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Quick Rustic Chicken and Vegtable Pasta

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

I know, I know people are telling me to update my blog! Give me a break people I am busy just like all of you. I have now moved from one job to two and can barely keep track of myself.

I also have barely enough time for cooking new dishes, which leaves time for WRITING about them even more scarce!

A few weeks ago, Ben and I went out of town for the whole weekend, which means no grocery shopping. On the Tuesday after I got back I finally had a chance to make it to the grocery store to grab a few things. One of them was a rotisserie chicken. While a rotisserie chicken is an easy meal, I thought it would be good in a pasta instead of just making a couple of sides with it.

When I got home I looked in my fridge and I saw a bunch of vegetables on the verge of going bad with 1-2 days left max. I really try not to waste produce, I know what to buy for the two of us and I use it. Also, since it’s spring my herbs are really growing like crazy and this was the perfect opportunity to use them. While I have a list of vegetables I used in my pasta, feel free to substitute anything you have on hand. Nothing needs to be chopped finely since it is Rustic! So have fun and experiment!

What you’ll need

Handful of fresh broccoli
1 zucchini chopped in chucks
Handful of grape tomatoes
Handful of chopped onions
1 red bell pepper seeded and chopped
3 cloves garlic skins removed
1/4 cup olive oil
1 lemon
pinch of red pepper flakes
1/4 cup mixture of fresh herbs chopped (I used basil, oregano, thyme, and rosemary)
1/2 lb pasta (whatever you have on hand but a rotini would be nice)
1/3 a rotisserie chicken (dark and white meat as desired) chopped into pieces
about 1/4 cup pasta water
1/2 cup parmigiana or Romano cheese (or a mixture of both, which is what I used)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Throw all the vegetables (including garlic) on a baking dish and drizzle olive oil on top, squeeze the juice of one lemon, add the chopped herbs, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper and mix everything together with CLEAN hands. Don’t be afraid to get them dirty; you can always wash them.

Stick the vegetable mixture in oven for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, boil the pasta according to package directions and drain, saving about 1/4 (or a ladle full) to add to the pasta mixture. Also, tear apart the chicken pieces and set them to the side.

When the vegetables are done, combine them with the pasta, chicken, and pasta water, then mix together. Add the cheese and it’s ready to serve.

While this meal does take about 45 minutes to prepare, most of it is spent watching the television while the vegetables roast. Also, what I love about this is that it’s basically things we all have on hand anyway. I think some roasted pine nuts added would have been fantastic also, but I just didn’t have them.

So, next time you are at the grocery store trying to pick up a quick dinner, or you have some left over roasted chicken, give this recipe a try!

Happy eating!

Tags: bell peppers, broccoli, cheese, garlic, herbs, olive oil, onions, pasta, tomatoes, zucchinni
Posted in Recipes | 5 Comments »

Copy Cat Penne Rustica

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

Today I went to a cooking themed get together! How fun. The theme was copy cat recipes. When I saw the theme, I just new that I needed to make. I have been experimenting with the Penne Rustica recipe from Macaroni Grill. Today I think I nailed the recipe right on the head, so this is what I’ll be sticking with from now on if I want to make it really authentic tasting like Macaroni Grill.

Ingredients
• 1 jar alfredo sauce
• 4 cloves garlic (roasted)
• 1 Tbsp fresh rosemary or 1 tsp dried
• 1lb penne pasta
• 2 chicken breasts
• 4 slices of prosciutto (or bacon)
• about 12-15 medium shrimp
• 1 Tbsp olive oil plus some to put on chicken
• ½ onion diced
• 1 cup Parmesan cheese
• 1 roasted red pepper diced
• paprika
• salt and pepper

Heat oven to 400 degrees

In a small sauce pan empty alfredo sauce, the mashed roasted garlic,
and rosemary (if you don’t roast the garlic first, sauté it in the
sauce pan for a couple of minutes in olive oil then ad alfredo sauce.)
Let simmer.

Heat large sauce pan on stove and cook pasta. Set aside when done.

