Author: Cathy Horst

Cathy’s Cooking Corner

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Baked Parmesan Chicken

Baked Parmesan Chicken is rich and delicious. It’s great for serving guests or for your own special family.

3 pounds chicken pieces
Salt and pepper
3 tablespoons butter
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
½ cup shredded Swiss cheese
¼ cup bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Season chicken with salt and pepper. In a large frying pan, melt butter over medium heat. Add chicken and cook, turning, until browned, about 10 minutes.

Sprinkle ¼ cup of the Parmesan cheese over bottom of a 13 X 9 X 2-inch baking dish. Arrange chicken in dish.

In the same frying pan, whisk flour into pan drippings. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Gradually add milk and cook, stirring constantly, until smooth and thick. Remove from heat and stir in Swiss cheese. Pour sauce over chicken.

Top chicken with remaining 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese. Sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake for 1 hour or until chicken is tender.

From 365 Ways to Cook Chicken

Cathy’s Cooking Corner

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Oriental Chicken

3 pounds chicken thighs

Sauce:
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 to 4 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons hot pepper sauce
2 tablespoons mustard
1 to 2 teaspoons five spice powder
1 to 2 teaspoons garlic powder

Combine sauce ingredients. For the soy sauce, five spice powder and garlic powder use the lesser amounts and taste the sauce when it’s mixed. Add more of these ingredients if you prefer. Place the chicken thighs in a pan. Top with the sauce ingredients. Bake, uncovered, in a 350 degree oven.

If you want some sauce to put on rice, double the sauce recipe to put on the chicken. Then bake the chicken, covered instead of uncovered. To finish the sauce after the chicken is baked, remove the chicken pieces and keep warm. Put the sauce into a kettle. Skim any oil you don’t want in the sauce. (Save the oil for a white sauce or gravy another day.) Combine 2 to 3 tablespoons cornstarch with 1/2 cup cool water. Add to the sauce in the kettle and stir in. Heat till boiling and thickened. If you prefer using arrowroot instead cornstarch, stir together same amount of arrowroot and water. Before adding the arrowroot, boil the sauce ingredients and remove from the heat. Add the amount of thickening preferred.

Cathy’s Cooking Corner

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BBQ Chicken on the Grill

Summer is the time for grilling. This bbq chicken recipe is our favorite. We sell grilling halves that are great for this recipe. Of course, any piece of chicken is wonderful on the grill!

8 chicken pieces

Marinade:
2 cups vinegar
2 cups water
1/2 cup butter or oil
1 tablespoon pepper (optional)
8 teaspoons salt
4 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon garlic powder

Bring the marinade ingredients to a boil. Remove from heat. Marinade the chicken pieces in the sauce for one hour. Grill the chicken, basting frequently with the marinade.

You can grill the chicken till it’s done and serve it immediately, but there’s something you can do that will make the chicken even better. When the chicken is grilled well on both sides (it doesn’t have to be finished clear through), put it into a crock pot with a little of the marinade and cook it in there for at least an hour or until you want to serve it. This causes the flavors to meld together and the chicken is super tender and absolutely delicious. The temperature of the crock pot depends on how soon you want to serve the chicken and how nearly finished it is when taking it off the grill. Enjoy!

Cathy’s Cooking Corner

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This month I’ll tell you how to grill pasture raised lamb chops. They are super easy. You just need to know a very important tip. Don’t overcook them or they will be tough. I recently took some shoulder chops that our son Nathan sells and sprinkled season salt, onion powder and garlic powder on both sides of the chops. Then I put them on the grill. I didn’t want the meat rare, but with just a tinge of pink in the center. When I pulled them off the grill, they were fabulous! They were tender and juicy and, oh, the flavor!

Our son, Nathan, has lamb available for you, too. It has a delicious lamb flavor without any gamey taste. Summer is a great time to use the grill. We have lamb loin chops, rib chops and shoulder chops. The lambs ate only milk from the ewes and grass. Just remember when you grill that you don’t want to cook the chops well done plus a little longer or they will be tough. If you find that you have done them too long, you can remedy the situation by putting the chops into the crockpot several hours or baking them in the oven in a covered dish with a little moisture at 325 degrees for 45 minutes or until they’re soft. They are great that way too.

I Love Leftovers!

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I intentionally make extra food when I prepare meals so that I have leftovers. That way I don’t need to prepare everything from scratch to prepare more meals. So what can you do with the leftover chicken and rice? Here are some ideas:

When you have eaten all the chicken and rice you want, take the rest of the chicken off the bones (A large chicken is great for more meat for leftovers). Put the bones back into the crockpot to make bone broth. Add a tablespoon of vinegar, an onion, a carrot, and a stalk of celery. A couple chicken feet would be good, too. Cover with water and add salt to taste. Cook on low for 12 to 24 hours. This makes a nutritious, high calcium broth that you can use to cook more rice, noodles, veggies, etc.

