Chicken and Asparagus Pasta

How to cook moist chicken breasts

The key to any successful meal starts with properly cooked meat. No one likes dry chicken and it isn't that difficult to produce a moist chicken breast with just a little attention. Start with a medium high heated pan to get a nice brown sear on both sides then lower the heat to low to finish cooking. Once the center of yhe sides is no longer visibly oink yuou are getting close. If you slice the chicken prematurely you'll lose all of the juices but an easy way to check for doneness is just to pierce it with a fork. If your fork goes through easily it is no longer rare in the center. Allow the chicken to rest for 5 minutes before serving to allow to finish cooking and to seal in the juices. Also by cooking on low heat you minimize the risknof over cooking and drying out your meat. So when you are cooking meats you can't eat raw, like chicken, start with high heat to get some color then turn it down to keep in those juices!

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 bunch asparagus
1 red bell pepper
1 cup chicken stock
4oz fusilli pasta
Salt
Pepper
Parmesan cheese

Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and brown on both sides for about 8 minutes per side. Chop the asparagus and bell pepper into bite sized pieces and add to the skillet with the stock. Cook on low heat until the vegetables are tender, the chicken is cooked through and the broth is cooked down.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in salted water until al dente.

Serve the chicken and vegetables over the pasta and top with shredded Parmesan cheese.

Goat Cheese, Spinach and Sun Dried Tomato Chicken Roulade

The weeknight dinner is often tough.  It requires planning your meals ahead of time so that you have all of the groceries in house and getting home from work early enough and with enough energy to actually force yourself to cook.  It is not always an easy feat to accomplish this and make something that actually looks like you put effort into it.  This is where the chicken roulade comes in.  Baked chicken breast sounds boring, but chicken stuffed with cheese and vegetables sounds much more interesting.  The best part about this is you can take a weeknight where you have minimal groceries in the house, and throw together what you have to make an interesting dish.  Consider broccoli and cream cheese, ham and brie, bacon and just about anything. You can turn a simple boring chicken breast into what looks like a complicated meal with interest with minimal effort.

Goat Cheese, Spinach, Sun Dried Tomato Chicken Roulade
Ingredients
3 chicken breasts
1 cup spinach, roughly torn
6 pieces sun dried tomato, sliced
2 tbs goat cheese
Salt
Pepper

Heat the oven to 450 ºF.
Lay the chicken breasts, one at a time, in between two sheets of wax paper. Beat until about 1/4” thick.  Try not to tear the chicken while beating.  Divide the spinach, sun dried tomatoes, and goat cheese among the chicken breasts and place on the wide side of the breast.  Roll the chicken tightly over the filling towards you, tucking in the filling as you go.  Place the rolled chicken breasts with the seam down on a broiler pan to keep them from unrolling.  Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper.
Bake for 25 minutes.  Allow to rest for 5 minutes before slicing.

Why use a broiler pan?
The broiler pan is an underutilized kitchen utensil but now that people are more health conscience it really should be something that gets brought out regularly. By cooking meats on the broiler pan all of the fats just drain right out and away from the food. If you cook meats at a high temperature and allow them to rest there is absolutely no reason to be concerned with dry meats.

Skillet Chicken and Asparagus

Every once in a while I will see a picture of a recipe that looks good to me and I decide to make it but when I describe it to J I am not able to sell it quite as well as the picture sold me.  This was another one of those recipes.  After I bought the groceries to make this and I told him what we were having he was far from excited.  Normally whenever I get home from work so late that I can’t get dinner started before 6:30 I tend to give up and we go out. Even though me starting dinner late and having it ready by 8:00 is no different than us going to a restaurant and eating at 8:00, but for some reason this makes sense in my head. The day that I was planning on making this I got home really late, like after 7:00, which is very abnormal for me, but luckily (for me, not my dog), Jason hadn't even left his office yet by the time I got home, so I just started dinner anyway without any input from him.  By the time he got home I was nearly finished with dinner and he was much more interested in what I was cooking than when I described it.  This turned into one of those dishes that will become a go-to. It was not the speediest dish but I really enjoyed the flavors and I will definitely be going back to it, even though just looking at this you wouldn't think it would be loaded with flavor when the only seasonings are salt and pepper, but this was just very flavorful to me, I think the bacon really added a lot, don't skip the bacon.

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 lb asparagus

2 medium yellow squash

1 ½ cup chicken broth

2 tbs flour

4 pieces turkey bacon, chopped

1 tbs lemon juice

Olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

In a large skillet or dutch oven, heat one turn of olive oil over medium high heat.  Add the asparagus and enough water just to cover the bottom of the skillet to steam the asparagus.  Cook for about 5 minutes, until crisp tender, then remove from the skillet and set aside. Drain out any water remaining in skillet.  Add bacon and cook until crisped, remove from skillet and set aside.  Season the chicken with salt and pepper and place in the skillet and cook for 10-15 mins, browning both sides but not cooking through.  Remove the chicken and set aside.  Add the squash to the skillet and cook until tender, about 3 minutes.  In a small bowl whisk the chicken broth, lemon juice, and flour then add to the skillet.  Stir frequently and cook until the gravy is thick and bubbly.  Return the chicken to the skillet and cook about another 15 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.  1 minute before serving return the asparagus to the skillet to reheat it.  Serve the chicken and vegetables topped with bacon.

