Chicken Pesto

My amazing brother in law taught me this one...

First buy a pre-cooked chicken. Ours was $9 at our local grocery store.  Jake and I ate that for dinner 2 nights in a row.

When we were done, I pulled all the left over chicken off.  Do you realize how much chicken there is left when you're "done" eating?

The 3rd meal is easy. Leftover chicken bits, pesto, and noodles. Mmmm.  So very tasty.

Quick Dinner Recipe

When evaluating dinners, I have a pretty concrete system.

How good is this meal is answered with: How frequently would you like to eat this? So Jake says "Once a month" or "Every once in a while".

How easy is this meal to make is answered with "How many minutes standing up does it take me to make this meal after a long day at work when I'm starving." So something that I can prep in 10 minutes and put in the oven for an hour ranks higher than a dish I have to actively watch on the stove for 45 minutes.

But I might have a new way to evaluate meals.  "Would a woman who is 41 weeks pregnant be willing and able to make this?"

Well, with these Meditteranean Chicken Wraps, the answer is yes!  http://www.emilybites.com/2012/04/mediterranean-chicken-wraps.html

My friend Ruth Ann sent me this recipe this morning and it was SO easy and SO delicious.  If you eat hummus and feta and chicken, you need to try this.  I cannot believe I cooked something at 41 weeks pregnant! I deserve a medal!

And the answer to the first question, by the way... Jacob said this is an "Every day" meal.

Take Out Menus

I'm running out of things to nest.  Seriously.

As of the writing of this post (to be published later), I am on Day 12 of False Labor.  I have contractions. They wrap around my back.  They are uncomfortable (although painful is probably too strong...)  I am nauseous.  Sometimes they are painful enough to wake me up. They last for hours, although they aren't regular.  And then. They. Stop.

It's emotionally exhausting.

So I've been trying to distract myself.   Here's my latest project.  Take out menus!

I have gone through EVERY RESTAURANT within a 10 mile radius and printed out their menus from their websites and written down their hours.  I made a list of all the fast food places nearby.  I even found out there is a service that goes to a lot of the restaurants in the area and will deliver to your house.  

So now, when we're sleep deprived, hungry, and grumpy, we don't have to say "What do you want? I don't know, what do you want? I don't know what do you want?"  We can just flip through the binder until we find something that sounds good.  Then it's just deciding who has to pick it up.

"You go get it. No you. No you. I'll give you a 5 minute back massage if you go. Make it 10 minutes."

Products I recommend: Gordon's Fish!

It's time for another rousing edition of "Products Domestic Diva Likes (but didn't get paid to tell you about)!"

This time: Gordon's Simply Bake Fish

I love fish.  I am also terrible at cooking it.  And my husband HATES it.  This does not really give me a lot of incentive to get better at fish cooking.  When tilapia was cheap, when I first got married (sometimes cheaper than chicken!) I got pretty good at this recipe that involved lime juice and peach salsa, but now that it's expensive, it's too depressing to pay for it and then risk ruining it.

Enter: Gordon's Simply Bake fish!  You just... preheat your oven, pop the little pouch in, and wait 20-35 minutes.

I've tried the tilapia and the salmon so far and both are delicious!

And the house doesn't totally smell like fish afterwards, so my husband isn't too annoyed with me.  :)

Lately this has been great for "Fend for Yourself" nights when Jake is willing to eat leftover pizza, AGAIN, and I just cannot do it.  :)

So there you have it. Easy, not too expensive, delicious fish.

Making Frozen Pizza Yummy

In my house, we call this process "loaded pizza".

Lemme explain. :)

When I was in college, my mom got me a few cookbooks for starting out.  "The College Cookbook" and "The Little Black Apron".  The College Cookbook is recipes submitted from college kids and one of the recipes is this loaded pizza.  You take a boring ole cardboard-y CHEAP frozen pizza, and you just put stuff all over it.

