Brannon’s new low carb dinner. YUM!
Ginger Soy Chicken
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup warm water
2 tablespoons gluten free tamari (or regular soy sauce if you’re not concerned about gluten)
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon hot water
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons Fresh grated ginger
In a large bowl, dissolve sugar in 1/2 cup warm water, then add soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, ketchup, lemon juice and sesame oil.Add mustard/garlic to taste.
Marinade Chicken tenders in sauce mixture for 2 hours. saving some to the side for dressing the salad. Grill chicken till cooked through.
Dice chicken and top on Baby Spinach. Drizzle with remaining dressing. and enjoy.
Total Carbs: 3 for 3 tenders over the spinach.
How could you go wrong with this great combination? YUMMMMMM!!!!!
From: Melting Pots: Chef’s Corner
Wisconsin Trio Fondue
and 1/2 cups (6 oz.) shredded Butterkase
1 and 1/2 cups (6 oz.) shredded Fontina cheese
3 tbsp. all-purpose flour
3/4 cup white wine
1/4 cup dry sherry
2 tsp. chopped shallots
1 tsp. freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup crumbled Blue cheese
2 tbsp. chopped scallions
And don’t forget bread (torn into bite size pieces), vegetables (carrots and broccoli are the most common), and fruits (apple and pears are good!).
Toss the Butterkase and Fontina cheeses with the flour in a bowl. Place a metal bowl over a saucepan filled with two inches of water. You may also use a conventional double boiler. Bring the water to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and pour the wine and sherry into the bowl. Stir in the shallots using a fork. Cook for 30 seconds stirring constantly.
Add half of the cheese blend, and stir constantly until the cheese is melted. Add the remaining cheese blend a small amount at a time stirring constantly. Fold in the pepper and Blue cheese. Pour into a warm fondue pot and keep warm over low heat. Garnish with the scallions.
Hall made these for dinner friday night, and OMG! They were fantastic!
Super-Duper Hamburger by Hall
1LB Ground Beef (no lean meat here…fat = flavor 80/20′ll do)
1 cup Italian Bread crumbs
Worcestershire
Jasper Hill Bayley Hazen Blue cheese (or favorite blue, not to strong but needs to be soft not crumbly)
French style hamburger buns or pretzel buns
1 Medium Onion diced
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp olive oil
dash of salt
1.5 TBSP Balsamic vinegar
1 tsp Worcestershire
1/2 tsp butter
Portion out hamburger meat. Pour desired amount of Worcestershire on meat and set aside to marinade. We’ll get to the other stuff in a sec…
Dice onions to desired size and thickness. sprinkle with kosher salt and toss in olive oil in small bowl. place skillet over med high heat. Toss in onions and saute till translucent. add Garlic and continue to cook until onions caramelize (slight browning) reduce heat to med low and add Worcestershire and Balsamic vinegar. Cook over med low heat until all liquid has reduced and thickened. Add butter and remove from heat.
Coat hamburger meat in breadcrumbs and spray with non stick spray. Cook on grill. Just before burger meat is done cut buns in half and lightly butter. Place hamburger buns on grill long enough to lightly toast… watch your buns closely they could burn if you walk away from them. (yes, I just said that 
!) JUST before serving place blue cheese on top of burgers and place the top cap bun on top of cheese turn grill off. Remove and plate the bottom bun and place the onion reduction on bun. Place burger with cheese and top bun on top of that and enjoy!
TIPS: The creamier the blue cheese the better it will slice and the less it will crumble. While you cook all this stuff up let your blue cheese sit out and come to room temp, it will slice better.
Onion smell killer!! Keep your onions in the fridge or at least place it in the fridge for a few hours before hacking it ta pieces. This will cut down on the sulfur that onions release when their cells are broken and you and your family will keep from looking like you just watched Old Yeller!
What ever! you know you cried at the end of that movie too!!!
Brannon came up with this recipe one day while we were driving home from work at WDW. It sounded so good, that we had to stop at Publix to get the ingredients. That night he made it and it was fantastic. It is such a great recipe for the spring and summer, since it is light and fruity.
Citrus Honey Chicken
½ cup Green Bell Pepper
½ Orange Bell Pepper
2 small Yellow Onions
10 springs of Cilantro Leaves
1 tbsp minced Garlic
2 tbsp Lemon Juice
1 small can of Pineapple Juice
2-3 cups of Orange Juice
2 tbsp Clover Honey
Boneless Chicken Breast
Chutney: Toss the bell peppers, onions, Cilantro, Garlic and lemon juice in a food processor. Pulse until mixture is chunky.
