Vege-Chicken Broccoli Braid

Vege-Chicken Broccoli Braid fresh out of the oven.

Sheila and I learned this dish from the second greatest potluck hosters in the world after Adventists - the Lutherans.  We worked for several years running a Lutheran intergenerational day care center and were invited to some really nice potlucks with these lovely people. They introduced us to some very interesting Nordic and Teutonic dishes over the years and the Chicken Broccoli Braid was one of our favorites.  Here's Sheila's vegetarian version of the vege-chicken broccoli braid.

Ingredients:

•  2 cans of Loma Linda Chik'n Chunks, Loma Linda Fried Chik'n, Worthington Diced Chik, Worthington Fri-Chik diced
• 1 cup fresh or frozen broccoli chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped red or green bell pepper
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese or finely diced Velveeta
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 2 tsp dried dill weed
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp slivered almonds
• 1/4 cup diced onion
• 2 8 oz. tubes of refrigerated crescent roll dough

Directions:

1. In a mixing bowl stir together diced vege-chicken, chopped broccoli, chopped peppers, garlic powder and cheese.
2. Stir in 1/2 cup mayo, dill weed, salt and onions. Set chicken/broccoli mixture aside.
3. Preheat oven to 350°
4. On a baking sheet or baking stone, lay out the dough as shown in the photo below. This arrangement uses 1/2 of the chicken/broccoli mixture and one tube of crescent roll dough.  By adding the second tube laid out on a longer baking sheet and using all the mixture you can make one big broccoli braid.
5. Spread the vege-chicken/broccoli/cheese mixture down the length of the dough as shown and fold the triangles over the mixture as shown in the series of pictures below and press the edges together.
6. Bake until brown on top and bubbling a bit. To get a crispy brown top, brush the top with butter or olive oil just before the top turns brown (optional), then bake until golden brown.

Serving Suggestions:

Serve piping hot on a long serving tray or wooded cutting board with a sharp knife. Cut the braid into slices or let everyone slice it themselves. This thing is amazingly delicious. You will utterly impress everyone with this beautiful potluck dish. Of course, people will expect you to bring it to all the potlucks. And that's not a bad thing. You can make it on Friday, wrap it up in plastic wrap and reheat it in the morning before church. 

© 2016 by Tom King

 Lay out the dough like so.

Add the chicken/broccoli mixture down the center.

Fold the "wings" over the dough mixture

Fold to the bottom and press the edges together

Ready for the oven!

Vege-Chicken Pot Pies

Homemade Vege-Chicken Pot Pie

I'm kind of a fan of those little pot pies, so I decided to see if I could figure out how to make a vegetarian version. Turns out I could and they are pretty tasty if I do say so myself. The ingredients are pretty simple and prep isn't bad either. You'll just need a lot of large muffin pans.  Here's how it works:

Ingredients:

Pie Crust
    1 cup                                All-purpose white flour
    1/2  tsp                             Salt
    1/3 cup plus 1 tbsp           Shortening
    2 to 3 tablespoons            Cold water
    1 can                                Canola Spray

Filling
    1/8 cup                            White flour
    2 tbsp                               Oil
    1/4 cup                             Milk
    2 tbsp                               McKay's Chicken Seasoning
    1 pkg                                Frozen Mixed Vegetables
    1 tbsp                               Cajun or New Orleans Style seasoning
    1 can (diced)                    Loma Linda Chik'n Chunks, Loma Linda
                                             Fried Chik'n, Worthington Diced Chik,
                                             Worthington FriChik


Directions: 