Extra cheese is a MUST, as well as herbs (italian spices, usually).  We also put basically whatever leftover veggies we have that could possibly taste good on a pizza. 

It's quick, easy, and turns a boring ole pizza, and your left over half a tomato into something delicious!  It's a Diva household favorite!

Chick-Fil-A at home!

Several months ago, I saw an article about making your own Chick-Fil-A copycat sandwiches.  

http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/07/the-food-lab-how-to-make-a-chick-fil-a-sandwich-at-home.html

Whether for political reasons, financial reasons, or because there just isn't a Chick-Fil-A in your part of the country, this is a tasty copy cat.  And really really close to the real deal.

Jake generally has to help me with all deep frying and I did leave out the MSG.  All in all, I say if you want ChickFilA and you're willing to put in a little effort, this is not unattainable. 

Bonus, since you're cooking at home, you can make delicious homemade fries! (Jake's fries are the best on the planet. Seriously. Even better than ChickFilA.)

Don't Walk Away from the Bacon

For my second foray into French cooking, I decided to make a beef stew.  Mostly because I had beef stew meat.  (Yes, that's what it said on the package...)


It's not Beef Bourguignon, it was a couple pages after that one.  I won't bore you with all the french details.  Basically, this was tender tender beef chunks that fell apart when touched with a fork, and melted in your mouth, cooked with carrots, onions, tomatoes, and mushrooms, and in a gravy like sauce.

Oh man it was delicious.

Julia gives a nice description about the differences between stews and other similar dishes. I didn't quite grasp it. The important part is that after several days of prepping ingredients, 6 hours of marinading, and 3 hours in the oven, I had something amazing!  The picture doesn't begin to do it justice.

Key points learned this time:
1. Making beef stock is a little more involved than originally anticipated. Hopefully I'll have a post about that soon, but for now, Julia's estimated 3-4 hours turned into...... 10?
2. Making beef stock is DELICIOUS.
3. If, say, you are trying to rush to finally assemble a dish at 7am while simultaneously getting ready for work, because your husband has to stick this thing in the oven at 3pm so you can eat at a reasonable hour, and say, you hypothetically forgot to boil the bacon (Something I had never done before), probably don't walk away from the bacon.

Ah yes. The Bacon.

So, to me, this was the strangest, most complicated, almost disaster causing part of the recipe.  You were supposed to boil 1 inch bacon pieces in water, then line the bottom of the pan with them when assembling and top it off with the rest.

Boiled bacon tastes... kinda like I thought I would. Which is to say, not that crispy.

But also. I almost burned my house down, and I scared my poor dogs half to death.

Since the beef stock took me several days longer than originally anticipated, I had sorta been dragging my feet on finishing this recipe.  But Wednesday morning I KNEW I had to get this thing assembled and leave instructions for Jake or we were not going to get to eat it.

So while getting dressed in the other room, I started boiling the bacon.  Yeah. It boiled over. And the grease caught on fire. And the smoke poured out of the kitchen. And stopping the minor grease fire was pretty easy, but I couldn't get the smoke to leave the house or the smoke detectors to stop screaming.

After what seemed like an ETERNITY, everything stopped making loud noises and the smoke had mostly dissipated, I ran to check on the dogs. I knew Tolpel is TERRIFIED of smoke. And as it turns out, Jazz is even more terrified of loud smoke detectors. I had to pry her out from underneath the bed and hold her for a good 20 minutes before she stopped shaking and crying.

So, general cooking rule. Don't walk away from bacon.  This is probably a good rule for life, actually.


Anyway, dinner was delicious.  Lest you think everything just turns out though, my risotto was just... pathetic.  Ah well. Something to strive for in the future. ;)

Mastering the Art of French Cooking

Maybe it's being finally able to keep down something other than french fries.  Maybe it's feeling like this baby is going to change my life in ways I can't even imagine. Maybe it's those lofty dreams from watching Julia and Julia. Maybe it's pure insanity.  But whatever the reason... I picked up a copy of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking at the library this week.  And tonight, I went for it.

