Mini Meatloaves and Smashed Potatoes (with a St. Patty's Day theme)

Tonight I made these turkey mini meat loaves and mashed potatoes from Skinnytaste.com. I changed it a tiny bit, because I cannot help myself. Instead of cooking them in a mini loaf pan, I cooked them in a muffin tin sprayed with PAM. They were then personal meat loaves.

My sister and I have been making a lot of these recipes and I haven't made anything I haven't liked yet.


In fact, a couple days ago I made Pasta with Cauliflower and it was really good as well. I used four strips of bacon instead of anchovies, because I have never cooked with anchovies and I was a bit scared.

Spinach Lasagna Rolls

I made these tonight and they are very good. The recipe is from SkinnyTaste.com.

I added quartered roasted mushrooms because I had some I didn't want to waste and they were very delicious.

I also like this website because it has a lot of nutritional information with the recipes, including Weight Watchers points. Check it out.

Spinach Lasagna Rolls
Gina's Weight Watcher Recipes
Servings: 9 • Serving Size: 1 roll • Old Points: 4 pts • Points+: 6 ww pts
Calories: 224.9 • Fat: 5.1 g • Fiber: 3.4 g • Protein: 13.0 g • Carbs: 31.5

9 lasagna noodles, cooked
10 oz frozen chopped spinach, thawed and completely drained
15 oz fat free ricotta cheese (I like Polly-o)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 egg
salt and fresh pepper
32 oz tomato sauce
9 tbsp (about 3 oz) part skim mozzarella cheese, shredded

Preheat oven to 350°. Combine spinach, ricotta, Parmesan, egg, salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Ladle about 1 cup sauce on the bottom of a 9 x 12 baking dish.

Place a piece of wax paper on the counter and lay out lasagna noodles. Make sure noodles are dry. Take 1/3 cup of ricotta mixture and spread evenly over noodle. Roll carefully and place seam side down onto the baking dish. Repeat with remaining noodles.

Ladle sauce over the noodles in the baking dish and top each one with 1 tbsp mozzarella cheese. Put foil over baking dish and bake for 40 minutes, or until cheese melts. Makes 9 rolls.

To serve, ladle a little sauce on the plate and top with lasagna roll.

Pasta tonight!

Generally, I plan meals in advance so I know what's going to happen in the kitchen when it's time for dinner.

After a busy and sleepless weekend and a day ravaged by allergies and arthritis, I wasn't quite sure what to fix when the dinner bell would start to ring.

After poking around a few recipes I was inspired to make up my own thing.



It was pasta with bacon and leeks and Parmesan cheese and sauteed chicken.

Phew. Got all that?

Here's the low down if you want to try it on your own.
6 slices bacon, cut into chunks.
2-3 leeks sliced thinly
1/4-1/2 cup white cooking wine
3/4 cup milk (heavy cream would have been better but I didn't have any)
Frozen chicken tenders thawed, about 3 per person
Pasta of your choice (I used penne).


For the Pasta
First - start boiling water for your pasta and cook it following the directions on the package.

1 - slice your bacon and throw it into a hot skillet. Cook until almost completely browned, 5-7 minutes.
2 - remove bacon from the pan and add a tablespoon of butter to the bacon grease and all your thinly sliced leeks. Cook the leeks until they start to brown on the edges and get really soft.
3 - add the bacon back with the leeks and drench in the cooking wine. Let it cook and simmer for about 2 min, then add your milk/heavy cream. Let the sauce simmer until the edges start to boil. Once the boil gets to the middle, turn down the heat and keep stirring.
4 - when the pasta is completely cooked, drain the water and add it to the pan with the bacon and leeks. Stir everything around until it's all nice and happy and let it sit a few minutes so the pasta can soak up some of the sauce.

The chicken
While your pasta and sauce are cooking, start working on the chicken.

In a medium sized bowl add flour and any/all seasoning salts you like. Lightly coat each piece of chicken on both sides with the flour mixture.

Place the chicken in a lightly olive oiled (or buttered depending on how you groove) saute pan and brown it on both sides (3-4 min each) until it's beautifully golden brown.

Put the pasta and chicken in a bowl and enjoy!

Pasta with Bacon and Shallots

First, let me say this.  I once saw an episode of Anthony Bourdain's show on the travel channel.  I don't remember where he was or what he was eating, but he basically said that the difference between regular old people and people who know how to cook is their use (or lack thereof) of shallots.

Yes.

Shallots.

It seems that in our house at least one meal a week has the lovely purple shallot as a main ingredient.  I love these little onions.

