Easy Homemade Gravy

I've been meaning to post this for a few days now, but like everything else, it's not been the most important thing going on around here. But I'm getting to it now!

Last week I made some mashed potatoes and grilled chicken, well grilled chicken doesn't give you much for gravy so I had to make some. What good is mashed potatoes without gravy????

Well here's what I did and it turned out pretty good.

In a saucepan I put

1 can chicken broth (the bouillon has lots more salt, so opt for the canned if you can)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
various seasonings, herb blend (Mrs. Dash, salt free), thyme, sage, seasoning salt blend. garlic
onion, chopped or sliced.

I just simmered it all together until it was good and mixed and just thick enough. It doesn't make a ton, but enough for 4 ppl. And it was more like an herb gravy rather than just plain chicken flavor. You could very easily use beef broth and omit the sage. Add oregano or basil instead. You can also use left over broth from boiling some meat as well. I often times will save the liquid from boiling chicken for frying or soup and freeze it. This would work too. If you try to stay away from the processed canned foods, you can use the flour and water mixture to thicken it as well. Right now I'm all about quick and easy!

As far as the chicken goes, all I did was poured some italian dressing in the bag and stuck it in the freezer to marinate till supper time. Than I pulled them out and put them on my new (used) electric grill. Even frozen they cooked up really well. I added some of the herb blend to this as well.

A tip I recently heard on a cooking show (yes I love watching cooking shows LOL). If you want to marinate meats, do NOT add the salt until right before you cook it. Add all the other spices you want, but the salt will dry out the meat instead of letting all the spices and flavors go into the meat. Also if you put it in the freezer to marinate it also helps pull the flavors into the meats and make them even better! You can than just take out what you need and leave the rest in the freezer for when your ready too!

So for what it's worth, there's my cooking tip for today!

JenD