How to Make Chicken and Rice with Mushrooms - One Pot Meal

 Chicken and Rice with Mushrooms Makes a Full Meal

This is a one pot meal made in a skillet. I used a 12 inch cast iron skillet, but you can use any oven proof skillet with lid that you have. If you don't have a skillet with lid, then use aluminum foil over the top of your skillet. Go for size of close to 12 inches though. The meal will overflow if the pan is too big and overcook if spread across a larger skillet.

This was a meal where I started with a single boneless, skinless chicken breast and thought that would not make much of a meal alone so played around with what I had in the refrigerator.

Chicken and Rice with Mushrooms Recipe

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F

Ingredients:

 1 1/2 Tablespoon olive oil (or 1 TBS olive oil and 1/2 TBS butter for more flavor)

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped green pepper

1 boneless skinless chicken breast or around 1 1/2 cup of raw bite sized chicken chunks

Seasoning (I used black pepper, seasoning salt, Italian seasoning, parsley flakes, and chopped garlic - around 1/2 tsp of each except garlic at 1 TBS)

2 cups mushrooms cleaned and sliced (I used baby bellas)

3/4 cup jasmine rice (or long grain)

1 1/2 cups chicken broth

Directions:

1. Heat oil in skillet that will be used to cook the dish in the oven until hot. If using butter in with the olive oil, it will just start to sizzle.

2. Add onions and green peppers and let cook in the hot oil for around 2 minutes so that the flavors will be released. You will smell the onions..

3. Add the chicken chunks and stir and cook until browned. 

4. Add seasoning when you put the chicken in the skillet. Have fun playing around with this. I listed what I used today, but I vary it depending on my mood.

5. Add mushrooms and let them soften a little - 3 or 4 minutes.

6. Stir in rice and let it brown a tad. This takes 30 seconds to a minute.

7. Pour in the chicken broth and let just come to a boil and remove skillet from the burner.

8. Put lid on skillet and put in 375 degree oven for 25 minutes. If it happens to be a little soupy, just take off lid and bake for a couple of minutes to soak that in. 

This dish will feed two people as complete meals or four as a main dish with sides like green beans or sliced melon and tomatoes.

 

 

How to Make the Best Vegetable Beef Soup

Vegetable beef soup is one of my all time favorite meals especially during fall and winter. There are loads of ways to make it with many delicious flavors, and your soup will come out a little different from mine and from pot to pot.  

Start with the Beef

The first thing you want to do is prepare your beef. You can use leftover roast, but I usually start with a pack of stew beef. You don't even need a lot of beef, because it flavors the soup even with just a little meat. 

Put cooking oil in a skillet that will hold all your beef chunks. I use about 1 tablespoon of oil - just enough to cover the bottom with a very thin coat of oil. Heat the oil up, and then put the beef chunks in to brown. This adds color and releases flavor which will make the soup richer.

Save the meat while you get the main pot ready.  

I like to sprinkle a little Worcestershire on the meat while it's resting.

Add Some Aromatics/Flavors

In the pot you will use to simmer your vegetable beef soup, add a little oil. Again, one tablespoon is a rough estimate. 

Let the oil heat up and then add things that will add layers to the flavor of your soup. I almost always have onions to put in and cook until tender/translucent. I also like to add celery in small chunks and carrots in very thin slices. Garlic is a nice addition when I have fresh garlic. 

If the pan starts to get too dry with the flavoring items cooking, add a bit of broth (or you can use water). 

Add Diced Tomatoes

Once you have cooked your aromatics until the kitchen smells amazing which takes only a few minutes, add a can of petite diced tomatoes. They don't have to be petite diced, but I find the smaller cuts blend better in the soup. The tomatoes also seem to help tenderize the meat. 

Simmer the Basic Pot of Soup

At this point, add the browned meat to the pot and stir.

Then, add water and broth to about two inches above the meat and tomatoes. I use beef broth when I have it but also use chicken broth etc if that's what I have in the cabinet. I go approximately half and half with broth to water, although I use all water if out of broth. The soup is richer with some broth at this point.

