Shepherd's Pie (ala Nicko's Kitchen)

I found a new recipe site that I really like called Nicko's Kitchen. It's actually a video recipe site on You Tube. I find I like seeing the videos, but he isn't good about telling you how much time to spend on each part. You have to play that by ear.

I think I've finally found my "keeper" shepherd's pie recipe. I have checked out cook books from the library, tried friends recipes and the internet, but just never found one that had the taste I wanted. Until this one. I used all my own measurements and he doesn't give time instructions so I just played it by ear.


Ingredients:
Yellow potatoes
1/2 cup cream
1/2 stick butter
Salt/pepper
Olive Oil
2 T minced garlic
Carrots
1 lb ground beef
1 bag frozen peas
1 package gravy mix
1 cup water




Instructions:

• Cover bottom of frying pan with some olive oil.
• Add garlic and carrots and cook until softened.
• Add ground beef and mix together. Continue cooking until ground beef is browned.
• Sprinkle gravy mix over beef mixture and add 1 cup water.
• Cook on high for 10 minutes or so until most of liquid is absorbed.
• Cut up and boil the potatoes.
• Add cream, butter and salt/pepper to taste.
• Mash until creamy.
• Place meat mixture into glass baking dish. Spread mashed potatoes on top using a fork.
• Cook in 500 degree oven for minutes.

ENJOY!

Sweet Potato Tray-Baked Chicken

I saw a picture of this in the Parade Magazine and it really caught my eye. I love meals that include lots of cooked vegetables and the star of this one is the sweet potato. I know how good sweet potatoes are for you, but so far this is the first recipe I have that uses them. This turned out to be a huge hit. J really liked it and it made plenty for leftovers too. This starts out with a brine that the chicken breasts will soak in (2-8 hours), so you have to do a little pre-planning for the time factor involved there. The only ingredient I omitted was the bacon. Partly I forgot, but then realized we didn't need it. Oh, I guess I nixed the onion too since it doesn't agree with my husband.


Brine Ingredients:
1 quart water
2 T salt (calls for kosher but I used sea salt)
1/3 cup honey
3 T minced garlic
1 T sage
1/4 cup apple-cider vinegar
Juice of 1 lemon


"Bake" Ingredients:
4 boneless chicken breasts
3 sweet potatoes (scrubbed and thinly sliced)
4 medium potatoes (scrubbed and thinly sliced)
4 T minced garlic
2 T sage (shredded leaves if possible; I had to use ground sage)
Olive Oil (I used our oil sprayer and liberally sprayed it over the vegetables before baking)
Sea salt and pepper
1-2/3 cups chicken broth
2/3 cup half and half
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
A few pats of butter


































Instructions:

• Mix the brine in a large bowl. Add the chicken and cover with cling wrap. Refrigerate for 2 to 8 hours. (I did mine for about 6 hours.)
  
• Remove chicken and allow it to come to room temperature. Drain chicken and discard brine. Pat dry with paper towels and set aside.
  
• Toss potatoes, garlic and sage with olive oil and a pinch of salt/pepper. Place in large roasting pan and pour in broth. Cook for 30 minutes. **Note to self: Don't forget to add the broth at this point next time. I forgot and ended up adding it in the next part. It didn't seem to be that big of a deal though.**
  
• Remove pan from oven. Pour in cream and sprinkle with pepper and Parmesan. Add the chicken breasts placing pats of butter on each piece. Cook for 35 minutes or until chicken is golden brown.

ENJOY!

For more recipe ideas click below:

Corned Beef and Cabbage Slow Cooker Meal

We had a local Aldi store open up recently. For those of you who don't have one, they call Aldi the "stock up store". They have really good prices, especially for meats and fish. The corned beef briskets were on sale so I bought one. (Mind you, this was after I went to check out and didn't have enough money so I had to put the $8.50 brisket back. The store only takes cash and so I scraped together all our change to go back and buy it since I really had a taste for corned beef and cabbage...and I already had the rest of the ingredients too.) I don't know if it was the "Aldi" brand corned beef or that it needed to cook longer, but the meat wasn't half as tender as the corned beef I've had in the past. I really enjoyed this meal with all the vegetables though; the cabbage, carrots and potatoes turned out great. We did give it a thumbs up but next time will cook the meat an hour or two longer. I may ditch the seasoning packet too. I wasn't completely sold on the flavors. For sure, I think we'll do this again for St. Patty's Day.


Ingredients:
1 corned beef brisket of 3-5 pounds
5 medium-sized yellow potatoes
15-20 baby carrots
1 head of cabbage
3 cloves minced or crushed garlic
1 bottle of Guinness beer
Seasoning packet (if included)

Instructions:

• Place beef brisket in slow cooker.
• Add seasoning packet (if one included)
• Add cut up yellow potatoes.
• Add baby carrots.
• Slice the cabbage into large quarters and add to slow cooker.
• Add bottle of beer and garlic.
• Simmer on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 4-5 hours.
• When serving, make sure to use some of the juice from the slow cooker as a light "gravy".

Enjoy!

Curry Potato Soup (Mulligatawny)

My husband and I love anything curry or Indian-related. We eat this dish whenever we eat out at one of the restaurants we like, Sai Bai Tong. This recipe was adapted from The Pioneer Woman. She used apples in her soup where I chose to use yellow potatoes. I changed a couple other things too. I did use her suggestion of cayenne pepper and it adds a nice little bit of spice.


Ingredients:
1 pound chicken breast
4 T butter
1 medium onion
3 cloves garlic, minced fine
1/4 cup flour
1 T curry powder
32 ounces chicken broth
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 cup milk
6 medium yellow potatoes
1 T sugar
1 T garlic salt
2 tsp salt
black pepper
cayenne pepper (optional, for spice)


Instructions:

• Heat 2T butter over medium-high heat in skillet. Add chicken and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden. Set chicken aside.
• In soup pot, add rest of butter and reduce heat to medium. Add diced onion and garlic and cook while stirring. Onions should start turning brown.
• Sprinkle in flour stirring to combine. Stir in curry powder. Cook mixture (will get thick) for one minute, stirring constantly.
• Pour in chicken broth. Stir to mix and cook for 5 minutes.
  
• Add whipping cream and milk, salt, garlic salt, pepper, sugar and cayenne pepper. Cook another 5 minutes.
• Add chicken and diced potatoes and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes. Before serving, allow to stand 5 or 10 minutes.
  

This goes very well with some type of bread for dipping. Enjoy!