Chicken Rollantini

We eat a lot of chicken in our house and it’s always nice to switch up some recipes! I was in the mood for something totally different, so I decided to throw together this recipe!

 

Ingredients:

2 thin sliced chicken breast halves

4 slices of deli smoked turkey

2 slices of provolone cheese

4 large basil leaves

2 toothpicks

Salt & Pepper to taste

1 tablespoon of olive oil

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spread chicken cutlets on a cutting board, make sure they are thin.
2. Place 2 slices of smoked turkey on each piece of chicken. Top each slice with one slice of provolone cheese and 2 basil leaves. Roll up chicken to enclose filing, folding any overlapping edges of turkey over cheese. Secure closed with toothpicks. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Heat oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Add chicken rolls and brown on all sides, turning about 4 minutes. Place rolls to a baking dish and cover with foil. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.
4. Make sure you remove toothpicks before serving!

Enjoy!

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Buffalo Chicken Finger Subs

My husband and I both are from cities that are known for their famous foods. I’m from Philadelphia,  and as we all know, cheese steaks are our fame. My husband is from Buffalo and chicken fingers are their fame.  But another amazing food in Buffalo is just their simple chicken finger subs.  On Sundays, during football season, with being completely honest to you, is the one day where our meal isn’t very healthy. We decided that we wanted to try to re-create the chicken finger sub we often get when visting Buffalo, from John & Mary’s.

Ingredients:

Lettuce and Tomatoes for 2 sandwiches

2 sandwich rolls

2 chicken breast, sliced into halves, so you have 2 tenders for each sandwich

Frank’s Hot Sauce

Butter

2 slices of provolone cheese

1 cup of bread crumbs

1 tablespoon of EVOO

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees. Coat chicken breast with flour and then dip into egg. Once chicken breast has been dipped into egg, dip into bread crumbs.
2. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil and pan fry the chicken breast for about 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer to a baking sheet, and bake for 10 minutes or until fully cooked.
3. In a small bowl, mix hot sauce and butter, to your liking. Remember, the more butter added to sauce, the less spicy it will be.
4. Once chicken is cooked, dip into sauce mixture, place back on baking sheet, place cheese on top, and put back in oven till cheese is melted. Serve on roll, with blue cheese if you like it and lettuce and tomato!

Enjoy!

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Sausage Manicotti

This version of baked pasta classic is rich and satisfying yet, easy to prepare. It also it’s a lightened up version, instead of using ricotta cheese, I used cottage cheese. It turned out just as yummy. The only difference is, is that the cottage cheese cooks it’s self away, so the shell it’s self isn’t as stuffed with cheese. I will definitely  make this recipe again.  This makes  4 manicotti and each manicotti has 204 calories.

Ingredients:

1 pound turkey sausage

2 cups (16 ounces) of cottage cheese

1 package (8 ounces) manicotti shells

1 jar (26 ounces) spaghetti sauce

1 cup (4 ounces) shredded part skim mozzarella cheese

Directions:

1. First, bring a pot of water to a boil and boil manicotti till all dente. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine sausage and cottage cheese. Stuff into manicotti shells. Place in greased 13 by 9 inch baking dish. Top with spaghetti sauce.
2. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 55 to 60 minutes or until meat thermometer inside into center of a shell reads 165 degrees.
3. Uncover, sprinkle with mozzarella cheese. Bake 8 to 10 minutes longer or until cheese is melted. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

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Creamy Crab & Artichoke Dip

I can’t believe I’ve never posted this dip before! This dip has been a family recipe for years! We love it during football games, it’s so easy to prepare and pop in the oven before the game starts! You can serve this recipe warm or cold, but its much better served fresh out of the oven!

Ingredients:

1 can(14 ounces) of artichoke hearts, drained

1 package (8 ounces) of cream cheese, softened

1 cup mayonnaise

3/4 cup finely shredded parmesan cheese

1 package (8 ounces) of crab meat, finely chopped

Bread or Crackers, to dip

Directions:

1. Chop artichoke hearts. Set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, stir together cream cheese and mayonnaise, artichoke hearts, parmesan cheese and onions. Fold in crabmeat.
3. Spoon into 9 inch pie plate. Bake uncovered, at 375 degrees about 25 minutes or until heated through. Serve with bread or crackers.

Enjoy!

