Avocado Chicken by The Kitchen Life of a Navy Wife

I needed some inspiration to cook chicken, yet again, for dinner last night.  So I went to my Poultry Recipes board on my Pinterest account looking for something new, easy and consisting of ingredients I had on hand.  I don't know about you, but I pin things all the time and can't remember all of them.  Looking through my own boards is like Christmas morning!  hehehe

I found this gloriously simple recipe for Avocado Chicken from The Kitchen Life of a Navy Wife.  Definitely something new, quite easy and I had just bought tomatoes and avocados from Costco the day before.   *Ding, ding, ding*  We literally had a winner, winner, chicken dinner!

You know me, I can't make any recipe exactly the way it is, so I finished off the oven time by turning the broiler on for a little color.  The hubs is quite picky, and not a fan of tomatoes, but he agreed with me that dinner was delicious!

Adding this one to the rotation during tomato season.  Thank you, Navy Wife! 

Series: Cooking Around The World With My Son - Italy

Tortellini with Skinny Basil Pesto (left) and Marinara (right).

The evening of August 21, I was on my Pinterest "homepage" and saw a pin for Kids' Culinary Passport from Inner Child Food.  I did not follow Inner Child Food on Pinterest, but another pinner that I do follow had pinned this culinary passport post.  Although I immediately loved the idea of cooking and crafting with your kids from different countries, I was not going to repin the post.  B was signed up to take a camp the following week that was doing just that - cooking new foods from around the world.  So, I moved on and continued to scroll through my Pinterest homepage.  But a voice inside me said, "Go back and pin that; you might need it".  I disagreed with that voice, but I've learned through experience to listen to it, so I went back and pinned it.

The next day, I received an email form the camp counselor, reminding me about the camp the following week and expressing his excitement to get cooking with the kids.  Right before ending the email, he mentioned that common allergens would be used throughout the week and to please let him know if B had any.  I replied that B is allergic to peanuts and was told that 2 days during the week peanuts would be used.  I promptly removed B from the class and requested a refund.  I called the hubs to express my irritation that the allergy information had not been divulged to parents during registration as well as B's disappointment.  He loves to cook and was looking forward to the class.  The hubs said, "That's alright.  We'll just make our own cooking camp at home."  Then that voice popped up again, "See?  I told you you'd need pin."  When I got off the phone, I found the pin, went to the Kids' Culinary Passport and read the post - five countries, five crafts, five recipes.  B's camp was 5 days.  This was perfect!  We would just cover each country from Inner Child Food's the following week and B would get his week of cooking camp!

Hahaha!  "The best laid plans of mice and men..."  Oh, well.  So goes the life of homeschoolers.  We learn through life and somedays life takes us out of the house and we're not home to cook.  Or the pantry does not have all the ingredients needed to cook a new dish and it's that last week before payday when I refused to run to the store and just work with what is already in the house.  Over the past 2 weeks, B has cooked 6 days from the 5 countries in Kids' Culinary Passport from Inner Child Food.  We did not do the crafts because we do plenty of those.  We did not use all the recipes from Kids' Culinary Passport, either, because we didn't have the ingredients on hand or we wanted to do something different.

The plan was just to do the 5 countries in Kids' Culinary Passport, but then I got a text from a friend this morning.  She asked me if we had done Korea yet because she had found a cool recipe for us.  I decided right then that we've been having so much fun, why not continue our culinary trip around the world?  I asked her for the recipe and I'm looking forward to trying it!  I don't know how many countries we'll do nor how often we'll cook from them, but I'll share our journey with you and be very grateful to Inner Child Food for inspiring us.