This pasta dish is quick to whip up and sure to delight.  The ingredients are simple:

4-6 slices of thick bacon
1 whole shallot
1 cup milk
frozen peas
enough pasta for 2-4 people

The steps are as easy as the ingredient list.
1.  slice your bacon into small pieces and cook it in a large pan (not a skillet).
2.  remove bacon and cook your thinly sliced shallot in the bacon grease until the pieces are soft and beginning to brown.
3.  Add 1 cup milk to the shallot and bacon grease and stir until the milk starts to simmer.
4.  Once your sauce starts to simmer (it will happen quickly), turn down the heat, add your frozen peas, and give everything a stir.

This whole process takes about 15 minutes.  Long enough for you to boil water and cook your pasta.  Once the sauce is done, and your pasta is cooked and the water is drained throw your pasta into the sauce pan and mix it all together.  Let it stand a few minutes (leave the heat on very low if you'd like) so that the pasta starts to soak up the sauce.

Serve, top with bacon and enjoy.

Side Note: 
*Adding chicken to this dish is a nice touch, if you feel it needs some more protein.
*You can cook your shallots separate of the sauce, removing them from the pan before you add the milk and peas.  As they cool, they'll get crunchy adding a layer of texture to the dish.  You can just sprinkle them on top with the bacon when you're ready to serve.

Pasta dinner for four.....or more

I enjoy cooking for other people.  It's not something that I've always been able to say that I enjoy.  In my life right now however, I like it.  Cooking, baking. Food means a lot to me and so does sharing it with family and friends.

About a year ago I found a great baked pasta recipe.  After dozens of times making it, I dare say I've perfected it.  We had it for dinner the other night - and shared the batch with my sister's family.  If you ever need to fix dinner for someone else, but need dinner for yourself as well, this recipe is for you.  Or, if you just want to be a tad bit lazy - cook the recipe and eat one for dinner and freeze the other.  A second nights dinner for next week is already in the freezer.

Warning:  From start to finish, before baking, it takes about an hour.  A labor of love I tell you.

Here are your instructions:
1- Boil 1 lb. of penne pasta.  Leave it al dente so cook it a few minutes less than the instructions say.
2 - While your pasta is boiling, cook some bacon in a big skillet.  4-6 slices will do, depending on how much bacon you like.  Before cooking it, cut it into small pieces.  This will speed up the process and then you don't have to cut cooked bacon.
3 - Remove the bacon from the grease and cook 10-12 chicken tenders or 4 chicken breasts about 90% in your bacon grease.  (I never said that this recipe was perfectly healthy now did I?)  You don't want your chicken pink anymore, but don't cook it all the way or they'll dry up in the oven.
3 - While your bacon and chicken are cooking, cut up some sun dried tomatoes.  I use about 12 but that's because I like them.
4 - Once the bacon and chicken are cooked set the bacon aside with the tomatoes and slice the chicken into small chunks.  Set it aside as well.

5 - Now, in a really big, tall pan your going to make the sauce.  You start by making a rue (a fancy French sauce base).  For your rue, you'll need (gulp) 6 tablespoons of butter.  Melt the butter in your pan.  Once the butter is melted add 1/2 cup plus two tablespoons of flour and 2-3 teaspoons of minced garlic.  Mix all this together with a whisk.
6 - Once your rue looks like a paste, start adding milk.  You will add a total of 6 cups of milk (whole, 2% or 1%.  NOT SKIM!), one cup at a time.  You'll need to constantly whisk this so that the rue paste breaks up in the milk.
7 - After adding all the milk, continue whisking until your sauce comes to a simmer.  Once it's simmering add your bacon and sun dried tomatoes.  Cook for one minute, stirring with a wooden spoon.
8 - Next, turn off the heat and add the cheese.  1/2 cup of grated Parmesan and provolone.  Stir until the cheese melts.
9 - The final step is to add the chicken pieces and the pasta (remember I told you that you needed a really big tall pot?) and stir until all the pasta is coated with the sauce AND the tomatoes and bacon appear to be evenly distributed.  Sprinkle the top with Parmesan cheese

Pour the pasta mixture into to baking dishes, each smaller and deeper than a traditional 9x13 cake pan.  Dare I say a good casserole dish?

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes until golden brown.

If you are cooking from the freezer, bake at 400 for 35-40 minutes.

Serve with brushetta and crusty bread.  Which by the way, is great for a leftover lunch the next day.  Especially when you ate all your pasta at dinner the night before.