Category: MISC

TAILGATING TIME 2.0

IT’S OFFICIAL – FOOTBALL SEASON IS HERE!
We have decided to make a change this year in the way Tailgating Time will work. Instead of a new linky for each week we will be using the same linky to keep all the great recipes in one place. This will provide easy access to the recipes and create one big awesome recipe index collection. There is no limit to how many you add – of course we hope you will add a new recipe each and every week! Tailgating Time will generally be posted each week on Sundays at noon.

It doesn’t matter if you are a football fan or not, great party food is always a good thing. Bring over your grilled goods, chips and dips, appetizers, chili and chowders, cocktails, or any recipes that would be great for the football party buffet!

If any of you would like to host along with us you can click –> get the InLinkz code to add the linky to your blog too. You can post it once in awhile or every week during football season, that’s up to you. The only thing we ask is that you leave a comment here to let us know you are co-hosting, and that you visit and comment on as many of the participants as you can. 
 We can’t wait to see what you will bring to the party. Let the games begin. Whoo-hoo!

CHICKEN AND SPINACH NOODLE CASSEROLE

Chicken and Spinach Noodle Casserole
1tablespoon butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
10 ounces package frozen chopped spinach, partially thawed
15 ounces container Ricotta cheese, part skim
3 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
Freshly ground pepper to taste
6 ounces wide noodles, not egg noodles

  • In a small saucepan, heat 1 teaspoon of the butter. 
  • Add the onion and garlic, cover and cook over low heat until the onion is tender, about 8 minutes. 
  • Add the spinach, increase heat to medium, cover and cook until the spinach has completely thawed. 
  • Uncover the spinach and stir it over slightly higher heat until all the excess liquid has evaporated. Let it cool slightly.
  • In a large mixing bowl, stir together the spinach mixture, Ricotta and Parmesan. Season with nutmeg and pepper.
  • Meanwhile, cook the noodles in a large pot of boiling water. Do not salt water. Do not add oil to water. Season with onion powder and stir in keep from sticking. 
  • Drain and immediately stir into the cheese and spinach mixture.
  • Butter a deep 1 to 1 1/2 quart baking dish with 1 teaspoon of butter and pack in the mixture. 
  • Dot the top with the remaining 1 teaspoon of butter and bake in preheated 375 degree oven for 45 minutes, or until the top is brown and crusty. Let the casserole stand for 5 minutes before serving.

Modifications:

-I decided at the last minute to add some chicken to this dish so I cut up 2 chicken breasts.
-I used 2 garlic cloves.
-I added a handful of fresh, chopped parsley.
-I used about 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese.

Here’s what you’ll need:
  • Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
  • Put a pot of water on to boil for the noodles.
  • Chop up an onion and 2 garlic cloves.

  • Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a pan.
  • Chop up the chicken breasts and brown in the melted butter.
  • Add the onion and garlic cloves and let it all cook for about 7-8 minutes.
  • Add 3 big handfuls of semi-defrosted chopped spinach.
  • Cover it and let it cook for another 6-7 minutes to totally defrost. I then uncovered it and cooked for a couple of more minutes.
  • Put a container of ricotta cheese and about 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese in a bowl. 
  • Add the noodles to the boiling water and cook until al dente.  I used about 1/2 of a bag of egg noodles. 
  • Uncover the chicken mixture and throw in some fresh chopped parsley.
  • Put the chicken mixture into the same bowl as the cheeses.
  • Drain the noodles and add them in with the chicken and cheese.
  • Spray a 9×9 baking dish (anything this size will work) and put the entire mixture in the dish.
  • Cut up some pads of butter and put them on top.
  • Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes.
Here’s what you’ll end up with:
This dish was really good. I’m definitely glad that I added the chicken breasts to this as it made it a little more heartier.  This dish has the potential to be a little dry so add a bit more butter on top and then let it melt down. You could also add maybe 1/2 of a can of cream of chicken soup.  Add a can of artichokes to make it a chicken, spinach and artichoke pasta.