Sauce: Over medium heat, add the Pineapple Juice, Orange Juice and Honey in a sauce pan. Reduce the mixture until about 1/3 of the original amounts remains.
Chicken: Preheat oven to 350°F. Rub each breast with kosher salt and pepper. Sear on each side, and then place in the oven for 15 minutes to finish cooking.
To Finish: Place the chicken on a plate, and place a small amount of the chutney on the chicken. Spoon the sauce over it and serve!
With the temperatures finally hovering around the 90s, it’s time for some cool salad. My favorite is
Black and Blue Salad
1 package of Romaine Lettuce
1 ½ cups of favorite crouton
6 oz.. Steak, cooked and sliced into strips
¼ cup Parmesan, shredded
¼ cup Blue Cheese Crumbles
¼ cup cooked Bacon
¼ cup Caesar Dressing
In a large bowl, combine the lettuce, bacon, Parmesan cheese, and Caesar dressing. Add the croutons and steak slices to the top, and sprinkle on the Blue cheese crumbles.
Tips: For a lighter tasting salad, add some mix greens to the romaine lettuce. And instead of Caesar dressing, use balsamic vinegar.
For a more fulfilling version, saute some bites sizes of zucchini, squash and asparagus and top the salad with them, while they are still hot. YUM!
From: Stephanie Childers
“Southern favorite…kind of like a crab boil but it’s red taters, smoked sausage, corn and shrimp boiled in a large pot with lots of old bay seasoning. served with some fresh cocktail sauce and garlic butter…it’s what I call “easy pleasy” -everybody here loves it.”
Frogmore Stew
6 quarts water
3/4 cup Old Bay Seasoning TM
2 pounds new red potatoes
2 pounds hot smoked sausage links, cut into 2 inch pieces
12 ears corn – husked, cleaned and quartered
4 pounds large fresh shrimp, unpeeled
Directions
1. Bring water and Old Bay Seasoning to boil in a large stockpot.
2. Add potatoes and cook for 15 minutes. Add sausage and cook for 5 minutes more. Add corn and cook for another 5 minutes. Stir in the shrimp and cook until shrimp are pink, about 5 minutes. Drain immediately and serve.
Brannon made this recipe while we were living in Lakeland, FL, since we had TONS of juicy peaches that we just couldn’t seem to get rid of (I think they kept multiplying). It is a great spring/summer time recipe.
Ginger Peach Chicken
1/2 cup sliced water chestnuts
1 6oz package froze pea pods, cooked and drained
4 small skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
2-3 peaches sliced and sprinkled with sugar (keep the juice)
Water
1 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger
1/4 tsp salt
Preheat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Once heated, add the chicken and cook over medium heat for 8 to 10 minutes or until cooked all the way through, and golden brown. Remove the chicken from the skillet and keep warm.
While the chicken is cooking, drain the peaches, pouring the juice into a 1/2 cup measuring cup. Add enough water to the juice to equal 1/2 cup. In a bowl, mix together the juice mixture, cornstarch, ginger and salt. Once thoroughly mixed, add the mixture to the skillet. Stir until sauce has thickened and starts to bubble. Continue cooking and stirring for an additional minute, before adding the chicken, peaces and water chestnuts. Heat thoroughly.
Serve over rice. Makes 4 servings.
Yesterday, a couple of co workers and Hall started talking about frying chicken, and Hall, of course, brings up brines. So I thought I would post our recipe brine today. You might see it again come Thanksgiving time, since it is a must for turkey. Anyways, this recipe is basically taken from Alton Brown’s, though we have added a few of our spices, plus if you like heat, you must check out the spicy version.
Turkey Brine
1 cup kosher salt
½ cup light brown sugar
1 gallon vegetable stock
1 tbsp black peppercorns
½ tbsp allspice berries
½ tbsp candied ginger
1 gallon iced water
10-14 lb Turkey, washed
In a large pot, heat up everything but the iced water. Once the sugar and salt have dissolved, then take it off the heat, and let it cool down some. Add the iced water to bring the temperature down closer to room temp if not a little bit colder.
Once it is cool, pour it into a large bucket or cooler, and add the turkey or chicken (that has been washed and giblets taken out). Make sure the cavity gets the brine down in it. Put a lid on it, and place is somewhere cool spare bathroom tub, etc…just not a
place where it will freeze. Brine for at least 4 hours, if possible up to 12.
