“Country-Style” carries multiple definitions and connotations. The author of 9-45: Country-Style Sausage Medley surmised that a dish containing this many varieties of vegetables must be “country-style”. Chicken sausage is a low calorie option, however, it lacks the punch of flavor a good beef sausage can provide.
This dish contains a lot of vegetables already. If I had to add any other vegetables, I might substitute the cabbage for Brussels sprouts.
The quote from the front of the recipe card for 6-27: Sweet-and-Sour Chicken is as true as anything I could write about this recipe:
“Cook chicken legs and thighs the Chinese way, in a sweet-and-sour sauce. This is such a simple way of preparing bargain chicken and the result is just terrific.“
Sweet-and-sour sauce tastes great when you make it fresh, but it’s just as easy to buy the thick, red sauce in a jar and call it good.
6-39: Chicken Pot Stickers are another case of a food that I “can” make, but would choose not to after seeing all of the mess and work involved.
“Steamed, stuffed dumplings” sound delicious. Mine came out a little more fried than steamed, still delicious.
Chicken soup is always good on a day when you are feeling sick. I made 3-9: Mexican Chicken Soup on a really hot day, basically the worst type of day to make chicken soup. I was able to freeze and store all of this soup for future meals. Later on in the week that I made this soup, I caught a nasty cold and having a stockpile of chicken soup really helped me feel better.
The spice mixture is the only part of this soup that is remotely Mexican.
Editor’s note: Simply Delicious has another “Mexican” soup–check out 3-15: Quick Mexican Soup if you want what is essentially a ground-beef version of this soup.
“Chicken wings are a longtime American favorite.” Truer words have never been written, editor of Simply Delicious. To complement another recent wing recipe that Jamie made (1-1: Orange-Glazed Chicken Wings), here’s 6-10: Savory Chicken Wings.
I love having chicken wings as both an appetizer and a snack. The editor of Simply Delicious know me too well.
Who doesn’t love a simple salad? The editors of Simply Delicious knocked one out of the park with 2-23: Grilled Chicken Salad. Combining fresh vegetables with nicely cooked chicken is an easy method for creating a killer salad. My final product didn’t look much like the photo below, but the flavor is totally on point.
I love the bowl of strawberries and fresh baked biscuits behind the salad in the product photo.
We’re over 3 years into this project, and I’m only now covering the very first recipe in the book, 1-1: Orange-Glazed Chicken Wings. I don’t think I’ve ever made these wings before, but the memory of coming up with this project and starting to put it into motion (by sitting down and actually scanning the cards) features this recipe very prominently. Since this was the very first one, that might explain why the edges of the card pictures are strangely cropped.
While this would probably make a decent appetizer, I feel like as a society we’ve come pretty far in wing technology and distribution methods in the last 30 years–these are a lot of work for something that are pretty easy and cheap to just buy in, especially in more interesting flavor/spice combinations. There’s entire restaurants dedicated to wings at this point (even ones that don’t feature an owl and scantily-clad women).
We did make wings in-house during my restaurant tenure, but people are awfully finicky about the preferred style (fried vs baked, breaded vs non-breaded, vinegar-based sauce or not, etc.) of their wings, especially when craft beer and other hipster-y stuff like chalkboards and cornhole are involved.
Simply Delicious has a few variations on potato salad–2-17: Spicy Potato Salad is closer to a German variation, using a vinegar dressing instead of mayonnaise. This recipe, 2-20: Potato and Sausage Salad not only uses mayonnaise, but includes your choice of cured meat to accompany it–I went with chicken sausage, but you can use hot dogs, spicy links, or anything similar.
I caught a typo here–they mention capers in this blurb above, but dropped it from the actual ingredients list after the jump. I never realized it and now wish I had–capers would have been a welcome addition to this potato salad, especially instead of beets.
Simply Delicious has the best decor in these photos. The wooden salad plate, white wine, and hand carved chicken plant box add a lot of character to this photo accompanying 2-8: Chicken Salad, it all screams 1980’s “chic”. Their final photo looks a lot more appetizing than my stark modern plating.
Such a luncheon treat! The chutney and mustard give the salad dressing a tangy flavor that compliments the chicken really well.
Looking for a way to use up some leftover chicken for breakfast or lunch? 5-14: Thai Chicken Omelette doesn’t require a ton of ingredients, but makes for a light yet hearty meal. Omelettes are something Simply Delicious does quite a bit of (5-33: Omelette Stacks with Rice, 5-21: Omelette with Herbs, or 5-9: Swiss Cheese and Crouton Omelette are just a few examples), but this one’s definitely a decent take on it.
Simply Delicious mentions the Thai cuisine featuring lots of fruits and vegetables, but this recipe doesn’t have much in the way of produce, other than maybe the bean sprouts. Try substituting sautéed squash or carrots for a vegetarian alternative to the chicken.