5 Easy Chicken Recipes: Sweet & Sour, Stuffed Chicken Breasts, Chicken with Mushrooms, Chicken Casserole, and Chicken & Dumplings!

Hello and welcome to “At Home” today, we’re just so glad that you’re with us. It’s so very nice when you decide to take that clicker and tune it into the station that carries us, that we can say hello to you. It’s just not the same when the whole family isn’t together. And today we’re gonna do some dishes and the main common ingredient in all of them is a boneless, skinless chicken breast. So, if you get them on sale and you say, “Boy, you know, I wish I had some new ideas for this”, we’re gonna give you a lot of new ideas and good ideas and quick, quick dishes so that you get home from work or you just get in late, kids coming in from school, you’ll be able to get this on the table very quickly. Wanna read a little letter from a lady named Rachel from Media, Pennsylvania. She says, “Dear Arlene, your love for all people shines through on your program with your guests. I feel at home watching you and it’s the bright spot of my week. I am curious to know what church you attend or your religious background that has given you such a beautiful outlook.” Well, I don’t think that the particular church that you attend is as important as the relationship that you have with God. And that’s something everyone can have. Of course, I wholeheartedly agree that you should attend church, everyone should. And you should do that because the Bible tells you to. “Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves as the manner of some is”, the Bible says. But so much the more, go to church even more when you see that great day that Jesus will return is about to happen. It’s telling you, “Get together more often.” You say, “Well, why?” Because we need to encourage one another. Haven’t you ever gone to church and the preacher got up and he started to say something and it was just what you needed to hear? Well, that’s encouraging one another, building up our faith. My dad was a pastor, he was my pastor for all the years that he lived and he preached the full Bible. He was a Pentecostal man. And if you know what that is, that’s not something you hear very often nowadays. But, he believed in being saved by the blood of Jesus Christ that washes our sins away, that is free to everyone who will invite him to come in. And that as you grow in the Lord, there is something called the Baptism in the Holy Spirit that you receive and fills your life. And so, that’s my background. I believe in the whole Bible, it is the infallible word of God. Heaven and Earth may pass away, God’s word will never, ever pass away. These recipes we do, they could be thrown in the trash somewhere, they’d be gone, we’d never have them again. So what? But I’ll tell you what, the word of God will never, ever, ever pass away. Something that you can base your whole life on, it’s the word of God. So, to answer your question, Rachel, my dad was my pastor and he was a wonderful man, he’s gone to be with the Lord now. But the truth that he held dear to him, he instilled in me, and that’s what I live by, the word of God. What it says to do, that’s what I try to do. But I do love people and I really love you and I want you to get the recipes that we’re going to be doing today. So, right after our “At Home” hint, we’ll be back to start chicken dishes here on “At Home.” Stay with us now, we’ll be right back. Here’s today’s “At Home” hint. “Briefly warming a lemon in a microwave oven frees up the lemon juice. Depending on oven wattage and size of the lemon, heat one lemon on high power setting for 20 to 40 seconds or just until warm to the touch.” If you’ve got a helpful hint you’d like to share with us, we want to hear from you. Send your hint to At Home Hints, CTV, Wall, Pennsylvania, 15148-1499. Someday, we’re gonna turn the cameras on and I want you to see what happens while you’re listening to the hint because, like I tell you all the time, it’s incredible, it’s wild. Alright, the first one we’re gonna do is called a chicken casserole. This one needs to be done the night before, so if you’re gonna have guests, this would be the one you’d wanna do. Put it in the refrigerator overnight and then bake it off fresh. First of all, what we need would be two cups of cooked chicken breast. Of course, the skins and bones, everything’s out of this, all the gristle, all the fat is cooked off. And the easiest way… Don’t have to put it on with a bowl of water and all of that. The easiest way in the world to cook chicken breast is just, put them in a flat plate, single layer, put the saran wrap over them, put them in your microwave for five to seven minutes and they cook perfectly and they’re good and juicy and allow them to cool and they’re wonderful, okay? Now we’re gonna do a cup of celery that we have just cooked a little bit to make it a little bit soft, important to do that. And one cup of cooked rice. And I think that this will probably make about six to eight servings, something like that. Cooked rice. Now we’re gonna take the juice of a half of a lemon, about