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Chicken Pinwheels with Prosciutto & Smoked Gouda

On Saturday afternoon, the husband and I wanted to take a bike ride down to the shore for a biking event, but unfortunately yesterday’s weather wasn’t that great and about 20 miles into the ride we hit some rain, so we decided to turn around and come back. On our way back, he said that he wanted a chicken dish with a white cream sauce.  I thought about it for a second and remembered that a few weeks ago our friends had some smoked gouda cheese and it was so yummy. I said to my husband at the time that it would be a yummy cheese to pair with some prosciutto and chicken.  So we thought about a white cream sauce recipe and this is what we can up with! If this post entry looks a little silly it’s because my husband did it, I just typed up this paragraph!

Ingredients:

Pasta of Your Choice

Chicken Breast

Pinch of Garlic Power

Pinch of Black Pepper

Pinch of Red Pepper

Pinch of Paprika

Prosciutto

Shredded Smoked Gouda Cheese

Half Pint of Heavy Cream

Half Stick of Butter

Shredded prosciutto

1/4 Onion (Diced)

1/4 cup of Grated Parmesan Cheese

Pepper to Taste

Directions:

1. Flatten Chicken Breast to 1/4″.
2. Season lightly the inside of the chicken breast with the dry seasonings.
3. Place One Slice of prosciutto on the chicken breast, may use more if necessary.
4. Place Shredded Gouda on top of prosciutto use best judgment depending how cheesy you would want the chicken.
5. Roll Chicken and steak with tooth picks.
6. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
7. When done cut in pin wheels.  Place around Pasta.

Sauce:

1. Begin Boiling Pasta While Preparing Sauce.
2. Sautee Onions for 3-4 minutes.
3. Add Heavy Cream, Butter,prosciutto, Parmesan, simmer to thicken.
4. Pepper to Taste.
5. When pasta is done, put in bowl, add sauce, may not need all of the sauce.
6. Mix pasta with sauce, place on plate, circle with chicken wheels.

Enjoy!

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Guest Post: Fillet A La Chris

My hubby’s first guest post.  I guess it’s really my post too, since I’m typing it. But this is his creative recipe that he made for me on my birthday! It was so yummy! Sorry the recipe is so short, but it’s what the husband sent me in a email to post!

Oh yeah, we also had these guys:

Ingredients:

2 fillets

Italian bell pepper seasoning

Salt and Pepper

1/2 of an onion, diced

1/2 cup of mushrooms

One clove of fresh garlic

A few tablespoons of feta cheese

Directions:

1. Caramelize mushrooms and onions with some olive oil in a pan. Put salt, pepper and Italian bell seasoning on steaks prior to grilling.
2. Cook steaks to rare-medium rare or however you like your steak.
3. When steaks are done grilling, top with feta cheese and then top with mushroom and onions to the heat from the mushroom and onions melts the feta cheese a bit.

Enjoy!

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Turkey & Pepper Baked Ziti

Mmm, ziti is probably one of my favorite Italian dishes to make and to eat. I was in the mood for ziti but not just the ziti I usually make, which is just ground meat, ziti and some spices, this time I thought about just adding red peppers and ground turkey meat to it. It came out great! I also used whole wheat ziti for the first time(in the ziti dish itself, I typically use whole wheat/whole grain pasta) and it was just as tasty. This dish makes about 6 servings with about 505 calories per serving.

Ingredients:

8 ounces of whole wheat pasta

2 teaspoons of olive oil

1 medium red bell pepper, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

1/2 of pound of ground turkey meat/or turkey sausage

1 cup part skim ricotta cheese

1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup grated Parmesan

2 cup marinara sauce

Parsley, Crushed Red Pepper, Italian Seasoning and Basil to taste

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Cook pasta in  large pot of boiling water that is lightly salted. Cook pasta till al dente or the texture you like.
2. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add peppers, onion and ground turkey. Cook for about 10 minutes or until ground turkey is browned. Remove from heat.
3. Mix ricotta, 1 cup mozzarella, 3 tablespoons of Parmesan and parsley in large bowl. At  this time, also add in Italian seasoning, crushed red pepper and basil Drain pasta; toss with cheese mixture, turkey mixture  and  1 cup marinara sauce.
4. Pour pasta mixture into a 2 quart shallow baking dish. Spoon remaining sauce on top sprinkle with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan. Bake uncovered, 20 minutes or until bubbly.

