Chicken Challenge

Recently, I have been too busy to blog--what with school and work starting and all--but I found some inspiration in a friend's email. We had run into eachother at a conference in July, where she was telling me about a wonderful baked chicken recipe. She emailed it to me, and the rest is history. Now, I haven't actually tried the recipe yet, but it sounds good, I thought I'd share it here.

Ok, so what's the "challenge" part? I'm calling on you to submit your favorite chicken recipes. As I receive submissions, I will post the recipes.

So now to the "meat" of the post...The following recipe was sent to me by MG. She found it on allrecipes.com where it was originally submitted by Gretchen Ramey.

Honey Baked Chicken II

1 (3lb.) whole chicken (cut into pieces) OR bone-in chicken pieces
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup prepared mustard
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. curry powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place chicken in shallow (foil-lined) baking pan, skin side up. Combine melted butter, honey, mustard, salt and curry powder in a bowl and stir well until completely mixed together. Pour mixture over chicken. Bake for 1 1/4 hours (75 minutes) basting every 15 minutes w/ pan drippings, until chicken is nicely browned and tender and juices run clear.

Since this recipe only calls for 1 tsp. of curry powder, you can't tell that much that it has curry in it once it's cooked. Lining the pan with foil really helps with clean-up. It does take a while to bake because you have to baste every 15 minutes but boy, it's worth it! Somehow, the combination of all these ingredients makes for a really good chicken recipe. It's rich but SO yummy! I like to serve it with steamed white rice and steamed veggies on the side.

Mmmm...looking forward to seeing more yummy chickens fly into my inbox.

Tea

What could be more refreshing on a hot and humid day than a glass of iced tea? This afternoon I was craving some iced tea, but we didn't have any already made--and besides, I don't like the (often bitter) taste of most conventional iced teas. Last summer, Mom made some southern sweet iced tea for a group of us that had gone hiking. I loved it! It was sweet, but not too sweet. Today I was wishing we had some of that tea, but I couldn't even find the recipe to make myself some--so I improvised.

Ingredients:
3 c. water
2 Lipton Iced Tea Brew (family sized) bags
1 cup sugar (approx)

Combine water and tea bags in a small saucepan, and bring just to a boil. Boil for a minute or two--not too long or else you'll bring out the tannin [bitter stuff] in the tea. Turn off the heat and let sit for 3 minutes with the lid on. Remove the tea bags--without squeezing them--and add 1 cup sugar, stirring until dissolved. Taste and add more sugar if desired. (I originally put in 1 1/4 cup sugar, and found the result too sweet). This will make a tea concentrate.

To serve: fill a cup with ice, and add the tea concentrate. I added enough ice to effectively dilute the concentrate in a 50-50 ratio. Add more ice if the tea is too strong, less if it's too weak.

Enjoy!

Now all I need is a hammock in the shade.

Addendum: After another batch of tea, I think 1 cup of sugar is still too sweet--even for a concentrate. Instead, start with 1/2 to 2/3 cup suger, and add more if you want it sweeter.

Heavenly Honey-Bran Muffins

Here is a recipe for some finger-lickin' good bran muffins. Who knew that something this yummy could also be good for you?!



Just a word of caution: the muffin batter makes enough for 6 dozen muffins. You can either freeze the extra batter, or halve the recipe. A good resource I have found is this online recipe converter. You can use it to double, triple, halve, sevenths...etc just about any recipe under the sun. Another option is to bake all the muffins up, wrap them individually, and freeze them--just defrost them in the fridge the night before you want to eat them.

