Monday, July 30, 2012

Sunday Dinner Pasta Primevera

For yesterday's dinner I made pasta primavera. I found this recipe on the back of a Velveeta cheese box but made it my own way, with fresh vegetables minus the broccoli and added a few ingredients. I know Velveeta cheese is not the best but I bought the low fat kind and I figure it has less calories than making my own creamy cheese sauce. This is a simple dinner even with the chopping of the vegetables, which you can do while you wait for the water to boil for the pasta. The first time I made it I used half a box of pasta, this time I added more vegetables and used the whole box of pasta. I wanted to make enough to have lots of leftovers. When making a Sunday dinner I always make a recipe that has leftovers, it is always comforting not having to cook on a Monday night.


The Ingredients are:

  1. Penne pasta 1 box 
  2. 12 ounces Velveeta cheese cut into small cubes 
  3. 1 tablespoon butter 
  4. 5 carrots chopped 
  5. 1 half yellow onion 
  6. 1 bag frozen broccoli 
  7. 2 red peppers 
  8. fresh ground pepper



 This recipe has 8 servings, it is a great way to get people eat their vegetables. If you want to make this meal quicker you could use frozen vegetables, but in my opinion the meal is much better with fresh vegetables. 

While the pasta is boiling start cooking the vegetables, heat pan on medium heat, add 1 tablespoon of butter to pan. Add the carrots and onion first, cook for 4 minutes, add the red pepper and brocolli cook 4 minutes you want to constantly stir the vegetables. At the last 2 minutes of the pasta cooking turn the heat on the vegetables down to low and add the cheese. You want to constantly stir the cheese into the vegetables to help prevent the cheese from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

When your pasta is done cooking drain and pour into large bowl, pour the vegetable cheese mixture into the bowl. Add your black pepper and stir pasta, I used tongs to mix the pasta and vegetables. You can half this recipe.

Due to my own technical difficulties, I lost all my prep photos but here is a picture of the finished product:

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Chicken Fried rice

For last night's dinner I made a chicken stir fry. It was from a recipe that was a typical bland back of the box recipe so I decided to add somethings to try to give it some flavor. The recipe includes the following ingredients pictured.


I used garlic powder, chili powder, orange juice, black pepper and soy sauce to marinate my chicken strips.

The other thing about this recipe is it included preparation as you needed to cook rice and then let it cool.
For the cooking part I sauteed onion in some vegetable oil and then added the chicken and carrots to the mix. I cooked all this, in the pot until it was all done. I only had carrots already chopped up so I used those instead of  finely slicing a few carrots. Next time I will be sure to use whole carrots I think it would make the dish look more stir fry like.

Once the chicken was cooked through I added 2 eggs, which I hardly could see so next time I would add another egg. After the eggs had cooked I added the rice and stirred it in the mixture till it was warm. After I removed the pot from the stove I added some Teriyaki sauce to the meal and stirred. The one thing I was proud of was experimenting with the marinade and liking how the chicken came out tasting flavorful, if I would of followed the box instructions, I would of not marinated the chicken at all.
The end result was flavorful but nothing like the fried rice you eat out, but maybe in time with playing with the recipe I can get it to that point. I guess the good thing is I am sure my chicken fried rice had less salt and calories than the traditional Chinese restaurant. 
This was an easy meal that provided plenty of leftovers for us.

Kisses Candy Cane Swirl Cheese Cake

I saw the recipe for this cheesecake last year but I felt a little too overwhelmed to make it, I had never made a cheesecake before and did not want to have a holiday disaster. This year being unemployed, I thought I would give it a try before Christmas. I made it at the beginning of December and it was easy to make and easy to cook. The only issue I have is that the top cracked a little bit. I was told next time to cook the cheesecake in a water bath and I was excited to try it. Excited, until I discovered my only pan suitable was too small for the water bath, so the cheesecake will be cooked without the water bath, as I do not want to go out and spend $20 on a bigger pan. This time I will watch the cheesecake a little more closely and see if that helps prevent cracking.

This cheesecake is made with candy cane kisses,vanilla wafers, butter, sugar, cream cheese, milk( I am using half and half,as it is only used to melt the kisses) and vanilla extract.

For the crust you use vanilla wafers, butter and a small amount of sugar. I do not have a food processor, so I put the vanilla wafers in a plastic bag and smashed them with my rolling pin. As caveman like as it sounds it works. The crust is cooked for 8 minutes at 350 degrees.

The batter of the cheesecake is made with cream cheese, vanilla extract, eggs and sugar blended until smooth.

