Herbed Chicken Rub

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This recipe is the brilliant masterpiece of my mother. It has been famous ever since it’s debut when I was a teenager and now we all keep a jar of it handy. Roast chicken is one of the easiest, affordable and  most impressive meals to make.  My favorite feature, is that it cooks nicely during church for a fast lunch once we get home.

Single Herbed Chicken Rub:

1 t salt

1/8 t pepper

½ t paprika

¼ t savory

¼ t thyme

¼ t garlic powder

Yield:  2 and 3/8 tsp

Rub the chicken all over with the mix and place breast side down in a roasting pan.  (Breast side down makes the meat more moist, breast side up makes the skin crispy.  You pick which one you want.) Surround it with peeled potatoes and carrot.  Top with sliced onion and ribs of celery.  Place a few cups of water in the bottom of the pan (miss the chicken, so you don’t wash off the rub.)   Then bake at 325 degrees for 2-3 hours.  (3 if the chicken is still frozen, with the bag of giblets in the center. . . 2 if you bothered to thaw it and pull them out.) I roast mine covered which is technically wrong…but it leaves more broth in the pan and keeps it moist.

Make gravy by pouring the broth from the pan through a strainer into a measuring cup. Heat the broth in a pan to boiling.  Dissolve 1 Tbs of cornstarch or 1 tsp of glucomannan powder per cup of broth into enough water to make a smooth paste.  Pour the smooth paste into the hot broth and cook and stir until thickened. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Large Batch Herbed Chicken Rub

1/2 cup salt

1 Tbs pepper

1/4 cup Paprika

2 Tbs savory

2 Tbs thyme

2 Tbs garlic powder

Yield: 1 cup 3 Tbs

Classic Chili Mix

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classic chili mix

Classic Chili Spice Mix

1 cup Chili Powder

1/2 cup Cumin

1/4 cup Garlic Powder

1/4 cup Minced Onion

2 Tbs Oregano

1 Tbs Sugar (or equivalent)

1 Tbs Salt

1 tsp Pepper

1/4 tsp cayenne (optional)

Use 2 Tbs of mix to season 1 lb of ground beef, 1 can of diced tomatoes with juice (or 2 cans of tomato sauce), 2 cans of pinto beans and 2 cans of kidney beans.  I don’t drain my cans.  If you prefer to drain them, add more sauce or water to make up the volume in liquid.

Taco Seasoning Mix

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Taco Seasoning Mix

Of all the mixes I use this one the MOST.  I go through a quart jar full every couple of months.

The sweetener gives a bit of twang to balance out the spice.  It’s the secret to a mix that tastes like the commercial ones, but can be left out if you’re against it. If you want yours super spicy add some cayenne, about a teaspoon to the whole jar.

If you buy your spices at Aldi, one bottle of spice is about 1 cup.

Quart Jar Taco Mix:

1 cup chili powder

1 cup dried onion flakes

¾ cup ground cumin

¾ cup garlic salt

1/3 cup sugar (or equivalent stevia blend substitute)

3 Tbs Paprika

Use 2 Tbs of mix for each pound of meat. You can also use this mix to make big batch taco meat for the freezer with the slow cooker bulk cooking method.

 

Fajita Seasoning Mix

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Fajita seasoning Mix

Fajitas are my favorite thing to order from a Mexican restaurant. I love the lean marinated meat mixed with crisp-tender colorful veggies.  I’ve tried several mix recipes trying to create that authentic flavor at home and really like this one.  It’s beautiful to use the multi colored baby bell peppers available at Aldi or Costco and red onion. To keep the brilliant colors, cook the meat almost completely through then add the veggies for the last few minutes of cooking.  Stop cooking when the colors are the brightest right before they start to break down.  Read more…

It’s Homemade Mix Month!

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homemade mixes

Guys!  I’m so excited!  This month I’m going to post the recipes of the most helpful homemade dry powder mixes I know about.  Along the way, you might know an even better version of the mix that you’ve been using for years.  I hope you’ll post your recipe in the comments so we can all benefit.

Here’s a master list of what’s coming.  As the posts go live, I’ll update with the links so we’ll end up with a useful resource.

