White Chicken Chili Recipe

White Chicken Chili Recipe

4  skinless boneless chicken breasts or thighs  (or more)

4  cups         chicken stock    (or more)

4  cloves      garlic, minced

1                   med onions, diced

2  (15 oz)      can white beans       drained

1 can (4 oz)  can diced green chilis  drained

1    –  3 t       dried oregano

½ t – 3 t        chili powder

1  t                salt

1  t                ground black pepper

1 – 2  t          ground cumin

1 (15 oz)       canned corn  - minus juice

10 leaves     fresh spinach, chopped

1 cup sour cream

4 oz. or more of  mozzarella or other white creamy cheeses.

Directions:

Use rotisserie chicken or the boneless chicken breasts.

I use the boneless thighs. I cooked the thighs in the

chicken stock. Added water if needed.

Shred or chopped up the chicken.

Saute onion and garlic.

Add to the chicken stock with the chicken.

Add the white beans, green chilis, and spices.

Cook for 10 minutes on low.

Add spinach and corn.  Cook another 10 minutes stirring often.

Add sour cream and any other white creamy cheese to the pot until dissolved.

You can reserve some of that sour cream to put a spoonful

on top of the chili when served.

Tortilla chips crumbled on top is nice too.

.

CAULIFLOWER SOUP

CAULIFLOWER SOUP

Ingredients

Basic soup base for almost all soups.

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1/4 cup olive oil (or butter)

1 large onion, finely diced

1 celery stalks, finely diced

2 carrots, finely diced

(I used carrot strings chopped )

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 Ratio for ALL soups should be

1 stalk of celery to 2 carrots.

1-head of cauliflower, separated,

steamed for 10 minutes.,

3 slices of Monterey jack pepper cheese

(or your choice of any cheese)

2 diced very small potatoes for thickener.

2 quarts chicken stock

Also can add flavor with

“Better than Boullion” in glass jar.  Great stuff. Just use 1 Tablespoon

1 bay leave

2 cloves garlic minced fine

pinch of cayenne pepper

pinch of dried thyme

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

In a large saucepan, sauté onion, celery and carrots over medium-high heat.

Set aside.

In pot, add the broth and cauliflower.

Cook for 10 minutes.

Add the potatoes, onions, carrots, celery, and  bring to a simmer and cook another 15 to 30 minutes until soup is thick.

STIR OFTEN.

Remove bay leaf.

Add cheese but don’t overdue the amount.  Stir until melted.

Taste it.  You can always add more cheese.

Puree soup.  I use an immersion blender.

Season, to taste, with salt and pepper.

I did not add meat.  but you could.

OPTIONAL:

Ham, in some form.  Ham bones,

hocks, chopped ham,  etc…

3 to 6 oz.

BUTTER

If you love butter, maybe you should see the new movie out called, "BUTTER".

Lots of x rated words and not for kids but really funny.  I will never look at butter the same way again.

MY FACEBOOK CAKE

     This is my saga of my Facebook Cake.  I had to make a cake for a meeting tonight.  Since I am watching my pennies, I wanted to used something I had in the house.  So off to the pantry where I found a yellow cake mix.  This was fine but I did want to jazz it up a bit.  I was exposed to a great cake my a friend who loves to bake. It had crushed pineapple in it as well as pudding and whipped cream.  
     Well, the cream was out.  Its over 100 degrees today so I didn't want whipped cream sitting in my car.  What to do, what to do.  Finally I looked on the internet for ideas.  
Eureka.  I found my recipe.  Well, part of it.  I merged two good cakes into one great idea.  Basically I substituted orange juice for the water in the mix.  Then I baked it as directed.  Simple.  This worked well.  
     I cooled the cake for about 20 minutes. Then I heated up a large can of crushed pineapple and add about 2 tablespoons of brown sugar to it. When it was more than lukewarm, I poured this mixture over my cake which I had poked with a fork.  Again, this worked well.
Next, came making a praline topping to cover the pineapple.  I mixed coconut, brown sugar, butter, milk, and chopped walnuts together.  Melted the  butter of course.  Again, this was working perfectly.
    I started the broiler in 100 degree heat and placed my cake with the topping to brown, but careful to watch it so it doesn't overbroil and be ruined.
    Can you guess what stupid thing I did next?  I remembered I had one little thing to do for some photos I had put on Facebook.  I raced in to do that LITTLE thing and was there for about 10 minutes when I realized my cake was still under a broiler and in great danger.  I flew into the kitchen and pulled my precious baby out of the oven.  Too late, the burned sugar, coconut, walnuts and pineapple was not asking me to take the first bite.  NOOOO. It was telling me to start over. Alas, there was not time for that. 
I picked at the topping that had bonded together perfectly in its blackness and I filled an empty pie tin  with my burned praline topping.  The cake, without that burned crust, looked okay.  
    I grabbed the topping  ingredients and started over.  Added it to the cake and again put it under the broiler.  Pulled it out in time and believe me, it was a hit.  Delicious flavor and no one knew or cared that it had a rough childhood.  I just told them it was my first Facebook cake.

