Louisiana Chicken Pasta

I'm always looking for my next good recipe.  I got this recipe off of Annie's Eats, one of my go-to blogs for recipes and ideas.  I'm really into spicy things lately--I'm loving anything with some spice and heat in it--though not too much spice because I am a little bit of a wimp.  So this recipe sounded like a winner when I read it and saw pictures.  And I'm happy to say that it's a keeper!

Louisiana Chicken Pasta
Source: adapted from Annie's Eats
Print Recipe Here

Ingredients:
For the Chicken:
1 pound large boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
Salt and pepper
Cajun seasoning

For the Pasta:
16 ounces bowtie pasta (I used penne)
salt

For the Sauce:
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 red bell pepper, seeded and coarsely chopped
1 green bell pepper, seeded and coarsely chopped
1/4 cup yellow onion, chopped
3/4 teaspoon salt
black pepper, to taste
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon Cajun seasoning
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1 cup half and half
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon water

Directions:
To cook the chicken, heat a small amount of butter or olive oil and in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Season the chicken with salt and pepper, and a generous sprinkle of Cajun seasoning.  Add to the skillet and cook until lightly browned and cooked through.  Transfer to a plate and set aside.
Bring a pot of salted water to boil.  Cook the pasta according to package directions.  Drain the cooked pasta and set aside.
Meanwhile, return the skillet to medium heat and heat butter and olive oil until butter has melted.  Add the bell peppers and onion to the pan.  Mix in the salt, pepper, Cajun seasoning and cayenne pepper.  Cook until the vegetables are tender, about 6-8 minutes.  Add the half-and-half and heavy cream to the pan and bring to a simmer.  In a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and water, and add to the skillet once the cream mixture has started to bubble.  Allow to cook until thickened, about 5 minutes.
When the sauce has thickened, add the cooked pasta and chicken pieces to the pan.  Stir well to combine and cook at medium-low heat just until the chicken is warmed through.  Adjust the amount of Cajun seasoning if necessary to suit your taste.  Top with additional Cajun seasoning if desired.

Amy's Notes:
I made this over two weeks ago.  But now as I am writing this, I really want some again.  This pasta is really good.  It is spicy but not too spicy.  It is great warm but could also be made ahead, chilled and served as a salad.  You could also make it without the chicken for a pasta side dish. I will be making this recipe again soon!

Enchilada Grande Casserole

I love Mexican food--both authentic and American.  This is definately not authentic but still good.  It's a very easy recipe to make and pretty quick also.  It's not the most glamerous of meals, but casseroles never are!

Enchilada Grande Casserole
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
1 16 ounce can refried beans
1 15 ounce can no-salt added tomato sauce
1/2 cup water
1 envelope enchilada sauce mix
8 7-8 inch flour tortillas
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In large skillet, cook ground beef until brown.  Drain off fat.  Stir in beans, tomato sauce, water and enchilada mix.  Bring to boil, reduce heat, and let simmer uncovered for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. 
Arrange half of the tortillas in bottom of a greased 3 quart rectangular baking dish, trimming and overlapping as necessary to fit.  Top with half of the meat mixture and half of the cheddar cheese.  Repeat with remaining tortillas and remaining meat mixture.
Bake for 20 minutes.  Sprinkle with remaining cheese.  Bake about 10 minutes more until heated through.  Let stand 10 minutes.  Serve with sour cream or guacamole.

Amy's Notes:
From beginning to end, this recipe take me about 1 hour to make--including baking time.  I serve it with corn, because I like to mix it in when I eat it, tortilla chips, and any combination of salsa, guacamole and sour cream. 

A Chronicle of Moving Meals

Boy have I gotten behind on blogging.  I guess that's what happens when you move though.  As you might know, I had a personal challenge to use up as much as I could from my fridge and freezer before we moved.  It's pretty hard actually, so I focused on using up anything with meat in it, veggies and any cupboard item that was going to expire in the next couple of months (or anything I could find to make that I didn't need to buy anything else to make a meal).  Here's what I came up with:

BBQ chicken, corn and a pasta dish from a box! 

Berry Cobbler, except I used up all the blackberries for some of them and then used blueberries in the rest. 
Both were delicious. Recipe: Here

Blueberry Cobbler Minis

Blackberry Cobbler Minis

Chicken Nuggets and Waffle Fries: We bought these about 10 days before we moved which fed us for 2 meals.  I ended up throwing a few of the chicken nuggets we didn't use away.

