Category: MISC
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… HAPPY NEW YEAR!
PAN SEARED CHICKEN BREAST & WILTED SPINACH with PARMESAN PASTA
PAN SEARED CHICKEN BREAST & WILTED SPINACH with PARMESAN PASTA
3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 tablespoons butter
2 cloves garlic, minced*
1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
2 ounces white wine
1 lemon, juiced
4 ounces bacon, diced
1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced
3 cups fresh spinach, washed and stemmed
spaghetti, cooked and well drained
1/2 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese
1 large tomato, diced
*While I prefer fresh garlic, I have found that the roasted jar garlic is a great substitute, especially in the winter.
- Brown bacon until crisp.
- Add onion slices and garlic, sauteing until tender.
- Move bacon and onions to the sides and add butter.
- When butter is melted, add chicken and brown well on both sides.
- In the meantime, prepare the pasta per package directions.
- Remove chicken, keeping warm.
- Add spinach and saute’ until spinach wilts.
- Move spinach to outer sides.
- Toss pasta with wine and lemon juice.
- Mound pasta in center of pan.
- Top with Parmesan cheese.
- Layer chicken pieces over top.
- Serve immediately.
Fire Day Friday: Asparagus with Hollandaise and Beef
The myth that BBQ enthusiasts don’t eat vegetables is false. We just add meat to them.
The great thing about this appetizer we made tonight was that it was all leftovers. I had some extra asparagus that I hadn’t cooked, Hollandaise sauce that I had made the day before, and the thin shaved prime rib from last night’s dinner (another leftovers dinner – click here for that post).
This really isn’t much of a recipe as it is “just throw it together”.
I tossed the asparagus tips in some olive oil, salt, and pepper. Then I roasted it for 9 minutes at 400f on the top rack of my oven.
Meanwhile I warmed up the Hollandaise sauce the same way I made it. I added a Tbsp each of water and lemon juice, then heated it in a stainless steel mixing bowl positioned over a pot of simmering water, whisking frequently.
Then I simply drizzled the Hollandaise sauce over the roasted asparagus and crowned it with some finely diced prime rib.
These might have been leftovers but you couldn’t tell from the taste! What is your favorite “leftover” dish that you have made?
Calling all foodies!
BEEF & VEGETABLE POT PIE
I’ve made several chicken pot pies but this was my first beef pot pie. The recipe called for ground sirloin but I used beef stew chunks instead.
As you can see, my lattice crust wasn’t much of a lattice. I just piled them on top of each other. Sorry, I’m not very crafty. 🙂
I think that I upped the veggies in this quite a bit. I LOVED how it was packed with veggies.
The recipe called for 8 oz. of mushrooms as well, we’re just not mushroom fans here but I’ll bet that would be good!
The bread was quite plain. When I make this again, I will spread just a bit of butter and garlic powder on the breadsticks to flavor them a bit.
We all found this to be delicious!
Beef & Vegetable Pot Pie Recipe
1 lb. stew meat, cut into fairly small chunks
2 cups zucchini
1 large onion, chopped
1 1/2 cups carrot, chopped
1 tsp. dried basil
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup red wine
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 14 oz can beef broth
2 tbsp. cornstarch
1 tbsp. water
Cooking spray
1 (11 oz) can refrigerated soft bread stick dough
Heat cooking spray in pan, add beef, cook until browned. Add onion, carrot, basil, and thyme, saute for about 5 minutes. Add zucchini and garlic, saute for another 2 minutes. Stir in wine, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, pepper and broth. Bring to a boil and cook for 3 minutes. Combine cornstarch and 2 tbsp. water in a small bowl, stir with a whisk. Add cornstarch mixture to pan, cook for a minute until slightly thickened, stirring constantly.
Spoon beef mixture into an 9 x 13 in. baking dish coated with cooking spray. Separate breadstick dough into strips. Arrange strips in a lattice fashion over beef mixture. Bake at 400 for 12 minutes or until browned.