CORN CHOWDER

Pat’s  Corn Chowder with Chiles

Ingredients:

3 slices of bacon, cut into ½ inch pieces or smaller

2 T  Butter  

1 ½ whole yellow onion diced

1 green or red bell pepper chopped fine

1 carrot chopped fine 

              Cook   10 minutes

Add:

3  16 oz bags of frozen corn  or fresh on the cob

2  whole chipotle poppers in Adobo Sauce, Finely diced  (very hot - 1 would work )

1 whole 4 oz can Chipotle peppers diced green chilies.

32 oz. fluid low sodium chicken broth  (or vegetable)  or more

2 potatoes chopped into small cubes or more

½ t Kosher salt   to taste

5 T  corn meal or Masa

4 T Flat parsley

32  non fat milk  (cream, half and half okay too)

Salt

Directions:

Saute bacon pieces a couple of minutes.

Add diced onion, carrots, and bell peppers .

Add both kinds of chilies, chicken broth, salt

Bring to boil. Reduce heat.

Add milk.

Mix Masa with water. Add to soup.  (I just sprinkle it in the soup and stir.)

Cook 15 minutes. 

Too thick?  Add water until it looks good.

 I added at least another pint of water. 

Add chopped parsley at the end.  Cook for 3 minutes or so.

Salt to taste.

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Notes:  All ingredients can vary.

Its nice to know you can’t go wrong.

Well the chilies are the ones that can give you trouble. 

Do not use more then TWO.  They are hot.  And smokey.

Rebuild Cinque Terre

        Click here.   REBUILDING MONTEROSSO AND CINQUE TERRE

THIS IS A WONDERFUL PLACE TO SEE.  I HOPE EVERYONE GETS TO VISIT CINQUE TERRE SOMEDAY.

The Italians love their country and their homes like all of us and its been a terrible experience for them.

PARMA RESTAURANT IN FRESNO

Wednesday was a day to reconnect with old friends over great food.  We picked Parma's because she always has fresh made pasta and wonderful Italian food.  The best recommendation comes with presentation.  I had to control myself and photo the plates before we dived in.  You would have thought we hadn't eaten in days.

Thank you for a lovely lunch and great company, Jim, Linda, and Ed.

Appetizer

3 pastas

Creme Brulee


Pat

THE CHEW

I was watching Mario on the Chew and he made an interesting chicken dish.  So I went on line to print it.

What a wonderful surprise.

He or someone with a brain reformatted how the recipe is listed.  I was so impressed.

I do some of mine in groups of :  Pot #1   Pot #2  etc...

On here its not so easy to do it that way just the way the blog is formatted and readable.

Check out the Chew reciipes.  

IRISH TOMATO/ BLUE CHEESE SOUP

IRISH BLUE CHEESE AND TOMATO SOUP

A wonderful full flavored soup.  Its even good cold.

Ingredients:

8 ripe tomatoes, cut in quarters

butter  (optional)

1 medium onion cut in quarters

1 stalk celery chopped

1 carrot, chopped

5 cups chicken stock

10 oz  blue cheese (I did not measure.  You might want to.)