A little can (maybe 4 or 5 ounces) of V8 juice also adds a nice flavor. 

Add seasonings now (and you can add a little earlier as you go).

Salt and pepper are for sure. Lowry's seasoning salt is a good pick. I like to add a bay leaf. Garlic, parsley, oregano can be added. Get creative here and go with flavors that you like. Use a light hand until you figure out your favorite combinations. 

I usually let the pot simmer for three or four hours or until the beef is fork tender. The last time I made it, I turned the heat to medium and cooked for only two hours, and it turned out good and still tender. So, you can let this go slow all day or speed it up depending on what you need. 

The liquid cooks out while the soup is simmering, so check it a couple of times and add water and or broth or a combo. You can start with more liquid if you want or if you have to be away from the stove. 

Cook Potatoes

Get a small pot of cold water and add bite sized potato chunks and cook until tender. I add salt and butter to the water.

Once the potatoes are tender, drain off the water and pour the potatoes in with the meat/tomato in the pot. 

You can put the potatoes right in the pot with the soup to cook, but it is hard to get them the correct texture. Do them later, and you can be sure they turn out right.

Of course, you can skip potatoes if you don't have any or don't like them. 

While I'm peeling and cooking the potatoes, I add water/broth to about half way up the pan of soup, so that it gets warm and blends.

Add Your Vegetables

At this point, add any cooked vegetables you like to the pot. These can be canned or frozen (or cooked homemade). My favorites to add at this point are any or all of these: lima beans, black beans, green beans, corn, hominy, peas.

You can also add any leftover items like rice or pasta at this point, or you could cook and add those like with the potatoes.

At this point, you are just warming what is added and letting the flavors meld (and with these steps not getting a mushy mess). So, let the soup simmer along for another 20 or 30 minutes at a low heat. You can heat hotter and faster if in a hurry, but I like to go slow with homemade soup. 

Add more water or broth if needed and to the desired thickness. My sons like really hearty, thick soup. 

Ready to Eat

I like to have biscuits or cornbread with soup, but crackers are good and don't require any extra cooking.

A pot of soup is almost always more than we can eat at one meal, but it warms up great. It can also be frozen, but I think it is better to freeze without the potatoes (because the texture gets kind of odd with freezing). You can always cook a little pot of potatoes and add to the heated frozen soup or just eat it without potatoes.  

Remember that these directions can be changed up a lot but these are the general steps that I take when making really yummy soup at home. 

Hope you enjoy your soup and please add any extra tips in comments for future readers. 

Grandmaw's Applesauce Cake from the Appalachian Mountains

One of my all time favorite cakes is Grandma's Applesauce Cake. It really does have to be Grandma's recipe, or it's just not the same at all. It also helps to have homemade applesauce and black walnuts fresh cracked from the shells which is what Grnndma always had at the family farm in Raven's Nest Branch, Virginia.

The black walnuts at the family farm were not easy to crack or shell. I used an anvil out in the garage and a hammer to crack tons of walnuts when I lived in the mountains after college. Once the roaster pan was full of cracked black walnuts, Grandmaw would just leave it on the kitchen nook table. Everyone would shell some nuts as they hung out in the kitchen. The incentive was that Grandmaw would make awesome food like her applesauce cake if she had nuts ready to use. 

My aunts on my Dad's side who never married shelled a lot of black walnuts each year to sell. Their black walnuts were not so hard, and they cracked easier and would come out in bigger pieces that those in Poppaw and Grandmaw's holler. I couldn't tell a real difference in taste other than fresh black walnuts taste a lot better than the little bags in the grocery store. 

I should also mention that black walnuts have big green outer shells that dry over time. You need to get the shell or husk off before cracking the nuts. You can do this by walking on the nuts, but the green jackets make an awful green mess of your tennis shoes. Your hands also smell like black walnuts and turn green if you work with the freshly fallen nuts. 

Maybe it's all the work that goes into black walnuts or the applesauce from the translucent apples on the tree in the back yard orchid. The apples are tiny, and it takes a ton of them to make  batch of anything. 

