Chorizo Chicken Bake....Another Pinterest Meal!

Since the debut of our new and occasionally fabulous electronic medical record at work, my days in clinic have gone from long to longer.  As much as I love my coworkers, I loved getting home before 7:30 much more. Not only does it cut into my work out time, but it also makes it hard to get home in time to spend quality time with Rick and cook dinner!!  I'm always on the look out for meals that we can make ahead of time on Sundays so that we have lunches and/or dinners for the busy week ahead.  I stumbled across this recipe on pinterest a couple of weeks ago.  The recipe comes from a blog called My Kitchen Escapades, and I'm quickly becoming a fan of her recipes!  There's another chicken bake that I'm looking forward to trying.  I love them because they fit the bill of dishes that Rick and I can several times of the course of the week without getting bored with them!  I had to reuse her picture because it's a great shot, and you know I'm not the best photographer in the world...lol! 
  
 Anyway, I don't use a lot of chorizo sausage at home so I wasn't really sure what we'd end up with, but it sounded pretty yummy.  We're definitely fans of spicy foods and Tex-Mex meals.  The end result was very good, but our only complaint is that it didn't heat up very well.  When reheated, the dish was invaded by grease from the chorizo, and I even drained it!  Grrrrr.  Maybe we should've taken her advice to serve it over rice.  Because we are watching our carbs, we didn't. 

Here is Carole's recipe with my changes in purple of course! 

Enjoy!

Chorizo Chicken Bake

recipe by Carole Jones

Ingredients

6-8 boneless skinless chicken breasts (I used 6 larger ones)
10 ounce package pork chorizo
4 ounces light cream cheese or Mexican crema (I used light cream cheese)
1/2 C light sour cream
10 ounce can chopped tomatoes with green chiles, drained (Rotel all the way for us!)
1/4 C freshly grated Parmesan cheese (I also sprinkled some shredded cheddar on top that we needed to get rid of)

Directions

1.  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Spray a 9x13 glass pan with nonstick spray.  Lay down the chicken evenly in the pan.
2.  In a large skillet, brown the chorizo over medium high heat for about 7-8 minutes. Drain the sausage.  Add the drained tomatoes, cream cheese and sour cream and mix until it is all blended.  Spread the mixture over the chicken breasts, sprinkle on the Parmesan cheese  and cheddar cheese. 

3.  Bake uncovered for about 45 minutes depending on the size of your chicken breasts.

There will be enough pan juices to serve over some rice if desired.  Or slice the chicken and serve it inside a tortilla topped with your favorite toppings.

My First Pinterest-Hobby Lobby Creation!

I know, I know!  It's not food-related, but I did make it on my kitchen counter.  That counts, right? 

I'm not exactly known for my penchant for anything arty, but I do like to pretend to be crafty for time to time.  A few years ago, I made a pretty cool wreath for my door (and one for my stepmom, too).  It had starfish that I bought and some shells that I had found years ago.  Unfortunately, the humidity here killed the starfish, and I never got around to rehabilitating it.

Anyway, a Hobby Lobby opened here in Mount Pleasant this weekend, and after lunch, I talked Rick into taking me there.  I had found this really cute Boo sign on pinterest a couple of weeks ago, and I've been oh-so-impatiently for Hobby Lobby to open so that I could get the items needed to make it!  Sure, I could've gone to Michael's or Wal-Mart to find the materials, but it's more fun when you can go somewhere totally new!  The original "Boo" came from this blog right here.

I ended up buying finished black letters for my "Boo."  Being the crafty novice that I am, I had no idea what Modpodge was (googled it today and I definitely need some!) so I used rubber cement.  I grabbed some Halloween treat bags which were plastic.  Not the brightest move, but I glued them onto white paper before gluing the paper on the letters.  I borrowed Nikki's glue gun since I have NO idea where mine is to add the wooden ghosts to the middle "O" and the hanger.  I got this super cool black ribbon with spiderwebs on it to tie the letters together.  My orginal plan was to put the Boo sign on our door, but I'm contemplating keeping in the hallway because I don't want it to get messed up! 

