Chicken Pot Pie

I know chicken pot pie is probably a winter dish but I DO WHAT I WANT!  And I felt like chicken pot pie this weekend.  I decided to make my own, lightened up version.  After all, I'm still on my quest lose approximately 300 pounds.  Anyways, the great thing about this recipe, is you can use whatever you have in your refrigerator or freezer.

Ingredients
Refrigerated biscuits
Boneless, skinless chicken breasts - diced and seasoned
1/4 c. Mirepoix (diced carrots, onions, celery)
1 TB butter or olive oil
1 TB flour
1/4 c. chicken stock
1/8 c. milk
Any vegetables you want
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees






1. Flatten each refrigerated biscuit and place in bottom of lightly greased ramekin.
2. Bake in oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes
3. On stove top, heat 1 TB butter or olive oil and cook chicken and mirepoix
4. Once chicken is browned and vegetables have caramelized, dust with flour.  Mix until flour is incorporated.
5. Deglaze pan with chicken stock and milk.  Your chicken mixture should be nice and thick.  (If you have any other vegetables you want to incorporate, now is the time.) Season your mixture one more time.
6. Spoon chicken mixture into ramekins with half-baked biscuits.  Place another flattened biscuit on top of chicken pot pie mixture.
7. Bake for 20 minutes.

Mmmm....good.

Pernil

For those of you tired of the bacon recipes, I bring you a pork recipe!  (See what I did there.)

For my Latino friends, pernil is nothing new.  However to my circle of friends and family, pernil was a life-altering addition to our holiday dinner tables.  Pernil is a slow roasted cut of delicious fatty and marbled pork shoulder.  Although the recipe and the cut of meat may look intimidating, it is very easy to make.  And trust me, people will be talking about this dish for years to come.  

Ingredients

1 pork shoulder arm picnic (preferably more than 10 lbs)
1 t. of salt per lb.
1 packet of Sazon
12 minced garlic cloves
3 T. olive oil
3 T. vinegar
1 1/2 t. dried oregano
1 roasting pan (like what you use for turkeys)




1. Wash your pork shoulder and place skin side up in roasting pan.  Slice 1 inch deep holes all over pork shoulder.

2. In food processor or blender, mix together salt, sazon, garlic cloves, olive oil, vinegar, and oregano.

3. Take your herb mix and lather up that pork shoulder.  Make sure you get the herb mixture deep into the cuts on the pork.

4. Wrap the pork tightly in foil and let it marinate for at least 8 hours. (You can do this up to 2 days.)

5. Bake in preheated 325 degree oven for 6 hours.

6. Unwrap the foil to expose the skin.  Bake for another hour at 375 degrees to allow the skin to get crispy.

Make sure you serve the pernil in all of it's juices.  Also, if you think it's amazing the first day, it's even better as leftovers.

Seriously, you're GOING to thank me later.

Salmon with White Wine Sauce

I've been getting requests for non-bacon recipes *cough* Janay *cough* ...  so here's one for ya: Salmon with White Wine Sauce.

Ingredients:
*1 salmon fillet
Salt & Pepper
Joe's Stuff (A special seasoning from my beloved NOLA)
1 TB Butter
1 minced garlic clove
1/2 c. white wine
1 c. rice
Olive oil

1. Season salmon fillets with salt, pepper, and Joe's Stuff.  Cajun seasoning will do just fine.

2. Pour oil in your pan, place your salmon skin side down.  Cook for about 4-5 minutes on each side.

3. In a small saucepan melt butter and whisk in your minced garlic.  Add wine and bring to a boil while constantly whisking.

4. Place your salmon over your rice then pour your sauce over your salmon.

Now you may eat.


*Obviously the portions for this recipe are for one person since, ya know, I'm living that single life...

Bacon Vanilla Pancakes

Just to solidify by reign as the Queen of Bacon, I bring to you Bacon Vanilla Pancakes. (I'll give you a minute to process.) And yes, they taste as good as they sound. And they were mad easy to make.

Ingredients

Bacon

Pancake Mix
Just a pinch of Vanilla Extract

*A piece of advice: you can put as much or as little bacon as you want in each pancake. I did a 2 pancakes to 1 strip of bacon ratio. Feel free to do whatever you want.

