I'm not chicken about trying a new recipe!

It’s been a fast paced week…and I haven’t been in the kitchen at all!  So tonight, it’s all about the Garlic Mushroom chicken in a white wine sauce!  There are many steps, and it takes a bit to make, but hopefully the results are worth it! 

The key to cutting chicken breasts is to keep them partially frozen, then they are super easy to cube! 

My recipe calls for dried tarragon, but I bought fresh, so you don’t have to use as much!

 I also like to slice my own mushrooms

Once the chicken is cooked remove it from the pan, and add a bit more oil, then the mushrooms, tarragon and garlic and let them cook down a bit.  

I hardly ever drink wine and I never drink dry wine, so I just purchased a small box of dry white.  

Add to the mushrooms and cook 1 minute, then add the flour and cook for 1 minute stirring constantly, then add the chicken broth, cooking for another minute or so until the liquid becomes thick.  Next time I make this I am going to double the sauce.

Return the chicken to the pan and let it all heat back up.  Serve over the noodles!

Enjoy!

Every day is a good Pizza Day

Freezer meals are all the rage right now.  So I have my own recipe to contribute! Pizza Casserole!

You will need:

Mostaccioli Pasta, or whatever you want to use

1 jar of your favorite pasta sauce

Diced Pepperoni

8oz shredded Italian cheese

8 oz fresh mushrooms sliced (or slice whole mushrooms)

Can sliced olives

1/2 sweet onion

2 bell peppers

2-3 strips of bacon chopped (yes really)

Glad Ovenwear (or something like it)

Chop up the onion and mushrooms, these go in a bowl together off to the side

Then chop up the peppers and put them in a separate bowl

Chop up the bacon and throw it in a skillet over medium-high heat

In the meantime get some water boiling and get the pasta cooking!!

Once the bacon is crisp move it to a bowl (leaving the renderings in the pan) and set aside for later.Toss the Onions and mushrooms in the skillet and stir them up a bit, reduce heat to Medium. Add Italian Seasoning.

Cover with a lid and let it simmer for 5 minutes then add the peppers.

Once the pasta is done, rinse well with cold water, also rinse the pot with cold water because you will be mixing everything up in it.

Mix the "toppings" with the pasta

Add the sauce and stir well.

Throw in most of the bag of cheese, reserving some to top the casserole and then mix it up!

Divide the casserole between two Glad Ovenwear dishes, top with remaining cheese.

Freeze until you are ready to eat!  Then thaw and put it in the oven at 350 until bubbly.  Or you can always microwave it until bubbly.  Enjoy!

Pasta, chicken and sauce! Oh MY!

There is always more than one way to make a dish.  If you have the time you can create some faboo sauces from scratch, or you can buy some pre-made sauces.  Tonight I'm making cheesy garlic chicken pasta.  And I have a great recipe for the sauce.  Or you can do as I'm doing, and just get Ragu's Cheesy Roasted Garlic Parmesan sauce.

Decide on what type of pasta you want to make with this, and get your pot of water boiling and your pasta cooking!

Get out thawed chicken, mushrooms, and cherry tomatoes.  Slice the chicken into strips.  And then slice your mushrooms unless they came pre-sliced. 

And of course, use separate cutting boards and knives, and wash your hands with hot water and soap after you touch the chicken! 

Toss these together in a nice pan with some hot olive oil.

Make sure the chicken is totally cooked!  Then remove the chicken and mushrooms from the pan, and set aside.  At this point is when you would make the sauce from scratch if you wanted.  OR you can just dump the sauce into the pan and heat over medium until it is heated through!

Now you can take the cherry tomatoes and quarter them.

Put the chicken and mushrooms into the sauce, and make sure everything is thoroughly heated and mixed.  Serve over the noodles!

Enjoy!

Easy Italian

Hello my readers! A lot has been doing on since I last posted...school started, my last semester, and I'm planning a wedding!!!  :0D

Tonight I am preparing a meal of stuffed manicotti, garlic rolls and Italian sausage!  I found the recipe for stuffed manicotti on Pinterest and had to try it.  I love stuffed pastas, but this one did not require boiling the noodles first, a MAJOR bonus for me!

