Grilled Chicken Pasta with Fresh Tomatoes and Balsamic Reduction

The inspiration for this dish was a combination of two things. First, I had a dish similar to this a TGI Friday's. It was so good and so simple that I couldn't forget it. I remember the balsamic reduction that was to die for but it was not nearly enough. Yesterday at lunch, my aunt had some killer lemon spinach which in turn made me crazy for spinach (MY spinach because I know I can make it better). My uncle had pecan crusted chicken that was incredibly tender. After discussion, we decided it was because the chicken was so thin. SO I decided to combine the two and the result was awesome! My aunt and uncle raved about it. I'd highly recommend it and I wouldn't change a thing. I'm going to write my directions to show you how to multi-task so hopefully it all is ready at the same time! So read everything first, then cook. ;)



chicken breasts, butterflied
salt-free lemon pepper
oregano

capellini pasta
diced tomatoes
a good quality hard cheese, grated

1 1/2 c. balsamic vinegar
1 1/2 T. brown sugar

Preheat grill (or George Foreman in my case). To butterfly chicken, trim of all fat and skin. Carefully place on palm on top of chicken, using the other hand slice through the middle of breast. Spray George Foreman grill with Pam. Season both sides of chicken breast with lemon pepper seasoning, sprinkle top with oregano. Cook for about five minutes or until temperature is 165 (carry over cooking will take it to 170).

While grill is heating (before you butterfly the chicken), pour balsamic vinegar into a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Bring to a gentle simmer. Let simmer while everything cooks.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. When water is boiling, add pasta and cook until al dente, about 8 minutes. Drain pasta.

Around the time you add the pasta, taste the balsamic reduction. If it needs a little bit of sweetness, add brown sugar to taste. Return to simmer while pasta cooks. The reduction should have reduced by about half and it should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

To serve, place pasta on place, cut chicken into bite size pieces and layer on top of pasta. Drizzle with balsamic reduction. Add diced tomatoes and cheese. Serve with crusty bread.

Hawaiian Chicken Crock Pot Style

Back in the days of college, my two best friends from high school and one of their boyfriends (now husband) had a dinner club. We took turns rotating each week by cooking dinner. That was five years ago and one of the dishes that stands out was one that Kevin made. He put chicken, pineapple, peppers and onions in a foil pouch and baked it in the oven. After an hour, he just emptied everything out over rice. It was ingenious and SO delicious. I have been craving this for a while, so I decided to adapt it for the crock pot. It turned out delicious. It didn't taste as sweet as I can remember, I think it has to do with using terrayki marinade instead of sauce. Possibly, or I could just be delusional. So before serving, I took the juice in the crock pot, mixed leftover juice drained from the fruit with a few tablespoons of flour, brought it to a boil and reduced it while I was cooking the rice. It was an excellent idea. It enhanced the sweetness that I thought was lacking in the straight-from-the-crock pot version.



1/2 bag frozen pearl onions
1 red bell pepper, sliced
4 chicken thighs, bone-in, skin removed
1 can pineapple chunks (including juice)
1 can mandarian oranges, juice drained and reserved
1/2 bottle terrayki sauce

flour, if needed
brown sugar, if needed

Layer the ingredients in the crock pot as listed, with the veggies on the bottom, fruit on top. Cook on low for 4 hours. Before serving, transfer liquid from crock pot into saucepan. Mix reserved orange juice with a few tablespoons of flour and pour into crock pot liquid. Bring to a boil on the stovetop. Taste for sweetness. If needed, added a few tablespoons on brown sugar. Simmer while preparing rice.



Serve over white or brown rice with reduction sauce on top! Aloha!

Creamy Cajun Pasta

Ooooweee! 'Dis stuff is slap yo momma good. (That was my Justin Wilson impersonation.) Happy Fat Tuesday! I've been craving cajun food sooo bad. Maybe it's because Saturday was the Mardi Gras parade on the Bolivar Peninsula, which would normally result in a crawfish boil or some sort of cajun food happening. Or the fact that it's Fat Tuesday and I've heard all about it. Anyways, I decided to do something about it. I compiled a bunch of different recipes and it turned out sooooooo good!

6 chicken tenders, cleaned and cubed

1 bunch green onions, chopped
1/2 medium onion, diced
3/4 red bell pepper
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

3T. flour
3 1/2 c. half and half
8 oz. white velveeta

1/2 pound small shrimp, cleaned, tails removed
12 bay scallops, cleaned

bowtie pasta

blackened seasoning
salt, coarse ground pepper

Start a pot of water to boil for the pasta. Warm a few tablespoon of olive oil in a large (read: deep) skillet over medium heat. Cover both sides of chicken with blackening seasoning. At this time, season the shrimp and scallops as well, but we will not cook them just let. They will marinate and be happy in the blackening seasoning for a while. Sautee chicken until light brown and cooked all the way through. This should not take long since the chicken is cubed. Once light brown, add the chopped veggies EXCEPT the garlic and save a little green onion tops for garnish. Also salt and pepper to taste. Once the onions turn opaque, add the garlic and cook for another 2 minutes, or until the garlic is soft. [Now, just so you know, I combined about 7 different recipes and in my shuffling through recipes, I decided to cook my veggies first and forgot about the chicken. Needless to say, I added the chicken after the veggies were soft and it didn't affect anything except for it's ability to brown a little, but it really didn't matter that much. If I created this recipe again, I would probably start with chicken first though.)