1. Fry your bacon, as much as or as little as you want.  (For you non-pork eaters, I guess you could do this with turkey bacon *rolls eyes*)

2.  Mix your pancake mix and pour it into your pan.

3.  Right before you get ready to flip the pancakes (when the batter starts bubbling) sprinkle bacon crumbles into your pancake.  Again, as much or as little as you want.

4.   Flip your pancake.

This is what the finished pancake looks like on the bottom.

5. Voila!

Trust me, you'll thank me later.

Mad Good Chicken

Yes, it's another chicken recipe.  I'm Black.  Deal with it.

Also, I didn't take pictures cuz it was my first time making this dish.  Whenever I make a dish for the first time, I never know how it will turn out so I don't usually take pictures...but this was mad good.  That's why I call it Mad Good Chicken.

Ingredients
Chicken Thighs
Dijon Mustard
Mayo
Soy Sauce
Seasoned Bread Crumbs
Panko Bread Crumbs
Salt & Pepper

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees
2. Mix together Mustard, a bit of Mayo, and a bit of Soy Sauce.  The actual recipe called for Worcestershire sauce, but since I'm the Ghetto Gourmet, I used leftover soy sauce packets for the win!  I mixed these together in a large plastic freezer bag for easy clean up.
3. Put your chicken thighs into your bag of goodness and mix around.
4. In a separate shallow dish, mix together seasoned bread crumbs, a small amount of panko bread crumbs, and salt and pepper.
5. Coat your chicken thighs in the bread crumb mixture and place on a lightly greased baking sheet.  (If you have a baking rack, even better)
6. Lightly drizzle some olive oil over your chicken things, skin side up.
7. Bake your chicken for 45-50 minutes.

Sweet N Sexy Sangria

So y'all know I love my friends & I love alcohol cooking for them.  Although I'm not a fan of wine, I do love a glass of sangria.  My friends and I recently had a picnic in Central Park complete with basket and blanket;  I was responsible for libations.

Ingredients

1 Bottle of Red Wine

1/2 c. Brandy

1 c. Orange Liqueur

*3 c. Lemon lime soda

1 c. Sugar

1 c. to 1 1/2 c. Water

A whole buncha fruit  (I used blackberries, an orange, strawberries and an apple)

*I didn't have any soda so I used my old steady Crystal Light Lemonade.  She always comes through in the clutch.

The cast of characters

1. Mix all of the ingredients together in a large bowl

2. Cover with foil and refrigerate over night

3. If it's too sweet, just add water in 1/3 c. increments

Ummm, this was delicious.

Div's Monkey Bread

 

I didn't grow up eating monkey bread (I'm looking at YOU, Ma) but I should have.  There's cinnamon, sugar, brown sugar, bread...what I imagine clouds taste like.  

This monkey bread was a part of a delicious brunch I recently had at my apartment for a few of my girls.  We had brunch, mimosas, and made visions boards.  Who knew cutting out pictures and crafting could be so therapeutic but we had so much fun.  

I made my monkey bread in these beautiful Rachel Ray ramekins, but you could use a muffin pan also.   

Ingredients

1 or 2 cans of refrigerated biscuits

Cinnamon & Sugar mixture

Brown Sugar

Cooking Spray

Egg Wash

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees or whatever temperature the biscuits recommend.
2. Spray ramekins (or muffin tins) with cooking spray then sprinkle a light coating of brown sugar over cooking spray.
3. Cut biscuits into fourths or sixths.
4. Coat each piece of biscuit in egg wash then cinnamon/sugar mixture.
5. Place your coated pieces of biscuit in your ramekins.  You can put as many or as little pieces as you would like.  This is where you freestyle.
6. Bake for 30 minutes until golden brown and biscuits are done.

Now, some people make an icing to put on the monkey bread.  Those people are just being greedy.  Bon appetit! 

Honey Soy Chicken Thighs

Chicken Recipe #575830296

And this one is a good one!  Honey Soy Chicken Thighs...yessss!  So I mistakenly doubled the sauce ingredients for this recipe...oh well, the sauce is delicious, so it's cool.  These are the real recipe ingredients.

