Home-Style Chicken and Gravy

Did you know that Paprika is made from a pepper? I did not know this. All I knew, was that it was a spice. Now, according to what I've found online about paprika, it's not real spicy. Here is the link: http://www.mccormick.com/content.cfm?id=8225
Well, I am here to tell you, SOMETHING about it is spicy. This recipe was delicious - the only problem was, the outside was a bit on the spicy side. Okay, some bites were a lot. Now we use seasoned salt a lot - it's never been spicy. The garlic-pepper blend is black pepper, and I went light on that. But the PAPRIKA - now THAT I went a little crazy with.
So my tip of the day, before you go making this is, USE THE MEASUREMENTS BELOW. I did not - I 'eyeballed it'. Hey it works for Rachael Ray.
Didn't work for me though.
Paprika aside, this was some good chicken. On with the recipe....

Your ingredients:

• 6 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (I actually used 3 - but they were HUGE)
• 1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
• 3/4 teaspoon paprika (trust me on this - do NOT use more)
• 3/4 teaspoon garlic-pepper blend (you can buy it all blended. If you don't want to, it looked to be about a 50/50 mix - just do it yourself)
• 1 - 12 ounce jar home-style chicken gravy
• 2 tablespoons half-and-half or milk (the recipe actually says "fat-free half-and-half" - I didn't know it came that way)
• 1 tablespoon Worchestershire sauce (I shared with the husband what is in Worchestershire sauce. He was disgusted. But he enjoyed the chicken anyway.)

Let's throw everything together:

Spray a large skillet with nonstick cooking spray. I don't have a large skillet, so I used the medium one I have. They were crowded, but it worked. But then, I only had 3 pieces. But, like I said, they were HUGE. Anyway, back to the recipe. Heat skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Sprinkle chicken with seasoned salt, paprika and garlic-pepper blend. See, here's where I went wrong. I thought, "Why measure? I can sprinkle without measuring..." So I did. The hubby ended up with hickups because of it. It was kind of funny. He NEVER has hiccups.

On with the recipe....

Add the chicken to the skillet. Cook 4 to 6 minutes or until browned on both sides. I did mine a little longer because they were so thick. More like 4 to 6 on EACH side. I really wanted to make sure the inside was done.

In a bowl, combine the gravy, half-and-half (or milk) and Worcestershire sauce, mix well. Poor over chicken. Cover and simmer over medium-low heat for 10 to 15 mintues or until chicken is fork tender and juices run clear.

Everyone loved this recipe, other than the spiciness of it, which really wasn't supposed to be there. We gave the peanut some chicken without coating so she could enjoy it too. I served this with the Roasted Vegetable Combo. We had NO leftovers, and we were all stuffed when we were finished.

Roast Beef with Gravy

Last night's dinner was made with our trusty crockpot. Let me first say that if you've never used those new crockpot liners, you don't know what you're missing - cleanup is a BREEZE with them. I use my crockpot a lot more now than I did before I discovered them. Or I should say, when someone directed me to a free sample. I'm all about free samples. And once I used the sample I was hooked like a fish.
Now the trick with this particular crockpot recipe is that it doesn't take all day - so a crockpot with delay start is helpful. I don't have that, but I do have a hubby who works second shift who is more than happy to plug in the crockpot for me before he leaves for work. Of course he is - he gets the leftovers from all my attempts.
Here we go...

Ingredients you will need:

* 1 boneless beef sirloin tip roast (about 4 pounds) <-- per the recipe. I used one about 2 1/2 pounds because that's what we were given when we bought 1/4 of a cow last year. It was a good size for us, with plenty left for hubby's lunch and the stew I plan on making tonight.
* 1/2 cup flour, divided (a word I missed yesterday morning when I threw it together - but no worries, it all worked out in the end)
* 1 envelope onion soup mix
* 1 envelope brown gravy mix
* 2 cups cold water

And this is what you do with it all:

Cut your roast in half. Rub it with 1/4 cup flour. (Or, if you want to be like me - and I know you do - rub it with all the flour, and watch some of it fall onto the cutting board. After it falls off the roast, dump the fallen flour into the garbage.) Place roast in crockpot. I used my small one (3-ish qts.) but if you use a 4 lb. roast you may need a bigger one. In a bowl, combine the soup & gravy mix, and the other 1/4 cup flour (unless you're doing it my way, in that case, just dump some flour in, estimating what you threw away. No, it never occurred to me that I should just put in 1/4 cup flour until today. What can I say, but OOPS.). Add the water, and mix until blended. Pour over roast. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours (I did 6 since it was a smaller roast - which is why I needed hubby to plug it in for me) or until meat is tender. Slice roast, serve with mashed potatoes. Instant is great. I also made corn. Now, the gravy was a little runny when I took the roast out of the crockpot; that was probably because I guessed on the flour (it all makes sense now...). I simply added some flour and whisked it in there and it was perfect.
It was a plate full of pure goodness.
Pure goodness I tell you.

Biscuits and Gravy

I didn't make dinner last night. The boys were at a scouting event so it was just me and the little one. I had leftovers; she had a slice of deli ham and some cheese. She was a happy little camper.
So I decided to go through a few of my recipes and find a favorite to post. This particular one is requested by my teen quite often, and most recently I made it for his birthday dinner a few weeks ago. You would not believe just how perfect the gravy turned out. It was SO GOOD. The biscuits, well, that's a whole nother story. Which of course I will get to, in a minute.

Here's what you need for the gravy:
1 pound bulk pork sausage
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
6 tablespoons flour
3 1/2 cups milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper

And this is how it goes together:
You could use a very large sauce pan and it might fit, but I like to use my dutch oven. So, cook the sausage in a dutch oven (or that very large saucepan) until it's no longer pink. If you wanted to add diced onion, do that before you cook the sausage. I think it would be tasty, but I never remember to do it. And do you know why? Because it's not on the ingredient list, that's why.
Moving along....after you cook the sausage, stir the butter in until it's melted. Sprinkle the flour over the sausage, and stir it in. Gradually add the milk. To me this means, add about a half cup, and stir. Add about another cup, and stir. Dump the rest in, and, you guessed it, stir. Add your salt and pepper, and stir (there's a lot of stirring involved in this recipe). Bring it to a boil, and cook and stir (I told you!!) for about 4 minutes. When it's thick like it should be, it's done.

Now for the biscuits. You could use Jiffy or Bisquick and your biscuits should be perfectly fine. Unless you do what I did last time - I used Bisquick, but I didn't quite have enough, and apparently I'm not very good at guessing measurements. We had little hockey pucks on the outside, with a very yeasty tasting bready consistency on the inside. That didn't work out well.
The other option, is to make some drop biscuits from scratch, which is what I should have done.

This is the recipe I've used in the past:
2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons butter or margarine, melted

Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in one bowl. In another bowl, combine the milk and butter, then stir into the dry ingredients just until blended. Drop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls onto a greased baking sheet. Bake at 450 for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown.

If you do this, you'll have some delicious biscuits to serve your sausage gravy on. Since I didn't do this, and had hockey pucks, I served the gravy on hash browns, which I had planned on having with the meal anyway. I just used the store-bought rectangular preshaped patties that you pop in the oven so I wouldn't have to try to watch potatoes and gravy at the same time.

This made enough for me, my teen, my tween, and my toddler; with a little left for the hubby to have for breakfast or lunch the next day.