1. Make up the pie crust. I use my trusty Kitchen-Aid to cut together the ingredients. Cut it all together, adding the water last till it's forms little balls somewhere between b-b's and small marbles. Then press it all together into a dough ball, then roll it our thin to make the pie crusts.I made a double batch. You might even have to triple it.
2. In a large skillet add oil and heat on medium.  Once it's hot, sprinkle in a couple of spoons of flour and stir it in. Add a little flour at a time until it begins to thicken. Then slowly add milk and seasoning and then put in water as the mixture thickens. 
3. Pour mixed vegetables and diced canned vege-chicken into the sauce mixture. Heat until it bubbles and everything is thoroughly cooked. Remove from heat and set aside.
4. Preheat oven to 375º.
5.  Spray the muffin pans with canola oil. 
6.  Find a glass about as big around as the bottom of the muffin compartments. Cut little disks from the pie dough and place them in the bottom of each muffin compartment. Then cut strips as wide as the depth of the muffin compartments and wrapped them around the inside of the compartment.  Press the dough together at the bottom edge to make a little dough cup.
7. Fill each cup with chicken and vegetable filling. 
8. Find a larger glass or biscuit cutter that's larger than top of the muffin compartment.  Cut pie dough into disks and lay them atop the muffin compartments.  Pinch the edges of the sides together with the top to make a mini-pie.  With a very sharp knife, cut 3 small slits in the pie covers to vent as the pies bake. 
9. Bake on a baking sheet until crust begins to brown around the edges. 

Serving Suggestion:

Hot from the oven after I swiped two of them....

I serve them in a bowl as the insides can be a bit juicy. It's kind of difficult to get them out of the muffin tins intact, but as you can see in the picture at the top, it can be done. With the mixed veges it makes a pretty complete meal all by itself. If you plan to take pictures for your foody website, have your camera handy when you pull it out of the oven or by the time you get back from fishing your trusty digital out of your camera bag, you may have a rather incomplete picture. This time, I'm afraid it was me that raided the pot pies. I'm sorry but I was very hungry. Anyway, you get the idea of what they looked like. The spray oil keeps them relatively loose in the tins. I slipped a table knife around the edges and the lifted them out with two tablespoons. The last two (which came out intact and one of which is pictured above), I removed by placing a plate upside down over the tin, holding the tin and plate together and then flipping them over so they came out upside down onto the plate. I gingerly turned the pies over with a spatula and took a picture of one for evidence for the blog (see above).

You could easily make up a bunch of these for a potluck and take them arranged nicely on a plate. I'd probably cook them in cupcake papers, though, just to make sure they hold together.

© 2016 - Tom King
(photos by me)

Easy Vege-Chicken & Mac Casserole

Here's another vege-chicken casserole you can throw together from miscellaneous stuff you have in your cabinet. I added a box of spiral twist mac & cheese and a cup of fusilli or corkscrew pasta and onions and mushrooms. It can be made up and then baked at the church or baked ahead of time and heated in the microwave. As with most casseroles, it actually tastes a little better after it sits overnight in the fridge. There are several options you can try if you are missing an ingredient or have something extra you might want to pitch in. The recipe's flexible.



Ingredients:

• 1 can Loma Linda Chik'n Chunks, Worthington Fri-Chik, Worthington Diced Chik, Loma Linda Fried Chik'n
• 1 can cream of mushroom or cream of celery soup
• 1 box spiral mac and cheese (or any variety mac & cheese kit)
• 1 cup fusilli pasta
• 1/4 cup butter or margarine (to prepare mac & cheese mix)
• 1/4 cup milk (to prepare mac & cheese mix)
• 1 tbsp Tony's Cajun seasoning or New Orleans Style seasoning
• 1/2 onion chopped and/or green pepper
• 1/2 cup diced mushrooms
• 3/4 cup dried bread crumbs, crushed tortilla chips or crackers
• Sliced or chopped olives

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. 
2. Boil water and add macaroni from mac & cheese box and a cup of fusilli (twisted) pasta 
3. In a small frying panSautee the onions, mushrooms and other veggies lightly, then add diced vege-chicken and cook thoroughly. Once cooked, drain off excess fluid
4. Mixed up macaroni, butter, milk and cheese sauce mix from mac & cheese kit in a bowl.
5. Fold in the onion/mushroom/vegechicken mix.
6. Add can of mushroom or celery soup and stir into the mix.
7. Spread mixture over the bottom of an ungreased 13 x 9-inch baking dish.
8. Cover the top of the mixture with bread crumbs, crushed tortilla chips or crackers
9. Top with diced or sliced olives
10. Bake 30 minutes or until bubbly.

