Tobblin's Orange Chicken with cous cous.

Another easy main dish, which works great with rice pilaf, wild rice, or cous cous.

Take some chicken breasts, thaw them, and marinade them ( same way for the beef marinade below, except add in a couple spoonfuls of lemon juice )

Fry or BBQ the chicken breasts, while you are doing this, take some chicken broth, and make a cornstarch gravy,
and take another pan, and mix orange juice, and garlic powder, and abit of brown sugar, and a tiny bit of salt, make a cornstarch sauce out of this, ( you want it to taste sweet, over the salt, and you want the garlic to stand out.


Now, take a nice oven safe pan, ( biscuit pan works and I like glass because it clans better ) ladle in the bottom, a good covering of the gravy, put the chicken breasts in it, then, Cover each piece with a ladle of more gravy, and a piece of Swiss cheese. Let the cheese melt in the oven, take out a serving, and ladle over it, some of the orange sauce.

Serve it with a salad and some cous cous, and it is great!


And, for the cous cous,
Heat a pan, put in the pan some butter, some pine nuts, some pistachios, and some sunflower seeds, brown them with a sprinkling of garlic powder, or fresh diced garlic.
add in the cous cous, and let it soak up the butter, ( make sure you are just warming the first ingredients, you don't want to darken them too much )
then add in 16oz of chicken broth, ( or water, if you want to season it yourself ) let it steam til the liquid is almost gone, don't let it burn, fluff with a fork, you want the cous cous almost dry.
at the very end, when your fluffing it, add in some dried cranberries ( or sundried tomatoes , your choice, depending on the dish you serve with )

The Cranberries are a great addition, to it for a non traditional Thanks Giving, they bring out a sweet in the dish and make it a real balanced flavor.
The Sundried tomatoes go good with anything.

Balifor's peanutbutter & butter pancakes

Okay, this is no real recipe, just something my Dad always did with pancakes, and it is really good.
A couple pancakes, some real butter, and Jif Peanut-butter ( with all its hydrogenated badness intact ) and maple syrup.

cook the cakes, butter the first one then put peanut-butter on it, top that, then butter the top one, put your syrup on it, and Yumm.

My Dad used to also top his, with a fried over medium egg, ( which can give room for the shudders, for the faint of heart, or weak of stomach, as we found out one time when my brother inlaw was visiting, and had breakfast with us. )


Surprisingly, over the years, going out for breakfast I always ask for a side of peanut-butter, with pancakes, and for years I'd get odd looks, but last couple years, I get the comment " its good that way ain't it!?"

Hoppa's Microwave polenta

This one is Sooo... simple.
Depending on how many people you plan to serve, you will need to get some of those "Glad" disposable Tupperware sandwich boxes, they have the Tupperware lid, and are microwaveable and dishwasher safe, so perfect for making polenta molds.
This is my "Pizza flavored" one.
Ingredients are simple, Polenta, abit of butter, and Water.
put them in the microwave container, add to it, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder, and season with some salt, until your satisfied with the liquids taste, and balance with a pinch of sugar.

Microwave, watch it, when it absorbs all the liquid, you should have a hard clump of cornmeal thats seasoned. Note that half way through, while there is still a lot of liquid before is sets, stir it to mix the Italian seasoning.
While this is microwaving, ( usually about 10 minutes ) you need to be making your pizza sauce.

Which is simple, and great.

Take a sauce pan,
a couple cans of tomato sauce,( about 12 to 16 oz total)
one can of tomato paste (the 6 oz or 8 oz can )
add into it, ( just like the song ) about half teaspoon of Parsley Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. you now want a tablespoon of garlic powder, or a teaspoon of fresh garlic, your choice.
Same with onion powder, 1 tablespoon or, one whole diced but small onion ( or a couple shallots will do ) stir it all in, taste, if it needs salt, add abit, more than likely, in my experience, it has plenty of salt, and may need a pinch of sugar to bring out the flavors and balance it.
when you taste the sauce, you want to look for the in between flavor of salt and sweet, you want a 'twang' of both flavors on your taste buds.

Now, for the Polenta, slice several slices. It should slice very nicely once it cools down, cool to room temp, or, refridge and cool down completely.
Once you slice the slices, brown them lightly, in olive oil, or butter, turn them on both sides, take them out, plate them, put hot, pizza sauce on them that you just made, microwave abit of fresh parmesian and or, mozzarella on top, and serve.