I'm pretty proud of my first crafty decoration!  I want to head back to Hobby Lobby to get some other stuff to make these pumpkins for the door that I also found on pinterest.  Is it bad to make two trips in one day????

Dill-Tzatziki Chicken Salad

I bring my lunch to work almost everyday, and I tend to eat either chicken salad or tuna salad on cucumbers.  Since I was pretty impressed with my last attempt at making chicken salad, I thought that I'd give it another try.  I found this recipe on pinterest, and since I'm such a huge fan of tzatziki sauce, it caught my eye.  Instead of using their tzatziki recipe, I went with my own because it's my favorite.  Unfortunately, I don't think that the garlic cloves that I used were large enough to offset the freakin' huge cucumbers that I picked up at Trader Joe's yesterday (or maybe it's just my taste buds) because it tasted a bit more bland than normal.  Normally, I'm not an add-dill-to-my-tzatziki kinda gal, but I decided to add it and think of it more as a part of the chicken salad and less a part of the tzatziki.  The original recipe calls for red onions, but I substituted a sweet onion because that's what I had on hand.  All in all, it was pretty good, and if you are a fan of tzatziki, I'd definitely give it a try!

Here's what I did....

Dill-Tzatziki Chicken Salad

Ingredients

2/3 cup Katie's Tzatziki (I saved the rest of it for snacking with veggies)
2 teaspoons chopped fresh dill
1/4 cup finely chopped onion (I used a sweet one, but I think red onion would work better)
2 cups shredded Rotisserie Chicken (skinless) 

Directions

Combine the first three ingredients in a medium bowl.  Stir in chicken and coat with sauce.

Enjoy!

Cilantro-Lime Shrimp

Recently, I came across this recipe on pinterest, and I knew that it would be a perfect, quick week night meal.  I paired it with our favorite rice from Trader Joe's, and the two went perfect together.  Rick called it one of his favorites!  This recipe is another one that is going to be come a repeater on our table! I'm going to post the original recipe here since the only change that I made from the  is to use our Garlic Olive Oil from The Crushed Olive instead of regular. 

Here's what I did...

Cilantro Lime Shrimp

Ingredients

2 tsp olive oil
2 lb shrimp, shelled and deviened
6 cloves garlic, crushed
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 lime
salt and pepper 

Directions 

Heat a large frying pan on medium-high heat. Add oil to the pan, when hot add shrimp. Season with salt and pepper. When the shrimp is cooked on one side, about 2 minutes, turn over and add garlic. Sauté another minute or two until shrimp is cooked, careful not to overcook. Remove from heat. Squeeze lime all over shrimp and toss with cilantro.

Enjoy!

Another Stuffed Pepper Success

For dinner tonight, I made a recipe that I got from my "fat doctor" aka Metabolic Medical Center.  It's low carb and turned out to be something that I definitely want to make again and again! I made a couple of changes which probably upped the fat content.  Once again, I apologize for not having any pics.  Rick just got a new laptop, and I haven't been brave enough to try to sync my camera....especially after my most recent sync of my iphone that wiped out everything.  You gotta love technology.  It's awesome until something dies.  Anyway...back to the peppers....  They combined two things that I love:  stuffed peppers and Philly Cheesesteak!  It was so good that Rick even ate all his Baby Bella Mushrooms (and he hates mushrooms)!  You can either do one pepper per person or have 1/2 per person depending on the size of the peppers.

Here's what I did..

Philly Cheesteak Stuffed Peppers
Ingredients
8 oz Sliced Roast Beef
2 Large Green Peppers
1 Sweet Onion, diced
4 oz Baby Bell Mushrooms, diced
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil (I used our garlic-infused one)
1 Tablespoon minced garlic
4 slices of provolone cheese
6-cheese blend shredded (Italian blend)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions
Preheat oven to 400F.

