Chicken and Eggplant Parm

We have about .5 inch of snow. Nothing compared to what most of you have currently in the midwest. However sandwiched between 50/60 degree days it makes it chilly around here. I think comfort food - then I think slow cooker - then I think Chicken and Eggplant Parm... YUM!

Ingredients:
6 boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 eggs
salt/pepper
Tastefully Simple Italian Garlic Bread Seasoning
2 cups bread crumbs
EVOO
1 cup parm cheese
1 eggplant - sliced thin
15 oz can tomato sauce
2 TBS Tastefully Simple Mama Mia Marinara Mix
Mozzarella Cheese
*** Both Cheeses (moz and parm) can be purchased dairy free from Daiya

Directions:
* Beat together eggs and add salt, pepper, and Italian Garlic Bread Seasoning - dip chicken into egg mixture and then into bread crumbs.
* Place coated chicken into a hot skillet drizzled with EVOO. Brown on both sides then remove and drain on a paper toweled lined plate.
* Spray slow cooker with non-stick spray - layer eggplant in bottom of cooker and top with 1/4 cup parm cheese and 1/4 cup sauce (use the can of tomato sauce and add 2 TBS of Mama Mia mix to make sauce)
* Add chicken then layer with remaining parm and sauce. Top with Mozzarella.
* Cook on low for 6 hours or on high for 3-4.

Garlic Honey Chicken

We are big chicken eaters at our house. Our daughter loves chicken and I don't want to feed her chicken nuggets every week of her life even if I do make them from scratch. I am always looking for new chicken recipes and this one we discovered a couple months ago and love.

Garlic Honey Chicken

Ingredients:
4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
salt and pepper
2 cups honey - we love the raw from Costco
1 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup evoo
2 cloves garlic or 1 TBS TS Garlic Garlic
sesame seeds

Directions:
* Place chicken in slow cooker, season with salt and pepper.
* Combine honey, soy sauce, ketchup, evoo, and garlic in medium bowl. Pour over chicken. Cover and cook on low 6-8 hours or hight for 3-4.
* Garnish with sesame seeds before serving.

Freezer Meal It:
* Take all ingredients and dump in freezer bag, seal and label. Ready to through in slow cook when you are! Easy Peasy!

Beef and Veggie Stir Fry

I grew up on Stir Fry. It was a staple in our home. My parents both worked and were busy with the two of us girls. They did an incredible job raising us... I mean look at us now... well me at least - just kidding sister of mine! (hugs to you - wish you were closer)

Anyways - it was a great way to again use up those veggies that might go to compost or trash. I still love a good stir fry. At our home currently we are working on getting more protein in my daughters diet. She loves chicken, salmon, beans and nut butters but isn't so swell on red meat. Not really an issue for me personally and if she turns out to never care for it that is her choice to make. However I want to make sure I offer it to her in a variety of ways so that she can make that choice.

This past week when I was planning my freezer meals for the month I saw there was some great beef on sale. I stocked up with a family size package and decided to add beef stew, beef stroganoff and a beef stir fry to the menu. The stir fry is random with random veggies and that is just how a good stir fry should be!

Beef Stir Fry

Ingredients:
Cubed Beef - bite size pieces
Cubed Veggies - bite size pieces (i.e. - broc, carrots, onion, zucchini, squash, sweet potatoes, peppers, garlic, turnips, beets, parsnips, tomatoes - I could go on forever!)
Seasoning of your choice
EVOO

Directions:
* Cube all meat and veggies and place in a hot saute pan coated with EVOO. Season, Stir and Fry until meat is throughly cooked and veggies are tender. Serve with noodles, rice, baked potatoes, etc.

Kitchen Tips and Tricks: 
* Any veggies work and really fruit - pineapple would be a good add in and even mango
* Make these into Kabobs and broil them in oven or grill on your patio!
* Seasonings we love are Tastefully Simple's Garlic Pepper Seasoning - TS Garlic Garlic - TS Onion Onion - TS Season Salt - etc. For a full list of seasonings we currently carry go HERE

*** If you are just dying to know exactly what I did THIS time - beef cubes, diced onion, carrot, mix of yellow and green squash with TS Garlic Pepper seasoning with a little celtic sea salt. Serving with baked sweet potatoes topped with choice of brown sugar or butter garlic sauce - we love garlic :)

Freezer Meal It:
* Dice it all up and add seasoning and a little EVOO or water to help mix in seasoning. Place in freezer bag, label, seal. Done!

Beef Stew

Another great comfort food for our family is Beef Stew. It offers a great way to use some up veggies that might otherwise go in the compost around our house. Normally my recipe is never the same but here is some ideas for you to try out.