a tablespoon of fresh lemon juice, right? And one tablespoon of chopped onion, tablespoon of chopped onion and 3/4 cup of mayonnaise. And you can use the reduced fat mayonnaise, if you care to, you can do that. Now what we do is mix this up very well just like this. And you want to have a nice casserole, this is I think a two-quart casserole, usually tells you on the bottom if you’re looking for. This one doesn’t, but I would say it’s probably a two-quart casserole. And mix this up well just like that, make sure all the rices are covered with some of that mayonnaise, reduced fat. I don’t know that I would use the low fat, ’cause it might change the flavor here, but you can if you want to try it, why not? Sometimes I don’t know how the yogurt would hold up ’cause sometimes they’re telling you to use nonfat yogurt in place of mayonnaise. I don’t know how that would work, but you might want to experiment, it would be okay. Now what you do, we’re just gonna pour this into our casserole dish and you know that the celery has been cooked a little bit, so it won’t be so crunchy. We’re gonna bake this in the oven. Everything goes into a preheated oven. Just like that, flatten it all out. There we go, just like that. Now, this is what you would cover and you’d place this into your refrigerator for overnight. When it comes time to bake it, you wanna preheat the oven to 300 degrees, not 350, this is a slow oven, and you’re gonna bake this for one hour at 300 degrees. But before you do that… This is some melted margarine and we’re going to… This should actually be a little bit more liquified. And we’re gonna take some cornflake crumbs, about a cup of cornflake crumbs. Actually should have a larger bowl here ’cause this might not make it, but we’re gonna try it. Okay? And you’re gonna mix this around and then just sprinkle this. Now this when you bake it, not before you put it in the refrigerator because that would not work well. It’ll probably get all soggy. This just makes a crisp topping over the top of your casserole. I’d fix some kind of a nice salad and maybe a vegetable if you wanted to. If you had guests coming in, that might be nice to do. But this just makes very, very nice casserole. Looks good, tastes good. 300-degree oven now, don’t forget, 300 degrees for one hour. Just put that in there. And that hour gives you a chance to prepare your dessert or whatever else you might want to be doing. Alright, now, the next one we’re going to do is something that my sister-in-law… Her name is Janet, she’s married to Paul’s brother, Dawn, and she is she’s quite a lady, she’s is a great girl. We have a lot of laughs together, we have a lot of fun and she always kids about what kind of a cook she is. And Dawn’s always saying, “Oh, Janet makes her famous angel food cake”, because one time she made one and she didn’t cool it on top of a bottle and the cake was like about this tall. You know, angel food’s usually real big. So, we’ve kidded her for a long time about that and she’s a good sport. But, it’s fun because she told me about this. We were there for dinner one night and she was telling me about… This is her friends’ chicken stuff that Dawn really likes, so I title this Janet’s friends’ chicken stuff for lack of a better name. But what you do is take the bonus chicken breast and you cut them in bite-sized pieces, very small pieces, okay? Just like that. And that’s about two and a half to three pounds. And then you take your eggs. Now, this is another one of those that you can do the night before and it will not in any way… In fact, it will help you when it comes time to cook it the next day because you’ll have a good bit of the work done. This has to have these eggs… And I can’t call it a marinade because it’s not a marinade, it’s eggs mixed up like this that after you have the chicken into the bag like that or some people say put in the bowl, but I think the bag’s easier ’cause you can throw it away and there’s less mess. You just mix up your eggs and you pour that into that bag with the chicken, alright? And you’re going to seal it. Please be careful when you seal it, make sure that that seal takes and don’t assume that it does. Test it, please test it. Okay, and then you’re just going to mix the egg all over the chicken just like that. And I said, “Janet, what does that do?” And she said… Apparently, her friend says that that breaks down the fibers of the chicken and makes it more tender, which is nice. This goes into the refrigerator for the next day. You can do it, you can get by if you do it quickly, but it tastes better if you do it overnight. When it comes time to get that out of the refrigerator and to do it up, let me show you how you’ll do it. This is some that we did earlier and I want to show you… Wish I had a fork here. Maybe somebody get me a fork, please. Alright. Now, this is the chicken and you’re gonna take pieces out. And this is just plain breadcrumb and you’re gonna drip, drop, whichever. You’re gonna put these pieces of chicken one by one into the breadcrumb… Thanks, Lynn. And you’re gonna bread them and brown