Baked Penne with Chicken and Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Recipe #8: Baked Penne with Chicken and Sun-Dried Tomatoes

When making this tasty recipe, I failed to read the text at the top: "Each baking dish serves four; bake one tonight, and freeze the other for a ready-made dinner later on. When ready to cook, bake it straight from the freezer."

So, I ended up with TWO casserole dishes of pasta. Luckily, Matt and I both enjoyed this meal, because we'll be eating it as leftovers in our lunches all week long... Er, *I* will be eating it; Matt will be traveling on business and likely eating steak and lobster for all of his meals. I should have frozen one to bake later, but thanks to Costco, I didn't have room in my freezer. Hey, I needed that box of frozen cookie dough!

The only change I made to this recipe was that I used three chicken breasts instead of two, and shredded it instead of slicing it. The cheeses and Paula Deen-like quantity of butter (6 tablespoons!) in the sauce made it very rich, but the addition of the tomatoes added some tartness. Matt doesn't like mushrooms, so I cut them up very small and didn't tell him they were in this recipe, and he didn't even notice. I think he likes mushrooms and just doesn't know it. If I made this again, I would add some salt to the sauce, because it definitely needed it!

We ate ours alongside some steamed green beans.

Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken

Recipe #7: Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken

I have been following the Skinny Taste blog for a while, even back when it was called Gina's Weight Watcher Recipes--or something like that. I've made several of her recipes, and have yet to find one I didn't like. They have all been flavorful, healthy, and relatively easy to prepare.

I've had the Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken on my "to make" list for a while, and finally made it this weekend. When making this recipe, I was skeptical about the amount of cayenne pepper in it. I've used cayenne before, and have found it to be pretty spicy. I initially added 1/4 tsp of it into my crockpot, but after tasting it decided to add the full amount.

The only change I made was the cooking time. I only had chicken breast tenders, so I cooked it on high for about 4 hours. The chicken was very tender, and shredded nicely.

We ate ours over rice, like the recipe recommended, with diced avocado and cheese on top. But, the real magnum opus of this dish was how I ate it last night--over nachos. For those of you who oppose eating a snack food like nachos for dinner, let me remind you that there are vegetables and protein in the Santa Fe Chicken, which balances out the unhealthiness of the nachos. And nachos are delicious and you should take every opportunity you can to eat them.

Matt ate his leftovers on a hamburger bun with salsa and BBQ sauce, making a weird pulled-mexican chicken sandwich. Some of his food choices are questionable, because he also puts ketchup AND gravy on his pot roast. Maybe I'll let him write a guest blog soon.

Lemon Cake and Alfredo

Recipe #5: Glazed Lemon Bundt Cake

Recipe #6: Fettuccine Alfredo with Bacon

Matt and I both love lemon-flavored desserts, so when I saw this recipe, I had to give it a try. I didn't have any lemon extract on hand, so I just added some lemon juice from some fresh lemons. I was worried it would mess up the chemistry of the cake (too much acid, not enough base), but it was delicious!

 As you can tell by this photo, the batter was really fluffy:

Then came the moment of truth. I've had a few tear-jerking moments when cakes haven't come out of the pan, so I made sure to flour the hell out of this one, then let it cool for about 15 minutes. If you don't let it cool for a bit, it will most definitely come out in chunks. Miraculously, it came out perfect! I didn't even care that it was covered in flour. Pick your battles, you guys.

I made a glaze out of powdered sugar, water, and lemon juice, and drizzled it over the top. I ate mine plain, but Matt cut up some kiwis on top of his. I think it would also be good with fresh berries and some whipped cream.

Matt has been requesting that I made alfredo, which I don't really care for, so when I saw this recipe for fettuccine alfredo with bacon, I knew we could have a compromise.


I added chicken to mine, and served it with green beans and some toasted sourdough bread (left over from my sandwiches).

Golden Gate Grilled Cheese

Recipe # 4:  Golden Gate Grilled Cheese

One of my favorite foods is grilled cheese. Actually, I love any combination of a carb + cheese: grilled cheese, nachos, quesoadillas, macaroni and cheese, potatoes au gratin, cheese fries, etc. I'm sort of a health freak.

So, when I saw this recipe I was naturally drawn to it. It is the illegitimate lovechild of two of my favorite foods, french toast and grilled cheese, with some recessive genes of turkey and avocado thrown in. Back when I first heard of  Monte Cristo Sandwiches, I have been dying to try one. It's basically a ham and cheese sandwich dipped in an egg batter (like french toast), then fried.

