Look At Me, I’m a Chef

Monday was a very emotionally difficult day at work, so thankfully we had some sort of healthy comfort food planned for dinner. On the menu was baked Chicken Parmesan with pasta and a caprese salad. I’m super into caprese salads these days. Blame my love of tomatoes.

This is a really quick, super easy, and low clean up dinner. All of these things are very important to me in my own cooking. Easy, quick, little to no clean up.

For two servings, you’ll need pasta of your choice (I always like to do a bed of spaghetti), one large chicken breast, butterflied and pounded flat then cut into two pieces, breadcrumbs, an egg, marinara sauce and Parmesan cheese.

First things first, if you haven’t butterflied and pounded your chicken breast you should do that. Also, put on a pot of water for your pasta and pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.

Dredge the chicken breasts through the egg and then the bread crumbs, place in a shallow glass baking dish (get real fancy and line the pan with tin foil and you’ll have less clean up :) .  Cover the chicken with some marinara sauce and cook covered for about 10 minutes.  Remove the cover, toss on some cheese and cook until chicken is cooked through and cheese is melted.

Serve the chicken on a bed of pasta. To make the pasta a little more exciting, I put mix in about a tablespoon of butter, some lemon juice and a bit of salt and olive oil.

Om nom nom nom.

The caprese is just sliced fresh mozzarella, sliced tomato, fresh chopped basil, a little salt and pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  Fresh, easy, delicious.

What’s your favorite easy go to dinner?

1 Comment

Catherine, August 4th 2011 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in 2011, Eating, food, life

The Trouble With YA Is…

(source)

Nearly every Young Adult series/novel I’ve read recently is/has been turned into a movie.  This is both great and problematic.  Great, because I enjoy movies, and I have always found the translation from novel to film very interesting.  However, it is problematic because I am now insanely emotionally involved in the casting process of the various films. I’ll tell you right now that I am not pleased with the latest Hunger Games film news, so much so that I can’t even talk about it.

So, moving on…

This weekend and clearly, half this week really got away from me.  I can’t believe it’s already the second week of May!  The year is nearly half over!

Monday night, the girls came over for Tuesday Night Dinner, and after our meal, we spent the evening watching music videos on YouTube and googling “Taylor Hanson Pants,” which yielded the following gem.

I had to prove that Taylor Hanson, while adorable, has kind of terrible fashion sense.  I couldn’t make this outfit up if I tried.  Actually, that’s a lie, if you add a scarf and some suspenders you’ll get what he wears on a nearly daily basis from what I gather.  You’re welcome, Internet.

Today, after work I took a much needed spin class, which thankfully didn’t hurt my knee.  I then stopped at Ralph’s to pick up a few grocery items.  These few grocery items turned into $70 worth of groceries.  Oops.

On the plus side, I scored this piece of salmon on sale!

Then, I turned around for two minutes, and Bits attempted to eat her way into the packaging.

 

See those tiny teeth marks?  Yup, Bits’ work.

The final meal was pretty good. I just made a honey and soy sauce mix (about 1 tbsp. honey and 1 tbsp. soy sauce,) and broiled the fish for about 5 minutes. It was tasty!  It wasn’t super exciting or anything, but it tasted good, and was healthy. So, win!

In honesty, I’ve been eating like a college student lately.  Lots of cheesy bread, pasta, pizza, basically no veggies.  It’s time to turn that around.  Just in time for Travis to get home on Saturday night.  Perfect timing, right?

What are your go to healthy meals?

 

The running front:  since my knees have been bothering me, and because I never actually “rested,” I am taking the next two weeks off of running completely.  I haven’t run at all this week, I won’t run at all next week, and I think that will still give me enough time to train for my first full marathon in October.  *fingers crossed*

1 Comment

Catherine, May 11th 2011 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in 2011, food, life, Marathon, training

Sleep Anxiety

When Travis travels, I don’t sleep well, mostly it’s the falling asleep that’s the most difficult.  I toss and turn, and listen to every creak and noise that occurs, and play worst case scenarios in my head.  Sometimes I plan the most effective escape route, and how to best wrangle the kittehs should something terrible happen. You know, the usual.

