Chicken

Today’s post is a little different….a little tangier. While it’s what’s known as a sponsored review - I absolutely mean every word of it. I swear on my coffee maker (Y’all know that’s serious!)

I happen to live in the BBQ capital of the world - Owensboro, Kentucky - so I have a serious love of BBQ. In fact, sometimes I think those of us living (and eating) here have BBQ sauce running through our veins instead of blood.

There’s a special club that’s custom-designed for all BBQ lovers, whether they live in Owensboro, Kentucky… Mansfield, Ohio…Fort Dodge, Iowa….Pensacola, Florida…Toronto, etc. It’s the BBQ Sauce of the Month Club and my mouth is watering just from typing the words.

Here’s how it works: Each month, the BBQ sauce lovers at the club sample original, exciting BBQ sauces from world-renowned top chefs as well as from BBQ festivals all over the country. (I’d be willing to bet that the best of the best come from these festivals. Talk about AMAZING sauces!) Then the Club’s experts take the sauces that stand out as extraordinary and make them Sauces of the Month. In addition to the BBQ Sauce of the Month Club, they also offer a BBQ Sauce of the Season Club. In the seasonal club, you’re sent BBQ Sauce each spring, summer, fall, and winter. (I know I’d want more than that!) You can also sign up for a 3 or 6 month plan

Here’s what all you receive when you sign up:

• 2 varieties of gourmet BBQ sauce every month!
• BBQ lover’s newsletter with every shipment!
• FREE SHIPPING every month!
• Personalized gift announcement!
• 100% satisfaction guaranteed!
• Hassle Free - Our gourmets choose all monthly selections!

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Kentucky’s Best BBQ Chicken

BBQ Sauce of the Month Selection (1 of the 2 bottles)
8 chicken breasts or 8 chicken leg quarters or a combination of the two
salt and pepper

Pour the sauce into a saucepan and heat. Remove from heat. Salt and pepper the chicken, then place it skin side up on a grill rack. This seals in the juices, and I can’t tell you how important that is. I’d rather eat carpet —cheap, dirty carpet — than a dry bird.

Grill until a meat thermometer registers 170 degrees, between 5 and 10 minutes. If you don’t have a meat thermometer, you should pick one up today. It takes all the guesswork out of your hands and the fork-pokes out of your chicken (again, it’s a juice thing). As your chicken’s cooking, turn the pieces frequently with tongs to prevent burning, and baste frequently with the sauce. Why tongs? Forks will just lead to a loss of…you guessed it, juices.

As always when grilling, keep a spray bottle filled with water handy to use when a flame flares up.

Yield: 8 servings

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By the way, don’t let winter stop you from firing up the grill. Throw your coat on, pull your knit cap down over your ears and fire it up! Of course, for those of you who get a lot of snow and won’t see your grill until March - placing a chicken in a Crock Pot and covering it with BBQ Sauce works wonders. Easy and delicious.

Now that you’re all set and ready for the best BBQ chicken in the world - head over to the BBQ Sauce of the Month Club and make it happen! You might want to do a little original and creative Christmas shopping while there. When you give someone a gift like this, they think about you everytime they use it. In this situation, you’re guaranteed to be on their mind year round.

Sign me up!

Joi

We all have an on-going love affair with chicken. It doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, it’s healthier than red meat, and it’s just plain old good. But sometimes, variety can be tricky - I mean, you can only have fried chicken so often.

That’s why I’ve compiled a list of my ten favorite chicken recipes online. They range from simple to difficult and from fancy to plain. I guess it all just depends upon the mood you’re in. Give them all a try - your family will enjoy your efforts.

1. Paula Deen’s Chicken and Rice Casserole

2. Spanish Chicken

3. Chicken and Dumplings

4. Chicken Casserole

5. Southern Fried Chicken

6. General Tso’s Chicken Recipe

7. Chicken Parmesan

8. Oven Fried Chicken Fingers and Fries

9. Italian Chicken Primavera

10. Cornbread Topped Chicken Pot Pie

11. Grilled Sweet and Sour Chicken Packets

12. Honey Mustard Chicken

While snooping around the Food Network site looking for the re-airing of a particular episode of “Throwdown,” I came across an amazingly delicious-sounding recipe: Cajun Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya. It’s from an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay.

