Using Your Food Storage: Chicken Cobbler with Caramelized Onions

Hubby Dear was on-call from 5 pm Friday until 7 am Monday. That meant that every person that showed up at our hospital with ailments large or small was seen by him. Needless to say, we didn't see very much of him over the weekend and he was very worn out by this morning.

To thank him for his hard work providing for his family, I made one of Hubby Dear's favorite meals today. Chicken Cobbler with Caramelized Onions is rich, comforting, and, of course, can be made entirely from your food storage. I use refrigerated piecrusts as a time-saver, though of course you can make your crusts from scratch if you are so inclined.

My photography does not do this dish justice. Try it - you (or your significant other) won't be sorry!

Digging in

Chicken Cobbler with Caramelized Onions

1/3 c. butter (or canned butter or canned clarified butter/ghee)
2 large onions, diced (or 1 c. dry onions, rehydrated)
1/4 c. flour
1-12 oz. can evaporated milk
1 1/2 c. chicken broth
1 T. chicken bouillon granules (or 3 bouillon cubes)
1/4 t. pepper
3 c. coarsely chopped cooked chicken (or 1-2 jars/cans of chicken)
3 T. chopped fresh parsley (or 3 t. dry parsley)
1-15 oz. package refrigerated piecrusts (See recipe below to make from scratch)
1/2 c. finely chopped pecans, toasted
1/2 c. grated Parmesan cheese (freshly grated or the stuff from the green can)

Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat; add onion, and saute 20 minutes or  until caramel colored. Add flour; cook, stirring constantly, 1 minute. Gradually stir in evaporated milk and chicken broth. Add bouillon and cook, stirring constantly, 5 minutes or until thickened. Remove from heat; stir in pepper, chicken and parsley. Pour chicken mixture into a lightly greased 10 inch deep dish pieplate or a round casserole dish.

If you are using pre-made piecrusts, unfold them and press out fold lines. Sprinkle 1 piecrust with pecans and Parmesan cheese. Top with remaining piecrust. Roll into a 14 inch circle; press edges to seal. Cut into 1/2 inch wide strips. Arrange strips in a lattice design over filling, reserving any extra strips.

Bake at 425 for 35 to 40 minutes or until golden brown.

Place remaining strips on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake at 425 for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown. Serve with cobbler.


Pie crust - makes two crusts
Adapted from a recipe from Crisco

2 cups All Purpose Flour
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup shortening, chilled
4-8 tbsp ice cold water

Blend flour and salt in medium mixing bowl.

Cut chilled shortening into 1/2-inch cubes. Cut chilled shortening cubes into flour mixture until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Sprinkle half the maximum recommended amount of ice cold water over the flour mixture. Using a fork, stir moisture evenly into flour.  Add more water by the tablespoon, until dough is moist enough to hold together when pressed together. Divide dough in two. Shape into disks, cover with plastic wrap, and chill for thirty minutes. Roll each disk out into  a 12" circle and proceed with recipe.

Using Your Food Storage: King Ranch Chicken

I have a confession to make. I am addicted to casseroles.

I don't care how far the humble casserole is from "haute cuisine". I love throwing together leftovers or miscellaneous pantry items and watching them magically come together into a hot, flavorful meal. It's hard to go wrong, especially if the end result is covered in cheese!  

Here's a tried and true casserole recipe that is, of course, food storage-friendly.

One thing you have to consider with this recipe is that it calls for corn tortillas. There are several substitutions you could use for fresh, store-bought corn tortillas.

First, corn tortillas do freeze well. Stack the tortillas with pieces of waxed paper in between them and then place in a freezer bag. Simply thaw them before you use them. I like to wrap them in a paper towel and gently defrost them in the microwave. 

Second, you could add masa harina to your food storage and make your own corn tortillas. Here's a recipe for that.

Third option: use flour tortillas instead. They are easy to make from scratch and use ingredients pretty much everyone stores. Here's a recipe. 

A fourth, advanced option: make your own masa by 'nixtamalizing' corn kernels then use the masa to make tortillas. You have my full respect if you do this for a lowly casserole!   

Is it pretty to look at? Not really. But my family thinks it is pretty tasty!

King Ranch Chicken

King Ranch Chicken, adapted from a recipe published in Southern Living


1 large onion, chopped OR about 1/3 c. dry onion, rehydrated
1 large green bell pepper, chopped OR about 1/2 c. dry peppers, rehydrated
Vegetable oil
Cooking spray
2 cups chopped cooked chicken breasts OR 1 pint home-canned chicken OR 1 can of commerically-canned chicken
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can diced tomato and green chiles (Rotel)
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
12 (6-inch) corn tortillas (fresh, frozen and thawed, or homemade)
8 oz. shredded Cheddar cheese OR freeze-dried, stored waxed cheese, canned cheese, etc.


Sauté onion and bell pepper in a large skillet coated with a bit of oil over medium-high heat 5 minutes or until tender.Stir in chicken and next 6 ingredients; remove from heat.

Tear tortillas into 1-inch pieces; layer one-third tortilla pieces in bottom of a 13- x 9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Top with one-third chicken mixture and one-third cheese. Repeat layers twice.

Bake at 350° for 30 to 35 minutes or until bubbly.

Using Your Food Storage: Pioneer Woman's Chicken Spaghetti

One of the blogs I have followed for years is that of Ree, the Pioneer Woman. She's famous now, having a cookbook, romance novel, and children's book to her credit. Reese Witherspoon is even reportedly signed on to play her in a movie based on her life. I feel proud that I found and loved her long before Hollywood beckoned. It's a sign of greatness on my part, don't you think?