Serves 4, 240 calories, 6 g fat

For essentially being chicken with vegetables this was a very flavorful dish.  I tend to not like recipes that require you to remove from the pan and set aside and cook something new over and over again but this was definitely worth the effort, I will be keeping this one.

Jamaican Jerk Chicken

J found this 52 week cooking challenge where every week they give you a theme that you are supposed to cook one dish by. We initially were excited about it and were going to do it but I got side tracked pretty quickly and gave it up.  This week I was struggling to come up with my menu so we went back to that list to see what their suggestion was for this week and it was Jamaican.  We are both big fans of jerk chicken but for some reason never make it, so we thought we’d try it.  I have a Jamaican friend whose jerk chicken is just awesome and she would probably cringe at our results but as white people that do not eat a whole lot of Jamaican food we were both pretty pleased and will most likely make this again.

1 cinnamon stick

1 tbs coriander seeds

1 tsp whole cloves

1 tsp black peppercorns

1 tsp nutmeg

½ tsp ground allspice

1 bunch scallions, chopped

1 large onion, rough chopped

2-3 Scotch Bonnet peppers

1 tsp thyme

5 cloves garlic

½ cup white vinegar

1 cup soy sauce

½ cup sugar

10-12 boneless skinless chicken thighs

In a dry skillet over medium-high heat, toast the first 4 ingredients until aromatic.  Grind the spices then add the spices and the next 6 ingredients to a food processor and puree.  Combine the puree and the vinegar, soy sauce and sugar in a large bowl.   Add the chicken to the bowl, cover and refrigerate for 2 hours to overnight. 

Heat a large skillet to high heat and sear both sides of all of the chicken thighs.  Once seared add all of the chicken and the marinade to the skillet and cook on medium heat until the chicken is cooked through.  Once the chicken is cooked remove it from the skillet and allow the marinade to cook down, about 10 minutes, so that it can be served atop the chicken.

This could not have been easier to make.  I had J make the marinade one night while I was cooking dinner for that night and we just put the chicken in the marinade in the fridge overnight and the next night when I was ready to cook it I just threw the chicken in the skillet and made my sides.  I made Island Rice and black beans to go with this and could not have been more pleased with my dinner.

Spicy Chicken Chili

We hosted a super bowl party this weekend and I of course planned and fretted over my menu for a whole week. After scouring through super bowl menus and pinterest pins for far more time than I am ok with admitting, I decided on a few snacks and a couple entrees.  I took this as an opportunity to make a few things that I had been craving but I also made some traditional super bowl foods.  One of which was a chili.  I wanted to try something different than my standard ground turkey/bean chili recipe that is good and easy but really kind of boring.  I decided to go with a spicy chicken chili and found a number of recipes that initially seemed interesting but after further review decided to keep looking and found what is going to be the only chili that I make from now. I adjusted the original recipe a little bit to use some of the ingredients that I had on hand that needed to be used and still can’t believe how good this turned out.

When I made this I didn't measure any of the spices so I will put the recommended volumes but don’t hesitate, which you never should, to taste and season to your liking because I can’t actually vouch for these volumes but the general base I thought was really good.

1 large package of boneless chicken thighs ~ 3.5 lbs, sliced into bite-sized chunks

1 tbs olive oil

1 onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 tsp chili powder

2 tbs ground cumin

1 tsp black pepper

½ tsp cinnamon

1 ½ tsp salt

½ tsp cayenne pepper

2 roasted red peppers, diced

1 green bell pepper, seeded and diced

2 jalapeno peppers, diced

1 can rotel

3 cups chicken broth

2 cans large butter beans

In a large pot heat the oil to medium high heat and add the chicken, stirring often.  Once the meet is browned add the onion and garlic, cook for another 5 minutes.  Add the remaining ingredients except for the beans. 

Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for about 30 minutes.  Adjust the lid so the pot is partially covered and continue simmering for about another 30 minutes to boil off some of the excess liquid so the chili is more thick and less of a stew.  Add the beans and simmer for about another 30 minutes.

Before the party J and I bet on which of the dishes were going to be cleaned out by the end of the night and this was not one of the ones I bet on but turned out to be the favorite and is definitely going to be my go-to chili recipe from now on.

Sweet Potato with Cuban Turkey Picadillo

I have really been in a rut lately. I either cook the same old things (lots of tacos) or we go out to eat.  I am trying to start the New Year off better, I’m two weeks in and it hasn’t gone stupendously, but I’m making at least some effort.  My first attempt at something new was this baked sweet potato that got such a big thumbs up that it will be added into my list of go-tos.