¼ cup all purpose flour

2/3 cup half and half or fat free

Black pepper

2 T. Parsley for garnish

3 T. crumbled bacon

Directions:

In a saucepan on the stove, Place tomatoes, onion, celery and a carrot.  Cover.

Simmer for 20 minutes or until soft. Add chicken stock.

Heat again.  Then place in food grinder and puree.  Throw out the skin and seeds. 

Place pureed soup minus the seeds etc... back into pot.

Mix  by shaking flour and some cold water in small container until no lumps of flour are left.

Slowly add to soup pot.  Mix flour and soup.  Crumble blue cheese in soup and bring to boil.  Stir until all cheese is dissolved.

Use a immersion blender to smooth the soup.  Now heat on low and slowy add half and half.  Do not boil. 

Serve in a bowl with crumbled bacon and more blue cheese.  Sprinkle with parsley.

Shopping at the local Winco

Today I was in Winco and it was "Come to Winco Day for all parolees or former residents of our penal system". How did I know? I just read their tattooes. They were pushing the cart while their women and kids discussed nutritional content. Okay I am joking. They were complaining about the prices. So math was involved.
I wanted to say "Hey, bro, either shop or shoplift". One must ultimately make a decision.

LAMB SHANKS in a tomato sauce

Lamb Shanks

I cut the recipe in half and made it for my family and they wanted the recipe after eating it. This was their photo at the end of the dinner.  No meat left at all.
I extended cooking time, omitted fennel and will puree half of the cooked sauce and then add it back next time. Otherwise its the original recipe.

This is from the recipe on Food network but changed a little.

Mark Morais, owner of Giusti's in Walnut Grove, CA

Cook Time:    2 hr 15 min  (I roasted it 3 hours)  It was perfect.

4 servings

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Ingredients

Brine:

1 gallon water  1/2 cup sugar  1/2 cup salt

4 to 6 lamb shanks

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Granulated garlic, to taste

All-purpose flour, to coat

2 to 3-ounces virgin olive oil

1 (96-ounce) can crushed tomatoes (Or a mix of whole tomatoes crushed)

2 carrots, chopped

3 celery stalks, chopped

1 large yellow onion, chopped

1 bulb fresh fennel, chopped  (omitted for my taste)

4 cloves garlic, chopped

1 cup red wine

1 cup orange juice

1/2 cup freshly chopped Italian parsley leaves, plus sprigs for garnish

1/2 cup freshly chopped oregano leaves, plus sprigs for garnish Italian Cheese,for garnish.

Directions

For the brine:

Place the water, sugar, and salt into a large container. Carefully add the lamb shanks and soak for 24 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Remove shanks from the brine and pat dry. Season with salt, pepper, and garlic, to taste.

Coat shanks with flour and saute in 2 to 3-ounces of virgin olive oil in a medium saute pan over medium-high heat until golden brown, about 5 minutes each side.

Place the shanks in a roasting pan with the crushed tomatoes.

In same saute pan that the shanks were seared in, saute the carrots, celery stalks, onion, fresh fennel and garlic until tender, about 5 minutes over medium-high heat. Remove from the heat and add to the roasting pan.

Deglaze saute pan with 1 cup each red wine and orange juice. Reduce by half and add to roasting pan.

Add 1/2 cup each fresh Italian parsley and fresh oregano to roasting pan.

Cover and roast in oven for 2 hours or until tender. After 1 hour, turn shanks

and cover for remaining time, making sure shanks are covered in the gravy.

Remove shanks.  

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My change is: 

Remove half of the sauce which is chunky and puree. Add this puree back to the rest of the sauce.  Replace shanks in pan and serve.

Garnish with fresh oregano sprigs and parsley and your favorite Italian cheese.

Best served with polenta!.

Alton Brown's chocolate chip cookies revisited

If you have seen the video on Food Network, its very good.  
I just changed a few things.

The Best CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES.

INGREDIENTS:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (or bread flour)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

14-15 T butter softened

¼  cup granulated sugar             

1¼  cup packed brown sugar        

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 Egg Plus 1 Yolk.

2 T Sour Cream   (To Replace The Missing Egg White)

2 cups (12-oz. pkg.)   Chocolate Chips

1 cup  walnuts

DIRECTIONS:

Mix as usual. 

