Indulging a Craving

I broke one of my cardinal rules tonight—dinner prep should be easy—in the interest of satisfying a craving.  We used to live in the Midwest, and I loved the pecan crusted chicken salad from a restaurant chain out there called O’Charley’s.  Northwest PA doesn’t have anything quite like O’Charley’s, and though TGIFriday’s has a decent version, there’s not one of those anywhere nearby either.  So, I had to figure out how to make a version of the salad myself.  Last fall I got a sample issue of the magazine Cuisine at Home. It looks like a good cooking magazine, but I already subscribe to three magazines with recipes that I use regularly, so I couldn’t really justify subscribing to this one, too.  However, I am happy to use the recipes they sent me for free!  I was excited to see a recipe for a pecan crusted chicken salad in the free issue.  I have adapted it for a little more convenience and to more closely approximate the O’Charley’s version.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s well worth a little extra work.

Pecan Crusted Chicken Salad

For the chicken:

½ loaf ciabatta bread, cubed

Handful fresh Italian parsley

Salt and pepper

¾ -1 c. pecans

½ tsp. dried oregano

½ tsp. dried thyme leaves

9 pieces boneless, skinless chicken tenderloins (I figured 2 per adult and 1 per child)

2 whole eggs

2 tsp. cornstarch

3 Tbsp. olive oil

For the salad:  (makes 3 dinner salads)

3 small heads lettuce greens (I use artisanal greens from Aldi)

1 sm. can mandarin oranges, drained and cut to bite-sized pieces

Dried berries (I like the mixed berries from Aldi, but I’ve made it with just cranberries)

1 c. whole pecans

Gorgonzola cheese crumbles

Sweet balsamic vinaigrette (I used store-bought this time, but it’s easy to make with a ratio of 2:2:1 of oil, sugar, and vinegar.  Adjust the sugar to your taste, and try mixing different vinegars such as raspberry, balsamic, white wine, etc.)

Preheat oven to 200^o.  Place bread in food processor and process until you get crumbs.  There should be a range of sizes from pea-sized crumbs down to almost powder (see picture below.)  Work in batches if necessary to avoid overworking the food processor.  Spread crumbs on a rimmed baking sheet and place in oven to dry for 10-12 minutes.  Do not allow crumbs to toast.  Meanwhile, trim excess skin and fat from the tenderloins, if necessary, and pat dry with paper towels.  Beat together eggs and cornstarch in shallow dish (such as a pie plate.)  Pulse pecans, parsley, oregano, thyme, and salt and pepper to taste in the food processor until pecans are finely chopped.  Remove bread crumbs from oven and increase heat to 450^o.  In a second shallow dish, combine bread crumbs and pecan mixture.  Set up an assembly line with the tenderloins, egg wash, crumbs, and a wire rack set over a rimmed baking sheet.  Dip each tenderloin in the egg wash, then roll in the crumbs, pressing the crumbs to the chicken to help them adhere.  Gently place each tenderloin on the wire rack (some crumbs will fall off.)  When all the chicken is coated, place the chicken on the rack in the refrigerator to allow them to air dry, 20-30 minutes.  This helps set the crust.  While the chicken is resting, wash, dry and tear the salad greens.  Toast the whole pecans in a toaster oven set to 300^o until they are fragrant, about 5-10 minutes (you can also toast them in a dry skillet over medium heat on the stovetop if you don’t have a toaster oven.)  Fill three salad plates with greens.  Top with dried berries (or fresh if available,) mandarin orange pieces, toasted pecans, and gorgonzola cheese.  Use amounts of each that look good to you, according to your taste.  When it’s about time to remove the chicken from the fridge, heat olive oil in a large oven-safe skillet over medium-high heat, until shimmering.  Place the chicken pieces carefully in the pan, laying them toward you to allow loose crumbs to form a bed for the chicken.  Sauté until chicken is golden brown and crisp on one side, about 3 minutes.  Carefully turn with a spatula and transfer the skillet to the oven to finish cooking.  Roast chicken until done, 8-10 minutes depending on the thickness of the tenderloins.  Place tenderloins on top of salads (1-2 per salad depending on the size of the chicken pieces.)  Sprinkle any toasted crumbs left in the pan over the salads.  Pass vinaigrette at the table.

