Be Prepared!

Always makes me think of the Lion King song. Where Scar is singing with the laughing hyenas. Tee he he.

Anyway - Now that I have a baby on the way quick and easy dinners have been at the top of my list. Not only in the here and now when I am too tired to cook my usual over the top dinners, but for when we bring home our son. Something that can be made in minutes and is easy enough that Bradley won't freak out when I ask him to make it.

When I was little, mom use to make me "philly cheese and noodles". (I was actually in college before I was told that cream cheese was not called "philly cheese") Well these days there are tons of flavored cream cheeses out there. From sweet to savory. Two new kinds were introduced this summer, one of those being spinach and artichoke.

Bradley loves spinach and artichoke dip. So I bought it. I actually bought it when I was still battling nausea and I was nauseous when I bought it so just looking at the tub made me feel nauseous again. The pregnancy brain is an odd creature. But today I decided to bite the bullet, open the tub and make philly cheese and noodles.

Talk about quick AND easy!! This takes all of ten minutes. I boiled three servings of small sea shells in salty water, drained them and returned them to the warm pot. Then I scooped out a little less than half the tub, and stirred the pasta until the cheese melted and covered the noodles. I then stirred in a splash of milk to keep it from setting back up. There were actually big pieces of spinach and artichokes in the cheese, not just tiny specks.

Next time you're at the store pick up a savory blend that catches your eye and try it out. I promise you won't be disappointed!

Recipe Review

I have several low cal recipes book marked, and I plan to try them all and see which ones fool my husband and which ones will be filed under the "never make again it tastes like cardboard" tab. I don't wanna use the word diet here...

I eat whatever I want. Nothing is off limits. However, I only allow myself a set number of calories a day, so I have to budget them. Kinda like a bank account. Now, say I have $100 dollars to spend at the galleria. As soon as I walk in I see a shirt in the window at express and swoon and go try it on. It's $48 (and you know that's true!). As I'm walking out of the dressing room I notice the clearance rack and realize that I can get two shirts and a pair of jeans for $35. Why on earth would I blow half my money on one shirt when I could get one shirt plus an entire outfit for $13 less??? It works the same way with calories. At the end of the day, I want to come in on budget, and not overdrawn :D Sure I could have a coke, but for the same amount of calories I could have a string cheese and 16 wheat thins, with calories (money?) leftover!!

So when I saw a recipe on eatingwell.com entitled No-Bake Macaroni and Cheese, I wanted to give it a shot.

picture borrowed from foodnetwork.com who borrowed it from eatingwell.com

First of all, it should be titled Broccoli Alfredo. It in no way tastes like macaroni and cheese and if you dive in expecting it to then you might be turned off. With that aside, this is a great recipe! The recipe feeds four at 412 calories per serving, which is a little on the high side but it makes a TON and the serving size is really big. I think they intended it to be the main course, serving it as a side, you can lessen the portion and have fewer calories.

When I saw the calorie count I made one change and used fat free cheese instead, which lowered the count to 327.

Also - We tried whole wheat pasta for the first time. It has slightly fewer calories but extra good for you stuff. Well worth it. I couldn't tell a difference, and once you boil it the dark brown color fades a little. Covered in the white sauce, it looked like regular pasta.

This recipe will be tucked away for future use, filed under "Alfredo".

more, more for less

Tuna salad is one of my comfort foods. Especially the way my mom use to make it, with noodles that were still kinda warm and diced cheese and pickles. Yum! The cheese would get just slightly melty. So good. I try to re-create it but Bradley is a "no noodle in my tuna" person.

While Bradley had traditional tuna salad, on wheat bread with cheese and bacon (ugh!!) I turned mine into "Tuna Noodle Salad... Salad...". This is a dish that you can play with to taste how you want. I used fat free ranch instead of mayo thinking not only would it get rid of all the calories in the mayo, but add a nice taste to the salad. Wrong. You definitely need to add spice/seasoning. I usually add dill to my tuna salad, but got in a hurry last night and forgot. So my dinner was a little bland but still worth it! Next time I'll just have to remember to add the dill!