Slice peppers in half lengthwise, remove ribs and seeds

Heat olive oil in a large pan.  Add garlic, onions, mushrooms, and salt and pepper.  Satue until onions and mushrooms are caramelized (around 20 minutes).

Slice roast beef into thin strips and add to the pan.  Cook for 5-10 minutes.

Sprinkle each half of the peppers with the 6 cheese blend.  Fill each pepper with another

Fill each pepper with the meat mixture until they are nearly overflowing.  Top each pepper with a slice of provolone cheese.

Bake on a baking sheet for 15-20 minutes until the cheese on top is golden brown.

Enjoy!

Bow Tie Pasta with Bacon, Onion, and Tomato

Since I've found my way back to our blog after all these months (years???), I've been a little surprised to come across several blog posts that never got to see the light of day for one reason or another.  Of course, at this point, I have no idea what those reasons might have been, but I thought I'd post them for you to enjoy. I decided to start with this one because the recipe is one of the first ones that I ever made back in the late 90s when I was just a fledgling cook who had no clue about how do a meal that more than one dish with a side salad...lol. 

Let me present the post that I started almost two years ago......

In order to use some of that bacon that we had left over, I dusted off one of the first recipes that I ever tried from epicurious.com for Bow Ties with Bacon, Onion, and Tomato. When I first started cooking, I made a lot of pasta with a can of diced tomatoes, garlic, and white wine for the sauce.  I really liked this recipe because the bacon made it taste different.  Over the years, I've made a few changes to the original recipe, and here's what I've come up.  I hope that you enjoy it!

Bow Tie Pasta with Bacon, Onion, and Tomato

Ingredients

• 6 slices of bacon, chopped fine
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1/2 pound large bow tie pasta
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1/4 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes, or to taste
• 1/3 cup flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• 1/3 cup fresh basil, chopped
• 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Directions

Cook pasta in salted water and cook pasta per directions on package until the al dente.

In a deep skillet cook the bacon over moderate heat, stirring, until it is crisp and transfer it with a slotted spoon to a bowl. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of fat from the skillet, add the oil, and cook the onion over moderate heat, stirring, until it is golden brown. Add the tomatos into the onion mixture with the 1/4 cup white wine, the red pepper flakes, and salt to taste, simmer the sauce, stirring, for 5 minutes, and stir in the parsley, basil, and the bacon. Drain the pasta well, add it to the sauce, and toss. Add the Parmesan and toss the pasta again.

Enjoy!

Saucy Chicken Salad

Don't let the title fool you...this chicken salad is not runny at all.  It's just got a kick to it (in the form of a little horseradish) to make it what I'd call saucy.  With summertime strolling into our neck of the woods, I woke up with chicken salad on my mind.  Everyone is so different when it comes to chicken salad preferences.  Some like grapes in it.  Some like dill relish in it.  Some like it with no mayo at all.  Rick and I discussed a couple of ingredients that we felt were essential (it's gotta have celery for some crunch!), but I was still unsure of which direction I wanted to take.  I don't think I've ever really made chicken salad before (or at least anything that stood out in my mind) so as usual, I hit the internet looking for ideas.  I came across two recipes that caught my eye and inspired me to play with them a bit to come up with something worth sharing with the world.

The first one that I liked is almost perfect on its own.  The big problem with it is that I am not a fan of boiled eggs (sliced or diced or whatever) in my chicken salad or potato salad for that matter.  I'm also not crazy about the grapes either.  What really intrigued me, though, was mixing the half and half with mayo for the dressing.  What a great way to kill that overpowering mayo tang and create something that is more creamy!  The second one that I found was from my one of my old stand-by recipe sites, www.myrecipes.com.  Adding a little horseradish to chicken salad would give a unexpected kick to plain ole chicken salad. 

