Chicken Chili--ACC Championship Day! Freezes Well

We make this with ground beef sometimes, but we like the lighter version with chicken the best. This is one of Matthew's recipes. It calls for a pound and a half of ground beef if you choose to use that instead of chicken. Just brown your ground beef first and add about ten minutes to your overall preparation time.
This recipe takes about 45 minutes from start to finish.
We buy a cold rotisserie chicken and break it up.

3 pounds of rotisserie chicken
1 large chopped onion
3 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon Sriracho
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 pack of chili Texmex
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 cans kidney beans
2 cans pintos
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 (14 oz) can Rotel
1 can tomato paste
1 (16 oz) tomato sauce
1 can of Coors Light
1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
1 teaspoon sugar

Saute onion in dutch oven, then add chili powder, salt, oregano, cayenne, and Tabasco, mix well.
Dump all your other ingredients on top, except for the chicken, and bring to a boil. Add your chicken and lower the heat to medium-low to simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Season to your liking. If it is too hot for you and your family, just add a little sugar to cool it down.

It's a great chili on a rainy, ACC championship day! Since State is out, Go Devils!

Firecracker Shrimp

Matthew bought, not jumbo, not extra jumbo, but colossal shrimp at the fish market today.
He gives them an egg wash after they are deveined, puts a small amount of panko on each one, and gives them a nice sauté in olive oil.
He combines 1 tablespoon chili sauce, 2 tablespoons of cocktail sauce, and 2 tablespoons of remoulade sauce for a delicious appetizer or lunch with a salad. He sautéed eight shrimp today for the three of us. It was delicious.

Patty Melts of All Kinds!

I started with a recipe from Ree Drummond on Food Network. Here's a link to her recipe.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/patty-melts-recipe.html

I used her basic recipe, but instead of using a stick of butter, I used one pat per side of the bread.

For three sandwiches:
Six slices of nice bread of your choice.
Six pats of butter
Half an onion chopped and caramelized
Six slices of cheese. We use Swiss.
Your choice of ham, turkey, roast beef, or prepared hamburgers.

Throw a slice of cheese on each piece of bread, your meat, and cover with the other piece of cheese then bread. Throw down three pats of butter in an electric frying pan, then repeat that step when you flip sides. I put the top on between turns to steam the cheese a bit.

Makes a great lunch after church!

Smashed Potatoes (Crash Hot Potatoes) Freezes Well

I got this one from Ree Drummond on Food Network.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/crash-hot-potatoes-recipe.html
My husband loves potatoes of any shape, color, kind, or preparation. We had these for two meals. I used most of her recipe with a few changes (Parmesan cheese, no boiling) for the first round, then pan fried the leftovers for lunch the next day in olive oil. Makes a nice, easy version of potato cakes!

I purchased the small, microwaveable bag of golden potatoes at Ingles instead of boiling a bag of potatoes.

The potatoes take six minutes in the microwave. 

Once they cook, throw them on a baking pan and gently flatten them with a potato masher. Drizzle olive oil, Parmesan cheese, and pepper over them. The potato masher makes a nice pattern on them. Bake at 475 for 15 minutes. Ree Drummond is an excellent cook! I attached a link to her exact recipe. Potatoes are at the top of the picture.

BBQ Chicken Tacos (Chicken Recipe is Listed on Another Post)

It's been about a year since I have posted on my blog. I thought it was time to get back to it. I pull these recipes up on my phone through my Blogger App when I'm grocery shopping, and I needed some new recipes! Hope you are doing well! This is a new take on an old post. For the chicken recipe, please scroll back to old posts and look for BBQ Shredded Chicken. That will give you the dutch oven BBQ chicken recipe. This is our leftover meal from BBQ Shredded Chicken last night.

Take the shredded chicken out of the fridge and heat in a pan. We serve this leftover dish with a Southwest bag slaw with tortillas. Fix the bag of salad and stir the dressing into the salad. Refrigerate until you are ready to serve. Chop a tomato, chop some cilantro, serve with chips, sour cream and avocado verde and/or salsa. Throw your soft tortillas in a pan one at a time for 15 seconds on each side. We always have blueberries for dessert! It is a wonderful leftover meal that takes about 15 minutes to get on the table. Enjoy!