**UPDATE**  Below, I've added the details about Italy we talked about as well as my marinara recipe.

Our first country was Italy because I had fresh tortellini in the fridge that was due to expire at the end of the week.  B made my homemade marinara sauce and Skinny Basil Pesto from SkinnyTaste.com.  We eat marinara sauce all the time, but I had none on hand that day, so we needed to make a batch anyway.  It's a staple I've been working with B to memorize.  If you can cook your own spaghetti sauce, you won't go hungry and you'll impress girls!  I chose the pesto recipe from Skinny Taste because I've enjoyed other recipes from that site and this recipe did not call for pine nuts.  I had no pine nuts and it was suck-it-up-I'm-not-going-to-the-store week.  Both sauces were delizioso!  Over dinner, the hubs talked to B about how the colors of the Italian flag remind us of tomatoes, Mozzarella and basil.  I had B point out Italy on our world map and asked him when we'd "visited" Italy during our 4th grade History lessons.  We covered The Middle Ages in 4th grade (July 2012 - May 2013) and B told me that Italy held the capital of The Holy Roman Empire as well as the Catholic Church.

A mom in B's old playgroup kindly shared her dad's spaghetti sauce recipe with me 6 or 7 years ago and I am forever grateful to her for that!  Here is the tweaked version that I make in my house:

Simple Marinara Sauce
1-2 tbsp Wegman's Basting Oil (you can use olive oil, but I am allergic to it)
6 garlic cloves, minced
2 28oz cans of crushed tomatoes (I stock up on Tuttorosso with Basil when they're on sale; when they aren't, I use Wegmans' store brand)
heaping 1/4 cup brown sugar (adjust this to your taste, we like a sweeter sauce)
6 - 8 fresh basil leaves, minced

The simple version of directions: Heat oil in pan.  Add garlic and sauté, but don't allow it to brown.  Add canned tomatoes, brown sugar and minced fresh basil.  Cover pot with lid most of the way - this keeps sauce from jumping out of your pan, but also lets steam escape so sauce isn't watery.  Simmer for 1 hour.

The version that I do after many trials and errors: Get everything ready first, because this goes fast.  Mince your garlic, open up your cans of tomatoes and have them next to the pot, measure out your brown sugar and mince your fresh basil (or get out a heaping tsp of dried basil, Italian seasonings, salt & pepper or whatever you like or have on hand).

Heat oil in a large, non-metal pot with a lid; I use an enamel-coated cast iron pan.  Once oil is hot, add garlic and stir constantly.  You must keep it moving to prevent it from burning.  You don't want the garlic to get brown, but you need it to cook enough so that it is no longer raw.  Smell your garlic when it 1st goes in the pan - it's strong.  Keep the garlic moving and continue to smell it until the aroma has mellowed - no longer stings your eyes and nose.

Immediately add in about 1/3 of a can of tomatoes to stop the garlic from cooking further and stir quickly.  The pan is hot and those tomatoes will pop and bubble right out of you pan.  Stir them until they cool down the pan a little and stop bubbling, then stir in the rest of the tomatoes, the sugar and herbs.  Bring sauce up to a low boil (it bubbles on top), then reduce your flame as low as it can go.

Cover pot with lid most of the way - this keeps sauce from jumping out of your pan, but also lets steam escape so sauce isn't watery.  Simmer for 1 hour, stirring every 10 minutes to make sure sauce on bottom does not burn.  Enjoy!

Stay tuned for the country of our next cooking adventure, Mexico...

Yummy Dinner of Broccoli Patties, Chicken and Homemade Bread!

FIrst of all, I want to say that dinner pictured here, is in a bowl.  That is not a dinner plate completely filled with saucy chicken to the rim.  It's a soup/cereal bowl.  This dinner was sooooo gooood.  I didn't plan it to be this good; I was going to serve the saucy chicken over pasta and just serve the broccoli patties with it.  But the hubs reminded me that I had made a loaf of whole wheat bread yesterday and that we should have a slice of that instead of the pasta.  Good call, hubs!

I found this fabulous recipe for Broccoli Bites For Kids on Pinterest a month or so ago and decided to try it today.  Easy to make and a hit with all 3 of us.  I cut the recipe in third and made 4 patties for us.  The loaf of bread is The Master Recipe from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, the sequel to Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day which got me not only baking bread but loving it.  So simple!

