Orzo: One Pan Chicken and Orzo Skillet

Mom chose orzo, which was a great choice to me since I never use it.

One Pan Chicken and Orzo Skillet Dinner. Ingredient: Orzo, chosen by Mom.

Probably my least favorite thing I made. The orzo ended up being mushy because I put too much water in--I didn't have the broccoli it called for which needed to be cooked in that water as well. The favor wasn't outstanding either.

I should have made rice pilaf, since I love it. 

Wonton Wrappers: Giant Ravioli!

One of my favorite cooking tips from How to Cook Without a Book: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart comes from the weeknight Italian section. She suggests using wonton wrappers to make freeform lasagna and giant ravioli! While it's a little labor intensive, it's worth it!

My filling this time was spinach and ricotta, but I've done all cheese and wild mushroom as well. I kind of winged it (and it was kind of four months ago) (holy cow), so I don't really have a recipe, but once you make your filling, you plop about a tablespoon onto the middle of one wonton wrapper. Dip a finger into a bowl of water (my kids loved helping with this part!) and wet the sides of the wonton wrapper. Place another wonton wrapper on top, pushing out extra air and sealing the edges of the wonton wrappers together. Boil in a shallow pan of water for 3-5 minutes.

Pam Anderson suggests serving them topped with a little bit of the starchy pasta water, olive oil, Parmesan and pepper, which is a tasty sauce; my husband tends to prefer marinara. Both are good!

I have to add a suggestion: if you make a huge batch like I did, don't stack them into multiple layers. Even with oil between the layers, they'll get stuck. But hey, then it's basically lasagna, right?

Tomatillos: Charred Tomatillo, Chicken & Broccoli Salad

I've only ever used tomatillos in salad dressing, but I was excited to give them a chance to star. I adapted a recipe from EatingWell 500-Calorie Dinners Cookbook when I read that tomatillos are great charred. The cookbook had a charred tomato salad, so I made it into a charred tomatillo salad.

4 c broccoli florets
1 lb tomatillos (smaller is better, I'm told)
2 tsp + 3 Tbps extra virgin olive oil, divided
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp chili powder (I omitted this)
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 14-oz cans chunk chicken

1. Bring about 1" of water to boil in a large pot. Add broccoli and cook until crisp-tender, about 5 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water; set aside.

2. Peel off leaves and rinse them. Toss with 2 tsp olive oil. Cook in a heavy pan over high heat until charred. Remove from heat and quarter. Do not clean the pan.

3. Heat remaining oil in the pan over medium. Add salt, pepper, chili powder, lemon juice and balsamic vinegar (watch out for spatter when adding liquid). Stir, scraping up any brown bits.

4. Break up chicken, and combine tomatillos, broccoli, and chicken. Pour pan sauce over. Serve warm or cold.

This was kind of acidic for me. If you like tomatillo flavor, you might like this, but we . . . didn't.

Wayward!

Indian: Chicken Korma

I wanted to recreate my Indian restaurant experience at home, so I found a recipe for the dish I had: Chicken Korma. This particular recipe requires a bit of work and ingredient coordination—and salt, since the recipe doesn't call for any—but it's very tasty. (You may want to increase the spices or heat; we omitted all heat from ours.)

I wish you had smell-o-vision right now. The wok has the spices below (1 tsp each) plus an onion, 3 cloves of garlic and 2 bay leaves in oil. (The blender has 1/2 c half and half, 1/2 c plain yogurt and 1/3 c cashews soaked in 1/3 c boiling water.)

Add three chicken breasts, cubed, to the wok and cook for five minutes. Add 1 c chicken broth and 1/4 c tomato sauce. Simmer 15 minutes. Add blender mixture and simmer 15 minutes more.

Add a slurry of 1 tsp cornstarch + 1 tsp water and cook to desired thickness.

Serve over rice!

Things to do with Zucchini

Last summer we decided to start a garden. We planted zucchini, jalapenos and watermelon. Our watermelon plant died pretty quickly but the other two thrived. We can talk about the jalapenos in another post because this post is solely dedicated to our zucchini plant. We weeded and watered as needed and by the end of the summer we harvested over 2 dozen zucchinis big to small. So anyone else ever been in the same boat of what on earth to do with all that zucchini?! Well, we definitely got creative.

