Chicken and Twice Baked Potatoes

Grilled chicken breasts are often on sale and there are many ways to prepare them. Though I hate to admit it, Italian dressing by itself makes a fairly good marinade. These breasts were soaked for about an hour and cooked for about twenty five minutes.

The potatoes were the more interesting side. I nuked two potatoes for about five minutes then wrapped them in foil with an olive oil rub to cook. (Olive oil to attempt to crisp the skin a bit more.) After about twenty minutes on the grill I removed them and let them cool.

Once cool, I cut the two potatoes in half and used a spoon to scoop out the insides. The insides were placed in a bowl and combined with:

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup sour cream

4 slices of bacon (One for each half)

1/2 cup sharp cheddar cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Once these 'guts' were combined I put them back into the scooped out potato halves and placed them on the grill with a foil bottom for an additional 15 minutes. Delicious!

Mexican Chicken

Steak and Chicken

Not wanting to give a wonderful steak to a 4-year old I decided to cook some chicken to go along with the steaks. The chicken can been seen in the back marinading in the small orange bowl.

On the chicken I created another sweet sauce that I was sure my kids would enjoy. The marinade for the children had:

1 T soy sauce

1 T honey

1 T extra virgin olive oil

pepper to taste

The steak had my usual rub that you can find several places on the blog...most recently in late December.

Grilled Chicken Salad

I have never been accused of eating too many vegetables. Salad probably doesn't really count as a vegetable and a salad loaded with a sweet dressing probably isn't a "health" food. However, I enjoy grilled chicken salad.

I marinaded the chicken for about three hours in:

3 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon of orange juice
1 clove garlic
salt and pepper to taste

After removing from the grill I diced the breasts into bite-sized pieces. I searched for grilled chicken salad and found tons of recipes. It seems there are a wide variety of ways to prepare a grilled chicken salad. I look forward to new experiments with this dish.

Apricot Chicken

For some reason my son is still not a big eater. He will eat a pbj three times a day if we would allow it but meat and veggies are out. He will eat chicken nuggets but will not use any dipping sauce. I wanted to make something a little on the sweet side but not too sweet.

I cut three chicken breasts into strips and marinaded them in the following:

-big spoonful of apricot preserves
-2 tablespoons of soy sauce
-2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
pinch of salt



I let them soak in the mixture for about two hours. Junior loved them and has asked for them several times.

White sauce and potato wedges

White barbecue sauce is quite popular in Alabama. Though I generally prefer a red sauce, my wife loves white sauce so I am happy to make it. I have made it in the past and included the recipe on this site. However, tonight I made a much smaller quantity...just enough for three chicken breasts.

More than enough for three breasts:

1/2 cup of mayonnaise

1/8 cup of vinegar

salt and pepper to taste.

Nothing unusual on the potato wedges. I tossed them in salt, pepper, and onion powder along with extra virgin olive oil.

Chicken was on sale at Publix this week so we are certainly cooking more chicken soon! Stay tuned.

Quick Chicken

I have a basic rub that I keep on hand for nights when I am in a hurry and want to do something different than a store-bought rub. This is a rub that I put on burgers, steaks, or chicken. If you are on my Christmas list you are likey to get a jar of this. Here is what I use:

1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon of chili powder
1 tablespoon onion powder
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon black powder

I sometimes need to add a little more salt. However, this is a good basic rub.

Asian Honey Chicken

I recently grilled some chicken breasts and used a bottle of Kraft Asian Honey Barbecue Sauce. Served over a bed of rice these breasts were perfect. Kraft makes a variety of sauces that sound different than a typical barbecue.

I rubbed the breasts in salt and pepper. After cooking on both sides for about six minutes I added the sauce and cooked a few more minutes on each side.