Hawaiian Haystacks
I was trying to think outside the box when I’ve planned my meals this month. Each week I gave myself a new recipe to try, but I didn’t want to be overwhelmed, so I went with ones that sounded easy.
First I tried Hawaiian Haystacks, and my three-year-old son loved them! His favorite aspects was the ability to build it himself, but he also loved the pineapple and chow mein noodles, which made it fun.
If you don’t know, it’s a chicken mixture on a bed of rice, with whatever toppings you want.
Toppings we had: tomatoes, spring onions, pineapple, coconut, chow mein noodles, almonds, cheese.
I used a recipe I found online and the canned Cream of Chicken soup made it far too salty. I’ll try it again sometime without using canned products, but I must admit, it made it nice and easy!
Get the recipe from Cooks.com >>>
Hawaiian Haystacks
Ingredients
- chicken cooked
- 1 can cream of chicken soup
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 3 cups cooked rice
Toppings
- tomatoes fresh
- spring onions chopped
- pineapple fresh or canned
- chow mein noodles
- almonds toasted
- cheese shredded
Instructions
- Simmer cream of chicken soup with chicken broth.
- Pour over rice and chicken.
- Add desired toppings.
Chicken Salad Croissants
I found a new fun site, thanks to some blog followers at my reading blog: Buttery Books, which gives book club menu ideas that go along with the books discussed! It is no longer an active blog.
I was hosting our club’s meeting for The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfeld, so I followed the blogger’s suggestion and made Chicken Salad Croissants. I also made some ghost-shaped sugar cookies (since it’s a ghost story of sorts), which needless to say, were also a hit.
The salad was good, although I didn’t measure the mayonnaise and I think I had too much. Two and a half cups seems like a lot, based on the other ingredients.
Braised Chicken with Apples and Sage
I wanted a perfect braised chicken recipe for a chilly fall afternoon, so I turned to epicurious.com. The recipe I made seemed quite familiar, but I haven’t mentioned it on this site, so here it is.
I had to simmer it longer than 20 minutes — it was not cooked through yet at that point.Otherwise, I followed the recipe pretty closely. I normally use boneless/skinless, but I went with bone-in skin on thighs and it made it quite tender and moist. Altogether, an easy and taste meal but nothing spectacular.
Get the recipe from epicurious.com >>>
Chicken Nuggets (Breaded Chicken)
I made Emily Franklin’s recipe for chicken nuggets the other night. I was thinking it was a quick weekend meal, and that it would be delicious.
It certainly was delicious, but being an inexperienced cook, it took me quite a long time. I found I was breading each piece of chicken individually at first. Once I realized I could do many at once, it was much easier. (I know, I’m so dumb.) The breading Emily Franklin suggests is the normal flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs.
They were quite delicious. I whipped up some honey mustard (ingredients: honey, mustard, and a little mayonnaise). However. The time it took to fry and then bake the many little bite-sized nuggets was not made up in flavor. Next time I do it, I’m going to leave the chicken in strips, rather than small bite-sized bits.
I think Ms. Franklin’s entire point was that kids are familiar with bite-sized chicken nuggets: once they know Mom can make chicken nuggets better than McDonald’s they won’t hesitate to have Mom’s breaded chicken either. Since my son is still too young to have ever had McDonald’s, I figure I can just skip that step and go strait to the breaded chicken and other chicken dishes!