CHICKEN MILANO

CHICKEN MILANO
4 tablespoons butter, divided*
2 pounds chicken tenders
1 cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped**
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 bunch green onions, sliced thin
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups heavy cream
1 pound fettucini
salt and pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons chopped basil

  • In a large skillet, melt 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat.  Add garlic and saute until fragrant.
  • Add onions and saute until soft.
  • Add tomatoes and 3/4 cup of the chicken broth. Simmer 10minutes.
  • Add the cream and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
  • Reduce heat to a simmer and cook until sauce is thickened to desired consistency.
  • Meanwhile prepare pasta per package directions.
  • In another skillet melt remaining butter over medium heat.
  • Wash chicken pieces and pat dry.
  • Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper generously.
  • Add chicken to butter and saute on both sides until cooked through.
  • Plate chicken.
  • Toss fettuccini and sauce together until well coated. Add to plated chicken.
  • Sprinkle with basil.
  • Enjoy.

* I use butter or safflower oil

**next time I will probably puree them slightly

LMAO at this email and wanted to share.

Check your shampoo bottle label.  I don’t know WHY I didn’t figure this out sooner!!!!  It’s the shampoo I use in the shower!
When I wash my hair, the shampoo runs down my whole body and (duh!) printed very clearly on the shampoo label is this warning,
*FOR EXTRA VOLUME AND BODY!*
NO wonder I have been gaining weight!!!
Well! I have gotten rid of that shampoo and I am going to start using Dawn dish soap instead.  Their label reads,
*DISSOLVES FAT THAT IS OTHERWISE DIFFICULT TO REMOVE*
Problem Solved!!!  If I don’t answer the phone I’ll be in the shower!!!

WEEKLY MENU

Menu Plan Monday hosted by Laura at I’m an Organizing Junkie

 DATE BREAKFAST LUNCH DINNER
Monday 10/3 CEREAL SANDWICHES MEXICAN BEEF TORTILLA CASSEROLE
Tuesday 10/4 TOAST LEFTOVERS APPLE DAPPLE CHICKEN
Wednesday 10/5 YOGURT SOUP CHICKEN CORDON BLEU CASSEROLE 
Thursday 10/6 FRUIT CHEESE & FRUIT MEXICAN MEATLOAF 
Friday 10/7 OATMEAL SANDWICHES CHICKEN DIVINE
Saturday 10/8 PEANUT BUTTER and JELLY PANCAKES LEFTOVERS CHILI HOMINY BAKE
Sunday 10/9 SWEDISH PANCAKES with LIGNONBERRY BUTTER C.OR.N. BAKED WHITE FISH

Fire Day Friday: Annato Chicken Wraps

If I’m smoking or grilling a chicken, I cook two. There’s just always so much you can do with leftover cooked chicken, right?
Here is something I came up with with this week’s extra chicky-chick. Annato is used in many Latin dishes and gives a bright orange color. 
Most grocery stores around here carry it now but if you can’t find it, you can substitute paprika. You’ll get the color effect but not the same flavor.
Annato Chicken Wraps
serves 4
4 ea flour tortilla, burrito sized
1 cup cooked rice
1 cup Bush’s seasoned black beans
¼ cup white onion, finely diced
2 cups cooked chicken, shredded
2 Tbsp cilantro, chopped
Annato Oil
¼ cup oil
1.5 tsp ground annato
1 tsp season salt
¼ tsp black pepper
Chile Lime Mayo
½ cup mayonnaise
1-2 tsp Cholula Chili Lime Hot Sauce
To make the annato oil, mix the oil, annato, pepper, and season salt and heat 3-4 minutes over medium heat. Toss the chicken in the oil mix to coat, drain off the excess.
Mix the mayo and hot sauce together.
Place ¼ cup of the rice on the tortilla. Add some beans, onion, ½ cup of the chicken and top with some cilantro. Drizzle with the chile lime mayo.
See how orange the chicken comes out?
Fold the top down, bottom up and roll to form a burrito.  Cut in half and serve.

CHICKEN MILANO

CHICKEN MILANO
4 tablespoons butter, divided*
2 pounds chicken tenders
1 cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped**
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 bunch green onions, sliced thin
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups heavy cream
1 pound fettucini
salt and pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons chopped basil

  • In a large skillet, melt 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat.  Add garlic and saute until fragrant.
  • Add onions and saute until soft.
  • Add tomatoes and 3/4 cup of the chicken broth. Simmer 10minutes.
  • Add the cream and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
  • Reduce heat to a simmer and cook until sauce is thickened to desired consistency.
  • Meanwhile prepare pasta per package directions.
  • In another skillet melt remaining butter over medium heat.
  • Wash chicken pieces and pat dry.
  • Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper generously.
  • Add chicken to butter and saute on both sides until cooked through.
  • Plate chicken.
  • Toss fettuccini and sauce together until well coated. Add to plated chicken.
  • Sprinkle with basil.
  • Enjoy.

