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Esta's Kitchen: Beer Bacon Chicken

By: Esta Buchanan, June 21, 2012

Esta stocks up on her favorite ingredients.
Don Parkinson - Esta stocks up on her favorite ingredients.

I have 2 pieces of sage advice for you graduates out there as you get ready to enter the “real” world:

  • 1. The world is not real. Expel from your mind that it is and be thankful that it’s not.

-and-

  • 2. Vacation hard.... really hard.

Here’s my theory, graduates—and let me assure you that while this isn’t a scientific theory, it is a well tested and time approved theory. You will have to work hard for the rest of your life. So you might as well enjoy vacation while you can.

After I graduated college (read: talked/cried/begged my Spanish professor into giving me a D so I could), I took a month-long holiday. Realizing that the “real” world does not have a syllabus and I had to worry about things like health insurance caused a minor tailspin and I just really needed a nap... on a beach.

I suggest you all do the same. As often as you can.

Beer Bacon Chicken

  • 4 to 5 pieces boneless chicken breast or thighs (flattened, cut in half)
  • 1 lb bacon
  • 2 cans cream of mushroom soup
  • ¾ cup beer of choice
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • Garlic powder, salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Mix beer, canned soup, sour cream and spices together in bowl and set aside.

Cut bacon slices in half and in ovenproof skillet (cast iron rocks). Fry until done but don’t let them get crispy.

Place bacon on a plate covered with paper towels. Drain about half of the bacon grease from pan.

In the leftover bacon grease, fry chicken pieces about 5 to 8 minutes on each side. You want them almost done but not completely. Remove from heat.

Layer 2 to 3 pieces of bacon on each piece of chicken. Pour sauce on top. Bake in oven ‘til chicken is cooked thoroughly, about 30 minutes.

Serve over rice or pasta.

In order to grasp these two things you most certainly need beer. Hell, you will need beer just to listen to all of the advice you are gonna get about how to live your life. Not only is this annoying but it also really interferes with the napping schedule.

Also, your 20s suck. You don’t realize this ‘til much later.

It gets better in your 30s...because then you graduate from beer to gin.

Okay, that might be more than two pieces of advice. But trust me, I know what I’m talking about.

Of crock-pots and crackpots

Now for Beer Bacon Chicken. The Tuna’s and I enjoyed it one Thursday evening and I clearly remember Mrs. T stuffing her face, moaning with pleasure. We get cray cray on Thursdays, y’all.

I wish I could tell you I used a particular beer, but in reality I used what I had on hand... which was a Harpoon IPA. You could definitely taste the beer in the recipe. The tang of sour cream mixed well with the bitterness of the beer and paired well with the enormous amounts of bacon.

‘Cause really...what doesn’t pair well with bacon?

I did this dish on the stovetop and oven, but it would work also in a crock-pot. You could layer the uncooked chicken and bacon (I would fry the bacon first) and then pour the sauce on top, letting it cook on high for probably 4 to 6 hours.

My issue with crock-pots is that they are just too mystical for me. You just put everything in there and you have no control over what happens next. It just magically turns into dinner?

Yeah... I’m not buying that. More advice, graduates: along with life, crock-pots are not real either.

 

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