awesome recipe recommendation

I really need to try harder to post about my cooking more quickly after cooking and consuming it.  This particular meal was almost a month ago now, but it was memorable enough that I feel I can still give it an accurate review.  DELICIOUS!  The chicken was moist and flavorful.  The chow mein noodles added a great crunch to the green beans.  I was a little nervous about the couscous since I had never tried to make it before.  It looked either undercooked or overcooked, I couldn’t tell, but it actually turned out pretty good and we cleaned our plates of everything.  Thank you SuzyQ for the recipes, and thanks Mom for passing them on to me!

Chicken with Artichokes & Sun-Dried Tomoatoes

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Serves: 4 

Ingredients

• 4 chicken breast, raw
• 3 tablespoons I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Mediterranean Blend
• 1 garlic clove
• 14 ounces artichoke hearts, canned in water
• 2 tablespoons sun-dried tomatoes (not oil packed)
• 1 cup fat-free, reduced sodium chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese

Preparation

Finely chop the garlic clove. Drain the can of artichokes. Chop the sun-dried tomatoes. Season chicken, if desired, with salt and ground black pepper. In 12-inch nonstick skillet, melt 2 tablespoons I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!® Mediterranean Blend spread over medium-high heat and cook chicken, turning once, 6 minutes or until thoroughly cooked. Remove to serving platter and keep warm. In same skillet, melt remaining tablespoon Spread over medium heat and cook garlic, stirring occasionally, 30 seconds. Add artichoke hearts and tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, 1 minute. Stir in broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes or until sauce is slightly thickened. Stir in cheese. Spoon over chicken.  (Personal Note:  I am not a big fan of artichoke hearts so, while I did cook with the amount the recipe called for, when the sauce was done I picked out the big hunks and just left in the little pieces.)

Asian Green Beans

Prep Time: 5 minutes or less
Total Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Serves: 4 

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons Bertolli® Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 pound whole fresh green beans
• 3 tablespoons Lawry’s® Marinade Teriyaki with Pineapple Juice
• 1/4 dry cup chow mein noodles

Preparation

1. Finely chop garlic. 2. In 12-inch skillet, heat Olive Oil over medium-high heat and cook garlic 30 seconds. 3. Add green beans and Marinade and cook, stirring occasionally, 10 minutes or until beans are tender. 4. To serve, top with chow mein noodles.

Curried Whole Wheat Couscous

Prep Time: 5 minutes or less
Total Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Serves: 4 

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 1 cup water
• 2 tablespoons raisins
• 1 Knorr® Vegetable Bouillon, Extra Large Cube, crumbled
• 2/3 cup couscous, whole wheat, dry

Preparation

1. In 2-quart saucepan, heat oil over medium heat and cook curry powder 30 seconds, stirring. Add water, currants, and Knorr® Vegetable Bouillon Cube to a boil over high heat. 2. Reduce heat to low and simmer covered 2 minutes. Stir in couscous, then remove from heat. Let stand covered 5 minutes. 3. Fluff couscous with fork before serving. Garnish, if desired, with chopped fresh parsley.

*WARNING* Whole wheat couscous does look similar to mouse droppings.  If you spill it while cooking be sure to clean it up immediately so that you don’t think you have a mouse when you are cleaning two weeks later like we did.

July 4th dinner

Just whipped up a few of our favorites for a nice holiday meal

pesto paninis

I actually planned on making these about a month ago, but I did another one of those unintentional “Pasadena grocery store tours” where I end up going to the six closest grocery stores because I can’t find what I am looking for.  (Two Trader Joe’s, Ralph’s, Vons, Whole Foods, and Gelsons.)  What was I looking for?  Focaccia bread.  One of the Trader Joe’s did have a spot for it on the shelf, but they were out.  And so I got pissy about wasting hours of my day and still not being able to make what I wanted to for dinner… so I texted my boyfriend and told him he was in charge of dinner that night.

Fast forward and I found myself at Whole Foods for lunch one day.  As I was waiting for assistance I happened to be reading the possible ingredients on the design it yourself sandwich menu and that is when I saw it, focaccia bread!  So I asked the sandwich maker if I could just buy two sandwiches worth of focaccia bread and she said yes.