In order to make the whole process go faster, I bought a rotisserie chicken at Publix this morning so that I wouldn't have to deal with cooking any chicken.  Doing so also provided us with some meat to snack on while I was pulling the meat.  For the nuts (gotta have that crunch!), I used chopped walnuts because I had them in the refrigerator.  Pecans would work just as well if not better.

This recipe isn't totally fabulous for my diet (especially with the half and half), but I was really impressed with the final product.  I'm looking forward to having it for lunch during the shortened work week.  I may even share a little bit with Rick. 

Here's what I did....

Saucy Chicken Salad
Ingredients
1 cooked rotisserie chicken, meat pulled from the bones and skin removed
1/3 cup minced green onion
2 celery hearts chopped
the juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Dressing
2/3 cup light mayo
1/4 cup half and half
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
3 tablespoons prepared horseradish

Directions
In a large bowl, mix chicken, green onion, celery and lemon juice together.  Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

In a separate smaller bowl, mix dressing ingredients together.  After the chicken mix has been in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, combine the dressing with the chicken mixture and nuts.  Cover and chill for an additional hour before serving.

Enjoy!

PS:  Sorry for the pathetic excuse for a pic up there, but my desktop has died and our netbook is on its last leg.  I'm relying on my iphone for pics for now.

PSS:  Did I mention that we are engaged????  So excited!!!!!

My new favorite salsa

I'm back from the dead!  Okay, not really dead, but with work and working out (and I went on a diet last year....down 30 pounds!), I haven't made time to blog. Sadly in my "posts" here there are several started ones from last year that were neglected and never finished.  I've decided, though, that I'm going to TRY to do at least one recipe a week. 

Another thing that has caught my attention is pinterest!  I'm sure that you've heard of it, and once I got the hang of it, I realized what an excellent resource it is for all kinds of things!  My favorite thing to do is to search for recipes (Imagine that, right?). Pinterest has totally put in direct contact with other bloggers out there that I would probably never heard of.   My first amazing find was a salsa.  As you may remember, I'm a huge salsa fan, and while I enjoyed the one I made way back when, it was still missing something.  Then I saw a pin for this salsa.  I was a little skeptical of one of the ingredients (the honey) and couldn't believe that I didn't think of another (the cumin).  This one is even easier because it utilitzes diced canned tomatoes along with Rotel tomatoes (always a favorite of mine).  I've made a couple of subtle changes when I've made it for Rick and I or for our neighbors, but it always turns out perfect!  I hope that you enjoy!

Super Easy Salsa
Ingredients
1  14 oz can diced tomatoes
1 10 oz can orginal Rotel
1/2  sweet small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled & smashed
1 jalapeno (sliced)
1 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
medium size handful cilantro leaves, washed
juice of 1 lime

Directions:
Put all the ingredients in the base of a food processor or good blender and pulse to combine for 30 seconds or so until all the ingredients are finely chopped and salsa is desired consistency.                  

Crab Quiche

Tonight, I made our first quiche.  I had a bunch of left over eggs from Christmas baking, and I decided to try something new to use them.  Sadly, I do not have a picture (even though I got a new camera for Christmas) because it went so fast.  I used this Southern Living recipe as a guide and made a couple of my own changes.  I can't wait to make some more!!!  I hope that you enjoy it as much as we did!

Here's what I did...

Crab Quiche

Ingredients

2 cans lump crab meat, drained and chopped

4 green onions, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup of 6 Cheese Blend

3 large eggs

1 cup half and half

1 tablespoon Old Bay seasoning

1/2 tablespoon lemon peel (dried)

1/8 tablespoon cayenne pepper

1 frozen pie crust

Olive oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 400F.  Saute green onions and garlic in the olive oil over medium high heat for two minutes.  Add crabmeat, Old Bay, lemon peel, and cayenne pepper for two minutes.  

Whisk eggs and half and half together in a large bowl.  Add crab mixture and cheese to the bowl and mix together.  Pour mixture into pie crust and bake for 40 minutes in the oven.  Remove from the oven and let stand for 15 minutes.

