Roasted Cauliflower Pasta with Chicken

I sort of diverted a bit from my Weekly Meal Plan I created over the weekend. Instead of the pasta for Monday, I made homemade burgers (nothing special, just ground beef formed into a patty and fried with salt and pepper and topped with cheese and tomatoes with a butter fried bun) and Crash Hot Potatoes.

And today I made the pasta:

Roasted Cauliflower Pasta with Chicken

• 1 chicken breast, skinless & boneless
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1 bag of cauliflower florets, defrosted (I'm sure you could use fresh)
• olive oil
• spices
• spaghetti (we like wheat), 1/2 pound/box
• bread crumbs, about 1/2 a cup
• Parmesan cheese

1. Dump cauliflower in bowl and cover with seasonings of your choice (and lots of 'em) and drizzle with olive oil, stir.
2. Dump from bowl onto oiled cookie sheet and place in preheated (450) oven on top rack.
3. Bake for about 10 minutes and take out and flip pieces.
4. Bake for another 10 minutes - bake till brown, then take out of oven.
5. In the meantime, chop up 2 garlic cloves and toss in hot pan with olive oil for a minute.
6. Cut chicken breast in bite size pieces and add to pan and cook till white.
7. Put pan aside.
8. Follow instruction on pasta and bring to boil.
9. In large saute pan, add the remaining chopped garlic and generous amount of olive oil.
10. Add chicken to large pan and toss for a minute before adding cauliflower and toss.
11. Sprinkle bread crumbs over mixture and toss and let cook for a minute.
12. When pasta is al dente add directly to large pan and add some pasta water if too thick.
13. Toss and serve hot.

Pretty easy and very tasty.

Weekly Menu Plan

So Stephen went out yesterday to cash a check. Three hours later he finally came back home with bags of groceries from Whole Foods. My husband is a kitchen snob - no offense to any of you Whole Foods shoppers. Don't get me wrong, I adore Whole Foods. It's a beautiful store! But the prices on some of the stuff is just way out of my personal range (though I will definitely admit that nobody beats the freshness from the produce and meats from WF!) so I shop at Aldi (unless S is paying - ha!).

He mainly went crazy buying some kind of steak... I guess it's normally like $30 a pound or something and the butcher's were cutting to order whatever you wanted for like $7.50 a pound. Or something. And we like steak. A lot. (No, I won't post pics to prove this.)

I'm not sure what my point is to telling you this, nor what it has to do with my Weekly Menu Plan, but yeah, I had to share.

Oh no, now I remember!

We didn't get out to the grocery store TOGETHER so I'm not really sure what's going to happen next week but I'll do my best to come up with something and stick to it this time!

Monday - cauliflower and pasta (and so help me it had better turn out better than last week's broccoli and pasta which I never posted about because I'm embarrassed)
Tuesday - Sloppy Joe bake that I never made last week - using ground turkey instead of ground beef which Stephen prefers ... shhhhh don't tell him!
Wednesday - Chicken Salsa that I never made last week, assuming I get the ingredients from the store
Thursday - something with Crash Hot Potatoes! Haha, I love these damn things!
Friday - order in
Saturday & Sunday - up to the old man

Taco Nachos

Last week's Weekly Menu didn't go quite as planned. I sort of fizzeled out by the end of the week because I had a horrible headache one day and DH just brought home some take out, and the next day he needed to cook something he purchased the previous weekend to avoid spoiling. So instead of using the ground beef I defrosted for Sloppy Joe Bake and instead of using the fresh Salsa and Sour Cream for the Salsa Chicken, I used those ingredients for last night's dinner and made my husbands AWESOME taco meat, which I turned into

Taco Nachos

• 1 pound ground beef
• taco seasoning package
• water
• fresh salsa
• sharp cheddar, shredded
• sour cream
• tortilla chips (we used multi-grain with 30% less fat than regular and they were really good!)

