Day 6 - Chicken Parmesan

Came home from bible study tonight and the chicken Parmesan had been devoured by my family before I could get a good picture.  This is my portion, which I reheated, but was still very tender and delicious.  Somehow, Italian food always tastes better as it ages. 

This recipe was adapted from a couple of different recipes that my talented friends have given me over the years.  I simplified mine to make it an easy dinner that we have a couple of times a month.  The panko bread crumbs are always stocked at my house, and give the breaded chicken a light and fluffy texture. 

Ingredients:

4          Boneless chicken breasts, pounded to 1/2 inch thickness

Seasoning salt and pepper to season chicken

2          Eggs

2 C      Panko bread crumbs

3 Tbsp Olive oil

8 slices Mozzarella cheese

1 jar     Marinara sauce

2 Tbsp Fresh basil, cut in strips

1/2 C   Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Whisk egg. Season chicken breast with seasoning salt and pepper.  Dip the chicken breasts in egg and then in bread crumbs. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Brown the chicken in the hot oil on both sides until golden, about 3 to 4 minutes on each side. Set chicken in a baking dish.  Slice 8 pieces of mozzarella cheese and put two on each chicken breast. Pour your favorite marinara sauce over all. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and fresh basil and bake at 375° for about 25 to 30 minutes, or until bubbly. Serve with pasta of your choice and desired sides (bread, salad, etc.)

Day 5 - Shoyu Chicken

This recipe brings back a lot of memories of a friend who used to make this dish to serve many of us at church.  His cooking brought so many together and his selflessness in cooking for so many often times went overlooked.  He was never one to bring attention to himself.  He has since moved back to Hawaii and his fellowship, along with his delicious meals are greatly missed. 

Ingredients:

1 C         Soy sauce
2 C         Water
1 C         Sugar
1 1/2lbs  Chicken (I use legs and thighs, bone-in and skin on)
1/2 Tbsp Fresh ginger, minced
2 cloves  Garlic, minced

Mix all ingredients, except chicken in a pan and bring to a boil.  Add chicken, reduce heat, and simmer until the chicken starts to fall off the bone.
Serve with steamed rice.

Keeping the skin on and the bone in gives it much more flavor.  For a healthier alternative, you could cook with boneless, skinless chicken.

Simple and very delicious!  My kids love to soak their rice in the Shoyu sauce.

Day 4 - Shepherd's Pie with Sweet Potato

When our family first decided to have some healthier ingredients in our meals, I was bummed at the thought of losing some great dishes that had ground beef in the recipe.  Thank goodness for ground turkey and ground chicken.  We can still have meatloaf, spaghetti with meatballs and shepherd's pie...

Swapping out the traditional potato for the sweet potato give this dish a sweet and savory flavor.  My daughter loved the combination.  My son...not so much!

Ingredients:
Sweet Potato Topping:

6 C      Sweet potatoes

4 Tbsp Butter, cut into pieces

1/2 C   Sour Cream (I used plain yogurt)

1 C      Grated cheese

Paprika

Ingredients:

Meat Filling:

2 Tbsp   Butter

1            Large onion, chopped

1            Rib celery, chopped

1 1/2 lb. Ground Chicken

1 clove   Garlic, minced

2 Tbsp   Flour

1 C        Chicken broth

1 C        Canned diced tomatoes

1 tsp      Dried thyme

1/2 tsp   Dried rosemary

1 1/2 C  Mixed veggies (frozen)

1 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Preheat over to 400 degrees.  Boil potatoes, uncovered, over high heat until soft.  While the potatoes are cooking, begin the meat filling.  Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat.  Saute onions and celery in butter, stirring often, about 6 minutes.  Add chicken, cook until done.  Lower heat, stir in garlic and flour.  Stir in chicken broth, diced tomatoes, herbs, veggies and Worcestershire sauce.  Simmer mixture for several minutes until slightly thickened.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Transfer mixture to 13x9 in casserole dish.