Enjoy!

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Barefoot Bloggers:Bruschetta on a Budget

This recipe from Ina was so easy to make and pretty money friendly.  We never had Gorgonzola cheese so I was at first going to substitute the Gorgonzola with mozzarella cheese. I’m glad I didn’t though because while Gorgonzola has an powerful taste, it’s still REALLY good.  I promise you this was probably the best bruschetta I ever have had.

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Creamy Asaparagus Pasta with Sun Dried Tomatoes

Asparagus is in season and there is nothing better this time of year then fresh asparagus.  Isn’t it funny I’m saying that,  a person for 24 years of my life didn’t like the vegetable! When I saw this recipe from poster  in my Cooking Club magazine, I knew I had to make it. This dish was absolutely delicious.  The flavor the asparagus brings out in the dish is amazing. The shortcut you use, which is  a garlic and herb cheese just melts into the pasta and makes a yummy creamy sauce.  I have to say using fresh  herbs just make a dish that more flavorful as well. Nothing as beats a great tasting dish that is SUPER easy to create.  This makes about 4.5 servings with  480 calories per serving.

Ingredients:

8 ounce of farfalle pasta

2 cups of diagonally sliced thin asparagus

1-4 ounce package of Garlic and Herb Cheese, I used Alouette

3/4 cup drained sun dried tomatoes

1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup of chicken broth

1 teaspoon fresh chopped thyme

1/2 teaspoon of pepper

Directions:

1. Cook pasta according to al dente. Add asparagus to pasta in the last minute of boiling. Drain and return pasta and asparagus to pot.
2. Stir in spreadable cheese until melted and smooth. Stir in all remaining ingredients and warm for about 2 minutes.  Plate and serve!

Enjoy!

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Cinco De Mayo

I thought about doing separate blog post for the three things I  made for Cinco De Mayo, but I figured I’d just put it all in one post!  I didn’t want to make something we’ve had before or at least the same variation of something we had before.  Of course, we’ve had tequila sunrises before, but they look so pretty that I wanted to make a post about them. So Happy Cinco De Mayo!

Tequila Sunrise:

Ingredients:

2 oz Tequila

4 oz Orange Juice

1 oz Grenadine

Directions:

1. Pour in tequila first, then OJ, stir and then grenadine and watch the sunrise!

Taco Cups:

I had some multi grain tortillas in the fridge and I thought about making soft tacos, but as I said I was looking for a variation on something we’ve already had, so I thought, hmm what if I place the tortilla on a custard cup and bake it for a few minutes.  This was sort of an experiment, and it worked! The first picture is the tortillas on the custard cups before going into the oven.

After coming out from oven:

Final:

Ingredients:

2 multigrain tortillas

1 tablespoon of olive oil

3 leaves of romaine lettuce shredded

1/2 cup shredded Mexican cheese

1/2 tomato, diced

1 lb of ground turkey

Taco seasoning

Sour cream, if wanted

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Brush olive oil over tortillas, drape over custard cups. Place in oven and bake about 5-7  minutes until they start to take the form of the custard cup and are crispy.
2. Cook ground turkey, drain.  Add in taco seasoning and cook following directions on package. Meanwhile, cut up lettuce/tomato and cheese.
3. Remove shells from oven and place all ingredients in shell.

Enjoy!

Crescent Churros

I wanted to make some dessert related to Cinco De Mayo, I searched and found a few that I really liked and really wanted to make, but I decided I wanted something easier, so I searched for a bit and found this super easy recipe on pillsbury.com.  Add some vanilla ice cream to these and they are great!

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons of sugar

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 can 4 oz Pillsbury crescent rolls

2 tablespoons of butter, melted

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a small bowl, mix together sugar and cinnamon. Melt butter in another dish. Unroll the crescent rolls.
3. Brush tops of 1 rectangle with melted butter, sprinkle with about half of the sugar mixture. Top each with remaining rectangle, press edges lightly. Brush tops with melted butter.
4. With a sharp knife, cut each rectangle stack lengthwise into 6 strips. Twist each strip 3 times, place on ungreased cookie sheet.
5. Bake 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown and crisp.  Brush tops with any remaining butter and sprinkle with remaining sugar mixture.

Enjoy! There you have it, our Cinco De Mayo menu!

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