Add to this anxiety the fact that I have been reading the Millenium Series (Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,) which has caused me to have really strange, scary dreams involving Swedish spies, lots of Ikea furniture and weaponry.  Needless to say, these dreams do not help my sleep situation, like, at all.

After work today, I decided against working out in favor of stopping at the grocery store so I could come home, make dinner, and get to bed extra early. Now that I’ve finished all my scary books, I’m hoping rest and an early bed time will help me be less sleepy tomorrow.

So, I hit up the grocery store on my way home, and then made this delicious recipe that I found in Shape Magazine.

Chicken With Fresh Tomato Sauce and Balsamic Broccoli. I swear there’s chicken under all those veggies :)

I made a few changes to the recipe, first, I only cooked two small chicken breasts, second I didn’t measure out specific amounts of tomatoes, garlic or olives. Also, I used fresh spinach instead of frozen broccoli. But, basically it’s the same recipe! I swear ;) I also made some Trader Joe’s sweet potato fries.

The original recipe from this month’s Shape

Serves 4

Ingredients:

Cooking Spray

4 4-ounce chicken breasts
1 tsp. paprika
salt & freshly ground pepper
1 12oz bag broccoli florets (microwaveable)
2 tsp. olive oil
1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup kalamata olives, pitted and sliced
4 tbsp. balsamic vinegar

- Preheat broiler to high and place an oven rack 8-10 inches from heat. Line a broiler pan with foil and coat with cooking spray. Sprinkle chicken with paprika and season with salt & pepper. Place on pan and cook for 5-7 minutes each side or until meat is no longer pink in center and internal temperature is 160 degrees Fahrenheit.

- Meanwhile, microwave broccoli according to directions. Heat oil in skillet over medium-high heat. Add tomatoes, season with salt & pepper, cook for 2 minutes. Add garlic and olives and cook for 2 minutes more or until tomatoes are soft.

- Divide chicken among four places; top with tomato mixture. Place 1/4 of the broccoli on each plate, drizzle with balsamic vinegar, and serve.

I really liked this recipe. It was quick, really easy to make, and tasty. This recipe will definitely be going into the regular rotation. I’m glad I went with fresh spinach instead of frozen broccoli. What are your favorite recipe swaps? It also felt great to eat a plate full of colorful veggies.  Another thing that happens when Travis travels is I get lazy with cooking =X

Off to get ready for bed for me! I’ve got some Z’s to catch ;)

9 Comments

Catherine, April 4th 2011 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in 2011, food, Groceries, life, recipes

Breakfastish for Dinner

I had to be at work at 7:10am this morning to set up for a meeting.  This was rough because I haven’t been sleeping well while Travis is gone. I also knew I was going to have a long day since I went immediately out to Northridge for dance after work.  I did get to squeeze in a 20 minute 1.47 mile run and a good stretch.

When I got home, I was starving, and had a pile of dishes to do because I made Pumpkin Curry soup for the girls last night, and all I had the energy to make was spinach, a poached egg, tomato and some goat cheese.  It was delicious but not enough food. I am still really, really hungry.

I’m contemplating making another bowl of this. However, it’s 9:40pm, and I’ve got The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest waiting next to my nightstand.

No Comments

Catherine, March 29th 2011 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in books, food, life

Nacho Taco Bowl

The week has been really busy at work, even though it’s only Wednesday, so I was definitely ready for my run yesterday.  My training plan called for an easy 2 miler, and even though the suggested pace was somewhere around 12:30 I needed to run, so I cranked up the speed, and ended up averaging a 10:58 pace.  I was pretty pleased.  I finished my workout with some ab work in the locker room and then headed home.

Last night for dinner we made tacos, and by we I mean the girls, Travis and myself, and by tacos I mean I made a nacho bowl.