Mimi’s Honey-Bran Muffins

2 c. boiling water
6 c. all-bran® cereal, divided
1 c. oil
4 eggs, beaten
3 c. sugar
1 qt. buttermilk
5 c. all purpose flour
5 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. salt
24 oz. apple butter
2 c. chopped walnuts (optional)
2 c. raisins (optional)

Muffin Glaze (enough for 16 muffins)
3 Tbsp. sugar
3 Tbsp. dark brown sugar, packed
3 Tbsp shortening
2 Tbsp corn syrup
2 tsp. water

1. Pour boiling water over 2 c. bran cereal. Add oil. Mix and set aside.

2. Mix together beaten eggs, sugar, buttermilk, and the remaining bran—in that order.

3. Sift flour with soda and salt. Combine bran mixtures with flour mixture. Stir in apple butter, walnuts, and raisins.

4. To make the glaze: Melt shortening in a small saucepan. Add the sugars, corn syrup, and water. Simmer for 5 minutes (until slightly thickened [Mom said it “has that caramelized look”]).

5. Grease muffin tins well (really well!!). Distribute about 1 Tbsp. glaze onto bottom and sides of 12 muffin tins with a pastry brush. **I just scooped glaze into the bottom of the tin with a spoon—didn’t even bother brushing the sides.

6. Fill muffin tins 2/3 full and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Immediately invert onto foil or waxed paper to cool.

[NOTE] The "immediately" is an extremely important part. If you allow the muffins to cool in the tins, they will be nearly impossible to remove. They must be dumped out of the tins right away, and allowed to cool on their "tops" (a.k.a. with the sticky side up).

If you're anything like me, these muffins won't last long. In fact, we have some batter in the fridge. I think I'll go bake up a batch of these brown beauties right now.

Lets Eat!!!

Bet you can't guess what I'll be posting about (smile)! The purpose of this blog is to share recipes, and talk about food (tips, tricks...etc). However, I don't want to be the only one talking, I want you to be able to share your recipes, hints, and questions here too. Since this isn't a group blog, if you have a recipe, hint, or question you want to share, please feel free to email it to me and I'll put it up for you.

Ready? Let's get started!

To kick-off the start of this new blog, I want to share one of my favoritist recipes. I was introduced to this dessert two years ago when I saw a Hagan Daas ice-cream competition on TV. The winning ice-cream flavor looked so good that we went out and bought it, tried it, and loved it. About a year later, one of my sisters saw a recipe in Country Home Magazine for the original desert that inspired the ice-cream flavor. The ice-cream was really good, but the dessert was even better! Thus I give you:

Sticky Toffee Pudding (Country Home Magazine)
The Kitchen uses plump Medjool dates, but any dried dates will work. You can cool the cakes, cover, and store them for up to three days (chill sauce separately). Then you can add sauce and heat only as many cakes at a time as you plan to serve.


For Cakes:
12 pitted dried dates, chopped
1 Tbsp. brewed espresso or strong brewed coffee
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. vanilla
¾ cup boiling water
5 Tbsp. butter, softened
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
¾ cup self-rising flour

For Sauce:
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
1 ½ cups packed brown sugar
¾ cup whipping cream
1/3 cup chopped pecans, toasted
Vanilla ice cream (optional)

Lightly coat ten 2 ½-inch muffin cups with cooking spray; set aside. Place dates in a blender** with espresso, baking soda, and vanilla. Cover and pulse for a few seconds until slightly blended, then slowly add boiling water, pulsing until nearly smooth. Transfer to a small bowl.

**You can use a food processor—but I thought the blender worked better.

In food processor (or with a hand mixer), process 5 tablespoons butter with granulated sugar for 5 minutes, stopping to scrape down sides occasionally. Add eggs, 1 at a time, processing until combined after each. Transfer mixture to a medium bowl and fold in flour, a little at a time, until combined. Fold date mixture into butter-flour mixture. Pour into prepared muffin cups, filling each about two-thirds full. Bake in a 350* oven for 15 minutes or until tops are lightly browned and spring back when touched. Let cool 5 minutes in muffin cups. Remove cakes from muffin cups and arrange in foil-lined pan

To make caramel sauce, melt 1 cup butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir in brown sugar. Bring to boiling, stirring to dissolve sugar. Boil gently, uncovered, for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat; stir in cream (slowly) and pecans.

Spoon about 1 tablespoon sauce over each cake in pan. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes more or until sauce is bubbly. Remove to serving dishes. Spoon additional warm sauce atop each and serve with ice cream, if desired.

Makes approx. 10 servings.