Creamy Garlic Chicken Stew

We're talkin' about comfort food tonight. We are sitting down to big bowls of chicken stew. Filled with veggies, chicken and flat dumplings, this stew tastes as good as it looks!

This is the second of four new Philly Cooking Cremes that I'm testing for my House Party reviews. Since my first recipe, Santa Fe Lasagna, turned out to be a big hit, I had high hopes for the Creamy Garlic Chicken Stew. I think that they have a hit on their hands with these cooking cremes. The Savory Garlic Cooking Creme is very good. It has a mild garlic flavor to it, not overpowering at all. The cooking creme helped to make the stew really creamy.

Creamy Garlic Chicken Stew

3 boneless chicken breasts, poached and cubed into bite-sized pieces
2 c. carrots, diced small
1/2 c. celery, diced small
2 small canned of sliced mushroom, drained well
2 tsp. poultry seasoning
1 tsp. black pepper
2 dried bay leaves
1 can of green beans, drained well and chopped into bite-sized pieces
2 c. (minus 2 tbsp) flour
64 oz. chicken broth or chicken stock
1 tub Philly Savory Garlic Cooking Creme
2 tbsp butter & 2 tbsp olive oil for frying pan
1/2 package of Anne's Old Fashioned Flat Dumplings

Poach chicken breasts; remove from water and cool. Chop chicken into bite-sized pieces.

In a large frying pan, heat butter and olive oil. Add carrots, celery and mushrooms. Sprinkle in poultry seasoning, black pepper and bay leaves. Cook over medium heat until the carrots are fork tender.

Add flour. Stir to completely cover the vegetables with the flour.

Carefully stir in the chicken broth, stirring until the broth is creamy with no lumps of flour showing. Stir in the tub of Philly Savory Garlic Cooking Creme. Continue stirring until the broth is creamy with no lumps in it.

Add chicken and green beans to the pan. Cover and cook 15 minutes over medium heat. The broth will start to thicken.

Remove half of the flat dumplings from the box. Put the remaining dumplings back into the freezer for a later use. Cut each dumpling strip in half. Drop four dumplings at a time into the stew, stirring well after every set of dumplings has been added. Put the lid back on the pot and continue cooking for 12 - 15 minutes. Stir frequently.

Serve with warm, crusty bread.

**Other serving suggestions**

Serve the stew (without dumplings) over cooked penne pasta or serve the stew (without dumplings) over warm biscuits.

My whole family enjoyed this. This recipe is definitely a keeper. As my husband says "Add it to the rotation!" :)

Menu Plan Monday

We've been getting some much needed rain the last few days. But the rain also means that the kids are staying indoors....let the fighting begin. Oh, my aching head!! Anyone else dealing with this?

I thought that I'd stir things up a bit this week by including a new recipe in every meal. :)

Sunday: creamy garlic chicken stew

Monday: greek pasta & beef - ham & broccoli strata & strawberry french toast

Tuesday: lime glazed pork loin, cooked potatoes & salad - greek pasta & beef

Wednesday: cajun shrimp rolls & rice (didn't make it last week)

Thursday: ham & broccoli strata & strawberry french toast

Friday: bbq jack chicken & mac n cheese (didn't make it last week)

Saturday: either leftovers or out for pizza

Two weeks of my husband working daylight is over with, two weeks to go! You'd think that I'd be used to it by now but I'm not. I'm looking forward to life going back to normal for us!

Things have been a little crazy this week. I've managed to stick with our menu plan, just mix the daily menus up a bit. :)   I've made the changed in italics above.

Hookin' up with Menu Plan Monday!

February 2011 Cookie Carnival Round Up!

Welcome to the Cookie Carnival's end of month round up for February 2011!

There were two really pretty cookies to choose from this month:

Cosmo Cocktail Cookie Bars

Kids Bake: Vanilla Shortbread Hearts


We didn't have a big turnout this time but those who did participate, their cookies are beeeeauuutiful!!!

Check out these beauties:

Tessa @ The Cookin' Chemist baked the Cosmos. She said "They have that classic shortbread crust with the fruited topping sprinkled with powdered sugar, but the lime zest in the crust and the cranberry-orange topping definitely make them both unique and delicious."

Kerri @ Kerri's Texas Kitchen baked the Cosmos. She said "What a perfect cocktail! A hint of orange, cranberry and vodka! These were one of the cookies for Cookie Carnival for February and they are really good."

Barb @ Mom's Fridge baked the cut out cookies. She said "The cookies turned out delicious, but they were really work-intensive. I love cookies, but I don't like doing cut-out cookies. I'm a "drop and go" kind of girl when it comes to cookies.

I wanted to try both of these cookies but I just couldn't squeeze it into our busy schedule. The Cosmo cookies look so delicious to me!

Thanks, ladies, for hanging out with me last month! I hope to see you back at the end of March!

If you would like to join the Cookie Carnival, here's what you need to know!

