Slow Cooker Chicken Stew and Cheddar Biscuits

Slow Cooker Chicken Stew

The photo above doesn’t do justice to how good this chicken stew was.

I like making chicken stew in the slow cooker. The preparation is easy and, like all things made in the slow cooker, you can do other things while your dinner cooks. The only problem I’ve had with making chicken stew in the slow cooker is getting the stew to really thicken up. This takes a little time. The batch in the photo was almost as thick as I wanted it to be, but I was a little impatient and didn’t let it cook long enough to get to my desired level of stewiness. Nevertheless, it was delicious.

You can vary the vegetables in your stew. Cut up large potatoes instead of using the mini-potatoes. Add small whole boiler-type onions instead of cutting up large onions. Whole fresh mushrooms are also an excellent addition to this stew.

I use Old Bay seasoning in my chicken stew. If you don’t have it on hand, you can use poultry seasoning or experiment with your own spice combinations, such as thyme, sage and pepper.

On the day this batch of slow cooker chicken stew was served, my daughter Darcy was visiting and made some baking powder biscuits with cheddar cheese to go along with the stew. That recipe is included here for you, too. 

MA's Slow Cooker Chicken Stew

Chopped and ready for slow cooking

6 boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 3 lbs), cut into 1 ½” chunks

4 medium onions, cut into 8ths

2 tsp garlic, minced

5 ribs celery, thickly sliced

4 carrots, peeled and thickly sliced or diced

1.5 lbs mini-potatoes, peeled or unpeeled, halved if desired

1 cup frozen peas

2 tsp Old Bay seasoning or poultry seasoning

8 cups chicken broth or 3 chicken bouillon cubes with 8 cups boiling water

¼ cup flour

½ cup water or chicken broth

Now cover and cook s-l-o-w-l-y

Place onions, garlic, celery, carrots, potatoes and chicken into slow cooker.

Pour chicken broth over chicken and vegetables. Sprinkle with Old Bay seasoning.

Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours or high for 4-5 hours, or until chicken is cooked through and fork tender.

Add frozen peas and cook for 15 minutes.

In a bowl, whisk together flour and water/broth to make a smooth paste. Stir the paste into the stew. Cover the slow cooker and cook until thickened, about 15 or 20 minutes.

Serve with biscuits or bread.

Makes 8 servings.

Printable Recipe for MA's Slow Cooker Chicken Stew

MA’s Cheddar Biscuits

Chicken Stew with Cheddar Biscuit

Preheat oven to 450º F.

Lightly grease a cookie sheet.

2 cups flour

4 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

4 tbsp butter or margarine, chilled

2/3 to ¾ cup milk

½ cup grated cheddar cheese

In a mixing bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, salt and grated cheddar.

Cut the butter or margarine into the dry ingredients using a pastry blender or two knives.

Add the milk slowly, stirring only until the soft dough forms a ball.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead lightly for a few seconds.

Pat or roll out the dough to ½ to ¾ inch thickness.

Cut with floured biscuit cutter.

Place the biscuits on the prepared pan.

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until biscuits are a golden brown.

Makes 10 - 12 biscuits.

Printable Recipe for MA's Cheddar Biscuits

Rice Noodles with Chicken & Vegetables

Rice noodles with chicken and vegetables

I know next to nothing about Filipino food, but I have prepared this Filipino dish many times over the past year and it is seriously delicious. In fact, I must confess that my husband and I polish off a whole platter of this between the two of us in just one sitting. That’s how much we like it.

The recipe comes from a cookbook called Extending the Table: a world community cookbook, which was given to me by one of my daughters and her husband. It’s a wonderful resource put together by the Mennonite Central Committee. In among the recipes from around the world are stories about the people behind the recipes and inspirational perspectives on the role food and community play in our lives.

In the Philippine community, this dish is known as pancit bihon, which means rice noodles. This recipe calls for adding the uncooked rice noodles directly to the pan. This is what I do. It is a bit messy. To avoid the mess and the excitement of the threadlike noodles scattering themselves across your stove top, you can soak the rice noodles in warm water for ten minutes or so and then cut them into smaller pieces before adding them to the dish. I’ve only used rice noodles, but regular vermicelli could be used although you will want to precook it before adding it to the dish. 