Who knows?

It's just a darn good cake, and my mom (Evelyn Myer Allison Looney) gave me a copy of the recipe. That, along with things I remember, are included here so that the recipe passes down to family, friends, and even strangers who love the extra special recipes from days gone.

Grandmaw's Applesauce Cake

Cream together well in a large cake mixing bowl:

1 cup shortening or softened butter

2 cups sugar

2 eggs (room temp)

In a medium sized bowl, mix together (Grandmaw sifted):

4 cups plain flour

2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon powered cloves

1 teaspoon nutmeg

2 teaspoon cinnamon

Stir into the flour mixture the following (so that the little bits of flour keep the fruit and nuts from sinking to the bottom of the cake). Just lightly toss so that there's some flour on the nuts/raisins:

2 cups raisins (sometimes Grandmaw used the yellow raisins - I think she did that for color contrast, although yellow raisins seem a bit sweeter)

2 cups of black walnuts (broken up pieces)

Put the floured nuts and raisins in a separate bowl so that it is easier to mix the base of the cake and so that the fruit and nuts do not get broken up. 

tip: Pour very warm water over the raisins before mixing them in the flour mixture so that they rehydrte a bit and have more flavor and are softer in the cake. You can simmer raisins also. If you add the water, do drain off any excess before mixing in the flour or mixing up the cake. 

Measure out:

2 cups applesauce

Use the large mixing bowl with the creamed butter/sugar as the base. Rotate the flour mixture and the applesauce. Pour in about 1/4 of dry flour mix and 1/4 of applesauce and mix. Mix. Repeat three more times or until all the flour and applesauce are in and mixed up. 

Grease a tube or pound cake pan and sprinkle on just a little flour. This is to keep the cake from sticking. Grandmaw lined her pan with waxed paper to prevent sticking. Some members of the family thought it was to keep is fresh, but Grandmaw said that wasn't really the case. Food never lasted long enough at her house to taste "old."

Bake the cake at 300 or 325 for about an hour. This is where you likely want to play around and write down what works the best with the stove you cook on. Use a toothpick in the center of the cake to test for done-ness until you get your time ad temps perfect. 

Grandmaw's recipe called for a flat pan lid to go over the top of the cake to prevent cracking. She had an old very flat lid that looked like it perhaps came with the old cake pan. I never used a lid over the crack. I don't see cracks in a homemade cake as detracting. 

This is a fabulous cake. I especially loved to get a piece straight out of the oven which happened perhaps maybe three times in my life. It's a memory forever - that's for sure. 

If anyone in the family makes Grandma's applesauce cake, shoot a photo, and I will add that. It is a really beautiful cake. I'm checking about getting some fresh black walnuts, so hopefully I can make the cake for the holidays. 

Note: We did not have a pound cake pan at Thanksgiving, so we used three round 9 inch cake pans. It took about 40 minutes to cook the smaller/thinner cakes.

How to Make Mashed Potato Pancakes

Mashed Potato Pancakes

I love any kind of potato pancakes, and I love them any time of the year. Around Thanksgiving and Christmas I am more likely to have leftover mashed potatoes, so my favorite potato pancakes during the holiday season are the ones made with mashed potatoes left from the big dinners.

It's quite easy to make mashed potato pancakes, and they turn out great if you know a few little tricks for making them. I'll start with the recipe if you want to ripe the info and make the recipe, and I'll add tips if you are making potato pancakes for the first time, or if you have had a previous fail.

Potato Pancake Recipe

2.5 cups of leftover mashed potatos
2 eggs
1/3 cup plain or all purpose flour
salt and pepper
other filler items to suit your tastes

Directions for Making Potato Pancakes

1. Mix together the above ingredients in a medium bowl with a fork
2. Heat 4 tablespoons of Crisco or cooking oil to medium hot
3. Spoon around 1/3 cup of potato mixture into hot oil in pan
4. Wait around 3 minutes or until browned and flip over like a breakfast pancake
5. Put on paper towels to drain off excess oil
6. Eat and enjoy

 Getting Mashed Potatoes Ready to Make Potato Pancakes

It's fine to mix everything at once with potato pancakes. I just pour all the ingredients on top of the potatoes at one time.

