Chicken and Biscuits

Ever since learning about my numerous food allergies, I've had to start cooking a whole lot more. I'd always cooked some but had thus far avoided making a habit of it. Heating packaged foods up in the microwave or the oven came so easy to me. I also ate out at restaurants frequently before my discovery of allergies. Now, I just don't have as many easy to heat up meal or restaurant options available to me. Therefore, I'm cooking.

It's mid-November, and as Wisconsin Novembers are wont to be, it's cold, windy, and damp. In other words, it's the perfect kind of weather for a hot, hearty meal like chicken and biscuits. However, there are a few allergy obstacles to overcome: dairy, eggs, and wheat. I was determined to make it work, allergies notwithstanding!

For the chicken, and this was the easy part, we split a boneless, skinless chicken breast in half, butterfly style, seasoned it with some salt and pepper, and cooked it on the George Foreman grill.

The biscuits were also fairly easy thanks to Bisquick for making Gluten Free Bisquick. All of the dry ingredients contained within are safe for me to eat. However, the cooking directions asked for milk and 3 eggs, so I substituted rice milk and Ener-G Egg Replacer, respectively. For the shortening, I used a vegan vegetable shortening. Making biscuits in this manner produced tasty results. The last time I tried making them, however, I didn't have any shortening, so I used Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks. I do not recommend this substitution because it made yellow-colored biscuits that took forever to bake.

The next challenge was to make a gravy that I would not be allergic to. It couldn't have any flour or dairy products in it. I used Gluten-Free Girl's Absurdly Easy Gravy recipe. I had to modify the recipe some so that it was dairy-free, as her recipe calls for unsalted butter. I turned again to my Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks as a substitution. However, I had to use more rice flour than called for in the recipe because of my substitution. I just added rice flour until the consistency was right. Before this evening, I'd never actually made gravy. Instead, I used to purchase the stuff in a jar or ask my mom or my sister to do it. However, even though it was my first try, and I had to make substitutions, the gravy turned out nicely. It was smooth and tasty.

I served my allergen-free (at least for me) chicken and biscuits for dinner tonight, and both the husband and I agreed that dinner was a success!

Easy Freezer Chicken

Craig and I eat a lot of chicken, primarily boneless, skinless chicken breasts. And really they are not that exciting. I am also always looking for ways to make cooking easier. So here's my method for making tasty chicken breasts.

1. Get a family-sized package of boneless skinless chicken breasts (not frozen - this is important)
2. Set out a bunch of freezer bags. For five breasts, I set out five bags.
3. Butterfly the breasts so you get two pieces of chicken and cut off the bits of fat. I figure that is approximately a portion for each person (there are only two of us).
4. Thouroughly coat the chicken pieces in spices. I use a variety of dry spices. But some of my favorites are Jerk and Rotisserie.
5. Put each butterflied and spiced breast in a bag, label it, and stick it in the freezer.
6. When the chicken freezes, the spices get sucked into the meat and embue it with flavor.

Now, when it's time to make dinner, you can pull a bag out of the freezer and cook the chicken. I typically use my George Foreman Grill for this, but in the summer, I'd use my gas grill. It's just too cold now to even consider outdoor grilling. You could also cook them in a pan with olive oil or Pam spray.

Last night, we had curry spiced chicken breasts with peas and rice. Very simple very tasty.