Chicken Pasta

Easy Chicken Pasta

I forgot to take pictures of our supper last night, but it’s a great, fast dish and I don’t want to forget to tell you about it. Bryan made this for me the night we got engaged and every year around this time, the time we got engaged, I get hungry for it.

Food is very nostalgic for me. Once a year I splurge and buy a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I try to eat oatmeal or Fiber One cereals so Cinnamon Toast Crunch is quite a treat! I love it because when I was a kid my Grandma and I would eat this cereal together when I went to her house. I cannot see Cinnamon Toast Crunch without thinking about my Grandma.

This chicken pasta is the same. Every time I make it I remember the night we got engaged, how excited we were, and how we spend the most of the remaining weekend on the phone sharing our excitement. Just last night we re-lived some of those fun memories.

Chicken Pasta

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 can tomato soup

1 soup can milk

1 tsp basil

2 c. Penne pasta

Brown the chicken breasts in a pan. Remove the chicken and place the soup, milk, and basil in the pan. Combine with a whisk and simmer on low. Add the cooked chicken to the mixture once the soup and milk mixture is combined. Meanwhile, cook pasta per package directions.

Serve the pasta and tomato sauce on a bed of pasta. Serve with corn or a side salad.

Extreme Baking

I have not blogged for almost 6 months. I cannot say that I have a good excuse and I assure you that we have eaten in the last few months. I wrote (but never posted) this post in September. Bryan was gone on a work trip so I was at home to entertain myself. Read on to find out what happens when I’m stressed and alone. And, look forward to more frequent blogging.

I got home last night and I wanted to relax but I felt the need to accomplish something so I decided to bake. For me, baking is a great stress reducer and results in a good smelling and awesome tasting product. I did what any not-so-normal human being would do; I whipped up a double batch of my Grandma’s cinnamon rolls and a batch of monster cookies.

This made perfect sense to me, you see, because while the sweet roll dough was rising I would make the monster cookies and in between tending to the dough, I would bake the cookies. In addition, I would use the oven and not have to turn it on later. This is multi-tasking and makes me smile because I’m lame like that.  

You should be asking why a family of two needs a double batch of cinnamon rolls and monster cookies. The honest answer is that we don’t. However, we were moving in October so I knew we would have much help. These items freeze well and will come in handy later.

I wish I could say that I had pictures but my hands were so covered in flour, dough, and cookie particles that it just did not happen. I also wish I could say that I remembered how much a single recipe of my Grandma’s cinnamon rolls makes! My arms got sore during the kneading process – so sore they were shaking. (This is a sign that I need to work on my arms strength but I am going to ignore this fact. I hope you do too.)

Then, I made the monster cookies. There was nothing new there. I put them in the fridge to chill and went back to the rolls just as my mom called. “What are you doing?” she asked. I nonchalantly told her about my baking expedition and she said, “You know that Grandma’s cinnamon roll recipe makes TWO 9x13 pans on its own. You are going to have FOUR 9 x 13 pans of cinnamon rolls.”

Oh. Shoot.

The rest of my night involved a cinnamon roll assembly line of rolling, buttering, cinnamon-and-sugar-ing, rolling, slicing, and baking. I did not get to the monster cookies (imagine that) but my house smells great and I have a freezer full of goodies to feed an army. At 10:30 the last pan of rolls came out of the oven and I naturally wanted to eat one. Should someone really indulge in a cinnamon role at 10:30 at night? Alone? I didn’t think so, so I considered taking a pan to my neighbors. They would certainly enjoy them, but I do not think baked goods and a random visit from a neighbor is really welcome after say, 9:00 PM. So, I did the only logical thing. I ate the smallest one – you know – for quality control. They are good and will be better with frosting. Next time I will take pictures and blog about these rolls and post some tips and tricks I remembered through the process.

I am going to bake the monster cookies tonight but I am a slow learner as I also have plans to make a carrot cake, a salad for work, and a salad for supper tomorrow night.

If you do not hear from me please come find me under the piles and piles of dishes!

I made it out of the baking extravaganza and our moving crew really enjoyed the cinnamon rolls. I have had at least two additional baking extravaganzas since this September night but I will have to tell you about that later.

Hummus

I love hummus and I finally made it (successfully) starting with dried chickpeas or garbanzo beans instead of canned chickpeas. I tried in this post, but I failed because I failed to cook the chickpeas before blending them with the other ingredients.

The hummus turned out great and I must say that starting with dried chickpeas really does make a difference. The flavor truly is that much better when you start with dried chickpeas. Using dried chickpeas does require advance planning and at least 24 hours and because of this I will keep a can of chickpeas on hand at all times for those instances when I did not plan in advance or get a huge hummus craving that cannot wait.

