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Rotisserie chickens to the rescue! : how to use the already-roasted chickens you purchase at the market to make than more 125 simple and delicious meals PDF

360 Pages·2003·1.29 MB·English
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Preview Rotisserie chickens to the rescue! : how to use the already-roasted chickens you purchase at the market to make than more 125 simple and delicious meals

Praise for Rotisserie Chickens to the Rescue! Rotisserie Chickens to the Rescue! features loads of family-friendly meals, including Snappy Smothered Chicken. We devoured every morsel of this recipe during testing. —Southern Living Dedicated with love to the memory of my wonderful parents and to my terrific husband and boys for the joy they bring me! Contents Title Page Praise for Rotisserie Chickens to the Rescue! Dedication Introduction Getting Started Chicken Picking Quick Starts Standout Salads Which Came First? Soups in a Snap Scrumptious Stews Say Sandwich Cozy Casseroles Dinner in a Pot or a Pan Knockout Noodles and Glorious Grains Great Glazes Sizzling Side Dishes Index Acknowledgments About the Author Copyright INTRODUCTION Rotisserie Chickens to the Rescue! was born because I am a time-starved cook who is too stubborn to give up home-cooked meals just because time is tight and my life sometimes borders on chaotic. The concept for this book started with a simple dinner and grew into a quest for letting rotisserie chickens help me do what I have always loved doing: tinkering with recipes, serving myriad different flavors in home-cooked meals, and having the energy to enjoy the meals with everyone else. My love affair with rotisserie chickens began after I invited friends who were passing through town to come for a spur-of-the-moment weeknight dinner. These friends remembered when I used to mix and roll my own pasta and chop tomatoes to make the sauce. With two young sons and very little time, those days were clearly behind me. As I wandered in the grocery store, children in tow and mumbling to myself about needing another pair of hands, I spotted the case filled with rotisserie chickens. The culinary lightbulb went off. The extra pair of hands was right in that case! I knew the chickens were tasty because I had bought them on occasion as a take-out alternative for my family. But they were much more than that. Here was a fresh, already-roasted chicken with tender meat just waiting to be used as the base for an even more exciting, more enticing dish. I realized that day that a rotisserie chicken could be used as an ingredient. A spice blend here, a quick chop there, and Hurry Curry and my love affair with cooking with rotisserie chickens were born. Dinner was delicious and on time, and I was not the least bit frazzled. My guests wondered how I did it. Since I had known them for so long, I divulged my secret weapon. “It was easy,” I replied. “A rotisserie chicken came to my rescue!” HOT OFF THE ROASTING RACKS Spit-roasting, the precursor to rotisserie chickens, is one of the oldest methods of cooking. Rotisserie chickens as we know them first cropped up in American supermarkets in the 1950s. Flavored with barbecue seasonings, they puttered along through the ’60s, an era when new homes often had built-in ovens with a rotisserie. I still remember my mother proudly inching a freshly roasted chicken off the rod. The National Chicken Council informed me that the trend toward in-store roasting appeared to taper off until the 1990s, and then they moved full-speed ahead. You would be hard-pressed to walk into any supermarket and not find these deliciously convenient and reasonably priced chickens waiting for you. In addition, with rotisserie chickens blooming in popularity, there are the countless chickens roasted at home. Chances are you have a roasted chicken in your refrigerator right now. NOT “JUST CHICKEN” ANYMORE In Rotisserie Chickens to the Rescue! I share my secrets for transforming a simple rotisserie chicken, store bought or home roasted, or part of a rotisserie chicken, into something different and delicious using readily available ingredients, easy-to-do techniques, and everyday kitchen equipment. These plump, ready-to-eat treasures can be chopped, sliced, or shredded to become a springboard for creating everything from delicious appetizers and sandwiches to tantalizing soups and casseroles, all with very little time and effort—and no special skill required. You can start with a rotisserie chicken and serve everything from Quick Coq au Vin and Chicken and Biscuit Pot Pie to Hot and Sour Soup and Speedy Skillet Paella. Or they can be doused with an easy homemade glaze for an extra-quick flavor boost. You can even cheat a little by warming the whole chicken and surrounding it with a zippy side dish for a presentation you will be proud of. The recipes in Rotisserie Chickens to the Rescue! have the flavor, convenience, and flexibility we look for in cooking and eating. You buy or roast a chicken, open this book, and suddenly you are not serving “just chicken” anymore. Each scrumptious recipe includes the preparation necessary to maximize flavor while minimizing time and effort. I save even more time without sacrificing the good tastes we all crave by taking advantage of the growing bounty of easy-to-use fresh produce, exciting sauces and salsas, and flavorful ethnic ingredients. Never again will you be faced with having to serve a rotisserie chicken plain or tossing out uneaten chicken a few days later. This book will show you that when you have a rotisserie chicken, you have possibilities! REAL, NOT FANTASY, COOKING I love food fantasy as much as the next food lover, but my family and I need to eat every day. These recipes reflect that. The recipes in this book are ones that real people can cook within realistic time constraints. A few recipes are a tad more involved—for instance, the Muffaletta Salad requires a fair amount of chopping—but most can be on the table with much less to do. In fact, if a recipe became too involved, I thought about the reality of my life and rethought the recipe because your life is probably as busy as mine, and I want you to use these recipes. Why These Recipes Will Work for You One of the things I hope that my book will do is get people in the kitchen cooking, and to do that the recipes must be practical. I use ingredients that are readily available in grocery stores. These recipes were developed, tested, and retested using nonprofessional home ranges because that is what most of you have and I want these recipes to work for you just as I have created them. Professional ranges are much more powerful and can yield different results in different time frames. If you happen to have one, adjust the cooking times as you need to. The only special equipment I used were a food processor in a few recipes and a slow cooker in a smattering of others to take advantage of their convenience. To help ensure that these recipes will work for you, I used the same safety net that big companies do: I engaged other professional testers to double-check them. FAMILY FRIENDLY Feeding a family can be a tricky business. Tight time frames, varied Feeding a family can be a tricky business. Tight time frames, varied preferences, and multiple schedules can make it challenging to feed a family at home. I have two young sons, and they dined on the recipes in this book. The thumbs-up were many and the thumbs-down few. (I would not expect a six-year- old and a three-year-old to want Muffaletta Salad, but I am all for exposing them to new things.) I decided not to label recipes that I thought were especially appropriate for children because each child is different. Instead, I worked to develop recipes that would appeal to several age groups, and they have been tasted by everyone from preschoolers to grandmas. Good descriptions and spice recommendations are included to assist you in selecting what is right for your family. You know your family, and you are the best judge of what they will enjoy. I can tell you, though, that they are sure to like the recipes in this book. HOW TO USE THIS BOOK There are no secrets to using Rotisserie Chickens to the Rescue! It is simple to use. The recipes are straightforward, and the ingredients are easy to find. I have offered tips here and there along with the recipes to make this book even more useful. Among the tips you will find are: Notes—Tips on ingredients or cooking Lighter Touch—Ways to reduce fat or calories In a Pinch—What to do if you are really tight on time or are out of an ingredient Play It Again—Ideas for using leftovers These tips and others are there to help make Rotisserie Chickens to the Rescue! even more fun and practical to cook from.

Description:
Want to serve a home-cooked meal but don't have the time? Rotisserie Chickens to the Rescue! With this easy-to-use, no-fuss, no-fail cookbook, you can take the same rotisserie chickens you can buy anywhere and use these already-roasted birds to create meals that are totally fresh, new, and different
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Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.