* I use butter or safflower oil
**next time I will probably puree them slightly

SLOW COOKED BUFFALO CHICKEN WRAPS

You want quick and easy?  You got it!
You want something super, duper tasty!  This is it!
This may be my new favorite meal.  It took very little effort and it was SO good!  I’ve actually made this several times and it seems to get better and better. 
My favorite is Frank’s buffalo wing sauce.  It’s a good flavor and it works perfect in this. 
I spooned a bit of light ranch over mine because I am a condiment junkie.  Hubs thought his was fine as it was.  Blue cheese would be good too.
Buffalo Chicken Wraps Recipe

2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup Franks Buffalo Wing Sauce
3/4 cup ranch dressing, light
10 – 100 calorie whole wheat tortillas
Lettuce

  • Place chicken and salt in the crock pot.  
  • Cover and cook for 6 – 7 hours on low.  
  • Remove chicken and empty crock pot of water. 
  • Shred the chicken and add back to the slow cooker.  
  • Mix ranch and buffalo wing sauce in a small bowl.  
  • Add the sauce to the chicken and stir.  
  • Serve on tortillas with lettuce.

Total calories = 2755 calories
10 servings = 276 calories per wrap

**I didn’t measure how much meat went on the tortillas but I THINK that we got 10 wraps out of this.

COTTAGE CHEESE DINNER BUNS

I have posted this recipe here before. Before I had a camera and before anyone visited! It is another one from my old little black binder, splattered and made many times over. These are simple, easy and delicious. My three favorite categories! You know the reason folks love to cook, is because not every recipe they make and enjoy is difficult. Lets be honest here, if every meal was a big challenge or difficult, the fun would disappear. Learning about and enjoying these simple, easy and delicious recipes is what begins the journey to other more challenging recipes and fun projects.
If you are a bread lover, fresh bread can turn the most humble dish into dinner. And fortunately yeast doughs are not fussy at all and very forgiving. Yeast dough will wait in the refrigerator, to be baked right before dinner. And of course that wonderful aroma will call the family to dinner, you won’t have to. But enough about my love of bread, lets make some dinner buns.

Cottage Cheese dinner buns
source unknown, in my little black binder
350 degrees, for baking

1 package (1 scant tablespoon) yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup cottage cheese
2 3/4 cup flour – divided

  • In a large mixing bowl, dissolve the yeast in the water, add the sugar, stir.
  • Gently warm the cottage cheese, and add to the yeast mixture along with the egg, salt, soda and 2 1/2 c of the flour.
  • Slowly blend the flour into the wet ingredients, then mix well until mixture leaves the sides of the bowl, adding last 1/4 c flour if needed. Scrape down sides of bowl, when completely mixed. NOTE: dough is sticky.
  • Cover and let rise until double in bulk.
  •  The rising will take about 1 hour.
  • Stir/punch down dough. Spoon into 12 prepared muffin cups.
  • Cover and let rise for 30 minutes.
  • If not ready to bake after 30 minutes, remove towel. Otherwise it may stick to the dough. If you need/want to store the dough, oil the tops lightly and cover loosely with wax paper and then a towel, put in the refrigerator.
  • When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350, bake 20-25 minutes or until golden brown and done. 
  • Makes 12 buns.

As always thanks for dropping in,
I do appreciate your stopping by.

For more great recipes, visit Mom’s Sunday Cafe!

