Stuffed Chicken Breast

Its official, I got accepted to culinary school! I know the majority of my readers know this fact already thanks to facebook, but I wanted to say it anyway.  I got the acceptance letter the night that I got home for break, and since then I’ve just been enjoying the fact that I know what I’m doing next year.  Between getting  culinary school and not having classes for a week I’ve been in a state of bliss.  

There’s something that just can’t be beat about sitting around the house during the day, doing homework at your leisure and cooking whatever you want for dinner.  One night my dad and I decided to try something new for dinner and make stuffed chicken breasts, and they were delicious.  We were so happy with how the recipe turned out and we were amazed at how easy it was. 

I found this recipe on allrecipes.com and I couldn’t be happier with it. It had a 4.5 star rating and I can see why—this recipe was so simple and a really great dish.  The chicken was tender and moist, the spinach was green and a little creamy and the bacon tied the whole meal together adding flavor and making the dish just a bit more savory. It’s pretty healthy too since it has over 2 cups of spinach per serving!

This dish is so simple you can adapt it easily and play around with it!  The final product looks and tastes great with minimal effort; whether it’s to impress someone or just to have a simple and delicious dinner at home, this is definitely a recipe that you should try to make soon!

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 (10 ounce) package fresh spinach leaves

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup shredded pepperjack cheese

4 cloves garlic, minced

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - pounded to 1/2 inch thickness

1 pinch ground black pepper

8 slices bacon

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  Use tinfoil to cover a shallow baking dish or cookie sheet (with at least ½ inch high walls).  

Empty the bag of spinach into a microwave safe bowl and microwave for and heat for three minutes, stirring every minute or so.  Take the bowl out of the microwave and mix in the sour cream, shredded cheese and garlic. 

Pound the halved chicken breasts until they’re ½ an inch thick and place aside.  Put a quarter of the spinach mixture on each chicken breast and spread it out evenly.  Roll the chicken breast up and wrap two of the pieces of bacon around the rolled piece of chicken.  Use a toothpick to hold everything in place. 

Place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes at 375 degrees.  When 30 minutes have passed increase the temperature to 500 degrees for 5-10 minutes so that the bacon can brown.   Take out of the oven and enjoy! 

The First, but Definitely Not the Last, Macaroni and Cheese

The other day I was reading a blog post that mentioned what someone would eat if they could only eat one thing for the rest of their life.  She had some ridiculous sounding dish that was overly complex, but considering that it was her hypothetical only meal it was understandable.  Since reading that post I’ve been thinking about it and all I’d ever want to eat was macaroni and cheese. 

If you don’t know this already I love cheese.  Not like the normal person does though, if I could subsist solely on a diet of cheese I probably would.  I love every type of cheese that I’ve ever eaten, sure some more than others, but I honestly can’t get enough of cheese.  There are so many possibilities and combinations between types of cheeses and pastas that I could probably eat it three times a day for a year and not run out of combinations…. This is tempting. 

Anyway back to this blog.  For a while I sat there thinking about all of the possible combinations of macaroni and cheese that I could possibly make. I finally decided to turn to the wonderful and trustworthy internet to find a recipe that would diminish my craving, and the recipe I found definitely didn’t let me down. 

The recipe is from a blog called “My Cooking Quest” and the post is titled “Perfect Mac and Cheese” and all things considered, this recipe lives up to its name.  It takes about an hour to make, but it’s well worth the wait. The final product is gooey, cheesy, spicy, creamy and just all around delicious.  I’d make it again in a heartbeat (and I probably will when I’m home for break next week).  I changed the original recipe a bit and added pepper jack to add a little kick to the cheese, and I couldn’t have been happier with it.  This recipe is easily adaptable so if you want to substitute a different cheese you can go ahead, but you really need to make this recipe.

Here’s what you’ll need:

8-12* ounces of large hollow pasta (I used rigatoni)

Two Cups of Beesher’s Flagship Cheese sauce (see below)

2 ounces grated cheese (I used one ounce of Cheddar and one ounce of pepper jack)

¼ - ½ teaspoon chipotle powder

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and butter the cooking dish.  You can use an 8-inch dish or a pie dish; I chose to use a pie dish instead.  Cook the pasta for two minutes less than the cooking directions so that they’re very al-dente.  The pasta will continue to cook in the oven, so don’t worry.  Rinse the pasta with cold water and make sure it is thoroughly strained.

