Baked Lemon Chicken Pasta

I've been wanting to try this recipe since I saw it on a blog I follow, Cooking With LT, well with some adjustments, I finally decided to take the plunge this week. I guess originally it was a Pioneer Woman recipe, but I omitted quite a bit to make my own little spin on it. The recipe that follows is what I used, if you'd like the full one, check out Pioneer Woman or Cooking with LT.

Ingredients:
1 lb box spaghetti (I used a box of whole wheat thin spaghetti, 13.25 oz)
1 lemon juiced and zested
1 chicken breast, shredded
2 cups (16 oz) fat free sour cream
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 Tbsp butter
4 Tbsp olive oil
Grated parmesan cheese

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Put pasta in a large pot and boil, cook until al dente and drain. Put butter and olive oil in a skillet on the stove over low heat. Cook until butter melts, then add in garlic and lemon juice and turn off burner. Add in lemon zest and sour cream and stir. Add in shredded chicken. Then pour sauce over pasta and then transfer to an oven safe dish. Cover with foil and cook for 15 minutes. Remove foil and cook uncovered and additional 7-10 minutes. Remove from oven, squeeze a little more lemon juice over dish, top generously with parmesan cheese, then give lemon a final squeeze and serve. Enjoy!

Hubby and I definitely enjoyed this dish! It was a nice break from the usual alfredo we like to eat, and in fact it was pretty similar to an alfredo texture, but with a lemon flavor. I loved it! We will definitely be having this again.

Tony's Graduation and Christmas #1

Whew! It has been a busy few weeks!! My wonderful husband has finally finished his M.P.A. (Master's in Public Administration), so with graduation being December 19th and the in laws coming for this momentous occasion, we decided to combine it and celebrate an early Christmas with them! It was so great to see them since we don't get to see them very often. And of course, there was a ton of food and cooking to be done! I made the 13.2 lb turkey I won at last month's Turkey Trot. I made it the usual way my family makes turkey, covered it in poultry seasoning, added 1 12 oz bottle of Corona in the pan as well as 1 12 oz can of chicken broth, 1 stick of butter, and salt and pepper to taste. Then covered it all with foil and let it cook at 325 for 4 hours. After it was done, I took the foil off and brushed on some melted butter and let it brown about 10 more minutes. The rest of the trimmings were mostly from cans, except my mashed potatoes, those were homemade. We stuffed ourselves Friday night and then settled in for presents and cake and eggnog! Tony's parent's gave us the cutest ornament for our tree that they got a local craft fair, I LOVE it!!

Then it was time for cake and eggnog. Tony, being the guest of honor, got to pick what kind of cake he wanted me to make him. Of course, he picked chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. Normally, I make cakes with a box mix, but this time I decided to try something new and went ahead and made the whole thing from scratch! I pulled out my Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The Original Classics  and got to work on the Moist Devil's Food Cake.

Here's our graduate with the cake, I piped on the words using leftover blue frosting from the cookies:

And then it was eggnog time! My family always makes homemade eggnog every year, except we always put the bourbon in the nog when making it, but Tony's parents don't drink, so I made it without and just let those that wanted to add liquor to add it themselves.

Eggnog:

6 eggs

1 cup sugar

2 cups bourbon

1 quart whole milk

1 pint heavy whipping cream

1. Separate eggs, beat yolks until creamy (I put them in my Kitchen Aid on 6 for about 3 minutes). Add sugar, mix to creamy, another 3-5 minutes. Add bourbon, mix until sugar dissolves; then let the mixture sit in a large bowl.

2. Beat egg whites until thick. I used my Kitchen Aid and beat on 8 for about 3-5 minutes, basically until the egg whites form peaks. Fold egg whites into the other mixture. Add milk, just pour the whole quart in.

3. Beat heavy cream until thick, the thickness of the cream will determine the thickness of the nog, so do this to your liking, I like mine kind of thick, so I beat the cream until it made whipped cream and the peaks stood on their own when the beater was removed. Pour the cream into the nog. Gently stir.

4. Half the mixture into 2 bowls, freeze one and refrigerate the other. The next day mix the two together and grate some nutmeg over it, or be lazy like me and just sprinkle some already ground nutmeg in there to your liking.