Here's my list of things to do with zucchini:

Sliced thinly:
Saute them in olive oil and garlic salt
Ratatouille (I didn't attempt but I thought about it!)
Oven baked with butter, salt and pepper
Oven bake chips
Fried zucchini
Pasta noodle alternative (large cheese grater or they have a veggie noodle device)

Sliced not so thinly:
Fries! (these turned out pretty tasty. Just dip in an egg and then a flour/breadcrumb/Parmesan mix and bake!)
Raw with veggie dip
Grilled (brush with olive oil)
Stuffed zucchini

Pureed/Grated:
Bread
Muffins
Pancakes
Baby food
Fried patties (with cheese and onion and other Pinterest recipe stuff!)

AND you can freeze your grated zucchini! My freezer currently has 7 cups of frozen zucchini...

Hope these ideas help or inspire you! If you want any additional information on recipes or techniques just ask! I will be happy to make additional posts that are more descriptive.

Neighbor Gift: Cinnamon Popcorn and a Movie

This year I have neighbors! Ok, I've had neighbors in the past, but I've never felt super friendly with them. Now that we own our home, I figured we needed to get friendlier with the people around us. I decided to make cinnamon kettle corn and give this DVD

It's a short movie about the nativity of Christ. The perfect gift for Christmas, in my opinion. You can order your own here: Joy to the World DVD

Cinnamon Kettle Corn recipe adapted from Something Swanky

• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon 
• 1/2 cup unpopped popcorn kernels

Heat the vegetable oil in a large pot over medium heat, covered.

Put in two kernels. When they pop, the oil is ready

Once hot, stir in the sugar, cinnamon and popcorn.  I use a spoon to help really coat the kernels.

Cover, and shake the pot constantly to keep the sugar from burning.

Once the popping has slowed to once every 2 to 3 seconds, remove the pot from the heat and continue to shake for a few minutes until the popping has stopped. Pour into a large bowl, and allow to cool, stirring occasionally to break up large clumps.

This year I tried making kettle corn in my Stir Crazy popper. AND IT WORKS and doesn't ruin my Stir Crazy! It's so fast and easy. Never going back to stove top. 

Cinnamon Kettle Corn recipe for Stir Crazy:

• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon 
• 1/2 cup unpopped popcorn kernels

Put all ingredients in the Stir Crazy. Place the lid on top and turn it on. Once the popping has slowed to once every 2 to 3 seconds, turn off Stir Crazy and flip over (so the bowl lid is right side up) and take the heat element off**. Allow the popcorn to cool and enjoy.

**Don't leave the heat element on top while it cools, like I did. It melted the side of the bowl/lid a little. 

Is this Pin a Win?- Sweet and Spicy Roasted Chicken Legs

We are going to start a recurring featuring named:

Last week I was scrolling through Pinterest and my husband passed by behind me and was excited to try a recipe by one of my friends' pins for sweet and spicy roasted chicken legs.

 On Monday I made them for dinner and they only turned out okay. I triple checked the recipe but my legs just didn't end up as seasoned as hers look. 

Some points about the recipe:

• Getting skin off chicken legs is extremely frustrating. It is slippery and germy and really hard!
• When I put this in my 9x13 it was way too big. It would have been much better in a 8x8 or 9x9
• I think they should have been marinated longer and cooked at a higher temperature because they dried out but still weren't done cooking so I had to add an extra 10 minutes to the cooking time and the outsides dried out a bit. 
• They probably would be really good grilled as well

I'm not sure why mine doesn't look like hers...at all, when I followed the recipe the recipe so closely. They were disappointing and I think I would find a different recipe to try maybe combining with/tweaking this one.

Have you tried any Pins lately?

Have a great weekend! Are going to be watching?

Homemade Frosted Animal Cookies

Our dad loves frosted animal cookies. The other day I came across a recipe to make jumbo frosted animal cookies. And then my dad told me he had a business trip in a nearby city and asked to visit for the weekend (of course!). I was planning dinners for the weekend and wanted a treat--that's when I realized the stars aligned for me to make homemade frosted animal cookies for my dad.

Homemade Frosted Animal Cookies
(Recipe adapted from Munchkin Munchies)


Ingredients:
2.5 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
16 oz. buttercream icing (storebought)
red food coloring
rainbow sprinkles

Directions:

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg.

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter on high speed for 2 minutes. Reduce the speed to medium, and slowly add the sugar. Beat for 2 minutes, stopping periodically to scrape the sides of the bowl. Add egg and vanilla and beat for 1 minute, stopping the mixer once to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Stop the mixer and add half of the flour mixture. Beat on low speed until most of the flour has been absorbed. Add the remaining flour and beat until all of the flour has been absorbed and the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl, 2 to 3 minutes.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface. Shape dough into a disk shape and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 2 days.