This sandwich was love at first bite. It has several of my favorite ingredients: sourdough, avocados, cheese, turkey and of course, butter. Matt gobbled up his sandwich before mine was even out of the pan, proclaiming that it deserved 9 out of 10 stars--a high rating from him.

The parmesan crust was very salty, but the nuttiness of the avocado balanced out the flavor. The only change I made was the addition of some red onions.

Next time, I'm going to add a strip (or three) of bacon. My only tip for this recipe is to use fresh parmesan; the crust has a starring role in this sandwich, and the stuff in the green canister just won't cut it. I got mine at Harmon's, a local grocery store here in Utah, which has an amazing selection of cheeses.

I recommend serving it with a bowl of tomato soup or a nice spinach salad.

What a Ham!

First off, I'd like to mention that I forgot to add the recipe number in my last post. So, from now on, I will make sure to keep a countdown of the number of recipes I have left. This post will be about my second recipe of the year.

Last week, I bought a spiral, fully cooked half ham (still on sale from the holidays). With just the two of us to eat the whole 7 pounder, I had to be a little creative with the leftovers. Don't get me wrong, I love a good ham sandwich, but ham is such a versatile ingredient. We used it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I cooked the ham up in a oven bag, slathered in a mixture of about 1/4 cup light brown sugar and 2 Tbs. maple syrup (fake stuff, what I had in the pantry). I cooked it for about an hour and a half at 300 degrees, just to heat it through. I'm not counting this as one of the 100 recipes, because I really just heated it up.




As a side dish, what I will count as my second recipe, I made corn pudding. I was first introduced to corn pudding by my grandma long ago. She made it for Christmas dinner this year and I was reminded of its goodness. If you've never had it, corn pudding is sooo good. I could seriously eat it all day, every day. I think it is technically classified as a spoon bread. It's like cornbread, only softer and you eat it with a utensil. I found the recipe here. It's really easy, you just mix everything together and bake.

(I am not counting this next recipe) The next morning, Christian and I made a potato hash using the leftover ham. It was a filling and delicious brunch. We just made the recipe up as we went along.

Ham and Potato Hash

1 1/2 lbs russet potatoes
1 cup cooked, diced ham
2 green onions, chopped
2 fried eggs

Peel and dice the potatoes into 1 inch pieces. Heat 2 Tbs. vegetable oil in a hot skillet over medium heat. Add potatoes and cook 25 minutes, covered for the first 10 minutes. Add ham and cook a couple minutes until the ham caramelizes a little. Remove from heat and stir in the green onions. Top with a fried egg and serve with a piece of toast!

My next post will include two more hammy recipes.

Recipes made: 2
Recipes left to make: 98

Banana bread with streusel topping

Recipe #3: Banana Bread with Streusel Topping

One of Matt's favorite treats is banana bread, but we have a problem in our house that prevents me from making it. We always end up eating the bananas before they can reach that perfect overripe state needed for banana bread. So, the last time we went to the grocery store we bought about 5 extra bananas and practiced some self-restraint and let them get all nice and mushy. It was hard work, you guys!

I debated not posting this recipe, because it didn't seem fancy or complicated enough for a cooking blog. Then, I decided that I have to be true to myself. While I do use gourmet cheeses and things like rosemary-infused grapeseed oil (thanks, Aunt Robynn!), I also buy Doritos and Oreos and eat them straight out of the bag. I'm not claiming to be Ina Garten or Martha Stewart, so I'll try to remain unpretentious. Besides, banana bread is classic, and every beginning baker should give it a try. If you don't like it, then I'm not sure we should be friends.

I used the recipe in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook--you know, the red and white checkered one (mine's pink and white for breast cancer awareness). Here's the link to the recipe online: http://www.bhg.com/recipe/quickbreads/banana-bread/

Lastly, here are my banana bread pointers:
1. Mash up the bananas in a large Pyrex measuring container (if you have one). This makes it easy to measure the bananas, since most recipes call for the mashed bananas in cups, not number of bananas. My recipe said five bananas would be around the right amount, but mine were large so I only needed four. Here they are unmashed:

2. Use a potato masher for the bananas. You can also use a fork, but that will take longer.
3. Feel free to customize it to your liking. I left out the nuts, because Matt doesn't like them, and I added some vanilla extract. I've also seen versions with chocolate chips.
4. Don't try to take it out of the pan immediately, or it may come out in chunks.
5. If it does come out in chunks, eat those chunks immediately to destroy the evidence. No one has to know!