4 medium sweet potatoes

2 tsp olive oil

½ cup finely chopped onion

2 tsp minced garlic

2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 lb 99/1 ground turkey

¼ cup dry sherry

¾ cup canned crushed tomatoes

¼ cup dried cherries, roughly chopped

¼ cup pimento-stuffed green olives, sliced into rounds

1 tbs capers

¼ tsp salt

2 tbs chopped cilantro

Heat oven to 425 F.  Pierce potatoes all over with a fork and heat in the microwave for about 12 minutes to start softening them.  Place them on an aluminum foil-lined baking sheet and finish baking them until tender, another 10-20 minutes. 

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Cook onion until soft, add garlic, cumin and cinnamon and cook 1 minute.  Add turkey and cook through, about 5 minutes.  Add sherry and cook for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add tomatoes, cherries, olives, capers and salt.  Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.  Mix in the chopped cilantro. 

When the potatoes are soft, remove them from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes so they aren’t steaming when you try to eat them.  Slice them open and mash the insides with a fork.  Divide the chili mixture among the potatoes and serve.

Serves 4, 400 calories per serving

I could not have been more pleased with this. I think it was flavorful and filling and was really good for lunch the next day. I will definitely be making this again.

Chicken with Polenta and Prosciutto

Anytime we get any kind of “good news” J always wants to celebrate, which is good, I think you should celebrate even the little successes, but that always means going out to dinner.  When our cause for celebration can be as small as getting a pat on the back at work from your boss or receiving the quarterly dividend check, it might sometimes just be an excuse to be out of the house.  And when we get on a going out to eat kick where we eat out more than we eat in, like we have been lately, I have to eventually say no.  So I made this for dinner one night to celebrate J’s progress on his PhD and then had to give myself a pat on the back for the meal and made myself dessert ;-)

6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2 tbs chopped fresh sage
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp black pepper
½ cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp olive oil
½ cup dry white wine
2/3 cup yellow cornmeal
2 cups water
1 cup diced, seeded, and peeled tomato
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
2 very thin slices prosciutto cut into thin strips

Sprinkle the chicken with sage, 1/8 tsp salt and pepper.  Place flour in a shallow dish and dredge the chicken in the flour.  Heat the oil in a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat.  Arrange the chicken in the skillet and cook for 4 minutes on each side to brown the flour.  Add wine, cover, and lower the heat and simmer for 20 minutes to cook the chicken through.  If towards the end of the 20 minutes the wine has nearly boiled off, add a little bit more to make sure you have a little bit of a sauce.

Meanwhile while the chicken is cooking, place the cornmeal in a small skillet over medium high and add the water in small additions.  Stir the mixture to get the cornmeal to absorb the water then add more water, repeating until all of the water is absorbed.  Season with salt to taste then remove from heat and let stand about 5 minutes.

After the chicken is cooked through, remove it from the pan.  Add the diced tomatoes and cook for ~5 minutes.  Stir in the juice and prosciutto and cook ~1 minute.

Spoon the polenta onto a plate and top with 2 chicken thighs and sauce.

Makes 3 servings

If you were making polenta as a side I would definitely not do it this way, it was definitely lacking in flavor.  But to be eaten with the chicken and sauce all together it was probably better than a polenta with a lot of flavor as it was probably more the texture that was needed than another flavorful component.

Whenever we start going out to eat frequently I get lazy and forget that I can make meals that are just as good or better than where we would go on a weeknight and I can find things that don’t take hours to make.  In my opinion, the key to an impressive meal is using high quality ingredients and fresh herbs.  That doesn’t have to take hours or use up your daily calorie allotment.

Cayenne Rubbed Chicken with Avocado Salsa

Lately I’ve been watching Martha Stewart’s cooking school on tv when I’m super bored and there’s nothing else on.  Most of her recipes that I’ve tried have just been ok but they always sound so good and she makes cooking look so easy.  So I found another one of her recipes this week that I thought looked really good and wanted to try.  I won’t say I was disappointed because it was good, and it was actually better the next day, but it just wasn’t quite as good as I was hoping, which seems to be the norm with her recipes I’ve tried.
 
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
~2 tbs olive oil
¾ tsp cayenne pepper
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp black pepper
1 small avocado
½ red onion
Juice from ½ of a lime
Salt to taste

Preheat the oven to 425 F.
Drizzle about 1 tbs olive oil over the chicken breasts, getting oil on both sides.  In a small bowl mix the seasonings then rub onto both sides of each piece of chicken.

Heat 1-2 turns of olive oil in a large oven safe skillet to medium high heat, you want to just coat the bottom of the skillet so that you aren’t frying the chicken but you also aren’t blackening the seasoning.  Once the skillet is hot, arrange the chicken in the skillet and cook on each side for about 10 minutes.  Put the skillet in the oven and cook for 3-5 minutes to finish cooking the chicken.  If not, the inside might still be raw and if you cook the chicken in the skillet for too much longer you may end up blackening the outside.

Dice the red onion and season with salt and lime juice.  Just before serving stir in diced avocado.  Season the salsa to taste with salt and lime and serve over the chicken breasts.

