What's Cookin?

  




 This is my own made up recipe.  It is super easy for a weeknight meal.  I'm going to call it........ 5 Cup Veggie Soup
Ingredients:
1 can corn
1 can okra
1 can green beans
1 can cut diced potatoes
1 can diced tomatoes (the flavored ones are good)
chicken or beef stock
and I either add ground beef or sausage
I've made it in the crock pot cooking all day or I've made it on the stove simmering for like 30 min.  Either way tastes the same

this picture isn't very good, but it does taste good, I promise! and takes like 10 minutes to make

                              




I can't remember where I found this recipe, well I found it on Pinterest, but I forgot to pin it.   
                        Chicken in a creamy mustard sauce

Recipe:

Chicken

Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper

1/4 cup chicken stock

1/2 cup heavy cream (I used 2% milk)

2 T Dijon Mustard

1 t dried tarragon

VERY easy to make, all you do is cook the chicken sprinkled with s & p in some olive oil and combine the other ingredients warm on the stove and pour over chicken.

                          
 


                
  I was trying to eat something other than peanut butter sandwiches for lunch this week so I decided to grill some chicken and cut up veggies so that I could take a salad with me to work.  

I found another blog (http://www.thepioneerwoman.com) that has some really great recipes....my first one was Cajun Chicken Pasta.  recipe             

Another Skinnytaste Delight!

Asian Turkey Meatballs with Lime Dipping Sauce

http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/01/asian-turkey-meatballs-with-lime-sesame.html

I served them with Asian noodles instead of the rice, pretty tasty.  Something different, especially if you like lime. 

Lettuce Wraps 

Another Success....and its not from skinnytaste!!

Made these for dinner the other night.. they were sooo good! Kind of a lot of work, but worth it.

 Here is the recipe

I'm starting to get a little obsessed with http://www.skinnytaste.com but everything is turning out sooo good!! 

The Chicken Ropa Vieja is really good, I only used 2 chicken breasts since there is just 2 of us, and there was enough left over to have 2 more meals

Chicken Ropa Vieja

http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/01/chicken-ropa-vieja.html 

I served this over the cilantro lime rice

http://www.skinnytaste.com/2009/03/chipotle-cilantro-lime-rice-4-pts.html 

This rice is really good!

Crock Pot Minestrone Soup

This was REALLY good, makes A LOT 

here is the recipe http://www.skinnytaste.com/2009/11/crock-pot-minestrone-soup.html

Autumn Penne Pasta with Brussels Sprouts

 This is another recipe from skinnytaste.com.  It was really good, I think this is going to be my favorite blog of 2012,  I'm making another recipe of hers this week!

Find the recipe to this wonderful dish here 

Mint Brownies

 Ingredients for bottom layer

Chocolate cake mix

1/3 Cup butter or margarine

1 Egg

Mix till crumbly. Grease 15x101/2" pan, press mixture into bottom of pan.  Bake at 325 for 10 minutes. Let cool before next layer.

Middle Minty Layer

1 envelope unflavored gelatin

1/4 Cup boiling water

4 Cups powdered sugar

1/2 Cup butter/margarine

1/2 Cup Crisco

1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract

2-3 drops green food coloring

Dissolve gelatin in boiling water and let cool.  Combine gelatin with butter, crisco,  2 cups powdered sugar, extract and food coloring.  Beat until smooth and add the rest of the powdered sugar

Top Chocolate Layer

1 12 oz. package chocolate chips

1/2 Cup butter/margarine

Melt butter and chocolate and spread on top of the green layer.  Cool.

These are yummy!

 I came across this Santa Hat Trail Mix on Pinterest and thought it was so cute! So I tried it, the santa hats took about an hour and I made almost 100 of them.  Here is the link to the recipe http://cookiesandcups.com/santa-party-mix/

and here are the pics from my version.  I forgot to buy M&M's :(

I put them in jars and am going to give them away

There's been a lot of cookin going on in this house.  Last nights dinner was king of an experiment and turned out really well.  The recipe was based on something I saw on Pinterest and can be found here
http://www.skinnytaste.com   I didn't have any scallops so I decided to do mine with chicken, and arrange it a little differently.  Here is how it turned out

This is how I made it, all measurements are an estimate because I don't really use measuring cups and this was for 2 people

Risotto

about 1/2 cup of arborrio rice
1/4 cup white wine
3 ish cups chicken stock
2 cloves garlic crushed
some parsley
and about 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1 Tablespoon butter

What I did:
Melted the butter in skillet and added garlic for about 2 minutes then added the rice until it turned light brown about 3-4 minutes (stirring alot)  Then added the wine until absorbed, from there just kept on adding chicken stock about 1/2 cup at a time until the rice was tender.  At the end I added the cheese and parsley (took a total of about 30 minutes)

Chicken
Italian Bread Crumbs
Egg
Chicken breast
Marinara Sauce

I make chicken parmesan all the time and I make it this very simple way.

I pund out 1 large chicken breast and then cut it in 1/2 , I dip the chicken in egg and then a mixture of parmesan cheese and Italian Bread crumbs.  Add the chicken to a warm skilled with some olive oil, about 4 minutes on each side and its ready! At the end I added a little marinara sauce on top with some extra parmesan cheese.

Spinach
lemon juice
balsamic vinegar
olive oil

I add the above ingredients to a skilled and stir in spinach for about 2 minutes until it is wilted, but not brown.