Crockpot Roast Chicken

I know, I went out of order and forgot to post the recipe to the roast chicken that had me aging 10 years in one night. You'll have to forgive me, I was somewhat scarred from the experience ;)

Here we go!

What you need:
Whole chicken (3-5 lb)
Roast Chicken Spice Mixture:
4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. onion powder
1/4 tsp. thyme, ground
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. pepper

The night before:
• Wash a whole chicken (3-5 lbs.) and pat dry.  Try not to have a total panic attack about it like I did ;)

 

(Here's Wesley washing the chicken for me after I freaked out.)

•Prepare the spice mixture above in a small bowl and then rub all over the chicken, inside and out.  Try not to get too attached to your chicken, and definitely don't name it like I did mine.

 (I am aware the mixture looks like a smile. Not sure why, as I was doing anything but smiling at this particular moment.)

 

 

•Place the chicken in a pan and cover with plastic wrap.

• Put it in the refrigerator over night.

In the morning:
• Take the chicken out of the refrigerator and put it in your crockpot.
 You don't need to add any liquid, because the chicken produces its own juices as long as you don’t remove the cover while its cooking.  Trust me, there will be lots of juices by the time its done!

(Going in the pot)

•Cover and cook on low 9 hours.

(When it was done)

The chicken was falling off the bone before I even took it OUT of the crockpot. I had to lay it all out in a pan because it was completely separated! So good!

We served ours with some spicy rice and it was oh so yummy!

So there you have it. The roast chicken in the crockpot. While I'm not anxious to repeat the prep on this recipe, we'll definitely be making it again!

Chicken and stuffing!

I got this delicious recipe from my friend at Growing up Geeky. I believe someone else gave it to her, but you'd have to check her blog to find out who.
This recipe is so so easy and so so good.
Seriously, it took less than $10 and less than 3 minutes to prepare....totally my kind of dish!

What you need:
•4 boneless chicken breasts thawed. (I have a 4 qt crockpot and could only get 3 chicken breasts which was more than enough.)

•4 slices swiss cheese
•1 can cream of chicken.
•Splash of milk.
•1 box of Chicken Stove Top stuffing.
•Half stick of butter.

 What you do:
•Put chicken breasts on bottom of crockpot, (make sure it all sits along the bottom)
•Put a slice of cheese on each piece. I like to tear my pieces of cheese in half so that it's covering all of the chicken.

•Thin out the cream of chicken a bit with some milk (maybe a quarter cup) and pour that over chicken & cheese.

•Then put the dry stuffing on top.
•Cut slices of butter and put all around the top of the stuffing.

• Cook on low until the chicken is done, which will be about 4 hours.

I didnt get to take a picture of it all finished because we were too busy digging in!

We serve ours with some creamy mashed potatoes and some steamed broccoli. Yum!

Chicken and rice recipe

This is the go to comfort dish. Everyone loves a yummy casserole meal right? This one is the best. I quickly learned why Wes always responded to the question "what's your favorite food?" with "moms chicken and rice". It was a must learn for me. If the fastest way to a mans heart is through his stomach, then you gotta learn his favorite dish! Lucky for me it is one of the easiest flippin meals to make ever. Prep time is about 5 minutes. Cook time an hour and 10 minutes. And the oven does 99% of the work. That's my kind of meal!

What you need:
•13x9 casserole dish
•Chicken! I prefer white meat but my mother in law also puts dark meat in the dish. You choose how you like it! If you are just doing chicken breasts then you need about 3 breasts. If you're doing a combo, you can do 2 and 2.
•Lipton onion soup mix
•Can of cream of chicken
•Can of cheddar cheese soup
•Box of uncle Bens wild rice

What you do:

•Butter the whole bottom of the casserole dish. Sides too.

•Pour in the rice evenly on the bottom of the dish.

•Sprinkle the seasoning mix from the rice box over the rice.

• Cut up the chicken into smaller pieces so its all along the dish, but still big pieces.

• Add chicken.

• In a bowl,  mix together can of cream of chicken soup, cheddar cheese soup, the lipton onion packet and a can of water.