Cover raw chicken breasts with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Grill on
high heat grill until done. Let rest for a few minutes then slice and
set aside.

Heat olive oil in sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add prosciutto and
cook for a couple of minutes to brown. Salt and pepper raw shrimp. Add
shrimp and onions to prosciutto. Cook for a couple of minutes until
the shrimp are almost done but still a bit translucent.

Combine chicken, prosciutto/shrimp mixture, and alfredo sauce
together. Add about 1/3 cup parmesan cheese and most of the red
pepper. Mix everything with the pasta in an oven proof dish. Add the
rest of the red pepper on top. Cover with rest of parmesan and
sprinkle with paprika.

Cook in oven for about 20 minutes until the top of the pasta is browned.
Garnish with fresh rosemary. This sucker serves 8-10 people pretty easily.

There were some other pretty cool copy cat recipes at this party too. One person made Wendy’s Chili and it was spot on. Another person made candy that tasted just like snickers bars. It was a great idea. Do you have any copy cat recipes that you like to cook? Leave a comment below

Tags: chicken, garlic, onions, pasta, prosciutto, rosemary, shrimp
Posted in Recipes | 3 Comments »

Sweet-n-Tangy Smoothie

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

I looooooove smoothies. There is nothing better on a hot summer morning than a smoothie for breakfast, and I live in Florida so every morning from May-September is a hot summer morning!

My new favorite combination of smoothie is raspberry and nectarine. I never thought of blending up nectarine in a smoothie until one day it hit me that it is basically the same thing as a peach. Duh! I’m not the biggest fan of peaches: too smooshy or something. I do love nectarines though. They seem to have a bit of a bite.

Here’s the smoothie I’ve been making recently.

I used one banana, one nectarine, about 1/2 cup raspberries, 1 cup orange juice, and about 1 cup ice. I love the tangy-ness of this smoothie, the nectarines, raspberries, and oranges really work well together. Its such a nice change from the standard strawberry/banana combo.

Tags: banana, nectarine, orange juice, raspberry
Posted in Recipes | 3 Comments »

Accidental Delight: Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

On Sunday I decided to make a roast chicken. I decided this a week ago. So all week I have been picturing this perfect roast chicken I was going to make for a Sunday dinner. I searched different recipes that I wanted to try and I finally settled on this one from Tyler Florence from the Food Network.

This post is not about how wonderful this Chicken turned out (even though I dreamed for a week about what it would look like). This chicken turned out to be a complete failure.

I followed the directions to a T (unlike usual for me with a recipe) because I had only roasted a chicken once before and it came out so-so. This time I wanted it to be crispy on the outside and tender and juicy on the inside. I cooked it to the temperature that it suggested and put my thermometer in the thickest part of the thigh and it read 169 degrees, 4 degrees over the recommended 165 for a cooked chicken in the recipe. Oh no I thought, better get this bird out of the oven before it over cooks!

I even made the gravy, and it tasted wonderful. I really have never tasted homemade gravy so good. And I am sorry to those of you reading this blog whose gravy I have eaten in the past, its not that my talent in gravy making is superior to yours, its that this recipe really renders a fantastic gravy.

I put everything out onto the table. This night we would sit at the kitchen table and eat like civilized people instead of at the coffee table in front of the television. It looked beautiful with the bird I pictured in my head as the center piece. Then we cut into it…

…it was still raw in the middle! What?!?! I did everything right. How could this be? Ben and I picked at a couple of pieces of cooked juicy breast, but most of the chicken was really uneatable. I was so upset, dinner was ruined.

While I sat there and contemplated what to do, I thought about how I was going to boil the bones afterwords to make stock, and I thought, maybe I’ll just make some soup instead since most of the meat was still intact.

After a phone call to Ben’s mother (thanks Julia) for some advice about how to boil the chicken. I looked at what ingredients I had in my kitchen. There was about a cup of white/wild rice mix from Thanksgiving that I was probably never going to use. I had some onion, carrots, and mushrooms. So I thought maybe I’ll do chicken and wild rice soup.