Sloppy Joes!  Some people are against them, I happen to like them, mostly because of the pickles and cheese!

We used up the last pound of ground beef, and the rest of the pickles and cheese for this meal,
although we did have to buy the buns.

BBQ Chicken again (it's a staple in our family) used up the rest of the chicken on hand, cheesy veggies, and a southwestern corn/rice freezer dish.

Cinnamon blueberry pancakes, used most of the blueberries, most of the pancake mix, and most of the syrup.  The rest went in the garbage.

I'm not usually a big pancake fan, but these were very good.

Chicken Nuggets, waffle fries, and macaroni and cheese

The state of our kitchen as I was making the above dinner.

Yep, packing is not fun at all.

Baked potatoes used up 2 or the 4 potatoes we had, cheese, sour cream and the last package of cheesy veggies.

Also in this time, we bought Papa Murphey's pizza one night and Subway sandwiches the last night before we moved.  Most of what I ended up throwing away were odd and ends of things, like the leftover butter or half a package of frozen spinach, plus all the condiments.  As for all the non-perishable items, I ended up buing a couple of smaller storage bins to keep them in for the move.  I would say it was a successful food-use-up.  Though I still did feel bad about throwing away what was left!

Taco Soup

I'm trying to use up all the random things in my cupboard and fridge/freezer before we move.  It's actually really hard for me to come up with meals that I don't have to buy anything for.  So hard that I've yet to do it.  I planned to make taco soup to use up things I had on hand, and ended up having to buy another can of tomatoes and a can of beans, but I had everything else.  I didn't have a recipe, but the following is what I ended up doing.

Taco Soup
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
1 package taco seasoning (1/4 cup seasoning and 3/4 cup water)
2 cans diced tomatoes (1 can petite diced and 1 can Mexican Rotel)
1 onion, diced
1 can black beans
1 can corn
2 cans water
Salt and pepper, to taste
Optional:
Shredded Cheese
Sour Cream
Tortilla chips

Directions:
Brown ground beef in large pot.  Once browned and drained, add taco seasoning and water.  Let simmer about 2 minutes.  Add tomatoes, onion, black beans, corn, water, salt and pepper.  Let simmer about 30 minutes or until the flavors have mingled together.  Add shredded cheese, a dollop of sour cream, some crushed tortilla chips, or whatever else you would like!

Amy's Notes:
I had originally planned to also add rice in this soup, but once I got making it decided not to.  Overall, I thought the soup turned out well.  My husband thought it had too much meat in it though.  So next time, I might either half the meat or add another can of beans and corn.  For me, it was a success and I will make it again!

Pot Roast

Everyone has their own recipe for pot roast and this is mine.  Actually this one is my mom's but it's the recipe I always use when I make pot roast.  It's the perfect meal for this time of the year as it's getting cold outside.  I will warn you, most of these numbers are approximate as my mom's recipe has no measurements on it!  So feel free to add or take away whatever you need when you make this.  Enjoy!

Pot Roast
Source: Carlista Barttels
Printable Recipe Here

Ingredients:
1-2 pound chuck or round roast
1 can beef broth (plus a little more)
1 can cream of mushrooms soup
2 onions
2 gloves garlic
8-10 carrots
6-7 potatoes
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Cut roast into small pieces.  In electric skillet, iron skillet, or dutch oven, brown meat with salt, pepper and a small amount of oil. 
Once meat is browned, add beef broth, cream of mushroom soup, onions, garlic, potatoes, carrots, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. 
Cover and cook on low heat if using an electric skillet or at about 250 degrees in the oven for 2 hours or until the veggies are cooked.  Add water or more broth to keep pieces from sticking to pan and to keep the veggies moist. 

Amy's Notes:
You can add whatever vegetables you want to use here or think would go well with pot roast.  And I think that chuck roast works the best with this recipes as it seems to be the moist tender when finished.  Also, you can adjust any of the measurements as needed since most of these measurements are approximations to begin with.

Veggies, broth, soup, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, salt and pepper all ready to add.

I always end up adding too many veggies

And some rolls go perfectly!

Pizza Night!

About a week ago, I made these spinach and mushroom calzones and totally forgot to take pictures.  They were good, too!  Anyway, the recipe for pizza dough on that spinach and mushroom calzone recipe made a lot of dough, so I stuck half of it in the freezer and planned to make pizza with it a week later. 

