Pesto Salmon

I'm new to the fish-eating world and, thus, new to the fish-making world.  Again, I found the recipe on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a try.  It was SO easy (no dishes involved!) and quite tasty.  It's been in the 70s all week and was the perfect recipe to make for a "spring" day.

Ingredients:
2 skinless filets of salmon
Foil
Cooking spray
3 (ish) tbsp. pesto
2 roma tomatoes
A few slices of onion

Directions:
Preheat oven to 450.  I made roasted potatoes with the salmon so I put them in for 30 minutes before cooking the salmon.  I also cooked them on parchment paper for the first time & let me say, that's the way to go!

Tear two large pieces of foil & spray with cooking spray.  Place the salmon on one piece of foil.  Spread about 1 1/2 tablespoons of pesto on each piece of salmon.

Layer onion slices & tomatoes on top of the salmon.  Season with salt & pepper.

Place the other piece of foil over the salmon & fold it into a pocket so that it's completely sealed.

Place on a cookie sheet in the oven for 15 minutes.  I didn't take any photos once it was finished but the salmon & the pesto was a delicious combination.

Skinnier Cajun Chicken Pasta

I love cajun chicken but every recipe I've seen has a bunch of heavy cream which I'm sure is delicious but also not something I need to be eating.  Then I saw this recipe for a skinnier version of cajun chicken pasta & knew I had to try it.

It was a little bit runny the first night we ate it but was a much better consistency when it was reheated.  When I make it again, I think I'll make it the night before & reheat it both times we eat it.  One thing is for sure: I will make it again!

Ingredients:
Whole wheat pasta (I used penne), cooked
1 lb. chicken, cubed
Cajun seasoning (cayenne pepper, paprika, chili powder, garlic powder, seasoned salt, white pepper, cumin)
1 red bell pepper, thinnly sliced
1 yellow bell pepper, thinnly sliced
1/2 large red onion (I didn't have 1/2 a red onion so I used some red, some yellow), thinnly sliced
2 medium roma tomatoes, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 c. low sodium chicken broth
1/3 c. skim milk
1 tbsp. flour
2 tbsp. light cream cheese
green onions, chopped

Directions:
Season the chicken generously.  I completely covered all the chicken.  The dish was fairly spicy but that's how I like it!

Spray your large pan/dutch oven with nonstick spray & cook the chicken.

Remove it from the pan & set it aside.  Add a tablespoon of olive oil to the pan & cook the veggies & garlic.  It's nice because they can get some of the remaining seasoning left in the pan from the chicken. 

While the veggies are cooking, make a "slurry" -- you may ask me what that means and I will tell you I have no idea!  That's just what the original recipe calls it & I am going with it.  Sounds fancy, huh?!  The slurry is made by blending together the flour, milk & cream cheese.

Veggies should cook for 3-4 minutes.  Then add the tomatoes & cook for an additional 3-4 minutes.  The veggies should end up softened but not too tender.  I like them to be fairly crisp when I bite into them.

Reduce heat & add chicken broth & slurry.  Stir for about 2 minutes.  See how runny that is?  It's still tasty but just not the same consistency as it was the next day.

Add chicken & cook for an additional 2 minutes.  Add pasta & toss to coat.  Top with green onions & enjoy!

Buffalo Chicken Grilled Cheese

Happy Fat Tuesday, everyone!

This year I am giving up pop, cheese & sweets.  It's a little ambitious, I know.  But I have different reasonings for each one.  I don't give things up for a religious reason but rather because I think it's healthy to give things up for a period of time in hopes of establishing better habits.  Furthermore, I think giving up things you love is important in keeping perspective.  And I hope to always keep perspective.

So, that being said, I am giving up sweets because I have been eating more than I normally do & I think it'll be healthy to give them up.  I am giving up cheese & pop because I love them & think it'll be nice to give up things that I love.

It's Fat Tuesday & in honor of that, I am drinking tons of Diet Sunkist, eating something sweet & enjoying a buffalo chicken grilled cheese sandwich.  With two slices of cheese.  Ooh yeah!

Directions:
Yesterday I boiled a chicken breast & shredded it so that I could easily make the sandwiches today.  I microwaved the chicken (yes, I used a microwave -- crazy, I know) along with some Frank's & red onion. 

I buttered four slices of bread & placed a slice of American cheese on them.  I then added the chicken mixture to sandwich.

Finally, I added a slice of muenster to each one & made my grilled cheese.  This was the perfect Fat Tuesday meal.  See ya in 40 days, cheese.  Oh how I will miss you.

