Heather living in Columbus (interesting...), but she's much more adventurous and has beautiful photographs!