•Stir it up well. It's normal for it to have some little chunks floating around in it. You can try to blend it all enough so there's not,  but its not really necessary.

•Pour the mixture evenly over chicken.

•Cover with foil and bake at 350 for one hour.

•When timer goes off, uncover it and bake for another 10 minutes.

*All ovens cook a little  differently so if you take it out and it still looks soupy, pop it in for another 5-10 minutes until its thicker. You won't hurt the dish at all to cook it a little more.

( sorry there's no pic of it in the dish finished. Wesley dug into it too fast!)

Viola! Chicken and rice that will make you want seconds even though you're stuffed. For our little family of 2.5, there's always enough for leftovers too and that's a huge plus in this house!

*This recipe is from both Wes's aunt Vicki, and Wes's mom Robyn. Major kudos there for the awesome dish.

Chicken and rice!

Tonight I'll be making chicken and rice Mama style. Wes's favorite dish is one his mom makes (surprise surprise!) and she graciously taught me how to make it too. She told me last week that it's actually Aunt Vickis recipe, so I must give her credit too!
This dish is so so easy, and you'll have leftovers for a week with it!
Stay tuned for the recipe!

FYI: this entire dish cost less than $10, and only calls for 5 ingredients!

Cajun Chicken Alfredo

Cajun chicken Alfredo:

Ok,  so I'm super proud of myself because I made the Alfredo sauce myself.  No jar sauce here. And it was actually pretty easy. If you are on any type of diet, this is not the meal for you. I could feel my arteries clogging in all that deliciousness.
There are a few things I'd change from the recipe I used, so I'll make those adjustments in the recipe I give you. While it looks like its complicated and it looks like there's a lot to it, it was actually really easy to make.  Start to finish took about 45 minutes.
Here we go!

Ingredients:
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts (I used 2 good sized chicken breasts)
Cajun seasoning
16 ounces fettuccine
2 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2cup heavy cream
1 stick butter cut into smaller pieces
4ounces Parmesan cheese, grated
4 ounces Romano cheese, grated

How to make it:
•Pound the chicken breasts to an even thickness. OR do like I did, and just cut them in half length wise. Way easier.

•Coat the chicken in the Cajun seasoning. In this step, it's all about taste. I put a fair amount on both sides, but really it was just enough to lightly flavor it in my opinion. If you really want a good Cajun spice flavor, be really generous and work a lot on there.


• Heat a large oven proof skillet over medium heat and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

•Pour 1 tablespoon of the olive oil into the skillet. Swish it around on there so the whole skillet is covered.

• Add the chicken breasts and cook for 5 minutes.

•Flip the chicken breasts over and cook for 3 more minutes.

•Place the skillet in the oven and allow to cook through for 5 more minutes.

•Remove the skillet from the oven...
At this point I cut into my chicken in about 18 places to make sure it was really cooked through. I've never cooked chicken on a skillet before and I was terrified of poisoning my whole family. It was, in fact, cooked perfectly.

•Put the chicken on a cutting board to cool down.

•Bring a big pot of water to boil, and  add the fettuccine to the boiling water. Cook until its al dente.

•While the pasta is boiling, place the skillet back over medium heat and add the remaining tablespoon of olive oil.

•Stir in the minced garlic and cook for 1 minute.

•Add the heavy cream and butter to the skillet, cook and stir until the butter has melted and its blended together with the cream.

•While the butter is melting, slice the chicken into bite sized pieces. This step is super easy because the chicken cut apart like it was fish.

•Add the cheeses to the cream mixture and stir until fully melted and combined. Seriously, stir stir stir. The cheese takes a while to melt completely and get that yummy Alfredo texture.

•Drain the pasta and add it to the alfredo sauce. Mix it all up.

Here you can either add in the chicken and toss to coat, OR leave it separate and serve it over the alfredo pasta so you have the amount of both you want.
•Wesley and Robyn (my mother in law) both agreed that shrimp would also be yummy in this dish. Maybe you could try it and tell me how it turns out?

Look at all that yummy goodness!


Also, wouldn't some yummy broccoli or some diced tomatoes be a great topper to this dish too?