Orange Chicken - Quick, Easy, Delicious!

Ingredients:
2 Lbs of chicken tenderloins
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
4 Tsp lemon juice
1 Cup orange marmalade
2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
Salt
Pepper

Other Utensils:
Skillet
Tongs
Measuring cups
Measuring spoons
Baster/brush

Directions: 
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Melt butter/oil in skillet. 

Salt and pepper chicken. 

Brown both sides of the chicken lightly. 

Mix mustard, marmalade, and lemon juice together - whisk vigorously for 1 minute. If you don't do it for an entire minute exactly - we will know. And the chicken police will be headed to your location. 

Remove chicken from pan. 

Drain skillet. 

Return chicken to pan and cover with orange mixture, coating chicken thoroughly. 

Cook on each side 1-2 minutes on stovetop. 

Slide into oven for 3 minutes. 

Flip chicken. Baste/brush chicken with orange sauce. 

Return to oven for 3 more minutes. 

Continue process until chicken is cooked through. Mine only took the one on each side, but every chicken is - if nothing else - a special snowflake in its own right. Only tastier than snowflakes. Way way tastier. 

Broil on low for just a few moments. To get the slightly browned look you see in the pictures above. Maybe 2 minutes on low, tops.

Remove chicken from pan and return pan and sauce to stovetop. 

Cook until sauce reduces slightly and pour glaze over chicken. 

Serve. 

I made this first with bone-in chicken thighs. They work wonderfully, too. Here's their closeup, Mr. Deville. 

But I find you have to work harder to eat bone-in chicken thighs. And, selfishly, I just wanted to eat all of them. So we tried the next time with boneless tenderloins. The result was nothing short of amazing.

I wish I would have snapped a better shot of both times I made this in the last week or two. But, seriously, it vanishes so quick - I haven't had an opportunity to!

Good luck, let me know if you make your own version and how it turns out! 

Lemon Honey Rosemary Chicken

I made this the other night and posted it to Facebook. A few friends asked for the recipe. I have done my best to recreate it here (I stink at remembering how I cook things, at times, but really I don't think I forgot anything here..? Heh!) Here it is! It was marvelous, really. I feel like there's something wrong with saying that about your own cooking - but I suppose I never followed the rules anyway, right? 

Ingredients:
2-3 lbs of chicken breasts (I used bone in)
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons honey
2 lemons
2 shallots
6-10 "stalks" of rosemary
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil cooking spray

Other Utensils:
Skillet
Tongs
Food processor (or excellent chopping skills)
Measuring cups
Knife
Cutting board
Lemon juicer


Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. 

Take half of the rosemary sprigs and de-leaf them. (You know that's not the technical term for any of that, right? This isn't the Food Network. This is a blog that a hungry girl is typing up...I think you'll be okay though. Just keep up, kids.)

Throw two shallots and the rosemary into the food processor and pulse for a few moments.

Juice lemons until you reach 1/4 of a cup. Try not to get yourself in the eyeball. Good luck, my friends. I'm rooting for you. 

Combine the lemon juice, oil olive, and honey. Add to food processor. Pulse well. 

Cut the remaining lemons into cute little thin circles. I made sure I had two lemon circles for each piece of chicken. They really weren't paying attention to how many they received though, those fowl are flighty sometimes - see what I did there?

Spray chicken with olive oil cooking spray. Salt and pepper. Flip after a few minutes and do the same to the other sides, of course. Again, not technical cooking skills here,people. I don't know what you were expecting. I'm sorry. Sorrynotsorry?

When both sides of the chicken look sufficiently tanned (but not Snooki orange) pour the liquid over the chicken. Stand back and enjoy the smell, because seriously? So good.

Add remaining "stalks" (Someone with culinary experience reading this is dying as I butcher what to call rosemary stuff) and lemon circles to the skillet. Make it look pretty, there will be awards appointed to the best looking ones.

Cover with foil. 

Pop into oven.

Cook for 20 minutes.

Remove pan and foil carefully. Spoon liquid over chicken. 

Cover with foil and return to the oven. The chicken, not you. This isn't Hansel and Gretel, people. 

Cook another 20 minutes. 

Remove from oven. Let sit briefly. It has been a long journey for these birds. They need a nap. Or to cool so you don't burn your mouth off.

Enjoy!

Here's where it gets weird. My sister came in from work and started eating it and said it was missing something. She ended up cutting into a whole breast and eating it that way. I was so sad to see she wanted barbeque sauce. But then I tasted it. It wasn't flavorful enough. But the chicken breasts were huge. When I went in for mine, I sliced off a few big piece of the breast and let it sit in the liquid in the pan. I added salt and pepper to taste when I removed the pieces from the pan and plopped them (lovingly of course) onto my plate... and it was divine. Try it both ways. I think you'll agree with me. I think next time I make it I will toss it into the crock pot after browning instead to let the flavors meld and marry more (equal rights for food, guys, let them marry) because the flavors were outstanding. Also if your chicken breasts aren't gigantic you may not have that same issue that we did.

