Tag Archives: family

Potatoes Stuffed with Rotisserie Chicken in a Peanut Sauce

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There has been a chill in the air all weekend which makes me crave comfort food. Stuffed potatoes takes me back to my childhood, but I have put a modern, and more healthy, twist on traditional baked potatoes.

I have always loved chicken with Asian chicken sauce. Until a trip to Indonesia, I made it Thai style with coconut milk, but an Indonesian woman taught me this recipe which I now use because it’s so easy and has minimal ingredients.

These serve as a main course and are inspired by chicken satay. This recipe is so easy! While the potatoes cook in the microwave, you can assemble everything else, including the sauce.  Then add a few condiments to adorn your dish and you are done.

 

Potatoes Stuffed with Rotisserie Chicken in a Peanut Sauce

Makes 4 modest portions or 2 large portions

2 large cooked Russet potatoes

2 rotisserie chicken breasts, shredded

Peanut Sauce (see recipe below)

2/3 cup shredded carrots

3 green onions

1 small cucumber, chopped

chopped cilantro to garnish

Peanut sauce:

½ cup boiling water

1/3 cup smooth peanut butter

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 teaspoon Tamari soy sauce

¼ teaspoon ginger paste

½ teaspoon lime juice

Note: This can serve as many as four if you use half a potato per person. We eat smaller dinners, so this is ample for my family, but some families may want a whole potato per person, in which case this will only serve two.

To microwave a regular potato, simply wash it, pierce it many times with a fork and then microwave for 4 minutes. Turn it over with tongs and cook another 3 minutes, until it’s super tender.

Pull breasts off chicken, shred with your hands and set aside.

To make the sauce, combine boiling water, peanut butter, brown sugar, soy sauce, ginger paste and lime juice. Stir until well combined and smooth.

Pour half of the sauce over the chicken and stir to coat. Set it aside and slice the green onions, chop the cilantro and cucumber.

Slice the potatoes in half and place one half on each plate. Add salt and pepper. Take a fork and smash the inside and add 1 teaspoon peanut sauce to each potato. Next, top with shredded chicken, carrots, cilantro, onion and cucumber. Drizzle with remaining peanut sauce and serve.

Chicken Alfredo

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Pasta is one dish I never order in a restaurant because it’s so easy and inexpensive to make at home. Like this Chicken Alfredo. The most time consuming part of this dish is cooking the pasta. I make mine with angel hair because the sauce sticks to the noodles more.

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Chicken Alfredo

Serves 4

Both breasts from rotisserie chicken

8 ounces angel hair pasta

¼ cup butter

1 garlic clove

1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

1 1/2 cusp fresh Parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat leaf parsley

2 tablespoons fresh basil

Salt and pepper to taste

Fresh chives (optional)

I use chives because we have them in our garden. It’s not worth buying chives for this dish, so the chives are optional. Also, I love basil in alfredo but you can skip it if you’re not crazy about basil.

Do not salt your sauce until the end because there is a lot of salt in cheese.

This dish comes together quickly at the end, so have everything prepped.

First, put water on to boil for pasta.

Then remove the chicken breasts and the skin and chop chicken into chunks and set aside.

Slice basil and chop parsley.

When water is ready, add the pasta

Cook pasta according to aldente directions on the box, strain and set aside.

In a large skillet , heat butter and garlic for 1 minute. Add heavy cream and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add Parmesan, chicken, pasta, parsley and basil. Cook 2 minutes until sauce sticks to pasta. Garnish with fresh  basil and chives, if desired. Serve immediately.

This photo does not do this dish justice. Just know it’s delicious!

Easter Macaroon Nests

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It’s not chicken, but it’s delicious. For the next few days, I am taking a break from my rotisserie chicken and sharing some great Easter desserts with you.

These macaroon nests are the BEST macaroons I’ve ever tried.

Instead of just egg whites, I use sweetened condensed milk. My husband came home the other night and I handed him a cookie and he said “I only want half.” I said “Trust me, you will want the whole thing. I used sweetened condensed milk.” That’s his weakness. He took a bite and said “You’re right. Can I have another?”

If children are going to be part of the celebration, you have to try my macaroon nests. These are absolutely delicious, and so easy for children to make. There’s only five ingredients and you mix it by hand, so you don’t have to mess with a beater and there’s no flour to spill all over the floor.

If the cookies don’t bake up into perfect rounds, when you take them out of the oven, you can shave off any edges and reshape them slightly while still warm. My recipe only makes about 10 cookies, but they are good size and the recipe can easily be doubled if that’s not enough.

Once you’ve filled the macaroon nests with jellybeans or a candy egg of your choice, them place them on a long platter and use it to decorate the center of the table.