Cube the bread to help process it into crumbs

The crumbs shouldn't be uniform--look for a range from pea-sized to powdery

Breading assembly line

Phew!  It is a lot of work, but I love the flavors in this salad, and it will be easier the next time I make it.  That’s because I turned the whole loaf of bread into crumbs, but I put half in a freezer bag, so I have homemade crumbs already made for next time I want to bread something.  I didn’t dry them yet because depending on the recipe, I might want soft crumbs, and they’re easy enough to dry if I want, straight from the freezer.  I also had a good bit of the pecan breading mixture left over, and I froze that, too, so when I crave this salad again I only have to thaw the crumbs when I thaw the chicken.



I made some significant changes from the original Cuisine at Home recipe, which was actually a little hard to follow in the magazine because it was spread over several pages.  One article had a basic crusted chicken breast recipe, and several pages later was the pecan variation, with instructions for a pretty different salad.  I didn’t get as fancy with the spices as they called for.  I also chose to use the tenderloins rather than whole breasts, which the original recipe wants you to trim and pound to an even thickness.  I am still not proficient at the art of pounding chicken breasts, and the recipe is complicated and labor-intensive enough as it is.  The tenderloins are a little more pricey (not by much, as I get them at Aldi,) but I’ll pay for the convenience in this case. 





The recipe called for a non-stick pan but I had no problem in this one



Salad, just waiting for chicken



The O’Charley’s salad I love is actually a chopped salad with dried cranberries, mandarin oranges, candied pecans, and bleu cheese crumbles and comes with a sweet balsamic vinaigrette.  I don’t go to the trouble of chopping the greens, and I don’t candy the pecans—they taste great just toasted and they’re better for me.  Tonight I happened to have fresh strawberries on hand, so I threw those on, too.  In addition to the vinaigrette, we passed some raspberry vinegar at the table and the extra flavor a few sprinkles lent to the salad was really nice.



Ready to dig in!  I sliced the chicken once it was on my salad.

 One more thing I love about this recipe is that it is easy to make kid-friendly.  My kids aren’t into salad, so I just put all the other elements on their plates.  The tenders are chicken nuggets as far as the kids are concerned, and they like the fruits and even the nuts that top the salads.  I wanted them to have a little green as well, so I heated up some leftover broccoli.  We all ate well, and I miss the Midwest just a little bit less after this meal.



The kiddie version (watched over by Batman and friends)



Roasted Shrimp with Tomatoes

Tonight’s meal has Greek-inspired flavors and is everything I look for in a recipe—it’s super easy, fast, healthy, and frugal.  This is a true thirty minute meal that doesn’t use a lot of processed ingredients.  From start to finish, you really can have this on the table in thirty minutes, and you don’t have to be an expert with a chef’s knife to make it happen.  The entrée recipe comes from All You magazine.

Roasted Shrimp with Tomatoes

Ingredients

2 (14.5-oz.) cans diced tomatoes

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

Salt and pepper

1 ½ lbs. medium shrimp, peeled & deveined

1 teaspoon dried oregano

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 450°F. Drain tomatoes, reserving ½ cup juice. Combine tomatoes, reserved juice, oil and garlic in an 8-inch square glass baking dish. Season with salt and pepper. Bake until tomatoes are bubbling, about 15 minutes.

2. Stir shrimp and oregano into tomatoes. Sprinkle goat cheese on top. Return to oven and bake until shrimp are cooked through, about 10 minutes. Serve immediately.



