Apricot Salsa Chicken

Tonight I made Apricot Salsa Chicken (pg. 113). I've bounced back from the boos and hisses I received from the Crispy Chicken. OK, so it wasn't that bad. Anyway, this was just for my husband, Allie (my 14 month old), and me. I hope you don't mind that I'm not writing out the ingredients or instructions. I figure since we all have the cookbook I can be a little lazy! I made a few changes to the recipe. It called for 6 chicken breasts, but I only used 2. I pounded them out and cut them in half. I pretty much halved the other ingredients. I didn't want to waste a lot of chicken if this turned out to be not so good. I also omitted the apricot nectar. I just used water.

The ingredients

Dipping in the flour mixture and shakin' it up

Ready to brown

Nice and brown and ready for sauce

Simmering for 15 minutes

Served over brown rice with a salad

This was really good! Brian said the sauce kind of tasted like the red sauce he likes at Chinese restaurants. I thought it was yummy, but maybe a little too sweet. If I make this again I may cut back on the apricot preserves. I liked how the chicken had a little coating. That made for a little extra work, but well worth it.

Simplicity: 4
Taste: 4.5
Nutrition: 3

Even Allie liked it!

Crispy Chicken

Hey girls! My name is Amanda and I am a stay-at-home mom with three kiddos: Coleman (5 and just started Kindergarten), Spence (will be 4 in November), and Allie (14 months). My boys are the pickiest kids you will ever meet! My 5 year old can be brand-specific when it comes to some foods! I definitely have a challenge planning a dinner that everyone will eat, as I'm sure many of us do. Luckily, my husband, Brian, is the least picky person I've ever met. I decided to start with something simple that might win my gang over, and said a little prayer: Dear Lord, please let these nuggets taste like McDonald's to my kids, but much better to me!

For my first recipe I chose to make Crispy Chicken (pg. 114). Here's how I changed the recipe:

• I cut the chicken breasts into nuggets (I only used 2 breasts)
  
• Used seasoned salt instead of thyme and poultry seasoning

The ingredients

The preparation - I like to use a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper to keep breaded nuggets from sticking.

Ready to cook!

Done! Served with homemade mac-n-cheese, salad, and bread.

I had high hopes, but they were crushed as soon as my boys sat down to the table. Coleman had one bite, which I'm pretty sure he spit out, Spence wouldn't even try a bite, and Allie took a bite then let it fall out of her mouth. I thought they were OK. (Brian had a dinner meeting so wasn't here.) I have a recipe similar to this but it uses French's Fried Onions for the crust. It's much better. For some reason mine didn't come out very crunchy. Coleman even described them as slimy. I couldn't cook them any longer or the chicken would have gotten too dry. I did turn on the broiler, but I guess I could have left them a little longer. I will not be making this again, even though I thought they were fine. But since I have another recipe that I like better and the boys will eat, I'll stick with it. So here are my ratings:

Simplicity: 5
Taste: 3 (the boys would say negative 3!)
Nutrition: 3

For my next recipe, I plan on making the Apricot Salsa Chicken, with no hopes of the boys eating any!

Hey! My name is Melanie and I am a SAHM of a 4 year old boy named Kyle and a 7 month old boy named Travis. My husband, Kenny, is a Houston Fire Fighter, so needless to say, I am in a house invaded by boys!!!! I am always looking for new meals and I am excited to get started on this blog. My first try was on pg 174. It is Pasta with Marinara Sauce. I wanted something with meat, so I did a little bow tie lasagna using this recipe for the marinara sauce. Here is a pic of the ingredients:








Ingredients are:

• 2 lbs of hamburger meat


• garlic


• salt and pepper


• 2 bay leaves


• Italian Seasoning


• Onion Powder (I am not a big fan of cooked onions, so I just use onion powder.)


• Bow Tie Pasta


• Diced Italian Style tomatoes (undrained)


• EVOO

First, chop up about 3 cloves of garlic and saute them in some EVOO.

After the garlic has browned, add the onion powder, italian seasoning, bay leaves, and tomatoes. Simmer for about 20 minutes and let all of the flavors combined together







Then brown your 2 lbs of hamburger meat with a little salt and pepper and onion powder.



As the hb meat browns, bring some water to boil, then salt, then add your pasta and cook until al dente.

Then take two more ingredients:

• Sour Cream
• Mozzarella Cheese
  

Then take everything you have done, mix together in one big bowl, and serve!

Here are my boys reactions! (By the way...my oldest doesn't usually have a mohawk! We went on vacation, and let him do it for the weekend.)

Even though he didn't eat....I had to throw a picture of Travis in here too!

I enjoyed making this meal, but I think that the main reason was because the boys enjoyed it so much. It was a lot of "monitoring the stove", stirring, simmering, lots of stuff going on, but since they enjoyed it so much, I will put it in the dinner rotation.

Here are my ratings:

Simplicity 4

Taste 5

Nutrition 3

TOTAL RATING : 4

I recommend this recipe to everyone. It is a keeper!

My next recipe....Garlic Lime Shrimp!

Easy Pasta Alfredo

Ingredients
1 package (19 ounces) frozen cheese tortellini
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup butter, cubed
1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

Cook tortellini according to package directions. Meanwhile in a small saucepan, combine cream and nutmeg. Cook, uncovered, over medium-low heat in butter until heated through (do not boil). Stir in Parmesan cheese until melted. Drain pasta; transfer to a large serving bowl. Add cheese sauce; toss to coat.

Simplicity: 5

Taste: 3

Nutrition: 2

Total Rating: 3.33

I thought this turned out okay. I didn't like it a whole lot, I think mostly because when I bit into one of the tortellini the hot cheese shot out on my tongue and burned it. So that kind of turned me off to it. Scott liked it though and it was really, really easy to make. I think next time I will let mine cool off a little more and then eat it! Ha!!!

Also, this has very little nutrition value, but it was easy to make. It was full of heavy whipping cream and cheese, which is really not great for you, but yummy to taste!

The Busy Family Cookbook

Welcome to the first post of Taste of Home: The Busy Family Cookbook cook-through! I am anticipating that we will begin in August. My thought is that whenever you cook a recipe, take a few photos and then come to the blog and post about the recipe. Tell us what you liked about it, what you didn't like, what you tweaked to make it fit your family, etc. Then rate it on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being worst and 5 being best).

I am hoping to cook 1 new recipe from it each week. Sometimes it might be more and sometimes less. So just do what fits your family! If you know of any friends that would like to join us, invite them too!

I can't wait to see the first recipe posted. So, let's get cooking!