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Okay, so my motivation to study for my exam on Thursday may have hit an all-time low because here I am blogging about what I did with some of the leftovers from my Greek Shrimp Pasta meal instead of studying like a good little girl. Since Rick didn't come over last night, I was left with way more seafood goodness than I can handle. Yep, I had pasta leftovers for lunch and snacked on the tzatziki with some veggies during the day, and I'll probably have some more pasta tomorrow at my clinical.
Faced with the need to do something fast since I should be studying (instead of blogging) and not looking forward to having the pasta for the second time today, I had an excellent idea pop into my mind....making pita pizzas with the shrimp mixture! As usual, last night I made more pasta than shrimp mixture so I opted to store them separately which came in handy when I made this super-easy study night meal. So here's what I did...
Ingredients
1 pita
Feta cheese
Six cheese blend
Cheddar cheese
Shrimp mixture from last night (or if you'd like to make your own, take 4 peeled, deveined shrimp, a little bit of chopped onion, diced tomatoes, and artichoke hearts; season with basil, oregano, and parsley; and saute in a little bit of extra virgin olive oil)
Directions
Preheat oven to 350F.
Place pita on pizza pan. Add shrimp mixture to pita and top with the cheeses. Bake in oven until cheese is melted (10-15 minutes). Enjoy!!!!
Okay, I'm off to go study some more! Keep your fingers crossed for me! Hopefully, I'll be back to making meals with Rick this weekend! We have an excellent swordfish dish in mind....
While I was at Publix gathering the few ingredients and necessities that I needed for my Greek Shrimp dish, I stumbled across Greek yogurt in the dairy aisle. It was called Oikos Organic Greek Yogurt. I lamented the fact that they didn't sell pre-made tzatziki sauce, but my mood was immediately lifted when I saw on the side of the container directions for making this white, tasty treasure. Should I dare try to make my own based on this simple recipe? Of course I should! I bee-lined straight (back) to the produce department, grabbed two cucumbers, and headed to check out. The original recipe can also be found on the Oikos website. With that to go on, here's what I came up with... I gotta admit that I was pretty impressed with my first attempt, and I'm pretty picky about tzatziki. You can serve it with pita bread, veggies, or in a gyro.
Tzatziki Sauce
Ingredients
2 cucumbers
1 cup Greek yogurt
3 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions
Peel and seed cucumbers. The seeds can be taken out using a melon baller or a spoon once the cucumnbers have been halved. Grate the cucumber and place into a small bowl that is lined with a coffee filter. Use the filter to squeeze out the excess water and place the shredded cucumber in a medium bowl. Press each clove of garlic and add to the bowl. Add yogurt, white wine vinegar, olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir together until well mixed. Refrigerator for at least one hour.
Enjoy!
A friend of mine from high school also has a food blog, and today, she had a posted a recipe for Greek Shrimp Scampi. Before I even read the recipe, just seeing the words "Greek" and "shrimp" made me think of one of my favorite recipes from epicurious.com called Greek-Style Pasta with Shrimp. Prior to my moving to SC, I lived in the Triangle and worked part time at this Greek restaurant in Durham called Spartacus. It was my first restaurant job, and I loved working there! It is a family-owned business, and they have wonderful food! When I first moved, I missed it a lot. For all of the wonderful cuisine around here, Mount Pleasant is seriously lacking in the Greek area. I have to go all the way to West Ashley to find any that is decent! Anyway, I stumbled across the epicurious.com recipe about a year or so after I moved here, and it really hit the spot. The recipe is quick and easy, and since I use canned, diced tomatoes, I usually have everything that I need in my pantry (well, and freezer if you include the shrimp)! Now, if I could just figure out how to make amazing tzatziki sauce like Spartacus has, I'd be all set! Hmmm, I feel an experiment coming on...
Here is my adaptation. It is excellent served with pita bread brushed with olive oil and Italian seasoning, wrapped in aluminum foil, and heated in the oven at 250 while making the sauce.
Greek-Style Angel Hair Pasta with Shrimp
Ingredients
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 pound uncooked medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 can artichoke hearts, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fresh basil, chopped
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried parsley
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 sweet onion, chopped
4 tablespoons crab stock (white wine can be subbed)
Feta cheese
8 oz cooked Angel Hair Pasta
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions
Cook angel hair pasta according to directions on box seasoned with garlic powder and salt (if desired). Set aside.
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add garlic and onion and saute for 30 seconds. Add artichokes, tomatoes (and juice), crab stock, lemon, basil, oregano, and parsley. Saute for 5 minutes or until thickened a little bit. Add shrimp and saute until shrimp is cooked. Salt and pepper to taste.
Divide pasta into individual servings. Top with sauce and feta cheese and serve.
Enjoy!!
I think I've been talking about this pork tenderloin recipe for at least a week now. It was one of the first recipes that caught my eye when I purchased Vera Bradley's Cooking with Friends Cookbook. We were going to do it earlier, but it requires 24 hours of marinating time which means that I must think about it ahead of time...something that doesn't always happen when I'm trying to juggle nursing school and working part time. Then we were going to do it over the weekend, but a sale on baby back ribs distracted us. Finally, the time has come for us to do the pork tenderloin!!!
As I'm sure you've been able to surmise, Saturdays in the South always involve college sports. This time of year, it's college football., and in a month of so, it will be college basketball time. This evening, Rick's Carolina (not to be confused with mine which is the REAL Carolina--UNC) will be taking on Tennessee in what he calls "Big Boy Football." It looks like even Halloween is going to take a backseat to the game tonight which is fine with me. I'm in an interesting place in my life when I don't have children and I've had enough Halloween fun over the years to feel no regret in sitting this one out. Due to the lower percentage of children in my neighborhood, we are going to be hanging out here to watch the game. I picked up a bag of candy just in case some trick-or-treaters come by, but Rick is hoping that we don't have many to interrupt the game. Of course, that would mean that we get to enjoy all those little fun-sized bags of M&Ms!
