The Bible says “We love because God first loved us.” Arlene and Paul loved each other dearly, and she would tell anyone that the secret to their years of happy marriage was to put Christ at the center of their lives.
One way Arlene showed her love to Paul was to cook for Paul. In this Valentine’s Day special, Arlene cooks Paul a feast with stuffed roasted chicken halves, roasted vegetables, a baked seafood appetizer, rice pudding, mashed potatoes, and more!
Paul’s Favorite Roast Chicken
Ingredients
Chicken
- 1 2-3 lb broiler chicken, split into halves with backbone removed
- melted butter (about 1/2 stick)
- salt and pepper
- Mrs. Dash or other seasoning
Stuffing
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1/4 cup chopped onion
- 1/4 cup chopped celery
- 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning (or more to taste)
- 4 cups bread cubes (best if a day old or dried out)
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a small nonstick cookie sheet with sides.
- In a skillet over medium heat, melt butter and saute onion and celery with salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning. Cook until onion is transparent but not browned. In a bowl, place bread cubes. Stir in cooked onion-celery mixture and toss gently. Add egg and stir to combine.
- Place split fryers, breast side up on prepared cookie sheet. Divide stuffing between chicken halves and tuck under each half. Brush chicken skin with melted butter and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and generously with Mrs. Dash seasoning. Place into oven and bake uncovered for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until juices run clear when pierced in thigh with a fork. Makes 2 generous servings. Enjoy!
Creamy Mashed Potatoes
Ingredients
- 3 to 4 lbs red potatoes peeled and cut into small cubes
- water
- 1/2 cup butter
- salt and pepper
- milk, heated
Instructions
- Place potatoes in a large, deep saucepan. Cover with cold water. Cook over medium heat until fork tender; Drain well.
- Add butter, salt and pepper. Mash potatoes with a mixer. Mix until smooth and lump free.
- Add milk gradually, a little at a time, until potatoes are creamy and fluffy. Makes 6 to 8 servings. Enjoy!
Arlene’s Roasted Vegetables
These are so easy to make, and they were one of Paul's favorite side dishes.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup broccoli, cut into pieces
- 1/2 cup cauliflower, cut into pieces
- 1/2 cup brussels sprouts, cut into pieces
- 1/2 cup carrots, cut into pieces
- 1/2 cup red pepper, cut into pieces
- 1/2 cup zucchini, cut into pieces
- 1/2 cup sweet potatoes, cut into pieces, optional
- 1/2 cup white potatoes, cut into pieces, optional
- 1/2 cup whole small mushrooms, cut into pieces
- 4 whole shallots
- 6 cloves garlic
- 1/2 cup olive oil, or more
- salt and pepper
- 1 tsp Mrs. Dash seasoning
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place all the vegetables into a large mixing bowl.
- Pour olive oil over vegetables and mix thoroughly with your hands to make sure all are evenly coated. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, generously. Lastly, shake Mrs. Dash over all.
- Spread vegetables in a single layer in a baking sheet with sides. Place in preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes. Using a metal spatula, turn vegetables over and rotate pan. Continue to bake for another 30 minutes or until carrots and potatoes are soft. Serve immediately. Makes 4 to 6 servings. Enjoy!
Romantic Rice Pudding
Ingredients
- 1 cup cooked rice
- dash salt
- 1 can sweetened condensed milk (14 oz)
- 1 can water (re-use the condensed milk can)
- 3 Tbs butter
- 1 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/2 cup raisins
Instructions
- Place the cooked rice in a saucepan and cover with water. Cook for about 5 minutes or until almost all the water is absorbed. DO NOT DRAIN.
- Add remaining ingredients to rice except raisins and mix together. Cook for 1/2 hour over very low heat. Stir occasionally to avoid scorching and sticking.
- Add raisins and continue cooking for 10 additional minutes. Pudding should be creamy and thick. Makes 6 to 8 servings. Enjoy!
Hot Seafood Casserole
This is delicious as a casserole or served in little dishes as an appetizer.