Beef Stew 

(photo credit) 

Ingredients:
1 lb diced stew meat
1/4 cup flour
3 TBS EVOO
1 cup dried sherry or a rich port wine
3 cups beef stock
Veggies - (carrots, sweet potatoes, celery, onion, beets, parsnips, potatoes, squash, etc)
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
* Brown meat in a pan with flour and EVOO.
* Pour in dried sherry or rich port wine to soak up drippings from pan. Simmer until most of the liquid is gone - I like to leave about 3 TBS of liquid just to coat the veggies.
* Put mixture in slow cooker and add stock and chopped veggies.
* Salt and Pepper
* Cook on low 8 hours or high for 5 hours.

Variations and Tips:
* Go crazy with veggies - we go for seasonal ones at our house but use anything you might have.
* The cheaper the meat the better it will be in your stew - seriously. It is gong to soak and slow cook all day long. It will be good - promise!
* Omit the sherry/wine - why would you miss an opportunity to not add this nice relaxing touch to your food? - but go ahead nobody is watching you....
* We love this served with homemade bread, butter and jam. I use my bread maker - life saver in my kitchen!

Freezer Meal It:
* Follow step 1 and 2 but instead of placing meat in slow cooker LET COOL and add to a freezer meal bag. Throw in your mixed diced veggies of choice.
* Seal and Label
* When ready to cook dump bag in slow cooker - add salt and pepper and cook.

Slow - Cooker Beef Stroganoff

I love a good Beef Stroganoff. It is a total comfort food for me and now that I have discovered my "little" loves it as much as my husband and I do I have to bring it back to my menu rotation.

I will warn you this recipe I made this week and stocked in my freezer is NOT lactose free friendly. It does contain dairy but if you are looking for some great dairy free recipes for stroganoff there are some great vegan ones I have posted that my family highly recommends!

Vegan Mushroom Stroganoff - includes 2 recipes, the second one is my favorite served with garlic mashed potatoes!

(photo credit) 

However, here is a "breaking the rules" dairy recipe...

Slow - Cooker Beef Stroganoff

Ingredients:
1 lb beef tips - cubed to bite size pieces
1 small onion - diced
1 can mushroom soup (can use cream of mushroom or make your own which IS dairy free: my Homemade recipe)
1 TBS Worcestershire Sauce
1/4 cup water
4 oz cream cheese (you can buy dairy free, Green Valley Brand makes a great one)

Directions:
* Combine all ingredients (minus cream cheese) in a slow cooker and cook on low for 8 hours or high for 5 hours. Add cream cheese and stir. Serve with noodles or mashed potatoes and a veggie of your choice.

Variations and Tips:
* Add mushrooms and or garlic!
* Sub the onion for Tastefully Simple's Onion Onion seasoning.
* If you are up for it and make a big batch of cream of mushroom soup it freezes really great. I freeze mine in 10.5 oz cups and then I am ready to go quicker than going to the store and buying a can of who knows whats in that.

Freezer Meal It!
* Place beef tips, onion, mushroom soup, worcestershire sauce in a freezer bag.
* Label and Seal Tight.
* When ready to cook dump bag in slow cooker - add water and cook.
* Add in cream cheese and serve with your noodles and veggie and or fruit sides.

What homemade noodles!!! YUM - find my recipe HERE! 

Chicken Stock

I have been very ambitious this week/weekend getting our freezer stocked with some homemade goods. As you can see from the previous blog posts the kitchen has been busy. My main goal in keeping this blog is to catalog my own recipes. This way they are all in one place and easy to search for and find. The added bonus is I don't have to carry recipes with me when we travel or if something would ever happen to our home I know they are safe online.

After I made noodles the other week I was excited about making my own chicken stock. Something that I have thought about for several years now honestly but I am really picky and squirmy when it comes to raw chicken. I know it would be cheaper to purchase a raw whole chicken but it just really doesn't appeal to me.

Finally I sent my husband to Costco for one of there amazing Rotisserie Chickens. We absolutely love them and you can't beat the quality or price. Today he came home with a 4 pound chicken for 5 dollars. Again I know a raw chicken would be cheaper but I am happy with $1.25/lb and it is already cooked for me.

I pulled all the meat off the bones and was able to make four meals for our family of three with this. Two I diced for pasta or soup later and froze, one I diced for some chicken cranberry and almond pasta salad I am making this week and the fourth section we are eating tonight with some butternut squash. I then used the remainder of the chicken to make chicken stock. Some to freeze and some to go with our homemade egg noodles for chicken noodle soup. Here is my new found recipe...

Chicken Stock

Ingredients:
* 1 chicken (see above)
* 3 quarts water
* salt and pepper
* 5 carrots
* 2 single stalks celery (ribs and leaves!)
* 1 onion
* parsley, evoo, garlic

Directions:
* Place chicken and water in a large stock pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for an hour.
* Cut veggies into large chunks and place in oven at 400 degree to roast for an hour. I coated mine with evoo, salt and a little pepper.
* When veggies are done add them to the stock pot with the broth. Cook for another hour.
* Add salt and pepper as needed to flavor stock along with garlic and parsley.
* When stock is done cooking I drained all veggies out and froze the clear liquid stock. I then used the veggies in my chicken noodle soup.