Rinse and cook. (*note: depending on how far up the brine goes on the turkey or chicken – you might need to rotate just so that it gets even coverage).
Chicken Brine
Reduce the ingredients by half. If you need more liquid, add a bit more water or vegetable stock. If you add a lot, make sure you add more of the salt to it as well, as to help keep the ratio balanced.
Spicy Brine
Reduce the kosher salt amount, and add Morton’s Hot Salt to make up the remaining portion. Also add Tabasco, cayenne, old bay spice, etc., other ingredients that you would like to taste, in small amounts, into the brine while it is heating.
Citrus
Reduce the vegetable stock by a small amount and add orange juice to replace what you left out.
Cooking
Don’t forget that how you cook it will also affect the taste. With turkey and chicken, you can add herbs and spices under the skin and in the cavity before cooking, which will help further enhance the flavor. For citrus, add thinly sliced rounds of lemon or orange under the skin, or lemon and orange halves in the cavity. For savory, add rosemary, sage and apple.
This is a old one, but a very scrumptious one that Hall does.
Boursin Stuffed Chicken
4 boneless skinless Chicken Breasts
1 pkg Boursin Cheese
2 Eggs
½ cup Milk
½ Grated Parmesan Cheese
½ cup Italian Breadcrumbs
Salt
Pepper
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Place a chicken breast in between 2 layers of saran wrap and pound the chicken until it is about ¼ inch thick. Repeat with the other 3 breasts.
Sprinkle each breast with salt and pepper to taste. Spread a layer of Boursin Cheese on each flattened breast. Roll up each breast and secure with a toothpick.
In a bowl, mix the eggs and milk together. In another bowl, combine the Parmesan Cheese and breadcrumbs. Dip each breast in the egg mixture and then roll each one into the breadcrumbs till they are covered.
Sprinkle a layer of breadcrumbs on a cookie sheet. Place each of the breast, seam down, on the cookie sheet. Bake the chicken 30-40 minutes until cooked, and golden brown.
Serves 4.
In honor of Lauren’s Baby Shower on Saturday, I am posting Brannon’s contribution:
Basic Quiche
½ Stick Butter
2 Deep Dish Pie Shell
Mortins Steak Seasoning or Penzies Buttermilk Ranch Powder Seasoning
Bacon (Frozen works best)
Olive Oil
½ Med. Onion
Salt & Pepper
4 Large Eggs
1 Cup Milk
1 Cup Half n’ Half (or whipping cream)
2 Cups Shredded Cheese (Kraft 3 Cheese Blend works great) (OR: If your feeling a bit adventurous, …shred and mix ¾ cup cheddar / ¾ cup Smoked Gruyere / ¼ cup Fresh grated Parmesan / 4 TBSP of Crumbled Blue cheese & 2 TBSP of Borison Garlic Cheese. Taste as you go, the Blue Cheese and Borisons will add flavor and a creamy texture you may want less or more depending on your taste.)
Heat oven according to directions on piecrust package. Poke holes in thawed crust with a fork. Spread butter on piecrust and sprinkle lightly with either seasoning salt. (Mortins Steak Seasoning will give a stringer flavor, Penzies will be lighter.) Bake Pie shell according to directions on packaging. (Remember to place oven at 350 after shell is done.)
Take frozen bacon and with a large knife slice the bacon on the bias, this will automatically make a “Bacon Bit” size and cook up faster. Slice about half the bacon slab. Place the bacon chips in a skillet and cook over Med High heat stirring occasionally to break up the pieces. When crispy remove and let cool on a dry paper towel.
Dice ½ the onion into small chunks and place in the skillet. (you can use the bacon drippings or clean out the skillet and drizzle about 2 tbsp of Olive Oil in it) Sprinkle a pinch or two of salt and pepper over onions as they cook over med heat stirring until they begin to look transparent and slightly golden in color. Remove and place on a dry paper towel to drain and cool.
In a large bowl add eggs, milk and cream, mix well. The more you whip this mixture the lighter the quiche will be. ( You can whip the egg whites only until they begin to show fine bubbles similar to that of a very loose meringue and then GENTLY fold in the remaining ingredients to get a very light quiche.) Now fold in the cheese, bacon and onions. Mix gently and pour into the pie shell. (If you have extra left over remember your skillet is still hot! You could make yourself a small omelet! Or refrigerate the left over and enjoy for breakfast in the morning.)
Trim the pie shell crust with foil and bake at 350 for 20 -30 min or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow to cool for about 5 min before cutting. Plate and enjoy.