The chicken I just made up with what was in the house and needed to be used up.  I sautéed half a sweet onion, half a red pepper, a small shallot, 2 cloves of garlic and some "use or lose" mushrooms in equal parts butter and oil for about 15 minutes.  BTW, you can make this with whatever veggies you have on hand/you like or no veggies at all!  I removed them from the pan to a bowl.  I chopped up 2 chicken breasts, sprinkled them with salt and pepper, cooked them in the same pan then put them in the bowl with the veggies.  I added 1/2 tbsp of butter to the pan and, after it melted, added approx 1.5 tbsp flour.  Whisked that around together for a couple of minutes to burn off the "floury" taste and added chicken stock.  Continued to whisk until it thickened somewhat and then added a splash or two of half & half (I had no heavy cream.  You could also use whatever milk you have in the house or just use the chicken stock.)  Once everything was the thickness I wanted, I seasoned with a little more salt & pepper, turned off the flame, added the veggies and chicken to the sauce, married all those beautiful flavors together and ladled it into a bowl.  Finally I added a broccoli patty and half a slice of buttered, homemade, whole wheat bread and then moaned through the whole meal!

Recipe - White Bean and Pasta Soup from Epicurious

I've been trying to add more legumes into our diet this year.  I've liked all the recipes I've tried but the guys...not so much.  However, this White Bean and Pasta Soup from Epicurious.com was a hit with everyone - YEAH!  As usual, I had to make changes.  ;o)  If you click on the link to the original recipe, you'll notice right off the bat that Epicurious' version is white and mine is brown.  The recipe called for water but I needed more flavor than that to get my guys to eat it, so I used my fav vegetable stock.  Instead of cooking my own beans, I drained and rinsed a can of cannellini beans.  To get that garlic and sage flavor of the home-cooked beans they suggested starting with, I added a couple of cloves of minced garlic and some poultry seasoning before adding the stock, beans and tomato.  Why poultry seasoning, you ask?  I don't have sage in the house but sage is in poultry seasoning and, let's face it, the smell of poultry seasoning wafting through your kitchen just makes any day better.  I didn't have green onion to top it with and I'm allergic to olive oil, so there was no drizzling of that.  However, it was absolutely delicious and filling, I froze the leftovers for another meal and I highly recommend you give it a try.

Easy-Peasy Pork Tenderloin in a Pressure Cooker

I had a 2.5 lb pork roast to cook for dinner and I really want to utilize my Nesco pressure cooker more often so I brought it out.  This one is great because of all the cooking methods it can do: steam, brown, slow cook and pressure cook.  I love that I can brown my meat in the pressure cooker so I don't have to dirty another pot.  I wish I had thought ahead and taken pix all throughout the preparation of this meal, but I didn't.  I actually didn't even think to take a nice picture of the final product until the hubs was about to take his 1st bite and snapped the top-left one, but it's a little fuzzy.  The top-right one is my plate with seconds on it.  :o)  The tenderloin in the picture is a 2nd one I have (they were a BOGO deal).  Anywho, let me tell you how easy this was!

Ingredients
2.5 lb pork temderloin, quartered
1 onion, quartered
2 small apples, peeled and quartered
3 garlic cloves, peeled
2 C beef stock (if you don't have, use wine, chicken or vegetable stock or even water)
Salt and pepper
If you want to make gravy
3 tbsp butter, melted
3 tbsp flour (you could use cornstarch and water, instead of butter and flour)

When I unwrapped the tenderloin, it was actually in two, long pieces.  I cut both pieces in half, giving me 4 even pieces that fit in the pressure cooker.  Add a tbsp of your choice of oil to the bottom of the pressure cooker and set it to "brown".  Sprinkle the pork with salt and pepper and brown all sides of the pork, two pieces at a time, in the cooker.

Remove the browned pork, place the meat trivet inside the cooker, then set the 4 pork pieces on the trivet.  Drop the onion, apple and garlic cloves on top (don't worry if some fall  through the trivet to the bottom).  Pour beef stock in and seal cooker.  Cook pork for 25 minutes.  If you have a manual pressure cooker, start your timer after it starts to jiggle.  In my electric pressure cooker, I can set the timer and then it won't start counting down until it's reached full pressure.

When timer is up, release pressure and remove pork and trivet; cover pork to keep it warm.  (I tasted the liquid in the pot and the onions and apple had flavored the stock nicely, so I removed them with a mesh strainer.  You could leave them in and use an immersion blender to puree them into your stock, thus thickening it into a gravy.)  Turn cooker back to "brown" and blend melted butter with flour (or water and cornstarch).  Once stock is boiling, whisk in butter/flour mixture and continue to cook until desired thickness.  Add salt and pepper, if necessary.

