Tag: Egg Free

Mom’s Fried Chicken

Mom would make this fried chicken when we were growing up. It’s pretty simple and doesn’t have lots of herbs, but it’s still delicious.

If you’re making this gluten free, of course just use gluten free flour.

Make it a meal with:

  • French Bread
  • Green Salad
  • Corn
  • Fresh Fruit

Fried Chicken

  • Servings: 10
  • Difficulty: medium
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Simple but tasty.

Ingredients

  • About 10 Chicken Thighs
  • ½ c. Butter
  • ½ c. Vegetable Oil
  • 1 c. Flour (or gluten free flour)
  • 1 tsp. Salt

Directions

(Salt chicken before coating with flour.)  Combine flour and salt in gallon bag. Place chicken in bag and shake to coat. Fry chicken in butter and oil, skin side down for 15 minutes till golden. Turn over. Turn down heat and simmer for 30 minutes.


Pesto Chicken

Man, I love pesto chicken SO much. It’s one of my very favorite meals. Garlic, basil, cheese, and tomato combine so well. You can make this as separate chicken breasts in a pan, or you can mix cubed chicken and cut up tomato with sauce in the pasta. Either way is delicious, but the separate chicken breasts in the pan seems a little more special for special occasions.

And good news, this one is naturally gluten free–just serve it with gluten free noodles.

Make it a meal with:

  • Pasta
  • Garlic Bread or Breadsticks
  • Corn or Green Beans
  • Fresh Fruit

Pesto Chicken

  • Servings: 6
  • Difficulty: easy
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Absolutely delicious, great for special occasions or weeknight dinners.

Ingredients

  • 3 large Chicken Breasts, fileted in half so they’re half the thickness (6 total pieces)
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 10 oz. jar Basil Pesto
  • 2 large Tomatoes, sliced
  • Sliced or shredded Mozzarella
  • Parmesan cheese (optional)

Directions

Place the fileted chicken breasts in a greased 9×13 pan and season with salt and pepper. Spoon the pesto over the chicken. Then cover each chicken with 1-2 tomato slices (salted and peppered), and top with cheese. (Optional: Sprinkle parmesan over all.) Cook at 375° for about 30-45 minutes or until the temperature reaches 165°. Also broil to melt the cheese until slightly golden brown at the end. Serve with pasta, and make sure to spoon the delicious liquid from the pan over the pasta.


Cowboy Surprise

I think in the strictest sense, cowboy surprise basically meant whatever the cowboy had ended up in the pot. But we’ve standardized it a little more (although not with terribly exact measurements), occasionally adding some extra stuff from our fridge like leftover bell peppers or vegetables. It’s kind of like a fancy Hamburger Helper, haha. But it’s pretty cheap and makes lots of good leftovers.

If you’re making it gluten free, I find that gluten free rotini holds up the best. But any gluten free pasta does tend to fall apart eventually, especially with stirring or after microwaving as a leftover. And condensed tomato soup does have flour, so make sure to use the substitute.

Make it a meal with:

  • Corn or green beans
  • Fresh Fruit

Cowboy Surprise

  • Servings: 8?
  • Difficulty: easy
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Fast and easy, and it makes lots of leftovers.

Ingredients

  • 3 c. Macaroni (uncooked) (or gluten free rotini)
  • 1-2 lbs. Hamburger
  • 1 Onion, minced
  • 2 tsp. Minced Garlic
  • 2 cans Tomato Soup
    • For gluten free, use:
    • 16 oz. Tomato Sauce
    • 1 Tbsp. Sugar
    • 2 Tbsp. Cornstarch
    • 1 tsp. Salt
  • ½ c. Ketchup
  • 1 heaping Tbsp. Brown Sugar (about)
  • ½ tsp. Chili Powder
  • Salt and Pepper to taste
  • 2 c. Shredded Cheddar Cheese

Directions

Cook the pasta and drain. To save a pan, you can cook the rest in that same pan, then add back the macaroni. Cook hamburger and onion, then combine remaining ingredients in pot on stove and heat. Make sure it’s sweet enough. Add cheese at end. For gluten free, make sure to adjust flavors as much as possible before adding pasta because it will fall apart more easily with stirring.


Cordon Bleu

I like to make cordon bleu on Sundays or special occasions. They do take a little more effort because you have to pound out the chicken and assemble it, but I often make a big pan of 10 cordon bleus and freeze the leftovers with sauce.

I generally like to have everything laid out and ready at the beginning so it goes fast once you start. Also, I take out the exact number of ham and cheese slices beforehand that I need so that I won’t contaminate the whole package with my chicken-covered hands. It’s a messy job to assemble the cordon bleu–you can use latex gloves or try the technique of having one “dry” hand for breadcrumbs and one “wet” hand for dipping in butter. But it’ll be fairly messy no matter what.