Avocado Chicken & Caprese Avocado Salad

I didn't have to work today which was awesome because it was BEAUTIFUL.  I took my little sister to the new aquarium which was awesome.  We had such a good time!

Then I went for a run by the lake which made me long for summer.  In that spirit, I made dinner. 

I didn't take many photos because I was watching reruns of One Tree Hill & was distracted by Nathan & Haley's love for each other.  Just when you thought I couldn't get more lame, I do!

Avocado Chicken:
I seasoned panko bread crumbs with seasoned salt, garlic powder, chili powder & pepper.  I then coated the chicken breasts with the mixture.  I pan fried them in just a bit of olive oil & baked them at 350 until just done.

I layered basil, sauteed onions, avocado and a slice of mozzarella on top of the chicken breasts & put them back into the oven for 3 minutes.

This is the only photo I have:

Caprese Avocado Salad:
I mixed cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, avocado, fresh mozzarella pearls, basil, balsamic vinegar & olive oil together.  This was pretty good & definitely made me want summer so badly & everything that comes with it!

Again, sorry about the lack of photos.  Blame the greatest love story ever told ;)

Beef & Quinoa Soup

Here is how I do my grocery shopping when I find a recipe: I think about any changes that I want to make  & then I directly follow the ingredient list.  I do not deviate, even if I am skeptical.  Sometimes that causes problems in terms of the outcome.  This is one of those times.

I found this recipe on Pinterest & decided to make it for us for lunch this week.  The only change that I made ahead of time was to use ground beef.  For everything else, I tried to keep it the same...and then I had to try to fix it at the end.  The recipe calls for water and no broth.  Before my alterations, the "soup" tasted like, well, beef & vegetables in water.  If I made this again, I would definitely use beef broth or at least a combination of water & broth.

Ingredients:

2 tbs butter

1 c. onion, diced

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 c. cherry tomatoes, halved

1/2 c. green pepper, chopped

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp ground cumin

½ tsp ground white pepper

1lb ground beef

10 c. beef broth/water combination

1 c. frozen peas

1 c. frozen corn

2 c. cooked quinoa

4 medium sized Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cubed

Directions:

Melt the butter in a large soup pot.

Add the onions, garlic, tomatoes, peppers & seasonings.  Cook for about 5 minutes.

Add the beef & cook for a few more minutes, until pink is gone.

It is here that the pictures stop because it is here that things started going awry.  I added the water and boiled it for probably 20 minutes, mostly because I kept hoping something other than beef & veggies in water would magically appear.  At this point, I abandoned my recipe & started flying by the seat of my pants.  {Much to the chagrin of my parents!}, I am most comfortable {in too many aspects of my life} when flying by the seat of my pants. 

I added some soup base (chicken flavor, because it was all I had) in hopes of giving it some flavor, along with some seasonings -- garlic salt, seasoned salt, chili powder, cayenne pepper, basil, pepper & paprika).  I didn't measure anything, I just kept adding it.  Then tasting it.  Then freaking out at the water taste.  Then adding it.

Add the potatoes, peas, corn & quinoa.  Reduce the heat & let it simmer for 25-30 minutes.  I set the timer for 5 minute intervals to taste test it.  I probably added seasonings 4 more times before being satisfied.

I really enjoyed the quinoa in soup (something I didn't think about combining) and the beef & quinoa combination.  I also really liked the flavor in the end.  And I probably would still use mostly water with just a few cups of beef broth.  I would also go into it being mentally prepared (so I could avoid a freak out) to use tons of seasonings because ultimately the seasonings are what gave the soup the unique flavor.

Honey Mustard Crusted Chicken

I found this recipe on Pinterest & it's actually a Weight Watcher's recipe.  It was super easy, super quick & super tasty!

Ingredients:
1 lb. of chicken (I used these super lean tenders from the West Side Market -- they're perfect for people who hate cutting fat off their meat!)
1 c. of corn flake crumbles
2/3 c. honey mustard
1 green onion (who is surprised that I am cooking with green onions?!), finely sliced
seasonings (dill, chili powder, paprika, seasoned salt, pepper)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Crumble up corn flakes.  This takes a lot longer than expected.  I did it when we were starving.  It felt like it took hours.

Mix the honey mustard, green onion & seasonings.  Divide the mixture in two -- one part will be used to coat the chicken; one part will be used as a dressing.  Let me tell you, this little mixture was delicious!

Dip the chicken in the honey mustard & then in the dip then in the cornflakes.

Line them up on a cookie sheet & bake for 15 minutes. 