The pork fell apart nicely and was so tender!  I served it with green beans and potatoes - baked for the hubs and mashed for me and B.  If you try this recipe, let me know how you like it!

Simple Bites' Roast Pork & Caramelized Balsamic Onions and Stir Fry with the Leftovers

I discovered a blog, Simple Bites, this week and found several recipes I want to try.  I made Simple Bites' Roast Pork & Caramelized Balsamic Onions for dinner on Wednesday with one of the roasts I cut from a Christmas gift.  The roast was deelish and I used the leftovers to make Pork Fried Rice.

I had to show the picture on the right of the roast before I put it in the oven.  The hubs came into the kitchen, saw it and said in a very reverent whisper,"WHAT are you MAKING?!?!"  I even spotted some drool at the corner of his mouth.  ;o)  Pork wrapped in bacon - what male omnivore wouldn't be all over that?

I followed the timing directions however the roast was less than 90 degrees F inside, so I cooked it another 25 minutes to perfection.  I removed the roast to my cutting board and while it rested, I poured the juice and onions into a saucepan to reduce the sauce.  It was very tasty!

This morning, I made brown rice for Pork Fried Rice.  I poured some sesame oil in my wok over medium-high heat, added some minced garlic, ginger and onions from the roast and tossed them around to heat through.  Then I added a cup of mixed, frozen veggies and continue to toss until they were thoroughly heated.  I removed the veggies and tossed the diced pork until it was heated through, then removed.  Next I added the cooked, brown rice to the wok, pressed it into a thin layer around the wok and let it snap, crackle and pop to get the rice crunchy.  Cuz, seriously, if you're going to make fried rice, ya gotta make it crunchy!  After a few minutes, I turned the rice over to get the other side crunchy and then added the veggies and meat back it.  The final, and best step, was to pour some of this teriyaki sauce in the wok and toss to coat.  YUM!  That teriyaki sauce is so easy to make and I keep some in the fridge most of the time.

I hope y'all give these recipes a try and I look forward to trying more recipes from Simple Bites!

Granola and Smoothies

Two of B's current favorite food items are granola and smoothies.  He likes to eat my granola like cereal - in a bowl with milk over it.  But it can also be eaten plain, as a snack, or over yogurt, as the hubs does.  I was making B a smoothie for breakfast this morning and he wanted to watch for the 1st time.  He stood next to me with his shoulders scrunched up and hands pressed against his ears because he can't stand the noise.  After I was done blending he says, "Mom, we need to get a Vitamix. They are much quieter when the guy uses it in Costco."  @@




FRUIT SMOOTHIE

1 Handful of frozen fruit, any one kind or a variety
Approx 1/2 C of plain yogurt (I just scooped some in)
1/2 a banana, sliced
1 Cup of juice of your choice

Add all ingredients to blender and blend on Ice Crush mode, if you have it, to really break down the frozen fruit and then finish with Food Processor mode.  The amount pictured in my blender filled a 1 pint mason jar and he drank it all.  :o)

GRANOLA

5 C Oats
2 Handfuls, approx. 1 C, whole almonds or whatever nut you'd like
1/3 C Oil
1/3 C Honey
1/2 - 1 tsp Cinnamon

Preheat oven to 300 F.  Chop nuts by hand or in food processor and then mix with oats.  In a separate bowl, mix oil, honey and cinnamon.  I heat the honey so it's easier to mix into the oil (learned that trick from Chuck Hughes).  Add oat/nut mix to bowl of liquids and toss until thoroughly coated.  Spread mixture out on a sheet pan (I put a silicone liner on my pan to avoid sticking) and bake for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.  Let cool and place in airtight container.  Crunchy goodness!

Recipe for My Creamy Spinach Pasta with Grilled Chicken

A couple of weeks ago I got a craving for some pasta with a creamy, spinach sauce and some grilled chicken on top.  Yesterday, I finally decided to make it for myself for lunch and it was delicious!  I usually make creamed spinach from scratch, but I didn't have any fresh spinach in the house so I improvised.