Total calories = 2326 calories
8 servings = 291 calories per serving
Beef & Vegetable Pot Pie + Salad = 411 calorie dinner
Check out more healthy recipes at Debbi Does Dinner Healthy!
ARROZ CON POLLO ala TAMY
ARROZ CON POLLO ala TAMY
4-6 portions white rice, prepared to package directions
2 pounds chicken breasts, cut into tenders
Paprika
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil
2 medium onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/4 teaspoon saffron
1 (13 1/2-ounce) can chicken broth
1 tomato, peeled and chopped
- Sprinkle chicken with paprika, salt, and pepper.
- Heat oil in pressure cooker. Brown chicken a few pieces at a time; set aside.
- Sauté onions and garlic until tender.
- Return all chicken to pressure cooker; add bay leaf, red pepper, saffron, and chicken broth.
- Close pressure cooker cover securely.
- Place pressure regulator on vent pipe.
- Cook for 5 minutes, with regulator rocking slowly.
- Cool pressure cooker at once.
- Remove chicken and stir in rice and tomato.
- Return chicken to pressure cooker and heat to a simmer, uncovered.
Makes 4 to 6 servings
PAPRIKA CHICKEN
PAPRIKA CHICKEN
3-4 chicken breasts, cut in half
Salt and pepper to taste
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup tomato sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons Hungarian-style Paprika
3 tablespoons dill weed
1 cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon flour
3/4 cup sour cream
- Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper.
- Heat oil in 6-quart pressure cooker.
- Sauté onions, red pepper, and garlic until tender; remove.
- Brown chicken a few pieces at a time; set aside.
- Add tomato sauce, paprika, dill weed, and a small amount of chicken broth to oil in pressure cooker; stir until smooth.
- Add remaining broth, stirring to mix.
- Return chicken and vegetables to pressure cooker.
- Close pressure cooker cover securely. Place pressure regulator on vent pipe.
- Cook for 5 minutes, with regulator rocking slowly.
- Cool pressure cooker at once.
- Remove chicken and vegetables to a warm dish.
- Stir flour into sour cream; add to hot liquid.
- Cook and stir until mixture simmers and thickens.
- Pour sauce over chicken.
Makes 4 to 6 servings
Save Room for Dessert…Cherry Balls
Hello! Hope everyone had a peaceful, joyous, and love-filled Christmas. Ours was lovely, just the three of us and the Wii. Yes, we took the plunge and bought the Wii, along with numerous games, including Just Dance for Kids, which has been a source of amusement for Andrew, as he watches his two parents try to dance. I’ll highlight our Christmas dinner later this week, as we have another Christmas celebration on Tuesday, when we’ll celebrate with my family. For today’s post, I decided upon an old favorite from my childhood, my grandmother Josie’s cherry balls. I posted my version of her chocolate spice cookies a few weeks ago, and I’ve meant to post these before now, I just never got around to baking them. However, I received some news from my brother last week, and I decided that it was time. I’ve always thought that these are a perfect cookie for a baby shower, particularly a baby shower for a baby girl. Well, my siblings and I have only had boys, so there’s never been an opportunity. Until now, that is, as my brother told me that he and my sister-in-law, Jody, are having a baby girl! Yeah! Finally, we can buy frilly baby girl clothes! They have two boys, so she will definitely be the little princess, with two big brothers. We’re all very excited and happy for the the entire family. So, in honor of the impending birth of my niece, I present Grandma Josie’s Cherry Balls, albeit, an updated version.
Cherry Balls 5 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/3 cup half & half
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup pecans, toasted and chopped
1 10 oz jar maraschino cherries, well-drained and chopped
- Combine flour, baking powder, and salt together in a small bowl; whisk together and set aside.
- Beat eggs, sugar, and vanilla together for 3 minutes.
- Add melted and cooled butter, milk, and drained cherries to butter mixture.