Fajita seasoning Mix

Fajita Seasoning

Taco Seasoning Mix

Taco Seasoning

classic chili mix

Chili Seasoning

Herbed Chicken Rub

Herbed Chicken Rub

brownie mix

Brownie Mix

homemade cake mixes

Cake Mix

Homemade Cookie Mixes

Cookie Mix

Whole Wheat Biscuit Mix

Whole Wheat Biscuit Mix

homemade all purpose baking mix

All Purpose Baking Mix

Whole Wheat Pancake Mix

Whole Wheat Pancake Mix

cinnamon syrup mix

Cinnamon Syrup Mix

Italian seasoning blend

Italian Seasoning

instant pesto mix

Dry Pesto Mix

enchilada sauce mix

Enchilada Sauce Mix

homemade spaghetti sauce mix

Spaghetti Sauce Mix

Homemade Italian Dressing Mix

Italian Dressing Mix

Homemade Turkey Breakfast Sausage

Breakfast Sausage Herb Mix

homemade beef stew mix

Beef Stew Mix

homemade ranch dressing mix

Ranch Dressing Mix

Homemade pizza crust mix

Pizza Crust and Sauce Mix

homemade light alfredo sauce mix

Alfredo Sauce Mix

homemade onion soup mix

Onion Soup Mix

homemade seasoned salt blend

Seasoned Salt

homemade cream soup mix

Cream of Anything Soup Mix

 

If you like this, come check out our linky party for even more mix recipes.

Lazy Girl’s Guide to Freezing Spinach

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the lazy girls guide to freezing spinach

I love buying spinach at Costco in the 40 oz bags.  It’s good quality and cheap, and it’s a LOT of spinach.  I use it in my eggs, salads, lasagna, smoothies, stir fries, you name it.  Sometimes I still can’t get through the whole bag before it spoils.

fresh_spinach__40

While the official method for freezing spinach involves blanching it.  I’ve had really good luck, just throwing the bag in the freezer.  (I just toss it in when I’m tired of eating spinach.) Once it’s frozen I mash the bag to break the leaves into pieces. Then it’s easy to throw into a recipe.

The idea behind blanching Spinach is to kill the enzymes that continue the ripening process. Freezing slows down but doesn’t stop or kill the enzyme process.  As long as you use it up within a couple of months and don’t try to store it for years, you’ll be fine.

The benefit besides the ease, is that it PRESERVES the enzymes that aid in the digestion process.  Now toss that into your morning smoothie :).

Batch Cooking Ground Beef in Your Slow Cooker

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I first figured out this worked on a desperate day when I didn’t have a kitchen. The no kitchen season of our lives lasted almost a year and I relied on my slow cooker and electric griddle for making almost everything.

Since then, I’ve reused this method changing the seasoning to suit the dish.  Taco seasoning for batch taco meat. Italian seasoning for pizza or spaghetti. Read more…

The Easiest Shredded Chicken for Your Freezer

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Chicken salad, enchiladas, tostadas, tetrazzini, chicken spaghetti, pot pie, taquitos, quesadillas.  They all start with shredded  chicken.  When there’s a recipe sized bag ready to go in the freezer, the rest of the meal doesn’t seem so hard.

I bought frozen grilled chicken pieces from Aldi yesterday.  My stress level had come to that. It was kind of gross and expensive.  Not completely awful, but nothing like home marinated and grilled chicken. If your stress level makes frozen grilled chicken a necessity, no judgement here.  But there is a simple way to have prepped chicken at home.

Fill your slow cooker up to 3/4 full with chicken breasts, then pour water into the spaces until it comes just even with the top of the chicken. Season with salt, pepper, celery seed, garlic powder, and onion powder. Slow cook for 4-5 hours.  Remove chicken from the broth and let it cool until cool enough to handle.

Drop a breast or 2 (enough for your typical recipe) into a quart size freezer baggie, press out all the air and seal.  Then mush it around with your fingers until it is all shredded up.  Moosh the chicken flat, and freeze it.  Simple, right?