When I was in college, my roommate and I made a lot of pizza.  We used to joke about one day opening a pizzeria because we were getting so good at making it!  It made for a lot of fun times and Friday nights with delicious pizza.  An essential in homemade pizza is a pizza stone.  It makes the crust crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.  I would recommend a pizza stone to anyone who makes pizza more than a few times a year. 

We made our favorite pizzas since we hadn't had homemade pizza in such a long time.  The first pizza had marinara sauce, pepperoni and black olives.  The second had pesto sauce, chicken, pine nuts and roasted garlic. (Find recipe for roasted garlic here.)  They were so good, especially the pesto chicken pizza! 

My pizza dough defrosting

Pre-roasted garlic

A little too roasted garlic

Got my toppings ready!

My dough is ready and rolled out--one onto a pizza pan and the other onto the pizza stone

Chicken Pot Pie

If you ever go to Savannah, GA you absolutely have to go to The Lady and Sons, which is the restaurant owned by Paula Dean of the Food Network.  It's hard to get into though.  You have to be there early in the morning to put your name in for a reservation later in the day.  The wait it totally worth it though because, oh my gosh, the food is delicious!  I bought a cookbook from the restaurant gift shop which has a bunch of the recipes used in the restaurant in it.  This particular one is one of those!  And boy is it good. 

Chicken Pot Pie
Source: The Lady and Sons Cookbook
Printable Link Here

Ingredients:
1  10 3/4 ounce can condensed cheddar cheese soup
1 10 3/4 ounce can condensed cream of celery soup
1/2 cup milk
2 pounds boneless, skinless, cubed and cooked chicken
1 medium onion, diced
1 10 ounce package frozen peas (or one 8 ounce can, drained)
3 carrots, sliced, cooked, and drained
Salt and pepper to taste
1 pastry for top and bottom (recipe to follow)
Butter to dot pastry

In large saucepan, heat soups and milk.  Stir in chicken, onion, peas and carrots, salt and pepper.  Cook until mixture boils.  Remove from heat.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Pour into pasty-lined pan(s).  Cut pastry for top into strips.  Lay over pie filling in a lattice style.  Dot with butter.  Bake for 45 minutes until golden brown. 

Pastry:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup shortening
Ice Water

Sift together flour, salt, and baking powder.  Cut in shortening with pastry blender until pieces are the size or small peas.  Sprinkle 1 to 2 tablespoons of ice water over part of the mixture.  Gently toss with fork; push to side of bowl.  Repeat until all is moistened.  Form into two balls.  Flatten each on a lightly floured surface by pressing with edge of hand three times across in both directions.  With a floured rolling pin, roll out on floured surface.  Roll from center to edge until 1/8 inch thick.

Amy's Notes:
Paula uses a whole chicken for this recipe, but I use chicken tenders or breasts because that is what I keep on hand.  I cook the chicken in a saucepan and once it's cooked, I add the soups and milk and continue from there.  I always roll out the pastry for the top instead of making a lattice top, mostly because it's easier.  You could buy your pie crusts too and skip making them on your own, but they really aren't too hard to make.  Pretty much you could add whatever veggies you want for these!

Red Curry

As much as I love to cook, often after a long day of work, the last thing I want to do is stand on my feet for hours and cook dinner.  I tend to do most of my serious baking and cooking on my days off or at the beginning of my work week when I still have energy after getting off of work.  I try to have several meals on hand that are quick and easy to make for during the work week.  One of those meals is red (or green) curry.  I learned how to make curry during my time in Philadelphia during Mission Year.  And I've been making it every since it's quick, easy and very tasty!

Red Curry
Printable Recipe Here

Ingredients:
1-2 pounds chicken
Salt and pepper
1 or 2 bell peppers, any color
1 onion
1 cup frozen peas
1 can coconut milk
2-6 teaspoons red or green curry paste
Optional:
4 leaves fresh basil

Directions:
Cut up chicken and cook in large skillet with a little oil.  While the chicken is cooking, slice bell peppers and onion.  After the chicken has cooked, add salt and pepper to taste, a little more oil and the peppers, onion and peas.  Stir occasionally and cook on medium-low until peppers and onions are mostly cooked.  Add coconut milk and cook on low until it begins to boil.  Add fresh chopped basil if using.  Begin stirring in the curry paste 1 teaspoon at a time until you reach your desired heat.  (Do not add the curry past all at once--you can always add more paste to make the curry hotter but you cannot take it away.)  Serve over rice. 