I skipped adding the bourbon since as I said before my in laws don't drink, but it still came out delicious, the only thing was the half in the freezer froze over without the liquor in there, so I had to let it sit out for about an hour for it to thaw out to be able to mix the two together.

So, the next morning was hubby's graduation, so we got all dressed up and headed on downtown. It was a little nippy out, about 30 degrees or so, but colder with the wind chill, so walking downtown was not too enjoyable, but luckily we cut through the Peabody and took this awesome photo in front of their huge Christmas tree!

Finally some pics of the graduate!

 

Then it was off to the Pig 'N' Whistle for some authentic Tennessee BBQ and a nice relaxing afternoon evening. The in laws are now gone, but we had a great visit with them! We can't wait to see them again in June for Pat and Heather's wedding (Tony's brother and his fiancee)! Now I just need to get ready for Aunt Tara's arrival on Wednesday and a nice low key Christmas! Merry Christmas to all of you and I wish you all the best in the 2010!!

Kate's Apple Bacon Chicken

I spend a lot of time on thenest.com, prior to The Nest I spent most of my time on theknot.com. When Tony and I first got engaged and we figured we would be having our wedding in July 2009 I then spent most of my time on the July 09 message board for brides, and through that I met a great bunch of girls. Now as wives we like to share recipes, ideas, and all things going on in our married lives since we are all at similar points. We started posting weekly menus a few weeks ago and one of the Nesties, Kate, shared her menu, on it was this delicious sounding meal, apple bacon chicken. She was gracious enough to post the recipe and so today I decided to make it. It was so delicious! Best part is it's a crockpot recipe! Yay! I tweaked her recipe a bit to only make 2 servings, so I halved it and also used lemon juice from a bottle instead of juice from a lemon, oh and I used low fat bacon. So here it goes:

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 1 lb)
1 apple (I used Granny Smith)
1-2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup barbecue sauce (I used Hunt's Brown Sugar Hickory)
4 slices bacon

Rinse and pat dry the chicken breasts, set aside. Peel, core, and grate the apple (I used my Kitchen Aid shredder attachment, but I really wasn't liking the consistency it grated at). Mix the bbq sauce, lemon juice and apple in a bowl. Wrap each chicken breast with 2 slices of bacon. Place chicken in crockpot and then pour bbq sauce mixture on top of chicken. Cook on low for 8 hours. Here's how it looked before I turned the crockpot on:

The dish tasted very Fall-like to me. Hubby and I both loved it! It was sweet and a bit savory. I served it with couscous, green beans, and sauteed garlic spinach. I had never made the spinach before and I was surprised how easy that was to make. One package of frozen chopped spinach, thawed for about an hour, then peeled and chopped 2 cloves of garlic, 2 tsp evoo in a pan, sautee garlic until brown, add spinach, let it sautee for about 3-4 minutes, I sprinkled with Melting Pot Garlic and Wine seasoning and voila! Delicious dinner and I am sure we will be having this dish again! And the best part? It was low points as well, so it was very easy to stay on track! Thanks Kate for the awesome recipe and idea!! 

40 Clove Garlic Crockpot Chicken

I love garlic. I just adore it. So naturally I am always looking for a delicious recipe in which I can add this delicious ingredient. Luckily hubby also loves garlic, so he is not opposed to my garlic loving overload. I've seen this recipe on other blogs, but it always involved onion, which I hate onion, so I decided to modify it myself. It's incredibly simple and turns out wonderful every time!

Ingredients:
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 1-1.5 lbs)
2 bulbs of garlic, separate into cloves and peel all cloves (2 bulbs should yield about 30-40 cloves)
1-2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
salt & pepper to taste

Separate and peel all cloves of garlic, this is usually a super time consuming and laborious task, until I discovered the secret. Pop garlic cloves into a pot of boiling water for about 1-2 minutes and the peels just slip right off! Try it, it makes this recipe a thousand times easier! I then put the 2 rinsed and patted dry chicken breasts into a Tupperware type container, throw all garlic cloves in there too, drizzle with the evoo, and then salt and pepper to taste, then I put the lid on the Tupperware and shake it all up to coat the chicken and garlic evenly. Next, place all contents of the Tupperware into your crockpot. I have a 6 qt programmable one, but it should fit in smaller ones as well. I set it for 6 hours on low, and believe me it smells delicious as the garlic is roasting! Here's the finished product, sorry for the crockpot photo, hubby and I devoured this before I could take a more savory pic!