Ingredients
- 1 small green pepper, chopped
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1 cup celery, chopped
- 1 can crab meat, flaked (6 oz)
- 1 lb cooked small-sized shrimp, cleaned, de-veined
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/8 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 cup mayonnaise
- 1 cup buttery cracker crumbs
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large bowl combine green pepper, onion, celery, crab meat, shrimp, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce and mayonnaise. Mix gently and spoon into a 1 quart baking dish or individual ramekins. Sprinkle with cracker crumbs.
- Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes. Serve immediately. Makes 6 servings. Enjoy!
Transcript
- Well, hello and welcome to the kitchen, the “At Home” kitchen today. I’m doing my duty for the Steelers. Go Steelers, yes. Well, I know that by the time you see this it’s over, but we’re taping this a couple of days before the big Super Bowl. So you can imagine what’s going on here, all right. But anyway, more than that, what’s going on it’s we’re celebrating Valentine’s Day. And this is day devoted to love. And whether you’re married for 50 years, you’re married for five months, somewhere in between, you know what, this day should be special ’cause it’s all about love. Now there’s different kinds of love, of course you already know that. You’ve got your mother and father’s love, a child. You’ve got husband and wife love. You’ve got grand parents. You’ve got the love of friends, the love of children. But you know what, there’s even a higher love that really applies to all of us, and it’s the love of God. His love is totally without boundaries. He loves you at your rottenest time in your life. He loves you when you’re not even lovable, when nobody cares, God still loves you. Because he doesn’t say, if you do this then I’ll love you, no strings attached, God’s love is unending. And today we’re celebrating love and I hope that you have accepted Jesus Christ, the one that loves you more than anyone else in the whole world. Hope you’ve accepted him into your heart because he will make the big difference. Just like when you accept a spouse, you get engaged, boy, that change your life. When Paul and I got married 36 and a half years ago, he really changed my life I wanna tell you. And it’s been up and down. People look and say, “Oh, you’ve always been happy,” no, we’ve gone through some major things in our 36 and a half years. We’ve gone through a time when we almost divorced. Gone through two times when death was knocking at our door but God’s so good and he’s brought us through many storms and many good times, bad times, but he’s brought us through. Today we’re bringing you through ’cause we’re gonna make a wonderful meal, this is Paul’s favorite. Got a lot of goodies, so stick with us. Here’s today’s “At Home” hint and we’ll be back to get the big love feast started. Stay with us. Here’s today’s “At Home” hint, never stuff a chicken or other fowl with warm stuffing and leave overnight, even if refrigerated. Always keep the stuffing separate and stuff just before roasting. If you’ve got a helpful hint, we’d like to hear from you. Send your hint to “At Home” hints, Cornerstone Television, Wall, Pennsylvania 15148-1499. Well, today on the menu we have Paul’s very, very favorite, all the things he likes. Now that changes from time to time ’cause I just said to him recently, “Paul, what do you really like, what’s your favorite?” I thought he’d say T-bone, chicken. So we’re doing chicken. And this is what he loves, he loves roast chicken with stuffing. So we have, I just bought like a whole fryer, bring it home, cut the backbone out. This chicken costs $2.60 for the whole thing. This is economical too. We cut it out and just save it in the half ’cause you’re gonna serve the two of you each a half. And the dressing is just get some bread cubes. Then I have my celery and onions that have just cooked till they’re transparent, okay? Now put that in. This is mama’s old fashioned bread stuffing. You can use it in a box, whatever you like the best if that’s what you need to do, okay? And we’re just gonna take this and mix it up. And I’m gonna add some salt and pepper like that. And I’m gonna do, this is poultry seasoning. Now this is only like, well, an 1/8 of a teaspoon or something. If you like it stronger use more but that should do it. And this is just mix it up till it’s nice and moist. It seems a little bit dry, you could add some water, you could add some juice, not juice but broth, like chicken broth. But remember, this is gonna get tucked up underneath the chicken. So the juice is from the chicken, gonna make it good. But