I didn't get any chunks this time.

Electric Cable Cars

Hello, all! This is my first blog post ever, so bear with me.

Yesterday was my roommate Casey's 25th birthday. He loves rum, so Christian and I decided to whip up a fancy cocktail. Now when I say fancy, I am really just referring to any beverage with 3 or more ingredients, something that involves muddling, shaking or simple syrup. An internet search led to a famous cocktail called a Cable Car. Let me drop a little knowledge on ya about the history of this drink. According to Wikipedia, The Cable Car was invented in 1996 by Tony Abou-Ganim to be the signature drink of San Francisco's Starlight Room. We were sold with the fact that the main ingredient was rum, coupled with the San Francisco origins.


Cable Car

Sugar and cinnamon for rim, if desired
1 ½ ounce Captain Morgan Spiced Rum
¾ ounce orange Curacao
1 ½ ounce fresh lemon sour *
orange spiral for garnish, if desired

*To make a fresh lemon sour: Mix 2 parts fresh squeezed lemon juice with one part simple syrup.

Makes 1 drink.

We ran into a little problem when we got to the liquor store to purchase the ingredients. No orange curacao? Thanks a lot, Utah! Where's the BevMo when you need it!? Not wanting to splurge on the other orange liqueurs, (Cointreau: $23.99, ouch!) we settled for blue curacao (still orange flavored, just bright blue in color).

The blue curacao made the drinks look like they belonged at the beach with a pineapple chunk and umbrella, but they were still very tasty. I thought they had just the right amount of tang and sweetness. It was definitely worth it to make the homemade lemon sour instead of the bottled sweet and sour mix. They were fresh, flavorful and fun. I have renamed our version with the blue curacao "Electric Cable Cars".

Cheers!
-Caitlin

Gnocchi Mac n' Cheese and Panko breaded Chicken Strips

Recipes #1 and #2:  Gnocchi Mac n' Cheese and Panko breaded Chicken Strips

This past weekend I broke one of my own cooking rules*--I made some substitutions in a first-time recipe. I partially blame my local grocery store for not carrying a variety of cheeses (their most exotic cheese was monterey jack), but it was really my own fault because I was too lazy to drive to another store.

So, my first home-cooked meal of 2010 was Panko Chicken Strips and Gnocchi Mac n' Cheese.

It's the grown-up version of chicken nuggets and that nasty blue boxed crap Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. The aforementioned substitution was the cheese in the Gnocchi Mac n' Cheese; I had to use cheddar instead of the decadent Gruyere and Fontina. I also used chicken strips instead of nuggets, because I wanted to make myself feel like I was making a meal for an adult, not a toddler.

The verdict? While it definitely wasn't the fanciest meal, Matt and I agreed that it was pretty tasty. The gnocchi was a lot fluffier than macaroni, and the sauce was really rich. The gnocchi, which I bought pre-made, is made of potatoes, so I expected it to be really dense and sort of like potatoes au gratin, but they were very soft and surprisingly noodle-like.

The chicken was good, but not amazing. It is a good generic chicken tender/nugget recipe, but it might disappoint someone who wants more spice or something out of the ordinary, and they definitely needed some salt. The panko breading is a lot crunchier than your normal breadcrumbs, and the buttermilk made it very tender (I think? Or maybe something else made them tender?), but if I made this again I would use my mom's famous "meat rub" as the seasoning.

Now that I think about it, I probably should have made some sort of vegetable to balance out my fatty meal. But, since this is my first recipe post, you can cut me some slack. Comfort food is definitely needed every once in a while (or more often).

So, 2 recipes down, 98 to go! Here's hoping my cooking and photography skills improve!


*In case you were wondering, here are my cooking rules (subject to change as I learn more or get lazier):
1. Always pour yourself a glass of water (or other drink of choice) before you start cooking. It gets hot in the kitchen and you'll likely get thirsty after sampling your creation. I usually put a straw in my beverage so I don't have to touch my glass with messy hands.
2. Never try out a new recipe on guests, unless your guest is your 24-year-old brother. In that case, he'll eat anything.
3. When trying a new recipe, always follow it exactly (or as close as you can) the first time. You can tweak things and make substitutions the next time you make it.
4. Have a backup plan, and improvise if necessary. Your cake that stuck to the pan and came out in chunks? It's now a trifle.
5. Read the recipe all of the way through before you start. You don't want any surprises.
6. Wear an apron, even if you're just making some Rice Krispy treats in the microwave. If you feel fabulous, whatever you're cooking will seem extra-decadent.