PO’ BOY BEEF WELLINGTON & TASTE and CREATE

Taste and Create was started as a food event by Nicole from For the Love of Food.  The whole purpose of Taste and Create was, and has been, and continues to be to create a community of bloggers who test each others’ recipes and share links. The participants of the event are paired together and try a new recipe from one another’s blog. 
This month my partner is Kat from STUDY FOOD.  She has some really interesting recipes, but I settled on one that my family would eat LOL without asking. “What’s in this?”  I get a bit too creative at times so wanted to treat them to a straight forward home style meal.  So I chose her Po’ Boy Wellingtons because I just loved the irony of students eating beef wellington, a previously reserved for the rich recipe.  Hubby gave them 2 thumbs up!  They were wonderful and I think I’ll make them again using hamburger steaks next time. Even more PO Boy!! LOL
Kat’s recipe in black, my adaptations in red:
Beef: Here, I only had bolar (blade) roast – which I cut a 350g steak from. Because bolar has a reputation of sometimes coming out tough – I marinaded it in the juice of two lemons, a tsp of olive oil, salt and pepper for an hour a side – hoping that the acid in the lemon juice would break down some of the fibres while the oil would stop the meat from drying out too much… If you’re using rump steak, or another, more tender mean you can leave that bit out…  If using Bolar Beef:  Bake your beef, SLOWLY for 45ish minutes @ 150 degrees while wrapped in foil – this’ll make your Beef Wellington a little dryer than strictly desirable (unless you like your meat well done, in which case it’ll be just the same as normal….) but it should also make it somewhat more tender than partially or fast baked Bolar.

If using not Bolar Beef:  Before browning the meat I  like to rub a little more olive oil, salt and pepper into each side – just to add flavour.  Brown the meat on all sides over LOW heat. You are only browning the beef NOT cooking it – so don’t leave it on the heat for too long! Once all sides of the steak are browned wrap it in foil and leave it to cool before shrouding in pate, mushrooms and pastry…
The purpose of browning the meat first is not only to add flavour but also to prevent it from leaking onto the pastry later.


LOL Kat didn’t quite know what my flank steak was all about and I really didn’t know what her Bolar beef was about, but I did google it and then set off to buy my meat, but was distracted by the wonderful manager’s special markdowns that were going on at the end of my local store’s meat counter.  OOH, top sirloin at rock bottom prices – SOLD!

Duxelles: hubs won’t eat mushrooms so I had to get creative here.  I had some left over roasted carrots and some sauteed brussels sprouts.  I was making dinner for 3 so opted to make each one a different flavor, but boy did I mess up the kitchen!!
10 grams butter
1 teaspoons oil
1/2 a tiny onion (or shallot, I guess…) diced as fine as you can
3 cloves garlic, minced or very finely diced
80 grams mushrooms – chopped into the finest dice you can manage
1 teaspoons dried, mixed herbs
2 tablespoons milk

  • Melt the butter in a frying pan with the teaspoon of oil over LOW heat…
  • Briefly fry the onion and garlic until fragrant before adding the finely chopped ‘shrooms. When cooking the mushrooms you may notice that they soak up all the butter pretty quickly – keep stirin’ ’em over low until they release the butter again and begin to brown. At this point add the dried herbs.
  • Continue to fry the mushrooms/onions etc until the pan starts to dry out a little – now pour in the two tablespoons of milk. Cook until as much of the milk has evapourated as you think will happen and the mixture is a dry-ish paste.
  • I tip mine out of the frying pan and into a sieve over a bowl – just in case there’s anymore liquid to drip off…
Crepes: (Kat advises against cooking these in a bowed pan – it makes life very difficult) I skipped this as I used Pepperidge Farm Puff pastry and this was just more than we needed.
1/4 cup flour
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon oil
  • Whisk all ingredients together in a bowl and allow to sit for and hour or so. The mix will be fairly liquid – but it will thicken over time.
  • Once rested, fry 1/2 of the mix at a time in a non-stick frying pan until cooked through on both sides. Set aside to cool.
Pate: I skipped this too – just more than we needed.
Kat borrowed some homemade pate from a flatmate – she loosely followed this recipe for Chicken Liver Pate from this month’s Foodtown Magazine.

Pastry:
Kat used shop bought pastry – because that’s what she had! And so did I!

Final Assembly:

  • Cut cooked steak into two. I cut them before cooking. 
  • Cut pre-rolled pastry square into two.
  • Butter, egg or water the edges of your pastry with whatever you have handy… I used egg
  • Lay your pancakes on each of the pastry pieces and cut to fit. I omitted.
  • Spread half of the pate (I omitted) and half of the duxelles over each of the pastry/pancake halves.
  • Plonk steak pieces in the middle and wrap pastry over it sealing all edges/gaps… 
  • Place on a cookie rack on a baking tray – seam side down. 
  • Make slits half-way through the pastry (purely aesthetical) and brush with egg or butter or milk… I used a butter egg mixture
  • Bake @ 220 for 20-30 minutes, until pastry is golden and crispy. I used 400 F.
This recipe was a raving success!! Tasty, yummy and well worth the time and effort to make the 3 different veggies!