Ingredients
4 thighs
Salt & Pepper
1 TB oil
1 TB ketchup
1/4 c. soy sauce
1/2 c. honey
1 or 2 garlic cloves, minced
8X8 dish

I didn't even take pictures of this while I was making it cuz I didn't know how it was going to turn out but it's amazing so I needed yall to know about it ASAP.  So let's pretend we have pictures:

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees

2.  Season the chicken with salt & pepper.  Not too much salt, the soy sauce is already salty.

3.  Spray dish with cooking spray

4.  Pour the sauce over the chicken and coat the chicken.  Place chicken skin side down.

5.  Cook for 30 minutes.  Turn chicken.  Cook for another 30 minutes.

6. Lower temperature to 375 degrees, cook for another 15 minutes.

Your chicken will be fall off the bone delicious.  You can thank me in the comment section.

Cheese Biscuits

This recipe post is an homage to my childhood.  My mother would dutifully make breakfast for our family every Saturday morning.  One of our family favorites were cheese biscuits.  As an adult, I love to find different uses for food, so these cheese biscuits were a perfect way to remix the standard refrigerated biscuits.

Ingredients:
1 can refrigerated biscuits
1/4 c. of cheddar cheese for each cheese biscuit
Cooking spray

1.  Flatten out each biscuit

2.  Place cheese in center of each flattened biscuit

3. Fold in the sides of your biscuits over the cheese

4. Bake for whatever time it says on the package

5. Boom. 

Honey-Mustard Salmon

In my quest to lose half my body weight, I have tried nearly every diet in the book.  One diet that I really liked was The South Beach Diet and this was one of my go-to recipes when I was on South Beach: Honey-Mustard Salmon.  And yes, it is as good as it sounds.  Actually, I'ma give yall 2 recipes in one post.  (Please, contain your excitement.)

*Ingredients:
For the Salmon:

Salmon
Honey or Agave
Mustard
Dill

For Honey-Mustard Sauce:

Mustard
Mayo
Honey or Agave

1.  Grease a pan with a non-stick cooking spray.

2.  Glaze salmon with honey (I use agave nectar cuz I'm healthier than you), mustard, and sprinkle with Dill

3. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until your salmon flakes on your fork

Now, I told yall I would give you 2 recipes this post, so here is my recipe for the best honey-mustard sauce.  You can use it with this salmon, chicken nuggets, whatever you want.

1. Take all these ingredients and mix til it tastes good.  

*You'll notice there are no measurements for this recipe...you just gotta feel it.

Rosemary-Garlic Chicken Burgers

This burger is way prettier than the one I made...

Next on the list of 17857893 things you can do with chicken....Rosemary-Garlic Chicken Burgers!

I think chicken burgers are better than turkey burgers because they hold so much more flavor.  I found this recipe from Giada de Laurentiis on the Food Network.  It calls for some fresh ingredients but I used dried (I mean, I'm not a millionaire) and it was just as good.

Enjoy!   

Baked French Toast ~ Lightened Up

One of my favorite recipes is Paula Deen's Baked French Toast.  It's sweet, it's decadent, it has 2 sticks of butter.  Since I'm tryna get my body back, that's a no go.  So this is the lightened up version.  Baked French Toast is great breakfast cuz you usually have all the ingredients you need in your house.

Ingredients:
Brioche bread
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1 T. brown sugar
Cinnamon
1/4 c. <<Secret Ingredient>>

1. Dice up your bread in 1-inch pieces and place in your baking dish.

 2. Mix your brown sugar and cinnamon with your bread pieces.

3. Mix together your eggs and milk....and this is where you add the secret ingredient...Disaronno*

4.Push the bread pieces down with a fork until they are covered with your milk mixture.

5. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

*Disaronno is an almond liqueur.  You can achieve the same flavor profile using almond extract but using liqueur is funner.  

Pollo Ajillo

It's another chicken recipe!  Told yall, there are 234809 million ways to make chicken.  Pollo Ajillo translates to, I think, Chicken in Garlic sauce.  Although I'm not really sure, I failed Spanish in college.  Anyways, here's the recipe.  This has a lot of steps but it's very easy to make.