I had the oven at 400 degrees because I had sweet potato fries in there too.  In hindsight, not a great idea.  They didn't crisp up as much as I had hoped so I decided to broil them.  And then I burned them a bit.  Whoops -- ya live & ya learn!

Even for a bit burned, they were DELICIOUS.  Chicken? Good. Honey mustard? Good.  Green onions? Gooood.  Friends reference? GOOD :)

Twice Baked Potatoes

I am the Queen of Leftovers. 

I love them.  I love to eat leftovers from restaurants.  I love to reheat meals from early in the week, especially on days I don't feel like cooking.  But most of all I love to take a bunch of random pieces and repurpose them into a new meal.

Amanda stayed in Solon tonight which threw off the meal plan (yep, I have a meal plan!) so I decided to improvise with leftovers and push back our Tuesday meal to Wednesday.

The ingredients: a potato, leftover chicken from a Greek chicken wrap, green onions (duh!), shredded sharp white cheddar cheese that's going to be used in a Super Bowl recipe.

I baked the potato for a hour at 400 degrees.  When it had cooled a bit, I scooped out the middle while leaving the skin.

I mixed the potato with the green onions, chicken and cheese.  I added a tiny bit of margarine, some milk, some Frank's hot sauce & some seasonings like garlic salt, pepper & chili powder.  I then placed the mixture back into the potato and baked for another 15 minutes.

I usually have potatoes lying around and adding the chicken, green onions & cheese helped to stretch a potato into a heartier meal.  I've made twice baked potatoes before but today was the first time that I thought to add Frank's.  Let me tell ya, it was a good addition! 

Greek Salad (and Pierogies!)

My Grandma Bajerski made my FAVORITE meal in the world: homemade pierogies.  There is nothing like her pierogies.  I've tried to eat the frozen ones but they're simply not good.  I've tried to eat them at restaurants but they're too doughy.  I've tried them at farmer's markets & the fillling isn't how I like it.  My grandma makes the BEST pierogies.  So when I saw her yesterday and she gave them to me, you can imagine my excitement!  She sent the uncooked pierogies home with me so that I could make them for my roommate and my taste-testing boys (I wonder where I get my need to feed the masses... must be genetic!) so I thought I'd have some for dinner. 

I didn't want to eat just pierogies so I made a Greek salad to go with them.  The nice thing is that this salad can be used as a side dish or you could add grilled chicken & make it a main dish.

I used romaine lettuce for it.  I halved it length-wise and then cut very thin strips.  I've always liked my salads finely chopped & evenly mixed...to the point of being obsessive-compulsive about it (imagine that!).

I also played with my new camera a little bit.  I thought it took pretty nice pictures.  I was in a rush to eat so I didn't really mess around too much but I liked what I saw in that little bit of food photography!

I then added artichoke hearts, cherry tomatoes, chick peas, green peppers, a bit of red pepper, green onions, red onions, cucumbers & parsley.  I finished it off with some goat cheese because I didn't have any feta.

I tossed it all together & evenly distributed my salad dressing in order to make my perfect side salad!

I then paired it with my pierogies & it was HEAVEN.  Ryan's exact response: "they don't taste anything like the frozen ones.  Now I see why you freak out over them.  They were bomb" -- looks like a resounding endorsement to me, though I wasn't worried!

The only thing that could've been better than pierogies & a side salad is pierogies & my grammy's kielbasa.  I'll tell ya what, us Pollocks can make a meal :)

Stuffed Peppers

My sister & I absolutely love my mom's stuffed pepper recipe.  I think I've made it one other time but it was years ago so I thought I was due.  All in all, they turned out pretty well -- not as good as my mom's but that's not surprising! 

Ingredients:
2 lbs. ground beef
1 cup cooked rice
2 eggs
various seasonings (garlic powder, onion powder, seasoned salt, pepper, etc.)
7-8 peppers
1 stalk celery, diced
1/2 an onion, diced
3 cans tomato soup

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Wash the peppers, cut off the tops & cut out the seeds & pith.

Cut a hole in the bottom of the peppers so the water can drain as they cook.

How fresh & tasty do those peppers look?!

Now you'll need to prepare the meat.  Combine the meat, eggs, rice & seasonings together.
Roll the meat into baseball-sized balls & put them inside the peppers.

Saute onions & celery in a large pot. 

When they're soft, add the 3 cans of tomato soup.  Also, add about a half a can of water.  Mix together.  Add the peppers & meat to the pan & put some of the sauce on top of the meat balls while they cook. 

Cover the pot & cook for 2-3 hours.  I took them out of the oven after a little over an hour, squeezed out some of the water from the peppers & put a bit more sauce over them.  Put them back in the oven for another hour or so.