Right before pouring the batter on top of the crust, remove 1/4 cup to mix for the candy cane kiss topping.

The topping involves 20 candy cane kisses melted down with milk and then mixed in with the remaining cheesecake batter. You then drop the mixture by spoonfuls on top of the cake and then gently swirl the mixture into the cake.

The cake is to be cooked at 350 for 40 to 45 minutes.

The end result of the cake was okay but not very presentation worthy, browned along the edges and the top was cracking, so there will be no picture of this cake.

Today I made the same cake but instead I reduced the temperature to 325 degrees and set the timer for 40 minutes, after looking at the cake after baking for 30 minutes, I think I will be cooking it less than 40 minutes. I ended up cooking the cheesecake for 35 minutes and I am much happier with the result. The next time however, I will work more on the perfect swirl so I have less white on one side of the cake.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Quiche



Last night I made a broccoli and Cheese Quiche. The recipe is very simple. You add the eggs, half and half, onion, a dash of nutmeg, salt, pepper, broccolli and cheese(You mix the cheese with a tablespoon of flour). The only issues I have with making a Quiche is the pre-baking the crust, unless I buy the frozen crusts that are in the tinfoil holders and require no pre-baking. Along with pre-baking the crust comes the need to cover the outer edges of the pie crust when baking it to avoid the crust overbrowning, this I do by covering with foil, which in turn always ends up with me pulling off some of the crust with the foil. I plan on one of these days investing in one of those pie crust rings that protect the crust and bonus probably do not pull the crust out.The prebaking the crust also involves setting the over to 450 to cook the crust and than the oven is set down to 325 to cook the Quiche. My oven takes 30 minutes to go down to 325.Other than these issues Quiche is quite simple and bonus I only use 1 mixing bowl ,measuring cup, a cutting board and a knife. The Quiche is cooked for 45 minutes.
I have made Quiche with ham before but I actually enjoy Quiche more with just the broccoli and cheese. The Quiche turned out delicious and of course there were leftovers. I am sure my mother would be so embarrassed to see my lack of expertise pie crust but hey at least I am trying!

Monday, December 20, 2010

Always Read Instructions

Last night for dinner I made a Chili Skillet meal with ground beef. The recipe included Diced tomatoes( I used the ones with diced green peppers and onions), tomato sauce(I used Condensed Tomato Soup with a little water), Red kidney beans or black beans (I used black beans), Macaroni noodles, Chili powder, Garlic salt ( I used garlic powder and added a little salt), 3/4 cup diced onion, 1/2 cup chili peppers, (I cut up a green pepper), 1/2 cup of cheddar cheese and ground beef.
The reason why I titled this blog "Always Read Instructions" is because I did not read the directions at first, of course I poured over the ingredient list and assumed the macaroni would require a boiling of water and using the whole box. Instead I read the recipe while boiling water and realized the recipe only called for 1/2 cup of macaroni noodles and they were to be added to the mix and simmered for 20 minutes until tender.
Meanwhile, I figured I already have the water almost boiling so I cooked the noodles in the water and then added them to the chili skillet mix at the very end.
This dish was quite easy to put together, brown the meat, add the seasonings,onion, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, beans and then simmer for 20 minutes, I ended up adding my peppers at the 15 minute mark because I am against over cooking pepper. At the end of the 20 minutes I took the pot off the heat and added the cooked macaroni and cheese.
At this point I realized that this meal is more of a Chili consistency, when I thought Skillet Chili for some reason I thought it have less liquid than a traditional chili. Well this was not the case, I think next time I will omit the macaroni and serve the chili with white rice and corn bread.
This observation aside, this is a delicious easy meal, that is not hard on the bank account and it makes 4 generous portions so we have enough for leftovers.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Homemade Macaroni and Cheese


I have been waiting to try out the Mac and Cheese recipe from my new cookbook and last night I finally made it. The recipe and ingredients were quite simple. American cheese, cheddar cheese, flour, butter, onion, black pepper, milk and of course cooked pasta. The recipe called for melting the butter and then cooking the onion in the butter, then adding milk and the flour stirring till it thickens. The thickening part never happened but the milk did start sticking to the pan, thus I decided to add the cheese and not wait for the thickening. Once I added the cheese it melted nicely, I let it cook for a few minutes and then mixed the elbow maccaroni in with the cheese and into the oven it went. This was the finished project. The prep and cooking were easy however I was left with a big pile of dishes. Overall I would make this recipe again, but I would use half and half instead of milk.