Until the end of March, Happy Baking!
Tami

Santa Fe Lasagna

I was chosen by House Party to host a Philly Dinnertime Dilemma House Party to try the new Philly Cooking Cremes.

There are 4 Cremes to choose from: Italian Cheese & Herb, Savory Garlic, Original and Santa Fe Blend.

From the name of my post, I bet you can figure out which creme I chose to test first. The Santa Fe Blend. Since creating a Mexican lasagna was already on my mind, I decided to run with the ingredients that I had on hand, plus I wanted to incorporate the Santa Fe Creme into the recipe. The result was a delicious, creamy lasagna that my whole family and friends raved about. (Yep, picky kids, too!!)

Santa Fe Lasagna

1 lb lasagna noodles, cooked, drained and set aside.
1 lb ground beef
1 medium-sized onion
2 small cans sliced mushrooms, drained
3 C. shredded cheese with taco flavors or plain cheddar cheese
1-10 oz - tub Philly Santa Fe Blend Cooking Creme
24 oz. mild salsa

Directions

Boil Lasagna noodles. Rinse and set aside.

In a frying pan, saute onions and mushrooms until the onions turn opaque. Set aside

In the same pan, brown ground beef. Drain off any grease. Stir in the tub of Santa Fe Blend Cooking Creme.

The creme sauce melts right into the beef creating a nice sauce.

Layer lasagna in this order: 

Spread a thin layer of salsa across the bottom of a 9 x 13 dish.

Lay 5 noodles across the salsa. Top the noodles with a layer of cheese.

Top cheese with half of the mushroom and onion mixture.

Top with 1/3 of the meat and Philly Santa Fe Blend. Be careful not to overload the noodles. These are thin layers of all of the fillings.

.

Layer with 5 more lasagna noodles, this time topping with first with salsa, the remaining mushroom & onion mixture, 1/3 of the meat and sauce. End with a layer of cheese.

For the top layer, add 5 lasagna noodles, the rest of the meat and sauce mixture and any remaining salsa. Finish off with a layer of cheese.

Bake at 350* for 40 minutes. Remove from oven and cool for 10 minutes before cutting.

Delicious!!  Two thumbs up for the Philly Santa Fe Blend Creme. I will note that the Santa Fe Creme has a little spice to it. Not much, but if you are tempted to buy medium or hot salsa, taste the creme first. It might be spicy enough.

**The opinions expressed in this post are my honest opinions. I was not compensated for posting this. My participation with House Party is not related to my blog.**

Adding this recipe to Tasty Tuesday!

Beef Barley Vegetable Soup

We've had some unusual spring weather here in NC lately. For the last two days, the temps have reached over 75*. That's about to change, though. With warm winds meeting the cold winds from up north, our whole area in under a tornado watch. Six years ago this would've freaked me out. Moving from PA, I never had to deal with tornadoes much at all. In fact, I can remember 2 tornadoes touching down in my lifetime while living there. From the first day of moving to this area of NC, we've had tornado watches and warnings all around us in the spring. The very first day that we moved in I asked a lady how often they have tornadoes. She said "Don't worry hun, we haven't had a tornado in our area in more than 8 yrs." HHHmmm... we must have brought that cold Yankee weather with us to mix with the warm southern winds because we've had at least one tornado touch down in our area each of the last six years!! There's been destruction but luckily no one has been injured or worse and we've faired just fine from it. Bottom line, buy a good weather radio and get on with life.

Bet you didn't think that you were going to get a weather report from me today, did you? Keep reading....  there really is a recipe today.

Cool, rainy weather puts me in the mood for soup. Beef Barley Vegetable soup is on the menu today. Take a look. MMMM!!

Beef Barley Vegetable Soup

1 1/2 lbs. beef stew meat
1/2 c. flour for coating meat and vegs
2 stalks of celery, chopped into bite-sized pieces
2 large carrots, chopped into bite-sized pieces
8 oz. mushroom, chopped into bite-sized pieces
12 oz of canned or frozen corn, drained if canned
12 oz of canned or frozen green beans, drained if canned
1 can stewed tomatoes, chopped
3/4 of a large can of tomato juice
64 oz beef broth
2 tsp. dried thyme
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp black pepper
2 bay leaves 
1 1/2 c. quick cooking barley

In a large soup pot, brown meat in 3 tbsp. oil. While meat is browning, add celery and carrots. Finish browning meat and then stir in flour. Stir to coat the meat and veggies.Cook for 5 minutes

Pour in tomato juice, beef broth, stewed tomatoes and seasonings. Cook for 15 minutes.

Add corn, green beans and mushrooms. Stir well. Cover with a lid and cook on low for 2 - 2 1/2 hrs or until the meat and carrots are tender. Stir in 1 1/2 c. of quick cooking barley. Continue cooking barley using the instructions on the back of the box. (about 15 minutes).

Serve with warm, crusty bread. Freeze any leftovers.