Take them out of the oven, serve with mashed potatoes & enjoy!  These are a perfect winter dish & are pretty easy to make.

Spicy Whiskey BBQ Sliders

This was my first attempt at a recipe from The Pioneer Woman. I decided to do it on a Sunday so that I would have a bigger audience of taste testers. I made 12 sliders & 10 were eagerly eaten so I would say this recipe was a good one!

Ingredients:
2 lbs. ground beef (I wanted to use bison but it was triple the price so I went with lean beef!)
12 small rolls
Butter Salt & pepper
1 onion, diced
1/3 cup jarred jalapeños
1/2 cup whiskey
1 cup BBQ sauce

Directions:
Divide the meat into 12 patties. Season the patties with salt & pepper.

Melt a little bit of butter in a pan & cook the patties in 2 separate batches so they cook evenly. Cook them at medium-high for 3-4 minutes on each side. Make sure that they cook thoroughly but without burning. When you're done with the first batch, cook the next set of 6 sliders.

Set the sliders aside & cook the onions in the grease from the burgers. Because I used such lean beef, I didn't have much grease. If you use fattier beef, you may want to drain some of the grease. Cook the onions for 3-4 minutes, or until tender.

Add the whiskey & deglaze the pan. Cook the onions in the whiskey for 2-3 minutes. I'm not a huge whiskey fan (I had to get it from my dad because we don't even have any here!) so I was a little nervous to cook with it. Even though the smell seemed potent enough to get me drunk, it was a much milder taste once it had cooked off.

While the onions are cooking, butter the buns & place them in a separate pan to brown.

Add the jalapeños & BBQ sauce to the onions & stir together.

Place all the burgers into the pan & let it all simmer together. Flip the burgers so the sauce fully coats the burgers.

When making your sandwiches, make sure to get plenty of sauce, onions & jalapeños on every bun. We had the sliders with some tots. Now I know that my taste testers aren't very picky (their alternative options involve take out & some sort of personal effort!) but these seemed to be a hit!

Split Pea Soup

Split pea is my favorite soup but I hadn't ever made it so when I got a ham bone from a co-worker I figured I'd give it a shot.  It turned out so well & was super easy!

Ingredients:
1 package of split green peas
1 potato (diced)
3 (skinny) carrots (diced)
2 stalks of celery (diced)
7 cups of water
1 ham bone
1/2 onion (diced)
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of pepper
A bit of a few other seasonings (paprika, chili powder, marjoram, garlic powder)

Place the onions, potatoes, carrots, celery & seasonings into a crock pot.

Rinse the green peas.  Add the 7 cups of water & the rinsed green peas to the crock pot & mix together.  Add the ham bone.  Cover & cook on low for 8ish hours.

Take the ham bone out & use two forks to shred the meat.  Add it back to the pot, stir & serve.  We ate it with pumpernickel bread & a caprese salad... in seasonally appropriate dishes :)

Enjoy!

Pizzas

I hate New Year's Eve.  I think it's over-priced & over-rated.  I have no interest in buying a new dress, buying a ridiculously expensive ticket and getting mediocre food for an outrageous price.  That being said, this New Year's Eve was exactly what I wanted.  I was in Columbus visiting friends from college.  We had dinner in & watched the ball drop in our friends' apartment before going out to the bars. 

I made a few different pizzas and I thought I'd share the combinations.

The first one I made was caramalized onion, bacon & goat cheese.  I saw a picture on Pinterest and thought it sounded delicious.  Because I was only making half of a pizza so I used 4 slices of bacon and half an onion.  This was the only frying pan that I had so I cut the bacon & cooked them in batches because of the size... just thought I'd clarify that I wasn't using bacon for hobbits.

Once the bacon is done, add in the sliced onions and cook until just tender.  Then you can turn down the heat, sprinkle in some sugar, cover & let cook for about 15 minutes.  You should be sure to stir them occassionally so they don't burn to the pan.

I used a refridgerated thin crust from Pillsbury but you can obviously make your own crust if you're fancier than me!  While the onions are cooking, place the crust in the oven for 5 minutes on 400 degrees.  After 5 minutes, take the crust out and top with the onions, crumbled bacon & crumbled goat cheese.  Put the pizza back in the oven for 6-8 more minutes.  This was pretty rich but quite tasty!

I used the other half of the crust to make a caprese pizza.  For this you cook the crust for 5 minutes at 400 degrees.  Then spread olive oil, sea salt & minced garlic over the crust.  Place thinly sliced tomatoes, pieces of basil & fresh mozzarella on the pizza.  Finally, top all of that with a little bit of shredded asiago cheese & put back in the oven for 6-8 minutes.

