White Chicken Chili

White Chicken Chili

(From Cooking Light magazine)

Cooking spray

2 lbs chicken breast, cubed

2 cups chopped onion

2 garlic cloves, crushed or minced

2 tsp ground cumin

½ tsp dried oregano

1 tsp ground coriander

7-8 oz can, chopped green chiles, undrained

1 cup water

2 (15.5 oz) cans cannellini beans, rinsed and drained (Great Northern Beans are easier for me to find so I usually use those)

1 (14 oz) can chicken broth (or about 2 cups if you make your own using a chicken base)

½ tsp hot pepper sauce (I usually leave this out, but it doesn’t make it too spicy)

Optional toppings (I usually skip the cilantro):

1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese

½ cup chopped fresh cilantro

½ cup chopped green onions

Sour cream

Directions:

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add chicken to pan; cook 10 minutes or until browned, stirring frequently.

Heat a large pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion to pan; sauté 6 minutes or until tender, stirring frequently.

Add garlic and sauté 2 minutes, stirring frequently.

Stir in cumin, oregano, and coriander and sauté 1 minute.

Stir in chiles; reduce heat to low and cook 10 minutes, partially covered.

Add chicken, water, cannellini beans and broth; bring to simmer.

Cover and simmer 10 minutes.

Stir in hot sauce (optional) and top with (optional) toppings listed above

Recipe doubles or triples easily and freezes really well! Tastes great with No-Knead bread

EASY swedish pancakes

Swedish Pancakes

-3 eggs

-1/8 cup oil

-1 cup milk

-1 cup Bisquick

For a sweeter pancake, add 1 tsp cinnamon (or more if you like) and ¼ tsp vanilla

Mix eggs in blender until fluffy. Add other ingredients. Make pancakes one at a time by pouring batter into a hot cast iron pan. Once the surface bubbles, flip the pancake over and allow the batter to cook through. Butter pancake while flat and then roll. Serve with fresh fruit, syrup, and powdered sugar.

Yummy Cornbread

Cornbread-from Stephenie Dellenbach

1 cup milk

¼ cup melted butter

1 egg

1 ¼ cups cornmeal

1 cup flour

½ cup sugar

1 Tbl baking powder

½ tsp salt

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease 8x8 pan. Beat milk, butter, egg in bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients. Bake 20-25 minutes. If recipe is doubled, use a 9x13 pan.

No-Knead Bread

No-Knead Bread

-3 cups all-purpose flour plus a little for dusting

-1/4 tsp instant yeast

-1 ¼ tsp salt

-1 & 2/3 cups water

-cornmeal

Directions:

-In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 & 2/3 cups warm water and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at room temperature.

-Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes (sometime I skip this “resting” step if I don’t have time and it turns out fineJ)

-Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour or cornmeal (I actually sprinkle just a little bit of cornmeal onto parchment paper instead so I don’t have to dirty a towel). Cover with another towel and let rise for about 2 hours (I’ve skipped this step before, too, and it turned out fine, just a bit more dense). When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

-At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6 to 8 quart heavy covered pot in oven as it heats (I use a 4qt Corningware dish for single loaf and 2qt for half-loaf, but anything that can go in the oven that has a lid will work). When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel (parchment) and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is OK. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 5 to 15 minutes until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on rack. (Note about cooking times: I made it just like it says to for a year and it was fine. Now for some reason the bottom gets burned if I do it this way. Now I bake it at 425 for 30 min covered then 5 min uncovered. Just watch it and see how your oven cooks it)

Note: Sometimes I have to add quite a bit more flour than just the 3 cups depending on how humid it is outside. It should be sticky, but not to the point you can’t form it into a ball. Also, you can divide the dough into two before that last couple hours of rising and make two smaller loaves. I usually do this and then freeze one loaf after I bake it. It stores great in the freezer and tastes awesome after it thaws.

Crunchy Asian Salad...YUMMY!

Dressing:

1/3 cup avocado  oil

1/3 cup rice vinegar

3 Tbl sugar

¾ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

Salad

-1 pkg (3 oz) ramen noodles any flavor

-1 bag (16 oz) coleslaw mix with cabbage and carrots **(I prefer chopping up napa cabbage instead because it has a leafy texture vs. the extreme crunchiness of regular cabbage; I coarsely  shred carrots  and add them.)

-8 medium green onions sliced

-½ cup sliced almonds (toasted)

-1 medium red bell pepper cut into strips (a mixture of other non-green peppers tastes great, too: yellow, orange, red)

-2 seedless oranges, peeled, coarsely chopped **(I use a small can of mandarin oranges, juice drained, instead to make things easier. Refrigerate the can for a couple of hours before serving for a more fresh taste)

-2 cups coarsely chopped fresh baby spinach leaves
-2-3 cups cooked chicken. I prefer the deboned rotisserie chicken from Costco and use about 1/2 package for a single batch of salad.

*In large bowl, beat dressing ingredients with wire whisk until sugar is dissolved and mixture is well blended.

*Break up ramen noodles in bag before opening. Discard seasoning packet from soup package. Add noodles and all remaining salad ingredients except oranges and spinach to dressing; toss to mix well. Stir in oranges and spinach. Serve immediately or refrigerate up to 8 hours. (If you leave the dressing off, the salad itself keeps well for a day or so in the refrigerator).