This will be my go to recipe - it is SO good!

Homemade Egg Noodles

Cooking from scratch has always been my favorite way to be in my kitchen. It allows me to not dirty the measuring cups and I get to really be creative. I am not a huge resolution type person but I do love to set up some goals to help my family be more frugal and yet healthy.

My husband's grandma taught me this past summer how to make homemade egg noodles from scratch and I have put it off for way to long trying it out myself. I dove in this weekend and they turned out AMAZING. It is so easy and I can't wait to stock my freezer with bags of noodles for us to use year round.

Grandma Bea's Homemade Egg Noodles

Ingredients:
* Egg
* Water
* Salt and pepper
* Flour

Directions:
* There really isn't any measuring involved so I will try to lay it out for you as best as possible.
1. Take 1 egg and crack into a bowl. Fill one half of the egg shell with warm water and whisk together with egg.
2. Add pinches of salt and pepper.
3. Add flour to mixture until the egg mixture can't hold anymore. I found this to be about 1 cup flour per 1 egg ratio. You will need to mix it together and then dig in with your hands to help form the dough.
4. Let dough set for 10-30 minutes.
5. Take dough and roll out with some flour until very flat. Then using a pizza cutter cut into the desired shape and style of noodles you want.
6. Lay them out to dry for 10-24 hours. I let mine either set overnight or just all day if I make them in the morning.

You can freeze these in containers or bags. They are AMAZING in Chicken Noodle Soup!

I can't wait to experiment with these more. Adding some Tastefully Simple Seasonings in them - I think our Spinach and Herb seasoning would be awesome!

Banana Bread

I have been looking for a good banana bread recipe for years. However these past 6 months I have been extra inspired as I buy bananas several times a month for our sweet girl who wants one every morning for breakfast. 
Sometimes I buy too many or they just go bad too quickly as bananas often do. My mom suggested to use a recipe that had sour cream in it. It breaks all the rules of being dairy free in my kitchen but it is a great recipe to make up and freeze the bread. It made great gifts for friends this past holiday season and easy to pull out and serve when we have guests for breakfast. Thankful to have no more wasted browning bananas in this kitchen. 

Kitchen Note:
There is a very small amount of sour cream in this recipe so I was able to eat the bread and survive :). 
However if you want to avoid the dairy all together there is a great lactose - soy free sour cream made by Green Valley. 

Ingredients:
* 3-4 ripe bananas
* 1 cup sugar
* 3/4 cup butter (earth balance is still my go to brand)
* 2 eggs
* 1/3 cup sour cream
* 1 tsp vanilla extract
* 2 cups flour
* 1.5 tsp baking powder


Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 5x9-inch loaf pan.
2. Mash bananas in a bowl with a fork.  Add 1 cup sugar and beat the bananas and sugar with an electric mixer until creamed and fluffy, 3 minutes. Beat in melted butter, eggs, sour cream, and vanilla extract until thoroughly combined.
3. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl and stir the flour mixture into banana-sugar mixture. Fold in mashed bananas. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and tap the pan on the counter several times to remove any air pockets. 
4. Bake in the preheated oven until bread is golden brown on top and set in the center, 1 hour and 15 minutes; rotate bread pan in oven halfway through baking. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing to finish cooling on a wire rack.

Beef - Polenta Pie

I am finally starting to feel creative in my kitchen again. Being a new mom is hard whether you stay at home or work outside the home there are challenges all around. Now that our sweet girl is 12 months old I feel like I am carving out a new routine in life and finding my way back into the kitchen where I love to be creative. I was craving polenta the other night and just went onto a google search knowing that I had green beans and ground beef to use up in the freezer. Here is a great one I found with my modifications.

ingredients

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

• 1 6 ounce package  portobello mushroom caps, cut into cubes

• 1 onion, chopped

• 1 1/4 pounds ground beef

• Salt and pepper

• 1 14 1/2 ounce can  crushed fire-roasted tomatoes

• 1 cup instant polenta

• 1/2 cup heavy cream

• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese, plus more for sprinking

• 1 10 ounce package  frozen green beans, thawed and drained

directions

1. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the mushrooms and onion and cook, stirring, until softened, about 7 minutes. Add the beef, season with salt and pepper and cook over medium-high heat, stirring, until browned, 4 to 5 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes, lower the heat and simmer.
2. In a medium saucepan, bring 3 cups water and 3/4 teaspoon salt to a boil. Whisk in the polenta until thickened, about 3 minutes. Whisk in the cream, parmesan and 1/4 teaspoon pepper until smooth; pour into a large casserole dish.
3. Stir the green beans into the beef mixture and cook over medium heat, stirring, until warmed through, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Spoon the mixture over the polenta and top with more parmesan.