Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Cooking.


I like cookbooks! Here are a few of them and also my stack of "bon appetit" magazines. That yellow envelope is jammed full of recipes that I have pulled off the Internet or have been printed
from other people that pass them on to me. The maroon book next to the "Betty Crockers" is a cookbook that my sisters in AK made for me when I moved here to WI. It's all the family favorites. 2 cookbooks that I have never used is the "Weight Watcher" one and the "Luscious Low-Fat Favorites" . I mean really, can there be such a thing?
Whenever I go to garage sales I keep an eye out for cookbooks. Some of the best ones are the ones that the Church ladies put out. (Unless it's a cookbook that is put out by my Church here in WI. I wont buy that! Sorry )


So last night I made a chicken dish from one of the Church cookbooks. My friend in CO gave it to me for Christmas 2007. It was pretty tasty.


Italian Chicken
4 Chicken Breast....................................... 1/2 to 3/4 bottle Italian dressing
1 can of cream of chicken soup................ 1cup chicken broth
8oz cream cheese........................................1/2 tps basil
1/2 tps garlic salt........................................ salt and pepper to taste

Cook chicken and Italian dressing in crock pot for 6 hrs
Remove and shred chicken. Return to crock pot.
Combine and melt in a small pan soup,cream cheese,broth and seasonings. Add to crock pot and cook 1 more hour. Serve with angle hair pasta.

I did not follow directions! ( Only in baking do I follow directions )
They don't say what size of bottle. So I used about 1 cup of dressing and I had the zesty kind. That was a little sharp on the garlic so I did not add the garlic salt.
I was going to be at work while it was in the crock pot so I added some water. ( Didn't have the chicken broth at the time) When I got home I took out the chicken,shred it, put it back in the crock pot and added to the crock pot the cream cheese and the soup. I mixed it all in the crock pot. Why dirty up another pot? Did not have basil so I added oregano. It was not thick and creamy so I did NOT add the chicken broth. I also added some red pepper flakes.
When I had it for dinner last night it was good. When I had it for lunch today it was better! The sharp garlic flavor had mellowed.


Would I make this again? Yes I would. In fact I think that I will make this for Church next week for the potluck!
But I would use the regular Italian dressing. I wouldn't add water, I think that might be why it stayed thin. I also would hold off on the chicken broth until I knew how thick it was and use the broth to thin it if need be. Also I think if I added the pasta to the crock pot, that would have soaked up some of the liquid. But I'm just cooking enough pasta for one meal at a time.
So, how many cookbooks do you have?

6 comments:

  1. So that's what smelled so good around 1 pm this afternoon!!!! The recipe sounds delicious.

    We have LOTS of cookbooks...I come form a "cookbook" family. My grandmother had an upstairs bedroom filled with cookbooks. As a little girl I used to go upstairs in grandma's house and read through her cookbooks. Grandma F really liked Julia Child's.

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  2. Would you believe I have 18? But I only use 3 of them regularly. I am having major ACS connection problems so probably won't post tonight unless ACS fixes their problem.

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  3. I have about ten or so I suppose, but most of them stay in the back of the pantry. I have one very crusty Betty Crocker Cookbook that I use mostly and that is stuffed with all kinds of loose copies of stuff that I thought sounded good, its a real mess.

    Most of what I make comes from family recipies, or stuff I come up with on my own, so I keep a little recipe box in my pantry. That is what I use the most.

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  4. I wonder if in your recipe you are supposed to throw out the Italian dressing after cooking the chicken. Then your sauce of cream cheese, cream soup and chix broth would be about the right consistency. If I make it that's what I will do.

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  5. Too damn many. All rendered obsolete by the Internet, EXCEPT "Joy of Cooking" and all of Julia Child's books. That woman was amazing. Her recipes ALWAYS work. They're a pain, but they work.

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  6. Can't wait for Pioneer Woman's recipie book to come out!!!

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