This was really pretty easy and though I didn’t think it had a ton of flavor, or heat, I still enjoyed it and will probably make it again but it won’t be on my go-to list.

Spice Rubbed Lamb

Since we haven’t been able to take a vacation for over a year, for Labor Day I decided to plan a “staycation” since we weren’t able to take off any more than the 3 day weekend.  So we pretended like we were in a new city on vacation for 3 days, and as such we ate at some really nice restaurants, and ate a lot.  It seems that once I start eating out and eating unhealthy foods, I crave unhealthy foods so cooking dinner never sounds appetizing.  But, I did force myself to cook one meal this week and I was glad I did because it turned out really well.

½ tsp black pepper
1 tbs curry powder
½ tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp salt
2 steaks of leg of lamb
Olive oil

Heat a cast iron skillet with 1 turn of olive oil to medium-high heat.  Drizzle olive oil over both sides of the lamb.  Mix the seasonings in a small bowl then sprinkle the seasoning mixture on both sides of the lamb and rub it in with your hands.  Once the skillet is hot, cook the lamb one at a time for 3-4 minutes on each side for medium rare to medium.  Serves 4.

That’s it, tell me you can make something simpler and as tasty as that and I might have to call you a liar.
I served this with roasted potatoes and grilled zucchini and couldn’t have been more pleased with myself.  It really doesn’t take much to make a nice meal that doesn’t take hours to prepare and isn’t a million calories.

Moroccan Chicken with Onions and Prunes

So after nearly 3 months of cooking the same old stuff, or eating out way more than we should, I have finally made something new!  I have also discovered that I apparently really like Moroccan food, I think I am going to start making that more frequently.  Last night I made a Moroccan chicken with onions and prunes that I thought was just oh so good I could have licked my plate. I know that doesn’t really sound all that good, but I thought the combination of cumin and cinnamon with the bit of sweetness from the honey and prunes was really good, so just try it already, you probably need to get out of your rut too.

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 tbs olive oil
2 small yellow onions, chopped
1 tbs fresh ginger, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbs flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cumin
1 ½ cup chicken broth
1 cup pitted prunes, rough chopped
3 tbs fresh lemon juice
2 tbs honey
Chopped fresh cilantro
Salt and pepper to taste

Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper.  Heat oil in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat.  Add chicken and brown, about 4 minutes per side.  Transfer the chicken to a plate and add the onions, garlic, and ginger to the skillet and cook until tender, about 5 minutes.  Mix in flour, cinnamon and cumin and stir 1 minute.  Slowly stir in the broth, scraping up the brown bits.  Add the prunes, lemon juice, and honey.  Stir and allow to simmer for a few minutes to begin cooking down and thickening the broth.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Set to low heat and add the chicken back to the skillet.  Cook for about another 10 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.  Sprinkle with cilantro and serve over couscous.

Serves 4, 450 calories per serving

Chicken Vindaloo

We have been looking for a good vindaloo recipe for quite a while and each one we’ve tried has been a bit of a disappointment.  They never turn out quite like what we get in restaurants, even though that’s not really authentic it’s what we know.  Until today.  The flavor in this recipe was exactly what we wanted, we could have made it hotter, but the flavor was right.

1 ½ tbs cumin seeds
1 tbs coriander seeds
1 tbs dried mustard powder
6 cardomom pods
3 inch cinnamon stick
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cayenne pepper
5 tbs red wine vinegar
1 large red onion
3 green chillies, chopped
1 ½ inch piece of ginger
6 cloves garlic
1 bay leaf
1 tsp sugar
5 small Yukon gold potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces
4 large vine-ripened tomatoes, diced or pureed
2 lbs chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
2 tbs chopped cilantro
1 cup water
4 tbs vegetable oil
~1 tbs salt

In a spice grinder or blender, grind the first 6 ingredients and set aside in a bowl.  To this add the turmeric powder, sugar, salt, cayenne and vinegar.

Heat the vegetable oil in a large dutch oven over medium-high heat.  Once the oil is hot add the onions and fry until dark brown.  Using a spoon transfer the onions to a blender and add 4 tbs of water to make a paste then add to the spice mix.  This is your vindaloo paste.

Puree the ginger and garlic with a couple tbs of water.  In the dutch oven, set the heat to medium and add the pureed garlic/ginger mixture with a bay leaf.  Stir for about 2 minutes, but don’t let the garlic burn.  Add the chicken and fry for 3-4 minutes.  Add the vindaloo paste, potatoes and tomatoes.  Cover and cook on medium low for about an hour or until your potatoes are cooked.  For about the last 20 minutes move the cover over to allow the sauce to cook down some.

Stir in the chopped cilantro and serve over basmati rice.

Serves 5, 425 calories, 18 g fat

My only complaint with this was that the tomato flavor was a little pronounced, I think next time I will cut back on the tomatoes.  It could also use a little extra heat, vindaloo is supposed to be hot and this was pretty mild. This recipe will definitely remain in my bank though.