We are FINALLY going to be making the pork tenderloin recipe from the Vera Bradley cookbook that I picked up while in North Carolina this evening for the game. I opted not to marinate it for the whole 24 hours, but hopefully, 10 hour will be plenty of time. I'll definitely be blogging about it tomorrow.
This morning, we were debating what to do for breakfast. I was trying to talk Rick into making me breakfast in bed, but unfortunately, I was unsuccessful. On the fortunate side, however, I was too tired to make the pork chops that he brought over last night so we decided to fry them up, put them on biscuits, and have a pork-filled day! Being from the South, frying is a part of life. I'm not a huge fryer, but over the past year or so, I've become more comfortable with it. Pork is another stable in any good Southerners diet (albeit a bad one). My home state of North Carolina is known for its fabulous barbecue, and I was converted to the vinegar-based style during college. I'll have to post my crock pot "barbecue" recipe here at some point.
So here is the goodness (and badness for the waist line) that we called breakfast this morning. Rick put the whole pork chop on his, but I halved mine and ate the other half on the side (pictured in a wee-bit blurry picture below).
Saturday Morning Pork Chop Biscuits
Ingredients
2 Frozen Grands Biscuits
2 pork chops
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
3/4 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup panko
flour
Vegetable oil
Directions
Preheat oven to 375F. Once oven is preheated, place biscuits on a ungreased baking sheet. Cook for 16-22 minutes.
Heat oil (about 1/4 inch deep) in a heavy skillet.
In a bowl, whisk together egg and milk. In another bowl, mix together bread crumbs. Place on a plate to coat pork chops. Place flour on the plate to dredge pork chops. Dredge a pork chop in the flour and shake off the excess. Dip the pork chop in the egg-milk mixture, and the coat with bread crumbs and panko. Repeat with the other pork chop.
When the oil is heated, place the pork chops in the oil. Cook for around 4-5 minutes per side for a total cooking time of around 10 minutes. Use a knife to cut the chop to check for doneness. Cooking time will vary based on thickness of the pork chops. Place the pork chops on a plate covered with paper towels to drain. Once drained, place the pork chop in the biscuit.
Rick likes to put a little mustard on his. Enjoy!!!
When Rick and I were deciding when to do the new pork tenderloin recipe that I've been wanting to do (it has been postponed until the weekend), we started talking about which recipes that I've made that we both love. We actually have this conversation quite often, and he always brings up the Parmesan-crusted tilapia as one of his favorites. Another one that we both agree on being in our favorites list would be Chicken Parmesan.
The first time that I made it was just prior to my starting this blog. We had gone out to dinner a couple of weeks before that, and Rick had ordered Chicken Parmesan. I left the restaurant with dinner-envy as I wished that I had ordered that instead of what I had. Don't you hate when that happens? Something wonderful came out of it, though: I started scouring the internet for the perfect Chicken Parm recipe. Luckily for me, foodnetwork.com provided a couple that I was able to combine and tinker with to create this one.
Chicken Parmesan
Ingredients
4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups of Italian bread crumbs
1 cups of panko (Japanese bread crumbs)
Fresh ground black pepper
All purpose flour (for dredging)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons of reduced fat milk
Vegetable oil for frying
6 Cheese Blend grated cheese
Cheddar cheese
Marinara sauce (recipe to follow)
Directions
Preheat oven to 400 F.
Put each chicken breast between two pieces of plastic wrap and pound them out to a uniform thickness (around 1/3 inch).
In a large bowl, mix together salt, Italian bread crumbs and panko. Season with fresh ground black pepper.
Place flour on a large plate. In another large bowl, whisk together eggs and milk. Dredge a chicken breast in flour and shake off excess. Next, dip the chicken breast into the egg mixture, and then dredge in the bread crumb-panko mixture, shaking off an excess. Transfer to a baking sheet and repeat with the remaining chicken breasts.
In a large skillet, pour vegetable oil to a depth of 1/2 inch. Heat the oil over medium heat until it registers 400F on a deep frying thermometer. Fry one breast at a time until golden brown on each side (around 6 minutes total). Using tongs, remove the chicken from oil and place on a paper-towel covered plate.
Lightly brush a baking dish with olive oil. Cover the bottom of the baking dish with half of the marinara and place the chicken over the sauce. Cover with remaining sauce. Scatter 6 cheese blend on top, and sprinkle a little bit of cheddar cheese on top of it. Bake until sauce is bubbling and the cheese is brown (around 30 minutes). Serve immediately over the pasta of your choice.
Marinara Sauce
Ingredients
1 jar of store bought marinara sauce
1 sweet onion, chopped
1 green pepper chopped
3 gloves of garlic, minced
1/2 cup fresh basil
Extra virgin olive oil
Italian seasoning grinder
Directions
In a medium sauce pan, heat sauce over low heat. Add basil. Stir occasionally.
In a medium skillet, heat oil over medium high heat. Add onion, garlic, and green pepper and season with Italian seasoning. Stir until vegetables are tender (around 5 minutes). Transfer to the sauce and raise heat under sauce to medium. Cook (stirring occasionally) for another 10 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.
Okay, so my motivation to study for my exam on Thursday may have hit an all-time low because here I am blogging about what I did with some of the leftovers from my Greek Shrimp Pasta meal instead of studying like a good little girl. Since Rick didn't come over last night, I was left with way more seafood goodness than I can handle. Yep, I had pasta leftovers for lunch and snacked on the tzatziki with some veggies during the day, and I'll probably have some more pasta tomorrow at my clinical. 