Serving Suggestion:

This is another one that's easy to make on Friday and take to potluck on Sabbath. Proportions of ingredients are not critical and since you already cook all the ingredients before putting it in the casserole, you don't have to worry about it being done. It reheats really well Cover it with aluminum foil for storage and transport. For the sample dish I used seasoned bread crumbs, but you can also use unseasoned ones and adjust the seasoning to taste. It's easy to prepare and hard to mess up.

© 2016 by Tom King

Grandma's Vege-Chicken Casserole

At the end of the holiday season, you get a lot of stuffing mix on sale at the grocery store. So here's something you can do with all that stuffing. It makes a casserole that's tasty with leftover cranberry sauce.It's based on a Betty Crocker chicken casserole recipe that some grandmother or other made up for a quickie way to stretch out some leftover chicken.  It's perfect for making a large dish from a can of veggie-chicken.

Ingredients:

• 1 can Loma Linda Chik'n Chunks, Worthington Fri-Chik, Worthington Diced Chik, Loma Linda Fried Chik'n
• 1 can cream of mushroom or cream of celery soup
• 1 package stuffing mix bread crumbs (don't use the spice mix unless the bread crumbs are unflavored)
• 1/4 cup melted butter or margarine
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup grated cheese. 

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.   
2. Place diced vege-chicken in a bowl with stuffing bread crumbs and mushroom soup and mix it up evenly with melted butter.
3. Spread mixture over the bottom of an ungreased 13 x 9-inch baking dish. 
4. Top with shredded cheese. 
5. Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until bubbly.

Serving Suggestion:

This is one of those make it on Friday and take it to potluck on Sabbath dishes. It reheats well AND it actually tastes better the next day.This is your basic cover it with foil potluck dish; great for reheating.

© 2015 by Tom King

King Ranch Vege-Chicken, Mac and Cheese

King Ranch Vege-Chicken Mac & Cheese

Once again we journey back down to the King Ranch (no kin of mine - they're rich/I'm not) to borrow a recipe and vegetarianize it for potluck. This is a lovely one that turned out ridiculously delicious. Again, this is a potluck dish and therefore celebratory in nature. I do not suggest you make a whole skilletful of this stuff and eat it by yourself (even if you do share some with your wife and the dog). It's made to be consumed in normal portions at Sabbath potlucks where calories do not count as we all know.

If you've tried out my King Ranch Chicken recipe, you have a general idea where we're going. It's a fresh, Southwestern Tex-Mex take on the macaroni and cheese casserole. Mostly, the big difference between it and King Ranch Chicken is that we're substituting macaroni for tortillas. It's really good and won't last long on the potluck serving table, especially if you draw attention to it by baking it in a big iron skillet. There's just something about serving things in a big iron skillet that makes them look that much more tasty.

Here's how it works:

Ingredients:

1. Macaroni or similar pasta
2. Salt (to taste)
3. Milk
4. Loma Linda Chicken Chunks or other vegetarian chicken substitutes like Worthington Fri-Chik, Worthington Diced Chik or even cut up Morningstar Farms Chicken Nuggets or Patties.
5. Cream of Mushroom soup
6. Cheddar Cheese
7. 1/4 to 1/2 cup sour cream (optional)
8. Velveeta
9. Chopped onion
10. Chopped bell peppers
11. Margarine
12. Picante sauce or (if you like it a bit hotter) Ro-Tel Tomatoes and Chilis (small can)
13. Chili Powder
14. Cumin
15. Tortilla chip crumbs
16. Black olives (optional)

Directions:

1.  Heat the oven to 350 degrees.  Put a big pot of water on to boil.
2. When the pot of water boils add enough macaroni to fill the skillet after the macaroni swells up, or (as I did) throw in bits of leftover rotini, pene or whatever loose leftover dried pasta you have hanging around the kitchen. I like the variety and it's a great way to use up any leftover macaroni products you have in your cupboard. Don't worry about quantity. The recipe is very forgiving.
3.  While the macaroni is boiling, get out your big iron skillet or a dutch oven and saute' a handful of chopped onions and a handful of chopped bell peppers till they soften. I threw in a few mild red bell peppers and an even fewer hot red peppers for color.  You can use any color bell pepper you want. 
4. When the peppers are done, set them aside in a small bowl, put a light smear of olive oil on the bottom of the skillet and cook the Chick'n Chunks till they start to brown.
5. Meanwhile back at the Ranch, your macaroni should be done.  Drain it and pour it into a large mixing bowl.  Add a tablespoon of margarine and an eighth cup of milk or so, 4 to 6 ounces of Velveeta cut into cubes to make them easier to melt.  Stir well until the cheese begins to melt. Add sour cream if you want to. Makes things smooth and nice.
6. At this point, I like to add leftover cheeses to the mix. This time I had some provolone slices I cut into strips and some Parmesan I sprinkled into the mix. You can also add the cheese packets from Kraft Mac & Cheese boxes too. The cheese flavors make a nice mixed flavor. Don't add the cheddar cheese yet.
7. As the cheese gets melted, add the onions, peppers and by now cooked Chick'n Chunks. Stir vigorously.  Stir in Rotel tomatoes & chilis or Picante Sauce. For a nice Tex-Mex I use either Pace Picante Sauce or San Antonio Riverwalk Picante' Sauce (available at Walmart). I go mild, but knock yourself out. Both come in medium and hot also.  Rotel even has a "mild" version but where's the fun in that?
8. Add salt, cumin and chili powder to taste. I only added about 1/4 to 1/2 tsp. of each. My folk like their Tex-Mex mild. 
9. Stir it all up thoroughly.  Wipe the inside of the skillet with margarine to coat the sides and reduce stickage.  Pour in all that cheese macaroni.  Top with shredded cheddar and lightly crushed tortilla chips.  I always save the crumbles at the bottom of the bag for use on casseroles. I've got a special jar just for chip crumbles. My Sweet Baboo hates when I leave a bag with just a few crushed chips at the bottom. I respect that and have changed my methods of chip crumble storage.
10. Now that you've got a mound of cheesy mac casserole in your skillet, covered with cheddar and tortillas, pop it all into the oven and cooked till bubbly on top with little browned spots - 20 minutes or so, but watch it so you don't burn it.

Presentation:
Take along one of those nice straw hot pads and set the skillet on top of it. I make an aluminum tent over the whole thing while transporting it. One of the great things about this dish is that it tastes even better if you make it Friday and take in on Sabbath. It holds up nicely in the warming oven, especially if you freshen it with more crisp tortilla crumbles. It looks great. has a name you can remember so you can tell people exactly what it is when they ask you for the recipe. 

Neat Trick for Would-Be Potluck Legends:
If you want to be really helpful to your fellow potluckers, make up a stack of business cards (you can get them for your computer printer at Office Depot or someplace like that).  Print the name of the dish and the web address where they can pick up a copy of this or any other recipe we've shown you here. People like knowing the name of the dish and where they can get the recipe without having to follow you around to get it.

I like this dish because it doesn't taste like ordinary Mac & Cheese. It has a nice Tex-Mex flavor. If I would do anything different, next time I'd make sure I had some black olive slices to put on top.

You should pester all the great cooks at your potlucks to send me their recipes at twayneking@gmail.com . I'll post it on the website and give them credit as the chef who donated the recipe. Then they can do handout cards to share recipes with fellow potluckers.  The younger moms will really appreciate getting new recipes that can one day become family favorites.

Let me know how it comes out. 

Tom King
(c) 2015

Tender-Rounds Murphy

I ran out of Fri-Chik or this would be Fri-Chik Murphy. As soon as I get some more vege-chicken, I'll do the Vege-chicken Murphy recipe. My wife and I love this little Italian restaurant in Tyler. It was the first restaurant we ate at after we moved there back in 1995. We'd been separated for a while and I was sure glad to see my Sweet Baboo again.