White Wine Lemon Chicken

For my bridal shower my girlfriends and I went to a cooking class.  The theme was Italian food and I came away with some really good tips and great recipes.  Since then I have made it our tradition to cook the entrée that I learned in that class on our anniversary.  This week was Year 3.  I can’t believe time has gone by so fast, because we are still having fun.  One piece of advice that the instructor gave me was to always make sure my husband was satisfied at dinner because meals really are an important bonding experience and I have taken that to heart.  Other needs wax and wane but he’s always gotta eat.

When I’m cooking a big meal like this, especially on a weeknight, J always helps me, and that makes it even more fun.  So I pulled my last bit of fresh pasta out of the freezer for him to roll and cut, nothing too complicated ;-).

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pounded to about ¼”
½ cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs
2 eggs, whisked
1/8 tsp oregano
1/8 tsp garlic powder
½ cup dry white wine
Juice from 1 lemon
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tbs olive oil
4 oz fresh linguini

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.

Season the egg wash with salt, pepper, garlic powder and oregano.  After pounding the chicken breasts to about ¼”, dredge them through the egg wash and bread crumbs, coating the chicken well.  Once the oil is hot add the chicken to the skillet one at a time.  Cook on each side 2-3 minutes to fry the bread crumbs.  When all of the breading is  a golden brown, remove the chicken to a plate lined with paper towels.  Repeat with the second chicken breast.

Place the chicken in a baking dish and pour the white wine and lemon juice over them.    Cook in the preheated oven for 20 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.  The chicken will of course take longer if you don’t pound it much so adjust accordingly.

If you are making fresh pasta, which I highly recommend you do, and you are making a new batch today, you should have done so prior to making the chicken so you can roll it out while the chicken is cooking and boil it just before the chicken comes out of the oven.

After your chicken is cooked through, remove it from the oven and allow to rest for ~5 minutes.  Serve it atop a bed of pasta and pour the sauce that is remaining in the baking dish over each piece of chicken.

Serves 2, 685 calories per serving

This dish is not too complicated but always impresses.  The calories in this really isn’t too bad but you can always hold back on the amount of pasta you serve and of course the size of the chicken breast to fit your needs.  I had a small breakfast and lunch and skipped one of my snacks so I could eat all the pasta I wanted, I haven’t made fresh pasta in a while so it was extra good this time.

Carrot Cake

For J’s birthday I made him his favorite, carrot cake.  I have a recipe that I always use that is very good but his family has a bunch of people with April birthdays so I needed to make a big cake and I wanted to try a different recipe.  I looked to Martha Stewart and I was not disappointed.

Cake:
2 ½ cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
¾ tsp salt
¼ tsp nutmeg
3 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup packed light brown sugar
½ cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tbs vanilla
½ cup water
1 lb carrots (8-10 medium carrots), peeled and shredded on a box grater
1 cup finely chopped pecans plus a handful of pecan halves for decorating

Frosting:
16 oz cream cheese, room temperature
2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into pieces and at room temperature
2 tsp vanilla
½ -1 ½ cups powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Butter 2 9-inch round cake pans.

In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg.  In a large bowl beat butter and sugars with mixer until pale and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Beat 3 minutes.  Add vanilla, water, and carrots.  Beat until well combined, about 2 minutes.  At this point my batter was pretty well separated as either liquid or butter/sugar and I think that was ok.  Reduce speed to low, add flour mixture, then finely chopped pecans and mix until combined.  Once the flour was added in it looked like normal cake batter again, well maybe more like cookie dough.

Scrape batter into prepared pans, dividing evenly.  This is a somewhat stiff batter so make sure you spread it in the pans evenly because it will bake up exactly how it was poured in the pan.  Bake, rotating pans halfway through, until golden brown and toothpick inserted into centers comes out clean, about 30 minutes.  Let cool in pans on a wire rack for 15 minutes.  Run a knife around edges of cake to loosen then turn cakes out onto rack.  Turn them right side up and allow to cool completely before assembling.

To prepare the frosting beat cream cheese and vanilla until light and creamy, about 2 minutes.  Gradually add the butter and mix on medium speed, beating until incorporated.  If you have butter chunks in the bowl you will have butter chunks when you spread it on the cake, so beat until the butter is combined and make sure it’s not too cold when you start.  Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually add sugar, tasting as you go until desired sweetness.  Martha suggests 2 cups of powdered sugar and I think   that is just crazy talk.  I used about ¾ cup of sugar and I probably could have stopped at ½ cup, but it’s dependent upon your taste for frosting, I like the cream cheese tartness more than the sugar sweetness.

To assemble the cake, trim off the rounded tops if the layers are lopsided.  Place one layer on a serving plate cut side up.  Spread 1 cup of frosting on top of the layer and top with second layer, cut side down.  Cover the top and sides of cake with the remaining frosting, or as much of it as you want, I think it made too much. Decorate the top of the cake with the reserved pecan halves.  Cover the cake and refrigerate until just about time to serve.  Allow to sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes before serving to take the chill off.

