Uncle Todd’s Parmesan Chicken Tenders

August 12, 2020 No Comments

When I was a kid some of my favorite food memories are my Uncle Todd cooking flour tortillas on the grill with melted butter and rolling them up, wrapping the bottom of them with a paper towel and handing them out to my cousins and myself. Whatever my Uncle Todd cooks, he cooks a lot and it always tastes like the best comfort food. My Mom introduced me to this recipe, and it was an instant favorite. It starts with melting butter in a pan. Then coating the chicken tenders and placing them back in the pan:

Then sprinkle with Parmesan and butter:

And cook in the oven until crispy and tender:

Check out the full recipe below and how to make the sides:

Uncle Todd’s Parmesan Chicken Tenders

3 lbs chicken tenders
1 stick of salted butter divided
4-6 ounces Parmesan cheese shredded
Three large eggs whisked in a shallow bowl
Bread crumb mixture in a shallow bowl
- 1-2 cups plain bread crumbs
- 1-2 tsp salt and pepper
- 1-2 tbs Italian seasoning

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Cut up 1/2 stick of butter, place in a 9×13 (or slightly larger) baking pan, and melt in oven (just barely melted). Take out of oven (with potholders, it will be hot!) swirl in pan to coat bottom and place on trivet.
Coat tenders individually in whisked eggs, and then coat in bread crumb mixture and place side by side in pan with melted butter.
Use about 1/4 to 1/3 of the cheese and sprinkle over the top of the chicken.
Cut remaining butter into cubes and place all over top of chicken.
Cook for twenty minutes.
Check temperature of the chicken (should be about 145-150) and sprinkle the rest of the cheese over the chicken.
Cook for another 5-15 minutes until chicken is done. The higher the temperature of the chicken when you first check it, the less time it will take for the second cook.

Roasted potatoes and asparagus

1 bag of small potatoes (usually about a pound)
1 bunch of thin asparagus

Directions

Preheat oven to broil (or 400 degrees if cooking in same oven)
Cover a large cookie sheet with foil
Slice potatoes in half & trim asparagus
Toss potatoes in olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper
Place potatoes on the pan and cook for twenty minutes
Toss asparagus with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper
Add asparagus to pan after twenty minutes and cook for another ten.

It was all delicious!

Favorite Recipes

One pan roasted salmon

June 25, 2020 No Comments

The most simple of summer dinners, four 7 oz salmon filets, a bunch of asparagus, lemon, salt and pepper. Preheat the oven to 425, and line a large foil pan with heavy duty foil. Place all your items on the pan like above and sprinkle everything with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Toss the asparagus a bit so it’s coated, and place a slice of lemon on each filet. Roast for about 12-14 minutes until the salmon is cooked through. While that’s cooking we make jasmine rice to go on the side. This is one of our favorites!

Favorite Recipes, Learning with A & J

Dino footprint cookies

April 7, 2020 No Comments

The boys have been doing Scholastic Learn at Home as part of their weekly learning plan, and after Aidan watched Week 2 Day 7, he asked if we could make the Dino footprint cookies from the lesson. This weekend we had a chance to make them and they are tasty and fun to make! Aidan did the majority of the work:

J helped as well (and loaned his Dino to use):

And after they were done we enjoyed them outside!

They are similar in texture and taste to slice and bake cookies, and have the flavor of a snickerdoodle. I don’t know how long they last, as ours were all eaten in two days! You could also combine it with this classic dinosaur lesson I did with the boys! Enjoy!

Favorite Recipes, Weekly Meal Plan

Week of Meals

March 23, 2020 No Comments

Happy Monday! We are beginning week 2 of this weird new normal, but what is completely normal is the boys asking “what’s for dinner”, all day long. Since we are cooking at home a lot right now, B and I have been trading off meal prep, and trying out recipes. Here is what we made this week!

Marinated flank steak and twice baked potatoes.

Homemade pizzas.