I was so excited about it that I had to make them that night, despite the fact that I was already planning to make granola bars and sugar coated pecans for our hiking/camping trip that weekend.  And yes, I did follow through and was in the kitchen making all three.  For that reason I didn’t do a lot of measuring when it came to the ingredients for the paninis.  I just kinda did what looked about right.  We do not have a panini press but other reviewers said they had used their George Foreman Grill and it worked fine, and we do happen to have one of those so I used it and it did in fact work.

My boyfriend was making “mmmm” sounds with every bite so I think he liked it and it will be requested again soon.  I had struggled for awhile with what to have on the side and eventually opted for nothing which turned out to be the right choice because the paninis themselves were really filling.  Of course, each one barely fit in the GF Grill and like I said, I didn’t do a whole lot of measuring.

Oh!  And I should have mentioned before that I substituted plain old lunch meat turkey for the chicken.  As you know from this blog, we eat plenty of chicken already!

Click the link below for recipe:

CHICKEN TURKEY PESTO PANINIS

i take it back

Back in May I wrote a little blurb about the SUGAR COATED PECANS I made and what I said definitely needs to be revised.  What it should have read is “These things are awesome!”  Even I am addicted to them now.  Seriously, I’ve made at least half a dozen batches since then.  One of which was for a Memorial Day BBQ where they got devoured and the hostess requested the recipe.  They have been handed out at the offices of both me and my boyfriend where again people were asking for the recipe.  I made a batch to bring camping and it is so funny to see people take a few because they feel obligated and then they get less than five feet away before coming back for more.  I’ve made them so often now that I actually have the recipe memorized!  So if any of you are hosting or attending a 4th of July event this weekend, consider making these and be the hit of the party!

full meal deal

Don’t know about you, but I love me some sweet potato fries.  The good news is, sweet potatoes are really good for you… the bad news is frying them kinda counters the health benefits.  So I decided to try them in another way and found a recipe for BAKED SWEET POTATOES.

It was time consuming to peel and cut all the potatoes, but the end product was definitely worth it!  And there is the added benefit that they smell terrific, both the first time around and when I reheated them for lunch the next day.  I don’t remember why anymore (this was almost a month ago) but for the main course I went with PLEASANT PORK CHOPS.

The sauce was good but I think the porkchops I chose were too thin.  But we are not finished yet, there was yet a THIRD item on the plate.  Ok, it was just broccoli that I put in a steamfresh bag and threw in the microwave… but still, it isn’t often you find three things on a dinner plate that came from my kitchen.

The next morning I put some chicken tenders in the remaining sauce to marinate for the day and then made a HORSERADISH DIPPING SAUCE to accompany it that night.  I’m not exactly sure why I chose to make that since neither my boyfriend or I care much for sour cream, but oh well.  It satisfied us for dinner that night considering we  were not very hungry and just needed a little something in our stomachs.

Click the links below for recipes:

BAKED SWEET POTATOES

PLEASANT PORK CHOPS

HORSERADISH DIPPING SAUCE

homemade granola bars

My boyfriend is definitely the more health conscious out of the two of us, but you hang around someone like that long enough and it does become contagious.  Lately I have been refusing to use a recipe if it doesn’t have the nutrition facts listed.  It is unbelievable how much sodium is in stuff!  Now, truth be told I’m not completely sure what could happen by in-taking too much sodium, but why risk it, right?  I could go google it right now, but I want to get on with this post.

That is the background story to why we decided I should try to make my own granola bars.  Reports have been coming out for years that most store bought granola bars aren’t any healthier than many candy bars so we generally avoid them.  However, we wanted to change up our packed lunches a bit as well as having something snackable around the apartment and that is how this idea came about.

I found an easy recipe which pretty much allowed for me to put whatever I wanted in it.  I did buy flaked coconut, but to fill up the rest I just used what I had which was white chocolate chips, craisins, and raisins.  Obviously they aren’t as good as what you buy at the store, but they are pretty good and since they are much better for you it is a fair trade.  I plan to make another batch tonight so we can bring them along on our upcoming hiking/camping trip.  This time I have multi-grain cheerios, slivered almonds, and dried berries.  Looking forward to them already!