This cake was different because most other carrot cake recipes I’ve tried call for oil, not butter.  After refrigerating a stiff cake batter made with butter I was afraid it would be hard and dry, but it wasn’t at all.  I’m not sure that it was quite as moist as my usual recipe, which is a slight alteration of Carrot Cake III on Allrecipes.com, but it was pretty good.  It was very flavorful and had a nice crumb.  My main complaint about this recipe is just that the batter is so stiff so when you put it in the pan you have to actually spread it in evenly, it’s not going to settle evenly.  One of my layers ended up half the size of the other because I had to trim so much off because it rose so lopsidedly.

Rosemary lamb steak and potatoes

This is the second part of my date night dinner, the entrée.

1 leg of lamb steak, about 1 lb
4 small Yukon gold potatoes, sliced thin
~1 tbs olive oil
1 tsp rosemary
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 425 F.
Heat 1 turn of olive oil in a heavy, oven-safe skillet to medium-high heat.  Salt and pepper the steak on each side.  Once the oil is hot place the steak in the skillet and cook for 2-3 minutes per side.  Remove the steak from the skillet and set aside on a plate.

Add another turn of olive oil to the skillet and heat to medium.  Add the potatoes to the skillet and season with salt and pepper and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often to keep the potatoes from sticking to the pan.  Season the potatoes and lamb with rosemary then spread the potatoes out into an even layer and place the steak on top of the potatoes.  Cook in the preheated oven for 15 minutes to finish cooking the meat and potatoes.

My lamb turned out about medium, so adjust your time in the skillet or oven accordingly to your doneness liking.

Remove the skillet from the oven and let the meat rest for a few minutes.  Slice the meat in half and distribute the steaks and potatoes between two plates.

I thought this turned out really well.  We bought one big steak and cut it in half because there is no way one person could eat the whole thing, so the $9 steak we bought really wasn’t that expensive since we split it.  I really liked how the potatoes turned out as well.  By cooking them in the oven with the lamb on top they absorbed some lamb juices and gave them a much richer flavor than plain potatoes.

Melon, prosciutto and mozzarella appetizer

Like every weekend, J has been at work all day and I am just piddling around the house, sort of cleaning and trying really hard not to waste the whole day on the couch.  During one of my “breaks” I started looking up ideas for date nights at home since we are trying not to go out to eat a   lot.  I came across a website that has some generic ideas about making a nice dinner and talking about your hopes and dreams and stuff like that that I wouldn’t even begin to know how to initiate the conversation.  But, some of the menu ideas did peak my interest.  He came home just as I was starting dinner so it was nice that we got to cook together so it actually did turn into a date night, not just me making a nice dinner.  I don’t remember what we talked about now but I remember it being something really silly, not so much hopes or dreams.

12 1-inch cantaloupe cubes
3 oz thin slices of prosciutto
12 fresh small mozzarella cheese balls
¼ cup olive oil
2 tbs fresh chopped basil
Salt and pepper to taste
4 wooden skewers

Alternate threading 1 melon cube, 1 prosciutto slice and 1 mozzarella ball onto each skewer until you have distributed all of the ingredients between the 4 skewers.
To prepare the dressing mix the olive oil and spices the drizzle over the skewers.  Serve immediately.
Serves 2 as an appetizer

This really couldn’t be easier and is a very light and refreshing appetizer.  I put them on a plate and then drizzled the dressing so there was a bit of a pool of seasoned olive oil on the plate when we were done, would have been good to have had some bread.

Chicken Enchiladas Verdes

One of my favorite Mexican dishes is enchiladas verdes, I absolutely love tomatillos and this is really pretty simple I don’t think you could mess it up, but it definitely doesn’t taste it.

1 lb tomatillos, husks removed
2 Serrano peppers
½ small yellow onion, divided in 2
2 cloves garlic
2 chicken breasts
12 corn tortillas
Bunch of cilantro, chopped
1 avocado, diced
¼ cup Monterrey Jack cheese, shredded
2-3 tbs olive oil
2 tsp salt


In a medium pot combine ¼ of an onion, 1 clove garlic, 2 tsp salt and the chicken breasts.  Add just enough water to cover the chicken, about 3 cups.  Boil the chicken until it is cooked through, about 20 minutes then remove from the broth to cool.  Once it is cool enough to handle, shred the chicken.  Reserve the broth.

In another medium pot combine the husked tomatillos and peppers and add enough water to cover.  When picking tomatillos you want to peel back part of the husk and look for a deep green, those will be riper and more flavorful than the lighter green.  Boil until the tomatillos turn from a deep green to kind of an army green color.  Drain off the liquid and put in a food processor.  Add 1 clove garlic, ¼ of an onion and enough of the reserved chicken broth to cover the vegetables.  Blend to a thin sauce then season with salt to taste.

Add 2 turns of olive oil to a skillet and set to high heat.  Once the oil’s hot, lightly fry the tortillas one by one and set aside on paper towels to drain off any excess oil.   Once you run out of oil add a little more and keep going.