Enjoy!!

Buffalo Chicken Dip

When I went home for Christmas, my stepsister made this really yummy dip for us to munch on before dinner.  It was so good that I had to share it here.  We made a little change to it by baking some extra mozzarella cheese on top of it.  I could've just had it for dinner!

Buffalo Chicken Dip
Ingredients
8oz package of cream cheese
1/2 cup of ranch dressing
1/2 cup hot sauce
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese (with an additional 1/4 cup to sprinkle on top)
2 cans of chicken breast (drained)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350F.

Mix all ingredients except for the extra 1/4 cup of cheese in a large baking dish.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Remove from the oven and sprinkle 1/4 cup of cheese on top.  Return to the oven to bake for another 10 minutes.  

Serve with tortilla chips.

Enjoy!

Salmon with Dijon Dill Sauce

I'm sure that I've shared it hear many times before that I'm a huge dill fan.  I had some salmon in the freezer that I wanted to use, and I was thinking about doing something with dill since it has been a while since we have had it.  While searching on myrecipes.com, I found one for salmon with potatoes and dill which would also use up some potatoes that we needed to use.  Rick wasn't excited over the recipe so I decided to use it as an inspiration.  We baked two potatoes (for 1 hour at 400F), and I made a Dijon Dill Sauce.  Rick isn't a huge salmon fan, but he liked this recipe (always a plus!).  I did, however, overcook it (forgot to set the timer...oops).  Here's what we did...

Salmon with a Dijon Dill Sauce

Ingredients

• 4  6-ounce salmon fillets, skin removed
• 1/2 tablespoon horseradish
• 1  small shallot, finely chopped
• 1  tablespoon  Dijon mustard
• 1/4 cup low fat sour cream
• 2  tablespoons  roughly chopped fresh dill, plus more for garnishing
• black pepper
• salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 400F (if serving with baked potatoes, start the salmon when the potatoes have 10 minutes left).

Combine shallot, Dijon mustard, sour cream, dill, and horseradish in a small bowl and season with salt and pepper as desired.  Chill in the refrigerator.

Season salmon with salt and pepper. Place the salmon on a baking sheet and roast in the oven 10 minutes or until opaque (depending on the thickness of the salmon).

Top with sauce and enjoy!

Chopped Salad with Raspberry Vinegarette Dressing

Yesterday evening, my allergies were totally bothering me, and I was not feeling like cooking dinner.  A funny thing happened, though...I went to Publix and encountered their surprisingly delicious Apron Simple Meals sample.  What got me was the chopped salad.  I had most of the ingredients at home and I did a little substituting (Rick hates blue cheese) and came up with this healthy addition to our steak and potatoes night!

Chopped Salad with Raspberry Vinegarette Dressing

Ingredients

1 romaine lettuce heart, finely chopped

1 cup shredded cabbage (I used it from a cole slaw bag)

2 green onions slicesd,

Crumbled Goat Cheese

1/4 cup flavored, sliced almonds

Fat Free Raspberry Walnut Vinegarette

Directions

Place all ingredients (except dressing) in a bowl.  Toss with desired amount of dressing and serve.

Enjoy!

Swiss Chicken Casserole

It is finally, finally, finally getting cooler here in the Lowcountry, and I am happy to report that I have broken out the crock pot for the first time in forever.  I've been dying to use it for a couple of weeks now.  Recently, I downloaded an app on to my iPhone that has just crock pot recipes, and I've been browsing it for something new to make.  Rick and I have been feeling a little burned out on the food we've been eating lately, and this recipe was totally different than our regular fare.  We served it with our favorite green beans on the side. 

I took the original recipe and made some changes (of course!).  It smells like Thanksgiving as it cooks.  My biggest complaints about it is how much sodium it has.  That's the problem with using canned soup, and I think that the next time that I make it I may go with using the lower sodium version of the soup.

