Pineapple Teriyaki Chicken

I came home from a spouses' club event with a pineapple. It was one of the prizes from our Luau themed event. I love pineapple and have no problems eating it by itself, but I wanted to make something with it. I considered making a crockpot recipe, but my last batch of crockpot chicken came out super dry. Plus, the crockpot is a pain to clean in our tiny sink. 

After searching Pinterest, I decided to try my hand at making teriyaki sauce for chicken and throwing in the pineapple. 

I loosely followed a recipe from Build Your Bite for the sauce, but because I did not have all the ingredients I had to go off-book a little bit. I was a little nervous that it would come out gross, but I was pleasantly surprised by how tasty it was! 

Tamale Pie

I have posted about this recipe in the past, but it was just a link to the original recipe I found through Pinterest. This has become one of my go-to recipes and it is so delicious! It's warm, gooey and packed with flavor so it is great anytime of the year. It's fairly easy to put together, but if you choose to cook the chicken in advance like I do, it takes a little bit of prior planning. My suggestion is to cook extra chicken so you have some for tacos, too! For tamale pie, three chicken breasts is sufficient for the recipe. 

You could also try the recipe with shredded pork or beef, but chicken is my favorite. 

We eat well on Christmas

This Christmas was a simple one for us. It was only Charles and me. But I loved it! We each got some pretty amazing presents (even though that doesn't matter at all) and we enjoyed watching the kitties play with their Christmas gifts.

I did not put a whole lot of thought into Christmas dinner, but I did find some amazing recipes of new dishes to try (Pinterest, of course).

Our Christmas breakfast tradition is Chocolate French Toast. I have shared this on the blog before. It is such a yummy breakfast that I should make it more often. We made homemade Oatmeal Bread in the bread machine to use. It was a great choice.

Our dinner included smoked chicken. Charles did a great job with that! As our sides we enjoyed Sweet Potato Casserole, Garlic Pecan Broccoli and homemade Hawaiian rolls. Everything turned out delicious! The sweet potato casserole has a fantastic crunchy topping. The recipes makes a lot, so we have been enjoying this everyday since Christmas. The Hawaiian rolls were good...because what homemade bread isn't good, right? But I don't know if it really tasted like Hawaiian rolls. I might try another recipe to compare.

Normally, we have birthday cake for Jesus as our dessert on Christmas. This year Jesus wanted bread pudding. I found an amazing recipe for New Orleans style bread pudding with a coconut praline sauce. SOOOOO good! We also used homemade Oatmeal bread for this recipe.

Time for Dinner

I wanted to share the past two meals I’ve made because they were really delicious and pretty easy to make.

Quick & Easy Chicken and Dumplings (for 2-3 people)

1 cup biscuit mix (I used Bisquick Heart Healthy)

1/3 cup milk

1 T flour

3 cups chicken stock (try to get the reduced sodium kind so it’s a little healthier)

1/8 cup water

1 bay leaf

¼ t each of salt and pepper

1 cup frozen veggies

1 cup cooked, shredded chicken (like a rotisserie chicken)

In a small bowl, stir biscuit mix and milk until just combined. Set aside. In a medium pot, combine stock, bay leaf, salt and pepper; bring to a boil. In a small dish, whisk flour and water and stir into chicken stock. Add chicken and veggies. Drop dumpling batter into boiling stock. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook uncovered for 10 minutes. Cover and cook an additional 10 minutes.

Parmesan Pasta with Chicken (for 4-6 people)

12 oz pasta (it called for orchietta, but I used mini ziti because the store didn’t have that kind and I already had the ziti)

1 3-4 lb rotisserie chicken

¾ cup grated Parmesan cheese

½ t each of salt and pepper

Cook the pasta according to the package directions. Shred the chicken (this step was already completed since I used 1 cup of the chicken in the chicken and dumplings). Discard the skin and bones. Drain the pasta, reserving 1 ¼ cups of the water. Return the pasta to the pot. Add reserved water, chicken, Parmesan, salt and pepper. Stir over medium low heat until the sauce has thickened slightly, about 2 minutes.

Creamy Parmesan mashed potatoes

1 lb red potatoes (about 4) cut into ½ inch chunks

1 cup chicken broth

¼ cup sour cream

2 oz cream cheese

1 ½ T grated Parmesan cheese

Place potatoes in a large saucepan. Add broth. Cover. Bring to a boil on high heat. Simmer on medium heat for 15 minutes, stirring after 8 minutes. Uncover, stir potatoes. Simmer, uncovered, 5-6 minutes, or until potatoes are tender and most of the broth is absorbed.

Add cream cheese. Reduce heat to low. Mash potatoes slightly until cream cheese is melted. Add sour cream and Parmesan. Mash until potatoes are smooth (we left it a little chunky) and heated through.

Enjoy!