New post coming soon - promise!  Sick puppy = no time for cooking!

Tomato Basil Chicken LEFTOVERS!

What do with an entire leftover breast of Tomato Basil Chicken?  Make Chicken Pasta, of course!   I tossed it with whole grain penne pasta, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar.  Is whole grain pasta really better for you than regular pasta?  Jury's out.  Anyways, ignore the second plate underneath.

Tomato Basil Chicken

Today's meal was delicious - if you like basil!  Alex is a little lukewarm to too much of it though, so if you're not a fan of basil, don't use an entire cup of it (as shown in the recipe).  I originally found the recipe here, under the title "Balsamic Vinegar Chicken with Fresh Tomatoes."  Let me tell you...I could barely taste any balsamic vinegar at all...so I renamed it.  The recipe calls for a quarter cup of water though, so I bet you could eliminate some of the water and basil, add more balsamic vinegar, and it might live up to its original name.  I only used two chicken breasts, but then only used about half the basil mixture (ok, who am I kidding...I messed up and used the whole mixture...maybe why it so basil-icious).

Ingredients!
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts (I used two)
4 – 5 garlic cloves
1 cup fresh basil
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tsp. balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup water
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 package of cherry or grape tomatoes
1/2 red onion sliced (I used white, and it was still delish).

Ignore the mozzarella, I was going to add it in but forgot.

 

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Begin by browning the chicken on the stove.  No need to cook it completely; it still has half an hour in the oven.

 While the chicken is browning on the stove, mix the olive oil, basil, water, garlic, and balsamic vinegar in a food processor or blender.

 Place the chicken in an oven safe dish and poor the basil mixture on top

 After you've done that, chop the tomatoes and add those to the chicken.  Also add your chopped mushrooms and onion (I cheated and got pre-chopped mushrooms).  Stick in the oven.

 

My chicken was cooked after 30 minutes, even though the recipe called for 40.  I think it depends how much you browned it on the stove.  Use your best judgement.

Until we eat again!

Jamie

Avocado and Cheese Quesadillas

Alex is in Houston for work, so I decided to experiment with quesadillas!  Sometimes I make them better than others.  We used to use a quesadilla press, but it basically made every quesadilla taste exactly the same, no matter what we filled them with.  Anyways, these were really easy turned out delicious!  A bit on the plain side though - I should have spiced up the avocado - but still pretty good.  Perfect for young kids.  I'm also experimenting with taking photos while I cook, so my apologies if they're not as awesome as other cooking blogs.

 Avocado and Cheese Quesadillas

Time:  About 20 minutes for one quesadilla.  Add 5-10 minutes for each extra (unless you are super speedy).

Ingredients:  Tortillas (2 for each quesadilla), butter, shredded cheese (I chose mozzarella), avocados

  

Next, melt butter in a pan on medium heat.

 

 Toast your tortillas in the buttered pan.  I usually flip them once or twice.  You'll know they're done when they've browned a bit.  Set them aside on a plate.

 While the tortillas are toasting, cut your avocado.  You can cut it nicely, or you can cut it "tortilla functional" (aka however you can get the avocado meat out of the skin).  I chose the latter.

 Place one tortilla back in the pan.  Spread the cheese around the avocado.

 Next, spoon the avocado onto tortilla.  Are you impressed with my "camera in the right hand, spoon in the left" coordination skills?  I am.  It wasn't easy.

 Poor more cheese over the top.  This will help everything it melt together once we top it with the second tortilla.

 

Top with the second tortilla.  Press firmly with your spatula on all sides so it holds together.  You might even consider adding extra cheese to the sides that don't hold together well.  Sorry this is a bit overexposed.

You can flip once to help it cook evenly.

 Tada!  The finished product.  Cut it into quarters or whatever size pieces you want.

 

Once again, delicious quesadillas.

 
Until we eat again!

Jamie

Pizza and Worcestershire sauce

 Recipe for the day:  Pizza!

Ingredients:  car, gas, money

1.  Get in car.  Make sure there is gas in it.
2.  Drive to nearest Italian restaurant.
3.  Sit down and order pizza.
4.  EAT!
5.  Pay.

Also, according to my mother I misspelled Worcestershire sauce in the last entry.  Apologies.

Chiptole Pot Roast

My husband and I resisted the Crock Pot with every fiber of our beings.  We refused to put one on our registry last year, claiming that the Crock Pot was an excuse for lazy cooking.  We had survived two and a half years of Crock Pot-free cooking - we could survive without it for eternity!

Then something changed.  We got busy!  We kept finding perfect crock pot meals online.  Suddenly, the Crock Pot became something of a dream.  If only we could cook dinner while we were at work, how wonderful would our lives be?  (Ok, maybe a bit of an exaggeration...it just ended up seeming practical).  Last weekend we were roaming an electronics/home appliances store, and there it was - the slow cooker of my dreams. A 5 quart Crock Pot brand slow cooker on sale for $14.  Really?  $14?  Yes.  I told my husband to hold the box while I skipped to the front of the store to get a cart.  Sweet, beautiful, fourteen dollar Crock Pot.  It was now mine.

So without further ado, behold my first Crock Pot experience - Chipotle Pot Roast!  Feel free to change amounts as you go and make it your own.  It also has nothing to do with Texas cooking, except I used barbeque sauce....so it counts.

1 Roast (Choose beef cut - we got your basic pot roast)
Worcester Sauce
Barbeque Sauce (we used Kraft Sweet and Spicy Chipotle)
2 Garlic cloves (roughly chopped)
1 onion, chopped
baby carrots
1 1/2 cups Beef Broth
1 green pepper, chopped
10 baby potatoes
Spices to taste

1) Marinate roast overnight with part of the worcester and barbeque sauce, and any spices (eyeball it - i used about half a cup of bbq, and a quarter cup worcester...but it mainly just needs to coat the meat)
2) Put roast in Crock Pot, including as much leftover sauce as possible.  Add garlic, onion, potatoes, and beef broth.  Add more barbeque and worcester sauce as you see fit.  I added the carrots and green pepper after about 7 hours so they wouldn't be too mushy, but you can add them now too.  Spice to taste
3) Cook on low for 10 hours (or high for 6 hours)
4) Serve and enjoy!

Until we eat again!
Jamie

Why Chicken Eatza?

There's a taqueria in my neighborhood called Chichen Itza.  My husband and I had been wanting to go for a while, but never got around to it.  A few weeks ago when I was out of town, I got a text from him saying "Finally went to Chichen Itza!"  Reading it quickly, I first read it as "Chicken Itza."  I laughed to myself...then got an idea for a name for a future Tex Mex restaurant:  Chicken Eatza! (Now don't go stealing this awesomely fantastic name - I will find you).  As I really don't have any knowledge of the restaurant industry (save a summer stint as an accounting file clerk for a local restaurant group), I figured opening a Tex Mex place is a stretch.  My husband and I do love cooking though, so I decided to start the next best thing:  a cooking blog!   I'll try to give my food some Southwestern/Tex Mex/Texas flair, but I might give up and just post the really awesome recipes the two of us cook up (I'll try to spare you the disasters...or maybe amuse you with them).

Until we eat again!  (Haha, get the pun?)

Jamie