You can add all kinds of extras to the potato pancakes. Today I used chopped onions (about 2 tablespoons), parsley flakes (about a teaspoon), and Brady Street Seasoning (2 teaspoons) which is a cheese flavored seasoning from Penzeys which tastes great.

Other options that you might want to consider are crumbled bacon, chives, shredded cheese, and any favorite seasonings

Stir Potato Mixture with Fork

I stir my potato mixture with a fork, but it's fine to use a spoon. I just use a fork to get the items in the mixture evenly distributed. The fork seems to mix it up better.

Once you get thing mixed up, decide if the batter is too thick or thin. You want it like breakfast pancake batter but thicker. You may not be able to tell about the right thickness until you've made the first potato pancake or if you have made them before. If in doubt, try a small test pancake to check. It should spread out just a little but not a lot like breakfast pancake batter.

If the batter is too thin, you can add a little extra flour or another egg. Do this with a light hand. A little extra can make a pretty big change in the batter.

Usually the batter is not too thick, but if it is like cement mix, then you can add a tablespoon of milk one spoon at a time until you have a batter that will spread if lightly pressed with the back of a spoon.

Into a Hot Pan with Potato Pancakes

I like to use a cast iron skillet to make mashed potato pancakes. Cast iron heats hot and even, and it is very non-stick if you have seasoned your cast iron well (I need to add a post about seasoning cast iron). You can use any skillet you own though.

The oil should be about 1/8 inch in the pan. It's more than just rubbing a coat on the bottom but not enough that the potato pancakes are floating and getting oil soaked into the sides. Around 3 tablespoons of oil works in the 12 inch cast iron pan. You may have to add a little more oil between batches too.

Make sure the oil (and pan) is hot before putting any mixture in the pan. If the pan and oil are not hot enough, you will have greasy potato pancakes. I use medium heat on my electric stove. It is right before smoking and shows some tiny ripples (but cools as soon as batter is added).

You probably will want to tap the spoon of potatoes down a little bit, because the batter is thick. If you tap evenly around the edges, you can make the potato pancakes rounder and prettier too, although the way they look does not impact taste (-: Don't really press down, or you will make a mess. Just lightly tap, tap, tap.

Fry Potato Pancakes Until Golden Brown

You can flip your potato pancake once the bottom has browned. This takes about three minutes. Look for the edges to look a bit cooked and perhaps to actually see some browning at the very bottom. Be careful though, because if you see browning, you may have shifted over to the burned zone.

One way to figure out when the potato pancakes are ready to flip is to use a fork and very gently lift just a tiny little bit on the edge and look. I use a salad fork to lift and look.

If your potato pancakes are looking greasy, you probably are using too much oil in the pan, have the heat too low, or you have flipped the pancakes more than one time. Don't flip until you are ready to flip or take them out.

If the pancakes look kind of dry and go right to a darker color instead of the golden brown, then you probably are too low on oil or some kind of fat. This is when you add a bit of Crisco or oil to the side of the pan.

Once I get the first round of potato pancakes cooked, I like to add a little butter or bacon grease to the pan. Not much. Just a half tablespoon or so. This adds more flavor, and butter will give an extra nice color. It's fine to just use Crisco or vegetable oil though.

Make the potato pancakes small, or they will be hard to turn. I go about three inches from side to side. They stay really close the size that you put in the pan, since there are no rising agents in the batter. When you tap the batter with a spoon (when you first put it in the pan), then the pancakes gets a tad bigger around but not a lot. Just play around with this, so you will know how big of a pancake you can flip over.

Once you flip the potato pancakes, it takes even less time to cook the second side. I can't explain this scientifically. It's just how it goes. So, watch closely after you flip the pancakes. The little side lift and peek trick works really well at this point, since the potato pancakes are set and not as fragile as when they were first put in the pan.

