McClellan: Recipes to warm your heart and body

Published 5:25 am Tuesday, January 23, 2024

As I write this, the weather has “warmed up” 20 degrees to 30 degrees higher than last week. It was 49 degrees just a few minutes ago when I checked.

This tells me that we still need to be cooking heart-and-body-warming foods. I was looking through some old favorites for this kind of weather. I ran across one of the recipes that we have enjoyed through the years.

Every school in which I have taught has always provided dear friends who shared their favorite foods. I guess “potlucks” are just about the best way there is to share meals and collect recipes.

Many years ago when I was teaching choir at Forest Park Middle School, I met a woman who would become one of my dearest friends — and a terrific recipe-supplier. We lost dear Dawn Powell about five years ago, but I never see or make one of her recipes without remembering how wonderful and caring she was to staff and students alike.

We laughed about the many times I called her for one of her recipes that did make it to Rio Grande Valley after we moved there.

This one today is delicious and one of the less expensive main dishes. I started last week trying to keep up with the cost of various recipes so that I could share the cost per serving with you. I almost did this for this week, but I had chicken in the freezer and had no idea how much I paid for it.

Dawn’s Old West Chicken

6 boneless chicken breast halves

3 tablespoons oil

1 large onion, thinly sliced (see note)

1 medium green bell pepper, thinly sliced

2 teaspoons chili powder

1 cup uncooked white rice (I use long-grain for almost everything)

1 can (8 ounces) tomato sauce

1 1/2 cups water

1 to 2 teaspoons garlic salt

Season the chicken with some of the garlic salt and black pepper. Brown the chicken in a heavy skillet. Remove chicken to plate.

Stir onion and bell pepper in skillet where chicken was cooked. Cook until slightly tender. Add rice, tomato sauce and water and remaining garlic salt. Either place in large casserole dish or leave in skillet if deep enough and has a cover.

Place chicken on top of rice mixture. Cover and bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour until liquid is absorbed. Dawn said that this recipe could be made with pork chops. This makes 6 servings.

Note: Several of you have asked through the years which variety of onions is beat for cooking or eating raw. Yellow onions have a stronger flavor, and white or red (purple) are better raw, I think.

Let’s indulge with a quick pie. It has two of my favorite flavors.

Can’t remember the origin of this recipe, but it came from my earliest days of marriage in 1959.

Peachy Lemon Pie

1 unbaked pie crust (Go ahead and make my easy recipe)

6 1/2 tablespoons melted butter

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons powdered sugar

Mix butter, flour and powdered sugar. Pat into an 8 or 9 inch pie pan or plate.

Pie filling:

1 can (15-16 ounces) canned peach slices, drained (freeze the juice for punch)

3 eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup butter, melted

Juice and grated rind (or zest) of 1 lemon

Place peach slices in bottom of pie crust. Beat eggs and add remaining ingredients. Pour over peach slices.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes until custard is set. Good served any way, but better warm. Makes 6-8 servings.