Additionally, you could substitute pork for the chicken; add shrimps if you like; and use whatever vegetables you have on hand in place of those in the recipe, increasing the amounts of veg and meat if you want. In the original recipe, the hard-cooked eggs, green onions and lemon slices are given as a garnish. I recommend including them with the dish. They look wonderful and taste even better!

MA’s Pancit Bihon

Pancit Bihon ingredients

2 tbsp cooking oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 large onion, finely chopped

1 cup cooked chicken, chopped

3 tsp fish sauce

2 cups chicken broth

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

1 cup carrot, diced

1 cup green beans, cut into 1” pieces

1 cup cabbage, coarsely shredded

8 oz rice noodles

2 eggs, hard-cooked and chopped

2 green onions, diced

1 or 2 lemons, sliced

Cooking the rice noodles

In a large frying pan, heat cooking oil over medium heat. Add garlic and onion and sauté until just softened.

Add cooked chicken, fish sauce, chicken broth, carrots, beans, cabbage, salt and pepper. Simmer for 10 minutes or until vegetables begin to soften.

Add rice noodles and cook 5 to 8 minutes or until noodles are tender. Add more broth or water as needed if mixture is too dry to cook the noodles.

Place noodle mixture on a large platter. Garnish with eggs, green onions and lemon slices.

Printable Recipe for MA's Pancit Bihon

Quick and Festive Cranberry Onion Chicken Breasts

Easy to make, delicious to eat

My Aunt Chris introduced this dish to me on a visit to her home in Michigan far too many years ago. I was really impressed with the ease of making it and how good it tasted. Since then, I’ve made it too many times to count. It's definitely one of my go-to meals. If you Google cranberry onion chicken, you will see that it’s a really popular recipe and once you try it, you’ll know why.

Because you use prepared ingredients to make this main course, it’s not exactly scratch cooking. You will need whole berry cranberry sauce, either from a can or homemade (I will share my favourite cranberry sauce recipe here soon). You will also need onion soup mix. I buy mine in bulk without MSG, but you can use an envelope of any onion soup mix you have on hand. Originally, I made this with Catalina or California salad dressing, but it works equally well with French or Russian dressing.

This recipe makes a good deal of delicious sauce so be sure to serve it with plenty of rice or mashed potatoes. To me, it’s comfort food at its best.

Here’s to you Aunty Chris!

MA's Cranberry Onion Chicken Breasts

Preheat oven to 350° F.

6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 cups (1-16 oz can) whole berry cranberry sauce
1 ounce (1 envelope) onion soup mix
1 cup Catalina, French or Russian salad dressing

Place chicken breasts into a 13” x 9” baking pan.

Mix together cranberry sauce, onion soup mix and salad dressing. Pour over chicken breasts. (You can put this together to this point, cover and refrigerate for several hours. Be sure to add a little extra cooking time if you do this.)


Bake for 50 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Serve hot.


Printable Recipe for MA's Cranberry Onion Chicken Breasts

Falling for Risotto

A bowl of creamy goodness

Recently, I had my first encounter with risotto. I immediately fell for it and couldn't help but wonder "where have you been all my life?"

It began this fall when my daughter and grandson were visiting for a few days. She had started the little guy on solid foods a few months earlier and had a book about Baby-Led Weaning written by Gill Rapley and Tracey Murkett. Baby-Led Weaning, as I understand it, is letting your child feed him or herself from about six months of age. My daughter was going to make risotto for us all using a recipe from the book. If you are interested, there is an informative and recipe-laden blog about it at babyledweaning.com.

Since my daughter was busy with baby, I offered to do the cooking. I prepped the ingredients and then got into the risotto technique. It is not something you can rush through. The hot chicken broth is added to the pan one ladle-full at a time. You don't add the next ladle of broth until the rice has absorbed all of the previous broth. It is an exercise of staying in the moment. You need to be at the stove and stirring until the rice is cooked and has only a little "bite" to it and the risotto reaches a lovely, creamy consistency.