Here's what I did


Swiss Chicken Casserole
Ingredients
6 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
6 slices of Swiss cheese
1 can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom with Roasted Garlic Condensed Soup
1 box of Stove Top Savory Herb Stuffing
1/4 cup low fat milk
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
Cooking spray


Directions
Spray crock pot with cooking spray.  Place chicken breasts on the bottom of the crock pot.  Top chicken with cheese slices.  Mix milk and soup in a bowl together, and then spoon over cheese.  Next, add the stuffing on top of the soup mixture and drizzle melted butter over it.  Cook on low for 8 hours.


Enjoy!

This week's meals

When I first started blogging, it was easy to keep the blog active because I was adding recipes as soon as I cooked them, but honestly, we don't do that many new and exciting things every week. In order to keep my blog active, I've decided to reflect back on what I've had at the end of the week.  This way, I can also "re-share" some favorites that you might have otherwise missed.  Here are the highlights of the week.


On Sunday (10/17), we had NY Strips with baked potatoes.  Ya gotta enjoy the end of grilling season while you still can!  So yeah, unlike the recipe I linked to, we were outside. 


On Monday, it was old school spaghetti night!!!  What more can I say?  I baked it this time, and we ate it for lunch all week!!!

On Tuesday, we had crab legs cooked with Old Bay and dipped in my favorite HT Crab Sauce!  If you have a HT near you, you gotta check it out.  We had some leftover potatoes from Sunday (baked a couple of small ones then) as the side.

Tonight, we are going to get takeout because we've both had a rough day and neither has the energy to do anything else.  I'm looking forward to a quiet night on the couch.  I wonder if I'll make it to 10:00 tonight before I fall asleep.  

Seared Pork Chops with Spicy Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

To go with the Bacon-Wrapped Shrimp, we went with pork chops (they were on sale at Publix!).  I found this recipe on myrecipes.com which seemed like a winner to me because it not only had the chipotle peppers, but it was also paired with green beans.  You know what that meant!  Oh yeah, we made our favorite green beans, too!  The pork chops turned out really good, but we weren't that impressed with the sauce.  The pork chops had our favorite, favorite steak seasoning on them, so how could we go wrong??? (Other than overcooking them of course!)  I felt like sauce needed something else.  If we make it again, I think I'd try adding a couple of cloves of garlic.  Here's what we did...

Seared Pork Chops with Spicy Red Pepper Sauce

Ingredients

• 4 pork chops (about 1/2 inch thick)
• 2  teaspoons  25%-less-sodium Montreal steak seasoning (such as McCormick Grill Mates)
• 1  cup  bottled roasted red bell peppers, drained
• 1  chipotle chile, canned in adobo sauce
• 2  tablespoons water
• 1/2  teaspoon ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Directions

Sprinkle pork evenly with steak seasoning. Heat one tablespoon of olive oil large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. . Add pork to pan; cook 4 minutes. Turn pork over; cook 3 minutes.

While pork cooks, place bell peppers and next 3 ingredients in a blender; process until smooth.

When pork has finished cooking, place around 2 tablespoons of sauce on a plate and then top with the pork chops.  Serve with the green beans!

Enjoy!

Bacon-Wrapped Shrimp with a Chipotle Ranch Sauce

Last night, Rick and I had planned on grilling out, but instead, we decided to stay indoors.  It's starting to get darker earlier and a wee bit cooler, too.  I wanted to do something with some shrimp that I needed to use, and I was also leaning towards doing something with the canned chipotle peppers that I've had in pantry for a while.  After browsing foodnetwork.com and myrecipes.com, I decided to wrap my shrimp with bacon and broil them.  For the dipping sauce, I wanted to make something similar to the chipotle ranch sauce that they have Longhorn.  Man, I miss that stuff.  By combining ranch dressing, light sour cream, and a little bit of the chipotle peppers, I made an awesome sauce!  Rick loved it, and I can see us having this one again!  By using a pound of shrimp and a whole package of bacon, we had enough to enjoy tonight, too!  Here's what we did...

