Bruschetta chicken pasta!

I've been craving something and not knowing what it was for days. Tonight, I figured it out! It's this pasta.

You're going to need :

3 chicken breasts, sliced
Angel hair pasta

Bruschetta :

3 large tomatoes, chopped
20 fresh basil leaves, chopped
3 garlic cloves, diced
2 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp balsamic vinegar
A few dashes of pepper
A dash of salt

Balsamic drizzle :

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cups packed brown sugar

Before you do anything else chop up all of your bruschetta ingredients and go ahead and prepare your bruschetta and set it to the side.

Pull out a big skillet and heat up about 1 tbsp of olive oil. Once your oil is heated up, toss in your chicken.

While your chicken is cooking, start your water for your pasta. Cook as much pasta as you'll need for your meal. We are only 2 people so we don't need very much.

In another saucepan add the ingredients for your glaze and heat on medium low heat. Once it starts bubbling take it down to simmer for about 2 minutes then remove from heat.

Your chicken should be about done by now. If it is add your bruschetta to the skillet with your chicken and just heat it for about a minute. You don't want your tomatoes to get mushy.

Drain your pasta and serve it out, then top with your chicken and bruschetta mix, drizzle your balsamic glaze, and if your feeling frisky add some shredded mozzarella cheese on top.

This is literally the only picture I have of this meal due in large part to the fact that we devoured it!

Chicken & white bean chili

You know those recipes that say add a dash of this and a splash of that? This is one of those recipes. Also, if you're looking for something healthy.. LOOK AWAY! This is in no way for the "health nut", but I went to the gym so it's ok, right? Right.


Let's get to this.

What you'll need :

3 chicken breasts
3 cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
Around 32 ounces of chicken broth
1 8 ounce package cream cheese
1 onion, diced (pick your poison on this, I used a sweet onion"
1 bell pepper, diced
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded & diced
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 1/2 cups corn

Spices:
Adobo
Black pepper
Chili powder
Salt
Cumin
Garlic powder



Alright, what you're going to do first is one of these options, either pre-heat your oven and bake your chicken breasts OR boil them in a big pot. You're just wanting them to be cooked so that you can shred them. I baked mine, if you want to make it exactly how I did.

NEXT! Get out a big pot. Go ahead and heat up your vegetable oil and saute your pepper and onion. One they are nice and cooked (your onions are pretty transparent), toss in the diced jalapeño and the diced tomatoes. Once you start to smell the jalapeño add your cannellini beans, chicken broth, cream cheese, and spices. With the spices I basically just added until it looked and smelled right. (Mine had more Cumin than anything else.) Let it come to a boil. Once it's boiling take it down to a simmer for a good hour. Once your chicken is done go ahead and shred it. You can do this either using a stand mixer OR you can do what I did in order to not have to use a transformer and use 2 forks and just pull it apart. Before you add your chicken to the pot you're going to take all of the contents IN the pot and put it in either a food processor OR a blender and just let it get nice and blended and creamy. Pour it all back in to the pot, then add in the chicken, black beans, and corn. Let it simmer for another 20 minutes, and BAM. You have delicious chili.

This was what it looked like in the pot just before serving it

Sorry for the scatterbrained "recipe". We'll just chalk it up to me being a terrible blogger the past month. But there are many more recipes to come!

AND this was right before we all but inhaled it.

We added just a little bit of shredded sharp cheddar cheese and sour cream,

because at this point, why not?

Too soon?

Ok, so there is one thing about thanksgiving that I ALWAYS look forward to. Corn pudding. It is my favorite of all favorites! Now, I know it's not thanksgiving, BUT patience is not one of my gifts. So the other day I busted out my favorite recipe of the season. I was not disappointed. I do have to warn you that there aren't any pictures of the process of making this because I was just too excited to pop it in the oven. It's really easy though, so don't fret!

You're going to need :

1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp salt
3 eggs
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup milk
1 large can corn
1 large (or 2 small) can cream corn

Start out by preheating you're oven to 400. Now, the process of making this is basically as easy as it gets. Take all of your dry ingredients and mix it up in a casserole dish, then add your wet ingredients one at a time, then add your corn. Mix it all up. Simple as that! So easy right? And so deliciously unhealthy. Pop it in the oven and let it cook for a good 45 minutes, and bam!

Weekend hiatus

So, usually I still cook on the weekends, we aren't huge go-er out-ers because well.. I like to cook. This weekend was an anomaly. We went out not only Saturday, but also tonight. Party animals in the house! So excuse the lack of recipes, I will however be back tomorrow. So get excited! Mkay?