Tuna Noodle Salad Salad
recipe by me

one serving size your choice pasta, boiled, drained, slightly cooled
1/2 cup tuna
hard boiled egg
1/4 cup fat free shredded cheese
2 tablespoons fat free ranch
add ins of your choice - dill, relish, chopped onion, chopped tomato, dash hot sauce, etc...
bed of lettuce

fork up the tuna and the egg to about the same consistency, stir in the cheese, stir in the ranch, stir in the noodles and add ins. serve atop a bed of lettuce.

~~~~~

Without any "add ins" the calorie count was 470. I ate mine with 10 saltines for an additional 120 calories. Lots of protein!! Big serving!! Also - please excuse my shabby pictures, hopefully my digital camera will turn up soon! Maybe its hiding where my coastas are hiding!!

My "Presto Pasta Nights" Entry

When I saw this fun little blog-test I didn't scour my arsenal looking for the best recipe. I didn't stay up late thinking about ingredients. I didn't do any of the weird obsessive things I usually do when I am submitting a recipe for the world to see.

Why?

Because this summer I accidentally created my new comfort food recipe. It's nothing fancy. It's not gourmet. It is simply a way to use up all those awesome veggies from the farmer's market. There are no measurements, because you can make it for one or for one hundred and one (Dalmatians).

But it is something that you need to try, and therefore, I'm sending it in.



Presto Pasta Nights was the idea of Ruth over at Once Upon a Feast. It started in March of 07 and now here I am, over a year later, entering a dish.








Summer Pasta
recipe by me

ready cut macaroni - or whichever pasta you are currently in love with
butter
parmesan
evoo
zucchini - cut into half moons
yellow squash - cut into whole moons
vidalia onions - i cut mine into rings
minced garlic

boil the pasta in salted water. drain. while it's still hot toss with butter and parmesan.
heat evoo in a large skillet. add veggies. saute until they reach your favorite stage of done-ness.
add garlic and cook for an additional 30 seconds to a minute.
toss with pasta.
sprinkle top with parmesan.

~~~~~

So there you go. A very simple, very versatile, but still very delicious summer pasta dish.

(sauteed onions not pictured. please refer to the "chick food" post)

Can't leave well enough alone....

Every couple of months I go on grocery shopping frenzies. It usually starts out with good intentions, just going to the store for a few things totalling under $20 dollars. Then I see something I like.... and something else.... and then it is all over.

See I can't knowingly spend lots of money on groceries. It hurts me. I know we have to eat, but I would much rather spend my money on fun stuff, like clothes or shoes. So I have to trick my self into accidentally grocery shopping. In between those times I drop under $20 dollars a week on stuff we run out of and desperately need (read: cheese and bacon and coke zero) at the grocery. This goes on for months.

Well this weekend I had one of "those" shopping trips. I found a new product I wanted to try and it was all down hill from there. I was meal planning like crazy. The product was a macaroni grill chicken helper type thing. I thought, "Yum macaroni grill how bad can it be?!"



I was right! But was it their fault.... or mine??

I tried the above version first. It was a basil alfredo sauce with chicken, noodles and sun dried tomatoes. Ok Bradley is not going to eat sun dried tomatoes. So I omitted those. Plus I only like them on salads, so tata matoes. Then I read the directions. "Brown chicken in butter". That's it? No seasoning?

No no no. Step back macaroni grill... let me handle this.

I chunked up chicken tenderloins and tossed them with a generous amount of italian seasoning. Heated up a few tablespoons of butter with some evoo and cooked my chicken.... all the way through because it wanted you to finish cooking them in the sauce and that's just gross. I also sauteed some onions and baby bella mushrooms in evoo and italian seasonings, and fried some bacon. I mixed the mushrooms and onions with the chicken, sauce and noodles, and topped the dish with crumbled bacon and parmesan cheese.

It was SO good! I guess I can't take any credit for the sauce, I mean right out of the box it was good. It was almost like a pesto alfredo sauce. I asked bradley if he thought it would of been just as good if I had of just made it like the box wanted me to and he said, "I don't want to think about it!"

Date Night <3

Our date night this week consisted of quite a few things. I washed the sheets and some clothes, we worked on finishing the downstairs room, we wandered outside where we had an impromptu weed pulling session, we saw someone we knew and stopped to talk, we met someone new, we wandered back into the house and finally at 8 pm decided to start dinner and watch a movie. The movie - Ocean's 11. The dinner - easily an 11 out of 10.

