Author Archive

I Made Some Pretty Good Chicken the Other Night

June 19, 2009 at 2:14 pm · Filed under Main Dish, Poultry

Ingredients
– 2 Chicken breasts
– 1/2 cup of white wine
– Tablespoon or so of Butter/Margarine
– Teaspoon-ish of Dijon Mustard
– Little bit of Lemon Juice

Directions
Melt butter in pan. Add in wine, mustard, and lemon juice. Once it’s all good and hot and mixed, toss in the chicken and sear over high heat. Then, turn down the heat to medium and cover so it cooks through. Check after 8-10 minutes to make sure it’s not still pink in the middle. If it is, obviously keep cooking. The last step is crank the heat back up to high and take the lid off for just about 2 minutes, just to give the outside some color. Be careful with this last step because the liquid will splatter at high heat. And by be careful, I mean wear something with sleeves. You’ve been warned.

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Smeeps

April 1, 2009 at 12:42 pm · Filed under Dessert, Easter

An Easy Easter Dessert!

Ingredients
Graham Crackers
Hershey’s Chocolate (preferably the big bars)
1 Package of Peeps (pink bunnies or yellow chics, your choice)

Directions
Break Graham cracker in half so that you have 2 squares. Set aside one square. Place 2-3 pieces of chocolate bar on graham cracker square. Place one Peep atop chocolate. Put on microwave-safe plate or dish and zap on medium for 5-10 seconds. Depending on how strong your microwave is, you’ll need to do a test run or two to reach optimal level of melty-ness. Be prepared to carefully monitor this process. If you get careless, you could potentially have a big yellow or pink mess on your hands. Once you’ve mastered the timing, you can microwave a few a time. Then, remove from microwave and place the other half of graham cracker (that we set aside earlier) on top to make a lovely little sandwich. Serve warm.

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Too Many Enchiladas

March 19, 2009 at 6:20 pm · Filed under Main Dish, Meat, Poultry

Here’s my super-easy recipe for Too Many Enchiladas. Enjoy!

Ingredients
1 lb chicken OR ground beef
1 can of Old El Paso refried beans
1 Old El Paso Enchilada dinner kit
1 package of tortillas (you’ll need it in order to make too many)
1 package of shredded taco cheese

Directions
Cook chicken or beef on the stove top, and stir in flavor packet as directed on Old El Paso box. Preheat the oven. Ok, on the box, it says to wrap desired amount of chicken/beef into the tortilla and place seam-side down in a 13 x 9 baking dish. You’re still going to do that, however you’ll need to add some refried beans into tortilla. Three reasons: A-number-1) The beans are soft and mushy, so they help the enchilada hold together when you roll it all up, B) Enchiladas will now have half meat/half beans which is super-mexi-fun, and 3) A little filler goes a long way, so there’s guaranteed leftovers. Then, cover with packets of enchilada sauce (I believe there’s two included in the box), sprinkle some cheese on top, and cover with foil. Toss in the oven for 20-25 minutes, and wah-laa. Too many enchiladas.

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Spanish-ish Rice

March 16, 2009 at 4:04 pm · Filed under Side Dish

Easy veggie side dish with room for improvisation.

Ingredients
1 box of Spanish Rice mix. I’m talkin’ like the generic $1 stuff. Oh yeah.
2 tbsp of butter/margarine
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 can of black beans
1 can of chick peas

Directions
Follow prep instruction on the box: Sauté rice in butter for a few minutes until the vermicelli is lightly browned. Stir in 2 cups of water, packet of Spanish-flavor powder and can of diced tomatoes (not drained). Then, stir in the can of black beans and the can of chickpeas (both drained), and simmer over low heat for 15-20 min, covered. Now if you’re feelin’ a little saucy, you can add frozen corn, just make sure you cook it first. Might also be good with 1/2 cup of chopped red onion, 1/2 cup chopped green pepper, or red pepper, whatever you like. Many possibilities here. Feel free to shake it up.

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Swingin’ Singles Soup

March 11, 2009 at 6:21 pm · Filed under Soup

Here is a good winter-warmy-soup that can be done in a CrockPot®.

Ingredients

2 big containers of chicken broth (16 or 18oz containers)
1 1lb. bag of frozen Italian meatballs
1 block/package of frozen spinach
1/2 white onion
1 cup celery, chopped
1 cup carrots, chopped
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, preferably the kind in the green plastic container
1/2 to 1 cup of the teeny tiny little pasta balls (depending how much you like)

Directions

Place block of frozen spinach in the Crockpot®, along with frozen meatballs. Add celery, carrots, onion, garlic and cheese. Fill the rest of the way with chicken broth. I think it ends up being about 1 1/2 containers or so. Turn the crockpot on to “low” and go do something else for 8 hours (6 hours on “high”). Stir occasionally, salt + pepper to taste.

Now, here’s the tricky part: Before you’re ready to eat, cook the pasta separately on the stove top. Set aside. When serving, add desired amount of pasta into each individual bowl with the soup. Why? Well because if you cook the pasta in the Crockpot® with the soup, it’s all fine and good. But the next day when you want to reheat leftovers, it will be as thick as stew because the pasta keeps absorbing the water. They’re like little sponges. Seriously.

Ok, so by now you’ve probably figured out that this is a lot like Wedding Soup, or actually it IS Wedding Soup. But hey, not everyone is into committment….

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Fiesta Helper

March 9, 2009 at 12:03 pm · Filed under Main Dish, Meat, Poultry

Courtesy of our good friend Dana Ross, white trash cook extraordinaire.
………………
Ingredients
1 cup frozen corn
Hamburger Helper – Cheesy Enchilada Flavor
1 lb. ground meat or ground turkey
1 can black beans
………………
Directions
Cook 1 cup of frozen corn. Set aside. Open box. Brown 1 lb. ground meat or 1lb. ground turkey. Prepare as instructed on the aforementioned box. During the last 10min of “cooking”: Add one can of black beans (drained), and corn, stirring occasionally until heated throughout.

Remove from heat, let stand for 5 minutes. Serve with tortilla chips, white or yellow, and a margarita. Olé!

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