Monday, May 4, 2020

Sweet-as-a-Peach Chicken



  Have you made Pantry Pasta lately? Or a Pantry Omelette? Or a Pantry Sandwich? Basically, this means using what you already have on hand, whatever's in your pantry, to cook a meal. I've noticed that it's been a recent trend in cooking, lately. So I decided to look up a few "pantry" recipes to see what I could find. Then I remembered this recipe that I recently got from my dear friends, Bill and Tina, and it seemed like just the thing! It has ingredients that one might find in a well-stocked pantry, and it's an easy throw together dinner. Perfect! So I gave it a try and it's absolutely delish! At first, you might think that this will wind up tasting like a peach pie, but nope! It's just tasty good eatin'!
 BTW, I should say that the recipe is actually from the Land O' Lakes Recipe Collection Cookbook, but I'll still give Tina the credit, because she's the one who brought it to my attention! It was ready in a snap, and it will definitely feed a crowd, especially if you serve it with a nice green veggie on the side. It's the perfect weeknight dinner and it's just as good as a Sunday Supper.  And the easiest thing about it is that you just might already have all the ingredients in your pantry!



Chicken prep:
1/3 cup butter
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
2 lb pkg boneless chicken breasts
2 10 oz cans refrigerated biscuits

Peach topping:
6 tbs butter
2 tbs cornstarch
2 cans sliced peaches (29 oz and 15.4 oz, 1 large and 1 medium), undrained
3 tbs honey
1/2 tsp cinnamon

In an ungreased 9x13 pan, melt 1/3 cup butter in preheated 350ºF oven for 5-7 minutes. Add salt and 1 tsp cinnamon. Stir to blend. Dip chicken pieces into melted butter. Place chicken back in the same baking dish. Bake for 15 minutes,  Place biscuits on top of chicken. Place bake in the oven, and bake for another 15 minutes or until biscuits are lightly browned and chicken is tender.
Meanwhile, in a sauce pan, melt 6 tbs butter. Add cornstarch. Whisk to blend. Add remaining ingredients. Heat over medium heat until it boils. Boil 1 minute. Spoon peach topping over biscuits.



Tips:
Now, you know I can't just leave a recipe alone, right? As good as it is, I'm still gonna play around with it, just a bit.
To brighten up the flavor of the peach sauce, I added just a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, and it definitely needed salt. I also think it needs a burst of something fresh, like maybe freshly chopped parsley, or maybe some fresh thyme leaves. That was my only thought.. it just needed a little green!
A few other notes...
 I used one can of grand biscuits instead of two of the smaller ones, and I cut each biscuit into quarters. Turned out to be exactly the right amount. Speaking of things and amounts... the peach sauce was WAY too much for the dish, I thought. I only used half of it! Maybe I'll pour the rest of it over ice cream or a nice slice of toasted pound cake!
The original recipe said to pound the chicken thin. I just sliced the large pieces of chicken in half horizontally. So be careful with your thin pieces of chicken.. you don't want them to be overcooked! And finally, when I baked the chicken, it made a lot of juice in the pan, so I drained a bunch of the liquid before pouring the peach topping over it.


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