Eat This: Paprikash Chicken

So Friday we got our tax refund and like all normal Americans we ate out all weekend. Now I've been thrusted back into normal money world...boo.
Two weeks ago my husband proclaimed that if he found things in the newspaper that sounded good, he would tell me, and I would make them. Once I stopped making "that" face I remembered that I am forever asking him what he wants for dinner because I'm tired of coming up with ideas and then getting really mad when he can't think of anything. So....hole dug.
Tonight's menu is now featuring newspaper paprikash chicken. Yippee for Hungarians. I would just put their recipe here, but frankly it needs a LOT of spicing up.....so this is my rendition.

4 pounds of chicken ( I hate chicken and even worse chicken on the bone - however this dish is for my husband so I will make it for him...so use boneless breasts or a whole fryer...whatever floats your boat.)
Some salt
3 Tbsp butter
3 Tbsp vegetable oil (not olive oil as it will smoke out)
2 Tbsp sweet paprika (if you are a slave to the regular grocery store, you may want to use more to insure the flavor comes through)
1 Tbsp garlic powder or granulated
**Whatever other flavors you like here...I put celery salt in everything and added some chili powder to spice it up a bit**
1/2 C tomato juice
1 C sour cream
3 Tbsp flour

Melt butter in the vegetable oil.
Lightly salt the chicken
Add the paprika, garlic, and spices of your choice, and saute for a minutes...not too long or it will burn as the chicken browns.
Add chicken and cook 4 minutes on each side or until browned
Remove the chicken and set aside
Add onions and saute until soft - about 4 minutes
Add tomato juice to pan (I used the juice from canned diced tomatoes so I added some of the tomatoes as well)
Return chicken, cover, cook on medium for about 40 minutes.
Remove chicken from pan
Mix flour and sour cream together and then stir into pan...stir constantly until the sauce thickens
Serve sauce over chicken


I served this over rice but I think it would be great over boiled or roasted potatoes or even lightly buttered egg noodles.
This turned out really oily...try cutting back on the vegetable oil. It was also a little blander than I care for so definitely taste it for seasoning before serving. Eating the chicken on bone was a bit tedious (aside from the fact that doing that grosses me out) and just for the sole purpose of cutting some of the fat out of this I would really recommend using boneless chicken breasts. This dish is also really lacking in the presentation department.
Those things aside, the husband seemed to really like it...so it's a keeper.

Grilled Chicken Spinach/BBQ Chicken Pizza

Sometimes I just really don't feel like cooking and sometimes I just don't have time to put forth the effort so I thought I would share our menu too.

Last night was one of those I just don't have time nights...which turns into pizza night and there is one thing I hate making is crust...pie crust, pizza crust, any light bread product...I hate it..so I am happy to freely admit that I buy pizza crust that is ready made...I don't even have to spread it out. So a big shout out to Kroger brand pizza crust!
Last night I made a pizza that was half grilled chicken and spinach and the other half was barbeque chicken. It was easy, easy to sneak veggies to the three year old and the husband, cheap, and was seriously really tasty.

1 pizza crust
A little less than a half a jar of Alfredo sauce
Some BBQ sauce
2 chicken breasts/cubed(I grilled them off on the Foreman with loads of garlic powder and pepper)
1 1/2 C frozen spinach (thaw in microwave)
However much italian type cheese you take on your pizza

**so alfredo on one side, bbq on the other. Spread chicken evenly. Sprinkle spinach on the alfredo side. top with cheese. bake as per crust directions.

In hindsight, the bbq side wouldve been really great with carmelized red onions and the spinach side wouldve been great with roasted red peppers.

And a great discovery for those with children that wont eat anything green or that doesnt look like cheese or a chicken finger...you can very easily hide spinach in a regular pizza with marinara. I pick my battles on the food front and am not above sneaking in vegetables.