you have to add that butter flavor in there to get it started. And I’m gonna put my egg in there. Mix it up a little bit ’cause remember, the egg is the binder. So we’re just gonna add that and distribute it evenly. That kinda holds it all together for you, it’s a good addition and it enriches it a little bit. Okay, now you know how cautious we always are when we’re handling chicken. So please do not, you don’t wanna like say, oh well, it won’t hurt, it hurts, don’t cross-contaminate. We’re gonna take half of this. I’m gonna throw on one of these puppies, because I don’t wanna get my nails done because after all it’s celebration, I can’t go to the table with chicken. Well, forget it, I won’t go there. All right, let’s take half and we’re just gonna tuck it up underneath this chicken like this. Now you say, Arlene, that looks like an awful lot of food. Well, it is, but leftovers if you have kids they’ll enjoy it tomorrow or whatever. I think leftovers are good, don’t worry about it. Just pick it up, stuff it up underneath and push the chicken down over the stuffing. Get some more here. Oh yeah. Now, preheat your oven, you want this to go to 350. You could start at 375 to get it good and hot so it really starts to brown. And get my paper towel here. And what we’re gonna do then is baste some melted butter right on top of that chicken just like that. Make sure you cover it all, get it all over. Make sure that there’s no like little pieces of feathers and stuff sticking in, not even like little hairs, that’s gross. That can be a big turnoff for sure. Okay, now we take our Mrs Dash, a lot of seasoning flavors, take whichever one you like. And I just do the whole outside. That gives it flavor, tremendous flavor. Can’t get too much of that on, it’s really good. All right, this goes into preheated oven. And you’re gonna cook probably, I wanna say probably 35, 40 minutes. But what I tell you to do is have one of those little thermometers and you wanna test it. If you have one of these, you’re gonna put this in thigh, at the thickest part, and when that registers 150, then you know you’re in business, okay? Well, that was the first one. I’ll wash up my hands here. Okay, got lots to do today. Now the second one, this is our appetizer. Paul likes crab better than shrimp, but thought that this would be unusual and delicious, easy to do. These are the tiny little baby shrimp. You take a pound of them, you add one can of crab meat. Now you wanna go through and make sure there’s no gristle, no shells, none of that. Add that here too. This is just the can. Okay, then we have one small onion cut up like that. One cup of celery cut up. One green pepper cut up. Gonna hold a little bit of that out, okay? Now mix that up together. And I’m gonna add some Worcestershire sauce to some mayonnaise and we’re gonna mix that together. You can put it on separately, whatever. But just mix it and pour that in. Now on the recipe that we put out for you, and you probably already have them in your home it doesn’t say anything about hot sauce. I’m just doing this for Paul, not everybody likes it but he does. So we’re gonna spice it up just a little bit, okay? Now, we have a table set, it’s beautiful and we’re having just the dinner, Paul and I together, just us alone. So I want to make the appetizer. Normally you put this into a dish, like a casserole, take about a one quart, one and a half quart. And then you let it bake because we’re gonna be putting crumbs on top. But I thought this would be kinda nice. And all we’re gonna do here now is we’re going to load, these are little ramekin shells. You can get these at any kind of gourmet food shop. And we’re just gonna fill them with this yummy, yummy, good stuff just like that. We’re gonna take some of our buttered, these are just Ritz Crackers. You melt some butter then you take like a half a sleeve of Ritz Crackers and crush them up, put them in the butter, mix it up, that’s your buttered cracker crumbs, okay? We’re gonna fill these. And this goes into 350 oven. And you know what, this is nice, like if you have kids, if you made them in these shells or even a little bigger shells, your kids would think that was amazing, they would just love it if you did that the next day for them. Not that night when you’re having it with your husband, but it would just be nice to have that for the kids. Okay. Mixing ’em up just like that. You don’t wanna forget to put the cracker crumbs on the top. And don’t forget, get some pretty music going, pick out that pretty dress that he likes better than you like probably, the one that he says every time you wear, “Oh, I really like that dress, I like the way that looks on you,” and you go, “This old thing?” But that’s the one he