It was a chicken kind of week

With the economic times and all, I'm trying to be more thrifty at the grocery store, which is hard, but a fun challenge. So this week instead of buying 2 different packages of chicken, one package of breast meat for the pot pie, and a package of boneless thighs for this chicken and vegetable stew I'm going to talk about below, I bought just a package of thighs (thighs are cheaper and usually come in bigger packages than breasts, like 2 lbs - I can't wait for the day we can have a 2nd freezer and I can buy the 3lb+ packages of meat and save that way!)...but anyways, back to the chicken. I used thighs in the pot pie and was very happy AND then doubly happy because we used the rest of the thighs the next night - I present, the first time I've ever made this chicken and veg stew thing;) And bonus - I got to use my dutch oven, which I definitely don't get to use often enough:)

What you'll need:

olive oil
flour
as much chicken as you think your family will need - I used 1 lb thighs for 2 adults
one white onion
one or two zucchini
as many baby carrots as you would like
any other veggies you may like - example - artichoke, olives, yellow squash, all depending on the season and what is fresh at your local market
28 oz can any kind of stewed or diced tomatoes
saltines

Easy = Cut the chicken into bite size pieces and cover in flour; at the same time, heat 2 tbsp oil in the dutch oven at medium high heat. Add chicken, baby carrots, and cut up onion and cook until chicken is browned all all sides, stirring pretty continuously. Then add the cut up zucchini and 28 oz can of diced/stewed tomatoes - smells so yummy at this point! Add salt and pepper too if you'd like at any point:) Cover the dutch oven and cook on medium to medium low heat for about 20 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked thru and veggies are nice and tender.

I honestly wasn't crazy about the stewed tomatoes - I think I'd rather use tomato juice and cut up some tomatoes and do that part that way - husband loved it and he said it was a perfect meal for while he was down and out with a cold:)

Tomorrow, my famous fajitas;) Sizzle! For now, enjoy the rest of your Saturday/Saturday night where ever you are! A nice meal out for this lady, some DVR'd shows, SNL, and of course Bejeweled! Anyone else obsessed with that game???

Food, keep me warm!

So fall in New England is awesome - the leaves, fall sports, and finally the warm comfort food recipes come out of hiding! It was another casserole for Friday evening the 30th. It happened to be the evening that the kids in the development we live in were coming around trick-or-treating, so it was something easy to keep watch over while we awaited them with our big bag of candy thing:)

This casserole is definitely something you could pull together on a busy night, as most ingredients are probably those you'd have in your fridge or freezer. Think of it as a larger chicken pot pie but with cheese - warm, melty cheese.

In a large bowl I combined 1 can, 10 3/4 oz condensed cream of potato soup (love the chunks), 1 cup of milk, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 cups of cooked chicken, cut into small pieces, and 1 16oz bag of frozen, but thawed carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower. To this mixture I added 1/2 cup shredded orange cheese and a half cup of those can fried onions that are always so very hard to find at the grocery store - they put them in odd places, and never in the same place at different chains. Anyways, I mixed this all up and put it into a 9x13 pan, covered that with foil, and baked it at 350 for 25 minutes (preheated the oven first of course). After the 25 minutes, I took the foil off and popped open a can of crescent rolls. I rolled them all out, not forming them into cresent shapes, but cutting them into strips to make a lattice over the mixture. I then baked the casserole 15 minutes longer, uncovered, and after those 15 minutes added more cheese and fried onions on top and cooked it again uncovered about 4 more minutes, until the cheese melted and the onions browned a bit. Let me say = yum yum yum! I think the parents traveling with the trick-or-treaters wanted some! Maybe next year;) Anyways, this recipe was adapted from cooks.com, and it was the perfect chilly fall night meal. Will definitely be making this again, and maybe next time adding just a bit of spice (the husband that loves spice added hot sauce to his). It was the perfect amount and combo of veggies, meat, sauce, yummy bread, and the crunch - you always need some crunch in your meals - helps you stay away from those vending machines!

Next time - a meal that I DON'T have to follow a recipe for, which is not common :) Till then, enjoy eating!