You also have all that great chicken broth.  If you use it up within the week, you can put it in a pitcher in your fridge.  (We rarely have juice, so it’s safe at our house.  If you often have lovely pitchers of stuff in your fridge, you should probably label it.  Or hide around the corner with a video camera…..)

For those of you who need recipes.  Here you go:

Print
Easy Shredded Chicken for Your Freezer

Ingredients

  • 2 lb chicken breasts
  • 8 cups water
  • 3 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • 1 tsp onion powder
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp celery seed

Instructions

  1. Combine everything in a 5 quart slow cooker.
  2. Cook on high for 4-5 hours. (No need to thaw the chicken first.)
  3. Remove chicken from broth and cool until cool enough to handle.
  4. Place 2 small or 1 large chicken chicken breast into each freezer bag and shred by mooshing the outside of the bag with your fingers.
  5. Remove all the air and freeze flat.
http://www.groceryshrink.com/the-secret-to-easy-shredded-chicken-for-your-freezer/

P.S.  For those of you who are wondering, most brands of freezer bags are BPA free.  I specifically checked Ziploc brand and Up and Up brands, but several others are safe too.

 

Day 1: Summer Here We Come

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Storm Clouds

Today is our first Monday of summer vacation.  I’m a barrel of mixed feelings about school being out.  I love having the kids home and the sound of stirring in the lego bin as they search for that perfect piece. We are making different education choices for next year and I am mourning the change.  I’m not ready to talk about it publicly yet.  Soon, I hope.  For now, I want my friends to know we weren’t offended or upset in any way.

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I’m still trying to figure out the whole summer vacation thing. In the past, I’ve written a summer bucket list and then had terrible Mommy guilt when I didn’t do much of it.  Last year I made a list of things I wanted to do around Kansas City, one a week. We did 2 things, then adrenal fatigue had me mostly bed bound the rest of the summer.

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I want to be a fun mom.  I look at the pictures on facebook of families doing things together, like eating in a restaurant, going to the trampoline park, or in an extreme case, taking a girls’ trip to England….and I feel a little small inside.  It’s dumb to compare, I know.  But I do it anyway–it comes naturally.

I hope my kids tell their therapist that I really loved them.  That they know I tried.

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I need summer to be as restful as possible.  School is hard.  Teaching; spelling lists, math facts, reading charts, reports and posters, fund raisers, and things to sign x 5  nearly puts me under.  Then we also have ballet class, soccer teams, basketball teams, violin lessons and piano lessons.  Plus Zion’s League and YAChoir for the High School one; Zioneers for the Middle School ones; Young Adults for the parents; Priesthood classes, Gatekeeper training; and family visits for the Daddy who also helps lead the Trailblazers group….and takes the boys to Boy Scouts too.  There’s Handmaidens and Lamplighters for the girls.  The only night we can be home as a family is Wednesday night, and the church would prefer we come to prayer service instead.  We don’t usually go. I have stay at home guilt on those nights, but if anyone walked a day in my shoes, they wouldn’t judge.

We’ve talked about limiting activities more.  We haven’t come up with a perfect solution.  The kids each have special needs that make a certain activity important for their development. The ones that aren’t crucial for congnitive and physical development are the church activities–and that feels kind of wrong to quit.  So we stay with the crazy and ask ourselves often if we’re doing the right thing.

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This summer I have no bucket list. The 4 oldest kids will each go to a summer camp.  I will take the children to a family camp (we call it Reunion) while my husband stays back to earn money and hold down the fort.  We are going tent camping in the Rocky Mountains at some point.  And there’s a week of Bible School for the little ones.  There will be a lot of time just at home though.  If I can keep the screens off until 3pm, I will consider it a win, plus minimal fighting, and maybe cleaning once a month week.

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Maybe we’ll air up the bike tires and send restless kids out into the neighborhood.  And a summer membership to a local pool.  That was a good thing last year.  I have a few house projects I’d like to squeeze in, but I’m hoping to find lots of peaceful moments.  Lots of peaceful moments.

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My mediation:

Drop Thy still dews of quietness.

May all our strivings cease.

Take from our souls the strain and stress,

And let our ordered lives confess the beauty of Thy peace.

John Greenleaf Whittier