Slow cooker Indian butter chicken and fresh naan.

Beef enchiladas.

Sheet pan chicken and vegetables.

Favorite Recipes

Chicken Enchiladas

January 29, 2020 No Comments

While I’m not afraid to stray from the classics, this chicken enchilada recipe is one I always come back to. It’s my Mom’s recipe and the one that whenever anyone in our extended family makes chicken enchiladas, this is the recipe they make. I have had to modify it some over the years to accommodate the boys’ food allergies. The simple fix is removing the green onions and putting them on the side. The more difficult substitution was replacing the cream of chicken. I tried this recipe out and found that it makes the perfect amount needed for the recipe (I also leave out the onion powder). I’ve attached the recipe below, with some helpful photographs.

So shred up your chicken:

Make your sour cream mixture:

And take out 1 and 1/2 cups (and have this amount of cheese leftover):

Add the sour cream mixture to the chicken:

Then put a few tablespoons of the chicken mixture in the tortillas:

Roll and place in a pan:

Cover with leftover sour cream mixture:

And cheese:

Then cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes:

Finally, uncover and bake for another 10-15 minutes until bubbly.

Chicken Enchiladas

1 lb boneless skinless chicken breast roasted (can be made ahead)
2 cans cream of chicken soup (or make this recipe to substitute)
About 1 cup of sour cream (you can add 1/2 cup more if you like sour cream!)
1 8oz package of montery jack cheese (you can buy pre-shredded, or get a block and grate it!)
1 8oz package of sharp cheddar cheese (you can buy pre-shredded, or get a block and grate it!)
1 can of green chilies (optional)
1 can of chopped olives (optional)
1/4 cup of chopped green onions (you can either sprinkle these on top before baking, or leave out if you have picky eaters or food allergies)
8-10 soft taco size flour tortillas

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Coat chicken with 2 tsp chili powder, 1 tsp paprika, and 1 tsp cumin. Place on a foil lined pan and drizzle chicken with canola oil. Roast chicken at 350 for 25 minutes. After chicken is cooled slightly, shred (I put it in my Kitchen Aid mixer and let it shred with a paddle mixer on low).
3. Set aside about a third each of the shredded cheddar and monterey jack cheese.
4. In a seperate bowl mix together the sour cream, cream of chicken soup, remaining cheddar and monterey jack cheese. Remove 1 and 1/2 cups of the sour cream mixture and set aside.
5. Add shredded chicken to remaining sour cream mixture (*Tip: mix the chicken a bit at a time until it looks consistent with the sour cream mixture but not dried out, I don’t always add all the chicken).
6. Warm tortillas on a griddle (or in the microwave, I use this tortilla warmer).
7. Place about four-five tablespoons of mixture per tortilla.
8. Place filled tortillas in a 9X13 pan.
9. Spread the set aside sour cream mixture on top of the tortillas and top with the set aside cheese.
10. Cook for 30 minutes covered and then 10-15 minutes uncovered until bubbly and cheese is starting to brown. Top with optional green chilies, olives, and green onions.
11. Extra Tips: This is a great make ahead dish. It can be frozen for about a month and can be made a day ahead if refrigerated. The entire recipe makes quite a bit, so I occasionally make half and then freeze half. If you are cooking it frozen cook for at least 40 minutes covered in foil, and then another 20-30 uncovered. If refrigerated cook for 30 minutes covered and 15-20 minutes uncovered.