Cream  Eggs, sour cream, butter, sugar and vanilla

Cool in refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Place on cookie sheet.

Bake at 375 for 10 minutes or more

NOTE:  Egg whites dry out cookies.  So to keep them moist, he added milk which I changed to sour cream.  Also I cut the butter back.  

Italian Polenta Cookies

I have just started to make these cookies.  So far I have added chopped apricots and toasted almonds to one batch with no lemon zest.  The plain ones are very nice.  They do take long to bake.  It seems more like 20 minutes but they can burn so watch carefully.

INGREDIENTS:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 


1 cup Italian polenta or coarse yellow cornmeal 


1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature 


2/3 cup sugar 


1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest oe orange zest 
(optional)

1 large egg plus

1 large egg yolk 


1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk together flour, polenta, and salt in a bowl.

Mix butter, sugar, and lemon zest in the bowl of an electric mixer.  I used a hand mixer.

Add egg and egg yolk, one at a time, beating after each addition to combine.

Mix in vanilla or   almond extract   or    rum extract

Gradually add flour mixture, and beat until just combined.

Dump 1/2 of the dough onto a large piece of parchment paper.

Fold paper over and press against the paper and push the dough into a cookie roll with a straight ruler or some other straight edge.

Wrap up and place in the freezer.

Do same with the second half of dough.

Chill in freezer until dough is firm about 30 minutes.

Remove from freezer.  Cut into round cookies just like any other cookie roll.

Bake on parchment paper.  You can score the cookies much like a peanut butter cookie too.

Bake cookies until edges are golden, 15 to 18 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through.

Transfer cookies on parchment to wire racks; let cool about 10 minutes.

Remove cookies from parchment, and transfer to racks to cool completely.

Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature up to 1 week.

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Traditional way:   Did not try this yet.

Transfer batter to a pastry bag fitted with a 7/16-inch star tip (such as Ateco #825).

Pipe S shapes about 3 inches long and 1 inch wide, spacing 1 ½ inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment.

CHOCOLATE CRANBERRY APRICOT WALNUT BISCOTTI

This is a nice dark rich biscotti.  I used special dark cocoa and Starbucks VIA coffee package for the flavor.  Very nice. 


Ingredients:

4 cups all-purpose flour

4 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

7- 8 Tablespoons butter at room temp.

1½  cups sugar

1/2  cup firmly packed brown sugar

4 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 T grated orange zest (optional)

1 pkg  Starbucks VIA Ready brew coffee (optional)

1 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips or less

1 1/4 cup chopped walnuts  or less

1 cup dried cranberries, soaked in water and patted dry

1 cup dried apricots, chopped, soaked in water and patted dry

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Chocolate flavoring:

2 (2 bricks) cubes of semi sweet chocolate cooking bars, 1 T butter (from recipe), melted in microwave on defrost for about 1 minute. 

2 ½ T to 3 1/2 T of the Hersey’s Special dark chocolate cocoa added to the dry.

1 pkg Starbucks VIA Ready brew Italian roast sprinkled into the warm 

cubes chocolate and then added to wet mixture. 

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Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

DRY

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, 

orange zest or peel, cocoa 

and salt. Stir well.

WET

Combine sugar and butter.  Beat. 

Add  eggs and beat well. 

Add vanilla extract and mix. 

Add melted cubes of chocolate.

Mix into flour mixture. 

Add chocolate chips and walnuts, cranberries, apricots. Stir well. Usually stiff so by wooden spoon or your hands.

To shape the dough into a log, lightly sprinkle flour on the work surface, on top of the dough, and on your hands.  Or refrigerate for 30 minutes. Its easy to handle with no additional flour. Butter helps by hardening some.

Use parchment paper for the baking.

Bake logs 28 minutes or until dough pops back up when lightly pressed with a finger.

Remove from oven and cool 10 minutes on a wire rack.

Reduce oven to 300 or less degrees. Using a long serrated knife, cut logs.

Second Baking:  Bake another 15 minutes.