If you don’t like the idea of food dye, leave them white.

These are gluten-free!

Macaroon Nests

Makes 10

1 egg white

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup sweetened condensed milk

2 1/3 cups shredded sweet coconut

4 drops green food coloring (optional)

Jelly beans or candy eggs of some sort

Parchment paper

Preheat oven to 325.

In a large bowl, whisk egg white for 20 seconds, until frothy. Whisk in vanilla and condensed milk and food coloring until combined. Stir in coconut until combined.

Spread a piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Spoon about 1 ½ to 2 tablespoons onto parchment paper and form a nest. Use your thumb to press gently down on the center to make an indentation so you can fill it later, but be sure not to press all the way through. You just need a little spot in the center. If you press through, the cookie may not hold its shape.

Bake for 18-20 minutes. Cool before placing candy eggs in the nest.

Chicken Tortilla Soup: Healthy, Easy, Delicious

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Woo Hoo, I did it! Revamped my delicious chicken tortilla soup and transformed it into a wonderful Rotisserie Chicken Queen soup. From start to finish, it took me 25 minutes!

My old version took about an hour and a half and this new version is spectacular! It has more ingredients than most of my recipes but it’s still easy.

If you enjoy the flavors or cumin, cilantro and corn, you should love this.

And it freezes beautifully, so if you are single or travel a lot, you can easily freeze it.  There’s about six servings in a pot and I ran the ingredients through one of those calorie calculations, and it has 311 calories a bowl. It was rated B+, which is awesome, so it’s nutritious as well as delicious.

It has 12 percent of your daily recommended intake of iron, 48 percent vitamin C, and 20 percent vitamin A.

If you made my Mexican Lasagna, you probably have left over corn tortillas, so you can use them in this. For future reference, corn tortillas freeze well, too.

You’ll notice, I give directions as if I am there with you in the kitchen because I know where the pauses are in my recipe and it helps you move faster. You don’t have to de-bone the chicken before you start the soup. If you do, you will add a little extra time to the 25 minutes I said it takes. I try to be as efficient as possible with whatever I make. “Efficient” is a commonly used word in my home and is usually greeted with a mental eye-roll from my husband. I don’t blame him. I strive to be more efficient with everything I do.

This is one efficient, yummy venture. I hope you enjoy it.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

1 teaspoon canola oil

1 large yellow onion

1 ½ teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon chili powder

½ teaspoon cumin seed

1 large red bell pepper

*1 garlic clove or dash of dehydrated garlic (see my note)

32-ounces reduced sodium chicken broth (one of those boxes of broth)

1 can of corn, drained

½ a bunch of cilantro

4 corn tortillas

1 tablespoon cornmeal (if you don’t have any, just add 2 more tortillas)

1 ½ cups chunky salsa (your favorite brand)

Meat from 1 rotisserie chicken

Avocado to garnish (optional)

*If you want to save time and you’re not cooking with dehydrated garlic, you need to buy some. It’s awesome! I tried it when I visited the New Orleans School of Cooking and I was skeptical, but instantly won over. Now I only use fresh garlic if I am making a dressing or something that must have it. Dehydrated garlic saves me time, effort and I don’t have stinky hands. You can order it online, but I recently bought some from Big Lots, of all places.  It was inexpensive, too. I’d call your local store before heading over.

Directions:

First, chop onion and red bell pepper and set aside (use a food processor, if you have it).

Split a head of cilantro in half and cut the stems off one half. Then bunch up the leaves and slice those and set aside.

In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat. When hot, add onion, cumin, chili powder and cumin seed. Stir occasionally while it cooks for about 7 minutes. While that cooks, do the next steps but be sure to stir the onion so it doesn’t burn.

Pile tortillas on top of each other, slice them and then cut into small squares and set aside.

Tear the meat off your chicken. Discard the skin or save it for another use. Coarsely chop the chicken and set aside (if you have time; if not, you will get to that in a second).

When onion is tender, add all the ingredients from the bell pepper through the salsa. You do not want to add the chicken yet because it’s already cooked. Bring soup to a soft boil and cook 10 minutes.

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is is what it looks like before it boils

Finish chopping your chicken, if you haven’t already

When soup has cooked 10 minutes, drop chicken in and turn off the heat. The soup is piping hot and will quickly heat the meat. See how creamy the soup looks now? Transformed in 10 minutes.

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Optional: Serve with a slice of avocado, crumbled up tortilla chips, cheese or plain. The calories calculated were plain. Stir the soup and serve.

Nutritional Analysis

Good points

High in niacin

High in selenium

High in vitamin B6

High in vitamin C

Bad points

High in sodium

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