What’s on the Hectic Kitchen table tonight?
Recipes in this Post
Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken
From Scratch Au Gratin Potatoes
Winter Green Bean Almondine
Just before Thanksgiving, our local Kroger affiliate (called Dillons) here in Kansas had family size packages of chicken legs on sale. A really, really good sale. Since we eat a lot of chicken, I lugged home multiple packages and put them in the freezer. If you read about our pork loin night, you already know about the shelf of pork loin in our freezer. The next shelf is full of chicken.
That means that I have to be fairly creative lest the family tire of eating the two white meats. To that end I’ve collected lots and lots of chicken and pork recipes, not to mention creating a huge load of my own. I’m also trying to be creative about the sides so that the meals aren’t boring.
So tonight we’re having my Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicken with Au Gratin Potatoes. I’ll admit that the Au Gratin are from a Betty Crocker box, but I’ve included a recipe for From-Scratch Au Gratin Potatoes. I like the homemade version much better, but sometimes the instant are just easier to make. I’m not sure my family really notices or appreciates the difference between the two, so the time savings is sometimes worth it.
I also made Winter Green Bean Almondine. Since it’s the middle of winter here, I opted to go with canned green beans. I was planning on using frozen green beans, but the package that I thought was green beans in the freezer was Okra. I didn’t think could pull off Okra Almondine. Maybe another time, but I wasn’t willing to risk it this time around.
I did drain and then rinse the canned green beans to reduce the sodium content. To balance that drop, I added some additional spices to the recipe, so this is truly a new recipe that was created today. It went over OK, although I know that green beans are not on the top of my family’s list of preferred vegetables. The kids are pretty much a corn and potato crowd, but I did get them to eat some, so the recipe appears to be alright.
Overall, this meal was well-received. It was nice to have two different vegetables on our table. No matter how hard I try, that’s still a struggle for us.