likes, so that’s the one you wanna get out, okay? This will make probably a good many. We’re just gonna continue to do this like that. This makes quite a few. I’m gonna put the cracker crumbs on the top of these, get these in the oven. When we come back, we’ve got some more. Wait till you see the dessert and the veggies. You don’t wanna go anywhere, stay with us we’ll be right back. We’re still putting the crumbs on our sea food appetizers. These will be beautiful. I can’t wait for Paul to taste this ’cause I know he’s gonna like it. Doesn’t matter if it goes out over the edge because you put on the parchment paper so that holds it. Okay, might spill out, don’t worry about, it won’t bother us, okay? I think we’re there. Okay, 350 for about half an hour. So these are one of the things you’re gonna wanna put in the oven right at the very, very, very end before you start your dinner. There we go, 30 minutes. Set my little timer. We got it. All right, the next thing Paul loves is vegetables. And these vegetables, I need my tray for the vegetables. They took my tray away. But he liked roasted vegetables so well. So what I’m doing is making him, I don’t know if you’ve done this, but I see this a lot and I really like the taste of it. It’s just any kind of variety of your vegetables that you like. And the tray has to have sides on because you’re gonna put some oil on the vegetables. Thank you, Linda. Brussels are his very favorite. Now I’m making a lot ’cause he really likes, and these are good warmed up. And these could be used for other purposes, like maybe say in a frittata, that would be nice leftovers. So we’ve got some baby carrots. We’ve got some mushrooms, okay. We have some, these are great, our tomatoes. Looks like a lot but when they roast, they cook down. And about four cloves of garlic. We’re not cutting them up because we’re gonna mix all this together. And when those flavors of all these start to really blend, good, okay. Let’s do some onion. Oh yeah, yummy, yummy. My coarse salt is there, good. Kosher salt is better for this than the others. And you can use more onion, less onion, whatever. But I’m gonna take my rings off ’cause I’m gonna get into this up to my elbows. Not really. Okay, now you just take your oil and you just want to, you don’t wanna drown it, but you want everything to get covered because that oil is what’s gonna make it go. All right, and your kosher salt. See the bigger granules in that, that’s what you wanna use. So, it just bursts when it gets in that oven. Yes, and we’ll give it a shot of some pepper. Now the best way to do this, just get in there with your hands, make sure everything gets covered. See, just like that. And then you’re gonna start mixing from one end to the other. And this is such a tasty, tasty, wonderful meal and a wonderful vegetable to do and not a lot of trouble, okay? You’ll roast these 350, about halfway through, you wanna give them a turnover just to make sure that they’re all cooking good. Here we go, the oven again. . Thank God for two ovens here. Look at that color, that is so pretty. About a half hour, then you wanna check them. If they need some more, go some more, okay? Now for dessert, actually, we have a couple desserts today. But Paul likes that kind of stuff so we treat something special, this is the day of love. Okay, I have one cup of rice that I have covered with water and a pinch of salt. Let that cook till it’s almost dry, and that’s what we have here. We give a stir before we really start cooking it. You want it to get to this point. Now we’re gonna add one can of sweet and condensed milk. This is the recipe Paul’s mother always made. You gotta turn that pappy down, okay? Never baked hers. Of course when you are raised with a certain kind of a dish and you like it, you don’t want anybody to change it. So I don’t, I just make what he likes ’cause that’s what mama made. Okay, now this is the same can filled with milk. I’m gonna put that in. And then it’s another can of water. Okay, that goes in. So you have sweet and condensed milk, regular milk, can of water, chunk of butter. This is so easy. Chunk of butter goes in all at the same time. And this is nutmeg. Did we do nutmeg, let me see here. Sometimes I do cinnamon. This is the nutmeg, okay? Just sprinkle that on the top. If you have a little thing, make it fresh. Now this is gonna cook for about 20 minutes on a low heat. Trust me when I tell you it has to be a low heat ’cause this is gonna start to come up and you’re gonna wanna come back over here and you’re gonna want to keep stirring so it doesn’t stick. Important, don’t let it stick. If you have a non-stick pan, that would be better. So, we’re gonna have this cooking about 20 minutes then you’re