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!

When the kids are sick - make cookies

When other people in my life are stressing me out, I feel an overwhelming need to bake.  Cookies always make things better.

The Pioneer Woman: Easy Enchiladas

We tried another PW recipe last week - her beef enchiladas.  Now, I make a mean chicken enchilada and some pretty good sweet pork with green sauce enchiladas but I've never made beef.  We're not huge fans of ground beef in enchiladas and who has the time to cook and shred beef, though that would be tasty too.

No, I used the PW recipe and they were decidedly good.  Good enough that I actually ate the left overs the next night.

Of course, I modified things a bit.  I didn't have onions, but I had shallots so those went into the mix.  I didn't have time to fry and dip my corn tortillas so I just microwaved them individually so that they were hot, soft and pliable.  Also - no olives, but lots and lots of green chilies and cilantro.

Yum, yum, yum.

Photo courtesy of Pioneer Woman

The Pioneer Woman: Favorite Sandwich

The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, is my new favorite food person.  I bought her cookbook and am really in love with quite a few recipes.

Last night for dinner we had the sandwich called, Marlboro Man's Favorite.  It was delish.  One of my new favorites as well.  I mean, anything that involves a ton of butter and a three year old will willingly consume scores a gold star in my book.

Try it yourself tonight.

Photo courtesy of Pioneer Woman

Rootbeer Cupcakes

(Image courtesy of confessions of a cookbook queen)

I fixed these cupcakes (mine did not look like this, I've lost all my pictures because I deleted the card) for a party and my oh my, they were divine. Particularly the icing. Oh my heavens, the icing.

The recipe is courtesy of one of my new favorite treat blogs, Confessions of a Cookbook Queen. The stuff she whips up is absolutely divine.  Yes, its as easy as the recipe says and yes the cupcakes will end up absolutely soft and fluffy with only a cake mix and some root beer.

Note 1:  I used an entire 12 oz bottle of root beer and maybe it's because I'm at a higher altitude, but I only got about 18 cupcakes, instead of 24.

Note 2:  I double the amount of root beer extract in the icing and added some to the cake batter as well.

INGREDIENTS

1 box white cake mix
1 cup of your favorite root beer
1 recipe butter cream
1 teaspoon root beer extract

Preheat oven to 350. Line 24 muffin tins with paper liners.

Mix together root beer and cake mix (yes, just those two ingredients). Pour into paper liners and fill 3/4 full. 

Bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Remove from oven and allow to completely cool.

In a separate bowl, mix the butter cream frosting and root beer flavoring. Frost cooled cupcakes.

Butter Cream
Butter, softened to room temperature
Powdered sugar
Vanilla
Milk

Put 2 sticks of butter, 2 tablespoons milk, and 1 teaspoon vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer.  Whip them all together.  Slowly add powdered sugar (4 cups) and root beer extract, a couple of cap fulls to the butter.  Add a little more milk if it's too thick, a little more powdered sugar if it's too thin.

Enjoy.

Pink Lemonade Cupcakes

I made these for a family BBQ in July. They were yummy. I didn't think that the cake ended up sour enough, so I really went all out with the frosting.

This recipe is not mine, but i tweaked it. The recipe makes just barely 12 cupcakes.

Cupcakes
1 c. flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. vegetable oil
2 egg whites
1/2 c. pink lemonade concentrate, thawed
1/4 c. buttermilk
red or hot pink food coloring, couple drops

preheat oven to 350 and bake for 20-25 minutes

in a small bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt

in a large bowl whisk together sugar, oil, egg whites and pink lemonade. then, alternately whisk in flour mixture and buttermilk, ending with flour, whisking until smooth. add food coloring to make the batter pink.

Pink Lemonade Butter cream

3 c. + 3 tbsp powdered sugar
1 stick butter, room temp.
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 c. pink lemonade concentrate
red or pink food coloring

add butter, sugar, salt, and concentrate in a mixer and mix on low. add food coloring. taste. add more concentrate if not tart enough. More sugar if too thin.

Pipe or spread on cooled cupcakes.

Quick Marinade

It wasn't THE most tasty thing in the world, but for a quickie invention, it wasn't bad.

We had steaks for dinner, but not much else.  And, I'm sick so I needed something more flavorful than the average.  And, there is no gas in my grill so I was stuck cooking inside.

To marinade the steaks, I did this.

balsamic vinegar
olive oil
rosemary
roasted garlic - minced
dijon mustard
capers
salt and pepper

Use quantities you're comfortable with.  I love garlic and balsamic so I went heavy on those.  If you've got two small steaks like I had, you'll want about half a cup of marinade.  Because it was a last minute thing, my steaks only marinated for about 10 minutes.  They could have used at least 30 minutes, maybe a couple of hours to really soak up the flavor.