Add about ¼ cup of the tomatillo sauce to a small skillet or pot and heat to medium-low.  One at a time, add each tortilla to the sauce to get them pliable again.  After taking the tortilla out of the sauce, assemble the enchiladas by placing on a plate, adding a small handful of chicken down the center, top with some cilantro and avocado then roll the tortilla up and plate seam side down.  Repeat for the rest of the tortillas, one serving is 3 enchiladas.  Top each set of enchiladas with the remaining sauce and some cheese.

Serves 4, 530 calories, 28 g fat

I think this turned out pretty well and it really wasn’t too complicated.  The sauce is of course what made it.

I also used the boiled onion and chicken broth to make Spanish rice.  I make “Spanish rice” a lot, J loves tacos, but this was by far my best attempt.  I boiled 2 cups water with 1 cup rice with about 2 tsp of ground cumin and after all the water was absorbed the rice wasn’t done, this happens to me rather frequently, so I added the rest of the chicken broth that I had left over plus I chopped the onions that were boiled in the broth and added about 8-10 rough chopped grape tomatoes.  Once all the liquid was boiled off I seasoned with salt and holy smokes this actually tasted like Spanish rice. Big pat on back.

Chicken Stuffed Bell Peppers

I know I haven’t posted anything in quite a while and I have two reasons why. I am glad you are still here even though there hasn’t been anything new in some time.  So one of my girl friends did the 21-day sugar detox not too long ago and first I need to point out that she and her husband are paleo and in good shape but by the end of the 21 days her husband lost 10 lbs and she only lost a couple lbs but lost 2 inches in her waist.  There were other positive results that came from the experiment as well but I was more impressed with two whole inches in a skinny girl’s waist.
So we thought we’d try it.  While on this detox you can’t eat dairy, wheat, white rice, any potatoes except for sweet, refined sugar of course, honey, maple syrup, or fruit.  So basically you can eat meat, vegetables, sweet potatoes, brown rice, and other uncommon grains like couscous or quinoa. This was mainly hard for us because I absolutely hate eggs and J (thinks he) doesn’t like the uncommon grains and gets tired of sweet potatoes quick.  So by the end of the week I could not even force myself to eat breakfast anymore and J felt the same way about all of the dang sweet potatoes we were having every night. In that first week J did lose a couple lbs, but I of course saw no change in my weight or how I felt, so it was pretty easy to give it up.
So my point in explaining all of this was that during this time I really didn’t cook anything note worthy.  The food I was making was edible but not really that exciting.  Since then I have been trying to sort of modify the diet to something more reasonable, so we aren’t eating near as much pasta and very little cheese or dairy.  I have started eating cereal again for breakfast; I don’t think I can eat another egg for quite a while.
So this lasted a week, and the modification attempt has been going on for a couple weeks, but the other reason why I haven’t had a lot to write about is because I keep ending up finding recipes that I am not really all that excited about but fit the criteria and it is really easy to say I don’t feel like cooking and just go out.  So this diet actually really backfired for us.
After all of this I do have one recipe that I think is worth sharing.  It wasn’t overly complicated and I liked it quite a bit.

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, diced small
1 tbs olive oil
¼ tsp black pepper
¼ tsp thyme
1 tsp basil
1 clove garlic, minced
2 large red bell peppers
2 large green bell peppers
1/2 bunch green onions, diced
3 cups fresh spinach
14 ounces fire roasted tomatoes
Salt to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Heat the olive oil in a large skillet to medium-high heat.  Add the chicken and seasonings and cook until no longer pink. Stir in the remaining ingredients except for the bell peppers, reduce heat to medium-low, cover and allow the spinach to wilt and everything else to heat through.

Meanwhile, cut the tops of the bell peppers and remove the seeds and white membrane.   Once the spinach is wilted and chicken is cooked through fill each bell pepper with the stuffing.  Arrange the bell peppers upright in a baking dish and bake until the bell peppers are softened, about 50 minutes.

This was pretty simple and tasty, what made this for me was the roasted tomatoes, it added a nice flavor.

Beer Cheese

This weekend we fell way off the wagon.  We went out to eat a couple more times than I had planned and one night I saw the most amazing recipe ever and just skipped dinner entirely to pig out on yes, beer cheese and pretzels.  Honestly, can you blame me? I didn’t think so, but I still feel guilty.

½ lb sharp cheddar cheese, I used a Welsh Cheddar which was very flavorful
1 garlic clove, smashed
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
¼ tsp ground mustard
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper, plus more to taste
½ cup Hefeweizen beer
Homemade Pretzels

I have a small food processer with only one blade so I had to improvise a little on this.  If you have a large food processer with a shredder attachment, grate the cheese then replace the shredder attachment with the blade. Add the garlic, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, black pepper and cayenne pepper and pulse to combine.  With the processor running, slowly pour in the beer and blend until a smooth mixture forms.

