Cast Iron & What to do with lots of Chicken

This post may be a little bit stranger than my average post and well... we're all strange but strange is relative... lol

ok
Lots of chicken to cook 'whole cut up frozen chicken 4-5 lbs' worth of lots of chicken to cook.

1/2 of it gets browned in a cast iron dutch oven with only 1 T olive oil and a chopped clove of garlic and all the chicken gets salted and peppered as it browns.  Then put the lid on the dutch oven and put it in a preheated 350 degree oven for 1 hour.

Looks like this when it comes out


and chicken like this needs rice and gravy




and stir fried veggies


the rest of the chicken went in this pot


and got turned into soup, chicken salad sandwiches, and added to bread pizza

the soup used the leftover rice and stir fried veggies too :)

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pizza sauce

take these ingredients:
can of whole tomatoes, chopped clove garlic, basil, oregano, salt, pepper
and
cook the tomatoes with the garlic and spices until enough liquid cooks out of the tomatoes for it to reach a sauce consistency... I tear the tomatoes apart when I first dump them in the pot, do this by small pieces carefully or you'll squeeze tomato stuff all over yourself... lol

of course if the tomatoes are already diced there is no need to tear them apart...

this time I did something a little different as well...


I used my new magic bullet blender and pureed my pizza sauce... mmmm

Bread Pizza

the ingredients:

once again I'm using my homemade pizza sauce

the bread is from the day old (~ lol) discount bread rack at the store which is a great deal as long you use it up in time before it molds of course

I've chopped up Canadian bacon and sausage (~well pork patties) and green pepper and onion





just spread the sauce on the bread and add whatever you've got chopped up



Then add your cheese and I've added some crushed up dried leeks and sprinkled some marjoram on top - marjoram can used in place of oregano

put your pans in the oven on broil and cook just until the cheese is melted and the edges of the bread are browned to your liking

time to eat!

The Turkey Burger Experiment!

Ok this is one of those 'use what you have' to try and 'make something great' experiments. 

And, of course

I had some things that really needed to be used like

these buns that had been shoved in the freezer lol.  So I thawed them out on the counter all day.

I took a can of diced tomatoes and made my pizza sauce, the same way I've made it for my:
 Pizza Chicken Dinner

and my

Easy Homemade Pizza


which is:
take these ingredients:
can of whole tomatoes, chopped clove garlic, basil, oregano, salt, pepper
and
cook the tomatoes with the garlic and spices until enough liquid cooks out of the tomatoes for it to reach a sauce consistency...  I tear the tomatoes apart when I first dump them in the pot, do this by small pieces carefully or you'll squeeze tomato stuff all over yourself... lol

of course if the tomatoes are already diced there is no need to tear them apart...

this time I did something a little different as well...


I used my new magic bullet blender and pureed my pizza sauce... mmmm

 

I also used part of a box of turkey stuffing mix (~2/3 of the pack, a small part of which I turned into fine crumbs with the magic bullet) which makes this experiment a lot like my:
Turkey Stuffing Meatloaf Muffins

but I have to say this turned out much tastier, which may lead me to re-vamp that recipe at some time.

Ok, so I was also trying to use up a can of spinach.... now I love spinach, but canned spinach... not so much, couldn't figure out how to make it part of a tasty dish...  So I did use a big heaping tablespoon of the canned spinach, I also used 2 heaping tablespoons of the pizza sauce, I also used dried vegetables, (the soup blend) and dried leeks from the San Francisco Herb Co., salt, pepper, mustard seeds, garlic salt

also this was ground turkey in a tube like sausage and it was frozen.  I used my microwave's poultry defrost setting with the turkey on a plate with the metal ends sliced off, worked fine


so here it is with the first round of stuff to mix in... and then after

and I decided that wasn't nearly enough stuff....

so here we go with a second round of more added in

and I decided that was much more the way it needed to be and started pattying out burgers

since this is turkey, I added a little olive oil to the skillet and heated the oil before adding the burgers


the burgers browned pretty fast and I wasn't sure about them being done on the inside so I nuked each plate of burgers for 1 minute on high to make sure



getting ready to toast the buns - because I decided that might add to the flavor

I also made some key lime cajun mayo


also I had some onion sliced up really thin and at the last minute decided to saute most of it :)


so here we are at the end of the experiment with the finished product

:)


at that point I just threw chips on the plate and ate lol, I have to say it was really good.

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Cocoa

I've been meaning to hit the library's book sale room whenever I had a spare $10 in my pocket lol, but those have been few and far between since moving :).  But it finally happened the other day and I remembered to take/make the time to do it before my son got out of school, so I could look at my own pace :D

So I picked up a couple of Coffee table size cookbooks with lots of pictures... the kind I like best lol.  A smattering of other books too :).


In this one I came across a recipe for making your own cocoa mix :).  Knowing that this springlike weather is not going to last and seeing as how I had all the ingredients except for the marshmallows... it seemed like a good idea at the time. 
 

so I made both the plain cocoa mix and the mocha cocoa mix :)

 
Ah well, I was hoping that picture of the recipe would show up a bit better but anyway that was:
1 3/4 cup instant nonfat dry milk powder
1 cup powdered sugar (it calls for sifted - but I mixed all the ing. with a whisk and it worked fine)
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp cinnamon (I left this out just because....)
2/3 cup miniature marshmallows (left out because I didn't have them)

for the mocha cocoa the book says to omit the marshmallows and add 1/4 cup instant coffee granules to hot cocoa mix. (I also left the cinnamon out of that batch too, just made the above and added the instant coffee)

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Microwave Polenta Bread

I wanted something like cornbread but a little different and I wanted to start really using my tupperwave microwave stack cooking set

for more than just reheating/warming foods in the microwave

I've had my stack cooker for some time and was also lucky enough to be given a cookbook to go with it, it's a spiral bound book with separated pages which allow you to pick out three different recipes to 'stack' cook at once if you wish

fast and fresh stack cooked meals

Anyway one of the recipes for the 'top' stack which you use the inverted lid for is the following:

sour cream cornbread
2/3 cup flour
2/3 cup corn meal
1 T sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp each baking soda and salt
1 egg slightly beaten
2 T solid vegetable shortening, melted
1/4 cup milk
4 strips crisp cooked bacon, crumbled
2 T snipped chives

In med. bowl stir together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Make a well in center of mixture, add egg, shortening, 1 cup of sour cream and the milk to the well stir until just combined, pour mixture into inverted casserole cover - to cook individually cook on medium (50%) 12-14 minutes until top is no longer wet and cornbread pulls away from side of casserole, the recipe called for more sour cream to be spread on top and then sprinkled with the bacon and chives

MY VERSION
Microwave polenta bread
2/3 cup bisquick
2/3 cup polenta
1 heaping T sugar
1 egg slightly beaten
1 T olive oil
1/4 cup milk
about 1/2 cup of sour cream

12 minutes on 50% was all it needed


we ate it with potato soup

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