Drain the cooked potatoes and transfer them to a large mixing bowl.  Scatter butter and sour cream over the potatoes (I actually left the skin on the sweet potatoes for extra fiber).  Mix to a medium soft consistency.  Spoon potatoes evenly over the meat filling.  Sprinkle cheese on top.  Sprinkle paprika over the cheese. 

Bake in the center rack for about 20 minutes.  Cool for several minutes before serving. 

Perfect comfort for the chilly weather we are having!

31 Days Interrupted - Going on Vacation

The Delighted Family will be going on vacation for a couple of days.  We will be headed out to Convict Lake where my husband and the men in his family will be having their yearly fishing trip.  He is just not catching on to the whole cooking with chicken theme.  I suppose going fishing is much nicer than anywhere you can find chickens.  I will be a little delayed in getting my posts out to you but please keep checking back as I will be trying to update whenever I can from our remote location. 

Thanks,

Girl Delighted

Day 3 - Thai Red Curry with Chicken

For those of you who love spicy, tonight's dinner comes from Thailand.  This recipe is super easy and super exotic.  Please click here for the complete recipe. 

Red Curry Recipe (Serves 6)

2 Tbsp    Red curry paste (Found at the Asian food market, I use the Mae Ploy brand in the photo above)
2 Tbsp    Vegetable oil
2 Cans    Coconut milk
2 Tbsp    Sugar
1 1/2lbs   Chicken cut up in 1 inch pieces
2 C         Vegetables of your choice sliced (onion, bell pepper, zucchini, etc.)

On medium heat, saute red curry paste in oil for 1 minute, add 1 can of coconut milk.  Add another can of coconut milk and heat until boiling.  Add meat and continue cooking until meat is nearly done, then add vegetables and sugar.  Cook until vegetables soften and serve with Jasmine rice. 
***Red curry paste is very spicy, for a milder flavor use half the portion***

You can read my inspiration for cooking here.

Day 2 - Chicken Gyoza

Ingredients:

Gyoza (Makes 50 pieces)

For step by step instructions on how to make the gyoza, click here.

1 lb.       Ground Chicken
1 C        Cabbage finely chopped
1/2 C     Nira finely chopped
1/2 C     Green onion finely chopped
2 Tbsp   Garlic minced
2 Tbsp   Ginger minced
1            Egg
1 Tbsp   Sesame oil
2 Tbsp   Soy sauce
1/2 Tsp  Salt
1/4 Tsp  Pepper

Add ground meat, vegetables, egg, soy sauce, sesame oil, salt and pepper, and mix well.  Place about a 1/2 tablespoon sized amount in the middle.  Close the edges making a crimping pattern on the top.  Fry them in oil to make them crispy and then put a small amount of water in the pan and cover the pan with a lid to steam.

You can read about my inspiration for cooking here.

Day 1 - Chicken Fajitas

Ingredients:

1lb.     Chicken breasts

1pkg.  Taco seasoning

Salt & pepper to taste

1         Green bell pepper sliced into thin strips
1         Red bell pepper sliced into thin strips

1         Yellow bell pepper sliced into thin strips

1/2      Onion cut into thin strips

10       Tortillas (Flour or corn)

Sour cream

Grated cheese

Salsa

(Any other toppings you would like to put on your fajitas)

Cut up your chicken breasts into 1 inch pieces. 

I actually ask the butchers to do all my cutting for me.  They will cut up your chicken into fajita-sized pieces and slice you chicken breasts thin.  They run when they see me coming cuz they know I'm going to put them to work.

Slice your bell peppers and onions into strips.  Don't you just love the colors?  Add 2Tbsps of oil into a frying pan and combine your chicken and veggies over medium heat.  Add the package of taco seasoning.  I actually make my own but adding the pre-made seasoning cuts out the time. 

For my toppings I did avocado, grated cheese and plain yogurt.  I'm always trying to sneak healthy alternatives into our dinners.  My husband didn't even notice!  Served with rice and beans. 

*For a gluten free version - leave the tortillas out and serve everything over the rice!