Well, the risotto was delicious. And it wasn't long until I wanted to make it again. Here's my version of Chicken Risotto. Be careful - you might just fall for it, too.

MA's Chicken Risotto

Have risotto ingredients ready

4 chicken breasts, cut into 1” chunks

2 tbsp olive oil

1/3 cup butter, unsalted

2 cups onions, diced

1 red pepper, diced

1 green pepper, diced

1 ½ cups Arborio rice

6 ½ cups chicken stock

½ cup grated Parmesan

fresh ground pepper, to taste

In a large frying pan, heat the oil and butter over medium heat.

When the butter is melted, add the onions and fry until softened but not browned.

Before adding the rice and stock

Add the chicken and fry until it is sealed and white on the outside.

Meanwhile, put the stock on to heat in a separate pot.

Add the peppers to the chicken and fry gently until they start to soften, about 4 minutes.

Add the rice and stir to make sure that all of the grains have a light coating of the butter/oil mixture. Add more butter or oil if necessary.

Stock added to rice and ready for stirring

One ladle at a time, add the hot stock to the rice mixture. Stir constantly until the stock is absorbed into the rice. Continue adding stock until the rice is cooked. (You may not need to use all the stock.) It will be plump but will still have a little “bite” to it. The overall consistency of the risotto will be creamy. This step will take about 25 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the cheese and pepper.

Serve.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

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Not Le Menu Chicken Parmigiana

Oh so good!

My daughters and I seem to talk about food a lot. I was talking about chicken parmigiana with one of my girls the other day and she reminded me about Le Menu Chicken Parmigiana. Le Menu was a microwavable tv dinner back in the eighties. In those days, I worked full time outside the home (too bad blogging wasn't around then) plus having all the usual responsibilities and commitments of a husband, children, pets and community. You get the picture. I rushed around a lot to stay on top of it all. Being a true eighty's lady, I had no qualms about feeding my family from the frozen food aisle when time was short and schedules were crazy. Le Menu Chicken Parmigiana frozen dinner with its tasty chicken breast smothered in tomato sauce and cheese, fettucine alfredo and Italian green beans was popular at our house. My daughter also reminded me how great the reusable Le Menu plates with their microwave covers were, too. We had those around long after Swanson's stopped making Le Menu.

That's enough reminiscing for the moment, but now you know how this recipe got its name.

Chicken Parmigiana does take a little time to prepare. I find it is always worth the effort. There are many recipes for it out there. This one takes you step-by-step through how I do it. I like to serve it with a pasta and steamed green beans. Here's to you Le Menu!

MA's Chicken Parmigiana

Preheat oven to 350°.

Pound chicken to flatten slightly

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts

¼ cup flour
1 egg
1 tsp water
1 cup dry, unseasoned bread crumbs
1 tbsp each minced fresh parsley, basil and oregano or 1 tsp each crumbled dried parsley, basil and oregano
salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup olive oil
2 ½ cups tomato sauce, homemade or your favourite from a jar or tin
6 to 8 ounces Mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese


MA's Tip: Homemade tomato sauce will always taste better than store-bought. But let's be realistic, there's not always time to make your own. I like to take the plainest store-bought sauce and add my own herbs and spices to it. It makes me feel better about using the store-bought stuff and I can customize the herbs and spices to suit the dish. In this dish, for instance, I would add parsley, basil and oregano. And, one more cooking confession ... when I don't have a chunk of Parmesan in the fridge, I use the pre-grated "sprinkle cheese" Parmesan. You know the kind. In fact, I used it to make the Chicken Parm you see here, and it tasted just great. Okay, back to the recipe.

Trim any fat from chicken breasts and, if desired, remove tendons. One at a time, place chicken breasts between sheets of waxed paper and pound gently with a mallet or a heavy, empty bottle. Pound until flattened slightly.

Line up for coating the chicken

In a shallow bowl or pie plate, place the flour. 

In a second shallow bowl or pie plate, combine egg and water.

In a third shallow bowl or pie plate, combine crumbs, herbs, salt and pepper.