This was by far one of the easiest dinners I have ever made and probably one of the best tasting. If you time it just right and don't count the time it takes your oven to preheat, this dinner takes about 15 minutes - 5 minutes prep time and 10 minutes cooking time.


First up, let me introduce you to someone I met at the beach, who is now one of my new best friends. It is basil garlic fedelini pasta and can be found at Harry and David's. Well worth ordering online and paying S&H if there is not a Harry and David's near you. Which is what I will be doing when this 12 ounce well runs dry. But what to put on it?? My first idea was a simple infused olive oil, since the pasta is already flavored. But that would be kind of plain. This pasta deserved a nice sauce. So I though on it all week and remembered something I saw a while back when I was trying to do weight watchers.....



Laughing Cow cheese sauce. It is supposed to be a lighter and healthier mock alfredo sauce. I modified my recipe a little bit, because I was out of parmesan.
3 wedges LC creamy swiss
2 tblspn butter
a soup spoon of roasted garlic sauce OR real garlic
1/2 cup milk
heat the butter, cheese and garlic sauce together until the cheese breaks down. whisk in the milk and heat until it starts to thicken.


For the protein of the meal, I chose tilapia. I wanted a simple and quick way to prepare it, so I chose to bake it.
***TIP***did you know that when you bake fish you should always preheat your pan? I did not until just recently. If you pan is preheated then it will sear the fish when you set it on the pan, keeping the juices from running out while you bake it. it really works, too!
For the topping, I melted 2 tblspns butter with 1 tblspn lemon juice and mixed it with 1/3 cup italian bread crumbs. Spoon it onto the fish and lightly press it into the flesh. Bake at 425* for 10 minutes.



It plated up so beautifully and tasted equally amazing. It was an absolute perfect dinner. Nothing needed tweaking at all. The swiss sauce complimented the pasta perfectly. The addition of lemon in the breading gave the fish exactly what it needed.

And then it happened...

I have an intense fear of moths. Pretty much any insect that flies, and some that don't, I am completely terrified of. So imagine my horror when I looked up at our big living room window and saw THIS -


Thank goodness it was on the other side of the window! This thing was massive, bigger than my hand! And that tail..... ughhhh that tail! It was two leaf like pieces and it moved them separately. I feel confident in saying that if I had of been outside and that evil thing had of flown up to me I would of died right there on the spot.

Part 2 of 2

The meal is complete. Although, I don't think it has a better name. I really really really enjoyed it, I think Bradley just really enjoyed it, he didn't like that the onions still crunched. In his world, all veggies should be mush.

We both love pesto. It was so good! I purposefully fixed our plates to leave enough behind for my lunch today.

Preparation was not hard at all. Excluding the marination process, it took about 45 minutes. It could of been less, but at first I didn't think of multi tasking. It is also a 2 pan meal. One for the pasta and one for the steak and veggies.

Speaking of the marination process, mine really hit the nail on the head. The steak was so full of flavor and no one taste stood out above the rest. They all meshed very well, which made me smile. That is now my go to marinade. I have to buy more roasted garlic dressing....

Let's get started with the tutorial!

Steak with Pesto Pasta
recipe by me

one steak, your choice of cut and weight, fully marinated and brought to room temperature
your favorite house seasoning
1 tblspn olive oil
2 tblspn butter
1 & 1/2 cup dry pasta - i used penne
8 tblspns pesto sauce (or whatever equivalent that is)
1/4 cup parmesan
white wine
8 oz your favorite mushrooms (i used baby bella)
1/2 large sweet onion, thinly sliced
1 - 2 cloves of garlic, minced


bring a pot of salted and oiled water to a boil and boil your pasta for 10 to 12 minutes. drain and return to the pot. stir together with the pesto and the parmesan and set aside.










While the water is boiling for the pasta, heat your butter and oil in a large heavy skillet. rub both sides of your steak with your preferred house seasoning, i used herbes de provence, they are my favorite at the moment. get the pan nice and smoky hot and lay your steak flat on it. i cooked mine for 15 minutes, only turning once. this put it right about medium rare in the middle and more of a medium well on the ends. perfect for the two of us. when you are finished cooking, set it on a plate and let the juices re-distribute. DON'T CUT INTO IT YET! that ruins the tenderness.



now that the steak is finished, turn the heat down and let's de-glaze the pan to get all those yummy pieces un-stuck to it. pour a little white wine into the pan and rub the bottom of it. add the onions and let them start to break down. when they are almost finished caramelizing, throw in the mushrooms and garlic. they don't take nearly as long.






