Kraft Fresh Take Southwest Three Cheese Chicken

Fortunately, Linda is now home after having been out of town taking care of her mother. While she was gone, our youngest daughter and I were left to fend for ourselves. Since we had some of the Kraft Fresh Take recipes on hand, I decided to let her try the Cheddar Jack & Bacon (which I made before with Linda) and also the Southwest Three Cheese, which was new to both of us. Needless to say, I made them on separate nights. Since I’ve already written about the Cheddar Jack & Bacon, I’m only going to cover the Southwest Three Cheese today.

As with the Cheddar Jack & Bacon, this was a very easy dish to prepare. These Kraft dishes remind me a lot of the old Shake-n-Bake. Simply open the bag, separate the two sides and mix. Then add your chicken and mix again. It doesn’t get much easier than that.

Once you’ve coated the chicken, I suggest adding a little more on top once they are in the pan. Then pop it in the oven at 375 for about 30 minutes. That’s all there is to it.

As with the Cheddar Jack & Bacon, the outside gets just a little crispy from the cheese. As I mentioned in that post, don’t flip the chicken halfway through the cooking. It might seem like a good idea, but it looks a lot better if you don’t. Either way they still cook completely so why not make something eye catching and appealing.

I chose to serve the chicken with a side of fries and Ketchup. Kate considered a little hot sauce to go with hers but opted not to so she could see how they were. We both really enjoyed them. I must admit I had a small bit of concern over seeing garlic listed in the ingredients, but I didn’t let that get the better of me. I couldn’t taste the garlic at all.

So far, I’m pretty impressed with the Kraft Fresh Take meals. They are very easy to make and taste great. I think we still have a few varieties to try though including Rosemary & Roasted Garlic. That one will be interesting.

Grilled Southwestern Adobo Pork

Since I liked the Peppercorn Pork grilled, and I liked the Southwestern Adobo Pork cooked in the oven, it seemed a reasonable idea to grill the Southwestern Adobo Pork. I’m really liking these Hatfield pork products and Price Chopper seems to have them on BOGO (Buy One Get One) fairly often. We had thawed this one out expecting to have it earlier in the week, but the weather lately has really screwed with my sinuses. I don’t really feel like eating anything too heavy when I have a headache.

So we had it all thawed out and really needed to cook it since pork doesn’t keep as well as other meats. Linda was having dinner out with an old friend from school, so I figured I might as well cook it up for myself. My brother was coming in to town with his kids on their way to an annual camping trip they take on Columbus Day weekend so I didn’t have a lot of time. Then I remembered that when I grilled the pork it took a lot less time to cook. So I fired up the grill and tossed it on. A few minutes later I went to check on it and, wouldn’t you know it, the gas was out. For most people this might be an issue, but we grill often enough that we keep a spare on hand for just such an occasion. I swapped out the tank and I was cooking with gas again.

I turned it several times to keep it from burning since I left the grill on high. Instead of cooking for an hour in the oven, I think it was done in about half that. This gave me plenty of time to enjoy a nice quiet dinner before the house was due to erupt in laughter. Even though they had eaten on the way over, my brother and his friend (who also brings one of his sons) said it smelled so good they might just have to grab some anyway.

Before I left to pick up Linda from the restaurant, I showed them all how to use the Roku to watch TV, since we cut the cord on cable about a month ago. They were quite surprised at how good stuff looks thru Hulu Plus and Netflix.My brother was particularly interested in how much we’ve saved by getting rid of cable.

When I got back with Linda they turned the TV off and the kids went up to bed since they had an early morning planned.  Then we stayed up chatting and lost track of time until after 11:00. Morning came early at around 6:00 and they hit the road by 6:30 to head up to the Adirondacks.

And I still have leftovers to look forward to.

 

Southwestern Adobo Pork Roast

Lately it seems that I have taken quite a liking to dishes with a Southwestern flavor – a little red pepper kick. I’ve made tilapia, chicken, and salmon with red pepper now. So when I was in Price Chopper and saw a BOGO (Buy One Get One) on Hatfield pork tenderloin and noticed they had a new Southwestern Adobe flavor, I had to pick one up. The other one was Italian, if you’re wondering.

My wife and I really like these Hatfield pork tenderloins. They are pre-seasoned and ready to cook. They take about 45 minutes or so to cook so it gives us time to get some kind of side dish prepared while we wait. We’ve tried several different flavors that we liked – oven roasted, peppercorn, and Italian. However, there was an apple-bourbon that we didn’t care for.

We can now add Southwestern Adobo to the list of flavors that we like. It added a nice kick to the pork without making it too hot and spicy for either of us.