Ingredients:
4 chicken thighs
3 potatoes
9-12 garlic cloves
1 c. of white or red wine
Quarter of an onion, cut in chunks
1 T of olive oil
Salt & Pepper

1. Season your chicken thighs with salt & pepper.  Heat oil in pan and brown chicken thighs.

2. After chicken is nicely browned on both sides, put the chicken aside and let it rest.

3. Cut your potatoes into bite size chunks.  Throw them in the pan.

4. On top of the potatoes, place your onions and garlic.

5. Put your chicken back in the pan and don't forget to pour in the sauce leftover on that plate.

6. Add your cup of wine

7. Cover and cook for 45 minutes on medium heat.

8. After 45 minutes, your potatoes will start to brown so rearrange the food in the pan.

9. Top with parsley

This dish is sooo good, I promise you'll want to eat it all in one sitting; the potatoes get crispy, the roasted garlic gets a lil sweet, the onions caramelize.  And your house will smell amazing while it's cooking.  Ooo, think I might throw some pancetta in the mix next time...yall know how I feel about bacon!

Mini Apple Pies

It's that time again, more mini food.  I think I love mini food cuz I don't feel as bad when I eat seven.  Anyway, this time I made mini apple pies.

Ingredients:
1 Pie Crust
1 Large Apple
Salt
1 t. of Cinnamon
Sugar
1 T. of Brown Sugar
Nutmeg
1 T. of Flour
Lemon Juice
Butter

1. Cut your pie crust into small circles.  I used a mug and just traced the mouth of it with my knife.

2. Grease your muffin pan with non-stick cooking spray and place your pie crusts in the cupcake pan

3. Cook your pie crust, uncovered, for 10 minutes in a 450 degree oven (or whatever the package says)

In the meantime....

4. Dice your apple into small pieces.  Add a dash of salt, a dash of nutmeg, and a few squirts of lemon juice.  Then mix in your brown sugar, cinnamon, and flour.

5. Once your pie crusts are browned, place your diced apples in each cup.  They won't fit in perfectly, that's fine.

6. Top your mini pies with a mini piece of butter. (You know what, you can skip this step...save yourself 10 calories.)

7. Bake, covered, for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

These mini apple pies are A-dorbs.  You could top them with whipped cream, or serve them with a spoonful of ice cream or my fav, an ice cold glass of skim milk.  And yes I said skim milk.

Cheesy Ham Casserole

Yall already know my love for bacon, but I'm also a fan of it's cousin, ham.  (Aight, I love all pork.)  Now, not that nasty deli ham but real, Sunday dinner, Christmas ham.  This is a recipe I've been making for years cuz it's easy and involves pretty much whatever is left over in your refrigerator.

Ingredients:

Leftover Ham

Rotini Pasta

Cheddar Cheese

Miracle Whip

Green Peppers (and or Onions, Corn, etc.)

Broccoli Cuts

1. Dice up your leftover ham, green peppers, onions, and broccoli

2. Cook your rotini

3. Add 4 dollops of Miracle Whip. (You might wanna go with light whip to avoid the future heart attack)

4. Add cheese

5. Now mix (You can top your casserole with cheese, french onions, or bread crumbs if you wanna jazz it up)

6. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes

Chicken Roll Ups ... 4 Ways

Well, as yall know, I love chicken. *cue Mary J. Blige*  So I wanted to share how I transform this 1 recipe 4 ways.  The great thing about this recipe is you can use any ole ingredient you have lying around in your refrigerator.

Ingredients:
Chicken Breast
Italian Bread Crumbs
Any kinda Cheese
Whatever else you got in your refrigerator

I must admit that I cheat a lil bit cuz I buy my chicken already seasoned & already flattened.  But, yall can easily do this step.  Get your chicken breasts, place them in a ziploc bag or wrap them in saran wrap.  Butterfly it, then beat that chicken like it stole your wallet.  Once your chicken is flattened, season it with your favorite Italian seasonings.