Amy's Notes:
This recipe is how I made my red curry the last time, but I rarely make it the same twice.  You can use whatever color bell peppers you want.  I usually use one green and one red, but used only green this past time.  This was the first time I used peas and I really liked them in the curry.  And if you want to make a vegetarian version, just use tofu instead of chicken.  I used lite coconut milk so the curry was a little bit healthier.  I think I like green curry more than red, but both are good.  I kind of forgot about red/green curry and I hadn't made it in months so this tasted SO GOOD!

All my veggies, coconut milk, and curry paste ready to go!

My bowl of veggies ready to be added

Cooking the chicken

The chicken and veggies all cooking

After I added the coconut milk and curry paste

All ready to eat!  Yummy!

Two Pioneer Woman Meals

Do you know The Pioneer Woman?  If you don't, you should get to know her here or buy her cookbook here.  I don't have the cookbook yet, but it is on my list of cookbooks to buy sometime soon.  I'm hoping to find one cheap on ebay!  You can find both of these recipes on her website. 

Tequila-Lime Chicken
Source: The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients:
3 whole limes, juiced
5 cloves garlic, peeled
1 whole jalapeno, sliced
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cilantro
1/2 cup tequila
5 tablespoons olive oil
4 whole boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 cup monterey jack cheese, grated

Optional:
Pico de gallo
Refried pinto or black beans
Mexican rice
Sour cream
Avocado slices
Flour tortillas

Directions:
Combine lime juice, garlic gloves, sliced jalepenos, salt, cilantro, and tequila in a food processor or blender.  Pulse until combined.  Turn on the blender/food processor and drizzle in the olive oil until it's all combined.
Slightly flatten chicken breasts with a mallet or the bottom of a heavy skillet.  Place in a plastic bag and pour in marinade.  Seal bag and marinate for several hours or (preferably) overnight.
When ready to cook, remove chicken from bag and place on the grill.  Cook until completely done.  Toward the end of cooking, top chicken breasts with grated monterey jack and allow to melt.  (You can also top chicken with cheese and melt under the broiler.)
Serve topped with pico de gallo or salsa, alongside refried black beans, mexican rice, sour cream, avocado slices, fresh flour tortillas...and whatever other garnishes make you smile.

Amy's Notes:
Have you ever made a recipe and halfway through realize you don't have what you need?  I am sure it happens to everyone at some point and it happened to me while I made this recipe.  I had my chicken marinated and ready to cook when I realized you are supposed to grill this recipe.  And sadly, we had to get rid of our grill since our apartment doesn't allow them.  It's not a huge deal, I figured, I can just cook it on the stove.  But it just wasn't the same.  Plus, I got all thrown off by the lack of grill issue and forgot to top it with cheese at the end.  It was still pretty decent, although it would have been better grilled and with cheese on top.  I will have to make it again to redeem myself. 

I put my chicken in my ziplock bag and it fell out the bottom all over the floor.  That is what happens when you buy cheap ziplock bags.  I rinsed the chicken off and put it in a different container... : )

Tequila-Lime Chicken over rice.

Chicken Spaghetti
Source: The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients:
2 cups cooked chicken
3 cups dry spaghetti, broken into two inch pieces
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
1/4 cup finely diced green pepper
1/4 cup finely diced onion
1 jar (4 ounce) diced pimentos, drained
2 cups reserved chicken broth from pot
1 teaspoon Lawry's seasoned salt
1/3-1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
salt and pepper, to taste
1 cup additional grated sharp cheddar cheese

Directions:
Cook 1 cup up fryer and pick out the meat to make two cups.  Cook spaghetti in same chicken broth until al dente.  Do not overcook.  When spaghetti is cooked, combine with remaining ingredients except 1 cup additional sharp cheddar.

Place mixture in casserole pan and top with remaining sharp cheddar.  Cover and freeze up to six months, cover and refrigerate up to two days, or bake immediately: 350 degrees for 45 minutes until bubbly, (if the cheese on top starts to get too cooked, cover with foil).

Amy's Notes:
I didn't use a fryer chicken and used canned instead because I had it on hand.  Because I didn't cook the chicken, I didn't have the chicken broth to cook the noodles in so just cooked them in water.  I omitted the pimentos because I've never had them and am afraid to try them.  I really liked this recipe.  It was a nice change from the traditional spaghetti that gets old so quickly. 

Fresh out of the oven