Tomatoes, garlic, and oil ready for the oven



While the tomatoes are roasting, it's a quick job to remove the tails from the shrimp

Adding the shrimp and feta--no measuring, just eyeballed it

This recipe is quoted on the website as seven minutes for prep and 25 minutes in the oven.  It actually went more quickly than that for me because I used the precooked medium shrimp from Aldi, so I only had to toss the shrimp with the tomatoes and let them warm, which only takes about 5 minutes in the oven.  This is one recipe that I don’t measure for at all.  Actually, when I made it this time I wasn’t paying close enough attention and I used only one can of tomatoes, and it still turned out great, which just goes to show it’s pretty fool-proof.  I use crumbled feta when it calls for goat cheese, and of course I use a bit more garlic than it calls for.



All Aldi ingredients





Plated up and ready to enjoy



As you can see, this is a pretty healthy recipe, without a lot of fat and tons of nutrients in the tomatoes.  It’s also economical—my entire menu tonight, down to the salt and pepper, came from Aldi.  To keep the healthy thing going through the meal, I served instant brown rice and a vegetable blend on the side.  I wouldn’t usually use “instant” anything, but real brown rice takes soooooo long to cook that I make this concession, and it helps keep the meal under thirty minutes.  I make it with chicken broth rather than water to give it a little extra flavor, and I leave out butter and salt.  The veggies just get a quick steam in salted water, and they’re ready to go at the same time as the rice.  Watermelon balls round out the meal and are an authentic Greek-style dessert.  Our dinner guest, Katie, provided a lovely wine to go with the meal.  It was clearly a hit—here’s a look at the table when we were all done!  I also have Katie to thank for being my photographer tonight.  She's the reason there are so many pictures this time!

All done!

Now That's How You Do Leftovers!

Remember when we had a pizza round left over when we made grilled pizzas, and I told you I’d let you know how it worked left over?  Well, the answer is it worked great!  The Rev was at his charity golf outing tonight, and when it’s just me and the kids, I can’t usually work up the motivation to really cook.  So, I picked up a take-and-bake pizza at Aldi for the kids (those pizzas are great, by the way, and only $5.99 for a 16-inch cheese pizza) and grabbed another ball of fresh mozzarella for myself.  While the kids’ pizza baked, I threw together a pizza for myself from last week’s leftovers.  I used some of the quick tomato sauce and sprinkled on a little shredded mozzarella I had left from making the kids’ pizzas on Friday.  I thought it would help "glue" the toppings down and help keep them from sliding all over the place.  Next I sliced a tomato into very thin slices on top of the shredded cheese and topped them with some fresh mozzarella rounds.  Meanwhile, I had melted a little butter in a small skillet and started sautéing the sliced mushrooms and green peppers that hadn’t made it on to the grilled pizzas.  Those went on top of the cheese, and I put just a little more of the fresh mozzarella on top.  By this time, the kids’ pizza was done.  I popped my creation in the oven at 375^o on the pizza stone, because that’s the temperature the take-and-bake pizza needed.  The pizza round was fully cooked already, so I was just looking to melt the cheese and heat the sauce and toppings.  After about 10 minutes (it might have been less; I was watching the pizza and not the clock to know when it was done,) this is what I got:

Rock star leftovers!

It tasted every bit as good as it looks, and I felt good about myself because I got a great dose of veggies.  The only change I would make if I were doing this again would be to salt the tomatoes and let them drain on a paper towel for a few minutes before putting them on the pizza.  They released a lot of liquid on the pizza, which made it messy, but it still tasted fantastic!

I feel obligated to make this disclaimer:  leftovers are not usually quite this rockstar at our house.  Mostly leftovers get eaten for lunch pretty much in their original form.  Sometimes I heat them up for dinner when I’m feeling lazy.  Growing up, my mom used to make something she called “Presbyterian Supper,” which consisted of a mini-buffet of whatever was left from the previous few days’ dinners.  The churches I grew up in had regular (and delicious) potluck dinners, hence the name.  I don’t make Presbyterian Supper too often because The Rev eats lunch here almost every day, so leftovers don’t accumulate in the fridge enough to make a buffet.  Still, it’s a great way to use up perfectly good food!  When you’re tired of cooking, consider putting your microwave to work and tell your family it’s potluck night!

