Takes the Cake - Ziti Bake!!!

Still on my "Hungry Girl" kick for recipes - and found another one that totally delivers on taste and feeling full!  Found it on her website, and it's also in her "300 under 300" cookbook - page 230.  Believe it or not, the only changes I made were to do the mushrooms on the side (for Miss Picky) and next time I make it, I will saute the spinach in its own pan - the garlic and onion were soft and I felt like I was over cooking them when I added in the spinach. 

Other than that, even though it only calls for 5 oz of pasta, that's all we needed to make the full recipe in an 8 x 8 square baking pan.  And it's even vegetarian, Michele!  I guess not vegan b/c of the cheese, but I'm sure there are cheese substitutes available.  Paired it with some steamed broccoli and served the mushrooms on the side (piled them on my serving!) and it was a hit!  Bon appetit!  I have her pulled pork recipe simmering in the slow cooker while we speak - update later today or tomorrow!

Takes The Cake - Ziti Bake

Ingredients:

5 oz. (about 1 1/2 cups) uncooked whole-wheat or high-fiber ziti or penne pasta
1 cup thinly sliced onion
2 cups chopped brown mushrooms
1 tbsp. chopped garlic
2 cups fresh spinach
3/4 cup low-fat/light ricotta cheese
2 tbsp. chopped fresh basil
1 1/2 cups canned crushed tomatoes
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp. shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese, divided
2 tbsp. reduced-fat Parmesan-style grated topping

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Prepare pasta al dente according to package directions. Drain well, place in a large bowl, and set aside.

Meanwhile, bring an extra-large skillet sprayed with nonstick spray to medium heat on the stove. Add onion and, stirring occasionally, cook until slightly softened, about 3 minutes. Add mushrooms and garlic, and raise temperature to medium high. Continue to cook, stirring often, until mushrooms are soft, about 3 minutes.

Add spinach to the skillet and, stirring often, cook until spinach has wilted and excess moisture has evaporated, about 8 minutes. Remove from heat, and stir in ricotta cheese and basil.

Transfer contents of the skillet to the bowl with the cooked pasta. Add tomatoes and 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese. Toss gently to mix.

Spray an 8" X 8" baking pan with nonstick spray, and carefully fill with contents of the bowl. Evenly top with Parm-style topping and remaining 2 tbsp. mozzarella cheese.

Bake in the oven until entire dish is hot and cheese on top has melted, about 15 minutes. Allow to cool slightly, and then serve and enjoy!

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

Oops...Chicken Again...But Yummy and Different

So...as I've stated before, I'm a huge fan of Melissa D'Arabian.  I just love that she won Next Food Network TV Star as an "at home cook" - someone who didn't really have culinary experience besides being a mom who cooks.  Also, her recipes are budget friendly, using common ingredients.  This way when you are encountering something like a STILL BROKEN fridge, you can thaw out a protein and make a meal with what is on hand in the fridge.

Let me start out by saying, for those of you in the Johns Creek/Cumming area, Super H Mart is an awesome place to shop for chicken, steak, fish, seafood, fruits and vegetables.  The prices are ridiculously low and I have never encountered any issues.  I will say that if you are buying fish or seafood, I would recommend that you cook right away b/c the fridge shelf life is short.  I had some chicken thighs from there that I had frozen (6 thighs for $4.80!!) so I defrosted them and did some research on the internet looking for a recipe.  I knew along the lines of what I wanted - sort of a braised French type dish, and her "Roasted Garlic Clove Chicken" recipe was perfect, with some slight modifications.

Here is the link to Melissa's recipe, and then I have shown the changes below.

My Ingredients:

6 chicken thighs
salt and pepper
5 tsp of minced garlic
olive oil
butter
2 tsp herbs de provence (I did not have this; I looked up the ingredients for it, and I had 5 out of the 7 spices needed.  So I mixed together 1 tsp each of basil, oregano, marjoram, thyme and rosemary.  I was missing fennel and savory, but it didn't seem to matter tastewise)
1 tsp flour
chicken stock
lemon juice
white wine
balsamic vinegar
bread (to dip in the yummy sauce)
spinach

Rinse and pat the chicken dry.  Liberally season with salt and pepper and allow to temper on a cutting board while you prepare the garlic.  In a large ovenproof saute pan, cook the garlic in olive oil and butter (I used about 1 tsp of each).  Let it get nice and golden brown, appx 10 minutes.  