As with any dried bean, I sifted through them to remove any stones or bad beans. Then, I placed them in a large saucepan with cold water and ½ tsp. salt. The chickpeas soak overnight and are ready the next day.

Be sure you drain the water off the chickpeas and then add new water to rinse off any starchy fiber that would cause gas. Simmer the chickpeas for an hour or an hour and a half.

Drain the liquid saving 1 Tbsp liquid.

(You can tell that I threw some black beans in. I had some left over from Mexican food and decided to use them in this. It was a great variation!)

The recipe calls for Tahini. It is sesamee paste. You can find it near the peanut butter or in the international aisle. It stores for some time in a room-temperature location and does separate.

Place chickpeas, 1 Tbsp liquid, 1 Tbsp lemon juice, 1 Tbsp tahini, 1 large garlic clove, ½ tsp salt and ¼ tsp pepper in a food processor. Stream in olive oil into the food processor as the mixture blends. (it will be approximately ¼ c. olive oil.)

Taste and add any additional seasoning as needed.

Place in a serving bowl and cover with paprika. Serve with crackers, pita, raw vegetables, as a sandwich spread, or in a cold pasta or quinoa salad.

I made two; one with black beans and one plain as I used it in a dip.

Carrot Onion Slaw

 

Bryan is a great chef and has an amazing ability to make up recipes. He made carrot onion slaw and we ate it on burgers. The slaw was great and it was an amazing addition to our pork burgers.

 

He grated the carrots and chopped the onion

Then, he added the garlic. We love fresh garlic and always have it on had. You can easily get that outer skin off the garlic by laying your knive down on the garlic and hitting your knife.

If you look closely you can see that the skin has separated from the garlic

Pull the skin off and you have the garlic clove

Chop and add to the carrots and onion. Season with Sweet Thai Chili Sauce, Lemon Juice, Vinegar, salt, and pepper

 

Carrot onion Slaw

10 baby carrots, grated

¼ red onion

1 clove garlic

2 Tbsp. Sweet Thai Chili Sauce

½ tsp. lemon juice

¼ tsp. vinegar

1/8 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

Grate carrots and finely chop onions and garlic. Combine the ingredients in a small serving dish and refrigerate until ready to eat.

Eggs are not Dairy

My husband is not a country kid. In fact, he grew up in town and his farm experience was limited to one time when he “helped” on one of his school friend’s farm. (His friend’s mom made him his first homemade cherry pie and he talks about that to this day.)

You already know that I grew up on a farm but now live in a town.

My husband has a great attitude about everything in life and enjoys our trips to my parent’s house and farm. He asks a lot of questions about agriculture related things and helps me understand city things.

When we were newly married, I told my husband that I was “going to town” and I asked him if he needed anything. To which he replied, “First, we are in town and no, I do not need anything at the store.”

The first summer of our marriage, I woke up and decided to mow the lawn. Lucky for me, it was not too hot outside and the grass was dry so I got ready to mow the lawn. (Yes, my husband would do it, but I do not like to sit still so I do it sometimes.) So, around 8:00AM I was all ready to mow the lawn. My husband told me I could not mow the lawn but I replied, “Yes, I can. The grass is dry and it is not too hot out.” My husband had to explain that because I have neighbors I cannot mow the lawn before 10 AM.

The stories go on and on, but you get my point.

My husband has helped me understand that people do not always think about the origin of their food.

For example, on more than one occurrence people have referred to eggs as dairy. I was shocked the first time someone made this reference to me and you can be sure that I helped them understand that eggs are poultry and not dairy. You see, eggs come from chicken and dairy comes from cows.

The more times I heard the confusion the more frustrated I became. My husband helped me see that because eggs are stored in the dairy section of the grocery store people confuse them as dairy. I get that, I guess, but food does not come from the grocery store. The process is much bigger than that.

I would love to keep this blog about food, but also educate people about where their food comes from or how it is made. In the future, you will see recipes but you will also see my rendition of how things are made or the origin of our food.

I love the peanut butter and soy sauce combination. I eat it on pork, chicken, vegetables, and quinoa.

Maybe I need an intervention? Nahhh, I need to share this recipe! This nutritious dish is also d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s!

I do not know where I found the recipe, but I modified it a bit (of course) and do not feel as guilty as I should when I gobble up a huge plate because it is full of protein and vegetables!

The recipe makes enough to feed 6 people so I often times cut it down to feed two (with leftovers for lunch, of course!)