Steaks on the Grill

Ahhh menu planning, such a sweet fantasy!  Every week I plan meals, and every week the plan changes at least one night.  Tonight was going to be garlic chicken breasts on the grill with couscous and roasted veggies.  There were two problems.  1.) I’m out of the garlic chicken breasts from Aldi that are already seasoned, and it’s a seasonal item they don’t have in stock right now.  2.) I changed my regular routine and didn’t get to talk to The Rev’s secretary this week.  Why would that matter?  Well, there’s a reason that I don’t rely on The Rev to tell me what his weekly meeting schedule is.  This week I got thrown off because I was on a field trip all day last Thursday with Oldest, and so I couldn’t call while she was in the office.  Instead, I asked The Rev to open his online calendar and let me know what evening commitments he had this week.  According to him, he has one meeting, on Tuesday.  Great!  I planned my menu with that in mind.  What he neglected to tell me is that he will be at a charity golf event all day Monday.  It’s an event that includes dinner.  Doesn’t that seem like an evening commitment?  It does to me.  Somehow, it didn’t to him.  So I planned steaks on the grill for Monday night.  When he’ll be eating at the golf event.  See the problem?  So I switched it up and we had the steaks tonight.  I realize that there are a lot of people in the world who wish they have this kind of problem.  Maybe problem isn’t the right word.  It’s more of a dilemma, and really not much of one at that.  Actually, it worked out pretty well in the end since I didn’t ever get around to marinating chicken breasts myself (see #1 above.)

Shopping for this meal was as easy as walking down the basement steps and opening our chest freezer.  We order beef in bulk from a local beef farm which is owned and operated by a wonderful family in our church.  In fact, I need to place an order for another quarter of a beef this week.  These were some of the last steaks from the beef we ordered just about a year ago.  If you live in the area and are interested in great beef and friendly service, check out Clarion Beef Barn.  We’ll get our homegrown sweet corn there later this summer, too.  When our new order comes in about a week from now, I’ll post about it to let you know everything I get.  We’ll fill our freezer and eat well for another year.

Our cuts of choice tonight were two rib eyes and one porterhouse to feed our family of five.  Rib eye is The Rev’s favorite steak by far.  I’m less picky.  I’m happy to have just about any kind of steak.  The rib eyes were packaged in pairs, and the porterhouse as a single, which works out to just about the perfect amount for us.  All three kids can put away an amazing amount of steak (their former-meat-packer-and-butcher great-grandpa would be proud.)  To be fair, so can both their parents.  With steaks, I always serve potatoes.  Tonight they were baked, with watermelon and steamed broccoli as sides.  I got out the sliced strawberries and angel food cake for dessert.

I don’t really have a recipe to go with this meal.  We go pretty simple with grilled steaks to just let the great flavor of the steaks shine through.  I do have a couple of techniques to share.  Since I wasn’t planning on having the steaks until tomorrow night, I had to quick-thaw the steaks.  I have a couple of tricks for that.  One is to leave the steaks out on an upturned cast iron pot.  The cast iron is an excellent conductor of heat, so it speeds thawing.  I don’t worry about leaving these steaks out on the counter because I know where they are grown and butchered, so I know the chances that they will have dangerous bacteria internally are slim to none.   The cast iron trick works if you have a few hours; I didn’t, so I also used a warm bath.  I put the steaks in a gallon-size freezer bag, press out as much air as possible, and immerse them in hot tap water.  This is an imperfect method—it doesn’t make for the best quality steaks, so I only use it in emergencies.  And I never, EVER thaw steaks in the microwave.  I’d rather go for takeout than ruin a perfectly good steak like that.  Once the steaks are thawed, I pat them dry and salt and pepper both sides.   Lots of salt is key both to flavoring the steaks and to drying the outside, which helps make a good char.  When I have time, I put the steaks on a wire rack over a baking sheet and pop it in the freezer for about 30 minutes, which is a trick I got from Cook’s Illustrated.  The idea is to further dry the outside of the steaks.  They also rub the steaks with a generous amount of cornstarch and salt, but when we tried that once the steaks were a little too salty (we didn’t think that was possible!)  The actual grilling is up to The Rev; maybe he’ll comment and let you know how he works his grill magic (hint, hint.)

