Chicken Pot Pie in Pastry Puffs

I LOVE those small Puff Pastry things.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry...I'll post a picture of them in a minute.  Anyways, they are sooooooo good!  I had a box of them in the freezer and wanted something fun and easy for dinner.  I looked at the box and there was a chicken pot pie recipe on it.  I changed it a little, so here is how I made mine.

Ingredients:
1 Box puff pastries
1 Big chicken breast, or 2 small one's
1 Can of Cream of chicken or mushroom soup
2 Tablespoons milk
1 Bag frozen vegetables
drop of oil to cook the chicken in
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
*Cook the pastries according to package (mine took 20 minutes to cook)

*Take the tops out of your pastries.

*Cut up your chicken into small bite sized pieces.

*Put a drop of oil into a large pan and place the pieces of chicken.

*Cook the chicken until well done.

*Cook your veggies in the microwave until cooked.  Drain the excess water from them.

*Pour your veggies, milk, and soup into the pan with the chicken pieces.

*Cook until warm.

*Add some salt and pepper to the chicken mixture.

*I thought about throwing some shredded cheese into the mixture, but didn't.  If you want to, do that now.

*Pour the chicken mixture into the pastries.  Eat it up!

Flour Tortillas

I LOVE it when you go to a Mexican restaurant and they bring you butter and tortillas.  They are delicious.  The problem is when you crave them at home.  Store bought tortillas don't taste very good, especially when you simply role them up with a bit of melted butter.  Gross.  I informed Nick that it bothered me how simple of a snack it is, yet it is impossible to have the fresh taste like the restaurant one's.  An hour later we had fresh, homemade tortillas.  It didn't take Nick but a minute or two to look up a chewy type version online.  They were really easy to make and took about 45 minutes.  We have made them 3 times since our first time now and they get easier to make each time.  We served them to family who are in town last weekend with white trash dip and boy was it a hit!  Hope you love them as much as we do!!!

Ingredients:
2 Cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
3/4 Cup lukewarm milk

Directions:
*In a large bowl, mix the flour and baking powder together.

*Add the oil and salt to the warm milk and mix well.

*Slowly mix the milk mixture into the flour mixture.

*Work it into a dough, it will be sticky...

*Pour some flour onto your counter.  Spread it out.

*Put your dough onto the counter and knead it.  (Kneading dough is where you take your hands and put them into fists.  Now push your fists from the center of the dough out.  Rotate where you are and continue to push out the dough.  Then grab the dough and fold it over onto itself...if you don't understand this, google how to knead...  ;)  Its a fold and press sort of motion...

*The stickyness will be gone mostly now (after kneading).  Put the dough back in the bowl after you have kneaded it for about 2 minutes.

*Cover the dough with a damp cloth.

*Let sit for 15 minutes covered.  It will not rise, but it needs to sit for 15 minutes covered.

*Divide your dough into 8 equal sized balls.  Set them apart from one another so they are not touching.  Cover them with a kitchen towel.

*Let them sit covered for 20 minutes.

*After 20 minutes, place a bit more flour onto your counter.

*Take a rolling pin and roll each dough ball into a 7 inch square.

*Turn a pan on the stove onto medium heat.

*Do not spray it with baking spray, it won't stick...

*Cook the tortilla in the pan for about 30 seconds on each side.  They blister on each side when the side is cooked.

*After cooking each side for 30 seconds, place it onto a plate.  Cook the rest of the tortillas the same way.  Enjoy!

All You Need is Wine

Just because I never have pictures taken of me, I had to post this one.  It ain't too shabby of a pic!  AND, it sort of deals with food... hahahaha!

And look at my glass!!!  I made it!  :)  Yup, etched my name into my wine glass.  

Stuffed Chicken with Goat Cheese and Basil

Here is another amazing recipe, courtesy of my hubby.  When he makes dinner you KNOW its going to be good!  I know many of you might look at the ingredients and go "um, I don't think so."  Honestly, you will be sorry. The jalepeno's add a mild heat, the goat cheese (which is SO creamy and a very mild cheese) is amazing, and the basil is so sweet.  Oh, its to die for.  This has just made it to the top of my favorite things I have ever eaten in my whole entire life list.  Its up there, amazing.

Ingredients:
2-3 Chicken Breasts (small one's, or 1 huge one)
6-8 Strips of bacon
1 Pkg fresh basil (must be fresh)
1/2 Pkg goat cheese (you could use other cheese but  I don't recommend it)
2 Shallots (yes, those small onion things)
1/2 Large jalapeno

Directions:
*Cut your shallots into small pieces.

*Put a tablespoon or two of oil into a saucepan and turn on medium heat for a minute or so until it warms up a bit.

*Put your shallots into the pan and cook until they are translucent (about 5 minutes or so).

*When they are done cooking, put them in a bowl off to the side.

*If your chicken breasts are big/thick (ours were, we buy them at Albertsons in the meat section and they are HUGE), slice them in half.  If you used those bagged chicken breasts from Walmart of such (in the frozen section) no need to slice in half.  Put a piece of saran wrap on a cutting board and then place the thin chicken breast onto it.  POUND it with anything you have (meat beater or hammer...).

(See, HUGE)

(We cut it directly down the middle so we had 2 thin pieces)

(Pound it down thin)

(ta-da)

*Line a baking sheet with tinfoil.  Spray it down with baking spray.  (Or use parchment paper like we did)

*Take all of your chicken (once they are nice and beaten down thin), and place them on the tinfoil/parchment paper.

*Here is what your next ingredients look like:

*Take your goat cheese (or another cheese if you prefer) and cut it into small pieces.  Lay it on the chicken.

*Slice you jalapeno into thin slices

*Take your jalapeno slices and place them on top of the cheese.

*Now place the basil leaves on top of the jalapeno slices.

*Place your shallots on top of the basil leaves.

*Get some toothpicks ready.

*Take your bacon strips and lay one out.

*Roll your chicken up.

*Take your rolled up chicken and roll it onto the bacon stips so that the bacon runs around the chicken.

*Secure the bacon with toothpicks. (This picture is of one of the tiny chicken pieces we used for the kids chicken.  You can see how nice it is rolled though)

*Do this to all of the chicken pieces.

*Take your bacon wrapped chicken and brown it a bit in your pot of grease from the shallots.

*You only want to brown it up a bit.  (2-3 mins or so, flipping them)

*Do each of the chicken pieces, then place them back onto the parchment paper baking dish or tin foil baking dish.

*Pre-heat your oven to 350*F.

*Put your chicken into the oven and bake for 20 minutes until fully cooked through.

*We served ours with rice and broccoli.  It was delicious!!!!!!!!!!

It was a huge hit with the kids too!  We did not put shallots or jalapeno's into their small one's however.