Now, about the only chicken and wild rice soup I have ever eaten is from Panera Bread, and that is my favorite soup there. But I have never boiled a chicken, and I have never made any type of chicken soup myself.

But this is what this post is about. How I made the most fantastic, mouth watering, and wonderful chicken and wild rice soup from a failed roasted chicken.

Here’s what you’ll need

1 whole 3-5lb chicken, cooked or not (mine was half way) and as much meat as you have left on it.
about 1/2 an onion chopped. And one onion in large chunks.
about a cup of carrots
about 80z of mushrooms
about a cup of white/wild rice mix
4 cloves garlic
fresh oregano, thyme, and parsley chopped. Maybe a tablespoon a piece (I have no idea what made it into the soup because mine was already on the bird)
6-7 cups water
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

First you put your chicken and the onion chunks in the pot (I actually added everything that was stuffed in the bird except the orange from the original recipe), cover it with water, and boil it until it’s cooked. If its already cooked, a 1/2 hour will do just fine. If not, it may take longer. Let it cool and drain the chicken from the liquid (SAVE THE LIQUID! THIS IS YOUR STOCK!!!!) and when the chicken is cooled pick all the meat off the bird. Then you can discard it and the onion.

When you are ready to make the soup. Add some olive oil to the pot over medium-high heat and cook the onions, carrots, garlic, and mushrooms until tender, about 5 minutes. Then add your stock (mine was about 6.5 cups), rice, chicken and herbs, salt and pepper. Let the liquid boil then cover and reduce the heat to low for 45 minutes. The picture below illustrates my final product.

So at about 10pm on Sunday night. I finally finished dinner attempt number two. Wow, it was worth the wait. What was once an underdone disaster turned into the best soup I have ever made, ever! Now I only hope you, and myself can reattempt this accidental masterpiece.

What are some meal time disasters you have had in the kitchen? Were you able to salvage the dish? Let me know in the comments below. And enjoy the happy accidents in life.

Tags: carrots, chicken, garlic, mushrooms, onion, soup, wild rice
Posted in Recipes | 1 Comment »

Orange Tea Infused Strawberry Oatmeal

Friday, February 26th, 2010

I love Oatmeal in the winter time. I never ate oatmeal growing up, so it was a whole new option for breakfast when I got older. However, having the same brown sugar, OR raisins, OR apples, OR cinnamon, OR any dried fruit, OR any combination of those can start to taste and feel the same.

A couple of years ago I saw a commercial on Food Network where Alton Brown was talking about making a different type of oatmeal out of the things you may have in your hotel room. This was basically the result.

What you will need:

1 orange flavored tea bag
1 cup water
1/2 cup oatmeal
1 tbsp strawberry jam

First pour the water in a bowl and heat in microwave for a couple minutes until boiling. Then place the teabag in the bowl and let sit to make the tea for a few minutes. This is going to be your cooking water. When the tea is made, stir in the oatmeal and strawberry jam and cook according to the directions on the box.

The orange tea and strawberry jam really complement each other. There’s a subtle sweetness to the dish and its a great change of pace from those little oatmeal packages that are full of sugar.

Try different types of tea flavors and jams to change the taste up too. Now you have a new flavor combination for your oatmeal!

What are some of your favorite ways to eat oatmeal?

Tags: oat meal, tea
Posted in Recipes | 5 Comments »

Twist on a clasic: Oven baked Fries

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

This is a boniato.

This is what it looks like on the inside.

One day I was on facebook and someone said yams and sweet potatoes aren’t the same. Really? I had no idea so I promptly googled it. Turns out she was right. A yam is actually a white sweet spud that is a little nutty and used a lot in Latin cooking, it is better known as a boniato (bone-YEE-et-O).

Well last week I was at the Latin grocery store I sometimes go to and there they were. I had to get some. But what to do? I decided to alter this recipe from Lottie + Doof.

