Freezer Food Friday - Chicken & Biscuits

I'm very late getting this posted today because I had to be at work early this morning. At any rate, here it is, finally! Thanks to What a Crock!, the host of Freezer Food Friday. I enjoy participating and hope more of you will join us!

I absolutely love Chicken and Biscuits and although I don't eat it often it surely is comfort food for me. I've tried a lot of recipes for Chicken and Biscuits and though most turned out fine, this is one I prefer, though I admit that I make it slightly different each time because how I prepare it depends entirely on what I have on hand. This is one of those "take it and make it your own" recipes.

Chicken & Biscuits

3 cups chicken, cooked and chopped (I use leftover chicken)
3 cups chicken broth (water and chicken bouillon work, too, as does vegetable broth)
5 small carrots, chopped
1/2 to 3/4 onion, chopped (I use more)
4 celery stalks, chopped (I leave this out most of the time since it gives my man person mean heartburn)
8 ounces mushrooms, fresh (canned work too)
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 cup frozen green peas (green beans are good, also)
3 Tablespoons cornstarch
1/3 cup cold water (sometimes I use the juice from canned vegetables)
biscuits, uncooked (home made are great but canned work too)

Bring chicken broth to a boil and add garlic and vegetables. Simmer about 15 minutes. Add chicken and peas or beans and cook on low heat for about 10 minutes. Make a paste with the cornstarch and cold water and carefully add it to the chicken mixture a little at a time, stirring well. Cook and stir until similar consistency to gravy. Remove from heat and cool.

If you're going to eat it now, just pour everything into a casserole dish, top with biscuits, and bake at 375 for about 30 minutes or until the biscuits are light brown.

To freeze, pour into a glass casserole dish, cover with foil, place in a good freezer bag and place in freezer.

When ready to eat, thaw then place in 375 degree oven for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and place raw biscuit dough or pre-made biscuits on top. Bake 20 to 25 minutes until hot and biscuits are lightly browned.

Make and freeze burritos

My other half and the 16 year old boy love burritos and now and then we buy them on sale at the grocery but though the price may be good, the nutritional content isn't. So today we made a batch of burritos for the freezer. I haven't done this in a long while and recruited my man person for opinions and tasting but the burritos are in the freezer now and my men folk are happy.

We like more meat than beans in the burritos but understand that beans do lend something to economy and nutrition. Unfortunately, they also lend quite a bit to the carbohydrate count and since two of us have Type II diabetes that's an issue to consider. In the end, here's what we did:

Browned 2.5 lbs of ground beef with some onion. When it was browned I drained the fat, put the meat into a colander, and rinsed it well under running hot water, breaking the meat into very small pieces as I rinsed it. Once it was rinsed and drained again I put it back in the wok on a very low flame and added two cans of Ranch Style Beans which had been well drained and mashed with a fork and a can of Ro-tel, drained. I mixed it all up and added crushed red pepper, garlic powder, a little salt, some black pepper and some chili powder. Then I ran it all through the blender, using the 'chop' function to mix it and mash the beans a little more. My other half tasted and added until it was to his liking so I don't have quantities of those spices. Just do it til it tastes right and you should have a gloppy mess that looks something like this.



Once the filling was right, I spooned some (two to three large serving spoons full) onto the edge of a low carb flour tortilla, added some shredded Monterey Jack cheese, and rolled it up.



Then I just placed it on a cookie sheet seam side down.



I also made some with regular tortillas and the 16 year old will eat those. Each full cookie sheet went to the freezer and once the burritos are frozen they'll be individually packaged in freezer paper, labeled, bagged and put back in the freezer.

So there you have it, my basic burrito making method. It's easily adapted to whatever you have on hand or are in the mood for.

By the way, the burritos made with the low carb tortillas have a carb count of approximately 6 grams per burrito and the cost of each burrito is approximately $.50 with all the ingredients purchased on sale. I get 13 to 15 burritos per batch.

I really need to make a batch of these once a week for quick and easy snacks.

The 16 year old just had one and told me it was very good but not hot enough. Okay, more crushed red pepper in his and perhaps a little jalapeno.