- Mix in flour and pecans, mixing until dough clumps around paddle.
- Remove dough from bowl, shaped into a large disk, and chill for 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Remove chilled dough from refrigerator, and using a small cookie scoop, portion dough onto parchment-lined or well-greased cookie sheets.
- Bake for 10-11 minutes.
- Allow to cool before glazing.
Vanilla Glaze
2 tablespoons butter
3-4 tablespoons milk
Powdered sugar
- Heat butter and 2 tablespoons of milk in microwave until butter melts.
- Stir butter & milk mixture into 2 cups of powdered sugar, adding more milk and/or powdered sugar until desired consistency is reached.
- Glaze entire cookie and then place on rack until glaze sets.
Yield: 7 dozen.
ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL????
We’re HUGE football fans! Football season seems like it just started! and yet it is already way too many weeks old (where does the time go?) and that means it’s time for tailgating again, serious football food and game day buffets. Bring over your best appetizers and your biggest appetite and oh don’t forget the Brewskis to go with it all.
Tailgating Time will be posted every Sunday at noon and open all week for you to add your football favorites. We’ll play each and every week until Superbowl Sunday and then have a big party. I can’t wait to see what you’ll be bringing! We’ll host a big Superbowl party here at OUR KrAzY kitchen.
Tamy at 3 sides of Crazy
Lyndsey at Tiny Skillet
Lyndsey at Tiny Skillet
Would you like to be a host of Tailgating Time too?
Leave a comment here with your email, at OUR KrAzY kitchen or with Martha over at Seaside Simplicity so we can send you the code and add you to the host list – more exposure, more links, more football food and more fun!!
THE LIBERTY LIMITED ~ 2005 ARMY NAVY GAME
Here’s a ‘today’ Yule story that occurred 5 years ago ~ and now for the holidays, I bring you the best Christmas story you never heard that should be turned into a heart warming movie. I snopes verified the story too guys.
It started Christmas 2004, when Bennett and Vivian Levin were overwhelmed by sadness while listening to radio reports of injured American troops. “We have to let them know we care,” Vivian told Bennett. So they organized a trip to bring soldiers from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Bethesda Naval Hospital to the annual Army-Navy football game in Philly, on Dec. 3.
The cool part is, they created their own train line to do it. Yes, there are people in this country who actually own real trains. Bennett Levin – native Philly guy, self-made millionaire and irascible former L&I commish – is one of them.
He has three luxury rail cars. Think mahogany paneling, plush seating and white-linen dining areas. He also has two locomotives, which he stores at his Juniata Park train yard. One car, the elegant Pennsylvania , carried John F. Kennedy to the Army-Navy game in 1961 and ’62. Later, it carried his brother Bobby’s body to D. C. for burial. “That’s a lot of history for one car,” says Bennett.
He and Vivian wanted to revive a tradition that endured from 1936 to 1975, during which trains carried Army-Navy spectators from around the country directly to the stadium where the annual game is played. The Levins could think of no better passengers to reinstate the ceremonial ride than the wounded men and women recovering at Walter Reed in D. C. and Bethesda , in Maryland . “We wanted to give them a first-class experience,” says Bennett. “Gourmet meals on board, private transportation from the train to the stadium, perfect seats – real hero treatment.”
Through the Army War College Foundation, of which he is a trustee, Bennett met with Walter Reed’s commanding general, who loved the idea. But Bennett had some ground rules first, all designed to keep the focus on the troops alone:
- No press on the trip, lest the soldiers’ day of pampering devolve into a media circus.
- No politicians either, because, says Bennett, “I didn’t want some idiot making this trip into a campaign photo op”.
- And no Pentagon suits on board, otherwise the soldiers would be too busy saluting superiors to relax.
The general agreed to the conditions, and Bennett realized he had a problem on his hands. “I had to actually make this thing happen,” he laughs.