1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tbsp of minced shallot
9 oz box of frozen, creamed spinach
Milk
Pepper and nutmeg to taste
Butter
Asiago cheese, freshly grated
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
You favorite pasta, cooked

I fired up my countertop grill/griddle with the grill plates, rubbed a little Wegmans Basting Oil onto the chicken breasts and grilled them for 4 minutes with the grill top down.  I put the frozen, creamed spinach in the microwave to thaw.

I heated 1/2 tbsp of butter into a small saucepan (you can use any kind of oil, instead, if you like) and sautéed the shallot for 5 minutes until very soft.  Then I tossed in the garlic and sautéed for another minute or two until the garlic was cooked (you can smell the difference) but didn't brown.

Philly Cheesesteak Stuffed Peppers

Back in August, I told you about a recipe from Peace Love and Low Carb that has become one of our favorites, Pan-Seared Chicken with Balsamic Cream Sauce, Mushrooms and Onions.  It's a mouthful to say, but worth it!  Tonight, I made another one of PL&LC's recipes, Philly Cheesesteak Stuffed Peppers.  These are so delicious!  I was quite surprised that the peppers were still brightly colored (more so than the picture captured) and that they were still crunchy; I thought they'd be pretty soggy.  So flavorful, so pretty and a big hit in our house.  I highly recommend then!

Quick, Easy Chocolate Croissants with 2 Ingredients You Probably Already Have On Hand

Yesterday, I was craving chocolate, so I made some chocolate croissants.  Way easier than making cookies or brownies when you have a can of crescent rolls in the house, leftover from Thanksgiving dinner (I gave myself permission to not make butter rolls from scratch this year and I'm glad I did!).  We usually make chocolate crescents just like the Pillsbury can directs you to make their rolls, only we add some chips to the triangles before rolling them up.  This time, I wanted them to look more like the filled croissants at bakeries.  So fast, easy and delicious!  Here's what you do:

Jessica Seinfeld's Chocolate Chip Cookies

B woke up yesterday morning and decided he wanted to make chocolate chip cookies.  The hubs and I were still asleep, BTW.  He started looking through my cookbooks to find a recipe. The 4th book he went through was Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious.  She had a recipe for chocolate chip cookies in there and B looked over the ingredients list to see if we had everything.  He found all the ingredients in the pantry except for one - chick peas.  That's right, chick peas.  He had no idea what chick peas were, but he absolutely loved her Sloppy Joes so he was willing to give it a try.

Luckily, at this point, he remembered he is not supposed to use the oven!  He figured he'd mix up the batter and get it all ready for us when we woke up.  How thoughtful of him!  ;o)  But he still didn't know what chick peas were.  So he woke up the hubs and asked if he could get him some chick peas, please.  Imagine the hubs' surprise and confusion, being woken up with that question.  It still doesn't top me being woken up by B at the age of 5 saying, "Mama, my balls are gone."

After going for a lovely late afternoon walk, we came back to the house and B made the cookies.  The same friend who recommended Jessica Seinfeld's Sloppy Joes to us also told me her husband loves these chocolate chip cookies with chick peas.  She is 2 for 2 with her recommendations; these cookies are good!  You don't taste the chick peas at all.  I thought maybe they'd melted during baking, but they didn't; you cans till see them in the cookies.  But they are just soft like the dough and blend in.  No taste difference at all.  I don't know what made Mrs. Seinfeld think to add chick peas, but it works!

Once the chick peas and chocolate chips went in, we had to cover the mixer with a towel to prevent flying chick peas!

Look at that scooping concentration!

YUM!  Can you spot the chick peas?  Only if you know they are there and look for them. Going to try them on my parents this afternoon and not tell them about the chick peas.

