Barbecue Chicken Sandwiches with Mary Connealy

Barbecue Chicken Sandwiches

Faster than Fast Food

with Mary Connealy

Ingredients

one 3.5 bag Bonelss Skinless Chicken Breats

one medium onion-chopped

one 15 oz can pineapple chunks

one bottle barbeque sauce (your favorite flavor)

Dump in this order into a crock pot

cook for four hours

THAT'S IT-IT'S FASTER THAN FAST FOOD

Note the care I take dumping the still-frozen chicken breasts. Be very careful if you attempt this level of gourmet cooking at home. Amateurs bag openers and dumpers could be disappointed in the results.

Chop onion. This is the time sink. I labored over this onion for...just estimating...four minutes.

Dump onion on top of chicken breasts.

Open can (mine had a pull tab, a can opener might be required!) dump pineapple chunks over chicken

Sweet Baby Rays Barbeque Sauce. Yum.

Pour over chicken/onion/pineapple chunks.

Lid. Turn on. Go write your book while dinner cooks itself.

Shred the chicken (I use two forks) when it's tender, then use this for sandwiches. Though the chicken breasts as a meal are yummy, too. But I make sandwiches usually.

 I like to think great cooking isn't about great skill, rather it's about what recipes you select. I like to think that because I'd rather write than cook, buy my husband keeps expecting FOOD! My children were like that too. So I've a stack of recipes with every imaginable short cut in the world. I call it Faster than Fast Food.

Here's one of them.

Click to Pre-Order
Stuck Together releasing June 3rd

STUCK TOGETHER

When a lawman who values order gets stuck with a feisty crusader who likes to stir things up, there's going to be trouble in Texas!

Now that she's settled in town, Tina Cahill is determined to get Broken Wheel's saloon closed for good. To that end, she pickets outside the place every afternoon. Unfortunately, so far no one has paid any attention.

Vince Yates earned the nickname "Invincible Vince" because of his reputation for letting absolutely nothing stop him. But Vince is about to face his biggest challenge yet: his past has just caught up with him. His father, mother, and the sister he didn't know he had show up in Broken Wheel without warning. His father is still a schemer. His mother is showing signs of dementia. And his surprise sister quickly falls for one of Vince's best friends. Vince suddenly has a lot of people depending on him, and Tina doesn't approve of how he's handling any of them.

With nearly every other man in town married off, Vince finds himself stuck with strong-willed Tina over and over again. Of course, Tina is the prettiest woman he's ever seen, so if he could just get her to give up her crazy causes, he might go ahead and propose. But he's got one more surprise coming his way: Tina's picketing at the saloon has revealed a dark secret that could put everyone Vince loves in danger.

FIND MARY ONLINE:
Seekerville
Petticoats and  Pistols
Mary;s Blog
Mary's Website
Sign up for Mary's Newsletter
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maryconnealy
And Twitter: http://twitter.com/maryconnealy

Parties and distractions!

*think music*Woody Nelson*cue guitar*

 "On the road again. Just can't wait to get on the road again..."

Okay, if you'd rather hear Woody sing it, go here, but then come back!

Jan here, and I'm on the road again...

One thing about living in the north is that you can't count on the weather during the winter. All plans are made with the contingency "depending on the weather". So if there's someone you want to see, you'd better get on the road and see them before the snow flies!

Mom, 2009

Which is where I am this week - two days on the road, two days with my dear mother-in-law in Michigan (doing quite well in spite of being 89 years old and widowed in January), two days with my parents in Indiana (not doing as well - Mom's Alzheimers is worsening, and that's very hard on Dad), and fitting in some research time in Amish Country while we're there. And then two more days back home.

My in-laws in 2009

So by the time you read this on Monday morning (or late Sunday night for you westerners), I'll be in Central Michigan, enjoying the colors and my mother-in-law's company - but with no internet. I'll try to get somewhere on Monday to check in on the conversation, but I can't guarantee it!

Grandpa loved playing dominoes.

But you have a treat today: a look into my week and bonus recipes!

The week started out nice enough - warm weather, balmy breezes, everybody's work and school schedules humming along, and my line-edits turned in :)

Time to ramp up the tension, right? After all, don't we all live in a romance novel?

On the way to pick up his sister from work, our 20 year old son (yes, the same one who had appendicitis last summer) wrecked the car.

No one was hurt. What could have been a tragedy is just a minor, expensive, irritation. You can't see it in this picture, but the frame is buckled. We can drive it - for short distances and for a short time. No road trips to someplace exotic like Walmart.

He stopped at the stop sign, looked left - no cars, looked right - car coming. He waited, and then pulled out to turn left, right into the front wheel of the SUV he neglected to see when he didn't check left for the second time.