Aren't those mushrooms beautiful?? All that is left to do now is plate it up! I put the pasta on one side of the dish, topped it with the mushrooms and onions and fanned out slices of the steak beside it. a very easy and simple dish that tastes like it took you hours to prepare!

Best Macaroni and Cheese.... EVER

For evah-evah, for real, bar none, that fat lady has sang, say good night barn "goodnight barn" - in other words, stop trying because I have mastered it!

There is an on-going joke in this house that if something is really good, then you better enjoy it because chances are if it just came out of my head I will never be able to make it again. I just get so excited and start throwing things into the mix and at the end I'm left wondering what the actual ingredients were.

So I have made a conscious effort to start writing while I cook, and boy am I glad I did. I will be the first one to say "I hate home made mac and cheese". Blame it on the fact that growing up mama always cooked velveeta cheesey shells so that was just what I was use to. With home made mac, you don't have that great drippy melty over processed cheese flavored sauce, and that was my favorite part!! I knew there had to be a way to bring creamy and cheesey (through and through, not just on top) to the home made mac and cheese, and I found it. For this certain recipe I used cheddar and gouda. But that is just because we had cheddar and gouda in the fridge. Today there is colby, monterrey jack and butterkase in the fridge and I would also recommend those cheeses, it is really just whatever you have on hand.

So here it is.... without further adieu..... the world's best macaroni and cheese, cross my heart and hope to die.

World's Best Macaroni and Cheese
recipe by me

3/4 cup elbow mac - season your boiling water with 1/4 tspn salt
1 tblspn butter
2 eggs
1 & 1/2 cup milk
1/2 tspn salt
1 tblspn flour
1 cup shredded cheddar
1/2 cup shredded gouda (if you use smoked gouda, the end result will have a "bacon-y" taste)
3 triangles laughing cow, swiss - sliced (i would stick to always using swiss)

boil your noodles in the salted water. preheat your oven to 350* and use it to melt the butter in a medium casserole dish. whisk together the eggs, milk, salt and flour in a large mixing bowl. stir in the cheeses. when the noodles are finished, drain them and put them into the mixing bowl with the cheese mixture, stir around until the heat starts to melt the cheeses a little. pour it all into the dish with the melted butter, and sprinkle a little extra cheddar on top. bake uncovered for 35-40 minutes, or until the center is no longer liquid.

~~~~~

Be prepared to get the urge to cry, sing, laugh, moan with pleasure, and possibly even the desire to slap yo mama! IT'S THAT GOOD!

Accidental Dinner

Yesterday I completely planned on making my version of chicken casserole with some left over grilled chicken that we had Sunday night, it is one of Bradley's favorites. But when I went to the store and picked up a can of condensed soup for the casserole, I couldn't help but notice the recipe on the back that read "Seafood Tomato Alfredo". Uh... YUM, and it looked so simple! Of course I didn't stick to it, I used it as a crutch to create something totally off course for last nights dinner.

Seafood Tomato Alfredo
recipe by me with help from campbell's (serves 2, maybe 3)

2 tblspns butter
1 clove of garlic, minced
half a small onion, sliced into half moons
salt, pepper and red pepper flakes (if you're in a spicy mood)
1/2 can Campbell's Cream of Mushroom with Roasted Garlic Soup
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup diced fire roasted tomatoes (canned)
raw shrimp
cooked linguine pasta

heat the butter in a skillet and cook the garlic, onions, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes until the onions are tender. mix in the soup and milk, add the tomatoes and bring to a boil. add your shrimp and cook until they are done. pour the mixture over hot linguine.

~~~~~

Really good! Although, I don't know why they would call it an Alfredo if there is no cheese involved.

As you can probably guess, I had some left over fire roasted tomatoes. Oh, the taste of those tomatoes was SO good by itself!! But, in order to get Bradley to even think about trying them I knew I had to be cunning and mix them with a few things I knew he could not pass up. So I took the left over tomatoes, added a little minced garlic and feta crumbles and served it "bruschetta style" atop toasted sour dough slices.