Click the link below for recipe:

EASY GRANOLA BARS

marinating makes it marvelous

Ok, so it wasn’t exactly marvelous, but I needed a word that started with M.  If you have been following along with my cooking posts you are aware of my frustrations of making all the different chicken recipes taste any different from one another.  For awhile now I have been meaning to see if marinating was the trick, and after trying out this recipe, I just may be on to something.  This is an obvious solution to anybody who has spent anytime in the kitchen, I realize that, but I’m new.

So one day I picked up some chicken at the grocery store without knowing what I was going to do with it.  The next morning I searched for a marinade that I could make with ingredients I already had in the apartment.  BALSAMIC CHICKEN is what I found.  Definitely could tell the difference as for once the flavor ran throughout the chicken.  Unfortunately the flavor wasn’t ideal for our taste-buds, but it was still good and  was just for the sake of experimentation anyway.  Now if only I had a full size fridge so I could keep a half dozen chicken breasts in there in different marinades.  A mini fridge just won’t cut it after this discovery!

Click the link below for recipe:

BALSAMIC CHICKEN

i’ve succumbed

I’ve succumbed to the peer pressure and finally joined Facebook.

krav maga

 

I’m finally doing it.  I first heard about Krav Maga from the TV show Human Weapon on the History Channel which aired in the latter half of 2007.  I’ve been thinking about it ever since and finally, one and a half years later, I joined Krav Maga Worldwide.  So far I have only taken the intro class and one level one class, taking it slow to start, but hopefully I’ll be attending more regularly soon.  I liked the intro class well enough to sign up, but it took a whole two weeks for me to go back and take a real class.  That class was awesome and I really want to go back!  Warm-up wise I hung in there except when in came to push-ups and lower ab work.  As usual, drills started with punching which is by far my weakest attack.  One of the instructors actually called my punches “love taps”.  Shortly after, however, I got my redemption as we moved onto round kicks, my best attack.  As a kid doing karate, this is how I scored probably 80% of my points during sparring.  Round kick to the back of the head, they knew it was coming, yet somehow they rarely could stop it.  Anyway, while I probably can’t kick as well that high anymore, it didn’t matter since we were only doing round kicks to the waist.  The instructors were impressed, but of course all they knew was that it was my first class and not about my background in martial arts.

Next was elbows which is a wicked attack and pretty instinctual in my opinion.  Praise for that too.  Then it was choke defense which I definitely still need some work on.  The choke defense technique is different from what I’ve been taught in the past, but after I get it down will most likely be much more effective.  And that is pretty much my reason for wanting to take Krav Maga in the first place… because it is more effective.  Yes I trained in Karate for about eight years and have a black belt, but no that does not make me feel confident that I could defend myself in a fight.  I’m not saying that Karate is not effective, just that the training I received was not.  UFC fighter Lyoto Machida on the other hand, he gives Karate a good name.  What I did though, that was mostly performance oriented, as was the three months of WuShu training I received in Beijing.

But now… now it is time to learn to fight and defend, for real.

in search of the right salmon

After my mother stated that she couldn’t find much she liked on allrecipes.com… she suddenly did. 

She raved about the PUFF PASTRY SALMON found on the site, and said my dad loved it too.  I am always looking for good salmon recipes, mainly ones that make salmon not taste like fish, because while I have come to thoroughly enjoy seafood in my adult life, my boyfriend isn’t quite there yet.  He’s trying though, because he is fairly health conscious and knows how good a lot of the things from the sea can be for you, especially salmon.

Still, I am weary of making it for dinner because the first and last time I tried he couldn’t stomach it and ended up eating PB&J instead.  (The only meal I’ve made thus far where this has happened.)  Because of this, I made one with salmon and one with chicken and gave each of us half of each, just in case.  And while he did say he liked the chicken one better, he completely finished off both his halves.  Hooray, I got him to eat salmon!

I, on the other hand, couldn’t even get through half of what was on my plate.  Something about the puff pastry just wasn’t sitting right in my stomach.  Because of this, I am still on the lookout for a salmon recipe that pleases the both of us.  I’m not sure is this one will get a repeat performance or not, but if it does, I will definitely double the pesto that was used.  We both used what was left in the container as a dipping sauce since without it there wasn’t a whole lot of flavor.  Perhaps I did something wrong.  Maybe the next time I try it I’ll have Mom make it and see if I taste a difference.  What do you say, Mom?

Click the link below for recipe:

PUFF PASTRY SALMON