Tobblin's creamy skillet dish

A simple recipe ( most of mine are )
This dish works well with Turkey breast, chicken breast, but also would work equally well with a brace of coneys ( red meat just doesn't do well in cream sauce )

butter a skillet, and dice the meat, lightly season it with salt and fresh course black pepper. Cook it til its completely done then remove from skillet.

add abit more butter to allow you to fry up some asparagus ,
you want these cut in about 2" chunks, or you can substitute frozen Brussels sprouts but it is not near as good.
For Asparagus, you want them seasoned in the butter with jus garlic powder, fry them til they are a real pretty green, and take them out, you don't wanna ruin em!
While you were doing that, take a Yam, dice it in 2" strips ( resembling fries ) and microwave til they are almost cooked through.
When you get the asparagus out of the skillet, put in the Yam ( or sweet potato ) Now these have to be fresh, no canned or precooked taters bleh...
After you fry up those til they are a nice golden brown on the outside, remove them from the skillet, clean the skillet and start a cream sauce.

( for my cream sauce, I prefer less heaviness, since already butter is being used so I sub cream with milk. )
Cream sauce is like making flour gravy without anything else in it if your unfamiliar.
Take some butter, melt it into your skillet, and begin to add in some flour, you want enough to almost make a paste but abit looser, toast the flour, but do not burn it.
After this is toasted carefully begin to add milk and let it thicken into a sauce.
once it becomes a nice creamy sauce, add your ingredients back in that you precooked. let it simmer until you can see some of the caramelization coming off the meat , then add in half cup of frozen peas ( I like the baby petite peas personally, they give better flavor )

let simmer a brief amount longer, til the peas are thawed and the dish is warm again from adding the frozen peas, additional seasoning to taste ( salt and course fresh pepper )

Serve with dinner rolls, fresh bread or biscuits or cornbread or whatever.

Pretty much a complete meal right there.
If you like, you can top each serving with a sprinkle of cheddar cheese.

Each ingredient has its own unique flavor, that is balanced with the cream sauce.
It's nice.

Tobblin's 15 minute red-meat marinade.

A simple teriyaki type marinade for beef.

3 tablespoons of garlic powder,
3 tablespoons of onion powder,
2 tablespoons black pepper,
2 tablespoons of sugar.
a teaspoon of dill weed.
mix dry ingredients and begin adding "La Choy" brand soy sauce.
you want this into a gooey paste, and taste this paste, if you can taste a balance between sweet and salty, then you have it right. ( this is about 2 steaks worth of paste )

Roll the steaks in the paste really well, ( what I do is put them in a tupperware thing or a ziploc bag, in the tupperware, press them down til the paste pools abit and put a plate inside the bowl to weigh it down. )
let stand in room temp for about 15 minutes while your BBQ grill heats up.
Toss em on the grill baste any left over paste back on them after turning them before your done.


Watch them to not burn them, you may need to turn them a time or two , because of the sugar content in the mix.

Hoppa's favorite Chicken wraps

This is probably one of the easiest recipes that is 'good!'

You know when you look around for something in the chicken, and decide to invent?

Here is what I did on this recipe:

I seasoned and boiled a couple boneless chicken breasts, keeping the water level high enough, to cover them, then when they are done, flake them up in the broth.

Next I took a box of Minute Wild Rice traditional flavor, added it and the seasoning to the broth and chicken, with a diced fresh jalapeño. ( if you want it less spicy, make sure you don't get seeds or the white pulp in it, just the outer green )

Cook that til the rice is fluffy/done.
Then take several burrito wrap shells ( flour ) and warm them on the skillet
put the mixture, and some shredded cheddar cheese, or what you want, in there, you can add chopped lettuce and tomatoes if you like too, and ranch dressing really makes it nice.

Hopwise's favorite Chicken Stew

Ingredients:
2tbls Olive Oil
6 slices of bacon,chop as fine as you can
8 oz Fresh mushrooms,sliced
1 Green Bell pepper, 1 inch pieces
1 jar of roasted red peppers
1 bunch of green onions,sliced
4 boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite sized chunks
1 can sliced ripe olives
2 tbls balsamic vinegar
3 tbls tomato paste
1 14.5 oz can of tomatoes
1/4 cup chicken broth
1/2 tsp dried marjoram
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Heat olive oil, brown bacon in large pan. When bacon is almost browned add mushrooms,peppers,onions and cook for about 4 minutes(or untill peppers start to get tender) add balsamic vinegar and stir for another minute or so. pour in slow cooker adding. Add rest of ingredients and cook on low for 8-10 hours.

I served with garlic bread and went well.