Bacon Wrapped Shrimp with a Chipotle Ranch Dipping Sauce

Ingredients

1 pound 21-25 count shrimp, peel and deveined

1 package of low sodium bacon

5 Bamboo skewers

1/4 cup lite sour cream

1 cup ranch dressing

1 1/2 tablespoons diced chipotle peppers from a can with adobo

Directions

Soak the bamboo skewers in water for 30 minutes. While the skewers are soaking, combine the sour cream, ranch dressing, and chipotle peppers in a bowl and mix.  Cover and refrigerate until time to serve.

Preheat broiler (or grill if grilling).  Take the bacon and cut all the pieces in half.  Cook the bacon in a large pan until halfway cooked.  Wrap the bacon around the middle of each shrimp and skewer.  Place 5 shrimp on each skewer. 

Broil (on a foil lined baking sheet) or grill for 5 minutes per side until shrimp is done.  Serve with sauce and enjoy!

Comfort Food

I had a rough week.  It definitely had some high points like going to dinner with the Peds Rheum Family (well, at least that's how I like to think of them!) on Thursday night at Blossom downtown.  Yep, I drug Rick downtown after work for dinner.  It's a miracle that either one of us made it back over the Bridge, but it was for a good cause.  Dinner was delicious (of course).  I had the shrimp and grits as my entree, and at the urging of Dr. Silver, Rick and I split the most delicious dessert I have ever had that wasn't chocolate.  We had red velvet bread pudding!  Words cannot describe how wonderful it was.  I was totally stuffed, but I still managed to eat almost half of it!  Definitely a perfect comfort food.  I would KILL for that recipe!  

In my own kitchen, I made one of my favorite comfort food dishes after a rather stressful day at work on Tuesday.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to make for dinner that night or even if I really wanted to cook.  Rick had suggested pizza, but I wasn't in the mood for that either.  After searching the local grocery store fliers, I realized that sea scallops were on sale, and I immediately thought of one of my favorite comfort food recipes from epicurious.com for Sea Scallops with Mashed Potatoes.  The original recipe calls for tarragon, and I'm not a huge tarragon fan.  In the past, I've subbed rosemary, but Rick's not a big rosemary fan.  This time around, I decided to add garlic to the sauce to give it a little something extra.  As always, it was delicious!!!


Here's what I did....


Sea Scallops with Mashed Potatoes
Ingredients

• 2 pounds Yukon potatoes, peeled, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick), room temperature
• 2/3 cup (or more) low fat milk
• 12 sea scallops, side muscles trimmed
• 1/3 cup dry white wine
• 2 tablespoons chopped shallot
• 2 tablespoons half and half
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions

Place potatoes in a pot and cover with water.  Add salt and bring to water to a boil over high heat.  Boil until the potato pieces break easily when pierced with a fork.  Drain water.  Add 1/2 stick of butter and milk to the potatoes in the pot and whip using a hand mixer.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Set aside.  Before serving the scallops, heat over medium heat (you may need to add more milk if they start to dry out).

Sprinkle scallops with salt and pepper.  Heat olive oil in a large pan/skillet over medium high heat.  Add scallops to the pan.  Sauté until just opaque in center, about 2 minutes per side. Transfer to plate; tent with foil. Reserve juices in skillet.   

Place garlic and shallots in small saucepan. After garlic starts to brown, add wine and simmer over medium heat until reduced to glaze, about 3 minutes. Stir in half and half and simmer 1 minute. Gradually whisk in remaining 1/2 stick butter. Stir in reserved pan juices.

Divide potatoes into 4 bowls, top with 4 scallops, and then drizzle sauce over the scallops.

Enjoy!

Super Easy Grilled Shrimp

Rick and I decided to grill out last night (yum steaks!!) and for an easy starter, I decided to grill some shrimp that I had in the refrigerator that I was afraid were about to go bad.  This recipe was inspired by this one from Food Network's Barefoot Contessa.  I made some changes based on what ingredients that I had on hand in my kitchen.

