Pan-Fried Chicken with Hoisin Cranberry Sauce

It's that time of year when cranberry recipes make their appearances.  Even if it's canned cranberries.  The sauce that goes with this chicken has hoisin sauce in it, which I couldn't find at Walmart.  When I went to Hannaford to look, I went to the "international" section and couldn't find it there either.  I texted my sister to find out what the heck hoisin sauce was.  Then I called my husband and he googled it too.  Both of them found Hannaford's website which said what brand they had; my sister even texted me the picture.  It wasn't there.  I was getting mad.  I got what I thought would be a good alternative, based on a recipe Steve found for homemade hoisin sauce.  Then, because Steve found out it was "like Chinese barbecue sauce," I thought I would check by the ketchup and mustard, where the normal barbecue sauce is.  And there it was.  What weird product placement.  So all this made me mad at the recipe before I had even begun.  But it ended up being yummy enough that it was okay...from Simple & Delicious Oct/Nov 2012.

Pan-Fried Chicken with Hoisin Cranberry Sauce
4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2 cup flour
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup panko bread crumbs
2 tbsp olive oil
 Sauce:
14 oz can whole-berry cranberry sauce
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
1 tsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground ginger

Flatten chicken slightly; sprinkle with salt, pepper, and ginger.  Place the flour, eggs, and bread crumbs in separate shallow bowls.  Coat chicken with flour, dip in eggs, then coat with crumbs.

Cook chicken in oil in a large skillet over medium heat for 4-6 minutes on each side or until no longer pink.

Combine all sauce ingredients in a saucepan; heat through.  Serve with chicken.

Emma & Nathan didn't want the sauce on theirs.  Sam loved the sauce.  The chicken was juicy in the middle and the coating was crispy.  The sauce was very good.  It tasted very Chinese-y.  Almost like the sauce on the ribs you get at a Chinese restaurant, but not as thick.  And, no MSG.  Sam and I had some of the leftovers for lunch today, and the chicken wasn't crispy anymore, but I think the sauce was even better.

Hazelnut Chocolate Mousse

We were going to have this for home fellowship last week, but then it got cancelled, for various reasons.  Emma and I decided to make this today, since we had already bought all the ingredients.  Emma loves Nutella, so I was thinking of her when I picked out this recipe.  It was very easy, and she did the whole thing herself, with just a tiny bit of help from me reading the recipe and helping with the measurements.  It's from Simple & Delicious.

Hazelnut Chocolate Mousse
1 3/4 cup cold milk
1 pkg (3.9 oz) instant chocolate pudding mix
1/2 cup nutella
1 3/4 cup cool whip
Additional cool whip for garnish

Whisk milk and pudding mix in a large bowl for 2 minutes.  Let stand for 2 minutes or until soft set.  Whisk in Nutella until smooth.  Fold in whipped topping.  Spoon into 6 dessert dishes.  Chill until serving.  Garnish with additional cool whip before serving.

We just left ours in a big bowl and spooned servings out of it.  And I actually didn't get to try it, except for licking the spoon after we made it, because I went to work.  But Steve and the kids greatly enjoyed it.  And Emma was so proud that she had made it herself.

Beef Macaroni and Cheese

This was an easy recipe from Back of the Box.  All I had to buy were the tomatoes.  That is exactly the ingredient they want you to buy, so they got me on this one.  Tonight was a good night for an easy one because I worked the last two nights and only slept a few hours today.  It is similar to chop suey...our family calls it goulash.

Beef Macaroni and Cheese
1 lb ground beef
1 cup chopped onion
14 oz can diced tomatoes with basil, garlic, and oregano, undrained
1 cup elbow macaroni
1 cup water
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Brown beef and onions until no longer pink; drain if necessary.  Add tomatoes with their juice and water; bring to a boil.  Stir in macaroni.  Cover and simmer for 10 minutes or until macaroni is tender.  Stir in cheese.

See how easy?  When I was making this I thought it didn't look that great.  But once I got to the last step and added the cheese, it really came together and looked yummy.  Nathan doesn't like cheese (IF and only if he knows it's there...) so I scooped out a little bit for him before I added the cheese in.  Everybody loved this and it was really so easy.  Definitely keeping.

Chicken Sticks with Pineapple-Peanut Sauce

This is from Back of the Box.  I made another chicken recipe one time with peanut butter and it was really tasty so I wanted to try this one, too.  The featured ingredient is the pineapple.  They want you to buy Dole but I bought Great Value.

Chicken Sticks with Pineapple-Peanut Sauce
8 or 9 metal skewers (I used wooden ones, soaked for 30 minutes, because I don't want to have to wash skewers along with everything else...)
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 8-oz can crushed pineapple
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp lime juice
1 1/2 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Cut chicken into strips 1/2 inch wide and 3 or 4 inches long.  Thread two to three strips of meat onto each skewer.  Arrange skewers on broiler pan sprayed with cooking spray.  Drain pineapple, reserving 1/4 cup juice (don't bother with this step...I drained mine and got exactly 1/4 cup juice, and you end up combining it all anyway).  Combine crushed pineapple, reserved juice, peanut butter, brown sugar, lime juice, curry powder, and ginger in blender or food processor.  Cover and blend until smooth.  Reserve 3/4 cup sauce for dipping; set aside.  Brush part of the remaining pineapple sauce over chicken.  Broil chicken 4 inches from heat, turning once and brushing with sauce, for about 10 minutes or until meat is no longer pink.  Discard any remaining sauce used during grilling.  Serve chicken with reserved pineapple sauce for dipping.