Combine the cooked pasta with the cheese sauce and mix so that all of the noodles are completely covered and filled with the cheese sauce.  Sprinkle the top of the dish with the grated cheese and then with the chipotle powder. 

Cook for 20-30 minutes or until the top has formed a golden crust.

For the Beesher’s Flagship Cheese Sauce:

1/4 cup butter

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

3 cups milk

14 ounces semi-hard cheese, grated (I used New York Extra-sharp Cheddar)

2 ounces grated semi-soft cheese (I decided to use Pepper jack)

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon chile powder

1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

Grate the cheddar and pepper jack and place in a bowl or on a plate to the side. Measure the salt, chili powder and garlic powder.  Place in a small bowl and put it to the side.

Melt the Butter in a sauce pan over medium and add the flour.  Mix together until they’re thoroughly incorporated.  Slowly add the milk and stir for about 10 minutes or until the sauce starts to thicken. 

Once the mixture thickens remove from heat and add the cheese, chili powder and garlic powder and stir.  Continue to stir until the ingredients completely mix and there are no lumps.  This took me about two to three minutes of stirring.  After this the sauce is done!

This recipe is much simpler than it seems, and for the time and effort that you put in it’s definitely worth it.  The leftovers are amazing as well, so give it a try—it definitely beats Kraft!

Peanut Sesame Noodles

Ramen is a wonderful thing.  Well, not really, but when you step outside of the boring college student version of Ramen, it’s a wonderful thing.  It’s incredibly cheap, and even though it isn’t healthy, when prepared correctly, it can be pretty delicious.  So this week, I decided to take on the challenge of making ramen noodles more interesting, but still super easy.  And with the help of Gourmet Magazine I think I was able to accomplish this. 

Ever since seventh grade I’ve had somewhat of a love affair with cold sesame noodles.  They’re chewy and nutty and they really hit the spot when you’re not in the mood for traditional fried Chinese food.  After seeing this recipe on epicurious I knew that I needed to make it (especially since I got my very own processor this week)!

This recipe is all I could have ever wanted and more.  Its nutty, creamy, and just a little bit spicy.  I added red bell peppers and cucumbers which help cool down the red pepper flakes, but feel free to change the ingredients around.  This is really a great recipe that’s so easy to make and the leftovers are even better.   I’m amazed I haven’t made it again.  You really really need to try this recipe… I’m salivating just thinking about it right now. 

Here’s what you’ll need: (Adapted from the June 2002 issue of Gourmet Magazine)

For peanut dressing:

• 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/3 cup warm water
• 1 medium garlic clove, chopped
• 2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar ( I only had champagne vinegar so I used that)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons Asian sesame oil
• 2 teaspoons honey
• 1 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes

For noodle salad:

• 3/4 lb dried linguine fini or spaghetti (I used ramen)
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• ½-1 cucumber

In a blender or a food processor mix the ingredients for the peanut dressing until smooth.  In a blender this will take about 2 minutes, with my food processor it took about 1 minute.  Let sit until pasta is cooked. 

Cook the pasta in boiling salted water according to the package directions.  While draining it rinse it under cold water to cool the noodles off quickly. 

While the pasta is cooking dice at least one half of a cucumber and one red bell pepper and place aside. 

Add the bell peppers and the cucumbers to the dressing and toss with the cooled pasta.  Make sure all of the noodles are coated and serve immediately. 

Pop tarts

Have I mentioned that my friends love me? Well, if they don’t they should… it’s just logic. The food from the cafeteria gets old, fast, and that’s when my boredom and love of real food kicks in. Since I don’t want to eat it all in one sitting (because yes, I could do that) I give the majority of what I make to my friends. And they’re more than happy to take it. So like I said, my friends should love me. Tonight especially, tonight I decided to make something that has definitely been done before but probably isn’t considered by many college students when the vending machine is so close by. But it was worth it… so worth it. I made homemade pop tarts. This recipe has been circulating around the internet for a while which means I’ve wanted to make them for just as long.

I finally got around to it tonight after the ingredients have been sitting in my fridge for about a week now. I don’t know why I put off making these for so long, but I shouldn’t have. I could have made five batches by now and I wouldn’t think twice about the ten pounds that I’d have gained. This recipe is so simple and quick that I guarantee you that anyone can make it as long as they have a cookie sheet to bake them on. Did I mention that they’re delicious? Because they are, they really, truly are. They’re warm, flaky, gooey and just all around delicious… what more could you want from a pop tart?