I won’t insult your intelligence by telling you how I bake potatoes, but I will say that until very recently, I made them so seldom that I literally had to look up in my Betty Crocker Cooking Basics cookbook just exactly how to do it.  (Seriously.  I could never remember how hot to make the oven or how long to cook them.)   Broccoli is on the menu at least once a week here because it’s the one vegetable every member of my family will eat happily.  I learned from my MIL that broccoli needs nothing but a little salt water to steam in if you start with fresh florets.  Aldi makes it affordable to eat fresh broccoli, and it really is so much tastier than frozen.  I simply trim the florets (I like the stems so I leave them on) and pop them in a pot with about ½ inch of water and about ½ teaspoon of salt.  I cover it and bring the water to a boil and let it go until the broccoli smells good, looks good, and is fork-tender.  Dessert only required slicing the strawberries, coating them with a little sugar to draw out the juice, and spooning them over angel food I bought at Wal-mart.  Since I prepped the berries on Friday and they’d been in the fridge since then, they were nice and juicy, just how I like them.  We ate everything al fresco, which is fancy talk for “on the back porch.”  Summer really is on its way!

Grilled Pizza with Friends

 

Tonight we entertained friends and celebrated the first signs of summer.  Grilled Pizza is a recipe we discovered last summer in an issue of Cook’s Country and it quickly became a family favorite.  It’s the kind of family favorite that The Rev and I kinda don’t want to share it with the kids.  It’s that good.  And it’s pretty easy.  It’s also meatless, which is a big reason why I chose it for tonight.  One of our guests is vegetarian.  I try to do a meatless meal every week, but this week I had already done meatless—spaghetti and sauce on Tuesday.  I have a widening repertoire of meatless meals, but they have a couple if things in common.  I have quite a few pasta dishes we like, but we just did pasta.  Mexican is pretty easy to do meatless, but we just had Mexican on Wednesday.  A couple of soups I love are easy to do meatless, but the weather today just didn’t say, “Soup!”  Same for homemade mac and cheese (and we had that the last time these friends visited anyway.)  I was getting a little desperate when I thought of the grilled pizza.  It’s not ideal for entertaining, but these are the kind of friends who don’t mind sitting on the back porch and watching the kids play in the yard while pizza after delicious pizza comes fresh off the grill.

At our house, The Rev is the grill master, so this is a recipe we tag-team.  I do most of the prep (although he’s joined me in the kitchen for that part before) and he does the hard work at the grill.  I realized last night that this dinner is the equivalent to brinner (breakfast for dinner)—when I’m making brinner, I don’t sit down to eat until the end, and the same is true for The Rev with this one.  But we all hung out on the back porch together and had a great time talking and watching the kids play.  I also made a Mixed Greens Salad, so we had something to munch on while waiting for the pizza to come off the grill.

Our family easily devours one batch of this recipe, so I doubled it, making the dough in the food processor in two batches so as not to overload it.  We actually had one pizza round left, so we cooked it untopped and we’re going to see how it keeps.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  The pizza tastes great right off the grill, so if you can, eat it that way; don’t try to hold it in the oven.  In the interest of peace, we made two pizzas for the kids and fed them first.  The kids don’t really care for the raw sauce in this recipe, so we just use regular pizza sauce for them.  They also get shredded mozzarella, but Aldi carries fresh mozzarella year-round now, so we slice that and use it for the grown-ups.  Tomatoes on the vine were on sale for an incredible $0.99 a pound at Aldi this week, so I went half-and-half, because I didn’t quite trust the taste of out-of-season tomatoes.   The recipe in the magazine had instructions for using fresh tomatoes; basically, you just need to core, seed, and dice them, salt generously to draw out the excess fluid, and let drain for about 15 minutes.  For a single recipe they call for 1 ½ pounds fresh tomatoes.  I went with 1 pound fresh and 1 can diced for the double recipe, keeping in mind we’d be making a couple of pizzas for the kids with regular sauce.