This was SO fabulous.  The sauce smelled great before it ever got near the chicken.  It reminded me of a cross between chex mix seasoning and Watkins ground beef seasoning (only my mom & sister will know what that is...) but don't let that throw you.  Once I ate it on the chicken it was unbelievably good...all the layers of flavor, the subtle pineapple with the peanut butter and a hint of the chex mixy-ness.  We are definitely keeping this one and having it again.  Really, so so good.

Blueberry Ginger Muffin Tops

This is from Back of the Box cooking.  We always have blueberries now, because of our blueberry bushes.  So I didn't have to buy anything special for this recipe, which is always convenient, AND lets me make more new things during the week. The thing they want you to buy for this recipe is the oatmeal.  This recipe is like muffin batter, but a bit thicker, and you bake them on a cookie sheet instead of muffin tins, so you just get the tops of the muffins. 

Blueberry Ginger Muffin Tops
1 1/2 cups oats (quick or old-fashioned)(I used quick)
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 1/3 cup flour
1 tbsp baking powder
3/4 tsp ground ginger
2/3 cup milk
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 400.  Grease large cookie sheet.  Combine oats and sugar.  For streusel topping, combine 1/4 cup oat & sugar mixture with 1 tbsp of the melted butter in a small bowl; set aside.  For muffins, add flour, baking powder, and ginger to remaining oat mixture and mix well.  Combine milk, remaining melted butter, and egg; add to dry ingredients just until moistened.  Stir in blueberries.  Drop by measured 1/4 cupfuls onto prepared cookie sheet.  Sprinkle streusel topping evenly over batter, patting gently.  Bake 20 to 22 minutes, or until golden brown.  Serve warm.

First of all, not enough streusel topping, I only had enough for a scant smattering on 10 of the 12 muffin tops.  Secondly, the kids didn't really like these.  Nathan didn't even want to try one.  Emma and Sam both tried them,but they didn't like the oatmeal.  Steve and I liked them though.  And I had a leftover one for breakfast with my coffee this morning and I thought they were good.  I couldn't really taste the ginger in them, though.  To me they were just like oatmeal blueberry muffins.  So pretty good, but why make something again that I know the kids won't like?  So, not saving...

Southwest Pulled Pork

My new Simple & Delicious came a couple of weeks ago, and this is the first recipe I have marked to try.  It makes a lot of pulled pork and you have it on rolls.  Then it has 2 recipes you can make with the leftover meat, but I didn't like the looks of either of those, so I froze the leftovers to have pulled pork sandwiches again soon.

Southwest Pulled Pork
1 boneless pork shoulder butt roast
2 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (I left this out)
1 large sweet onion, coarsely chopped
2 cans (4 oz each) chopped green chilies
1 cup chicken broth
kaiser rolls, split

Cut roast in half (I removed all the fat I could at this point, too).  Combine the chili powder, brown sugar, cumin, salt, pepper, and cayenne in a small bowl; rub over meat.  Transfer to a 5 qt slow cooker.  Top with onion and chilies.  Pour broth around meat.

Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours or until tender.  Remove meat; cool slightly.  Skim fat from cooking juices.  Shred pork with 2 forks and return to slow cooker; heat through.  Serve on rolls.

This was quite good.  It almost had the taste of taco seasoning.  All the kids liked it, even Emma who hates to chew meat, because it was nice and tender.  It makes me excited when I can freeze the rest, too.  Good easy meal that smelled great...a keeper! 

Drop Cornmeal Biscuits

I heart drop biscuits and drop cookies, because I hate to knead and roll out dough.  Not that I will never do it, because sometimes I will, but I like so much better a recipe that you just drop the dough.  We had these tonight with Yummy Chicken Soup, which is one of the first "new" things I ever tried way back when I first started doing new recipes.  It's still one of my favorites.  I thought these biscuits would go well with it.  The only featured ingredient here is Land O' Lakes butter, which of course I did not buy.  However, I did have to run to the "snack store" which is like 1 minute from my house to pay twice as much for butter as I would at any normal store because I only had 1/2 of a stick left instead of a whole stick.  That made me so mad that I bought some diet pepsi too.

Drop Cornmeal Biscuits
1 3/4 cup flour
2/3 cup cornmeal
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup cold butter
1 cup buttermilk (if you don't have it [and who has buttermilk laying around?] use 1 tbsp lemon juice or vinegar plus enough milk to equal 1 cup; let stand 5 minutes)

Preheat oven to 450.  Combine flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl; cut in butter with pastry blender or fork until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Add buttermilk; stir until mixture is just combined (if batter is too thin [and how would I know, this being the first time I've made this?] stir in 1 to 2 tbsp additional flour).  Drop by 1/4 cupfuls, 1 inch apart, onto greased baking sheet.  Bake for 12 to 14 minutes or until golden brown.

These came out perfect!  Even Nathan liked them.  They were great dunked in the soup, and I think they would be good with chili too because of the cornmeal.  But it wasn't overpowering cornmeal, it didn't have the texture or the yellow color of a corn muffin.  Definitely will make these again!