1. Follow directions of taco seasoning package by browning ground beef, draining, adding taco seasoning and water and bringing to simmer.
2. Rather than serve after 7 minutes or whatever the package says, keep cooking it so that the meat dries out a bit.
3. Add about 1/2 a cup of fresh salsa and keep cooking. If it seems dry even after adding the salsa, add some water.
4. Keep cooking until it become a bit dry and add some water and cook the shit out of it (on high, stirring occassionally) until it becomes dry. In all honesty, we cook our meat for about an hour on the stove top and I'm telling you, it's so, so, SO worth it!
5. Preheat oven to 425.
6. Line cookie sheet with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray.
7. Add tortilla chips so that it covers the sheet.
8. Sprinkle a handful or two of shredded cheddar onto the naked chips.
9. Cover the chips and cheese with the meat, trying to cover all the chips and the chips only.
10. Sprinkle a handful of shredded cheddar on top of the meat.
11. Pop in oven for only a couple minutes.
12. Take out and serve on plate with a big gob of sour cream (and any other fixings - more salsa, olives, onions - you like).

You can certainly ease up a bit on the ground beef and chips if you'd like to serve as an appetizer or snack, but since this was our meal, I piled on the entire pound of ground beef in the pictures shown. Mmmmm, a simple recipe that's a little time consuming but really so, so worth it!

Honey Mustard Pretzel Chicken and Crash Hot Potatoes

I have a thing about texture... so unless my chicken is fried and crispy or in small bites surrounded by sweet and sour sauce or something, I tend to stay away. But because I'm trying to cook more, and trying to keep that cooking a little more healthy, I needed to think of different ways to keep both my picky palate and Stephen happy.

Last week I tried Cheez-it Chicken and got the "best meal so far" comment from Stephen, but I have a feeling tonight's meal is going to put that one to shame.

At least the smell does.
If you're one of those measuring types... unfortunately, this recipe entails no exact measurements.

Honey Mustard Pretzel Chicken

• Boneless Skinless chicken breast
• Pretzels
• Mayo
• Dijon mustard
• Honey
• Salt
• Pepper

1. Take about 1/2 a cup mayo and about 1/4 dijon mustard and mix. Add about two spoonfuls of honey and mix well. Taste. Keep adding a little more mayo, mustard, or honey to taste. (You'll want some leftover sauce to use as a dipping sauce so be sure to separate some off to the side for later as any that touches the sauce is to be discarded! But if you've come to this blog, I'm sure you know that you cannot eat anything that's touched raw meat and hasn't been cooked! Ewww!)
2. Next take your chicken (I rinse and dry mine first) and salt and pepper both sides and then dip in the sauce and really get it covered and then place it into a zip lock baggie. Once all chicken pieces are covered in sauce and in bag, add any remaining sauce (not the one you separated though!) and let sit.
3. Next take a bunch of pretzels and add to a big zip lock baggie and pound pound pound. Leave the bag a little open so air can escape and don't go crazy with the pounding or you'll poke holes in the bag. Trust me on that one. Empty your pretzels onto a plate.
4. Preheat your oven to 350.
5. Spray down a cookie sheet with cooking spray. Take your chicken that's been soaking in your homemade honey mustard goodness and place in crushed pretzels. Press down on chicken with tongs to so that it picks up lots of the crushed pretzels. After both sides are covered in pretzels, add to cookie sheet.
6. After all pieces are covered and placed on cookie sheet, spray the chicken with cooking spray (you'll want to do this to avoid a soggy crust).
7. Place in oven for about 25 minutes, flipping once.

Serve alongside your reserved homemade honey mustard sauce and...

Crash Hot Potatoes

• Small red potatoes
• salt
• pepper
• herbs of your choice
• olive oil

1. Boil potatoes till fork tender.
2. Preheat oven to 450 and make sure you have a rack up high.
3. Cover cookie sheet with olive oil (enough so nothing sticks).
4. Add potato to cookie sheet, give an inch or two between each.
5. Take masher or serving fork (I don't have a masher) and gently press down. Be careful because they may spread or move a lot.
6. Brush each potato with more olive oil.
7. Add salt, pepper, herbs.
8. Pop in oven till golden brown.

Thank you so much Angie for turning me onto these fabulous taters, and, of course, she found these from the Pioneer Woman.

