Last of the “More Chicken” Posts

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Buffalo chicken sandwich

I promise, this is the last of the grilled chicken bonus recipe posts!  When we grilled 25 chicken halves for 25 people, SURPRISE!  we had leftovers!! Lots of leftovers! I sent a few halves home with our starving, college student nephew, Catch. We ate a few. I shredded the rest and froze it. If that wasn’t a fun couple of hours! Luckily I had the new Blake Shelton CD and Daughter #4 to keep me company!

Since everyone in our family likes buffalo chicken flavor (except JR and Daughter#1, but she wasn’t here. I left some shredded chicken plain for JR, heated it and added BBQ sauce), I tried to find a shredded buffalo chicken sandwich recipe, but didn’t have much luck. They were all patties or grilled breasts, so I shot from the hip and it turned out ok. It was almost too spicy, so I reduced the amount of hot sauce in this version of the recipe. The blue cheese sauce was yummy and cooled the spiciness some.  Sales Guy put some of the chicken mixture over tortilla chips, added BBQ sauce and shredded cheese and liked it that way too. As experiments with leftovers go, I’d say this one was a success!

Shredded Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches

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Ingredients

  • 4 cups Shredded Chicken (pre-cooked)
  • 1 & 1/2 cup Chicken Broth
  • 1/4 cup Frank's Hot Sauce
  • 1/4 cup Butter
  • 2 tablespoons Honey
  • 2 tablespoons Vinegar
  • 8 Buns
  • 8 medium slices Pepper Jack cheese (or cheese of your choice)

Blue Cheese Sauce

  • 1 cup Sour Cream
  • 1/4 cup Mayonnaise
  • 1 tablespoon Lemon Juice
  • 1/2 cup Blue Cheese (crumbled)
  • 1/4 cup Celery (minced)
  • 1/2 teaspoon Salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon Black Pepper

Directions

Blue Cheese Sauce
Step 1
Mix sauce ingredients together and refrigerate to give ingredients time to blend.
Step 2
Bring broth, hot sauce, butter, honey & vinegar, to boil in large sauce pan. Add shredded chicken and simmer until liquid reduces (approximately 15 minutes).
BUffalo chicken pic 1
Step 3
To assemble sandwiches: Use tongs to place meat mixture on bottom bun (if you use a spoon, you will get too much of the juice along with the chicken). Top with cheese and microwave or broil until cheese melts. Spread top bun with blue cheese spread. Serve.
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More Chicken, Part 2

by Filed Under: Meat & Poultry, Uncategorized 2 Comments

Quesadilla 3

You guessed it! More chicken leftovers! This is actually part 2 of the Chicken Tortilla Soup meal.  JR doesn’t usually come into the kitchen unless it is mealtime, but the smell of blackening black beans burning on the stove, did bring him in, carrying his phone in case he needed to call 911 (well, he is a teenager, he always carries his phone). Oops, I got busy and forgot to turn the beans down.  Once we determined there was no need to call in the fire trucks, he asked what I was making and looked over the ingredients. He said,” looks like you’ve got the stuff to make some good chicken quesadillas.” Since he was so observant about the near-kitchen fire, I told him I’d make him some and he went back to watching that spooky, nightmare-provoking show he is hooked on (The Supernatural, I think). Super scary is more like it.

So, in addition to the soup, we had some chicken quesadillas. And used up more leftover chicken!!

One note about this recipe, it calls for a couple of tablespoons of chicken broth to hydrate the chicken. If you are like me, you don’t want to open a can of broth for just the little bit that this recipe calls for, so I keep chicken broth granules, or chicken base on hand and I can mix up a small amount.

Chicken Quesadilla

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Chicken Quesadilla

Ingredients

  • 1 cup Shredded Chicken (cooked)
  • 2 tablespoons Chicken Stock
  • 1 teaspoon Fresh Cilantro (or sprinkling of dried cilantro)
  • 1/2 teaspoon Mexican seasoning mix (Leftover from chicken tortilla soup - equal parts of ground cumin, paprika & seasoned salt)
  • 1/2 Small Lime (juice of)
  • 1 & 1/2 cup Shredded Cheese (I used Sharp Cheddar but you can substitute Monterrey Jack, Mexican blend, whatever you choose)
  • 4 Medium Flour Tortillas

Directions

Step 1
Combine cooked, shredded chicken, chicken broth, seasoning, lime juice and cilantro. Microwave for 20 to 30 seconds to warm the mixture. Stir well.
Step 2
Heat a medium skillet over medium heat. Spray or oil lightly. Place a tortilla in the hot skillet. Sprinkle cheese over entire tortilla. Add half of chicken mixture (if you are using 8” tortillas) and sprinkle more cheese on top. Top with 2nd tortilla.
Step 3
When bottom is lightly browned, carefully flip the quesadilla and brown the other side. Cheese should be melted. You can also put cheese/chicken/cheese on half of the tortilla and fold it over. This way is sometimes easier to turn.
quesadilla 2
Step 4
This will make 2 8” quesadillas, or 1 12” quesadilla.
Serve with salsa, guacamole or sour cream as desired.
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Chicken Grillin’ Time

by Filed Under: Meat & Poultry 9 Comments

I’ve been a slacker! It’s not that I haven’t been cooking, but I have been cooking a lot of standard sides to go with meat Sales Guy has been cooking, so nothing noteworthy.