Remove the garlic from the pan.  Increase the heat to medium high and brown the thighs skin side down until the skin is golden and crispy - 5 - 10 minutes.  Turn the chicken over and sprinkle with the herbs.

Add the garlic back to the pan and place the hot pan in the oven.  Bake the chicken until cooked through, 25 minutes or so.  After that, I returned the pan to the stove, and took the chicken out.  I added in some chicken stock, lemon juice, white wine, balsamic vinegar, and flour.  I let that simmer for a bit, then added the chicken back in, making sure that the skin was above the liquid so that it did not lose its crispiness. 

When I was ready to serve, I put the chicken onto a platter, spooned some sauce over it, and put the rest of the sauce in a small bowl.  I also used the pan that still had some of the remnants of the sauce and cooked a bunch of spinach in that.

My sides were multigrain angel hair pasta and cut green beans, with the bread warmed and sliced for dipping.

This would be a great meal for company b/c everything could be done in advance and warming while you are serving appetizers to your guests.  It will definitely be on my rotation list for tried and true recipes!

Last Night's Super Yummy Dinner

So...our friendly cooking "competition" really inspired me. 

Paul knows some of the fancy terms, like mirepoix, so when he mentioned it on Saturday night, I remembered that it was what Melissa D'Arabian used when starting off her ribs recipe.  So I decided to make an attempt at a homemade spaghetti sauce recipe, starting with a "mirepoix", which is simply a mix of chopped celery, carrots and onion, sauteed in a touch of olive oil (and/or butter - I did use a bit of both). 

Once the vegetables started to soften, I added in some tomato paste (almost a whole small can), as well as some garlic and fresh basil.  Then I added in a can of diced tomatoes (the kind with basil and oregano flavoring), undrained, as well as a bit of chicken stock.  A healthy dash of red wine and I let it simmer to bring all of the flavors together.  Last but not least, I chopped some spinach into it since I knew the spinach would cook down, and to get rid of some of the leftover spinach I had.

Speaking of leftover spinach, I made a very tasty (and simple) spinach salad to go with it.  Started off by destemming the spinach and placing in a bowl.  Then I hardboiled 2 eggs and crumbled them, as well as using the last of the chopped pecan as a garnish.  Some mandarin oranges completed it, with the exception of a dressing.  I LOVE a hot bacon dressing and decided I could probably figure out how to do this.  I started with some raspberry pecan preserves, olive oil and chopped pecans and used the food processor to blend.  After some internet research, I added in bacon bits (I used artificial), dijon mustard, white wine vinegar and some sugar.  The end result - delish!!!  The perfect complement to a spinach salad.

Next was my chicken.  Lots of leftover chicken from Saturday night, so I sliced it into small, thin pieces.  Put it in an egg wash, then dipped it into a mixture of flour with some dipping sauce and sauteed it all up.  Had it warming in the oven while I finished things up.

Now for the fettucine.  I do love homemade pasta, but obviously that is a bit time consuming, so I used the Bertollini (I think that's the brand) refrigerated fettucine.  It is SO much lighter than boxed pasta - a bit more expensive and I have not come across a whole grain option yet, but it was light and tasty.

And last but not least, a bruschetta with the bread that I never used Saturday night.  I warmed it, topped it with a light spread of garlic, then on some pieces I added fresh diced tomatoes.  But since most of our family are non-tomato lovers, I left them off on most.  A sprinkling of parmesan cheese, and we have a simple but tasty bread dish.

Since it looks like our refrigerator will now not be fixed until THURSDAY, I have to keep being creative in using up leftovers and using what we have.  Thankfully that only means figuring out meals for tonight and tomorrow night since Wednesday night is trivia, but it has been SO frustrating.  Tonight is definitely a leftover night, and I think I will defrost some chicken for tomorrow and continue to use what we have on hand, hoping my creative juices will flow!