You can read about my inspiration for cooking here.

This 31 Days of Cooking with Chicken was inspired by the Nester.  She's doing 31 days of Lovely Limitations and has over 700 inspirational people linked up with her to do 31 days of topics.

Grampa Joe's House

When things get busy with my dad, it's difficult to make time for the other grampa.  They live two hours away from us and we try to see them at least six or seven times a year.  We usually do the long weekends to spend a couple of days with them, and of course the major holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas.  My kids love to play around their property.  My daughter especially loves the horses.  She is so good with them and shows little fear around them, as opposed to her mother whose heartbeat used to race just by standing beside them.  My in laws have a passion for animals and rescued 3 of their 5 horses from being "disposed of" by buying them at an auction.  Maybe one day, my little girl will be a good rider. 

 

Little brother likes the horses too, but I think he enjoys playing in the dirt more than anything.

Delighting in the Fruits of Our Labor

This November will mark our 4th year anniversary in our apartment.  Year after year, I bought little plants and tried to keep them alive in pots to no avail because I was too selfish to plant them into the ground of the apartment we were renting.  This year, however, I decided that we were going to live in the moment and enjoy the season for what it is.  Life is too short to not seize this time to induldge in every ounce of opportunity we have been granted.  And boy, have we delighted in our little garden!  We have had many a red-smudged face.



Salads with many grape tomatoes!

Look at this vine!

Pattypan Squash

Cucumbers

Bell Pepper

Recalling the Past and Looking Forward to the Future

The week he was diagnosed

My heart was beating so fast as I rushed into the hospital's lobby.  The elevator could not come fast enough and the hall seemed so unusually long.  We knew there was something very serious happening when my mother called us to tell us that the doctor was going to be coming in to give my dad some news.  As I rushed down the hall and into the room, I could see my sister's face.  Her eyes were downcast and her countenance was completely fallen.  Acute Myeloid Leukemia was the diagnosis.  The oncologist predicted 3-4 weeks of life without treatment and months to a year with chemotherapy, even if they were able to get him into remission.  The only hope for a cure would be to have a bone marrow transplant, which is a very risky procedure and highly unlikely because finding an Asian donor is very difficult.  We had no idea what the future held, and even the thought of going to bed, and waking the next morning seemed overwhelming because it meant that we would have to begin this walk through something so unimaginable. 

We are now 21 months into the journey.  My dad barely survived one induction of chemotherapy but was able to get into remission.  He was never able to find a suitable match for the bone marrow transplant.  He continued to have a low dosage of chemo once a month for 5 days called Decitabine and combined it with supplements he takes daily.  At the end of October, he began to show the first signs of weakness as his platelet count began to fall.  After one more dose of Decitabine in November, his counts plummetted, and by December, his white blood cells were so low that the doctor gave him days to weeks of life.

We rejoiced with every passing day.  We savored every moment of the Christmas season.  Day by day, week by week, month by month, we did not know if we would have one more Valentine's Day, one more celebration of my mom's birthday, one more visit with his sister during Spring Break...  Last month they celebrated 35 years of marriage.  My mother never expected to spend another anniversary with him.  And here we are three-fourths the way through September.

Since December, things have not been easy.  He struggled through three serious infections.  One infection which caused some heart complications along with the onset of diabetes.  Blood and platelet transfusions also occur once a week.  Within the last few weeks he has had a decrease in appetite and has been losing about 2 pounds a week.  He has also experienced insomnia.  My mom has waken to him sitting alone in the front room, staring out the window.  He says he has been speaking with the Lord. 

Looking forward, he hopes to spend one more Christmas with us.  We are so grateful for the time that we have had with him and will be so appreciative for what we will continue to have.  Much love and appreciation to those who have walked with us through this journey.

If you have been diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia, please feel free to contact me through the comments.  I remember combing the cyberworld in hopes of finding another person who could understand what we were going through.  We have been blessed with the relief of walking with others who are fighting the same battle.