Quick Grilled Pizza

from Cook’s Country, August 2010

Makes four 9-inch pizzas

Don’t move the dough during the first minute of grilling or it will tear. Keep the first batch of cooked pizzas warm on a wire rack set inside a rimmed baking sheet in a 200-degree oven. If you like pepperoni, arrange 2 ounces pepperoni slices over each pizza after you’ve topped it with sauce.

SAUCE		PIZZA
2	(14.5-ounce) cans diced tomatoes , drained well	1	cup  water, heated to 110 degrees
2	tablespoons chopped fresh basil	1	tablespoon extra virgin olive oil , plus additional for brushing dough
2	tablespoons extra virgin olive oil	1	tablespoon  sugar
2	garlic cloves, minced	1	envelope (2 ¼  tsp.) instant or rapid-rise yeast
¼	teaspoon salt	2 ¾	cups all-purpose flour , plus additional as needed
		¼	cup grated Parmesan cheese
		1	teaspoon salt
		2 ½	cups shredded mozzarella cheese

1. MAKE SAUCE Combine tomatoes, basil, oil, garlic, and salt in medium bowl; set aside.

2. PREPARE DOUGH Whisk water, 1 tablespoon oil, sugar, and yeast in large liquid measuring cup. Let sit 5 minutes. Pulse flour, Parmesan, and salt in food processor until combined. With machine running, slowly pour in water mixture and process until dough pulls away from sides and forms shaggy ball, about 1 minute. (If dough seems too sticky, add up to 2 tablespoons more flour.) Turn dough onto floured work surface and knead 3 or 4 times until cohesive.

3. SHAPE PIZZA Line rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper and dust with flour. Divide dough into 4 equal pieces. Working with 1 piece at a time, press into small circle. Using rolling pin, roll and stretch dough to form 9-inch circle. Transfer to prepared baking sheet and dust dough with flour. Repeat with remaining dough, stacking each round on floured parchment.

4. HEAT GRILL Meanwhile, heat all burners on high, covered, for 15 -minutes. Leave primary burner on high and turn other burner(s) to medium-low. (For charcoal grill, light about 100 coals; when they are covered with fine gray ash, spread over half of grill. Set cooking grate in place and heat, covered, with lid vent open completely, for 5 minutes.) Scrape and oil cooking grate.

5. GRILL PIZZA Brush tops of 2 dough rounds lightly with oil. Peel rounds off parchment and place, oiled side down, on cool side of grill. Grill, covered, until undersides are spotty brown and tops are covered with bubbles, poking large -bubbles with tongs, 3 to 5 minutes. Brush each lightly with oil and flip. Top each round with one-quarter sauce and one-quarter mozzarella. Grill, covered, until undersides are spotty brown and cheese is melted, 3 to 5 minutes. Move pizzas to hot side of grill to crisp, about 1 minute. Repeat with remaining rounds. Serve.

(If you'd like step-by-step pictures of the process, you can find them by searching for this recipe on Cook's Country.  You'll either need a subscription to the website, or you can sign up for a 14-day free trial.)

On the grill

Just before toppings are added

Bon appetit!

We experimented with toppings a bit.  I sliced some mushrooms and green pepper very thin and The Rev cooked them on the hot side of the grill on heavy-duty foil.  It tasted great but next time I will pre-cook them.  It was a little too much juggling for him to try to cook them on the grill, although he said if we had one of those grills with a burner on the side, it would be easy to do them that way.

If you follow my menu-planning page, you know I had planned to serve strawberries and angel food cake for dessert.  That will have to wait for another night because our friends brought dessert—individual peanut butter and banana cakes with vanilla ice cream.  Yum!

