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.

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!!!

Deconstructed Lasagna (with Spaghetti Squash!!!)

The spaghetti squash. Seemingly, a nice, quiet little squash. But inside, a hard winter vegatable that isn't in my everyday food vocabulary.

But I did it. Yes, I finally overcome AND conquered my fear of spaghetti squash. I bought one a couple of weeks ago at Central Market and it has since sat on my countertop. Looking at me everyday, taunting me, begging me to be cooked. Since today was a Sunday, I figured I had lots of time to cook another dinner in case I failed. I had planned to do a "deconstructed" type of lasagna, meaning use pasta, ricotta cheese and pasta sauce but not layered in a pan, just mixed in a bowl. I baked my spaghetti squash and it worked!!! I used the squash instead of pasta for my idea and it was fabulous! It has proved to me that you should take risks in the kitchen and you will be rewarded!!!

Deconstructed Lasagna with Spaghetti Squash

1 medium spaghetti squash
EVOO
Salt and Pepper

Fat Free Ricotta Cheese
Your favorite spaghetti sauce
Mozzarella Cheese

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Split the spaghetti squash in half. Clean out the stringy pulp and seeds. (You can save the seeds to roast like a pumpkin.) Place on a cookie sheet lined with foil. Brush with EVOO, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until fork tender.

Meanwhile, heat your spaghetti sauce or make your own. I prefer to make my own. I sauteed half a white onion, diced, in EVOO. Once the onion turned opaque and softened, I added two cloves of garlic and continued sauteing. Once the garlic had slighty browned, I added a large can of diced tomatoes with basil, garlic and onions. Season to taste with salt, pepper and italian seasoning. Simmer until the spaghetti squash is ready.

Once the squash has cooled enough to handle, use a fork to pull apart and "make spaghetti." While hot, mix squash with ricotta cheese. The squash should be hot enough to melt the cheese. Add sauce, top with mozzarella cheese and serve. Mangia!
(The first picture is the layered, "fancy" picture, but really, it's best when you stir it all together. SOOOOOOOOOOO good!)

White Bean and Spinach Lasagna

Ohmygoodness, this stuff was delicious! It's one of the first times I've cooked since the hurricane, so maybe that might have had something to do with it's tasty-ness. I adapted this recipe from "What Can I Bring Cookbook?" by Anne Byrn. I modified it to be more heart friendly and healthy for my uncle. I added leftover turkey because it's what we had. You can use ground turkey, or you might not even need meat at all. It would taste good without any meat, I can promise you wouldn't even miss it. Below is my version:

White Bean and Spinach Lasagna

32oz. pasta sauce (I used one full jar of Pasta/Alfredo Sauce and half a Sun-Dried Tomato Alfredo Sauce)
1 clove garlic
1 can chickpeas, drained
leftover turkey

15oz. fat-free ricotta cheese
2 c. fat-free mozzarella cheese
1/2 c/ egg beaters

1 pkg. frozen spinach
1 pkg egg roll wrappers
2c. fat-free mozzarella cheese

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Bring the pasta sauce, garlic, beans and turkey to a simmer in a saucepan. Meanwhile, combine the ricotta and mozzarella cheeses and egg beaters in a bowl. In a 9x13 pan, layer the following:
sauce on the bottom,
layer of egg roll wrappers,
cheese,
spinach,
sauce,
noodles,
cheese,
sauce,
noodles,
cheese,
spinach,
noodles,
sauce
and sprinkle the last 2c. cheese on top. (I find that it's easier to guesstimate the measurements rather than try and measure them. It just gets messy and you have to way too many measuring cups, so sorry there's no measurements.) The original recipe called for it to bake 40 mins and rest 20. I found that it needed longer to bake and didn't need to rest that long.

What I would do different next time...I would use garbanzo beans and mash them into the cheese mixture. They were too lumpy in the tomato sauce mixture. I would also mix the spinach into the tomato sauce mixture. There is no need to keep it separate, it is just too time consuming to keep it separate. I think I would also add a can of crushed tomatoes to the sauce mixture because the lasagna was a little dry. Not dry as in dry, but I like my lasagnas creamy and this wasn't. I ended up having to heat a can of crushed tomatoes and add some seasoning to make it a little more saucy. Even though, it was sooo tasty. It really hit the spot. Serve this with some good Italian bread and woo, it will be a hit!

Quick and Easy Pasta

It's been a busy week and tonight was the first night I've had the opportunity to cook. However, referring back to the previous sentence, it's been a long and hard past 7 days and I was not in the mood to cook anything complicated or even go to the store for that matter. Yes, a pantry raid was in store. I pulled a package of Knorr "Sides Plus Veggies" off the shelf. It was the roasted garlic, olive oil and broccoli rotini version. I had originally planned to add a can of cannellini beans and a handful of frozen spinach, however when the pasta got dry, I decided to add a can of stewed Italian tomatoes. I cooked the beans separately because I can't stand undercooked beans and overcooked pasta. Maybe one day I'll try cooking them together. It turned out EXCELLENT and very easy. So think of it Semi-Homemade, Amanda Style.



1 pkg. Knorr Sides Plus Veggies, Roasted garlic, Olive oil, and Broccoli Rotini
1 can stewed tomatoes, Italian style
Handful frozen spinach
1 can cannellini beans
Italian seasoning, Roasted Garlic and Rosemary seasoning

Begin cooking Knorr sides pasta as directed on the package. While the pasta is cooking, begin cooking beans in a separate pot. Bring beans to boil and let simmer. About three minutes before pasta is done per package directions, add tomatoes and additional seasonings and let simmer 3-5 minutes, or until pasta is done. When pasta is done stir in beans, do not drain. Serve warm with bread.