Over the next months, he recruited owners of 15 other sumptuous rail cars from around the country – these people tend to know each other – into lending their vehicles for the day. The name of their temporary train? The Liberty Limited.
Amtrak volunteered to transport the cars to D. C. – where they’d be coupled together for the round-trip ride to Philly – then back to their owners later. Conrail offered to service the Liberty while it was in Philly. And SEPTA drivers would bus the disabled soldiers 200 yards from the train to Lincoln Financial Field, for the game.
A benefactor from the War College ponied up 100 seats to the game – on the 50-yard line – and lunch in a hospitality suite.
And corporate donors filled, for free and without asking for publicity, goodie bags for attendees: From Woolrich, stadium blankets. From Wal-Mart, digital cameras. From Nikon, field glasses. From GEAR, down jackets. There was booty not just for the soldiers, but for their guests, too, since each was allowed to bring a friend or family member.
The Marines, though, declined the offer. “They voted not to take guests with them, so they could take more Marines,” says Levin, choking up at the memory.
Bennett’s an emotional guy, so he was worried about how he’d react to meeting the 88 troops and guests at D. C.’s Union Station, where the trip originated. Some GIs were missing limbs. Others were wheelchair-bound or accompanied by medical personnel for the day. “They made it easy to be with them,” he says. “They were all smiles on the ride to Philly. Not an ounce of self-pity from any of them. They’re so full of life and determination.”
At the stadium, the troops reveled in the game, recalls Bennett. Not even Army’s lopsided loss to Navy could deflate the group’s rollicking mood.
Afterward, it was back to the train and yet another gourmet meal – heroes get hungry, says Levin – before returning to Walter Reed and Bethesda . “The day was spectacular,” says Levin. “It was all about these kids. It was awesome to be part of it.”
The most poignant moment for the Levins was when 11 Marines hugged them goodbye, then sang them the Marine Hymn on the platform at Union Station. “One of the guys was blind, but he said, ‘I can’t see you, but man, you must be beautiful!’ ” says Bennett. “I got a lump so big in my throat, I couldn’t even answer him.”
It’s been three weeks, but the Levins and their guests are still feeling the day’s love. “My Christmas came early,” says Levin, who is Jewish and who loves the Christmas season. “I can’t describe the feeling in the air.” Maybe it was hope.
As one guest wrote in a thank-you note to Bennett and Vivian, “The fond memories generated last Saturday will sustain us all – whatever the future may bring.”
God bless the Levins.
And bless the troops, every one.
Veggie Tales by Kris: Veggie Risotto!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
I love making risotto, and this a great way to get your veggies! This dish is also great for the holidays!
Tomato Truffle Risotto
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1 lemon (just zest)
1 shallot, minced
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon truffle oil (or infused olive oil)
1/2 cup fresh basil and parsley, chopped
3 cups spinach
About 4 cups, heated chicken stock
1 cup Arborio Rice
Risotto takes patience, but it’s so worth in the end. Here’s how I do it:
Since I used concentrated chicken stock, I just heated about 4 cups of water in a kettle. I then added 4 packets of the chicken concentrate. You can just heat up 4 cups chicken stock…
Heat about 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet. Add a chopped shallot (or onion) and about 4 sliced garlic cloves in the oil. Let soften for a few minutes. Add in 1 cup of rice and zest of 1 lemon to toast- about 4 minutes. Add in your first cup of heated stock. Season with salt and pepper and cook until the rice absorbs the liquid. Add in tomatoes. Continue to add (1 cup at a time) of the stock and stir rice slowly until it absorbs each cup of stock. When your stock is done (use water if you need more) and the rice is tender, turn of heat. Add in herbs, spinach and about 1/2 parmesan cheese. Add 1 tablespoon truffle oil if you have it. AMAZING!
UPDATE: I forgot to add that when buying Truffle Oil, go for a truffle infused Olive Oil.
You will get more for your buck this way! I got mine at Zabar’s in the city but here are some online and here !