Tortilla chips, ground beef, black beans, tomatoes, avocado and some sour cream.  It was delicious, but even more delicious was dessert, which I recognized from inside the grocery bag. Seriously, I have a sixth sense with desserts.

Snickers Ice Cream Bar, I love you. While we were eating our desserts, we discussed which actors are aging well, and which aren’t.  This is a fun game when you are eating nachos and Snickers Ice Cream bars, and can easily look up various actors IMDB pages.  Which actors do you think are aging well? ;)   Some of our votes went to:

Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Olyphant, Mark Ruffalo, and of course, George Clooney.  Sadly we did not feel the same about Leonard DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp.  =X

I also had a glass and a half of wine, and then we all watched Glee.  Happy Hump Day, everyone, hope you’re making it through the week!

1 Comment

Catherine, February 23rd 2011 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Eating, food, friendship, life, training

Recipe Rut

Lately, we’ve been in a major recipe rut. It seems like even when we’re planning our meals we keep choosing the same recipes over and over. Our biggest problem seems to be that most nights, nothing even sounds “good.” Meaning, neither of us are particularly craving anything specific. Couple that with a few recent meal fails and you’ve got a major recipe rut on your hands.

The past few nights when we haven’t had anything planned, we’ve kind of wandered around the grocery store aimlessly, saying “how about….”  and then “….ehhhh.”  Do you ever get into recipe ruts, and how do you get out of them?

Last night, Travis had to work late, so I ended up stopping at the store to pick up food.  We have a full week of meals planned, but I didn’t want to defrost anything just for myself.  I was so hungry after an epic spin class that I just picked up a box of Annie’s mac and cheese, some broccoli and some pop chips. I was craving something salty while I was at the store, and then for a while thought I wanted a baked potato, but knew I didn’t want to wait that long to eat.

Sadly, I ate so much there weren’t any leftovers for me to take for lunch.  On tonight’s menu is broccoli cheddar soup which will be great, because the weather is supposed to be icky the rest of the week.  Later this week we’re also trying Jenna’s Vegan Walnut Loaf.  Travis was VERY hesitant to try this, so we’ll see how that goes ;)

No Comments

Catherine, February 15th 2011 | Tags: ,
Posted in food

Forage Post Meal Fail

Thursday night, we decided on Salmon with rice and salad for dinner, and were feeling pretty great about our decision to eat something healthy.  Fresh salmon was on sale at Ralph’s and we already had rice and salad, yet somehow managed to still spend $20 on the salmon, tomatoes and a salad dressing.

So, we had high hopes for dinner, got everything started, and when we pulled out the salmon, it smelled super fishy.  Not a good sign.  But, we hoped it would taste okay anyway!

Sadly, everything but the tomatoes was a total fail in this meal.  The salad was juuuuuust past its prime, the rice was mushy, and the salmon was disgusting.  Even Travis found it so fishy it was nearly inedible.  We tossed everything, and I began to forage for something else to eat.  We’ve been running low in the pantry and fridge so I wasn’t hopeful, but I found some leftover whole wheat mac from when Travis made Chili Mac.  I re-heated that in the microwave, and set to making a white wine/lemony cheesey sauce.  Normally I would have made something similar to the Pioneer Woman’s Piccatta sauce, but we had no cream.  So, I improvised.

Travis sliced up some leftover roast chicken for me, and I heated some olive oil and butter in a pan, added in some of our homemade chicken stock, lemon juice and white wine. Then, I poured in a bit of milk, and some flour to thicken up the sauce a bit.  Finally, I added in some of our Four Cheese magic from Trader Joe’s and tossed it all together with the chicken and pasta.

It was kind of delicious! Win!

Now, if only I hadn’t gotten this major bummer of a parking ticket on Tuesday.

Yeah, that says $68.  Ouch.

How have you turned a meal fail into a meal win?