Bread Pudding

Last week when I made Schnitzeletta, I bought some French bread and never used it all. So this morning, I decided to put it to use and made some Bread Pudding. What a perfect morning to make Bread Pudding... we went from sunny and warm yesterday to rainy and dreary today. So what better way to bring a little warmth back into the place by baking some Bread Pudding!

I looked at a couple simple recipes (here and here) and kinda went from there.

• 2-3 cups stale French bread, torn into cubes
• 3-4 Tbs butter, melted
• 2 cups milk
• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar*
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• cooking spray
• 8x8 pan

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Spray 8x8 pan and toss cubed stale bread in pan, covering entire pan.
3. Drizzle melted butter atop bread.
4. Mix remaining ingredients together well in separate bowl and pour atop bread, pressing down bread to ensure it all gets wet.
5. Place in preheated oven and bake for 45 minutes until bread bounces back up.
6. Serve warm with coffee or milk.

Notes:
I'm horrible at measuring stuff... especially stuff like teaspoons and tablespoons. Plus I like cinnamon and vanilla. So while I thought it had great flavor, my husband says it had an aftertaste he wasn't too fond of and blamed it on my lack of measuring and says I probably put in too much vanilla (personally I think it was too much nutmeg). It was still good though and we both enjoyed it.

*Next time, however, I will be cutting back on the sugar to 1/2 a cup because it was far too sweet for our tastes.

Weekly Menu

S and I are sitting here discussing what we need to get when we go out into this beautiful day and that led me to discuss meal plans. We've never done a meal plan for more than a day or two at a time in the past and that always leads us to ordering in, which can get very expensive and be very fattening.

And that's all going to stop right now.

I told him I had something planned for tomorrow and something planned for the week, and asked if there was anything more he had a taste for and he made the comment, "So I can't cook anymore?"

:)

S is a great cook. He really is. But he works later than me and he cooks much more from scratch thereby taking much longer to make his dishes and frankly, I refuse to eat dinner at 9PM - and then have to clean up after him. So I told him I'd leave the weekends up to him and he seemed to like that idea.

So here's the plan for the week (my very first weekly plan - and I'm giddy about it!):

Monday - Broccoli and Pasta (don't really have a recipe made up for this but will post after I make it... probably go with something like this)
Tuesday - Honey Mustard Pretzel Chicken (something like this I suspect) with Crash Hot Potatoes (which I've been dying to make)
Wednesday - Sloppy Joe Supreme (well, my version of it which takes that recipe and this one)
Thursday - Salsa Chicken and rice
Friday - order in day
Saturday & Sunday is all him. :)

Zucchini Cakes (and pasta)

Oh the smell of these... both as a batter and after fried! So, so, so good!

I saw this recipe for Zucchini Cakes on the Pioneer Woman's website the other day and just so happened to be at the store and saw some zucs. Yay. I pretty much followed her recipe - one I especially loved to make because I hate measuring and didn't measure anything (made about 8 cakes)...

• 2 zucchinis, cleaned and ends cut off
• Parmesan and Romano cheese blend, about 1/2 cup
• Italian bread crumbs, about 1/2 cup
• 2 eggs
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• EVOO

1. Grate zucs and then wring out in clean kitchen towel and return zuc shreds to large bowl.
2. Add minced garlic.
3. Add cheese blend, covering mixture.
4. Add breadcrumbs, covering mixture.
5. Add 1 egg and blend together and if it's not battery enough, add another egg and mix.
6. In cold pan coat with EVOO and heat on medium heat.
7. Add spoonful of zuc batter and press down with spoon.
8. Wait at least two to three minutes and press down again for another minute.
9. Carefully turn one cake and if it's brown to your liking (I'm a texture person and like crispy, therefore brown - more so than above picture), carefully turn the rest.
10. Wait at least another couple minutes and press down and wait another minute. (If you're OK with a more cake-like texture, don't press down - the original recipe says nothing about pressing down more than just the beginning.)
11. Remove cakes to plate lined with paper towels and sprinkle with salt (yes, there's plenty of salt in all the cheese but you just fried something and you really need to add a little sprinkle after taking it out of the oil).

I served these alongside some regular ole pasta and sauce from a ::shudder:: jar.

According to my husband, "Not bad" and I can definitely make again.