Little Italy, the restaurant in question, makes a dish called Chicken Murphy. Chicken Murphy is a pasta dish made with an amazing pasta sauce that's something somewhere between a marinara sauce and an Alfredo sauce. We've tried for years to duplicate it with mixed results. One of the problems with duplicating it is that the sauce used to vary depending on which chef was in the kitchen the night you went to the restaurant. 

I think we've finally got it, though. It's an unusual "Italian" dish in that it uses jalapenos in the sauce. It sounds strange, but the stuff is amazing. It's a sherry wine sauce, but like they say, the alcohol cooks off. I thought, if the alcohol cooks off, what's the point of putting it in.  So here's what I came up with in our latest experiment.  It takes a couple of diversions from the original sauce, but it's really pretty good. You can tell it's good by how much I overdid the sauce in the picture.

Murphy Sauce Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup margarine or butter
• 1 cup evaporated milk
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1-1/2 cup grated parmesan
• 1/4 cup spaghetti sauce
• Small can mushrooms or 1/2 cup fresh slice mushrooms
• 2-3 whole jalepenos
• 1/2 bell pepper sliced
• Sparkling grape juice or sparkling apple cranberry juice
• Loma Linda Tender Rounds or Worthington Fri-Chik or

Directions for the sauce:

1.  Slice jalepenos into round segments. Cut out and remove the seeds and centers so the jalapenos will be milder while still retaining their flavor
2. Place butter in skillet and sautee jalapenos, bell peppers and mushrooms until softened
3. Add evaporated milk, garlic powder, Parmesan and spaghetti sauce
4. Heat till bubbling. Add 2-3 tablespoons of sparkling juice. Grape works, but I like the apple-cranberry better. I discovered it by accident when Walmart was selling bottles of the stuff for a dollar after the Christmas season. I wish now I'd bought the whole case of it they had on the clearance rack. 
5. Add Tender-Rounds, Fri-chik or Diced-Chik as you wish.
6. Bring to a simmer and cover. Make spaghetti according to directions on the box.

Serving suggestion:

Ladle sauce over a bed of spaghetti. Serve with salad and wheat rolls.


Alternate suggestion:

•  Pour spaghetti sauce in a skillet
• Add Tender Rounds and heat.
• Works like spaghetti and meatballs 
• Also tasty with salad and wheat rolls.

Bon appetite!

Tom
(c) 2015

King Ranch Vegetarian Chicken

Tex-Mex at it's best....

One of the advantages of being the family cook is that you get to make things you like and if anybody complains, you can just whip off your apron and hand it to them. You'd be surprised how few takers you get. One of the disadvantages, of course, is you have to clean up afterward, but if you're a guy who is also a good-enough cook, the womenfolk feel guilty and will clean up for you. Secretly, even women, who are completely fed up with cooking, feel proprietary about "their" kitchens and will never fully relinquish control to a mere man. I, apparently, have never fully mastered the art of proper dish cleaning and putting things away where they belong. The ladies throw me out of the kitchen in frustration ever once in a while and make a fabulous meal to show me who's boss and do a really thorough and proper cleanup.

Boy do I ever learn my lesson when they do that!

King Ranch Chicken is a fantastically popular potluck chicken dish. It can be fiery stuff if you go with the very hot Rotel Tomatoes, but it's not too overly spicy the way we make it. Still it has plenty of Tex-Mex flavor. The dish is named after the famous King Ranch in south Texas which takes up an entire county south of Corpus Christi and upon which the movie "Giant" was based.  My wife reconstructed this dish for me the other day from memory. Her version is wonderful and she walked me through the preparation. It was all kind of delicious.  Wish you could have been there. 