Finally, I made a chicken pesto pizza.  Again, cook the crust for 5 minutes at 400 degrees.  Spread pesto over the crust.  Top with shredded chicken & shredded mozzarella & asiago cheese and put back in the over for 6-8 minutes.

These do not take crazy culinary skills.  But obviously they were tasty enough because we couldn't wait to eat the slices before taking photos!

Crock Pot Mexican Chicken

Amanda and I hadn't had a Mexican Fiesta in about a week or so I thought I'd make some chicken for tacos.  The best part about this recipe is that it's so easy!

I attempted a salsa chicken in the crock pot a few months ago & it did NOT turn out well.  I came home (super excited for my Mexican Fiesta) only to find the salsa completely burnt and stuck to the crock pot.  The chicken had to literally be pried from the bottom.  We were disappointed by the lack of our fiesta food, but obviously still had margaritas... the best part of a fiesta anyway.

So this morning, I decided to try the crock pot again for Fiesta time.  It was quite clear that last time I did not have enough liquid (yes, I determined that from the crusted chicken & salsa -- solved that mystery!) so this time I put a can of chicken broth, a can of black beans (with liquid) and a can of corn (with liquid) and a chopped up tomato (for no other reason than I had it & it was about to go bad) into the crock pot.  I added a few seasonings (garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, chili powder, paprika and cumin), stirred it all together & added 2 breasts of chicken.  I cooked it for 8 hours on low.

Good news -- nothing burned!  I took the chicken out of the crock pot & shredded it with a fork.  I then used a slotted spoon to scoop out the corn & black beans without all the liquid.  The chicken turned out really well.  It was tender & moist.  The corn & black beans were great additions.  It wasn't spicy at all so in hindsight I wish I would've added a little more cayenne pepper & chili powder...but Amanda can attest to the fact that I tend to get a little aggressive with the spice!

We broke tortilla shells apart and layered the chicken on top with some cheese and green onions.  Green onions are a staple in practically every meal in this house!  Could these get any more tasty?!

...YES!  By adding guacamole!  I photographed the open-faced tacos with guacamole but it doesn't seem to be uploading correctly :(

Happy Fiesta-ing! 

Potato & Leek Soup

This is my "souper" inaugural post. 

Fear not, I will not include word play in every single post (in addition to the blog name)... but, to be honest, I do think I'm pretty punny ;)

We had our first snow of the season (which is probably clear to anyone reading this since my guess is that all of my followers live in Cleveland... and are related to me...) so I thought that a hearty soup was the most natural choice for dinner tonight.  I had 2 potatoes and some bacon in the fridge so I put them to good use and made potato leek soup.  I had some trouble getting it to the right consistency but it turned out really well!

I used four large russet potatoes but you can certainly get away with fewer or smaller potatoes.  You will just need to adjust the liquid amounts.  Poke them with a fork an bake them at 450 for about an hour.

While the potatoes are cooking, cut up 3 leeks.  It's important to be really careful when washing & preparing leeks because dirt gets between each layer.  I sliced them down the center and then chopped them all up.  I only used the white and light green parts.  Set them aside. 

When the potatoes are done cooking & are cooling, fry up the bacon.

The bacon will be reserved for later but you'll need the grease to cook the leeks.  You can obviously leave the bacon on a paper towel until you use it.  But if you're a freak like me, you will put it in a seasonally appropriate bowl... so that your roommate can make fun of you & you can have another dish to clean!

Use the bacon grease to cook the leeks.  I also threw in a clove of minced garlic.  Cook them until they became tender -- about 4-5 minutes. 

While the leeks are cooking, scoop the potatoes out of the skin.  Once the leeks are done, add the potatoes to the leek mixture.

Add one cup of milk and one cup of vegetable stock to the pot.  You can also throw in some seasonings -- I used a bit of cayenne pepper, paprika, black pepper and salt (though I'm not sure the salt is typically necessary -- I accidentally bought unsalted vegetable stock!).  Once everything is heated through, you'll need to puree it all.  I had to do it in a few increments in order to make sure it was all liquified. 

Once everything is pureed, put it back in the pot to reheat it and thin it out.  I used 4 large potatoes which was good in terms of quantity but consequently the soup was very thick.  I kept adding little bits of vegetable stock until it was the desired consistency.

Serve with cheese, bacon (from the seasonally appropriate bowl) and some green onions.

Enjoy :)