Here’s what you’ll need:

8 garlic cloves, minced
6 tbsp vegetable oil
4 boniatos peeled and cut into wedges or sticks
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
3/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary

Heat oven to 475. Heat the garlic and oil in a microwave safe bowl for 1 minute. Pour about 5 tbsp of oil onto your baking sheet (but leave the garlic). Add boniatos to remaining oil and garlic and mix together thoroughly. Cover with plastic and microwave about 6 minutes stirring once half way through.

Next add cornstarch, salt, pepper, and rosemary and mix together. Place on pan…

and throw them in the oven for 30-40 minutes until crispy. Turn them once during baking. Then remove from the oven and enjoy.

These are really good and the boniato gives a subtle sweetness to it which pairs well with the rosemary and garlic.

Tags: garlic, olive oil, potatoes, rosemary
Posted in Recipes, Vegitarian Options | 1 Comment »

Broiled Porkchops and Apple sauce(ish)

Monday, January 11th, 2010

Its freezing here in Orlando. Yes freezing, and I’m not exaggerating. Its been in the high twenties and low thirties for almost two weeks now. Usually it only last a day or two, but not this year. We haven’t seen temperatures like this in 30 years.

My point about the cold is that we can finally really enjoy cold weather food. Stews, soups, and roasted goods are abound around my household right now. When it gets to be December and I’m craving a beef stew, its hard to eat when its 70 degrees outside. Right now, however, we can eat that stew, and enjoy that coffee in the afternoon just to warm us up.

I always think of cooked apples when I think of a winter (or fall) night meal. So I recently decided to make some broil pork chops with apples and hash browns. There’s a great website about how to cook meat, where it told me how to broil pork chops. I always have a hard time cooking thick cut chops, but these turned out well with this method.

For the Apples:

2 large apples cut into small chunks (granny smith would be great)
a little butter
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tsp of cinnamon
handful of either raisins or cranberries (I used both)
1/4 cup apple juice

Melt butter in a pan over medium heat. Add apples, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Cook for a couple minutes so they can start to brown and soften. Add the apple juice and dried fruit. Cook until the sauce thickens, apples soften, and dried fruit plumps. You can also turn it down on low so it cooks while the pork cooks.

For hashbrowns:

4-5 potatoes grated
1 small onion grated
Salt/Pepper
Lime juice
Vegetable oil

If you haven’t made hash browns, or potato latkas its very easy to make. Shred however many potatoes you want. I would say about one potato a person. Also shred some onion, this really depends on your taste, but maybe about one small onion for 4-5 potatoes. Now the very important thing is to get all the liquid out of this mess. Put it all into a colander, add salt and little lime juice (so the potatoes won’t start turning brown) and let sit a little bit (maybe 10 minutes). Then squeeze any additional liquid out. Really try to get a lot of that liquid out. I would then add pepper at this point into the mixture.

To cook, heat a pan to medium-high heat. Cover bottom of pan with vegetable oil. Place a small golf ball size pile of hash brown mixture in pan and flatten out with a spatula. Cook on each side about 3-4 minutes or until brown and a bit crispy on the outside. The inside will still be moist and juicy.

Transfer hash brown to plate and salt again immediately. Allow the heat to rise again (about 1 minute) before you add the next batch. Keep hash browns warm in oven.

What’s one of your favorite cold night meals? Leave me a comment below

Tags: apples, cinnamon, pork, potatoes, raisins
Posted in Recipes | 5 Comments »

Quick Dinner: Beef and Broccoli

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Ok, so the holidays are over and everyone is back to work. We are now tired, busy, and have absolutely no time to do anything in the kitchen when we get home. I got it. I feel the same way, and I swear I almost tore my boyfriend’s head off today when I got home JUST because I was hungry.

However, I am also something else I am is broke. So any type food outside of the house is not an option even one of my favorites take out Chinese. I also can’t seem to find a decent Chinese restaurant in a delivery radius around me, and trust me I have tried many of them.

