Recipes are guidelines, right?

I've said it before.  I hardly ever follow a recipe exactly.  Even when baking I add more spices than required because I love flavors!  Tonight my pregnant self decided to try a new recipe I found on Pinterest.  The name of the blog that featured this yummy photo is Bacon, Butter, Cheese & Garlic.  The recipe?  Baked Italian Chicken And let me tell you, the picture is SUPER enticing! See?

baconbuttercheesegarlic.blogspot.com

You want to make it now too don't you?  And remember I'm pregnant, duh, so any blog that features some of my favorite ingredients must be a hit!  The only issue I had with this when I started gathering my ingredients was that I noticed that the recipe doesn't include bacon....an oversight I'm sure!  I also switched out minced garlic for the garlic powder.

The artichokes are being drained...hence the reason they are not pictured

So I decided to add bacon!  It is a common pairing with chicken (at least in my house), so why not?

While the bacon was starting to cook I got to chopping....onions and tomatoes

The onions go into the pan with the bacon and the mushrooms (I got the pre-sliced)

While those are cooking I put the chicken in a pan...

And melted the cream cheese and mixed in everything else, and ran out of room in my bowl to add the spinach, so I just covered the chicken with it...

Then topped it with the cheesy-bacony-yummy sauce!

And popped it in the oven at 350, for 30 minutes...I think it is going to take a lot longer than 30 minutes, I checked it halfway through and the chicken is still VERY raw looking.....we shall see...in the meantime I am having a VERY hard time not eating the other half of the Italian bread I purchased to go on the side....VERY hard....

Once I determined we would actually be able to eat this meal sometime tonight...I started the Linguine I am serving the chicken on. And put the garlic bread in the oven.   And sprinkled the shredded cheese all over the top of the dish!

Next time I am going to brown the chicken in whatever is leftover from the bacon onion and mushroom pan....give it a head-start to cooking!  But this time, I'm just going to chow down, because I'm hungry and this smells soooooo good!!!!

Enjoy!

Sorry Betty, we're not gonna kick it old school.

I think fall is officially here to stay! Yeah! That means it's soup weather. My favorite soup is chicken and noodles. The thick homemade noodles are the star of this dish so JoMama and I are making homemade noodles!!!  JoMama made the chicken stock and chicken in her crock pot yesterday so we get to concentrate on the noodles.  

The only noodles JoMama and I have ever made are the one from the Betty Crocker cookbook.  

But the pasta roller set I own has a different recipe....

The biggest difference is the use of the full egg, and less salt in the new recipe, which is why we are not gonna kick it old school!  Waste not, want not.  We went to get Farm Fresh eggs from The Farm Wife's Table here in Smithville and when we got there the owner had just picked up three duck eggs...so we traded three of our chicken eggs for the duck eggs for our egg noodles!!!!  If you are local, or semi local visit her Facebook page and you too can get some farm fresh eggs!!!  Tho they probably won't be duck eggs they only have one duck and until today they didn't know the duck would lay!

Duck, duck, duck...chicken?

Cracking the eggs was a bit difficult, they have a much harder shell than chicken eggs...who knew!  They also have a different smell, you can tell they are egg-ier...gonna be yummy in the noodles!  At first the dough was very dry and crumbly....

And JoMama said she wanted to add more water, but I told her to wait and see the magic.  I have seen pasta made on Food Network.  After the initial mixing, and two minutes with the dough hook it was time for 1-2 minutes of hand kneading....It's a wrist breaker, but soo worth it, and much easier than Betty's recipe which is all by hand....no thank you!

And then time to let it rest for 20 minutes.

Once it's rested, cut into four sections and then it's time for the magic to happen!  The first attachment is the flat roller and you start with a 1 setting to knead the dough some more until it's pliable and has the right texture.  You will know when it does!

Then set to the second setting and continue...

You will want to cut the pieces in half before changing to a thinner setting.  Otherwise the pieces will get very long and unwieldy

Keep changing the setting on the roller to the thickness you want, then it's time to slice the sheets into the length you want the noodles to be....and then change out the roller for the pasta cutter!  

You can see we just let the noodles drop onto a towel we put underneath the machine, then spread them out a bit.

We did half of the noodles as thick noodles, and half as thin.

There were quite a few more thin noodles, as expected.  And it was so fun and easy we may never buy store bought noodles again!  These can be dried for an hour, then either refrigerated or frozen.  Or you can cook them up fresh.  They don't take as long to cook when they are fresh.  But as you can see it makes a LOT of noodles, so I have some in my freezer for the next time I'm ready to make soup....but part of it we are going to enjoy now in our home made chicken and noodle soup!

Enjoy!

God gave us food, the Devil gave us recipes!

Tea towel by Peg's Pantry

Oh how true.  And tonight it no exception!  I am making Coq au vin, thanks to my mom mentioning that it had...wait for it...bacon in it...and then turned my cook book to that page before she left today...so why not?

So I will be making the above, with green beans and potatoes on the side. I started by washing my vegetables and thawing my chicken.

I washed it all at the same time...

Make the Bouquet Garni

Fry the bacon....and while that is frying I chopped all of the veggies for the main dish and the side dish.

I never get tired of pictures of bacon frying...

Coat the chicken in the flour mixture then it's time to brown the chicken in those yummy yummy bacon drippings!

Add the onion and mushroom (I also added the carrots)

Add the remaining ingredients










Simmer for 1 hour.  It already smells DEVINE!




In the meantime I have the cast iron skillet with bacon, butter and onion starting to cook in the oven, with the yukon gold potatoes on top of it all.

With only 25 minutes left to cook I added the green beans on top of the potatoes and stirred it up as best I could to get everything coated in bacon and butter.

Serve it all together on a plate!

Enjoy!!!

Almost the last meal of the year

The weather is officially cold, and most of the time the house is too.  At least I think it is!  Today I decided to make gumbo.  I used to make this all the time, when I used a box mix...tee hee.  Several years ago a friend gave me an authentic New Orleans recipe.  So now I only make this once or twice a year, it takes a long time to prep, and make.  Seriously, prepare to stand in the kitchen chopping for half an hour, and over the stove stirring for an hour, and then you are still not done...I didn't follow the recipe exactly, I never do!  And I realize that I have blogged this before, but it is so fun!

Prep the chicken, season and stick in the refrigerator

Then prep the vegetables and sausage, topping with the seasonings that belong with each step, garlic with the onions, and salt and peppers with the sausage and bay.

Then it's time to start the roux, this takes the longest!

Oil and flour in a pot

stir

when it's brown like chocolate (20-30 minutes later) 

add the vegetables! (watch for the steam!!!!)

Cook for 4 minutes

Then....add the sausage, salt, seasonings and bay leaf

Another 3 minutes

then time to add the water and whisk like crazy to get the roux dissolved!

Bring to a boil then reduce to medium low for 1 hour, stirring occasionally!

Once the hour is up, you can add the chicken, and cook for another 2 hours then skim off any fat that has come to the surface.  Remove the bay leaf.  In the meantime, chop the green onion and parsley.

Remove from heat and stir in the file, parsley, green onion and okra (if you are using this, and oh yes I am!)

You also add the shrimp right now...otherwise it can overcook...Cover, and in 7 minutes this is ready to serve over rice! You can also add some hot sauce if it doesn't already have enough kick!

Enjoy!