Ideas How to Use the Leftover Chicken and Rice

In any cookbook that has main dishes, you will find recipes that include cut up chicken. Here are some ideas:

  • Chicken Soup. Cut up the chicken into bite sized pieces and put into a pan. Add the rice and enough water to make the soup the consistency you want. Or you could use the bone broth you cooked instead of the water. If desired, add veggies like chopped spinach or kale, peas, diced carrots, onion, etc. This is super easy and delicious.
  • Chicken and Rice Casserole (the second time). Combine the cut up chicken and rice in a baking dish. Cover and heat 30 minutes to an hour at 350 degrees till hot. You could also heat the chicken and rice in a skillet in a little butter or coconut oil instead of in a baking dish.
  • Chicken Salad. Add a little mayo and sour cream to the chicken along with some finely diced celery and onion. A little curry powder added gives some extra pizazz. This is great in a sandwich or on a bed of lettuce.
  • Chicken Enchiladas. Make a mixture of cut up chicken, cheese, sour cream and chilies to your taste. Spoon mixture into the middle of tortillas and place seam side down in a baking dish. Top with a white sauce or salsa . Bake 45 to 60 minutes in a 350 degree oven or till hot. At the end, top with cheese and melt in oven. Serve with sour cream and salsa or guacamole.
  • Add your favorite Bbq sauce to the cut up chicken and heat. Use for a baked potato topping or put into a bun.
  • Chicken can be added to any veggie salad.
  • With the bone broth and chicken, make a gravy to go on biscuits, mashed potatoes or rice.
  • For breakfast, place a fried egg on a piece of toast. Top with chicken gravy. If you add a little mayo to the gravy, it adds interest to the dish.
  • For a one-dish meal, stir fry some veggies with the chicken. Serve over rice or couscous.
  • Add chicken, cheese and salsa and any vegetable you want to an omelet or scrambled eggs.
  • Chicken Pizza. Top a pizza crust with chicken and all your favorite toppings.
  • Chicken Gyro. Inside a gyro style pita bread, place cut up chicken, shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, a little cucumber and some shredded cheese. Top with the salad dressing of your choice.

Use your creativity. Think about what foods you’re hungry for. Try them with chicken. Add some spices or sauces that sound good to you. Taste the food and adjust. You may come up with a new favorite dish. When it comes to cooking, creativity truly is the spice of life. Have fun!

Cathy’s Cooking Corner

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In the last newsletter I wrote, “If you know of something to wrap the burritos in other than foil to heat them to go, I’d love to hear from you. I like to use as little foil as possible because of aluminum’s implication in Alzheimer’s.” I received several replies suggesting I use parchment paper. Thank you! I thought maybe the rest of you would like to know, too.

Speaking of those wonderful eggs, I decided to put my basic quiche recipe in this newsletter. I would say it is probably our family’s favorite way to eat eggs. It is a never-fail recipe with its silky texture and savory flavor. This is also a great way to use leftovers. It is a great main dish for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Quiche

1/2 pound sausage, bacon, hamburger or meat of your choice, fried
1 cup shredded cheese (or more)
Your choice of veggies: sauteed onions, mushrooms, tomato slices, steamed broccoli, olives, wilted spinach or kale, eggplant, zucchini slices, sauteed garlic, etc.
4 eggs, beaten
2 cups light cream
1 Tbsp. mustard
3/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. black pepper
Unbaked 9-inch pie crust

In the bottom of the pie crust, layer the meat, then the veggies of your choice and top with the shredded cheese. In a mixing bowl mix together the eggs, mustard, salt and pepper. Add the cream and mix. (A stick blender works beautifully.) Pour into the pie crust over all. Bake 15 minutes at 425 degrees. Then reduce oven temperature to 300 degrees and bake 30-35 minutes more until knife comes out clean when inserted in center. Let stand 10 minutes before cutting. Serves 6. Enjoy!

Maybe you have a favorite egg recipe you’d like to share. I’d love to hear from you!

Cathy’s Cooking Corner: Egg Burritos

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We recently discovered a wonderful breakfast food to stock up in the freezer – egg burritos. I had decided to make up a bunch of meat and bean burritos and then decided to try some egg burritos. I wasn’t sure how well the scrambled eggs in the burrito would freeze. Would they be good or would they be rubbery or watery? I’m pleased to tell you that they were wonderful. Since I didn’t want to store them in aluminum foil, we wrapped them singly in plastic wrap and then froze them. After they were frozen, we grouped the burritos in gallon Ziploc bags and put them back into the freezer.

Frozen Egg Burritos

Flour Tortillas
Eggs, scrambled
Sausage, fried (or whatever meat you want)
Onion, sauteed
Cheese, grated
Sour cream
Salsa
Mayonnaise

Assemble the burritos, putting on whatever condiments you desire. Some other goodies would be olives, avocado slices, pickled banana pepper slices, ketchup, etc. Close the burritos with a toothpick and wrap in plastic to freeze. To warm, take the plastic off the burritos, place them in a covered pan and heat in a 350 degree oven till they’re hot. If you’ll be eating them on the run, you can wrap them in foil and heat them. I also like to thaw them overnight so they don’t take as long to bake. Delicious!

If you know of something to wrap the burritos in other than foil to heat them to go, I’d love to hear from you. I like to use as little foil as possible because of aluminum’s implication in Alzheimer’s.

UPDATE: I received several replies suggesting I use parchment paper. Thank you!