This recipe I adapted from pink bites. However, I have always added broccoli because I feel guilty not eating a dinner with out some type of vegetable serving in it. Especially at home. Plus I love using flank steak for recipes because its such an inexpensive cut of steak and you can still have steak for dinner!

This can also look like a dish to make you look like you know how to do a lot more in the kitchen then you may actually know how to do. Its definitely a dish that impresses. I cooked this for my mom’s birthday this past year and everyone was raving about it.

What you’ll need:

1 lb of flank steak, thinly sliced crosswise
1 cup cooked broccoli
1/4 cup of cornstarch
3 teaspoons of canola oil
2 teaspoons of grated ginger
3 cloves chopped garlic
1/3 cup of water
1/3 cup of soy sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
3 large green onions, chopped into slices

First start cooking some rice to pair with this awesome meal. By the time the rice is done, this will be ready to eat.

Start by patting dry the steak slices. Then cover them in the corn starch and shake off the rest that doesn’t cover the steak. Also combine water, soy sauce, brown sugar, and red pepper flakes (use less flakes if you want a less spicy dish, but don’t omit them altogether) in a bowl.

Heat up half your oil in a wok (or just no stick skillet) to medium high heat. Add the garlic and ginger. Cook until fragrant, maybe 1-2 minutes. Then add sauce and cook another couple of minutes. Remove the sauce from the wok.

Turn up the heat and add the rest of the oil. Add the beef and cook until just brown. This will not take very long, maybe another 3-4 minutes. After you don’t see any more red add the sauce back into the bowl. Cook another couple of minutes. Then you can turn down the heat and let the sauce thicken to what you would like. Right before you serve add the green onions. When the rice is ready just go ahead and serve!

Tags: Asian, beef, broccoli, brown sugar, ginger, soy sauce
Posted in Recipes | 3 Comments »

Quick Dinner: Leftover Potato Parmesan Hash

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

So its the last day of vacation before I return to work. Which means I have spent it in front of the television in my pajamas crocheting a scarf. Yes I know I sound like an old woman, but that’s besides the point. The point is that I don’t really feel like cooking tonight (gasp I know, sometimes it happens).

I did, however, plan to make Mongolian Beef which I had the steak defrosting on the counter top. Right around the dinner hour I fell asleep. My boyfriend, who didn’t want to wake me up, but was hungry made his favorite thing in the world (no matter how many things I cook, I don’t know if this will ever be replaced in his heart) a sandwich. I know he lived off these and frozen pizzas before we met, but that is another story all together.

So now, there I was awake and hungry. What did I want, definitely nothing fancy. And since it will be 29 degrees tonight (in FLORIDA!!!!!) I have been in a continual state of cold all day even with the heat on (first time this season it got turned on last night), I wanted something hearty to eat.

What I ended up making took me literally 10 minutes from start to finish, and my boyfriend asked if he could have some cause it smelled so good. But no, it was for me, all for me!!!! The main part of this dish came from some leftover baked potatoes that I had from a couple of days ago. I saw my dad make something similar to thing years ago when I was a teenager and it has stayed with me since. I think I get my experimental side of cooking from him. Not that I remember him just sitting in the kitchen coming up with dishes. But when he did cook it was throwing whatever he could find in the frig in a pan and cooking it hoping for the best.

Here’s what I used

A drizzle of olive oil
1 garlic clove
2 slices of deli ham
left over caramelized onions (but feel free to use regular satued onions)
2 small baked potatoes
Parmesan cheese
a bit of fresh rosemary chopped up.

Heat up a medium skillet to medium high heat. Cut up the deli ham and add it to pan to brown. After ham is browned add garlic. Cook garlic for 1-2 minutes. Then add onions and potatoes. Cook for another couple minutes as they heat up. Finally add the Parmesan cheese and let it melt all over the dish. Finally add some salt/pepper and the rosemary and serve.

Wow this hit the spot, and like I said it was fast. Try something new for yourself too. Not everything you cook has to be a grand event. Everyone is about to go back to work, and we working drones don’t have time to slave over a kitchen stove all night when we get home. So try something like this and let me know what you think.