Cookbookaholic

Salsa Chicken: The Recipe

This has got to be one of my favorite recipes ever! It’s pretty easy and very, very tasty. It’s included in my church’s cookbook, Joyful Seasonings, and I still get compliments on it.

The key to this recipe is the salsa. It does all the heavy lifting for you: flavoring the chicken while keeping it moist and tender. Serve it on some yellow rice with my Seasoned Black Beans and you’ve got a great dinner. Check that—a really awesome dinner without busting your budget. 

 

Salsa Chicken

1 pkg. raw chicken tenderloins, cut into 2 inch pieces

1 ½ cup prepared salsa

1 ½ cup shredded Mexican blend cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

Dash of olive oil

Place raw chicken pieces in casserole dish with the olive oil. Season the meat with salt and pepper. (The olive oil should keep the chicken from sticking to the bottom of the dish once cooked.) Completely cover the chicken with the salsa. Top the mixture with the shredded cheese. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 40 – 45 minutes. 

 

There are two ways you can bake this, one way is to put it in the oven, uncovered, for 45 minutes. The other way is to cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake for 40 minutes, remove the foil and finish it off uncovered for 10-15 minutes.

While the chicken is baking, prepare yellow rice according to package directions.  

 

Seasoned Black Beans 

1 can black beans

1 tblsp olive oil or butter

1/3 onion, chopped

2 tsp. chipotle flavored pepper sauce

2 or 3 garlic cloves, finely minced

Saute chopped onions on medium-high heat in olive oil until transparent. Add can of black beans and chipotle pepper sauce. Mix well and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, add minced garlic and simmer for 10-15 minutes.

This recipe also works well with dark red kidney beans as a substitute. 

 

 

Today was Actually Beautiful

I really should’ve tried to look up some yard sales for this morning. The frigid cold snap seems to have finally left the area and Friday was quite decent. Even Tony asked me when I was going to start back up with the sales.

I may need to start scanning the classified section next week. The return to yard sales is coming soon. 

FYI: My Liver Recovered

I think it took until Thursday, but my liver finally recovered. I was so dedicated to finding an awesome Hurricane recipe for all of us to enjoy—I went through a total of 2 Myers’s Original Dark Rum bottles. Don’t get me wrong, Scott was a valuable asset in the taste testing process but I don’t really hit the bottle all that often. Wednesday had a slow drag to it. But thankfully, I think the spring in my step has finally returned.

Hurricane Angela: The Recipe

In college, I spent a semester studying in New Orleans and had a blast! To me, no drink—excuse me, “beverage” says New Orleans quite like the Hurricane. It’s sweet and smooth but very, very strong—so you really only need one to get the party started. Since Mardi Gras is right around the corner, I wanted to find a Hurricane recipe to call my own.

If you’re lucky, you can find a powder mix that has the Pat O’Brien (the bar not the sports commentator) seal of approval on it. Here’s what the packaging and the drink looks like. Its super sweet, in fact, almost syrupy sweet. Equal parts rum and mixer and you’re in business.

 

 

 

If you can’t find this mix, then the recipes you find online all seem to have passion fruit juice as the secret “must have” ingredient. Apparently, Goya makes it? I had a lot of trouble finding straight up passion fruit juice, so here’s what I was able to devise:

 

 

Hurricane Angela

4 oz. Myers’s Rum Original Dark

2 tbls grenadine

¼ lime

4 oz. Trader Joe’s Heart of Darkness Mango/Passion Fruit Blend juice

Orange slice, for garnish

Cherry with stem, for garnish 

If you have a cocktail shaker, then awesome for you. I don’t, so here’s how I put it together. In a large glass filled with lots of ice, squeeze juice of ¼ lime over the ice. Add in rest of ingredients and mix together well. Garnish glass with a slice of orange and a cherry.

 

 

All recipes agreed on including rum. Most wanted 4 ounces—which is a lot. Some called for the full 4 oz. with Myers’s Original Dark. That’s my preference—it stays sweet. Some called for a blend of 2 oz. Myers’s Original Dark and 2 oz Myers’s light rum. By using the light rum, you really add in that distinctive lighter fluid taste that gives the drink a real fire. No matter what blend of booze you choose, please drink responsibly. I’d like to have you come back and read my blog! 

The Most Disturbing Dream EVER

I woke up from a really disturbing dream the other night. I guess I’ve earned the title “cookbookaholic” when this finally happens.

In this dream, I was at some dude’s house but it wasn’t a typical garage sale. I had the impression that he invited me over because he knew I just wanted cookbooks. There were books all over the place and the cookbooks were here and there. I counted about twenty in all and some of those were duplicates.

Then, I noticed another woman was there—also looking at cookbooks. I gave her the evil side-eye and quickly asked his price for the cookbooks. He then announced to both of us that we could come back at 2pm to purchase the cookbooks. Why then? I’m not sure—but I waited down the street for the appointed time to arrive. When I went back, he said that he had sold all the cookbooks to someone else.

I stood there simultaneously dumbfounded (for I had been stalking the house and didn’t see anyone go in or out) and highly peeved. I actually woke up still ticked off that someone bought the cookbooks out from under me. The nerve….

Bunches of Thanks!

I wanted to thank each and every one of you that clicked on my blog for the Buffalo Chicken Dip recipe. The stats on that blog were amazing. A ton of you showed up and I’m just so thrilled!

Honestly, I’m just so blown away by the traffic. Thanks for stopping by and please come again…

Buffalo Chicken Dip: The Recipe

A few years ago, we visited with our friends Gregg and Donna up in Lynchburg, Virginia. Donna served up this awesome Buffalo Chicken Dip and shared the recipe with me. I’ve made it for every “Big Game” menu since. (Lock your doors because Sportscaster Jim Szoke is a HUGE fan of this stuff!) So thank you Donna for sharing the recipe with me!

  

Remember, you can adjust the amount of hot sauce to suit your taste. Believe it or not, I actually use the full amount.

 
Buffalo Chicken Dip 

1 8oz block of cream cheese

½ cup bleu cheese dressing (ranch can be substituted)

1 cup (or more) of finely chopped cooked chicken

¼ - ½ cup Frank’s Red Hot Sauce (what’s your heat tolerance?)

1 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese (or favorite white cheese)

salt & pepper to taste

 

1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese (for topping)

 

Heat the block of cream cheese and bleu cheese dressing in microwave for about one minute or, until the mixture is easy to stir. Add in the chicken, hot sauce, white cheese and salt/pepper. Blend together ingredients. (It’ll look more like pimento cheese quite honestly.)

 
Transfer the mixture to a casserole dish. I like to use a larger dish (or spilt into two smaller dishes) and have a thinner spread of the dip. Top with the grated cheddar cheese and place in oven. Bake at 350 degrees until the cheddar topping is bubbling and beginning to brown, about 20 minutes.

Remove from oven and serve immediately. Be sure to use chips that are more sturdy for this dip. The regular tortilla chip isn’t manly enough for this dip. Or, if you’re like me, I like to burn the cheese topping until it’s good and brown. For that, we like to use the thicker Fritos Scoops! Corn Chips. If you want to pretend that celery sticks will make this more healthy, then, by all means, knock yourself out.

The taste is an awesome tangy, ooey, gooey, cheesey goodness. The cheese and dressing really subdue the bite of the hot sauce into a kind of creamy tanginess. It’s quite addictive, so watch out!!