Here’s what you’ll need:

• One package of any premade croissant package
• Any filling you want. I used nutella, strawberry preserves and cinnamon sugar.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees, or whatever the cooking instructions of your croissants say. Cover your baking sheets in parchment paper so that the dough doesn’t stick to the sheet and fall apart when you try to take it off. Next, open the package of croissant dough and break apart into squares (they’ll come in triangles so if you can try to keep two of the triangles together when you’re unrolling the dough). Use a rolling pin (or one liter soda bottle in my case) to roll out the dough and help seal together the perforations in the dough. This also spreads out the dough so that it doesn’t get too puffy or flaky and you have more surface area to spread the fillings in.

After that, cut the pieces of rolled dough into squares. If you’ve rolled out two triangles together just cut them in half. Then, apply the different fillings of your choice and fold in half. Use a fork to seal the edges of the pop tart closed and poke holes into the dough so that the air has a place to escape when its baking. Then place onto baking sheet.

When you’ve finished putting together all of the pop tarts place them in the oven and bake according to the directions on your croissant package. Take out of the oven when they’re golden brown and let cool for at least 5 minutes.

You can serve them right out of the oven or wait a while. They should stay for at least a day if you can keep them around for that long!

Granola with Cranberries, Raisins and Almonds

It’s official; I’ve hit that point in the winter where I’m sick and tired of all things winter. Snow, indoors, clanging pipes, ice, and yes, even hot chocolate. Especially after it was about sixty degrees here in Massachusetts on Friday I’ve got absolutely no desire to see snow any time soon. So today, in protest of winter, I decided to make something that’s not traditionally associated with any season, let alone winter. I decided to make my own granola. It’s something that I’ve wanted to make for a while and when I found the recipe last night I couldn’t wait (the fact that I had all of the ingredients only added to my excitement to make this recipe.

Granola from stores is surprisingly expensive for what it really is, and being a college student with about $3.78 in my bank account paying $4.50 for a 10 ounce bag of granola is not really feasible for me. And after making this recipe I don’t see why I’ll ever go back to paying so much for granola, it’s so simple and you can really do whatever you want with it!

The granola itself takes about 45 minutes to make, but it’s so incredibly easy and it tastes great. It’s crunchy, sweet, a little salty and it’s healthy! Who doesn’t want that in a snack?

Here’s what you’ll need: (Adapted from “Baked: New Frontiers in Baking”)

2 cups rolled oats

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt*

3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon vegetable oil

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/3 cup whole almonds

1/3 cup golden raisins

1/3 cup dried cranberries

* I used 1 teaspoon of salt and it was too salty, which is something I never say, so for safety’s sake I’d lower it to ½ a teaspoon so that it doesn’t overpower the granola

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

Mix the oats, salt and the cinnamon together. In a separate bowl mix the oil, brown sugar, and vanilla extract.

Pour the wet ingredients onto the oats and mix them together with your hands. The best way to do this is to grab fistfuls of the ingredients until all of the oats are covered in the honey mixture.

Spread the combination of ingredients onto the baking sheet that you placed aside. Be sure to spread out the mixture evenly, but leave a few clumps like you would find in store-bought granola. Place baking sheet into the oven for ten minutes.

After ten minutes, take the sheet out of the oven and flip the granola with a spatula. Add the almonds and bake for fifteen minutes flipping the granola half way through.

When the sheet has cooled add the mixture of raisins and dried cranberries into the granola and put into an airtight container.

I promise you’ll love this recipe and you can mess around with the ingredients to make the granola however you like. You could add chocolate chips and peanuts to make it more like a traditional trail mix. You could even add more cinnamon and dried apples to make it like apple crisp! The possibilities are endless, so give it a try!

Baked Gnocchi

Sometimes I don’t know if there’s anything more appropriate as winter food than baked pasta. It’s cheesy, its gooey, its hearty and it’s just delicious. Just thinking about it now makes me salivate… a lot.

Anyway, the reason I’ve been craving baked pasta lately is because of my sister in law Amy. My boyfriend and I went to visit her and my brother in Orlando over our winter break to see my new niece. During our visit Amy made baked rigatoni for dinner one night, and it was one of the best things I’ve eaten in a while. I kid you not. Since then I’ve been dreaming of different types of baked pasta: baked spaghetti, baked penne, baked ziti and recently baked gnocchi. (For those of you who don’t know what gnocchi is it’s basically a little pasta dumpling usually made out of potato, flour and a few other ingredients. If you’ve never tried them you should. They’re to die for.)