I use Ronzoni Smart Taste pasta. I love that it has protein, dietary fiber, and more. Actually, I compared the nutrition label to quinoa and found this pasta to be the same or better than quinoa. (Which naturally makes me feel like I can eat pasta for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!)

I do realize that I should not eat pasta every day or for every meal, but I may allow myself to indulge more than I have recently. J

Once we finally got home from the gym we fired up the grill and put the chicken breast on to cook.  The original recipe called for a rotisserie chicken skinned and shredded so you could do that too if you were in a pinch. I have not bought a rotisserie chicken because they are expensive and do not save time as in this dish you can multi-task by chopping veggies and cooking pasta while the chicken is cooking. In addition, I get to add my own seasonings and control the quality of the ingredients, salt, and what not when I do it myself.

(Yes, I am one of those people who want to do things myself and find great satisfaction in doing so. I realize that I am a special breed so I try to give the rest of the world a reasonable option.)

While the chicken is cooking, cook the spaghetti per package directions and drain.

I also chop up/prepare all the veggies. You can see that I used more vegetables than the recipe called for, but I am really trying to get more vegetables into our diet and this was an easy and tasty way to do just that! (To me this is another benefit of making food myself, I get to put in the amount of ingredients I want.)

Then, I mixed up the peanut butter sauce.

And added the sauce to the noodles.

I placed the saucy noodles in a serving bowl

And topped with the chicken and veggies and nuts

Then, I inhaled enjoyed my wonderful dish!

Chicken Satay Noodle Salad

1 lb whole wheat spaghetti

½ cup peanut butter, softened                                                                 

2 tablespoons honey

¼ cup soy sauce

¼ c. lime juice

1 tsp. red pepper flakes, chopped

1 garlic clove, grated

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 cups cooked chicken**                                             

1 cup packed fresh spinach

¼ cup shredded carrots

4 scallions, thinly sliced on an angle                                                         

¼ cup chopped peanuts

Cook pasta, drain, rinse and set aside.

While the pasta is cooking, in a large bowl, whisk together the peanut butter, honey, and ¼ cup warm water. Whisk in the soy sauce, lime juice, red pepper flakes and garlic. Pour in the oil in a steady stream, whisking to combine. Add the reserved noodles and toss to coat.

Place the noodles in 4 shallow bowls and top with the chicken, spinach, carrots, scallions, and peanuts.

** You can use pulled pork, pork tenderloin, or pork chops in this dish as well!!

Meatballs

Cranberry Meatballs

Bryan and I decided that meatballs sounded good, but we wanted to try a new recipe to change things up a bit. (The recipes we have a great – but we make those a lot.)

We needed to use up some ground beef so we stuck with a entirely ground beef recipe. I think future meatball attempts may include beef and pork and we will freeze the excess in smaller portions so we do not have to eat meatballs all week long!

Bryan found this recipe in The Complete Guide to Country Cooking, a cookbook my mom and dad gave me when I was in 8^th grade. I begged my parents for cookbooks when I was a kid but they tried hard to get us age appropriate things but I was not necessarily interested in a child’s cookbook as I had some of those and wanted something more advanced. Eventually, I got this cookbook and it appeased me for some time.

This recipe included a sauce that we will use as the beginning of a BBQ sauce. Once we get the recipe perfected we will post it here J

I don’t like to touch raw meat so Bryan offered to make the meatballs. He combined all of the ingredients and used a 1-inch cookie scoop to make the meatballs. He was careful to pack the cookie scoop full so that the meatballs did not fall apart while cooking.

We placed them on a sheet and baked them for 20 minutes.

Once the meatballs were out of the oven we put them in the cranberry/tomato sauce for 10 minutes to finish cooking and to take on some of the sauce flavor.

You’ll see that we are missing a vegetable in this picture. We did have them (cucumbers) but the dishwasher had all of our dirty plates, so we ate our main dish first in these bowls and then had the cucumbers. It happens!

Cranberry Meatballs copied from The Complete Guide to Country Cooking by Taste of Home Publishing

1 egg, lightly beaten

½ c. crushed saltines (approx 15 crackers)

¼ diced onion

1 tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

1 lb. ground beef

1 can (16 oz) whole-berry cranberry sauce

1 can (10 ¾ oz) condensed tomato soup, undiluted

In a bowl, combine the first five ingredients. Crumble meat over mixture and mix well. Shape into 1 ½ inch balls. Place on rack in a baking pan. Bake, uncovered, at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until no longer pink.

Meanwhile, combine cranberry sauce and soup in a large saucepan; heat through.

Add meatballs, simmer for 10 minutes. Serve over rice or noodles.

Yield: 4 servings