Toasted Ravioli

Tony has been complaining lately that he is getting tired of our same old dinners, granted some of that is due to me trying to watch my diet and lose weight, but I figured the occasional deviation from my standards would be alright. Enter toasted ravioli. I saw this on Rachael Ray a while ago and it looked so yummy, I knew I had to try it. See I love all things cheese and all things breaded. It's a weakness, it really is. So here it goes, ingredients:

1 package of Buitoni four cheese ravioli (the fresh kind, not frozen)
about 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
2 teaspoons grated parmesan cheese
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning (mine has basil, oregano, garlic and some other spices in there)
1 teaspoon granulated garlic powder
3-4 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 egg or in my case about 1/4 cup egg beaters
tomato sauce for dipping

First combine breadcrumbs, cheese, garlic, and seasonings in one bowl, in another bowl place your egg or egg beaters, and have a plate handy as well. I made a little production line with the package of ravioli, the bowl with the egg beaters, the bowl with the breadcrumbs/seasoning, and then the plate to put my finished products on. At the same time I placed 2 Tbsp evoo in a skillet on the stove on medium heat. One by one dip the ravioli into the egg then the breadcrumbs and place on plate. When all have been dipped place in hot skillet and fry about 1-2 minutes on each side. Serve with a side of hot tomato sauce if desired.

This was really easy to make once I got the hang of it. I didn't have enough canned breadcrumbs to make the whole package of ravioli, so I ended up toasting a piece of bread and then making crumbs out of it in my Magic Bullet. I think from now on I will be making all my breadcrumbs that way, first off it's easier for me to figure out the exact nutrition content that way, and I know I always have healthy bread on hand, unlike the canister of breadcrumbs. Naturally, I made Tony eat the ones breaded in the white breadcrumbs and I ate the high fiber wheat ones that were made with my breadcrumbs. Also, my pan wasn't big enough, so I had to do about 4 batches to make them all, which meant I put about another 2 Tbsp evoo in there, not exactly what I wanted to do, but they were still delicious, and as you can see above I used a paper towel on the plate to try to soak up some of the excess oil. We ended up eating them with some of my yummy zucchini and squash and some Merlot. We finally broke open the bottle of red chocolate covered wine and enjoyed our wine and the dark chocolate it was covered in for dessert! So good! I will be running all this off tomorrow to complete Week 4 of c25k.

Cuban Food! I Miss South Florida...

I've been missing the Cuban food of Miami for a while now. I've always had the thought that I could make some awesome shredded mojo pork in the crockpot, because I can make some awesome BBQ pork in the crockpot. So tonight I decided to try it. I got a pretty good recipe online and made my own marinade and let it marinate overnight. So here's what you'll need: a 1 lb pork tenderloin, garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil, cumin, lime juice, orange juice, honey, and I threw some Adobo in there too. I didn't measure, but basically you put all the spices in with some oj and lime juice, leave the honey out for now, I put all this in my Magic Bullet and blended, then poked holes in my tenderloin and shot the mixture in it. Then put it a gallon size Ziploc bag and let it soak overnight. This morning I put the tenderloin and the marinade in the crockpot and set it on low for 8 hours. This is how the tenderloin looked in the crockpot when it was done:

Then I took it out and it fell apart, like this:

So then I used those two forks to shred it all up. Next, I made a sauce. Here's the recipe for the sauce:

1/3 cup OJ

1 Tbsp Lime Juice

1 Tbsp Fresh Minced Garlic

2 Tbsp Honey

1 Tbsp Olive Oil

Again I mixed it all together with my Magic Bullet and then heated the mixture for a few seconds in the microwave and then poured it all over the shredded meat in crockpot.

Next, it was time to make the zucchini and squash. I love zucchini and squash! Here is my not so secret recipe of how I make it:

1 large zucchini

1 large yellow squash

2 tsp extra virgin olive oil

lots of Goya Adobo

Slice the zucchini and squash in half lengthwise and then chop, making half moon shapes, throw it into a large saucepan with the olive oil and sprinkle liberally with Adobo, cook on medium-high for about 5 minutes until veggies are tender.

And voila, here's the finished meal, not exactly La Carreta, but hubby and I definitely enjoyed, and I loved how easy it was!