I wasn’t able to do any of that with my food processor.  I chopped the cheese into ½” pieces and threw ~half of everything in all at once and mixed until a smooth paste formed.  I scooped it all out and did the same with the other half.  Now you have 2 pastes that are a lot less volume than the chopped cheese so I put both mixtures back in the food processor to mix and then seasoned to taste.

I divided this between 2 ramekins, covered them with cling wrap and let chill in the refrigerator.  The longer it sits the more flavors develop, but I only made it about an hour, just long enough for me to make a batch of pretzels.

Yields 1 ¼ cups, actually quite a lot

We ate this as our dinner with pretzels one night then as appetizer with crackers another night and still haven’t quite finished it all.

Homemade Soft Pretzels

I found this recipe in the Penzey’s catalogue and thought, well that is just cruel.  This is so simple and oh so good.  It is terrifying for me to know how to make such addictive foods quickly, easily, and with ingredients I usually always have on hand.

1 ¼ cup warm water (105-115 degrees)
1 Tbs rapid rise yeast
¼ cup brown sugar, packed
2 cups bread flour
1 ½ - 2 cups all purpose flour
4 cups water
4 Tbs baking soda
Pretzel Seasonings: Flake salt, garlic powder, cinnamon and sugar, etc.

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water and let sit for a few minutes, until it is frothy.  Add the sugar and 2 cups of bread flour, stirring well.  Add the first cup of the all purpose flour and stir to combine again.  Turn the dough out onto the kitchen table and add as much of the remaining all purpose flour as needed to make a soft dough.  Add a sprinkle of flour at a time while kneading, as soon as the dough starts to stick.  Knead for about 10 minutes or until you have a nice smooth elastic dough ball.  Form a ball and place in a bowl.  Cover and let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.  It doesn’t have to double in size but it should be substantially bigger.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.  Divide the dough into 12-18 pieces.  Bring the 4 cups of water to a low boil and dissolve the 4 Tbs baking soda.

Roll each piece of dough in a “snake” about 18” in length.  Twist into pretzels and pinch the ends into the turns they cross over to hold in place.  Dip each pretzel one at a time into the water for 5-10 seconds, making sure to get the water over the top of the pretzel.  I hold the pretzel on a slotted spoon and this seems to work well.  Shake off most of the excess water and place on baking sheets greased or lined with parchment paper.  Sprinkle with your seasoning of choice and bake for 6-8 minutes.

The pretzels will look done on the top before they are brown on the bottom so lift them with a spatula to check they are done on the bottom before taking out.  Remove quickly to a cooling rack to cool.

Try and tell me you don't want to eat your screen right now. Yeah, I don't believe you.

Upside Down Pear Cake

I am now about to start week 5 of my 7-day meal planning and I think we are doing pretty well sticking to it.  We have deviated a couple times, but not many.  J has already lost a couple pounds, and I am back to my pre-Christmas/Thanksgiving weight, but that’s about it.  I will say that my plan every day is 1500-1700 calories for me and most days I am actually not hungry in between meals and I’m satisfied after eating the food we’re eating, so that right there means a lot for me.  I am also not starving my husband, which this is actually a first time we have done some kind of structured “diet” and he has not felt hungry all the time.   So having a well made plan seems to be working well for us.

But last night we did make a rather significant unaccounted for addition to our calorie intake for the day, but as this turned out so well I think it was kind of worth it.   I worked a little harder on the elliptical this morning and probably made up for about ¼ of what I consumed last night.

For the topping
3 tbs butter
¾ cup brown sugar
Fruit of your choice – I used 2 pears cut in chunky slices with a handful of blackberries – You could do pears, apricots, apples, plums plus any berry you like to fill in the wholes

For the cake
½ cup butter, softened
¾ cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs
1 ½ cup all purpose flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
½ cup milk
1 ½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
½ cup milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
In a 10-inch cast iron skillet over medium-high heat melt the 3 tbs butter.  Add the brown sugar and stir until the sugar is melted and begins to bubble.  Remove from heat and let cool.
Once cool, arrange the fruit in a pinwheel design, add berries if desired.

To make the cake, beat  ½ cup butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add the vanilla, then the eggs one at a time.  Beat until smooth.  Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together then add half to the egg mixture and stir to incorporate.  Add the milk, stir to incorporate, then finish with the remaining flour mixture.  Stir the batter just until the flour is incorporated, do not overmix the batter.

Spread the batter over the fruit and bake for 45-60 mins.  The cake is ready when it begins to pull away from the sides of the pan and the center feels just set.

Let cool for 20 minutes then place a cake plate on top and flip the cake out of the skillet.  Be careful because it will still be hot, especially the caramel.

I of course didn’t bother with that nonsense because I wanted to eat it as soon as the caramel was no longer scalding and I didn’t care enough to get the whole cake out of the skillet for anyone to see it whole.  Sorry no pretty picture of the whole cake, it was too tempting, couldn’t wait the 20 mins.

Serves 8, 405 calories, 17 g fat, worth it, especially since I haven’t had much sweets in the past month