Roasted Sticky Chicken Legs

by Kim Tilley // June 29, 2015 // 9 Comments

Roasted Sticky Chicken Legs, one of our family favorites!

Sticky chicken. Mmmm. It’s really amazing. This has been a family favorite of ours since I found the recipe online over 17 years ago on Mimi’s Cyber Kitchen. It was also one of the first recipes in my Once a Month Cooking Chicken Plan, which I’m working on revising for the new site. You can find the old version here.

The original recipe calls for a whole chicken. Over the years, I’ve adapted this for my family and our budget. We’ve successfully used it with whole turkeys, turkey breasts, and chicken legs. I’ve adapted the recipe so much that it’s not much like the original, though some of the spices are the same as well as the method of slow roasting. And it is GOOD.

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Home > Dinner

Easy Enchiladas with Homemade Red Chili Sauce

by Kim Tilley // June 17, 2015 // 10 Comments

Yes, you really can make easy, gooey, delicious restaurant-style enchiladas at home, and for cheap!

I love Mexican food. I blame Dad. He grew up on the border of Arizona and Mexico, and ate a lot of real, authentic Mexican food. So of course, that’s what he wanted when he ended up on the East Coast with Mom and us kids. We often went out to the best Mexican restaurants they could find in the Washington, DC area.

I still have great memories of the incredible salsa and calabacita at the Tortilla Factory, but my all time favorite Mexican restaurant in the area was Anita’s. I believe they are still in business. I hope so. I still have food dreams about that place! They served the most amazing red chili sauce over everything, and we couldn’t get enough of it on Carne Adovada and Huevos Rancheros.

Mom (also an Anita) would often duplicate our favorite recipes at home. We could never find the right red chili sauce though. Heaven knows we tried. The canned stuff was expensive and not very good. Recipes for red chili sauce were varied and none tasted quite like what we wanted. Continue reading →

Home > Dinner

Mom’s Awesome Curry Chicken

by Kim Tilley // June 15, 2015 // 2 Comments

I admit it. I am SO spoiled. I have an incredible, talented, creative mother who not only loves to write, paint, draw and tell amazing stories, but she also loves to cook. Her passion for food would probably brand her a “foodie” these days. And boy, did we kids get all the advantages of that! She would cook things from all around the world whenever the mood struck. And they were always good. I remember going with her to a Chinese grocery store to watch their cooking lessons and then making the meals at home. It was the first time I’d ever eaten black fungus, in a dish called “Ants Climbing a Hill.” It was delicious!

We also ate a lot of Mexican, French, and Italian food. But it was her Curry Chicken that I loved the most. I could eat that stuff for days, and often did. Somehow I spent more time eating than learning how to cook. So when I finally had a family of my own and tried to figure this all out for myself, I begged her for the recipe and was surprised at how easy it was! You could even do it in a microwave! Continue reading →

Home > Dinner

Kim’s Easy Homemade Pizza

by Kim Tilley // May 30, 2015 // 10 Comments

Let’s talk pizza for a moment. Thick, gooey, fluffy dreaminess that you can really sink your teeth into. Not from a store or from a greasy take out place. But from your own kitchen. For pennies. No rising time. No kidding!

I’ve been making this pizza every week for 20 years; as a stay at home mom, as a working mom, rain or shine. I could probably make it in my sleep. It takes 20 minutes to prep, 20 minutes to bake. And it costs just $6 for two huge pizzas! The crust is wonderfully fluffy. The cheese is gooey and the sauce, oh my gosh the sauce is amazing. You can add whatever toppings you like, but everyone here prefers pepperoni, so that’s what I make.

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