Chicken With Brandy

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Rating are my personal opinion

This recipe comes to us from the “Favorite Recipes: Homestyle” cookbook from the Blue Ridge Homemakers. This recipe was contributed by Peggy Shaw.

Ingredients

6 whole chicken breasts

4 Tbsp. butter

1 large onion

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 Tbsp. flour

3/4 cup brandy

1/2 beef broth

3/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp black pepper

Dash of cayenne pepper

Pinch of rosemary

1/2 cup sour cream

Directions

Saute chicken in butter. Place in casserole dish. add onion and garlic to pan. Cook until soft. Add flour and mix well till brown. Add brandy, broth, salt, pepper, and seasoning. Stir until smooth. Turn off heat. Add sour cream. Correct seasonings if necessary. Pour over chicken. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Serve with wild rice. Serves 6.

My Review and Alterations

In my meal, I used chicken thighs instead of breasts. I used two cloves of garlic instead of one. I also did not have any brandy and so I used cooking sherry instead. I also forgot to add the sour cream.

I served it over brown rice and peas.

I read the instructions wrong and cooked the chicken through on the stove, so I baked the chicken for only 30 minutes.

While the chicken was juicy and well seasoned, the sauce tasted very alcoholic. The leftovers were good though and the taste seemed to dissipate after a night in the fridge.

Penna Style Green Beans

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Rating is my personal rating

This recipe comes from Homemaker’s Delight by the Fannin County Homemakers, a cookbook from my late Oma. This recipe book is made up of many recipes contributed in 1971. My copy is from the 1998 reprint.

The Penna Style Green Beans were contributed by Gladys Gooch.

Ingredients

3 strips bacon

1 small onion

2 Tbsp. cornstarch

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. dry mustard

1 lb. green beans

1 Tbsp. brown sugar

1 Tbsp. vinegar

1 hard-cooked egg

Directions

Fry bacon in skillet until crisp. Remove bacon and crumble. Drain off all but 1 tablespoon of drippings. Dice and add onion. Brown lightly. Stir in cornstarch, salt, and dry mustard. Drain beans, reserving 1/2 cup of liquid. Stir reserved liquid into skillet. Cook, stirring until mixture boils. Blend in brown sugar and vinegar. Add green beans and heat thoroughly. Turn into serving dish and garnish with egg slices and bacon.

My Insight and Alterations

In the instructions for this recipe it says to “drain beans”, but in the instructions it does not say to use canned beans. Mrs. Gooch most likely used canned green beans. In my video I used fresh, but 2- 8 oz cans of beans would equal the 1 pound needed.

With fresh green beans, add the beans after the cornstarch and let them cook on medium high heat, stirring occasionally for 4-5 minutes. Add 1/2 cup of water and cover the pan with a lid immediately. Let steam for 7 minutes, then mix in the brown sugar and vinegar. Turn into a serving dish and garnish.

I forgot to crumble my bacon and didn’t make any hard-boiled eggs due to time constraints.

Conclusion

These green beans were amazing. The sauce was sweet, but not too much and the beans were crisp. However, the sauce thickened oddly in the pan after a bit, but upon reheating, it returns to a better consistency.

Homemade Bread Crumbs

Recently I found a stack of old cookbooks from my grandmothers. Since Red1 has a successful Tiktok account, my mom gave me the idea to expand Groovy Artichokes past this blog. We now have a Tiktok account linked to this blog called Groovy Artichokes where I will be posting videos of all the recipes I try from those cookbooks, starting today.

My first video: bread crumbs. A classic.

Bread Crumb Recipe

To make bread crumbs, you’ll need one thing – bread. The type of bread doesn’t matter, ends or normal pieces, gluten-free or otherwise. Today I used the ends of bread from many loaves that we save in the freezer. In a pinch, just use a whole loaf of bread.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Cut your bread slices into the sized pieces you want.

My best recommendation is to cut the crumbs to the size you need

Place bread cubes on a baking sheet and put in the oven until they are completely dry.

Remove the bread crumbs. At this point, if you cut the crumbs small enough, you’re done, but if you didn’t continue. Place the crumbs in a food processor and pulse until they reach the desired size. Behind the scenes of my video, I tried my food processor but it wasn’t cutting the crumbs. I think the blades need sharpening.

Anyway, I used our NutriBullet, but it powdered the breadcrumbs, so I don’t recommend doing that.

These bread crumbs can be used for anything requiring bread crumbs. I used the powder for meatloaf.