them off very quickly. You have your oil in here and it gets nice and hot. That’s all you do, is just like that. Cover them quickly with breadcrumb, you don’t have to pound the breadcrumb in them or anything like that. It’s lightly bread them, just like that. And because of the egg, it holds it very, very well. Now, this is very hot and you don’t wanna cook them through, you just want them to brown very quickly. And once they’re browned, you’re gonna take them out using a slotted spoon, you’re gonna put them into a casserole or into a baking pan, just like we have here, and I’m just gonna do a couple pieces to show you. When these brown and they’re browning quickly because the grease is good and hot and that’s what you’d wanna do, you don’t want these to be in there a long time. In fact, these are getting a little dark, but I know it’s because I have the oil so high. Alright, you take them out with a slotted spoon and we’re gonna put them into our baking dish. Preheat your oven for 350 degrees, just like that. You say, “Arlene, that’s not very much cook”. That’s right, it’s not, it’s not supposed to be. But what we do now, we’re going to take a small can of mushrooms and sprinkle that all over the chicken. If you like a lot of mushrooms, use a big can of mushrooms. But basically, a small can is all you’re gonna need and you drain them, please be sure to drain them. Then we’re gonna take… This is Monterey Jack cheese. Put that over the top. And that’s about a cup and a half of shredded Monterey Jack, more or less to taste, but don’t cover it so completely that you can’t see the chicken. And then what you do is take one cup of chicken broth and you just pour it all over the baking pan. Now this makes a lot, but you don’t have to make this much. You cut it in half, you know just do a pound and a half or whatever. This goes into a 350-degree oven for 30 minutes. You say, “Well, that’s not very much to cook chicken”. No it isn’t, but it will work because it’s small pieces, alright? I wanna show you one more quick one before we take a break. This is the sweet and sour chicken that we’ve had cooking in our crock pot. And I’m gonna tell you what’s in here, I’m not gonna take the time to assemble because this has been cooking all day. First of all, here we have six carrots that we have cut slices like this, alright? We have half a cup of green onion, chopped fine. We have a half a cup of… I’m sorry, green pepper that was, and half a cup of chopped onion. We have six chicken breasts that we have cut in pieces, in cubes, and some salt and some pineapple chunks, 15 and a half-ounce can of pineapple chunks. And this has been cooking in the crock pot on high for two hours and then turned down and cooked about four more hours on medium. Then when you get home, you boil some rice, you turn this back up to high, and in this we’re going to add three tablespoons of corn starch, three tablespoons of water. And this is gonna be a thickening, this is sweet and sour chicken in the crock pot. Smells heavenly, it smells very Hawaiian in here. You’re also gonna add a 10-ounce jar of sweet and sour sauce that you get off the shelf, and remember that the corn starch, it always combines very easily. So while I pour this into thick, we’re gonna take a break, and when we come back, we’ve got some more ideas of boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Stay with us now, we’ll be right back. Well, we’ve just finished with our sweet and sour chicken. And the next one I want to show you is chicken and dumplings, we’re gonna get this started. I have about a pound… Let me see, make sure. A pound of the chicken breast. You can honestly use the boneless, skinless thighs, if you care for the dark meat, but we have cut them up and we have them in the skillet here and it’s gonna get cranked in here and while… Let me see, make sure I got my fires going. Here we go, alright. And while that starts to cook just a little bit ’cause I wanna take the pink off of it, then I’m gonna show you what we’re gonna do with the chicken. We’re gonna put some gravy to it. Now, what we do here is called a stuffed chicken breast that has a rice stuffing to it and I wanna show you how to do those while we’re waiting for the chicken to start. First of all, you take your chicken breasts. Now, this is one breast that you pound out. You know, you take your little mallet and you pound it out, so that it definitely… The advantage to that is that it cooks so much quicker when it’s all one particular size or thickness. You know, you have the thick part to the breast and then the thin part. Well, when you pound it out, you break down those fibers. And what we wanna do is just add a little bit of salt and pepper to each of the breasts just like that. And then we’re gonna make the stuffing and that is brown rice. This is a cup of cooked brown rice, 1/4 of a cup of minced tomato that goes in. Get a spoon here, minced tomato and 1/4 cup of shredded mozzarella, just 1/4 a cup, small amount, and some fresh basil or if you can’t find the fresh basil, you could use the dried basil. It’s not… You