The rolls were super easy!  I went to the store and purchased a 12 count frozen white roll dough...see easy!  Then I greased my cast iron pan with olive oil and placed the rolls in the pan...then you wait 3-5 hours...

I did change the manicotti recipe a bit...I threw all of the stuffing ingredients in the mixer instead of doing it by hand.  Saved me time, and energy.  The blog where I found this says to use a pastry piping bag (which I don't have but now want) or a gallon ziplock bag with a corner cut off.  The hole I originally cut in the bag was not big enough to squeeze the super thick mixture through, and I probably put too much in at once (like the whole batch).  So I re-cut the bag, and then the hole was too big...so I stuffed each shell by hand...with my fingers...fun, time consuming and messy!  Next time I'm going to make sure I have a pastry piping bag...now time to throw them in the oven for 50 minutes!!!  Time to take a break until it's time to start the sausage and rolls.

I love garlic, it's become an addiction for me lately.  There are also health benefits to eating garlic.  I mixed butter with the juice from my jarred minced garlic...YUM!!!  Then brushed that on top of the rolls BEFORE baking (just follow the package directions for baking temp and time).  After they are done and nice and brown, brush them (or soak) them in garlic butter again!  Serve in the cast iron pan, it keeps them nice and warm!

Enjoy a wonderful dinner!

Two pot pasta meal.

What started out as quick pasta night quickly turned into me rushing to the store for more Mushrooms, as the ones in the fridge were slimy. :(

Oh well, glad I have my mushrooms!  I also get to use my new pan (again) to make more of a pasta casserole!  I kinda made this recipe up as I went.

1 sweet onion chopped
1 lb hamburger
8oz sliced mushrooms
1 box pasta (your choice)
8oz ricotta cheese
16oz shredded pizza cheese or mozzarella cheese
1 jar of your favorite pasta sauce
Italian seasoning (to taste)
1 tsp minced garlic

In a large pan (that is oven save) brown your hamburger, onion, mushrooms and garlic.  Also start your pasta water to boil.  And cook pasta as directed.

Drain the juices off the hamburger mixture.  Add to the pasta with the sauce (about half the jar), ricotta cheese and half the shredded cheese, stir to combine.  I found it was easier to mix all of this in my pasta pot then transfer back to the large oven safe pan, a lot less messy this way.  

Sprinkle the remaining shredded cheese over the top; I also used some Parmesan cheese.

Pop in the oven at 350° for 10 minutes or until cheese is melted and dish is well heated thru.

 

Serve and Enjoy!

Simplicity works for me

Tonight seemed to call for simplicity.  AKA, “It’s a lazy Sunday and I just don’t want to cook.”  After spending most of my day doing laundry, searching for the recipe I bought sesame oil and rice wine vinegar for (still can’t figure out WHY I bought it) and teaching my boyfriend the finer qualities of Pinterest…

                Him - Can you make that?
                Me – Sure
                Him – Really?
                Me – Yeah, you want me to make the rolls fresh?
                Him – Uh, sure?

So I know what I’ll be making next weekend! (Ham and cheese sliders) Why next weekend?  Easy, because that’s when he gets fresh cooked food. Otherwise it’s reheated at work…oh the “joys” of second shift.

But I digress.  The offering tonight is Beef Tips Over Noodles. This recipe came from The Betty Crocker Cookbook (1976), the orange cover with the pie layout of pictures on the front.  I was fortunate to find one of these beauties at a flea market for $12. 

The steps are simple, brown the meat

Add the beef stock, wine, soy, garlic and onion, bring to a boil and let it cook for an hour.

When the cooking time is complete, start the noodles!  Once those are done add the cornstarch/water mixture to the beef to thicken, and then serve over the noodles!

 P.S. this beef mixture also works really well for beef stew just double and add chunks of potato to the mixture while cooking...can also add carrots if you want.