Once your dough is chilled, preheat an oven to 350°F.

Let the dough stand at room temperature for 5 minutes.  Roll out the dough to almost 1/2-inch thick on a lightly floured surface. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters and move them to baking sheets.

Bake the cookies until very light golden brown, about 15 minutes. Transfer the baking sheets to wire racks to cool for about 5 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire racks to cool completely.



Frosting:
Place the buttercream icing in a microwave-safe bowl from 15-30 seconds (until pourable). If it becomes too thin, add some powdered sugar. Divide icing into 2 bowls. Tint half of it pink and keep the other half white. With the cookies on a wire rack, place the rack over a baking sheet (or over wax paper).  Use a spoon to cover each cookie with the icing. Sprinkle with the rainbow sprinkles.



Makes about 16 cookies.

Two Week Menu Planning with Themed Nights

This ain't a sponsored post, yo. 

Before I had my baby, I daydreamed about how great my life would be as a SAHM. One of the things I was excited about was having the energy to cook every night--HAHA! That was a stretch at first, but slowly I'm getting into the swing of things. What's helped the most has been using the Food Nanny's "Nanny Plan". If you've watched her show on BYUTV or read her cook book you'll be familiar with the Nanny Plan. If not, this is the basics. Sit down, plan out a theme for each night of the week. Then make a two week menu plan and shopping list. Doing it two weeks at a time is much easier actually! I can carry over ingredients and look at patterns of when we have certain meats (like not having chicken too often, it's my fallback).  Anyways, here's what my daily themes are:

Traditional Sunday Dinner
Mexican Mondays
Meatless/Breakfast Tuesdays
Italian Wednesdays
Comfort Food Thursdays
Grillin' Fridays
Date Night Saturdays

First I made a table in a word document. with all my days. Then I started looking through recipes on Pinterest (see above links for the pinboards!). I selected recipes for each day and started making my shopping list in the same document. Then came the shopping trip. It took a little while and the end bill was higher than what I'm used to, but I also got a lot more food. Experts say you save money by shopping bi-weekly too. Here's what my two weeks looked like

Traditional Sunday Dinner

1. Chicken Piccata This was the plan, but plans change! We got invited to dinner both Sundays so I didn't make this, although I plan to. I think it looks delicious!

Mexican Monday

1. Fish Tacos with Lime Cilantro Rice, using these two recipes combined

2. Chipotle Pork Tenderloin with Butternut Squash Tacos (I used sweet potato instead)

Meatless/Breakfast Tuesday

1. Sweet Potato and Brussels Sprouts Skillet

2. Egg Topped Twice Baked Potato  We ended up having leftovers instead. This meal is a great one to plan in, since I didn't have to get any extra ingredients and potatoes keep well!

Italian Wednesday

1. Pastichio (Greek Style Lasagna)

2. Bow Tie and Italian Turkey Sausage Skillet (I used pork sausage)

Comfort Food Thursday

1. Paprika Chicken

2. Alice Sprigs Chicken  and Brussels Sprouts (I used up all the mushrooms in the paprika chicken last week, forgetting I needed some for tonight's chicken. It was still good without the mushrooms) 

Grillin' Fridays

1. Grilled Chicken Thighs (Marinated with this for 2 hours) with Rice Pilaf

2. Tri-Tip Steak with Pappy's Seasoning, Kings Hawaiian Rolls, Cheesy Potatoes

I really think using "The Nanny Plan"/ themed nights has taken a lot of the stress out of "what's for dinner?" I'm on my second round of the Nanny Plan and it's working great! I hope you find some inspiration!

3 Ingredient Delicious Chip Dip

Please forgive our brief absence we were all hanging out together! 

I have a super simple yet really good recipe for you today. It was a Pinterest find. We had a big family get together on the 4th of July and I served this dip. It was a huge hit!

All you need is cream cheese, sour cream, and ranch dressing mix. Here is the source for the recipe! I used plain cream cheese and it still turned out great. One of my uncles told me it was really good with cooler ranch Doritos.

Have you tried any great simple recipes lately?

Want to follow us on Pinterest to see what we've been pinning lately?

What works for me: 5 favorite cookbooks

I do a lot of menu planning through the Internet, but I always need my cookbooks! I collect these things, and I have a hard time saying no to a new one, no matter how full my recipe cabinet is getting. Handed down, printed out and other loose recipes are staples in my kitchen, but I always find myself turning to these cookbooks to find something new to eat! (Disclosure: affiliate links.)