Cheez-It Chicken & Popcorn Cauliflower

"This is the best meal yet," S told me while eating a second piece of chicken.

I was a little sad because my Easter Lunch was da bomb, but whatever. I'm over it. I'm just glad he seemed to *really* like a complete meal for once.

This one will definitely be made again.

Cheez-it Chicken

I came up with this brilliant idea last week when I was noshing on some Cheez-its and I thought I was revolutionary but then I went online and did a search for Cheez-it Chicken and was bombarded by tons of recipes. Whatever. This is how I made mine...for 2.

• 3 chicken breast, rinsed and patted dry
• Cheez-its, about a cup
• 1 egg, beaten
  
• Oregano
• Basil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Cooking spray

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray.
3. Place Cheez-its in baggie and crush. Add favorite seasonings and shake.
4. Salt (lightly as the Cheez-its will provide plenty of salt) and pepper your chicken.
5. Dip chicken in bowl with beaten egg.
6. Coat chicken with crushed Cheez-its and seasonings mixture.
7. Place covered chicken on baking sheet and bake for about 30 minutes, until cooked through.

I served alongside one of favorites sides, Popcorn Cauliflower!

Schnitzeletta, the review

For me, the pictures say it all.

The Schnitzeletta

I'm tired of throwing away good food because we don't like leftovers. And by "we", I really mean my husband. I don't know what the dillio is with him and leftovers but he just doesn't like eating them. No matter what! Grrr.

So now what am I supposed to do with all the delectable delights leftover from the large amount of food I made on Easter?

Eat it, that's what!

Tonight I plan on turning that Schnitzel into a Schnitzel Muffuletta sandwich! Oh my, I cannot wait! Instead of using lunch meat, I'll use a piece of Schnitzel and instead of Sicilian round bread, I'll use french bread but the olive spread??? Hell yes is that going to be a part of tonight's meal! Mmmmm, I'm salivating just thinking about it!

When I was younger, my dad got me hooked on eating Schnitzel leftovers in between two good pieces of crusty bread with a piece of fried artichoke (he's a wizard in the kitchen I tell ya!), a piece of provolone cheese, and if there were any leftover, a couple homemade fries. Holy cow was this sandwich to die for!! He should've friggin marketed it or something, it was that good!

Unfortunately, I don't have any fried artichokes (Papa's the kitchen person not me) or anything like that, but I did go out and by some olive spread designed specifically for Muffuletta sandwiches. Boy is my husband in for a treat!! He has no clue what I'm doing, he just knows that tonight the leftovers WILL be eaten!

Alongside the Schnitzel Muffuletta, hereby known as the Schnitzeletta (huh???? clever, eh??), I'm planning to turn the leftover Damn Good Mashed Potatoes into a potato pancake of sorts. Hmm, wish me luck on that one as I'm out of oil so will have to use butter and some EVOO.

I do plan on taking pictures and will report back later... I *know* this will NOT be a Fail. No, no, no! Not my Schnitzeletta!

Schnitzel

I didn't get a picture of my fabulous Easter lunch yesterday, which included Schnitzel, because we wanted to just dive right in! Trust me: It looked and smelled wonderful. Both my father and husband raved on how good it all looked and tasted! And I enjoyed it as well!

The sides included my Damn Good Mashed Potatoes, my mom/Oma's Carrot Slaw, French's Green Bean Casserole (used Cream of Celery soup instead), and some nice Riesling wine to drink.

Schnitzel

• thin sliced pork tenderloin, pounded a bit (can use turkey, chicken, etc - originally made with Veal but not by anyone in our family)
• eggs
• salt
• pepper
• flour
• bread crumbs (I used mixture of plain and Italian)
• vegetable oil

1. After pounding out pork, salt and pepper both sides.
2. Place about an inch worth of oil in frying pan and heat.
3. Add about 1/2 cup of flour to a plate and spread over whole plate.
4. Next to flour plate, place a bowl with a couple beaten eggs.
5. Next to the egg bowl, place another plate with bread crumbs spread out.
6. Take each piece of pork and dredge both sides through flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs. (If you run low on anything just add to its plate or bowl.)
7. Fry each piece in hot oil until they start floating, then flip and fry on other side. When golden brown, remove from oil and sprinkle a bit of salt.
8. Serve alongside your favorite sides with a wedge of lemon.