gonna add raisins, like about a half a cup. And when it gets to that thick consistency, depending feel like it a little creamier, if you like it little thicker, either way this is great, one of Paul’s very favorites. Well time has come, we’re almost ready to go to the dining room. So stay with us, we’ll be right back. Well, I’m here in the dining room, Paul’s not come in yet. But I have to tell you that all the things we’ve prepared, I wanna take you a little tour around the table, okay? Start down there with our half chicken. Just add a little bit of parsley and a little slice of orange. That dressing is underneath, you’ll serve that right onto the plate. You can cut that in quarters if a whole half is too much, that will be fine. Next to that, look at the roasted vegetables, all those vegetables. And right before you serve it, you wanna drizzle just a tiny bit of oil on that, just splash it again with a little bit of salt. The sea salt is the best, okay? And then we have our appetizers. This is our seafood, aren’t they beautiful? And look, we just put two of them together on a little plate. You wanna put a little piece of lemon with it to squeeze over there. Anything with seafood always is good to have some lemon. I added Paul’s favorite, which is a Caesar salad. We have mashed potatoes and we did gravy. I tell you there’s so much here. And then here, this is our rice pudding. You wanna serve this just a little bit warm. And we put a little bit of Cool Whip, and just a cherry on top just to brighten it up. And I know how he really likes chocolate cake or red devil’s food really with white icing so I did one of those and that’s for later on, okay? Just dip some strawberries, put them on top and get the little heart-shaped candies, and just put them, you don’t have to be a cake decorator to do this. But just make a plain cake and then put the hearts around it, and how beautiful is that? Get out your red tablecloth from Christmas and put some flowers in a basket. You have the whole complete meal and this is fit for a king, I tell you. Do it in courses, start with your first course and then do your salad course and then bring in the chicken and the potatoes. Or if you wanna do it family style, if you do it just serving from the kitchen, either way, it’s sure to be a delicious and a wonderful time. And don’t forget, don’t be embarrassed about expressing your feelings for one another. You know what, if you’ve lived and been married to this guy and you live your life to please him and to raise his children or whatever, and you guys, just same with the ladies, show them how much you care, not just this day but all the days throughout the year. Just the little things. I remember the big things Paul has given me but I remember the little thing, like he brought me a couple of carnations home just when maybe I was having a bad day. And maybe he realized it, maybe he didn’t. For a while there, he brought me a carnation at least once a month for years and that meant so much to me. It’s the little things that count but on a day like Valentine’s day, it’s the big things that count too. And this is not hard, you saw this was not difficult to make. If you can’t make all of it, just make a few things. Just make, maybe you want those veggies and everybody’s drooling over the vegetables because they smell the garlic in there, the flavors. But just do maybe the salad and the chicken and maybe the vegetables. But whatever you do, the ingredient that most counts in all of these dishes is love. And it should be that way every day because only love is something you can put in it, okay? I know Ron Hembree always says that the thing in my dishes is love and that’s right. First of all, love for God, love for people and always happy when the family is around. Well, we’re so glad that you dropped in today, I’m really, really happy that you did. And I hope that we have just kind of spurred some things in your mind to think, hey, maybe I’ll make that special dinner for my husband. Maybe you both work and it’s been a long time since you sat down together and just had a private dinner, this would be a great time. It’s nice to do it at home. It’s nice to go out, but it’s nice to do it at home, especially if you’re a working woman because this intimate time together at the table is just great. Well, we hope that you’ll join us the next time because it just wouldn’t be the same without you. I’ve gotta call Paul now, he’s gotta come eat. Honey, come on.
- [Announcer] Furnishing is provided by Levin Furniture, featuring Lane’s Country Living Collection. Food provided by Jordan Banana Company, wholesalers of fruit and vegetables in Dravosburg, Pennsylvania.
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