This was a big experiment. So if you try it let me know what you thought and if you tried the letting it sit in the juices for a few and enjoyed it as much as I did!

Note: You don't need a food processor. You could chop and stir all of that. I'm just lazy and have an amazing "Ninja" processor. Thanks, Grandma! You have enabled my laziness.

Easy Potato Soup (Gluten-free, vegetarian option, 6 Ingredients!)

My mom is my best food critic and lover. Sometimes we can't agree on food, however. This is one of those days. I love my potato soup full of cheese. I want it to be stringy with melted cheese with every bite. She does not. Unfortunately, besides just adding tons of heavy cream, I wasn't sure how to make it really creamy without the cheese. I just dump in a lot. And there you go - voila! Tasty and thick wonderful potato soup. This weekend we tried to figure out a good non-cheesey but creamy potato soup. I think, after putting together a few ideas from different recipes we were browsing through, we have found a winner! We both agreed the soup was good. And I settled with some cheese and bacon on top of mine to still make it the way I like it. Best of all? Incredibly easy. This could easily be adapted for vegetarians, as well. No garlic, no flour, gluten-free. And all around awesome.




Ingredients:

10-12 potatoes
Chicken Broth (8 cups or so)
1 1/2 packages cream cheese
Onion
salt
pepper
bacon (for topping, if desired)
cheese (for topping, if desired)

Other Utensils:

Peeler
Knife
Large pot
Potato masher thingamabob
Empty stomach with which to enjoy all the tasty treats


Directions:

Peel and dice potatoes. Big chunks are totally acceptable.

Cut the onion into large chunks and toss into the pot.

Cover potatoes and onion with chicken broth (I use a lot, for many leftovers and because I usually put mine over bread which thickens it. You decide, after they boil, if you'd like less or more juice and drain or add, easy peasy.)

Bring to a boil.

Turn to low heat.

Add salt and pepper for taste (Remember it is a large pot of soup, so you may need more)

Let potatoes turn tender and then use potato masher for thickening. Mash as few or as many as you want. Don't worry about doing it in a pretty or uniform way. You're just going to be enjoying how tasty it is. I don't mash much because the potatoes are so soft and they're falling apart by now, anyway. But the mixture of chunks and creamy soup is perfect. So you may want to mash just a bit. You can't screw this up, so do whatever you think, at this point! It's still going to taste wonderful. 

Here's where it gets weird. Toss in the cream cheese. Mine didn't always melt totally when I tried this, so you may want to let it get to room temperature. And maybe cut it up. I didn't and I had to scoop some chunks out because I wasn't ready to bite into pieces of cream cheese. Heh.

Let the cream cheese melt, stirring from time to time. When it melts completely, turn the pot off, leave the lid on and move aside until ready to eat.

Pour into a bowl and seriously get ready to be overfull in no time.

Note: This had tons of leftovers. I froze over half of what I made. But I'm excited to eat it again. Also I used less cream cheese than I reccommended for you to use, here. And it wasn't thick enough for my mother's liking (and that's what we were going for) If that happens to you, too? We fixed it easily by throwing some of the bread we had heated up onto the bottom of the bowl and pouring the soup over the top. Perfect. Thick, chunky, tasty. And soft potato soup soaked bread to eat at the end of the bowl? One of the best "mistakes" you can make in a kitchen setting if you ask me. Next time we'll just use more cream cheese, however.

I topped mine with the bacon and cheese pieces. If you're looking for a vegatarian option, use veggie broth instead and omit the bacon. And without the flour rue that many soups call for - this also makes a great gluten-free option, too. (I use homemade chicken brothe, more often - but Swanson's is gluten free as well!)

Easy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies (No Nuts, No Flour!)

This is, without a doubt, one of the easiest recipes I have ever found. I keep adding to it and trying it different ways. And they're always fabulous.

I first made these, years ago, for a special little girl in my life with Celiac Disease. It's so hard to find good treats for them. And it's hard enough when you're an adult - but to be a child and not have a decent cookie? Ridiculous. So we tried everything. This was one that stuck and we still make today. Only now we add chocolate chips, because - why not?!

Ingredients:

1 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Other Utensils:

Large bowl
Spoon
Cookie sheet
Cooling Racks


Directions:

Preheat oven to: 350 degrees.

In large bowl, combine the sugar and peanut butter until well mixed. Add the egg. Stir until combined completely. Fold in chocolate chips.

(I would use mini-chips, only I never have them. So I usually take almost 1/2 cup of large chips and throw them into my food processor to create a small - albeit not well formed and pretty - chocolate piece. You could use the normal sized chips, as well. I just find that they're a bit large for the small cookies I prefer to make mine into and the small pieces fit better and melt a tad better). 

Drop the dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet and press down slightly. I make my cookies almost bite-sized. So I usually get at least 20 cookies from this recipe.

Bake for 8-10 minutes. Let cookies sit for 5 minutes (this is important! moving them too soon is not only difficult, but messy as they will crumble) and then transfer to a wire cooking rack to cool.


Most importantly: ENJOY!

Variations:
These are great without the chocolate chips.
These are also just as great with Splenda as a substitute for sugar.