Honey Mustard Chicken With Roasted Vegetables

This is so easy, you'll want to make this a staple meal.

Ingredients: 

• 4-6 chicken thighs (bone in, skin on) or chicken breast
• 4 small or 2 large potatoes into 1/2" chunks
• 1 large onion, quartered
• 4 large carrots, peeled, chop in half
• 1 bulb garlic, peeled (or 4 cloves if you want less garlic)
• 4 tablespoons honey
• 4 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 1 squirt of Sriracha (optional)

Mix honey and mustard (and sriracha) together in a bowl with a fork or whisk until just combined.
In a baking dish, layer veggies in the bottom.
Top with chicken.
Season with salt and pepper.
Pour honey mustard mixture over the top of each chicken piece.
Cover with foil
Bake at 375 degrees for 30-35 minutes
Uncover, (optional - mix up more honey/mustard/sriracha and brush it over the tops of the chicken) crank heat up to 425 and bake another 10 minutes or so until tops of chicken are browned and crispy.

Serve as is or, for a heartier meal, serve over brown rice or pilaf.

Cool Stuff

I'm going to start posting cool stuff here, like food-related tutorials or neat ideas. I'll put them on a handy link box on the left so you can go through them as you like.

 For today, here is a quick tutorial on easy chocolate cups. Cheers:)

French Toast Rolls

Here is a fancy way to serve French Toast. Treat it like you would regular French Toast, using what ever spices or toppings you normally would.

Use any kind of sandwich bread for this. I used a 12 grain bread, which has lovely nutty crunchy bits sprinkled through it. 

French Toast Rolls

Serves Two

Ingredients

4 slices of bread

1 egg

1/4 cup milk

1 teaspoons cinnamon sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

butter

1. In a bowl, whisk together eggs, milk and spices.
2.  (Optionally, cut crusts off before rolling)
3. Roll out bread with a rolling pin or smooth sided cup until about 1/4 inch thick.
4. Spread bread slices with butter, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar (optional).

1. Roll bread, starting at the long end, into a log shape. Repeat with each slice.
2. In a hot pan (medium heat), add 1 tablespoon or so of butter. Melt butter until it sizzles.
3. Dip bread in egg mixture.
4. Add in rolled bread to pan/butter, seam side down. Cook 1-2 minutes on each side. Serve warm.

Tips: 

Sprinkle toasted walnuts into filling
Spread jam or soft fruit as filling
Use cream cheese for filling

Sift powdered sugar over top

Enchilada Lasagna (or Lazy Man's Enchiladas)

I love making this, its so easy and quick. 

I use a square brownie pan. This serves four nicely, with sides, or two fat-kids (me and my hubs). You could easily double this recipe and use a 3-4 qt baking dish.

4 large flour tortillas, cut into quarters (or 6 small corn tortillas, cut in halves) 

2 cups (ish) leftover meat and veggies, chopped

I had leftover pork cooked with chiles and corn

1 large can Enchilada Sauce

Shredded 'Mexican' mixed cheese

Lay tortillas in the bottom of the pan, with points in the corners and rounded edges towards the center 

Sprinkle cheese over top to cover tortillas.

Layer on the chopped meat and veggies over the cheese.

Pour on Enchilada sauce to cover (this will be about 1/3 of the can)

Repeat layering until you've used up all the ingredients or filled the pan. 

Bake at 350 for about 45 min. I like to give the cheese a nice crust so I'll turn the broiler on for a few minutes or turn the heat up to 450 for the last stretch.

Giant V-day Candy Coated Sugar Cookies

Isn't this the one day a year that's really about letting go and eating candy?
Sure, love and all that too. My man loves candy, so I made him a super sweet treat this Valentine's Day.

Sugar Cookie Recipe
Makes about a dozen small cookies or four giant cookies

4 oz Butter (unsalted)
5 oz Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
1 Egg
1 oz Milk
1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract
10 oz Cake Flour
1/4 oz Baking Powder

Have all ingredients together at room temperature before starting.
Place the butter, sugar and salt in a bowl and cream till light and fluffy.
Add eggs, milk and vanilla, blend to combine.
Sift in flour and baking powder, until just combined. Be gentle, don't over mix it.
Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes until firm to the touch, but not golden brown. These sugar cookies are meant to be light in color and soft.
Cool completely before you frost!


I used store bought Funfetti Aqua Blue Vanilla frosting (with little candy fishy sprinkles) and sprinkled it with Skittles desserts and Jolly Rancher sour fruit bites  (both candies I found at the check-out line). 
Cut out with a heart-shaped cookie cutter. I found this Wilton Set that has a giant heart shaped one, plus a design (I just used the heart one) but any cookie cutter will do. I also love this 8-bit one.




Tip: Roll out your dough and lay it on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Then cut your shapes out and just remove the excess. That way you don't mess up your pretty shapes by moving them to the sheet.

Chicken and Smoked Sausage Paella

This one pan meal is ridiculously easy and super customize-able. It makes it's own side dishes too!
Paella is basically a chicken-and-rice dish you make all in one pan.  If you want to get fancy, you can use a Paella pan. Some day, Ill have to get one (add to mental check list of neato kitchen things I want someday). Today I used my giant (12") nonstick skillet and it turned out beautifully.
My measurements, as usual, are kind of approximate, I typically just eyeball this stuff, but here is a good representation.

Feeds 4-6

4 chicken thighs (bone in, skin on)
1.5 cups smoked sausage, cut on bias
1/2 onion, chopped
4-5 garlic cloves, chopped
1/4 cup kalamata olives (or other black olives)
1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, quartered (or 1 tomato, diced)
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 cup rice
Salt, pepper, Goya all purpose seasoning to taste

Trim chicken of any fat globs, especially on the underside. Salt and pepper skin side.
In a hot pan, place chicken skin side down. Top with something heavy - I used a pot filled with water. The weight helps cook the chicken and, most importantly, gives the skin a wonderful crisp. Cook for 10 minutes or so, till golden brown and crispy on the skin side. The underside will still be undercooked but dont worry about that. Remove chicken to a plate.
In the skillet, add in sausage, onion and garlic. Saute in pan until browned, about 5 minutes. Add chicken back into pan. Add rice, tomatoes, olives, tomato paste and spices. Cover with water. I didnt measure the water here, just pour enough water in that it covers everything.
Place a lid on it and DONT TOUCH IT for 20 minutes. Don't lift the lid. Don't stir it. Nada.
Cook it till all the liquid is absorbed by the rice. Poke the rice and make sure its soft, but it should be done when all the liquid is absorbed.
Cut the heat off and let it sit for another 5-10 minutes to cool and absorb any remaining liquid.
Serve.

Paella is excellent with pretty much anything, so feel free to use different ingredients. Seafood paella, with shrimp, scallops and fish is really common too. You could easily do this vegetarian too, say tofu instead of chicken, some sweet potato, squash, carrots, etc. Imagination is the limit.