This week (um, I should say last week) for ToT we were writing about our favorite recipes. The idea was to share a couple of recipes and give a little background and possibly a picture of said dish. Since I'm unable to access my photos or my recipes at the moment, you will just have to bear with me. I will update this post at a later date with pics and info.
One of my favorite comfort foods comes from my Great-Grandmother (Grandma Ritchie as the whole world referred to her-even people not related to the family). She was the head line cook at MCL cafeteria for years. Lots of years. Her food was delicious. She had two "signature dishes" that everyone pined for at family functions and holidays. The first was appropriately called "Delicious Dessert." It is a lemon dessert with a thin layer of crust (much like pie crust), a lemony cream cheese type layer, and then a layer of some sort of lemony pudding topped off with whipped cream. I'm not a huge lemon dessert person, but I can finish a plateful of this with no problem. Another (and my favorite) dish she used to make was homemade chicken and noodles. She would make her noodles from scratch. I can remember her pulling out the leaves in the dining room table that sat in the kitchen. She would cover it with a special table cloth, and then flour. She would get to work making the dough, rolling it out, and then she would lay the dough out to dry. Then after some time passed, she would cut the noodles by hand. I don't know how exactly she made the special sauce, in fact, no one in our family really does. It's quite a tragedy really. When Grandma passed away a few years ago, this recipe went with her. Some of my family members tried to learn it from her, but it was too hard to get it correct as she never measured anything, and just made it from memory. My grand-aunt, has made tried to duplicate the recipe a few times for special family gatherings, but it's just not the same. I think the magic of the dish actually came from the lady that made it.
So, enough reminiscing. Besides Grandma Ritchie, I don't come from a long line of great cooks. My grandma (Mamaw) always jokes, that unless you can cook it in the microwave, you won't eat it at her house. My mom just doesn't cook at all. It's not that she doesn't know how per-se, she just doesn't enjoy it. She cooks for Christmas and Thanksgiving (her signature dishes are mac n'cheese and "cherry stuff" which is a cherry dessert). My step-mother has worked as the head of the deli and bakery at Kroger since she was a teenager. She can cook, but much like my great grandmother, it's all by taste and memory. No recipes. So, when I was a newlywed, I was pretty much a disastrous cook. We ate out. A lot. When I cooked-it pretty much came out of a box, and even then, it wasn't so great. My mother-in-law passed a few recipes down to my husband, and over the years, I've learned to cook them, and have become a much better cook. Most of the recipes I have come from her. I'm choosing two to share with you.
Chicken Spaghetti:
Okay, so when my husband kept asking me to make this, I kept refusing because when I heard, "chicken spaghetti" I thought of spaghetti noodles with red tomato sauce on them with chicken in the red sauce, and that sounded gross to me. I was also a bit unsure of whether or not I could pull it off. Then, we visited his family once, and his mom had made it for dinner, and I found out why he wanted me to cook this dish. It was mouthwatering. So tasty. I don't cook it often because it does take a little time to make it, but when we do have it, there are quite a few leftovers which is nice for lunches or even a second dinner. It's like a casserole.
Ingredients:
1c celery
1c green pepper
1c onion
(all diced)
1T chili powder (this gives the dish quite a kick, so you can lessen the amount to make it less spicy.)
1t pepper
2t salt
1 can tomato soup
1 can mushroom soup (if you are not a mushroom fan, you can sub this for 1 can cream of chicken soup)
1pk of spaghetti
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1-1/2 lbs chicken breast
Directions:
1. Bring chicken breasts to a boil until thoroughly cooked. Keep water. Cut up chicken into bite sized pieces
2. Cook 1 package of spaghetti in chicken broth-if you don't have enough broth, it's okay to add a little water. Add 1 can of creamed chicken, and let stand after stirring until the spaghetti absorbs most of the soup.
3. Saute celery, onion, and green pepper.
4. Add chili powder, salt, pepper, 1 can of tomato soup and 1 can mushroom soup. Simmer 20 minutes
5. Combine noodles, chicken, and celery, onion, pepper mixture all together.
6. Pat down into casserole dish and bake at 450 degrees for 45 minutes.
So, as you can see, it takes some time to make this. I like to go ahead and dice up the veggies a day in advance-that saves a ton of time, and pre-measure the spices. You can also used frozen diced onions and green peppers (just thaw them out first). Like I said, it's worth it. It will feed about 8 people, or 4 with plenty of leftovers. Yum!
The second recipe is a straightforward chicken potpie. It is very simple, and my favorite dish to bring to new parents after a baby is born, or as a gift for new neighbors, or someone who is ill. It can be frozen, which is nice if a new family is bombarded with other dishes from well wishers. I also got this recipe from my mother in law. I have even started to make this recipe in multiples so we can eat one and freeze one. It's pretty simple. Boil about 1lb chicken breasts, buy a pre-made pre-shaped pie crust, and then a pre-made Pillsbury or generic pie crust found in the refrigerated section, add in some chicken broth, milk, salt, pepper, thyme, onion, and a small can of peas and carrots, and that's it. Delicious and simple. If you have a pea-picker (or hater) in your family you can substitute the peas with green beans, or just do carrots, or mixed veggies. It's pretty versatile. I will post the official amounts of the ingredients when I get access to my recipe cards.
Now I'm hungry...I hope you have a chance to enjoy these dishes, and if you don't have time to make them, I'll invite you over for some at my house. You can also see what recipes the other ToT ladies posted by checking out the links to their pages on the right side of my blog.
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