My Chicken Noodle Soup Dump Recipe For Kathy

• Dice up half an onion, 2 carrots, a couple of garlic cloves, and grate at least 1 tsp of fresh ginger. If I have shallots on hand, I'll dice up one of those, too.
•  Salt and pepper 1/2 of a chicken breast and cook it in a pan with the fat of your choice.  Set aside on a cutting board.
• Add a little more fat to pan you cooked chicken breast in and then add your onion, carrot, garlic ginger and shallot.  Saute until onions are translucent.  If I have leftover cooked veggies from dinners in the fridge, I add them now and then saute for another minute or two.
• If you have any spices or herbs you'd like to add for extra flavor, this is the time to do it!  Drop them in with your sauteed veggies and stir to coat and heat them up, releasing their flavors.  I find I get more flavor out of herbs and spices when I add them before liquids then I get when adding them at the end.  Salt and pepper, however, should be added at the end.
• Add 3 - 4 cups of Kitchen Basics Unsalted Chicken Cooking Stock and bring up to a boil.
• Once stock and veggies are boiling, add a handful or 2, at the most, of your choice of pasta, turn the flame down so that stock just simmers and cook until the pasta is al dente.  I pick a small pasta, like ditalini, alphabets, mini shells, mini farfalle, orecchiette, or elbows if that's the smallest I have.  You can even break up spaghetti into small pieces.  Add a pasta too big or too much pasta and it will absorb all or most of your stock.
• While pasta cooks, dice up your chicken breast.
• When pasta is al dente, turn off the heat, add in your diced chicken breast to warm it back up and taste your broth.  Do you want to add salt and or pepper?  I add both, to my taste.

Depending on how much I serve myself, I get 3 - 4 bowls from this.  If I have a chicken or turkey carcass around, I'll make a pot of stock from that, make a big pot of soup without the pasta, and freeze in quart-size, zip-top bags.  Take out when you are ready to eat, thaw, bring up to boil, toss in your pasta and then simmer until al dente.  Or freeze in gallon-size bags and use when you want to take a family a meal.

Recipe: Not Your Regular Sloppy Joes

Before tonight, not only have I never made a Sloppy Joe, but I'd never even eaten one!  For a couple of years, B has been raving about these Sloppy Joes he had at a friend's house once and begging me to make them.  Finally, I contacted my friend, CC, and asked for her recipe.  Turns out, it is from one of Jessica Seinfeld's cookbooks, Deceptively Delicious.  I have both of her cookbooks in my collection but never gave the Sloppy Joes a second glance because, well, I've never had them and had no desire to.  My only exposure to the meal was the Manwich commercials from my childhood.  I did not eat ground beef as a child, not even hamburgers (I think it was a texture issue), and my mom never made them.  I've never been served them at any function or dinner at a friend's house.  But I am so glad I made them tonight!  Something that is healthier for us and all three of us liked - woohoo!

You may or may not know this, but Jessica Seinfeld's recipe include "sneaking" pureed vegetables into each dish.  She, like most parents, found it difficult to get her children to eat a variety of vegetables and discovered she could slip some into meals - breakfast, lunch dinner, snacks, even desserts! - without the kids noticing a difference in taste.  I actually modified a Chicken Lasagna recipe after being inspired by Jessica Seinfeld and it's been a hit with my family as well as with guests.  I substitute half or all of the cream of chicken soup the original recipe calls for with purred vegetables.  I've made my lasagna with pureed yellow squash, carrots and pumpkin, but the most popular is with butternut squash.  Since Jessica Seinfeld's Sloppy Joes recipe called for pureed butternut squash and sweet potatoes, I decided I could make my Chicken Lasagna, too!  That recipe will be coming later in the week.  But onto the Sloppy Joes...

Grilled Bruschetta Chicken

Here's another great recipe that my friend, Julia, shared with me - Grilled Bruschetta Chicken from Kraft Foods.  I declared it International Night in our house and made Grilled Bruschetta Chicken, guacamole and fried rice for dinner.  :o)  This chicken dish is easy and fast, a great last minute entree you can throw together in 30 minutes or less.  It's so easy, that I don't even follow the recipe measurements; I just eyeball and dump things together, depending on how many I'm cooking for.  So here we go...

You only need 5 ingredients: chicken, sun-dried tomato vinaigrette (or just Italian dressing if that's what you've got), basil, fresh tomato and mozzarella cheese.  First, pour some dressing over the chicken.

While the chicken is marinating, wash and chop a tomato and fresh basil.