In a large frying pan, heat up the oil over medium high heat.

One at a time, coat chicken breasts in flour, then dip into egg/water mix, then coat with crumb/herb mix.

Place breasts into frying pan and brown thoroughly, about 10 minutes per side.

Add Mozza and sauce (and Parm, of course)

Into a large baking dish, spoon about half the tomato sauce and spread evenly to cover the bottom of the dish. Place the chicken breasts on top of the sauce. Spoon remaining sauce over and around the chicken breasts. Top breasts with slices of Mozzarella and sprinkle evenly with Parmesan. 

Cover the baking dish with foil. Bake for 35 minutes. (If your chicken breasts are more than a half-inch thick, be sure to bake them a little longer to ensure they are cooked through.)

If you want, you can brown the top by removing the foil and putting the dish under the broiler until the cheese bubbles and browns.

Serve hot.

Makes 4 servings.

Printable Recipe for MA's Not Le Menu Chicken Parmigiana

MA's Saucy Stir Fry

Saucy Chicken Stir Fry

Stir fries are one of my dinnertime go-tos and have been for years. I love them because once you chop things up, the rest is fast and easy. And if you start the rice about the time you start the chopping, you have a tasty home-cooked dinner in under an hour. (I will extol the virtues of rice cookers in another post.)

Stir fries are versatile, too. You can throw in any fresh vegetables you have, even bagged coleslaw, or tinned veggies like those tiny corn cobs or water chestnuts. Tomatoes are the only thing I don't add to a stir fry. They don't seem sturdy enough to take the constant stirring. And, if you use red cabbage or red onion, be warned, the finished colour is not always attractive.

This recipe has chicken breasts in it, but you can leave them out or substitute with cubed firm tofu for a vegetarian version, or use thinly sliced beef or pork instead. If you go with the beef or pork, you may want to use a beef broth instead of the chicken broth I used here.


Chicken Stir Fry

Stir frying requires you to be at the stove and stirring, so be sure to have all your ingredients ready to go before you spring into action. Cut everything into bite-sized pieces. Mix up your thickening sauce in a jar. Have the serving plates out. Then focus on stirring in the love.

3 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tbsp sesame oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

3 chicken breasts, cut into thin strips

2 onions, sliced

3 stalks celery, sliced on the bias

3 carrots, sliced

1 cup broccoli florets, coarsely cut

2 cups cauliflower, coarsely cut

1 green pepper, sliced

1/2 small cabbage, shredded

2 cups chicken broth, divided into 1 3/4 cups and 1/4 cup

2 tbsp corn starch

2 tbsp soy sauce or Bragg's liquid soy seasoning

In a large fry pan with high sides or a wok, heat oils over medium high heat. Add garlic and stir fry for one minute.

Add chicken strips to pan and stir fry until cooked through. It's impossible to use a meat thermometer to test doneness here, so take out your fattest strip and cut through the middle to see that the meat is evenly cooked. When cooked, remove chicken from pan and set aside.

Add onions, celery, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower to pan and stir fry about 5 minutes or until they're almost as soft/crunchy as you'd like them to be.

MA's Tip: If you want to speed up the stir fry process, you can steam your carrots, broccoli and cauliflower for a few minutes in the microwave before adding them to the pan.

Add the peppers and shredded cabbage (any other quick cooking vegetables you may be using, like mushrooms or green onions, can be added now, too) to the pan. Stir fry about 3 minutes more.

Return cooked chicken strips to the pan. Add 1 3/4 cup chicken broth to the pan. Cover pan and bring the liquid to a boil.

For the thickening sauce: In a small jar, combine 1/4 cup chicken broth, corn starch and soy sauce or soy seasoning.

When the pan liquid is boiling nicely, clear away the veggies and chicken from the centre of the pan and pour in the thickening sauce. Stir well to eliminate any globs of thickened sauce. The liquid will thicken to coat the vegetables in a tasty sauce.

Serve immediately. Good over rice of any kind.

If you have leftovers, try to use them up the next day. This does not keep well long-term as the veggies loose their oomph and want to become one with the sauce.

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