We did have a great weekend at the lake recently with the boat races right off our deck. We made some great ribs (no pictures) and a brisket (it was better than we have been making, but still only okay in my opinion-also no pictures) and one day we did a big chicken grill. Sales Guy has wanted to do this for years and he finally got his wish! It was delicious and he got to  reenact a fun childhood memory.

IMG_3090

This story starts with Sales Guy’s dad. I’ve debated what to call his dad on the blog. Sales Guy says Bi-Vocational Man since he has long been a Baptist Preacher as well as an Insurance/Real Estate Agent but I’m the typist and I say that is too long. Preacher Man is not quite respectful enough and Sales Guy Sr. isn’t broad enough, so I guess we’ll go with Bi-Vo Man unless someone comes up with a name I like better!  Anyway, over the years, Bi-Vo Man and friends have grilled a lot of chicken. They set up concrete block rectangles and filled them with charcoal and grilled chicken halves for the masses. They cooked for Farm Bureau Insurance meetings, Church groups, Lions Club feeds and their own family reunions. They had two grates, placing the chicken on one, topping  it with the other and flipping them as needed while the chicken cooked. They sometimes fed over 100 people!   This project was fascinating to little Sales Guy and he has often talked about doing it. And now he has!

We didn’t have quite 100 people, more like 25 and Sales Guy did NOT want to haul concrete blocks down 20 step to the BBQ site 4 weeks after his carpal tunnel surgery, so he and his friend Cookbook Guy went to our local steel processor (I know, overkill, but it was an important project) and had them make a grate on legs (1 foot tall, which they later decided was too tall, so Cookbook Guy and his handsome son had to dig in the rock that is our lake soil. Ouch.). It is fancy. Let’s just say we could have bought a LOT of chicken at KFC!

Bi-Vo Man brought the chickens and came to pass the baton. It was a beautiful cool-ish June day, the chicken cooked perfectly, with lots of TLC by all of the supervising chefs. We cooked 25 chicken halves (I didn’t ask what happened to the extra half-well I did, but I didn’t get a straight answer-I think the catfish or carp might be feeding on it) for 25 people! Lots of leftovers-but that’s for another post.

And Sale Guy got to have his big grilled chicken feed….he is already planning the next one!

Grilled Chicken Halves

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Grilled Chicken Halves

Ingredients

  • 10 Medium Chickens (Halved)

BBQ Sauce

  • 1 cup Ketchup
  • 3/4 cups Brown Sugar
  • 2 teaspoons Worcestershire Sauce
  • 2 tablespoons Lemon Juice
  • 1 tablespoon Mustard
  • 1 teaspoon Seasoned Salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon Pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon Onion Powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon Liquid Smoke

Dip

  • 1 quart Vegetable Oil
  • 1 quart Apple Cider Vinegar
  • 1/2 cup Lemon Juice
  • 1 tablespoon Salt
  • 1 teaspoon Pepper

Directions

Step 1
Prepare charcoal per package instructions.
Dip
Step 2
Mix Dip ingredients, stirring well and place in a deep stockpot.
Step 3
Dip washed chicken halves in Dip mixture and place on grate over hot coals. Grill 1 to 2 hours, turning occasionally.
BBQ Sauce
Step 4
Prepare BBQ sauce. Mix all ingredients; heat in microwave for one minute, stir and heat another minute.
Add a dash of hot sauce or cayenne pepper, for a little spice.
We used 4 recipes of this sauce for 25 chicken halves.
IMG_3079
Step 5
Spread sauce on chickens and cook for another 45 minutes to 1 hour until done, turning occasionally. Continue to add sauce until last 15 minutes of cooking.
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Perfect Grilled Tenderloins (chicken or pork)

by Filed Under: Meat & Poultry 2 Comments


 

Pork Tenderloin 2

A tailgating friend introduced us to Andria’s Sauce several years ago. It is made in Western Illinois, so it’s a regional steak sauce, available in the St. Louis area and west as far as Lake of the Ozarks at least. We use it as a marinade on chicken and pork and love it. It tenderizes the meat and adds a tangy flavor. The bottle suggests that you use it as a steak sauce, but it is very strong and has almost a gritty texture, so I can’t imagine doing that. As a marinade though, delicious!! Use your meat thermometer so you don’t overcook the meat (150 degrees for pork and 165 degrees for chicken) and I guarantee, it will be moist and delicious, no additional sauce needed.

Grilled Chicken Tenderloins

I use leftover cooked chicken breasts in salads, tacos and quesadillas. The pork, we just reheat and maybe add bbq sauce on the leftovers. Yummy!

