Aussie Meat Pie Rip-off

Remember my Pie-less Pots?  Mix it all up the same:

Chicken:
Dice chicken breasts and "brown" in a skillet(I use about 4 or 5 large ones for my family of 6)
take a can of chicken broth/stock, mix with whatever you can pour off your chicken, 1-2 tsp of sea salt, and whisk in 2 or 3 TBSP of corn or potato starch, pour over your chicken, throw in mushrooms or whatever, wait til your "gravy" bubbles and thickens...*

Hamburger:
I use deer burger, but whatever lean burger you prefer is fine...1-2 pounds
saute 2 cups of sliced mushrooms in 1-2 TBSP of olive oil
pour in beef stock , salt, and corn or potato starch, pour over your meat and mushrooms, wait until your "gravy" bubbles and thickens....*

*Then throw the chicken or hamburger in pitas for a homemade version of the Australian Bakery Cafe...Charlotte fell in love with and has requested it for her birthday!! 

You can season with curry or jerk or add a smidgeon of Guiness or whatever sounds good to you...I love pie and stew recipes because they always have a little play in them for your tastes!

(Oh, and I have since the original recipe tried the potato starch, Bob's Red Mill has a great one for those avoiding corn...it's pretty cheap, and it works great!)

Light and Guiltless Buffalo Chicken

I threw some chicken in the crockpot yesterday.  I had planned to put barbecue sauce on it and serve it in bread for sandwiches.  I usually put in 3-5 chicken breasts in with enough water to cover it and cook it for however long it takes, 3-4 hours on high in mine...  When it's ready, I drain off the water and shred it.  Yesterday, we abruptly decided to mix it with buffalo sauce (ours is dye-free, you'll have to check if yours is safe).  We topped it with a small amount of shredded mozzarella (when that ran out we used some provolone, we are at the end of the month and that happens a lot around now!)  and put some plain Greek yogurt instead of blue cheese or ranch or cream cheese to offset the "burn".  When we figured out how many calories, we realized it has almost no guilt and is delicious!!!!  You can eat it plain with a fork or jam it in a pita for a really excellent sandwich!!!! 

We served it with frozen corn and black beans mixed together...and even put some in the pita, and it was surprisingly good together...

Yet another random trial with awesome results...hope you enjoy it sometime soon!! 

*hint* the Superbowl is coming, and this would be great for dipping and would taste like a treat and keep you from overstepping your diet a bit!  :)

Chicken Salad that I LOVE!

Chicken Salad
I am always hunting good chicken salads.  Mostly because I don't like chicken salad.  I know that sounds seriously wierd, but hear me out.  I like the IDEA of chicken salad.  I like chicken.  I like chicken and fruit together.  So you wouldn't think this would be so tricky.

Here are two that I really like.  One could be very fatty with tons of ingredients, and is nice for a treat.  One is very light and could be eaten often...that I totally tweaked from a Biggest Loser Cookbook.

Debbie's Chicken Salad:

3 lb chicken (dice and cook or cook and shred)

8oz sour cream

8 oz miracle whip

8oz mayo

Salt pepper

1/4 cup sugar

1tbsp curry

1Lb red grapes

1 lb chopped pecans

8 oz sliced almonds

The juice of one lemon

 

Biggest Loser Chicken Salad Tiffany Tweaked*:

Diced chicken, cooked (I used about 3 or 4 large chicken breasts)

Halved red grapes, maybe a cup?

Dice 1 medium apple

1/4-/12 Cup plain greek yogurt

2-4 dijon mustard

salt and pepper to taste

opt: celery, I don't tend to use it...saute chicken in olive oil

 

*I left out the celery and olive oil, way upped the apples and grapes, and my proportions were different....I like there to be a lot of "sauce" and I like it to be less mustard-y.  But that's the beauty of recipes, change them until you like it!!  Recipes are not laws.

 

 

Jerk Bowl Hodge Podge

I love mixed bowls... I mean, love them!!

This was an impulse mix-up, hodge podge.  I WAS making this all separate, but decided to mix it, and then added some stuff...and it turned out spectacularly!!

I cooked up my diced chicken with Jerk Seasoning.  While thawing my staple frozen peas.  And speedily pressure cooking my brown rice.  That's what I fed my kids.   And they begged for soy sauce.  Weird combo, I know.  For myself I proceeded to mix it all up, and then decided something sweet would set it off nicely, and added a handful of craisins. And then added a dollop of apricot preserves (Polner has served to be a safe jam/preserves for us).  And then I added a tiny bit of soy sauce to amp up the apricot flavor.  And wow.  A new favorite was born.  Seriously!!

Pie-less Pots

I have always loved Pot-Pies for their buttery pie crusts...unfortunately, 1) they tend to be fatty and unredemptive and 2) they tend to have things that will tear Charlotte completely up...so here are my tweaks:

Chicken Pie-less Pot
dice chicken breasts and "brown" in a skillet(I use about 4 or 5 large ones for my family of 6)
thaw a bag of frozen peas and carrots
take a can of chicken broth/stock, mix with whatever you can pour off your chicken, 1-2 tsp of sea salt, and whisk in 2 or 3 TBSP of corn starch, pour over your chicken, throw in your peas and carrots, wait til your "gravy" bubbles and thickens...serve and gobble it up!

Hunter's Pie-less Pot
I use deer burger, but whatever lean burger you prefer is fine...1-2 pounds
thaw a bag of frozen peas and carrots
saute 2 cups of sliced mushrooms in 1-2 TBSP of olive oil
take a can of beef stock/broth, add either drippings (deer has virtually none) or half a Guiness (or both), 1-2 tsp of sea salt, and whisk in 3 TBSP of corn starch, pour over your deer burger, mushrooms, and peas and carrots, cook until your "gravy" bubbles and thickens...serve and gobble...

Of course you can put either of these in your pie crust of choice or serve with bread, or whatever makes it the perfect comfort meal for you!  :)

Bonus:
If cornstarch is safe at your house, it can be used to thicken any broth as a safe alternative to pre-packaged gravys!  I've heard you can do the same with potato flakes or flour and some others, here is a LIST...but I haven't tried those yet.  Salt and pepper to taste!

Chili Time Options

I can totally live on chili from October til March...and here are some recipes...

Chili
1-2 lb deer meat, or lean turkey or hamburger
1 bag of dried red kidney beans
2 cans of diced organic tomatoes (Or just diced tomatoes!)
3-4 TBSP of chili powder
1-2 TSP cinnamon
1 can organic tomato paste or tomato soup
Water to your pleasure, do you like it soup-y or stew-y? 1/2- 2 cups of water...
opt: jalepenos, corn, black beans
Brown hamburger, cook beans, mix and season, allow to simmer or put in a crock pot.

White Tex-Mex Chili
1 bag of northern beans or navy beans
4 chicken breast halves, diced
black beans (I used one can when I made this, I added this on a whim, I'd probably add 1/4 to 1/2 bag of dried black beans)
half a small bag of frozen corn kernals
1can chicken broth
1-2 TBSP of Fajita or Taco Seasoning (I'm still hunting the perfect homemade mix, but as yet, Charlotte has not reacted to McCormick Taco Seasoning)

Oh, and Quaker Corn Bread or chips are great with these...

Dijon Oven-Fried Chicken

Dijon Oven-Fried Chicken
(This is a hodge-podge from several different recipes that I merged off of the cornocopia of Google)

Take chicken breast, roll in Dijon mustard, roll in seasoned bread crumbs, lay in an olive oiled glass cookware. Cook at 350-400 depending on your time available.

Make as much as you need to feed your people.  :)