All of our family loved Dad’s chicken stew. Mom takes it to church functions and it is very popular there, too.

Ingredients:

• 3 chicken breasts (with skin)  dark meat if you prefer
• can of shoe-peg white corn
• 1/2 cup of onions (optional)
• three med sized Russet potatoes
• 5 or 6 ounces of evaporated milk
• small can of tomato paste
• salt and pepper to taste
• Nature’s Seasoning to taste
• Chicken Bouillon/chicken broth to taste

Rinse chicken breast to remove any blood/water. Put the breasts into a large pot (I use my spaghetti noodle-boiling pot). Cover the breasts with water and boil. I usually fill the pot half way. Cover for faster cooking.

Once the breasts are cooked and and start coming off the bones, you can lift the breasts out onto a plate to shred. Keep the broth. Sometimes I use a couple forks and pull it apart while in the pan. You will remove the skin and bones and pull the the chicken apart. If you like your chicken shredded instead of chunky, you can cook it more. Put the chicken back into the broth if you de-boned it on the plate.

Sometimes, I stop at this point and let the chicken and broth cool for about half an hour or I put the pan (with a lid) into a sink of cold water. I don’t like to put warm things into the refrigerator so I cool it down first. Once the outside of the pan feels cooler to the touch, I refrigerate it. Then the next day, it will only take another 30 minutes or less to finish up the stew.

Heat the stew back up if you refrigerated it.

Add the half cup of onions to the heated broth and chicken.

Add the small can of tomato paste and stir.

Add shoe peg corn after draining and rinsing.

Cut the potatoes into 1/2 inch squares and add to stew. I use russet potatoes. I don’t want the potatoes to dissolve away and I find russet potatoes stay firmer.
Add a tsp of salt. Add pepper to taste (I usually start with 1/2 tsp). I add three or four bouillon cubes or you can add chicken broth. I probably put about a tsp of Nature’s Seasoning in at this point. But basically, you will spice it to your taste. My husband likes a lot of broth so I add enough water so the stew comes up about 3/4 of the way up the side of the pan. Often that means adding more bouillon, salt, pepper and Nature’s Seasoning.

You will add the evaporated milk last. You can use one little can of evaporated milk or about 5 ounces. The broth should now be a light orangish color.

Cook about fifteen or twenty minutes until the potatoes are cooked.

I serve cornbread with the chicken stew. When eating the stew as leftovers, I have Ritz crackers or sometimes make a sandwich.

This recipe makes about 8 to 10 bowls of soup. I can have leftovers for another meal or pack stew in lunch. If I decide to eat the stew as a meal again….I usually skip a day before I serve it again. I think my husband would eat it every day…he loves it.  I have frozen the leftovers, too.  I don’t enjoy eating one food all week.  Boring.