Best Ever Homemade Mashed Potato Pancakes

Once your potato pancakes are cooked, put them on paper towels to drain. You don't really have to, but they stay crispier, and I think they taste better this way.

You can move the potato pancakes to a platter and keep them warm in an oven turned to low just as you would for breakfast pancakes. With the potato mix, the pancakes stay hot a bit longer than breakfast pancakes do. Still, if you are making a lot or holding them for dinner, then the warming trick works well.

Mashed potato pancakes are great plain and also with apple sauce. My son likes them covered or dipped in gravy. You probably have other favorite ways of enjoying this treat. Or, just get creative and try some new things. Worst case scenario, you have to toss a pancake (and - does it ever get THAT bad? LOL).

Enjoy your potato pancakes! These are very traditional and taste like ones great Grandma made years ago. Hard to beat tradition.

How to Make Real Homemade Banana Pudding

Banana Pudding - Grandma's Recipe

My Grandma made the absolute best banana pudding. I’m not really a banana pudding fan. But, if Grandma made the banana pudding, then I went wild for it.


The big difference between Grandma’s banana pudding and other banana puddings is that she actually made the pudding part. She did not buy a box of pudding mix. Grandma rarely ever bought convenience foods, so she made things that most people never think of making from scratch. In the case of pudding, the scratch pudding is much better in the banana pudding recipe.


Another thing I especially enjoyed about Grandma’s homemade banana pudding was her meringue. The pudding calls for the two eggs yolks, and the whites are separated out to make the meringue.


The end result here is the world’s best banana pudding. Sure. It takes a little time and effort. Most really fabulous dishes do. This one is worth every second.

Grandma’s Banana Pudding from Scratch

Basic Pudding Recipe


 2 cups scalded milk (cook until it forms a little skin on top - careful and don't scorch the bottom)
 ¾ cup sugar
 ¼ tsp salt
 1/3 cup plain flour
 2 eggs (only use the yolks for the pudding part of the recipe)
 1 ½ tsp lemon juice (or vanilla flavoring is fine and what I use)


Meringue


 2 egg whites (left over from the two egg yolks used in the pudding)
 2 tsp sugar
 Other Items Needed
 3 or 4 bananas
 Vanilla Wafer cookies


Directions:


First scald the milk. Heat it until it forms a little skin on top. Do not use high heat and burn the bottom of the milk.


Combine the sugar, salt, and flour and stir into the scalded milk. Pour this right in the pan where the meat has just been scalded.


Cook over low to medium heat until the mixture thickens to a pudding consistency.


Take a spoon of the hot mixture and put it in a bowl with the egg yolks only (saving egg whites for meringue). This is done to keep the eggs from curdling or turning into lumpy little gross bits of egg that do not taste good in the pudding or anything else for that matter. Adding just a spoon of the hot mixture over allows the eggs to adjust to the temperature.


Once the hot mixture is stirred into the egg yolks, the egg yolks can be poured into the pudding mixture.

At this point, the pot is off the heat but it’s still pretty hot – just having been thickened.


Put the pot back on the heat and cook just a little longer to get the egg cooked and mixed well in with the milk mixture.


Get a large bowl out. A mixing bowl is fine, but you’ll need to cover the top.


Place a layer of Vanilla Wafers in the bowl on the bottom and up the sides as best you can. Some bowls are easier to line with wafers than others.


Cover the Vanilla Wafers with a layer of bananas.


Pour half the homemade pudding over the bananas. The homemade pudding will slowly engulf the bananas and cookies.


Layer again the same as above. Put down a flat layer of cookies and cover with bananas in what will be the center of the pudding bowl. Pour the rest of the pudding over this middle layer.


To make the meringue which goes on top of the completed pudding, beat the egg whites with a mixer and gradually add sugar. This will look a big like Cool Whip when ready.


Spread the meringue over the top of the banana pudding. Use fingers to press meringue to edge of bowls. Otherwise, it shrinks and doesn’t look as pretty.


Put meringue under the broiler in the oven very briefly. You just want a light brown on the edges and tips of the meringue.


