Main Dish Recipes, Chicken page 1

My Roast Chicken
We really like roast chicken, and we have it often. The price of whole chickens is so reasonable that we always have several in the freezer. This is a dish I never made until after Jim and I were married. My first husband was of the opinion that fried chicken was perfect, so don’t mess with it… so we never had it any other way. All I can say now is that we missed a lot of good chicken over the years. Jim always says “I never met a chicken I didn’t like…”
We most often have roast chicken with mashed potatoes, gravy, and veggies but sometimes we just fix chicken and pick it apart and eat it. We have raw broccoli, cauliflower, celery sticks and small carrots that we dip in Marie’s Ranch Dressing (this is very good dressing), and eat hunks of a warm, tangy sourdough baguette… what more could you ask?
Ingredients:
1 whole chicken
margarine
numerous cloves fresh garlic
Salt, pepper
Directions:
Lately I have been using fresh garlic (I know, I have been missing a lot), and after rinsing and patting my hen dry, I coat it with margarine, then season it well with salt, pepper and Johnny’s Seasoning. Johnny’s is excellent with any kind of chicken and pork, and we use it for most beef, also. It is a blend of paprika, some salt, and various kinds of peppers. I then tuck garlic cloves under the skin of the chicken, and place it on a rack in a large, deep pot with a heavy bottom. We used to use shallow pans, but about a year ago they began splattering all over the oven, so we now put it in the deep pot, and it still browns perfectly, but doesn’t splatter when roasting. We roast the chicken at 325º, usually about two hours, or until the leg is falling off done, basting the hen with its juices during the last half hour of roasting.

An important point if you are going to make gravy is that you must poke the chicken's skin down around the thighs (on the bottom of them) to drain the juices, just in the last 10-15 minutes of roasting. If you do it sooner the chicken will be dry. If you don’t do it, you won’t have the juice you need to make gravy.
Roast Chicken Gravy:
This is made sort of like my pot roast gravy, except that the chicken isn’t browned, so the gravy is not dark, as beef gravy is. Something I just saw said to put the giblets in the bottom of your roasting pan, with some chicken stock, to flavor the gravy, and it sounds like it would work, but haven’t tried it yet. However, I mix in all the bits of caramelizing from the bottom of the pot into the gravy for added flavor, and (here is my secret ingredient) instead of water I use canned chicken broth to make the gravy. This gives it much richer flavor.
As for the mixing of the correct proportions of flour and chicken broth for the gravy refer to my pot roast gravy recipe, as it is the same method, just different ingredients. It will reward you with rich, flavorful gravy. You should have gravy left for hot chicken sandwiches with gravy, which we make just like hot turkey sandwiches.

Grilled Southwest Chicken
Ingredients:
2/3 C Vegetable Oil
1/3 C Lime Juice
2 tbsp Green Chilies, chopped
1 tsp fresh Garlic, minced
4 Chicken Breast halves, skinned
8 slices Cheddar Cheese
Marinate chicken with first four ingredients at least 45 min. in fridge, turning often. Drain and place on grill, grill first side 6-7 min., turn, top with cheese and grill second side several more minutes.

Chicken Stir-Fry
This is something we have quite often, and we sometimes use pork or beef instead of chicken. It doesn’t feel like a heavy meal, but fills you up, is very good tasting, and doesn’t take long to prepare. You can have the rest of the meal done before your rice finishes cooking.
Ingredients:
Stir-Fry
Leftover chicken, or 2 boneless, skinless half-breasts cooked 7 min. in the microwave on high.
1 pkg. (12-oz) Stir-Fry Vegetables, frozen
2 Tbsp. Sesame Oil
1 Tbsp. Honey
Soy Sauce to taste
No-Fail Rice:
1 C. Long Grain White Rice
2 C. Water
1 Tbsp. Butter or margarine
½ tsp. Salt
Directions:
For Rice: Measure out two cups of water in med-large saucepan, and put on to boil. Add salt and butter. When it comes to a boil, pour in measured rice, stir, and as soon as it comes to a boil again, cover and turn heat down to simmer, a “3” on my electric range. Set a timer for 20 minutes. At the end of that time remove lid, and add a couple of dollops of butter to rice, fluffing with a fork. Cover again.
For Stir-Fry: Cut meat into small pieces, about 1/3 to ½ inch in diameter. Heat oil in wok or deep skillet, add chicken and season with salt and pepper. Cook quickly, stirring well to keep it from burning. Add stir-fry vegetables. Cook, stirring until thawed and heated. Add Soy Sauce and Honey, and mix thoroughly until all is heated through. Simmer a couple of minutes for flavors to meld and remove from heat. Remove lid from rice and place in serving dish. Serve stir-fry over rice. Serves 4.

Cheyenne Chicken
This is a recipe I found while I was in Alaska, while looking for poultry main dishes. I have changed it somewhat, but as it is now, it works very well. It is very quick to prepare, taking only about 15 minutes, and tastes just great. It is just as easy to prepare for one as it is for a family. Just adjust the amount of meat and other ingredients as needed.
Ingredients:
3 Chicken breasts, boneless and skinless
Salt, Pepper, and Johnny’s Seasoning
9 slices Monterey Jack cheese, about 1/8-inch thick
4 green onions, cut into half-inch lengths
Directions:
Rinse and pat chicken dry, season with above seasonings on both sides, and place in individual baking dishes. Using just three, I place them in the microwave, place an inverted dinner plate atop them, and microwave them on high for about 7 minutes. They are thoroughly cooked at the end of this time and swimming in their juices. I leave them in their juices for flavor, cover each breast with 3 slices of cheese and a good topping of green onions. After preparing them all this way I place the individual dishes on a pizza pan for convenience, and stick them under the broiler for just a few minutes (3-5 minutes), until cheese is bubbly and beginning to brown. That’s it, they are ready to serve. I top them with more green onions and serve them.