Basic Baked Chicken for a Wintry Day

We saw snow fly for the second day in a row. Flurries were pretty intense for about 5 minutes. It was as lovely, but the first couple of snows are always lovely. After that, it’s either “ho hum,” or “OH NO!”

Anyway, a chilly, damp day like this is a perfect day for baking chicken. Chicken permeates the damp air and gives us something to look forward to. Plus, the day just FEELS warmer with the smell of baking poultry in the air. When I don’t feel like cooking, but I want some winter’s day comfort food, here’s what I do: Line a heavy duty pan with aluminum foil (to help cut some of the greasy cleanup– remember, it’s a lazy day today). Place chicken pieces in the pan, skin side up. Yes, this is a fatty recipe! I did say it was comfort food. You won’t be needing any hgh supplement to grow here, not with this eating.

So place your chicken skin side up. I usually buy VERY cheap chicken on sale, and freeze it for days like these. I don’t thaw it out very much before cooking, either– I simply allo the chicken to cook all day long.

Slice one large onion and place the slices on top of the chicken. Grab some basil, oregano, parsley, and paprika, and sprinkle generously over everything.

Now, wrap up the pan with more aluminum foil. Place in an oven set at 400 degree F for about 2 hours. After that, remove the foil, turn down the heat to 350, and bake for another 2 hours. At the cooking halfway time when I remove the foil, I usually throw in a dozen potatoes for baking.

The house smells so good. Yummmmm. I usually serve this dish with some green veggies. And that’s it! It’s a marvelous meal, and the kids seem to love it.

Easy Giant Apple Pie

Cool weather is here, hurray! I rarely cook in the summer (except for grilling), but now that autumn is on the way, I am getting the “cooking bug” once again. And right now, apples are everywhere. The kids have been busy picking, peeling, and dicing apples for our freezer. All winter long, I have access to instant-cubed apples that I can easily thaw and throw into a pie or crisp or anything we fancy.

So today I made Easy Giant Apple Pie. If you have peeled and diced apples and ready-made packaged pie crusts, this recipe takes about 15 minutes to throw together– it’s SO easy! And I call it “Giant” because it is a huge pie, baked in a casserole dish. This is nice if you have a lot of kids to feed (like me) or a big crowd, if you love leftover pie, or if you’re skipping the appetite suppressant and just want to bake a big pie.

Technically, this kind of apple pie is called “French” apple pie, because it has no top crust. Rather, it has a crumbly streusel topping. It’s fabulous with coffee or ice cream.

Regarding the spices– add to your own liking. I rarely use measuring utensils (I’m a hands-on kind of cook) so the measurements here are approximate. Also, make sure your pie crusts are room temperature. This makes them more flexible without tearing– you are going to need to pull at the crusts a little to fit them into a rectangular 13×9 casserole dish.

Easy Giant Apple Pie

2 pie crusts
1 13×9 casserole dish

for the pie mix:
10 cups (or so) of pared and diced apples (thawed)
3/4 cup raisins (optional)
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup molasses (optional)
1/4 cup ground flax seed meal (optional)
2 Tablespoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon ginger
1/2 cup flour

for the topping:
1 stick of butter
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Blend the topping ingredients and mash in the butter until the mix looks gravelly.

Mix up the apples and other ingredients for the pie filling.

Take your pie crusts. Make sure they are room temperature.

Gently unroll one of the crusts and place it into the casserole dish. You want to stretch it a little to make the crust fit up along the sides of the dish.

Unroll the second crust and overlap the first a little. Press the seam together where the two meet. Again, make sure your crust fits up along the inner sides of the dish.

Dump the pie filling in the dish. Sprinkle the topping evenly on top.

Bake in a hot oven at 400 degrees for an hour and twenty minutes. The pie should be bubbling. The baking pie makes the house smell INCREDIBLE.

Doesn’t it look scrumptious?? Yum!

Zucchini Casserole

We did a little experimenting this weekend with some zucchini, seeing we have a massive zucchini population explosion going on here at the Mecomber homestead. I posted about my Stuffed Zucchini recipe here, gushing about how versatile it is, etc etc. Well, my beloved daughter yanked herself away from her stereo cabinet and computer for a little while to treat me by cooking dinner for 10! She took my Stuffed Zucchini recipe and tweaked it a little. This is what she made.

Basically, she used the same ingredients (massively increasing the measurements to feed 10, of course) . Instead of making boats, she diced the zucchini and made a casserole. Oh my word– it was soooo good!! All of the kids ate it except the Picky One. They kids even had seconds! This is a great recipe. If you have extraneous zucchini, I suggest you give it a go.

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