only use a teaspoon if you use the dried because it’s so potent. And then we just mix that together, just like that. Okay. And we’re gonna add some salt and pepper to this. Remember, you’d want to salt and pepper each of the breasts like this, separately. Mix this together and we’re gonna spread just amount of this on each chicken breast just like that. You also need some toothpicks because we’re gonna push this filling out all over the chicken breast, spread it out very well like so. And then we’re gonna roll this up ’cause that’s the stuffing. And if you have some little pieces here, you wanna tuck them in just like that. Okay? Then you have your… What you have is some toothpicks that have been sitting here in water because it’s really important for you to soak them down ’cause you’re gonna put this in the oven and if you do not do that, they may catch fire, okay? So it’s really important to water them down, to soak them with water, so that for sure you don’t have a problem. Now, I’m only gonna do one of these because I wanna get on with… We’re running out of time and I want to show you the other dishes that we’re making. So that’s basically… And if you have a problem holding it together, just use another toothpick, nobody’s counting, you’re gonna take them out before you serve it anyway. Now, we’re putting it into hot oil. This is our chicken breast and we’re not gonna cook it long, we’re just basically gonna brown it because when you brown it, then you’re gonna put it in the oven and let it bake for a little while. So, we have our chicken pieces are starting to cook here very nicely and the recipe calls for not even browning them, but I kind of like to do that. So, after this is browned, I would probably cook this a little longer. But for time’s sake, we’re going to add two jars of fat-free chicken gravy just like that, out of the jars, and we’re gonna put them… I hate when I have to do two recipes at one time. You know what I mean? Because now that thing’s gonna start frying and I have to give it some attention, I wanna get this cooking, but we’ll make it, not to worry, we’re gonna make it. Alright, there’s one jar and here’s the second jar. Now, if you have homemade gravy at home, you don’t even need to buy the gravy then. I’m just saying that you can do it this way if you want. And we’ve got some other things that we’re gonna add to this. Make sure we get all that up ’cause we need it because we’re gonna make our dumplings right in the same pan. Alright? Now, what we wanna do is add some… See, where’s my bag. Okay, we’ve got these. First of all, we put that in, we add a bag of peas and carrots, 16 ounces that goes right in there too and mix it all about just like that. And some half a cup of whites onions. The green onions, really, the white part of the green onions. We’re gonna mix that around. Let this cook a while. I’m gonna talk you through it because we’re not gonna make it. Then you’re gonna take some Bisquick or a buttermilk baking mix, and what you’re gonna do with that is mix the green part of the onion in with that, about 1/4 cup and add your water. And this will make your bisquicks. And what you do with this is just drop them in on top of this as it starts to boil. Drop them about eight, bisquicks, let it cook 10 minutes, then put the lid on and let it cook 10 more. When we come back, we’re gonna show you all the finals of what we’ve been making today. Stay with us now, we’ll be right back

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• Now, don’t forget that it’s a self-addressed, stamped, business-sized envelope and a gift that you can help us with to defray the printing cost, we’d appreciate that very much. Let me show you now what we’ve made today. Here’s our sweet and sour chicken from the crock pot and it is on a bed of rice. This is excellent, just great. Your kids are gonna love it. Next to it, this is the stuffed chicken breast with the rice stuffing that you do very quickly in the oven. And this is Janet’s friends’ chicken stuff, she calls it. Ah, does that look good or what? I’m telling you, you’re gonna really enjoy these dishes ’cause I know you’re gonna try them. And our chicken casserole, very easy, very quick to bake and has a nice crunchy topping to it. And our chicken and dumplings, does that look good or what? Ah, I wish you could be here to smell it, I wish you could be here to taste it because when we prepare these things, it’s nice when the crew can help themselves to it. And if we have friends drop in, they do, but I wish you could be here sometime to enjoy them too. I enjoy cooking and I know that a lot of you out there do because I can tell what you say when you write and request the recipes, how much you enjoy cooking. We try to keep it easy, we try to keep it affordable. And as long as you’re writing for the recipes and you’re watching, we’re gonna keep on doing it. Thank you so much for being with us. Be sure to join us the next time because it just wouldn’t be the same without you here “At Home”, we’ll see you then.
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