Now comes the fun part: picking your stuffing.  The great thing about this recipe is the combinations are endless.  The combos I've used so far have been:

Herbed Soft Cheese + Prosciutto

Provolone Cheese + Caramelized Red Onions + Prosciutto

Provolone Cheese + Pepperoni + Spaghetti Sauce

Broccoli + Cheddar Cheese + Chopped Onions

Now that you've chosen your combos, lay them on top of your chicken cutlet.  Now it's time to roll 'em like you would a burrito.  

After you roll them, dredge your chicken roll ups in Italian bread crumbs.  

Spray your baking dish with non-stick cooking spray and lay your chicken roll-ups seam side down.  (Trust me on this, you don't want all your filling to "roll" out.)

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes on side, then flip them over and bake for another 10-15 minutes.

Then voila. Magic.

What stuffing will you put in your chicken roll ups?  

Cinnamon Toast Crunch French Toast

I know, sounds amazing.  Well, it is.

The star

Ingredients:

Bread

Eggs 

Milk

Butter

Pinch o' salt

Cinnamon Toast Crunch

1. Mix your eggs and milk as you would any traditional french toast mixture.  Put a lil pinch of salt into your egg mixture

2. Take a few handfuls of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal and crush to smithereens.  

3. Dredge your bread into your egg mixture.  (I used brioche cut up into small pieces)

4. Now, coat your bread in the Cinnamon Toast Crunch-ies

5. Butter your pan

6. Put your bread in the pan & cook until each side turns golden brown

And there you have it.  French toast-y.  Cinnamon-y.  Crunch-y.  Perfection. 

Bacon, Egg, & Cheese Cups

I saw this recipe during my daily perusing of recipe blogs.  Couple things I love about this recipe: 

• It's mini (I'm obsessed with muffin cups.  From now on, all my food will be muffin-sized.)
• It's breakfast
• There's bacon
• Only 5 ingredients!

I used challah bread since I had some laying around but I'm sure this would work with french bread or any of them other fancy breads.

Ingredients:

Challah Bread

3 eggs

1 c. milk

Cheddar Cheese

3 slices of bacon cooked

Dash of Black Pepper  

1. Dice your bread into 1-inch cubes

2. Cook your bacon

3. Grease your muffin cups

4. Separate bread cubes into your muffin cups

5. Top your bread cubes with shredded cheddar cheese and bacon crumbles

6. Mix your eggs and milk in a separate bowl and season with pepper (I think next time I'll add Lawry's ... everything's better with Lawry's)

7. Pour egg mixture over each muffin cup

8. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until your knife comes out clean

Yeah I ate one before I took the last picture ... so sue me

The original recipe calls for this to soak overnight.  If you were using a crusty bread or day old bread, that's probably your best bet.  Challah sucks up everything, so this didn't need to soak overnight.  And I wanted to eat it immediately...

Mini BBQ Meatloaf

As yall know I love to cook.  What you prolly didn't know was that I used to live in a shoebox. (More on this in a future post.)  This makes cooking difficult since you can't stock your kitchen full of cool kitchen gadgets.  One thing that makes this easier is making food mini.  I decided to take my favorite meatloaf recipe (it's BBQ!) and make Mini BBQ Meatloaf.

Ingredients:
1 lb Meatloaf Mix (or you can use Ground Beef or Ground Turkey)
3 strips of cooked bacon (I guess you could use turkey bacon, but why would you)
1/4 c. of caramelized onions
3/4 c. of Italian Breadcrumbs
1/2 c. of BBQ sauce + 1/4 c. extra
1 egg

1. Mix together all of the ingredients except the bacon.

2. Spray muffin pans with non-stick cooking spray.

3. Separate out your meatloaf mix into 12 giant meatballs.

4. Press meatballs into mini loaves with a fork & top each mini meatloaf with some BBQ sauce.

5. Bake for 40 minutes at 350 degrees.

6. Take out the oven & crumble bacon strips on top of each meatloaf.

7. Put back in the oven for 5 more minutes.

And there you have your mini meatloaves.  No need for a meatloaf pan AND they're portioned controlled! (+1 for weight loss).  Enjoy!