A Vegetarian Meal!

I needed a dish tonight that didn't call for too many ingredients, and this was because our kitchen fridge went on the fritz today.  Instead of the 37 degree temp it was supposed to be, it was 52...and kept on rising throughout the day.  Luckily, we have a refrigerator in the garage, and I quickly stocked that and also filled a cooler with other items (mainly tightly sealed sauces etc).  Once the fridge was completely cleaned out, I realized that it also needed some major CLEANING which I did - scrubbing and wiping until I was satisfied.  Ewwww...this will definitely inspire me to do a deep clean on the fridge more often! 

So...as I was putting the perishables in either the garage fridge or the cooler, I thought about what recipes called for a small amount of ingredients.  The first one that came to mind was a Pasta that featured a Creamy Butternut Squash Sauce.  I bought the squash the other day knowing this was going to be a new "try" and I checked the other ingredients and score - I had them all.

I think I mentioned that one of my goal is to work with new ingredients at least once a week with a goal of trying out new foods 3-4 times a week.  I want to learn how to peel them, cut them, make them.  I am interested in the textures and tastes and intrigued by how many items are out there that I have never once tasted, let alone cooked.

Butternut squash was one of those.  Growing up, my mom made yellow squash, and I have to say, I HATED it.  She baked it and I hated it.  She put it in a cheese squash casserole and I hated it.  It's cousin the rutebaga I hated even more...so let's just say that I have never really set out incorporating root vegetables into any of my creations.

Reading this recipe made me want to try it.  My first lesson was in cutting the butternut squash.  I just can't tell you how thankful I am for the internet; I watched a video and read some different articles.  The most interesting discussion seems to be whether or not to peel the skin, so in my adventurous quest for perfection, I did both.  One of the squash I cut in half, removed the seeds, peeled and diced.  The other one I did the same but kept the skin on.  I roasted both in cubes on two separate pans for 30 minutes at 400 degrees, and I have to say that the taste really didn't matter at all.  I did realize that I had an awful lot of diced squash, so decided to use the one with the skin for the pasta sauce and the one that was peeled as simply a roasted vegetable.

Penne with Butternut Squash Cream Sauce
She adapted from Tart Reform and I adapted a bit from hers

Ingredients:

• 1 lb pasta (I used a mixture of rigatoni and rotini)
• 2 lb butternut squash  (I used one squash for the sauce and the other for a side dish)
• 1 cup half and half  - yogurt might be a viable substitute but I went with the real thing
• 1/2 cup parmesan plus more to top - you bet I used a little more on top
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg (optional - I did not use any)

1. Dice squash and roast in a 400 degree oven for 30-45 minutes, until fork tender
2. When squash is done, transfer to a pot on the stove, add half and half, and puree with an immersion blender until smooth.  Stir in nutmeg.  (Ruh roh.  I don't have an immersion blender and wasn't even sure of what one was!)  I used an old fashioned potato masher and just got it as smooth as I could which was still creamy.
3. While the puree heats to a boil, cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling, salted water, until al dente. I went ahead and stirred the parmesan cheese directly into the squash mixture and added a touch of the pasta cooking water.  I only used a little bit of the pasta cooking water b/c I knew I wasn't mixing directly with the pasta.  If you were mixing the sauce with the pasta, you would probably want to use the full 1/4 cup.  But I knew my 15 year old would want her pasta without any sauce and didn't want it to get too watery)

That's it - it's all done and was delicious.  I served the roasted diced squash (sprinkling with salt and pepper and roasting for a few extra minutes to make them crispy.  They tasted a lot like baked sweet potato fries.  Added a green salad and that made a meal!  Unfortunately, for some reason my photos did not come through on my phone.  NO IDEA of what happened, but imagine a plate of rigatoni and rotini topped with a delicious sauce made of pureed butternut squash and half and half, with a side of roasted diced butternut squash and a side salad.  Tasty, healthy and very filling.