BEEF TIPS OVER NOODLES

2 pounds beef stew (or 1 pound beef stew and 8oz sliced mushrooms)

1 can (10 ½ oz) condensed beef consommé (or 4 beef bouillon cubes and 10 oz. water)

1/3 cup red cooking wine (or regular wine works great too)

2 tablespoons Soy sauce (I use low sodium)

1 clove garlic, minced

¼ tsp onion powder

2 tablespoons cornstarch

¼ cup water

4 cups cooked egg noodles

Melt shortening in large skillet.  Brown meat on all sides. Stir in consommé, wine, soy sauce, garlic and onion salt. Heat to boiling. Reduce heat; cover and simmer 1 hour or until meat is tender.  Blend cornstarch and water; stir gradually into meat mixture. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir 1 minute. Serve over cooked noodles.

I'll take the blame

Pinterest is a lot to blame, or thank, for my expanded repertoire of foodstuff recipes.  My boyfriend and friends are thankful, my waistline blames.  As often as I’m able I will make sure I link back to the blogs or sites where I encountered the dishes.

One such site is A farmgirl’s dabbles, where I found a recipe for Lasagna Soup.  I love that it is finally winter, the only reason I love winter is that I can make lots of soups. 

Last night I cooked a whole chicken in a Crockpot so I could have homemade chicken stock for this recipe.  Don’t know if that means that my lasagna soup will have the same healing properties as grandma’s chicken noodle soup, but regardless I know exactly what is in my stock, chicken, water and bay. No added sodium.

Probably my least favorite part of making this soup is the crumbling the sausage by hand.  I don’t mind the handling raw meat, but it’s cold!   And this sausage kept sticking to my fingers…

The rest of the steps went by fast, course it helped that I had everything pre-chopped or pre-measured.  My only snafu was the chicken stock.  Having cooked it the night before, I put it in the fridge after straining it to solidify the fat.  I did not measure it…who can tell me what happens to chicken stock, or turkey stock when refrigerated?  Especially the kind made using the bones/carcass?  Yup, it turned into a jello of sorts…and measuring this is very difficult.  So I made a plea to whoever was listening and dumped the whole bowl in…it looks just about right, so I’m gonna keep my fingers crossed, and hope for the best!

Now we bring it to a boil, and wait…in the meantime I’m going to mix up the “cheesy yum.”  I have never used ricotta cheese before; I will make sure to use it more often!  YUM!  This would be loads better in lasagna than the cottage cheese I’ve always used!


One of the more interesting things about blogging WHILE cooking is the timing issue…when cooking something that is quick, it is sometimes difficult to take pictures while cooking…for something like this…oh how I wish time would pass faster, it smells divine already and I’m ready for a bowl!  You are supposed to bring it to a boil, then reduce and simmer for 30 minutes…it’s taken almost 20 minutes to come to a boil.  

Now is also a good time to talk about the bread.  When I made the pizza roll-up I used half of that dough for the buns/mini-loaves we are going to eat tonight.  So just as a refresher, I added Italian seasoning and garlic powder to the dough…

And through the miracle that is the “interwebs”, I bring you…lasagna soup

Lasagna Soup
(print recipe)
for the soup:
2 tsp. olive oil
1-1/2 lbs. Italian sausage
3 c. chopped onions (I use sweet onions, no tears)
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
2 T. tomato paste
1 28-oz. can fire roasted diced tomatoes
2 bay leaves
6 c. chicken stock
8 oz. mafalda or fusilli pasta (I couldn't find these so I used campanelle)
1/2 c. finely chopped fresh basil leaves
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
for the cheesy yum:
8 oz. ricotta
1/2 c. grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp. salt
pinch of freshly ground pepper
2 c. shredded mozzarella cheese

Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add sausage, breaking up into bite sized pieces, and brown for about 5 minutes. Add onions and cook until softened, about 6 minutes. Add garlic, oregano, and red pepper flakes. Cook for 1 minute. Add tomato paste and stir well to incorporate. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes, or until the tomato paste turns a rusty brown color.

Add diced tomatoes, bay leaves, and chicken stock. Stir to combine. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Add uncooked pasta and cook until al dente. Do not over cook or let soup simmer for a long period of time at this point, as the pasta will get mushy. Stir in basil and season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

While the pasta is cooking, prepare the cheesy yum. In a small bowl, combine the ricotta, Parmesan, salt, and pepper.

To serve, place a dollop of the cheesy yum in each soup bowl, sprinkle some of the mozzarella on top and ladle the hot soup over the cheese.

Servings:  8