No Comments

Catherine, February 13th 2011 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Cheese, Eating, food, life, Los Angeles

Trying New Things

Wednesday, I didn’t make it through a full day at work, but when I woke up after my post-work, allergy med induced nap, feeling better, and hungry, Travis and I decided to make a simple pizza for dinner.  We already had cheese, and salad mix, and it would be fast.  So, off to Trader Joe’s we went, hoping to find pizza dough and milk for Travis. We’d never used anything other than Boboli, or our own homemade dough, so we wanted to try the Trader Joe’s dough and see how it stacked up.

Behold! The elusive Trader Joe’s pizza dough!  We looked all over the damn store for this dough.  I finally found it near the pre-made salads, who knew?  We also picked up some special four cheese, shredded cheese because it’s better than plain old mozzarella.

Travis tried adding an egg wash to his crust.

That giant cheese bubble? Yeah, that’s my pizza.  BAM!

Verdict?  I wasn’t blown away by the dough, in fact I think the dough we make from scratch is better.  It was kind of bland, but the four cheese mix was the way to go. It was delicious!

Lunch on Thursday was one slice of the leftover pizza and these:

Yah, I also bought these on Wednesday night at TJ’s.  They are delicious.  I may or may not have eaten one square of pizza, and then several handfuls of gummie bears.

Om nom nom.

 

Speaking of  trying new things, remember when I hand washed laundry last week? Yeah, so, it definitely took two whole days for all that laundry to dry, so maybe smaller, light weight items like underroos and sports bras would be ok, but the pants and socks took forever to dry.  Although, maybe what I really needed to do was have a drying rack, and put it on our patio during the daytime.  Instead, I only had space to hang in our bathroom and hallway.

What new things have you tried recently?

2 Comments

Catherine, February 12th 2011 | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in 2011, Cheese, Eating, food, life

The Whole (Chicken) Shebang

While meal planning this week, we decided to make Paprikas for Tuesday Night Dinner.  Part of the reason we did this was because it’s delicious, but also because we knew that whole chickens were on sale for 99 cents per pound at Ralph’s (Kroger).  We purchased two whole chickens for about $4 a piece and ended up with about four times as much meat as if we’d spent the same money on just breast meat, which is what we would normally do.

So, yesterday, Travis cleaned and quartered both chickens, using a method he found online, which he claims was very easy.   You can see for yourself, this guy is from the French Cuilinary Institute, so it’s legit ;)

Two whole chickens is a lot of meat, so we froze two breasts and several legs and wings, and used four legs for our Paprikas.  Then, everything that was left (bones etc.) went into a giant stock pot with some carrots and onion to make, well, stock.  We’ll then freeze this homemade stock to use in recipes until it runs out.

So, long story short, two chickens for $8 will stretch us through about six meals.  I call that a major winner winner chicken dinner. ;) Don’t you?

3 Comments

Catherine, February 2nd 2011 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in food, Groceries, life, money

Around the Interwebs 1/28/11

Spaghetti alla carbonara

Image via Wikipedia

Happy Friday everyone! Hope you’re having a wonderful day so far.

The next time Travis is out of town, I am fully making this for myself:  Spaghetti Carbonara for One – Eat Live Run – I love bacon, and pasta, so it’s really win-win.

Another recipe for me to try, Chinese No Clay-pot Chicken - The Kitchn

Girl Scout Cookie season is upon us, and apparently they are cutting back on the cookies they offer. It doesn’t appear they are getting rid of my beloved Thin Mints (they’d be insane if they did.) So, all is well in my cookie universe.

The other day, Travis apparently watched 5 minutes of Hawaii 5-0 and was baffled at its popularity, so imagine my amusement when I open Slate.com and find one of the headlines to be :Why is Hawaii Five-O So Popular? 12 Theories.

Finally, in other recipe news, Real Simple is currently featuring 12 Heartwarming Chili Recipes, all of which look really tasty.

What are you up to this weekend? I’m supposed to do an 8 miler on Sunday, but we’ll have to see how my stupid foot is feeling.  I’m currently sending it “You better get better quick!” vibes in the hope that fear will drive it to feeling better.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

No Comments

Catherine, January 28th 2011 | Tags: , ,
Posted in around the interwebs
« Older Posts