One of her recipes that I make is a casserole called Chicken Spaghetti. It's pure American comfort food. I made a huge pan of it for my neighbor after she had a baby and amazing things started happening. Bags of produce fresh from their garden began to show up at my front door. Neighborly acts of kindness abounded. It was a good thing. The Chicken Spaghetti started it all.

The key to the goodness of Chicken Spaghetti is the copious amount of sharp cheddar cheese in the recipe. Did you know that you can easily have cheese in your food storage? If not, take a look at the following video:







Cheese is such a major part of our diet that I intend to store a lot of waxed cheese. You can read more about waxing cheese yourself  here.



Chicken Spaghetti and Green Beans Amandine - all from food storage!


Give this recipe a try and tell me what you think about it!

Pioneer Woman's Chicken Spaghetti, Food Storage Style

1 or 2 pints or cans of chicken, shredded  into medium sized chunks
1 lb spaghetti, noodles broken into thirds
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
3 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese, divided  (fresh, freeze-dried, canned or stored waxed cheese) 
¼ cup finely diced green pepper OR about 2 T. dry peppers, rehydrated
¼ cup finely diced onion OR about 2 T. dry onion, rehydrated
1-4 oz. jar diced pimentos, drained
1 can of chicken broth OR chicken bouillon prepared to make 2 cups of broth
1 teaspoon Lawry's Seasoned Salt
⅛ -1/4 Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
Salt And Pepper, to taste (Hold off on the salt if you use bouillon)

Cook spaghetti until just al dente. Combine cooked spaghetti with remaining ingredients, reserving 1 c of the cheddar cheese. Place mixture in a greased 9 x 13" dish and top with the reserved cheddar. Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or until hot and bubbly.

Experiments in Canned Meat, Part Four: Switch hitter

I've used both the ground beef and the chicken breasts that I canned in December, but I thought it was time to switch it up a little. When I started to gather together the ingredients for tonight's dinner, I also got out some store-bought canned chicken.

The ingredients for my casserole including....duh, duh, DUH... Store-bought canned meat

It had been sitting in my storage room for months. Canning my own meat was one thing. Eating what some random factory canned was another. For all I knew, it could have both the taste and consistency of chum. Nothing says good eats like putting chum in your casserole.

It looked OK and didn't smell bad, either. It didn't overwhelm the kitchen with the dog food-like odor Hubby Dear loves so much.

What it looked like straight out of the can

It definitely was in much smaller chunks than the chicken I canned. Take a look at the difference:

My home-canned chicken

I looked over the meat carefully, trimming away some fat. I didn't have to do that with my home canned meat.

Into the my chicken and rice casserole it went. (If you're interested, you can find the recipe and a much better photo here.)  Here's what it looked like when it was ready to serve.

Baked Chicken and Rice with Black Beans with my secret ingredient

As usual, I didn't announce that I had used canned meat. When Hubby Dear went for a second helping, I thought everyone was none the wiser. That couldn't have been further from the truth. First of all, Hubby Dear is getting to the point where he's starting to analyze every dish I present to him. Secondly, Hubby Dear noticed the softer texture, but even more obvious was a tinny taste that my home canned meat doesn't have.

The consensus was clear: home-canned meat is indeed better than the store bought kind. It is so easy to can your own that there's no reason not to do it. (Did you miss my meat canning mini-tutorial? Check it out here.)

So, if you haven't tried it yet, get thee a pressure canner and some canning jars and get to work!

But How Does It Taste? Home Canned Meat, Take Two

Last month I canned both chicken and ground beef. It was surprisingly easy but the question remained – would it be tasty? Recently, I decided to put the canned chicken to the test.

I picked a recipe that I knew would be a true test of the chicken's abilities. It’s called Creamy Chicken Fettuccine - sautéed chicken breasts thrown together with a quick cream sauce, peas, fettuccine, and Parmesan cheese. It's the kind of dish that is easy to put together on a weeknight and is definitely a crowd-pleaser. It’s also a dish where funky chicken would have nowhere to hide. I knew my canned chicken was going to have its work cut out for it in this recipe. I didn't tell Hubby Dear or the kids that I was using canned chicken so as not to prejudice their opinions beforehand.

I brought up one of the jars of chicken from my storage room and this is what it looked like upon opening:

Looks a little scary, doesn't it? I had to remind myself that this was going to be edible and deeee-licious.
 

 
I knew the chicken would be tender after being pressure cooked, but even so, I was a bit surprised at how soft it ended up being. If you've ever cooked boneless skinless chicken breasts in the crockpot, the texture was similar but even more yielding.
 
The original recipe calls for sauteeing the raw chicken breast in a couple of tablespoons of butter. Obviously my chicken was already cooked, but I thought briefly cooking it in the butter might liven it up and get rid of some of the canned taste.

Not so much. Mainly it served to break the chicken down even further. I continued on with the recipe as it was written and here's what it looked like:

In the finished product

The verdict:

Although I didn't reveal my secret ingredient until he had gone back for seconds, Hubby Dear could tell there was something up right away. He later told me the texture of the chicken reminded him of tuna.  We both agreed that canned chicken would be much better in a casserole. Of course, I knew that ahead of time, but I just couldn't resist the challenge.

Was the canned chicken horrible? No. But it was also not as good as fresh. 

Was canning chicken worth it? Definitely. It is a huge time saver to pop open a jar of pre-cooked, pre-trimmed chicken. Canning meat is super easy and you just need the right application for using it.

Coming up: Canned chicken in one of my family's favorite casseroles. Will anyone notice this time?