Mexican Shell Casserole

One of the best gifts we got for our wedding was a recipe book that was custom-made for us by good friends of ours.  Tom was the associate pastor of our church and Megan, his wife, knew how valuable tried-and-true recipes would be to our new household.  Megan assembled the recipes, Tom typed them all up, and they put them all together in a lovely binder with room to add recipe cards of our own as time went by.  I go back to that book all the time—I have added lots of my own recipes, and adapted some of Megan’s.  This recipe comes from that book and started out great the way Megan wrote it—Mexican Stuffed Shells.  The original is a twist on traditional stuffed shells, filling jumbo pasta shells with a Mexican-style meat mixture and using salsa in place of spaghetti sauce.  I like to make the original recipe, but once when The Rev was still in seminary, I wanted to adapt it for our weekly potluck on the seminary campus.  Instead of filling jumbo shells, which can be time consuming and doesn’t lend itself to potluck-sized servings, I turned it into a casserole with medium pasta shells.  Over time, I’ve made some additions like Mexicorn (when I have it on hand) and tortilla strips sprinkled on top for extra crunch.  This is one of my favorite meals to take to someone such as a new mother because it’s easy, it’s tasty, and it’s a complete meal when you put a little fresh fruit or a salad on the side.  It also freezes really well.  Just put it in the freezer before the final bake.

Mexican Shell Casserole

2 c. uncooked medium pasta shells

1 lb. ground beef

1 can diced green chiles

1-24 oz. jar salsa (I use mild when I’m giving as a meal to someone else, but my family can take medium)

½ c. French fried onions

1 can Mexicorn (optional.  I didn’t have any tonight so I tossed a bit of corn I froze last summer in the water with the pasta for the last five minutes or so.)

1 ½ c. shredded cheddar or Mexican blend cheese (I used 2% sharp cheddar)

Tortilla strips (usually found in the aisle with salad toppings)

Preheat oven to 350^o.  Cook the pasta according to package directions.  Brown the ground beef and drain off excess fat if necessary.  When the beef is no longer pink, stir in the chiles (do not drain) and the salsa, watering down the salsa as necessary to approximate the consistency of jarred spaghetti sauce.  Stir in fried onions and simmer over low heat while you wait for the pasta to finish cooking.  Cook the pasta just to al dente; drain.  In a 9x13 baking dish, combine the meat mixture, pasta, Mexicorn if you are using it, and ½ cup cheese.  Top with remaining cheese and scatter tortilla strips over the top (I’d guess I used about ¼ cup.)  Bake the casserole in 350^o oven until cheese is melted and lightly browned, 15-20 minutes. 

*If baking after casserole has been refrigerated or frozen and thawed, cover with foil and bake until casserole is bubbly and cheese is melted.  Remove the foil and bake 5-10 minutes longer to brown cheese.

Tonight I served this with fresh sliced strawberries and of course a bottle of Tabasco for The Rev, who likes things a lot spicier than I do!  This is a hearty meal, and the five of us had a little less than half the casserole leftover.

Meat mixture

Pasta draining--you can see the fresh frozen corn I tossed in

In the oven--this gives you a good idea of how many tortilla strips I used

The finished product.  Delish!