You can use regular breadcrumbs or Italian breadcrumbs. Growing up we always had plain, but lately I’ve really enjoyed the extra flavor from the Italian. You can always make your own Italian breadcrumbs by shaking some Italian seasoning into plain breadcrumbs. Also growing up, we used to secure the rolled up chicken with toothpicks. But I’ve found that if I roll them and pack them fairly tightly (like 10 in a 9×13 pan), they’ll cook and hold their shapes. Then you don’t have to pull out the extra toothpicks before eating.

If you’re making it gluten free, just swap out the breadcrumbs for gluten free breadcrumbs or crushed Rice or Corn Chex. You can still add Italian seasoning if you want more flavor. And if you’re making the sauce, use a gluten free cream of chicken soup.

Make it a meal with:

  • Baked Potatoes, Risotto, or Pasta Roni
  • Green Beans
  • Waldorf Salad

Cordon Bleu

  • Servings: 10
  • Difficulty: medium-hard
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A nicer, fancier meal that takes more time but also freezes well.

Ingredients

  • 5 large Chicken Breasts, fileted in half so they’re half the thickness
  • 10 Ham Slices
  • 10 Swiss Cheese Slices
  • 1/4 c. Melted Butter in a bowl
  • 1/2 c. + Bread Crumbs with extra Italian seasoning if desired (or gluten free breadcrumbs or crushed Corn Chex) in a bowl

Sauce for Topping (I often double this if I’m making 10, depending who likes sauce)

  • 1 can Cream of Chicken Soup (or gluten free cream of chicken soup)
  • ½ c. Sour Cream
  • 1 tsp. Lemon Juice

Directions

On a cutting board, cover a fileted chicken breast with plastic wrap to prevent splashes. Then pound out chicken so that it’s thin and even. Put down one slice of ham on the flattened chicken and then one slice of cheese. Roll tightly then dip in bread crumbs, then butter, then bread crumbs again. Place in greased glass 9×13 pan. Pack tightly to keep cheese from melting out too much. Cook at 375° for about 45 minutes to 1 hour when tightly packed or until the internal temperature reaches 165°.

For the sauce, mix the ingredients and bring to a gentle boil. Spoon over cordon bleu.


Chicken Gravy & Dumplings

We make this meal without dumplings a lot, because it’s easy, we always have the ingredients in our house, and it’s a nice, warm, mild meal that’s easy on an upset stomach. It’s kind of our go-to, served on rice, if someone’s having stomach issues.

Also, the dumplings are surprisingly simple and delicious. You wouldn’t think canned biscuits would make very good dumplings or that they would taste artificial or something, but they’re wonderful. FYI, they do tend to soak up a lot of gravy while cooking, so you may want to add an extra can of soup. And sometimes when you microwave the dumplings as a leftover, they can get a little hard.

If you’re making this gluten free, make sure to swap out the regular cream of chicken soup for the gluten free kind and of course leave out the dumplings.

Make it a meal with:

  • Rice, Mashed Potatoes, Baked Potatoes, or Noodles
  • Green Beans
  • Fresh Fruit or Jell-O

Chicken Gravy & Dumplings

  • Servings: 6?
  • Difficulty: easy
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Easy, mild, and comforting for a quick dinner or for upset stomachs.

Ingredients

  • 2-3 lb. Chicken breasts, cubed
  • 2 cans Cream of Chicken Soup (or gluten free cream of chicken)
  • Morton Season All Seasoned Salt
  • 1 can Milk
  • Optional: 1 can Biscuits

Directions

In a deep pan on the stove or a large electric skillet, brown cubed chicken and sprinkle seasoned salt all over top. Add the soup to the chicken, then pour milk in the soup cans and swirl around to get out as much as possible, then pour in with the chicken. Mix and heat until smooth. For optional dumplings, turn down the heat to low and place the biscuits on top of the chicken and gravy, then cover with a lid and barely simmer for 10-15 minutes or until the dumplings are no longer doughy inside. Serve on top of rice, potatoes, or noodles.


Chicken Linguine

Once again, this recipe comes from the time when I lived with Grandpa and he was trying to eat lower-sodium meals. It was originally a side dish on Mrs. Dash’s website, but I updated it with chicken and a few other ingredients, and eventually added more salt after the low-sodium diet was over.