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How to Cook Without a Book: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart by Pam Anderson

I can't remember how I came across this one, but it went right on my wishlist! My wonderful sister-in-law got it for me.

The book teaches you a bunch of different dishes and methods to make meals from what you've got on hand. It's designed to help you memorize the methods, and I haven't quite gotten to that point, but I remember enough that I can wing most of it for several of the dishes I've made most.

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How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

This cookbook showed up in an apartment in college. None of my roommates said it was theirs, and I was the last to move out, so it became mine.

Although sometimes I could take or leave the author's attitude (I'm sorry, you shouldn't make pecan pie with corn syrup because corn syrup by itself isn't delectable?? Do we sit around eating flour or butter or sugar plain??), this book has a ton of reference material. It's especially useful if you're doing a produce co-op and end up with a mystery vegetable or two. It also explains dozens of techniques with useful illustrations. I don't often plan menus from here, but when I need to look something up (in a book), this is my top choice.

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Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book

This one is a family tradition. Growing up, we saw Mom make many a recipe from her ring-bound BHG cookbook. As my generation of Wayward Girls grew up and got married, we received our own copies.

Not only is the binding the best adapted to the kitchen of any of the books listed here, but the recipes have every standby you could want. This is one of my top go-tos for regular menu planning. It also has lots of great techniques, tips and tricks in the sidebars.

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EatingWell 500-Calorie Dinners Cookbook by Jessie Price, Nicci Micco & the Eating Well editors

I came across Eating Well magazine via Pinterest. A pin led me to their list of 500-calorie meals. Since my husband was dieting at the time, I worked every one that looked good into our menu plan. Most of them were fantastic! I knew I needed a hard copy.

The most awesome thing about this cookbook actually isn't that it's full of tasty, filling, low-calorie meals. It's that each meal isn't just an entree. In the sidebar, each entree is paired with options for side dishes or even desserts, making a complete meal—still under 500 calories! I love this thing!

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Something new!
I use these standbys so much that I always have to keep room in my cabinet for something new. Here are the latest cookbooks I've got my eye on.

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Another useful tip: get a cookbook stand! I use the acrylic one because it helps to keep my pages clean, but there are so many options out there, you're sure to find one for you!


What cookbooks do you use over and over again??

Photo of cookbooks by Tom Taker

Ultimate Cheesy Potato Recipe

This recipe is a staple at my husband aunt's house. I'd say she serves it 7 out of 10 times when she has company over. I finally made it myself and found out it's super easy!

Ingredients;
1 bag of hash browns, cubed (the Southern Style hash brown)
1 can cream of chicken soup
8 oz sour cream
8 oz mild cheddar cheese, grated (or more!), divided
Pepper to taste

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9x13 pan. Mix  soup, sour cream, pepper and half of the cheese together in a bowl. Add hash browns and stir. Pour into pan and cover with the remaining cheese. Bake for one hour.

Tip: It's ok for the hash browns to be frozen when you cook this dish but if they are a thawed a bit, it's easier to mix up. 

These are great with dinner, but I also ate the leftovers with breakfast and they totally work!

Next time you're asked to bring a side, I suggest these!

Banana Pudding Cookies

I know I've mentioned her before but my awesome friend Megan is an amazing cook. She found this recipe and tweaked it to perfection! We made these recently and wow they are amazing!

Megan's Banana Pudding Cookies 1 c. butter--softened to room temperature (STAY AWAY from the microwave!) 3/4 c. sugar 3/4 c. brown sugar 2 large eggs 1 tsp. vanilla 1 tsp. salt 1 tsp. baking soda 3 c. flour 1 (3.4 oz) package of dry Instant Banana Pudding mix 1 1/2 c. white chocolate chips 5 graham crackers--broken into small pieces, NOT crushed OR use Vanilla wafers broken into pieces Cream together butter and sugars using the paddle attachment on your mixer. Add eggs and vanilla, and beat until fluffy again. In a separate bowl, combine salt, soda, flour, and pudding mix, then add slowly to wet ingredients (do not over mix). I toss the chocolate chips and graham crackers in just after I finish dumping the flour mix in, then, viola, cookie dough. I use my cookie scoop to put cookies on a baking sheet. Bake at 375 for 8-9 minutes, until they are barely turning golden brown around the edges. DO NOT over bake. Printable recipe

Go try them out!