Last Minute Change of Plans

Ever had one of those nights when you just didn’t want to make what was on the menu plan?  That’s usually bad news for me because it often means I hem and haw for too long and either end up with takeout or leftovers.  There’s nothing wrong with either option every now and then, but when I can overcome the urge to give up and I figure out something else to make instead, it’s a little victory.  Tonight I had Shrimp Stir-fry planned, but I wasn't really in the mood for it by the time four o'clock rolled around, which was good in that I hadn't thawed out the shrimp yet (so maybe I wasn't in the mood for it all day long...) and bad in that meant I had to come up with something equally fast.  I think I had kind of overloaded on rice lately, which is not easy for me to do.  Pasta is just as quick and easy as rice, so my mind went through quick pasta dishes.  Chicken Picatta Pasta Toss?  Nah.  Just had a chicken dish last night.  Spaghetti Bolognese?  There’s some in the freezer, but the last time I made that it was the last meal I had before I got hit with a nasty stomach bug a couple of months ago.  Not the bolognese's fault, but my stomach is still a little delicate from the bug I caught over the weekend, and I don't want to bring up bad memories (pun intended.)  Spaghetti and just sauce?  I briefly considered opening a jar of store-bought sauce I keep for "emergencies," but the homemade Quick Tomato Sauce from Cook's Illustrated is so much tastier and it's really not much harder than heating a jar of ready-made stuff.  The only thing that sometimes keeps me from making it is a lack of fresh basil on hand, but fortunately my FIL just helped me pot some last week, so I have a bit growing on the front porch.  Dinner dilemma solved!  The sauce cooks in the amount of time it takes to boil the water and cook the pasta.  Here's my version of the Cook's Illustrated recipe.  Their version calls for sautéing the onion in butter; I use olive oil instead to make it a tad more healthy for my cholesterol-ridden hubby.

Quick Tomato Sauce

2 Tbsp. olive oil

¼ c. onion, grated on the large holes of a box grater (will be juicy)

¼  tsp. dried oregano

Table salt

3 medium garlic cloves (CI calls for two put we like a little more)

1-28 oz. can crushed tomatoes (CI's latest review picked Contadina as tops so I get them in bulk at Costco, but I’ve made this with generic and it was fine)

¼  teaspoon sugar

2 Tbsp. fresh basil leaves, chopped

1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

Ground black pepper

*This is one of those recipes that I don't measure for at all.  I just eyeball everything.  CI advocates mise en place when cooking, which means pre-chop, measure, and open everything before you start.  I'm trying to do that and it really does make this recipe go more smoothly, but remember not to chop the basil until right before you add it or it will blacken.

Heat the olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat (I use my Dutch oven.)  Add the onion, oregano, and 1/4 teaspoon salt; cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid has evaporated and the onion is golden brown, about 5 minutes.  Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.  Stir in tomatoes and sugar; bring to a simmer over high heat.  Lower the heat to medium-low and simmer until slightly thickened, about 10 minutes.  Off the heat, stir in the basil and oil; season with salt and pepper to taste.  Serve over spaghetti, with salt, pepper, and grated cheese on the table to cater to individual tastes.

Onion, garlic, and oregano just ready for the tomatoes

Bubbling away!

With the spaghetti and sauce I usually serve a salad and good crusty bread; garlic bread if I have it.  Since I wasn't planning to have this when I shopped last week, we didn't have bread, but I did make my go-to savory salad.  I try to always have these ingredients on hand.

Mixed Greens Salad with Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper

For each individual salad:

Mixed greens, torn and washed.  I really like the artisan lettuce that Aldi has been carrying for $1.99.

About ¹/₃  medium tomato, chopped

Jarred roasted red pepper, snipped in the jar with kitchen shears to bite-size pieces

Chopped walnuts, toasted in the toaster oven at ~300 degrees until fragrant

Crumbled gorgonzola cheese to taste

Serve with light balsamic vinaigrette (We prefer Newman's Own, one of the very few things to which I'm brand-loyal.)

Yummy salad!

Salad ingredients

With the exception of the dressing, all the ingredients for the salad come from Aldi.  There’s nothing pricey in the spaghetti and sauce, either.  So this meal is the total package as far as I’m concerned—real, nutritious food that tastes delicious, is quick and easy, and pretty darn cheap to make.  Usually, the kids will just eat the pasta with cheese sprinkled on top, but last night all three—even the VERY picky 6-year-old—asked for sauce and declared it yummy!  I’m not sure what was going on with Mr. Picky last night.  He also asked to taste the gorgonzola and said he LIKED it!  What?!

Plenty of leftovers for lunch or another supper!