Favorite Recipes, Philosophical Cupcakes

My favorite tea

January 23, 2020 No Comments

My work afternoons at home consist of quite a bit of grading, lesson planning, interspersed with laundry, housework, catching up on volunteer things, etc. One of the things that I frequently do to break up the day (because your eyes do start to glaze over, after reading fifty papers), is make tea and have one of my Milk Bar cookies that I got for Christmas. My tea making has become a bit elaborate, but it’s so good, I had to share:

First, make 12 oz of almost boiling water (right before the tea kettle starts to whistle). Then, steep 2 tsp of Old Fashioned Birthday Cake Piper and Leaf tea for seven minutes in the water. Then add 1-2 tsp of local honey, 1 packet of collagen and stir. Finally, add 1-2 TBS original nutpod creamer. It’s so delicious! Enjoy it with any cookie, but a Milk Bar cookie is especially sweet:

If I really need a break, I also throw in an episode of The Crown and flip through my Magnolia Journal or InStyle magazine, and then back to grading!

Favorite Recipes

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

January 20, 2020 No Comments

A variation on our favorite cookie recipe, these chocolate chunk cookies are easy to put together and make just the right amount (about 24 cookies).

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp of baking powder
1/8 tsp of kosher salt
1/2 cup softened unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
3-4 Hershey bars chopped into small size chunks
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions

Cut butter into tablespoon slices and place in the bottom of the mixer. Set your egg out on the counter. Do this first then prep the rest of your ingredients
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with a Silpat mat or parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt. Set aside.
Crack egg into a small cup and whisk with vanilla.
On medium speed cream butter for about three minutes.
Add sugars to butter and mix until light and fluffy about 3-4 minutes.
Scrape down the sides and then add in the egg mixture. Mix until it resembles cottage cheese (so slightly lumpy, but well mixed).
Add all of the flour mixture to the bowl. Mix just a little by hand (so it doesn’t puff out when you start the mixer), and then mix on low speed only until barely blended.
Stir in chocolate chunks.
Bake for seven minutes, then rotate the pan 180 degrees and bake for two additional minutes. Let cool on the pan for 2 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Will keep in an air tight container at room temperature for 3-5 days. In our house they rarely last that long.

Favorite Recipes, Learning with A & J

Molasses Cookies

October 28, 2019 No Comments

As soon as there is just a bit of chill in the air, the boys and I jump into baking cookies. One of our very favorite fall cookies is molasses cookies and this time the boys split up the tasks with A measuring and mixing all the dry ingredients and J adding in all the wet ingredients.

Then they took turns dividing out the cookies on the pan:

And then we patiently waited for them to bake:

And they were gone in a flash! This is one of our very favorite recipes and you can find it here!

Favorite Recipes

Monster sprinkle cookies

September 30, 2019 No Comments

As I’ve blogged about before, these confetti cookies have been our go to weekend cookie for awhile. They can be mixed in your food processor, and now that we have a shiny, new oven I can bake them in a snap with my extra wide baking sheet. I picked up some Halloween themed sprinkle the other weekend, and decided to do a twist on our normal rainbow sprinkles.

For the majority of the cookies I used Target Hyde and Eek Monster Mash sprinkles, but I started running out at the end and used the Wilton Sprinkles. The ones with the Monster Mash Sprinkles turned out perfectly:

However, the ones with the Wilton Sprinkles:

Were a total fail:

I’m still unsure of what happened, but something in the chemical make-up of the Wilton sprinkles didn’t work with the cookies. I’d recommend buying two of the Target Hyde and Eek Monster Mash Sprinkles to do the entire batch. Overall, these are such a good cookie, and one of my favorite “lunchbox cookies” for the boys! And us!

Favorite Recipes, How was your weekend?

Trick or treat mix

September 23, 2019 No Comments

Our favorite game day watching snacks are either queso and chips, or candy popcorn. After a Target run this past week, I picked up some festive additions to our candy popcorn to create a fun trick or treat mix. Here are our treat mixes items (plus two bags of popped corn…I’m asking for an air popper for Christmas):

I always put the popcorn, pretzels, marshmallows, and a few white chocolates on the parchment paper first:

Then I melt the chocolate according to package directions and drizzle it all over the popcorn mix, then add sprinkles all over the top:

And voila! Trick or treat mix and Saturday college football! And a little bit of the driving range beforehand:

Happy Monday!