Oh, soup.

Last night when I went to bed it was raining cats & dogs. All I could think was "I want soup." Because  that's everyones thoughts at 2 am, right? SO! Today when I woke up ( after I went and bought some AMAZING wicker chairs) I set out on making a soup that would be my perfect rainy, dreary, cold weather fix, and boy did I succeed. Get ready for it!


You're gonna need :

Whatever kind of sausage you like, I used pepperidge farms turkey sausage, sliced
Roughly 2-3 cups potatoes, chopped
1 1/2 cups frozen corn
3 carrots, peeled, sliced, & halved
1/2 cup onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 cans chicken broth
1 cup milk
3/4 cup cream
1 1/2 tbsp butter
Thyme
Majoram
Basil
Oregano
2 tbsp flour
Cracked pepper
Salt


Got all of that? I might of gotten a little carried away with ingredients. BUT, once you're done with chopping everything up, you actually get to cook it!

First, grab your big skillet, drizzle some olive oil in there, and throw your sausage in. While your sausage is cooking up, get your big pot and toss your potatoes, corn, chicken broth, milk, cream, and butter all up in there on medium high heat. Once your sausage is nice and cooked, add your sausage to your soup pot.

Your next step is to put your carrots, onions, garlic and herbs (don't be chintzy, you'll love me for it later.)  in the skillet your sausage was in. If you need to, drizzle a little more olive oil in there. Make sure to stir continuously to help everything not to stick to your skillet. Once that is all finished (your onions will be translucent), put it all into your soup pot too. Sprinkle in your flour, and some salt & pepper to taste. Turn it down to simmer, and let it get all nice and delicious for a good hour or 2. Resist the urge to shove your face into the pot and drink it! Seriously, the smell is brilliant.

And, when all is said and done, you have soup!

Enjoy!

I'm baaaaaaaack!

Ok, ok. SO! I have been TERRIBLE at keeping up with this. But, I have been sick for 5 weeks, and I was in the states for 2 weeks. SO, That's a good excuse right!? Right. I do come bearing delicious recipes though!


Tonight I made some of the most delicious pasta I have ever eaten, EVER. It's a spicy thai pasta.


You're going to need :

1 tbsp crushed red pepper
1/2 cup sesame oil
6 tbsp soy sauce
7 tbsp honey
1 cup diced carrots
1/2 cup green onions
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
1/2 cup peanuts, chopped
Angel hair pasta

Seriously, I am the king (er, queen) of chopping things.

To get started, go ahead and get that pasta cooking. Now grab another sauce pan and heat up your sesame oil and crushed red pepper on medium heat. Keep an eye one it, because you don't want the pepper burning. Once that's done, strain the peppers out of your oil.  NOW! Mix your sesame oil (the one you just got all of the peppers out of) soy sauce, and honey. Finish up your pasta, it should be ready to strain about now. Here is the hard part! (or something) mix your sauce and your pasta. It's going to look a little liquidy, that's not even a word, but you get it.

 Throw in all of the stuff that you've chopped up, and you're done! That's literally it. Easy right!?

Now, I am going to warn you. This pasta is not for the faint of heart. SO! If you're not in to spicy things either omit the crushed red pepper all together OR if you like pizazz but only in small quantities maybe use a quarter tbsp.


We had ours with salmon that was rubbed with soy sauce & brown sugar. If you want to have the salmon also, preheat your oven to 425, lay out a piece of aluminum foil put your salmon on it splash a little soy sauce, sprinkle a little (or if you're me, a lot) brown sugar on it. Cook it for 15 minutes, and voila! If you've never done salmon before you can tell it's done by just placing a fork on the fish and dragging it to see if it flakes. Easy, huh?

And this is it. Admit it, you wanna eat it.

Enjoy!

A little fish?

I love seafood of any kind really. In Germany it's been really hard for me to find a variety of it, SO we eat lots of tilapia. Our favorite way so far basically punches you in the face when you eat it. We love spicy food, so it's right up our alley, but if you don't this isn't for you!

We use just enough for us (so just 2 filets). Turn your oven on to 400, and let that sucker heat up! Spray a baking sheet with your olive oil/water mixture (or any kind of cooking spray) now here is the "complicated" part. It's really not complicated at all! We sprinkle both sides with salt ( a very small amount because we aren't salt eaters), cracked black pepper, cayenne pepper, chili powder, and garlic powder. Pop those babies on the baking sheet and put them in the oven for what seems like forever, but is really only 7 minutes..  YES! 7 minutes. Gotta love how quickly fish cooks.

I served ours with some homemade spicy rice.

Enjoy!