So I set out to make baked gnocchi and all things considered it was a success! It was a bit cheesy, but you’ll never hear me complain about that! Give this recipe a try, it’s incredibly simple and it’s perfect for weeknight dinners when you don’t want to put a lot of effort into dinner. It’s everything you could possibly want after a long day at work or in classes. It’s warm, its hearty, it’s cheesy, it’s satisfying, it’s a little sweet because of the tomato sauce, but it’s salty and creamy because of the cheese. You should try this recipe, it’s just that good.

What you’ll need:

• 1- 1 pound box of gnocchi
• 8 ounces of ricotta cheese
• 12 ounces of mozzarella cheese
• 12 ounces of tomato sauce
• Two tablespoons of parmesan cheese

First, cook the gnocchi according to the instructions on the box (typically when they’re floating you’ll know they’re ready.)

While the gnocchi is cooking, mix the 8 ounces of ricotta cheese, ¾ of the mozzarella cheese (8 oz) and ¾ of the tomato sauce (8 oz) in a bowl.

When the gnocchi is cooked place it in the bowl with the cheese and sauce and mix together with a spoon or spatula. Don’t use your hands since the pasta will be incredibly hot.

When the gnocchi, sauce and cheese are mixed pour into an oven-safe dish (I used a 9” pie dish, but you can use whatever you’d like.) Sprinkle the rest of the mozzarella and the tomato sauce onto the top of the mixture and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes.

Let it sit for a few minutes when you take it out of the oven and then serve. Add the parmesan cheese to taste.

Homemade Oreos

I’m in one of those slumps again—the “broke college student that would rather go to the dining hall and eat than cook things for her food blog” slump. You know the one… right? No? Oh, well I need to get out of it and not only cook things, but post some of them too! So here goes nothing:

The semester started up again last Wednesday on the 26^th but thanks to the lovely and wonderful weather in New England we had a snow day on the second day of classes. So of course I took advantage of this wonderful rare occasion and decided to bake something for my residents before our first floor meeting (granted, this was mostly to bribe them into actually showing up to the floor meeting) but at least it worked!

I found this recipe thanks to a habit of mine that I’m trying to break: hungry food blog roaming. That’s right; when I’m hungry the most productive thing I do is look at food blogs. I don’t do work, I don’t read for classes, I don’t fix things that are broken; I just look at food blogs. I found this recipe on Smitten Kitchen a while back and I’ve been dying to use it. I love Smitten Kitchen, it’s one of the first food blogs that I started reading and one that I try to stay as up to date with, and everything that the writer, Deb, posts looks so amazing.

After reading her post on these homemade Oreos I knew I had to try to make them and I figured that there wasn’t a better time than my first floor meeting of the semester! All things considered the recipe is easier than I expected and everyone that tried them really seemed to like them. My friend and fellow RA Erin definitely did.

Here’s what you’ll need:

For the cookies:

• - 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
• - ½ cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa powder*
• - 1 teaspoon baking soda
• - ¼ teaspoon baking powder
• - ¼ teaspoon salt
• - 1 cup sugar
• - 1 ¼ sticks of unsalted butter at room temperature
• - 1 large egg

For the filling:

• - ½ stick of unsalted butter at room temperature
• - ¼ cup vegetable shortening
• - 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• - 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, sugar and salt.

With an electric mixer mix in butter and then the egg.

Continue to mix until the ingredients fully incorporate and become dough.

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Roll into small balls and place onto cookie sheets that are lined with parchment paper. Flatten the balls of dough down with hand.

Place in oven and bake for about nine minutes. Turn the sheets around halfway through so that the cookies will bake evenly.

For the filling, place the butter and shortening in a mixing bowl and mixing on low speed. Slowly mix in the sugar and the vanilla. When all of the ingredients are mixed together turn the mixer to high and beat the filling for 2-3 minutes so that it becomes light and fluffy.

Once the cookies are cooled take the filling and place about a teaspoon’s worth of filling onto one cookie and spread it evenly. Place a second cookie (without the filling) on top of the cookie. Continue this process for the rest of the cookies.

The cookies are a mix between oreos and whoopie pies. They’re delicious, but also incredibly rich. Enjoy!

*For those of you who don’t know what Dutch process cocoa powder is, this will explain it to you so you’re not trying to figure out what it is at the grocery store (it happened to me!)