The house smells so amazing and full of spices when this meal is cooking, and it makes nice leftovers. I generally serve it using tongs because the noodles are long and the chicken is hard to grab with a pasta server. But you can use any pasta with this recipe, really. And you might need to add a lot of extra Mrs. Dash, just according to your taste preference.

If you’re making this gluten free, just make sure to use gluten free pasta. Everything else is gluten free naturally–just make sure your cheese hasn’t been contaminated.

Make it a meal with:

Chicken Linguine

  • Servings: 6?
  • Difficulty: medium
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Healthier, but very aromatic and delicious.

Ingredients

  • 1 box uncooked Fettuccine or Linguine (or gluten free pasta)
  • 2-4 Chicken Breasts, cubed
  • 2 ½ Tbsp. Olive Oil
  • 2 Tbsp.+ Mrs. Dash Garlic & Herb Seasoning, to taste
  • 1 Red Pepper, sliced
  • 1 Yellow pepper, sliced
  • 2 c. chopped Broccoli or Asparagus
  • ¼ c. Lemon Juice
  • ¾ c. Shredded Provolone/Mozzarella Blend
  • Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions

Prepare pasta according to package directions, and cook chicken. Place chicken in bowl, then heat olive oil in pan. Add vegetables and Mrs. Dash Seasoning. Cook until tender, about 8 minutes. Toss together with pasta, chicken, vegetables, and lemon juice. Mix in cheese and stir until melted, then add salt and pepper to taste.


Chicken Noodle Soup

This soup tastes so wonderfully of childhood, I make it even in the summer. I love how the whole house fills with the warm aroma of cooking chicken and a light oniony broth. Haha, when I worked at Harmons, we had a meeting every week and started off by saying the best thing we ate the last week–I said so often that my favorite thing was homemade chicken noodle soup, that my coworkers started to request that I bring it in one day, since it was apparently so delicious. I never actually did, though. I did make it for a district meeting on my mission once, though. Haha, except it sat on the stove the whole meeting and the bottom burned, and the noodles turned to mush. It still tasted pretty good, though.

In all fairness, I don’t know that it’s such an amazingly stellar recipe so much as it reminds me of warm, comforting days with my mom. Of sneaking pieces of chicken, and one time being bold enough to ask my mom if I could eat one of the wings. She kindly obliged, smiled, put some salt on the wing, and handed it to me, letting me enjoy the whole thing.

I also remember my mom, at my request, teaching us for a Young Women’s activity about how to make a meal when our mom was sick. So she taught us how to make chicken noodle soup and blueberry muffins. Some girls didn’t want to get their hands goopy in breaking down the chicken, but I never minded. Plus, you get to sneak lots of pieces of chicken yourself. I’ve made this soup so many times in my life, and I look forward to making it with my girls.

If you’re making this gluten free, make sure to use Members Mark Chicken Base from Sam’s Club or Better Than Bouillon instead of bouillon cubes. And I generally cook the noodles separately and add them in after because gluten free noodles tend to fall apart in soup. So the smallest amount of time the noodles can be in the soup, the better.

Make it a meal with:

  • Muffins or Rolls
  • Fresh Fruit

Chicken Noodle Soup

  • Servings: 8?
  • Difficulty: medium
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Warm and comforting, but it takes tons of time to make.

Ingredients

  • 1 whole Chicken, washed and cleaned out
  • Water to cover chicken
  • 4-5 Chicken Bouillon Cubes (or 4-5 tsp. Members Mark Chicken Base)
  • 2 Bay Leaves
  • 2 Carrots
  • 1 Onion, chopped
  • Optional: 2 whole stalks Celery
  • Salt and Pepper to taste
  • ½ bag Egg Noodles (or 1/2 box gluten free rotini)
  • ~½ c. frozen Peas
  • ~½ c. frozen Corn

Directions

In large pot, cover chicken with water. Place bouillon cubes, bay leaves, carrots, and onion in water. Optional: Add 2 whole stalks of celery for flavor. Boil for 1 hour, occasionally skimming off foam on top. Remove bay leaves and celery, then remove celery stalks and chicken from water and let cool in a pan for about 20 minutes. (Cools faster if you use a spoon to separate off large chunks while hot.) Once cool, pull chicken off bone and place bite-size chunks in broth. Add salt and pepper to taste. Soup always needs lots of salt and sometimes another bouillon cube or two for flavor. Add egg noodles and boil for 8 minutes, then remove from heat and add peas and corn–or cook the gluten free noodles separately and add them to each person’s bowl individually before adding broth.


Pot Roast

Since pot roast and beef soup have basically the same ingredients, you can make a soup out of this if you just cut up the beef and vegetables beforehand. Also, for pot roast, I love to make gravy with the tons of leftover juice. It’s wonderful to freeze the gravy and use later for Hamburger Gravy, Beef Pot Pies, or Beef and Gravy served over noodles.