Well, actually, there was a considerable amount of planning.  Monday night, after dumping some cans into a crockpot to make soup (a variation on Catherine's Spicy Chicken Soup using... whatever similar ingredients I have in the house...) I prepped for my first ever big french meal.

Parsley was washed and chopped.
Fresh lemons were squeezed.
Green beans were trimmed.
Butter was clarified.

Butter was clarified!?!!? For the record, I had NO idea what this meant until 2 nights ago.  Lucky for me, this Mastering the Art of French Cooking book is serious business... and she tells you step by step how to do these crazy things. Like clarifying butter.

Tonight was when the truly crazy parts happened.  I made... eh hem... *pinches nose* Suprêmes de Volaille a Brun avec Beurre Noisette et Haricots Verts à la Maître d'Hôtel.

So yeah. In English (and yes, the cookbook translates all of these crazy french foods for you...) I made Chicken Breasts Sauteed in Butter with Brown Butter Sauce and Buttered Green Beans with Lemon Juice and Parsley.

This actually went much better than I expected.  Things I learned.  

• Make sure you actually remember to thaw the chicken. Or else have a wonderful husband who can make last minute trips to the grocery store. (Thanks Jake, you're the best!)
• How to blanch green beans. (Another thing the book taught me.)
• Read all of your recipes all the way through before you start.  This is the only reason I wasn't drowning in a buttered grease fire... both recipes were pretty simple, but I needed the general idea in my head before I started.
• Have high heat utensils. This has been a major problem in the past, but those awesome new red utensils were a Christmas gift from my sister in law. They can stand up to 600 degrees F. Thanks Melissa!
• When Julia Child says, "cook chicken breast for 3 minutes, then flip, then 2 minutes..." her chicken must've been smaller than mine.  Because it took much much much longer.
• If you're going to eat french, you MUST take a french after dinner walk. To clear out the arteries.  From the stick of butter you just ate. No really. I think there was a whole stick of butter in my half of this meal.

But it was so delicious.

When You Cannot Possibly Eat Another TV Dinner

Sometimes my life gets crazy. I have a work deadline, and Jake's school semester just started... and I have another life saving product which no one is compensating me to promote. Kraft Fresh Takes. 

Could I buy and mix my own breadcrumbs,  spices and cheese for a fraction of the cost? Probably. But let's face it. Sometimes even that is too much work. So for days like that, I chop some chicken, dip it in egg and then throw it into a fresh take bag and shake it and bake it.

And that's how divas survive sometimes.

Recreating Applebees for dinner!

I recently purchased this "Top Secret Restaurant Recipes" book (see it on amazon) to help encourage me to cook at home when I was really wanting to go out.  Unfortunately, it's a lot of soups.  But, it also has some of my very favorite foods (like the bread from Outback! I'm totally trying that one next!)

Last night I tried to make Applebees Fiesta Lime Chicken.  It was delicious!  And, since I was making it myself, I added a little less sauce to mine, and a little less cheese and ate it with beans instead of rice - making it... somewhat reasonably calories too!

Here's the recipe:


Marinade
1 c water
1/3 c teriyaki sauce
2tbsp lime juice
2tsp minced garlic
1tsp liquid smoke (mesquite or hickory)
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp tequila

Sauce
1/4 c mayo
1/4 c sour cream
1 tbsp milk
2 tsp minced tomato
1 1/2 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp minced jalepenos (canned/jar)
1 tsp minced onion
1/4 tsp dries parsley
1/4 tsp tobasco
1/8 tsp dill
1/8 tsp paprika
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1/8 tsp ground cumin
1/8 tsp chili powder
Dash garlic powder
Dash black powder

Other

1 c shredded cheddar/ monterey jack
2 c crumbled tortilla chips
4 chicken breasts

Steps:

1. Marinade the chicken for several hours
2. Make the sauce (put it in the fridge for a few minutes)
3. Broil chicken 3-5 minutes
4. Take the chicken out of the oven and spread some sauce on each piece of chicken (you'll have lots of leftover sauce so you can make this again!) and then top with some cheese. Recipe says 1/4 a cup per 4 oz of chicken, but I used a lot less.
5. Broil an additional 2-3 minutes
6. Top with fresh salsa or pico de gallo. Serve over tortilla crumbs, with rice or black beans

Anti-Microwaves: How to Reheat Pizza

I hate microwaves. I hate microwaving food in general.  Its one of the reasons I rarely eat leftovers and we have the constant struggle of whether to take or buy lunch.  Microwaves leave food gross.  So when I find a suggestion of how to reheat food, not in the microwave.... I take it!

I found this on (take a guess, yup!) Pinterest!  I would add, that when he says "on Medium heat" he means it. I put mine on high because it was taking several minutes and i was HUNGRY.. and I got a little burned.

But I also got deliciously melty crunchy pizza.  Delightful!

So go here to the foodwishes blog for great instructions on reheating pizza.

Kitchen Tricks

As much as I love cooking, I can get easily overwhelmed by complicated meals.  I have started doing a few things that I'm sure every cooking 101 class covers... but here are my favorite cooking tips!

1. Read the recipe first.  Not all recipes are equal. Sometimes they aren't obvious that the 2 tbsp of butter are divided.  Sometimes they have that treacherous word "meanwhile". *shudder*. A quick read of the recipe before you start makes sure the "meanwhile"s don't defeat you.

2. Prep the food!  If you need 1/8 cup onion chopped and 1/2 cup bell pepper chopped, chop before you start! I only recently started doing this, and the onions would start burning while I furiously chopped peppers.

3. Relatedly, the most amazing "prep bowls" in the world - a muffin pan! Isn't this ingenious?! Only one dish to wash!

4. When measuring multiple scoops of something, count while pouring each scoop clockwise.  Let me explain.  Say you need 2 TBSP of sugar, but you only have a tsp clean. Fine. You need 6 tsp.  No big deal.  But inevitably around tsp 4... Or was it 5?  Oh no, you've lost count.  When I do this, I put tsp 1 at the "12 o'clock" and the second tsp at "1 o'clock" in the bowl.  When I lose count, I can actually see where I am by where I just dumped my last tsp.  Brilliant!

Does everyone already know these? I feel like I'm the last one coming to this party.  And share your awesome tips with me!

Dinner Diva

That's right, I'm back!

Just a little sampling of the meals I have made in the last few weeks.  Apparently I am completely sick of fast food and have really missed cooking, because I was pretty adventerous the last few days.  Here are my last 3 from-scratch meals:

1. Pineapple Southwest Chicken (previously blogged about.)
2. Stuffed Portabello Mushrooms
3. Chicken Fettuccine, homemade savory herb bread, fruit salad

Monday's meal was pretty involved for me, but the fruit salad was extremely quick and the perfect end to the heavy (delicious) fettuccine.

Mary Beth's Fruit Salad:
Yields 8 servings:
1 apple (honey crisp or other sweet variety), chopped
1 orange, chopped
1 cup pineapple, chopped (leftover from my southwest chicken)
1 TBSP agave nectar (a low glycemic index sugar substitute that is the consistency of syrup so it sticks it all together.)

Stir. Enjoy.

Nutrition
- Calories: 33
- Fat: 0.1g
- Carbs: 8.4g
- Fiber: 1.4g
- Sugars: 6.5g
- Protein: 0.3g

Kinesthetic German

A few weeks ago, I decided to learn some German words through experience.  I made German food!

Einen Sauerbraten - sour meat or sour roast which I have been marinating for 2 days. (It can marinate up to 10.)

Eine Kartoffelklöße - potato dumplins. "Kartoffel" must some how be related to potatoes or mean potatoes, because there is Kartoffelsalat, Kartoffelpuffer, Kartoffelsuppe...