Here's what I did...

Super Easy Grilled Shrimp

Ingredients

• 1/2 pounds shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/2 sweet onion, diced
• 2 tablespoons dried parsley
  
• 2 tablespoons dried basil leaves
• 1/4 cup Dijon Mustard
  
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• Juice of one lime
• Bamboo skewers

Directions

Soak bamboo skewers in water for at least 30 minutes.

Mix all of the ingredients (minus the skewers) in a bowl and marinate the shrimp for about 20 minutes in the refrigerator.  Skewer the shrimp on the bamboo skewers.  Heat the grill to medium heat and grill the shrimp for around 1 minute per side.  Grilling time depends on the size of the shrimp (larger ones may require a little more time).

Enjoy!

Adventures in Baking...Inservice Cupcakes!

At work tomorrow, we have an inservice in the CTRC for one of our new studies.  Something that they do in adult rheumatology (where I came from) that I am continuing to do in peds rheumatology is to bring food to the inservice.  Not only is it a treat for the CTRC staff, but it also gives me an excuse to try out new recipes!  Last time, I made a savory snack, but this time, I thought I'd make one of the yummy treats from this Taste of Home booklet/magazine that I got over the summer.  I had thought about making the cupcakes that were on the cover, but I wanted to do something a wee bit similar since I needed to tweak my slides for the inservice a bit this afternoon.  I came up this recipe as an adaption of one for peanut butter cupcakes that was in the booklet/magazine.  I really liked the recipe, but I wasn't feeling the peanut butter frosting.  I decided that instead, I would mix a like Nutella in with the vanilla frosting.  It was the perfect way to use the end of the Nutella that I had in the pantry!

The Hidden Surprise in the Middle!

Here's what I did...

Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes with Nutella Frosting....aka Inservice Cupcakes

Ingredients

1 box of white cake mix with instant pudding (will require vegetable oil and eggs)

18 miniature Reese Peanut Butter Cups

1 can of vanilla frosting

Nutella

Directions

Preheat oven to 350F.

Prepare the cake mix according to the package directions.  Spoon 2 tablespoons of batter into each paper-lined muffin cup.  Place a peanut butter cup in each and then fill 2/3 full with the remaining batter.

Bake int he oven for 20-25 minutes or until lightly browned and a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean.  Cool for 10 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.

In a small bowl, combine 1 cup of frosting with 1/3 cup of Nutella until smooth.  Frost cupcakes.

Enjoy!

Rick's B Day dinner

Yesterday was Rick's birthday, and for dinner, I decided to do pork chops.  Rick is a bigger pork chop fan than I am which may explain why we don't have them that often.  Publix had them on sale which also helped with the decision.  I got the ones that had the bone were about an inch thick.  Even though it's a week night, we decided to grill them.  Thanks to my handy-dandy grilling app on my iPhone, they turned out perfectly.  I swear that is the best $1.99 I've spent in my life!!  Everything turns out so much better than if I'm guesstimating how long to grill things.  

Anyway, for their preparation, I marinaded them in low sodium Teriyaki sauce for about an hour.  I also marinaded a chopped green pepper, zucchini, and half of a sweet onion in the sauce (in another container of course).  Normally, I would make the marinade myself, but it was a week night which means less time.  It was starting to get dark (dern you shorter days!) when we made it out to the grill, but they turned out great!  In order to keep them from drying out (my huge fear when it comes to cooking pork), I basted the pork with the sauce that was in the bottom of the veggie bowl.

I was a bad girlfriend, though because I opted for one of those store bought cookies that I wrote "Happy Birthday, Rick" on instead of baking anything, but we all know that I'm not a baker and again, it was a week night!!!  We're gonna be heading to Awendaw to See Wee for dinner this weekend, too.  Yum!!!!