Sprinkle the flour over the chicken and veggie mixture and cook until no longer white. Turn heat down to medium low (or low for those of you like me who are scared of burning milk) and add cream and velveeta. Increase heat to bring to low simmer. *This is a good time to add your pasta to the boiling water.* Keep it at a LOW simmer for 5 minutes. Around minute 3 or so, check your seasonings to make sure you have enough blackening seasoning, salt and pepper. (Make sure it is simmering or very hot) Add the shrimp and scallops. These should only need to cook for 5 minutes or so. You will know they are done when the shrimp curl up like a "C" and are a bright pink. The scallops will be white instead of opaque-y. Serve over pasta with fresh Italian bread.

Next time, I wouldn't change a thing!!! This was so excellent and even though it was MORE than 3 cups of half and half, it wasn't too heavy. I might use a little less flour because I was over paranoid it would turn more into a thick gravy than a creamy sauce. But other than that, nothing else. It was perfect!

Chicken Spaghetti

Valentine's Day was coming this year and I wanted something a little indulgent. We had lots of leftover chicken lying around and me being the frugal one I couldn't let it go to waste. Add cheese to anything and you have the perfect dish. So this might be a little odd, but this blog recipe will have two parts. The first part I made it in the crock pot. Then it wasn't cheesy enough so I tweeked it for leftovers. I'm crazy, I know.

2(ish) cups cooked chicken
1 (ish) cup chicken broth
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can diced tomatoes (I used garlic and onion), undrained

1 pound (1/2 loaf velveeta)

cooked spaghetti noodles

Place the chicken in the crock pot. Add tomatoes, cream of mushroom soup and enough chicken broth to make it soupy. (This part makes it very adaptable to however much chicken you have left!) Then thickly slice the velveeta and lay it on top. Simmer on low for 5-6 hours. Serve over cooked noodles.

It turned out okay, not anything spectacular. It didn't become the oozy cheesy that I had expected it to. I think because I let it go for that long in the crock pot (I left the house to teach) the chicken stock boiled and didn't let the velveeta do it's magic. To fix, I would just cook it until it's reheated and all gooey.

Chicken Spaghetti, Redux

To maximize the cheesyness, (I like to add -y to words because I can!) I decided to make a cheese sauce to add to it. To do this, I took about 3/4 pound of velveeta, cut it into cubes and added chicken stock to think it out. If I had to guesstimate, I'd say I used about 1/3 cup of chicken stock. (Psst, I actually warmed this in the microwave until it became smooth and creamy.) Once smooth, I folded it into crock pot chicken spaghetti. This was DELISH!!! This was exactly the way I had planned it.

Next time, I would make this when I was at home so I could monitor and allow it to become creamy because I really think it would. Or if I had the time, I would just make the sauce, throw it in a casserole dish, top with cheese and brown it in the oven. Either way, the second go around was super tastey!!!

Crockpot Chicken Cordon Bleu

Okay, so I can't let you think that everything I make is good. This recipe was an epic fail. I'm not even going to lie. I don't know how it went wrong, it sounded so good in my head. I am determined to revisit this and try it again. But here's what I did so you will know what NOT to do...

In a crockpot, layer:

Chicken Breasts
Ham
Canned Mushrooms
Swiss Cheese

Mix 1 can of cream of chicken and 1 can of cream of broccoli cheese soup and pour over layers. Cook on low for 5-6 hours.

I think where I went wrong was with real cheese. I believe cooking it for an extended period of time melted it too much changing the texture and integrity of the dish. I also would stick with cream of mushroom soups. I particularly care for the cream of chicken and broccoli cheese soup, but that's just me. I haven't figured out exactly how to redo this, but I'm gonna find a way!

Chicken Noodle Soup

*I'm pre-dating this entry to the date I actually made it.

When I was sick, all I wanted was a big of bowl of chicken noodle soup. Except I can't stand all the salt in canned varieties and to be honest, I really don't care for chicken in my soup (not just chicken noodle soup but also chicken and dumplings, I'd just rather have the dumplings to be quite honest). So even though I was almost dying, I decided I could make my own chicken noodle soup (or just noodle soup technically). This makes a LOT of soup to begin with but if you don't eat it all in one setting (or sitting as the case may be), the noodles happen to soak up a lot of the broth, so you'll need to re-add some chicken broth. Also, next time, I think I would add just carrots (and possibly a larger amount) instead of peas AND carrots. I would have used all real stock if I had had it, but I didn't, so I used bouillon in a pinch; however use whatever combination of what you have on hand, you can use all chicken stock or a little more vegetable, whatever you have, it will turn out stellar. Don't just save this for when your sick, it's pretty dang good.

Chicken Noodle Soup (without the real chicken)

1 sm. pkg frozen seasoning mix (onions, celery, parsley, bell peppers)
16 oz. chicken stock
16 oz. vegetable stock
4 chicken bouillion cubes
4 cups water
1 sm. can peas and carrots, drained
1 package egg noodles (I used the "healthier" version with no whites)

In a large soup pot, saute the package of seasoning mix in a few tablespoons of olive oil. When onions are translucent and veggies are soft, add stock (and bouillon and water) and peas and carrots. When broth is at a rolling boil, add egg noodles and cook as directed. Serve warm with saltine crackers.