Since you weren’t, I’m going to tell you how it was made so you can make it yourself and give your family a real treat.  This is one of those dishes, guys, that you can make one of your specialties on nights you’ve got kitchen duty. Plenty of manly chopping and dicing to preserve your image and if you make it, your wife can’t skimp on the cheese.

Tools:

Cutting board

Sharp knife

Large casserole dish or baking pan

Electric skillet

Ingredients:

• 2 boxes of Morningstar Farms Vegetarian Chicken Patties or 2 cans of Worthington Fri-Chik or Worthington Diced-Chik vegetarian chicken
• 2 cans mushroom soup
• 1 can Rotel ™ tomatoes and green chilies (mild to hot – your choice)
• 8 oz. Shredded cheddar cheese
• ¼ block Velveeta ™ cheese, diced small
• Small onion – chopped
• Bell pepper – chopped
• Small jar of jalapeno slices
• 15 corn tortillas
• Sour cream
• Small can sliced black olives (optional)
• Olive oil

Preparation:

1. Dice up the vege-chicken pieces into small cubes.Worthington offers diced vegetarian chicken if you prefer. I like to crisp them in the skillet along with the onions and peppers.
2. Sautee the chopped onion and bell pepper with the diced chicken in a little oil in the electric skillet. I prefer olive oil because it’s a healthier fat, but any oil will do.  Dice up a few jalapeno slices and toss them into the oil.  I only put a palmful of small pieces into this recipe - enough to lightly flavor it without adding a lot of heat or a nasty surprise for those with tender tongues. One thing you can do to tame the fire of jalapeno peppers is to slice them and then cut out the seeds and inside bits, leaving only green jalapeno pepper rings. All the flavor and you won't make little kids cry.
3. When the onion, jalapeno and bell pepper are done, pour in the 2 cans of soup and the can of Rotel ™. Any tomatoes and green chilies will do. I like the mild Rotel for the sake of the children.  Otherwise this dish can get a bit fiery. 
4. Stir in the vege-chicken pieces and heat the mixture till it begins to bubble. Then turn off the skillet.
5. Chop the tortillas into strips.
6. Lay down a layer of tortilla strips in the bottom of the casserole dish.
7. Spread a layer of diced Velveeta ™ evenly over the tortillas about an inch or two apart, then cover with a layer of soup/chicken/veggies mix – not too thick.  You can sprinkle on a layer of black olives if you want them at this point.
8. Repeat one more time with tortillas, Velveeta, chicken mix and olives (optional).
9. Sprinkle grated cheddar cheese over the top to give it a finished look and because I like a lot of cheese.  You can also add a few optional jalapenos and black olives to make it pretty. Spread out the jalapenos so the wimpy people with tender tongues can find them easily and pick them off. If you cut out the centers, they won't have to.
10. Cover the casserole dish with foil and bake in the oven at 350 degrees till the cheese on top is thoroughly melted and the whole thing begins to bubble at the sides.  Turn off the oven and let it set there till you have the rest of the meal set out.

Presentation:

A couple of dollops of sour cream on this after you take it out makes a really tasty garnish with maybe a little sprinkling of cilantro.  This dish goes really well with a nice green salad, Ranch dressing and a few crisp corn tortilla chip strips for garnish, iced tea and a big bowl of sweet corn.  You don’t need a bread with this because of the tortillas in the casserole.  This recipe serves about six people or four typical Texans. I like to bring out the Fiesta-ware to serve this meal on because anytime you make King Ranch casserole, it's a fiesta!. If you don't have any Fiesta-ware, I highly recommend you scoot by Marshall Pottery in Marshall, Texas and get you some plates and saucers and stuff that are just like the original Fiesta-ware my grandmother used to serve us meals on when I was a kid. King Ranch casserole just screams for those colorful Fiesta-ware plates.

The other nice thing about this recipe is that it's easy to stretch - very forgiving of variations in ingredients. You can add more vege-chicken and veggies, another can of soup, some extra tortillas or more cheese to stretch it out for a family gathering or potluck at church. The recipe is very forgiving.

You're really going to like this Texas treat.

Tom King © 2011