It was DELICIOUS.  Although, 2 people (one from Berlin and the other who has German parents) recommended that in the future I purchase Panni brand mix for the Kartoffelklöße.  I think I;ll try that, because they turned out kinda wet.

Anyway, if this is what German food all tastes like, I'm going to be just fine there. Yum!

Southwest Chicken Recipe

I saw this recipe on FrugalFlambe, which I *highly* recommend.  (click "FrugalFlambe" to go to the recipe) It's one of the food blogs I read regularly and the recipes are easy and tasty!  I have a few modifications and notes.

Firstly, this recipe really wasn't expensive.  We even used fresh pineapple and fresh cilantro but you could easily sub canned pineapple (which the original recipe actually calls for) and dry cilantro.

• Pineapple substitutes: Either 1 (15 oz) can of pineapple or one cup of fresh diced pineapple.
• Cilantro substitutes: 2 TBSP of fresh cilantro or 2 tsp of dry cilantro

Secondly, it was really tasty!  A really amazing combination of sweet salty and spicy.  Jacob rates my dinners on a scale of "once a week", "once a month", "occasionally" and "wasn't that a nice experiment".  This recipe got a "once a month" because he felt that the novelty of the combination would wear off if we ate it more often.

Thirdly, and this is very important in my house... no leftovers! Well, technically I had like one chicken tender left over but I ate very light tonight. Normally this would have been just perfect for us.  I will note, I would either half the chicken or double the salsa.  The full chicken recipe would yield 4 servings. Even with it halfed, I was still wishing I had just a LIIIIITLE more salsa. Yum!

Dinner of Champions!

More vacation posts coming later, but first, Dinner!

I had one of those days. The kind where I'm both physically and emotionally tired, I need a nap, and I haven't cooked in about 2 weeks and we don't have much food in the house, but Jake won't be home for an hour, so I should probably attempt to make something.

So I went to my very very favorite website, allrecipes.com. A quick search for main dishes with chicken, sort by rating, a glance over the ingredients, and bam, I'm whipping up a batch of "jerky chicken."

It was incredibly fast. I had everything on hand, even though my spice rack is half empty. I subbed some of our cayenne peppers from the garden for the habeneros, and took a nap while it marinated. A little trick I've learned - if you cut the chicken into smaller pieces, it marinates faster AND cooks faster. Magic!

Jacob loved it. I asked if this was a "once in awhile" or an "every week" recipe and he exclaimed "3 times a week!". So I guess it meets approval. And anything I can make in 5 minutes, a 30 minute nap, and then throw in the oven for 15 minutes is a-okay with me.

Domestic Diva Version of Jerky Chicken.

1. In a large bowl or ziplock, combine the following: (I didn't measure anything. No little measuring spoons to clean and who cares if it's exact, it's a marinade!).

• some chopped onion. A few tablespoons
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 4 tbsp soy sauce
• 4 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 2 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp canola oil (or sesame. or olive. or whatever you have.)
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/2 tsp ground allspice
• 1 habenero. Or 2 cayennne peppers. Or something spicy.
• 2 -3 half chicken breasts, cubed

2. Marinade for 30 minutes or so. Nap. Or facebook.

3. Broil for 5-10 minutes. Yay meat thermometers. Try not to die a horrible uncooked chicken death.

Chicken Tetrazzini

Currently Playing: Memories Are Made Of This - Dean Martin

Tonight, I tried Lauren's recipe for Chicken Tetrazzini. Jacob and I were both getting sick of the ginormous lasagna I made this weekend and I thought I was going to scream if I had one more tomato based food item.














I added extra minced onions, because I was actually dicing and sauteing a fresh onion, and because Jacob has some Italian heritage, I added red pepper flakes. (he tells me this is the way an Italian dish ought to be eaten.) Lauren, what kind of cheese do you use? We used Swiss because I accidentally bought some a few weeks back so I had it on hand...

Lauren- two thumbs up!! Thanks so much for this delicious recipe!