Super Easy Baked Chicken Breasts

This is a recipe from my childhood. As latch-key kids, my sister and I had a few (or more) days of the week we came home and we made dinner. I don't know what age she started, but I was age ~12 when I started making the easy family recipes. I recall making this one about once every week or two until I moved out. And it was one of the recipes I made once I got married for a number of years. If you are a beginning omnivore cook, then this is a good recipe to have on your regular routine.

Ingredients:
Chicken breasts
crackers or bread crumbs
Oil
2-3 eggs

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325. 
2. Cover a lipped cookie sheet with a thin film of oil. 
3. Crumble crackers into a bowl (place between wax paper and smash with rolling pin) with salt and pepper, garlic salt, and minced onion. 
4. Crack eggs in a large bowl, and mix with a fork. 
5. Roll chicken in eggs then bounce in cracker crumbs. 
6. Put chicken on the pan. 
7. Bake for 30 min, or internal temperature is 165.

Notes:

• Depending on the size of chicken breasts (and other items served), 0.5 - 1 breast per person. You use as many breasts and as much cracker/bread crumbs as needed.

Fettuccine in Coconut Cream Sauce

Marketed as Vegan Fettuccine Alfredo, I was intrigued with this dish. I halved the recipe and it came out great. I also approximated the ratios due to a lack of all measuring utensils since the day before was Christmas and the dishwasher decided not to finish the load of dishes - including ALL the measuring cups & spoons.

I'll make this recipe again, at least for the kids and I.

Ingredients:
1 lb fettuccine noodles
1 can coconut milk
1/2 cup raw cashews
2 Tbsp nutritional yeast flakes
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup water
1 Tbsp olive oil
dash of onion and garlic powder

Directions:

1. Cook fettuccine noodles according to package instructions. Drain.
2. Blend all remaining ingredients in Vitamix or other blender. Pour over the drained noodles.
3. Cook over medium heat until sauce thickens slightly.

Vegan 5 Can Chili

This is the vegan version of the 5 Can Chili Enhanced posted last year. This is an easy, 10 minutes to make recipe. The key is to find components you like. I ended up with a slightly spicier than I prefer chili because I didn't realize the components were that spicy. The ingredients are straight forward. 

Ingredients:
1 can (15 oz) vegetarian chili 
1 can (15 oz) mixed veggies, drained
1 can (11 oz) whole kernal corn, drained
1 can (10 3/4 oz) condensed tomato soup, undiluted
1 can (10 oz) diced tomatoes and green chilies

Directions:

1. In a saucepan, combine all ingredients, heat through, about 5-10 minutes.

Other Details:

• Makes about 4 -1 cup servings.
• We like Rotel's diced tomatoes and green chilies, but I couldn't confirm they are vegan.
• Because this is vegan, obviously check that all the components are vegan. The chili and the tomato soup are the two items you need to be most careful.