If you’re making it gluten free, make sure to use Members Mark Beef Base or Better Than Bouillon (or gluten free bouillon cubes if you can find any), and make the gravy with cornstarch.

Make it a meal with:

Pot Roast or Beef Soup

  • Servings: 8?
  • Difficulty: easy
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It’s basically the same ingredients for beef soup or pot roast.

Ingredients

  • 3-4 lbs. Beef (chuck roast or brisket for pot roast)
  • 4-6 Potatoes, chopped large
  • 3-4 Carrots, chopped large or 4 c. Baby Carrots
  • 1 Onion, chopped large
  • About 4-6 c. Water (to cover)
  • 4-6 Beef Bouillon Cubes (or 4-6 tsp. Members Mark Beef Base)
  • 1 Bay Leaf
  • 1+ tsp. Salt to taste
  • Pepper to taste
  • Optional: Flour (or cornstarch) for gravy (such as 1 c. cornstarch, 1 c. water, depending on how much broth you have)

Directions

For pot roast, place beef in slow cooker and cover with water. Chop all the vegetables large so they don’t get mushy after the long cook time. Add the remaining ingredients except the flour. For the soup, you can use any of several kinds of beef, including rump roast or sirloin–it just needs to cook a long time to get tender. Cook for 4-5 hours on high or 8-10 hours on low until the meat is tender enough. If using a big pot rather than a slow cooker, cook soup for 1 hour (beef may be tougher with this method). Remove bay leaf before serving.

For pot roast gravy: Remove everything from the juice, then pour the juice through a strainer into a pot. Bring to a boil. In a bowl, whisk together flour or cornstarch and water until no lumps remain, then add to the juice, whisking constantly. If the gravy is too runny after it comes to a boil, add more whisked flour and water. Salt and pepper to taste.


Berner Wuerstl

On my mission in Vienna, my companion and I discovered what we called “Heart Attack Wursts”, aka Berner Wuerstl. These bacon-wrapped, cheese-filled hot dogs were SO delicious, but we didn’t dare eat very many or we might actually die of a heart attack. Haha. They were sold in packages in the store in Vienna, but we don’t really have them readily available in stores near us; so I decided to make a substitute version for Oktoberfest. It’s really easy–the hardest part is wrapping the bacon around the hot dog so it doesn’t unravel. I try to tuck in the ends, and if I slightly stretch the bacon from side to side (not pulling on the ends but the sides), that it holds onto the hot dog easier.

You can either use nice cheese-filled hot dogs and wrap them in bacon, or stuff your own hot dogs with cheese.

And this one is naturally gluten free.

Make it a meal with:

Berner Wuerstl

  • Servings: varies
  • Difficulty: medium
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A delicious, bacon-wrapped “heart attack wurst”.

Ingredients

  • 1 pkg. good quality Hot Dogs
  • 1 brick White Cheese (like Muenster), thinly sliced to fit inside a hot dog
  • OR 1 pkg. Cheddar Hot Dogs
  • 1 pkg. uncooked Bacon

Directions

For the easiest version, buy cheddar hot dogs and simply wrap them with bacon. OR Slice hot dogs down middle, place cheese in middle, then wrap in bacon, making sure to tuck the ends so the bacon doesn’t unravel. Broil or grill on medium heat for 5 minutes on each side, turning halfway.


Bratwurst Splits

Bratwurst itself is great, but add extra cheddar and it’s amazing. I think my older brother had a version of this at a German restaurant when he went there with his German class in middle school. Ever since then, we’ve enjoyed having our Americanized version as part of Oktoberfest. You could eat it in a bun, but we generally just eat it straight up with a knife and fork.

Note that it is delicious but very greasy, especially if you use a national brand like Johnsonville. So you may not want to eat too many, for your digestive system. If you want one less greasy, you can use Harmons bratwurst, which has considerably less fat and is more authentic-tasting. But any brand is delicious.

And this one is naturally gluten free.

Make it a meal with:

Bratwurst Splits

  • Servings: varies
  • Difficulty: medium
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A fun German-inspired Oktoberfest dish.

Ingredients

  • 1 pkg. Bratwursts
  • Optional: Broth and chopped onion
  • 1 brick Cheddar Cheese, cut in long slices like string cheese

Directions

Boil bratwurst in pan of water or chicken broth with onion (for more flavor), about 10 minutes or until no longer pink. Then slice bratwurst down middle (not all the way through), place cheese in middle, then broil or grill until cheese is bubbly and slightly brown.