That’s how to make my Grandma’s banana pudding. It really can’t be beat. I’m totally spoiled when it comes to banana pudding. This is the only one that I’ll eat really.

Sweet Potato Casserole - Sinfully Rich and Yummy

 Sweet Potato Casserole Could Go on the Dessert Table

One of our favorite holiday dishes is Southern Sweet Potato Casserole. This sinful dish would work just fine on the dessert table, but we eat it as a side. Sweet Potato Bake is delicious with turkey or ham. Not only is the casserole rich and sweet, it adds some color to the dinner table or at a pot lot feast. This is one of my mom’s specialty recipes, and folks are always asking her how to make this dish.


Southern Sweet Potato Casserole


The Basic Casserole


•    sweet potatoes (3 or 4 medium potatoes – 6 inches long and 2 to 2 inches thick
•    1/2 stick butter
•    1/2 cup white sugar
•    1/4 cup brown sugar (light or dark)
•    1/4 cup evaporated milk
•    2 eggs
•    1 tsp vanilla
•    1/2 tsp cinnamon


The Topping


•    1 1/2 cups crushed corn flakes
•    1/2 cup brown sugar
•    1/4 cup pecans


Directions:


Boil sweet potatoes until they are soft when stuck with a fork. Let cool a bit. Peel. The peeling basically falls right off. Mash sweet potatoes until nice and creamy.


Add the casserole ingredients to the mashed sweet potatoes. The order isn’t critical. It does help to let the butter get pretty soft or even to melt the butter. Mix everything in well.


Spray a little Pam or very lightly grease a casserole in the 9 x 9 size range. Pour the sweet potato mixture in and smooth even.


Mix the topping in a small bowl. If you’re in a hurry, you can just put the topping on in the order listed.


Bake casserole for 15 minutes at 450 degrees. This crisps up the topping and has the filling piping hot.


Tips:


Sweet Potato Casserole can be put together the night before and then baked right before the meal. Just tuck it in the refrigerator and pull it out the next day. Allow a little more cooking time if the casserole is fully chilled.


This casserole also warms up well in the microwave. You probably won’t have leftovers, but if you do, you’ll enjoy the sweet potatoes re-heated too.

How to Make a Pecan Pie

Traditional Southern Pecan Pie

We grew up with pecan trees in the yard, so we had pecan pies often. If mom was willing to make pies, all “the kids” were certainly willing to pick up and crack out the nuts. We went through a lot of nut crackers, and my dad kept buying new and improved crackers. As we grew up and moved out, he continued to crack out nuts with his various crackers. And, mom kept making pecan pies but mostly at holidays when the family headed back to visit.

There are loads of variations on the basic pecan recipe, but I’d say that I like the traditional southern recipe the best. It’s simply hard to improve on something so delicious.

Southern Pecan Pie

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup butter (softened)
• 1 cup corn syrup (Karo brand is common in the south)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla flavoring or extract
• 3 eggs
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups pecans
• 1 9-inch pie shell (deep dish is a good idea)

Directions:

Cream the sugar and butter well in a medium sized mixing bowl.

Add syrup, salt, and vanilla. Mix again.

Add eggs one at a time and mix after each.

Stir in pecans (or you can place them on top if you want).

Pour mixture into pie crust. Do not bake the pie crust first for this one.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Bake for 45 minutes.

Tips for Making Pecan Pies

The only real problem I’ve ever seen with pecan pies is them not “setting” (or firming up). I’m not completely sure why this happens. I think the pies are less likely to firm up if the corn syrup is old and also if the filling is not mixed well. I use fresh syrup and do not double the recipe. If I want two pies, I mix each up separate.

When using pecan pieces, stirring them in works well. They rise up to the top during the cooking. For whole pieces, you can do the same. But, you can get a nice, neat pattern if you place the nuts on by hand after pouring the sugar batter in the pie crust.

Some people like vanilla ice cream on top of pecan pie. Some just like it plain. It's great either way.

Leftovers can be stored in the refrigerator (if you have any left over). Microwave a slice for 10 seconds or so to take the chill off.