And dessert were these fabulous Lemon Bars!

Damn Good Mashed Potatoes

It really doesn't get much more basic and simple than this!


Mmm, mmm, these are just damn good!

For 6-8 servings

• 3/4 bag of potatoes (I used red and left the peels on)
• salt
• pepper
• butter - about 1/2 stick
  
• milk - about 1/2 a cup
• sour cream - about 1/2 a cup

1. Clean and cut potatoes into chunks and throw in large pot.
2. Fill pot with water about two inches above potatoes and boil until fork very easily can poke through potatoes.
3. Warm up milk and butter so that it's hot enough to melt the butter.
4. Drain potatoes and bring back to pot.
5. Add salt and pepper and press down on potatoes with unplugged hand mixer beaters (or masher).
6. Add warm milk/butter.
7. Mix on low - maybe 20 seconds.
8. Add sour cream.
9. Mix on low.
10. Taste.
11. Add salt and pepper or more milk and/or butter if need be.

So, so good.

I made these tonight and will stick in the oven tomorrow when the green been casserole is baking. Before I put it in the oven, I'll throw a couple dots of butter on top and hopefully these will turn out even better than they did tonight.

Cuz tonight... tonight, they were Damn Good mashed potatoes!

4/13/09 update: Even reheated - by way of the oven with the taters covered with aluminum foil after adding a couple dabs of butter - these were SPOT ON.

Lemon Bars, the review

One word: YUM.

So I made these lemon bars today (for dessert tomorrow). While I think they turned out really good, I'm now realizing I didn't follow the recipe as posted! I had every intention of following it - along with some of the reviewer comments, but apparently I don't know how to read well and altered the recipe even further. (Have I mentioned I'm not a kitchen person?) Fortunately, I didn't have to throw them away the way I did my sad Nutella Muffins.

So here's the way I made them:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• *3/4 of a 1/2 cup all-purpose flour (which I guess if you're a mathematician, which I'm NOT, is about *3/8 cup)
  
• 3 lemons, juiced
• zest from 2 lemons
  

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, blend together softened butter, 2 cups flour and 1/2 cup sugar. This will not be smooth like a batter, but rather a bit choppy which is what you need.
   
3. Press into the bottom of an ungreased 9x13 inch pan.
4. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until firm and golden.
   
5. In another bowl, whisk together the remaining 1/2 cups sugar, *3/8 cup flour and lemon zest. Whisk in the eggs and lemon juice. Pour over the baked crust.
6. Bake for an additional 20 minutes in the preheated oven.
   
7. Let cool for at least 20 minutes and sprinkle on powdered sugar.
   

So yeah, I guess I added more flour to the custard part and a lot less sugar. But I promise they still turned out really good and lemony. In fact, we think there could be more lemon!

When I make these again, I'll still use the amount of sugar I used as described above but will probably cut back on the flour in the custard and just stick to the 1/4 cup that's in the original recipe.

(picture posted is from the recipe here)

4/13/09 update: These are ten times better the next day. The lemon seems to get more tart and... WOW! Definitely making these again and might not change anything after all!

Nutella Muffins = big fat FAIL

Have I mentioned I'm not a kitchen person? I'm not. And my first attempt at doctoring a recipe proves it.


While they look "OK", the best part of these Nutella muffins was eating the Nutella while it was warm. But it didn't budge and melt into the muffin as I had hoped. And since I couldn't swirl it in BECAUSE YOU CAN'T MICROWAVE NUTELLA, it's just a glob of Nutella inside a wad of plain muffin.

Not what I consider tasty.

I'm very disappointed.

I wasted Nutella.

I feel like I should be punished for doing so, too.

Today's Lesson

Nutella cannot be microwaved. If you do so, it hardens! :( Crap, I think I may have just wasted nearly half a jar of Nutella... I couldn't get it to swirl into the muffin mix like I planned so I had to sort of dollop it onto the batter once it was in the tin. We'll see what happens in about 12 minutes.

Did I mention I'm not much of a kitchen person?