NOTE:  Do not crowd the biscotti slices on the baking sheet for their second baking as they need the hot air to circulate to enable them to crisp up evenly.

Remove from oven and cool completely on wire racks.  Or cold tile counter

Yields about 6 dozen biscotti.

Bad Recipes

I have a complaint on recipes found on the net.  I love Rachel Ray but sometimes recipes fall flat.  I did one of hers and its terrible.  Lentils and Potato Salad.  A real dog.  Its gotten terrible reviews but I tried it anyway. She needs to remove it.

Why keep it up online if its so bad?  Beats the heck out of me.  

WONDERFUL POT ROAST FROM THE 60s updated

First, do you remember the old pot roast in foil from the 60s?  Lipton's dry onion soup and a can of cream of mushroom soup.  You sealed it in foil and put it in a 375 to 400 degree oven for 3 hours.  Yes, it was very good.

I missed it for some reason.  So I went on line and read about 3 dozen versions.  Then I made up my own.

1                 3+ pound beef chuck roast
1   can        cream of mushroom soup (low cal if okay)
1   pkg        Liptons onion soup mix

1/4 cup       red wine  (or more)
1 cup          water      (or more)
1/2 cube     beef bouillon cube (more if you want)

1/2 pound   carrots  (small ones are good)
5                 small russet potatoes, pealed and cut in half.
10               boiling onions, peeled and cut a cross on the top of each
                    ( I had some and wanted to use them up.  It was wonderful.)

Optional:    Sautee some fresh mushrooms and add to the soup mixture

Directions:

1.   Brown the meat in a large sauce pan with oil.   Removed and place it in the crock pot.
2.   Sprinkled the dry soup over the meat.  Press it into all surfaces of the meat.
3.   Place soup, wine and water with the beef bouillon in a saucepan. Stir and warm.
4.   Pour  soup mixture over the roast.
5.   Place the vegetables on the top of the meat.  I pushed come carrots down in empty spaces but it is not necessary.
6.  Cover with the lid and cook on high for 2 hours and reduce to low for 3 to 4 more hours.

The meat produces more liquids from the fat. When you remove it when down, there is plenty of liquid and the vegetables are in it too.

Not pressing the potatoes into the liquid early makes them steam cook and they don't seem to take up so much of the brown from the meat.  At least it seems so.

7.  When done, the meat must be lifted with large tools as it falls apart.
8.  Place vegetables on one end of the serving platter and the meat on the other.  Tent with foil.
9.  Remove juices and if you want a more thick gravy, place in a saucepan and add some
flour and water mixed in a covered container.  Pour in slowly as you stir the gravy.

Serve.

ITS WONDERFUL.  And the house smells fantastic.

CHICKEN AND TORTILLA CHIPS CASSEROLE

This is easy.  I just took what was in the frig and made a great casserole. Lots of flavor.  So easy.  A left over Costco cooked chicken and you have enough meat for one more meal.  This is it. Preheat oven to 350.     #1      Soup mixture:  1      can      cream of chicken soup  1      can      whole green chilis  chopped up 1/4  cup  chopped carrots 1/2  cup onion chopped and sauteed 1/2  lb  fresh sliced mushrooms sauteed 9 oz  green enchilada sauce (El Paso mild) hot sauce to taste salt and pepper 1 teaspoon       crushed garlic Warm soup and add all ingredients above. _________________________ #2    Meat mixture combines with soup mixture:   1     lb cooked chicken cut up Place cut up chicken in bottom of casserole pan. Add 1/2 of soup mixture over chicken. ________________________ #3     Cheese layering: 8 oz      cheddar cheese 8 oz      Monterey jack cheese Shred or cut up.   Divide in half. _________________________ #4     Bottom Layer: l cup   crushed up Mission tortilla strips. Place half of tortilla chips on top of the bottom half of soup mixture and chicken. Mix. _________________________ Add the cut up cheese to the bottom half.  _______________________ #5       Top Layer: Add the last of the soup mixture. Add the last of the cheese. Add the last of the chips. ________________________ #6    Place in oven at 350 for 25 to 35 minutes.   Cheese should bubble. ________________________ Place under broiler for 3 minutes. Enjoy.