While waiting for the police and tow truck, the people on the corner (who have a beautiful garden and many children on their minuscule lot) gave my husband a couple zucchini.

Now the reason for this whole story so far is the zucchini.

The ladies at church were getting together for dinner Wednesday evening, and I had planned to make Missy's Amazing Oreo Cake (the recipe is here). I hadn't picked up the ingredients ahead of time because...well...you can't put Oreo cookies and me in the same building and expect both of us to survive.

So without a car to drive and a busy schedule, I had to make do with the zucchini, and I'm glad I did! I found a fabulous recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Cake!

I started working on the cake on Wednesday afternoon...but wait. My daughter and I were eating with the ladies, but what were my husband and the boys doing for dinner? So at the same time I made Barbecue Chicken Sandwiches.

And then when my daughter came home from work, she made Fruit Salsa with Cinnamon Crisps to take with us.


Are you ready for all three super-easy-peasy recipes?

First, I started cooking the chicken in the crock pot.

I cut an onion into five rounds and lay them on the bottom of the crock pot.



(Yes, I use those crock pot liners. My one decadent habit!)





Lay boneless chicken breasts on top, season with salt and pepper, and cook on high for four hours.







While the chicken was cooking, I shredded the zucchini. Even though I had two, one of them was past its expiration date - tough and woody. But the other one made 14 cups of shredded zucchini! All but three of them went in the freezer :)


Here's the recipe for the cake:

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Ingredients:

I always use Cake Flour for cakes!

2 1/2 cups cake flour (or all-purpose flour)
1/2 cup cocoa
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups grated zucchini

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup chocolate chips or chopped walnuts, if desired


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Prepare a bundt cake pan by spraying with cooking spray or grease with butter, and then dust with cocoa powder (thank you, Missy, for this suggestion!).

Set the shredded zucchini to drain in a sieve over a bowl (you only need to do this if the zucchini is very juicy or has been frozen).

Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, soda, salt, and cinnamon in a bowl and set it aside.

With a mixer, beat together the softened butter and sugars until they're smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. With your mixer set on low, add vanilla and zucchini.

My mixer's name is Bosch. Very original.

Now alternately add the flour mixture and milk, about a third of each at a time. Stir in the chocolate chips or nuts, if desired.

Pour the batter into your prepared cake pan and bake for 50-55 minutes at 350 degrees, or until done. Test it with a toothpick, or if you don't have a toothpick, gently press on the top of the cake with your fingers. If the cake springs back, then it is done.

Cool in the pan, and then turn out onto a large plate.

You can decorate the cake by drizzling a glaze made with 2 cups powdered sugar and 3 Tablespoons milk over it, or you can sprinkle it with powdered sugar.

By the time I finished the cake, the chicken was done, so it was time to make the sandwiches.



Barbecue Chicken Sandwiches


Ingredients:

4-5 boneless chicken breasts
onion
barbecue sauce - your choice
hamburger buns

I took the meat out of the crock pot and let it cool slightly (reserve the leftover broth - you're going to need it). Cut the chicken up into cubes and then shred it with a couple forks. Add some broth to moisten it, and then add your favorite barbecue sauce. Stir it all around until it's well blended. Cover it well (I put it in a covered casserole dish) and put it in your cooling oven. I set the oven temperature at 170 degrees to keep it hot until the boys got home.


When my daughter got home from work, we made her part of the ladies dinner.

Fruit Salsa with Cinnamon Crisps

3 kiwi fruit
3 Golden Delicious apples
1 cup strawberries
1 cup raspberries
2 Tablespoons white sugar
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
3 Tablespoons strawberry preserves

Dice the fruit into uniform sized pieces and stir it all together in a large bowl. Mix the sugars and strawberry preserves into the fruit. You can use less sugar if your fruit is riper than what my daughter was able to find.

The original recipe said to make cinnamon crisps out of tortillas, but we used cinnamon graham crackers, and they were perfect.



The ladies gathering (catchy name, right?) was at Mel's house out in the Hills. A beautiful setting. There were eleven of us there, plus Dane and Noem - two cute toddlers :)







Here's part of the spread - cake, fruit salsa, a cookie/pie/cake thing that was so delicious!, and Mel made a quinoa/fruit/chicken salad. She's promised to give me the recipe :)

Janet made her Italian cheese dip with pita chips. Another recipe I need to get! Marcie and Claudia both brought salads, and both were fabulous.

Giselle brought a baked potato bar - such a great idea for a group like this!

I didn't get pictures of everything, but we had plenty of food, plenty of fun, and Lisa announced that they have a new baby on the way.

Now isn't that the perfect way to spend an evening with friends?

(BTW, keep Lisa in your prayers. Her husband in deployed in Afghanistan and she has a very difficult time with her pregnancies. Thanks!)