Grilled Pork or Chicken Tenderloins

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Ingredients

Marinade

  • 1/2 bottle Andria's Steak Sauce
  • 1/2 bottle Zesty Italian Salad Dressing

Chicken Marinade

  • 1/2 teaspoon Lemon Pepper
  • 1 Lemon (Juice of)

Pork

  • 2 to 3lb Pork Tenderloins (Trimmed of fat and silver skin)

Chicken

  • 2 to 3lb Chicken Tenderloins (or Chicken Breasts (trimmed of fat))

Directions

Marinade
Step 1
Combine Andria's Sauce and Zesty Italian Dressing in large plastic, resealable bag.
Chicken Marinade
Step 2
If you are using chicken, add lemon pepper and lemon juice to Andria's Sauce & Zesty Italian Salad Dressing mixture in plastic bag.
Step 3
Place pork in marinade and refrigerate overnight or place chicken in marinade and refrigerate 4 to 6 hours, turning occasionally.
Step 4
Remove from refrigerator 30 minutes before grilling and grill on preheated grill (medium heat) until done.
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Smoked Hot Wings

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Smoked hot wings

Thirteen posts into this blog and not a healthy recipe among them (well, the grilled chicken probably qualifies). One fairly healthy habit we have is that we rarely fry. We occasionally pan fry, but hardly ever deep fry.  Yay for us! Our cholesterol is plummeting! We also are a family of wing lovers and we do have a delicious fried wing recipe (that’s for another post) but we cook a mean smoked hot wing and we do it often! They are smoky, spicy, moist and delicious!

The recipe calls for smoking, then finishing at medium-high heat. We have an amazing grill that we can set to smoke and then crank it up to whatever temp we choose but I imagine you could smoke the wings on a smoker, meanwhile, heating up your regular grill to a higher temperature and transfer the wings to the grill after smoking for a couple of hours. That sounds like a lot more trouble than doing the whole process on our Traeger grill, but believe me, these wings  are worth it!

Smoked Hot Wings

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Ingredients

  • 2lb chicken wings (cut into 3 pieces, tips discarded)

Marinade

  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon paprika
  • 8 dashes tabasco sauce (a few shakes)

Wing Sauce

  • 1 bottle Frank's Hot Sauce (16 oz size; can use Louisiana or hot sauce of your choice)
  • 1 bottle Tabasco sauce
  • 1 stick butter
  • 2 tablespoons white vinegar
  • 1/4 cup honey (1/4 to 1/3 cup)
  • 1/2 can beer

Directions

Marinade
Step 1
Combine marinade dry ingredients in gallon size plastic bag. Add cut up wings and Tabasco sauce. Shake until wings are coated and refrigerate 3 to 6 hours, turning once or twice.
Wing Sauce
Step 2
Prepare wing sauce. Melt butter in large sauce pan. Add remaining ingredients and bring to boil. Simmer for 10 minutes
Step 3
Preheat grill to smoke. Add wings in a single layer and smoke 1 & 1/2 to 2 hours; dip wings in sauce and return to grill for 30 minutes at 350 degrees, turning once. Remove from grill and dip in wing sauce again. Serve with celery and ranch or blue cheese dressing.
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Grilled Chicken in Chipotle-Lime Marinade

by Filed Under: Meat & Poultry 1 Comment

This turned into a multi-post day as integrating the marinated chicken breasts recipe with the Thai Lahvosh recipe was not working out. I failed once again in the photography department because I was planning on one finished product, the lahvosh-so I didn’t take a pic of the chicken breasts after they came off the grill. Let me just say, they were beautiful and brown, with wonderful grill marks and I had a hard time not eating one immediately.

Over the years, we have produced some of the driest, chewiest chicken breasts (even since we got the Traeger grill) in the history of grilling. No more! This marinade is the best thing that ever happened to our grilled chicken breasts.  They are moist, have a great texture, a little kick from the chipotles and we love them. I’ve served them plain with a side of Spanish rice or fettucini alfredo, chilled and sliced on a salad and now on the lahvoshes. They are delicious!

Chipotle Lime Chicken Marinade

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Chipotle Lime Chicken Marinade

Ingredients

  • 3 tablespoons Extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon Honey
  • 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon Freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon Ground cumin
  • 2 cloves Garlic (chopped)
  • 2 Chipotle chiles in Adobo sauce (chopped)
  • 1 teaspoon Adobo sauce from can of Chipotle Chiles
  • 1 Medium Lime (juice of)
  • 1 tablespoon Fresh cilantro or 1 tsp of dried cilantro
  • 3 Medium Chicken breasts (trimmed)

Directions

Step 1
In a mini-food processor, add olive oil, honey, salt, pepper, cumin, garlic, chipotles and adobo & lime juice .Mix until marinade is thick and fairly smooth.
Blended Marinade 4-27-13
Step 2
Pour marinade over chicken breasts in gallon plastic bag and refrigerate for 2 to 4 hours. Turn once or twice.
Step 3
Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes prior to grilling. Heat your grill to medium/medium high heat and grill until the internal temperature reaches 170 degrees. Let rest for 10 minutes before slicing. Eat immediately or chill to serve cold.
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