If the picture above keeps looking at me like that, I’m going to have to make this for supper. Check the recipe out and see if you don’t agree that we have a winner here! Served with some fried cornbread…..man, that sounds good.

By the way, have you caught any of the Throwdown episodes? I’ve always watched the shows Bobby Flay has been on, but this seems (to me anyway) to be the first one to really accentuate his personality. I think he was meant to do this exact sort of show - it’s become one of the shows I look forward to the most.

Joi

On one of Paula Deen’s episodes today, she’ll be making one of my favorite meals in the world - Chicken and Dumplings.

I’ve already gone onto Foodtv.com and printed out the recipe. I’m off to the store to round up the ingredients - supper’s in the bag…or soon will be!

The link above will take you directly to the printable version of the recipe, so you can go ahead and get it while the getting’s good.

Joi

For those of us who are trying to add more chicken and fish to our diets and eliminate too much (not all, for crying out loud) red meat - there’s even more of an incentive.

A study at Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, NH has uncovered an excellent health benefit of eating chicken. Eating chicken regularly appears to cut a person’s risk of developing colon polyps by 21 percent. It contains selenium and calcium, which are two nutrients that lower a person’s risk of developing colon cancer.

Joi

1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dried rosemary - crushed
1/2 tsp dried thyme - crushed
1/4 tsp ground pepper
2-1/2 to 3 lbs chicken pieces

Combine seasonings in a small bowl. Sprinkle mixture evenly over washed chicken pieces. Rub in with your fingers. (wash, wash, wash, wash your hands!)

Place chicken pieces - skin side down - on lightly greased grill rack over medium heat.

Grill for 35 - 45 minutes, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest portion of a breast registers 170 degrees, or into thickest portion of a thigh registers 180 degrees. Make sure no pink remains.

Turn chicken once halfway through grilling.

My oldest daughter, Emily, and my youngest daughter, Stephany, helped me put together a collection of e-books for our Buttermilk Press Publications. We have a Chicken Recipes eBook, an Amish Recipes eBook, one for Ice Cream Maker Recipes, and one for South of the Border Cooking. Each is absolutely full of amazing recipes, and I’d be really hard-pressed to say which is my favorite.

We have quite a few more in the works for this summer. We’re trying out recipes almost daily! Tough job, but someone has to do it!

Any money that comes in from any of the eBooks in our Buttermilk Press Collection will go toward Emily’s college education. She is taking classes, working part time, and helping out (when she has the time!) with our home business. However, the cost of an education is positively unreal - and this past Spring she found herself unable to take as full a load as she’d like.

Basically, as you can gather, this is a “mom” doing what we moms do best. Looking out for our babies - even if we are now looking up to to them. (How do they manage to grow taller than the person who created them?)

If you should find yourself in the market for a collection of recipes - please see our Recip-E-books Page. You’ll receive a great collection of recipes (no matter which book you go for), and a certain young lady can stop worrying about “how many” classes she can afford and start worrying about “how many” classes she can handle!

Joi

4 Skinless Chicken Breasts
1 Bottle Barbeque Sauce
1 (12 oz.) Coke
1 Medium Onion (optional)

Combine Barbeque Sauce and coke. Mix well. Slice onion, add to sauce. Add Chicken Breast, cover and simmer on medium heat for about 25 to 30 minutes. Take Chicken out and pour sauce over it.

1 pound boneless chicken breast
16 oz. salsa
shredded Swiss cheese
sprigs of cilantro

Pre-heat oven to 375°. Spray cooking dish with cooking oil spray. Place chicken in dish and pour salsa over the meat. Sprinkle the cheese on top.
Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
Serve with sprigs of cilantro. Great with rice!

Printable Version

1 (4 pound) chicken, cooked and deboned
1 cup chicken broth
1 stick butter, melted
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1 bag Pepperidge Farm Stuffing Mix

Slice chicken into bottom of large casserole dish. Mix milk with soup and pour evenly over the chicken.

Mix stuffing mix with chicken broth and pour over the chicken mixture. Drizzle margarine over all.

Bake at 350 degrees until brown and bubbly.

I like to serve this casserole with cranberry sauce and Buttermilk biscuits, but I won’t pout if you don’t do the same!