Chicken and Roasted Broccoli Alfredo

If you're the sort of person to see the word "alfredo" and click away immediately, before the mere thought of a cream-based sauce widens your hips, fear not!  Today, I have made the impossible possible!  What I have for you here is a rich, creamy, hearty, flavorful pasta casserole that will fill you up while actually trimming you down! Never again will you brave your grocer's freezer aisle in search of measly frozen dinners because you want pasta but can't afford the calories of a home-made dish!  Folks, this casserole clocks in at under 300 calories per serving, and the serving size is more than enough to fill you up.  Behold, the miracle secret-weight-loss pasta:

The best part is, I didn't use any "fake" low-calorie ingredients to make this.  No fat-free cheese, no reduced-calorie alfredo sauce, no low-carb pasta... everything is full-fat and boyfriend-friendly.  Let us begin!

To start, I seasoned some broccoli florets with my trusty no-salt seasoning blend, using non-stick cooking spray instead of oil to get the spice to adhere.  I popped the broc in an oven set to 400 degrees to roast while I got the rest of the ingredients ready.

 In a large pot, I boiled half a box of Ronzelli Whole-Grain penne pasta until al dente.  In a large (large!) skillet, I cooked one yellow onion, cut into large chunks, with some more of the miracle non-stick spray.  When they were cooked til just tender, I added a whole container of pre-sliced, pre-washed baby portabello mushrooms.

Once the mushrooms were tender, I added two cups of shredded chicken that I had left over from last night's dinner (rotisserie chicken works great, or any sort of pre-cooked chicken you may have on hand) along with a generous sprinkling of my favorite chicken seasoning.

At this point, my broccoli was ready (fork-tender, but still packing a bite), so I added it to the pan, too.  When the chicken was warmed through, I added my alfredo sauce.  To tell the truth, I haven't cooked or eaten anything having to do with alfredo in years, simply because I'm scared of the calories.  But I saw this at the grocery store and was actually amazed at how "light" it was, despite not having any sort of "low-calorie" labeling.

Once the sauce was warmed through, I realized I didn't have enough sauce for all the stuff I was cooking, and there was still quite a bit of sauce sticking to the sides of the jar.  I poured in about half a cup of milk (I used 2%), closed the lid, and shook the jar to thin out the remaining sauce and poured the whole thing into my skillet, stirring to combine.



By this time, my pasta was done, so I drained and rinsed it, and mixed it with my other ingredients, and poured the whole shebang into a large casserole dish.

I topped the casserole with one cup of shredded mixed Italian cheese (mozzarella, parmesan, asiago, romano, and god-knows-what-else) and another heavy sprinkling of my no-salt seasoning.

The oven was still set to 400 degrees, so I popped the dish in for about ten minutes, and it came out looking like this:

Amazing!  Truthfully, no one will ever know how healthy this is.  The whole wheat pasta was better than most I have tried, and in a blind taste test, you'd never know it wasn't the evil white stuff.  There wasn't very much sauce, but it honestly didn't need any more than it had.  The seasoning blend plus the cheese added more than enough flavor, and my favorite part was the roasted broccoli... really something amazing!

This makes seven servings, so it would be a great family dinner (just add a side salad and you're done), but if you're just cooking for two, like I am, it makes for great leftovers for the rest of the week.  Hope you enjoy it, folks... this may be my very favorite recipe here on Kelly's Noms, so give it a try and let me know what you think!

Enchilada Party!

So, Monday night Scott and I had our friend Natalie over for a quick and easy cooking lesson.  We used my enchilada recipe because it was so foolproof, and because Nat and I had been talking about making enchiladas for years and years before we finally made this happen.

Nat had to work that day and was planning to come by afterwards, so I did a bit of prep before she came over. I went shopping for ingredients (cheap, remember?), cooked the chicken in the crockpot (3 bone-in breasts with about half a cup of salsa and just a tad of barbecue sauce on high for 6 hours), and cut up the bell peppers.

This is actually a fairly good example of what my usual shopping list looks like, enchiladas or not.

When Nat came over, we put her to work, cooking the onions, peppers, and chicken in the saute pan while Scott and I fiddled with the avocado fries.

Watch out, Rachael Ray!

Then we made an assembly line to get the enchiladas from skillet to pan, and taught Natalie the finer points in tortilla folding technique.

Finally, after some temperature adjustments to the oven (an electric; I will SORELY miss my gas oven after I move), we had two batches of enchiladas ready to serve: one for Natalie to take home, and one to take to Scott's parents for dinner the following evening.  Remember, folks: enchiladas, much like soup and chili, get better and better each day after they're made.  They're perfect leftovers-food, so don't be scared to make way more than you think you need!

Natalie's first batch of scratch-made enchiladas!

Fake Enchiladas!

They're not really fake.  But I'm not proud of how I made them.  Don't worry, though, they turned out to literally be the best enchiladas I've ever eaten in my entire life.  And I never, ever, ever use hyperbole to stress a point.  Ever.

Okay, so to justify my use of the word "fake": enchiladas are a beautiful thing.  The sauce should be made lovingly and the meat and vegetables should be prepared in such a way as to make them tender, juicy, and flavorful.  You should always use fresh ingredients, and avoid canned and pre-packaged foods at all cost.  But sometimes you are pressed for time and you're broke and you're hungry, so you make enchiladas the way I did today.  And you love every minute of it.

Ingredients:
1 large chicken breast, chopped into 1" cubes ($1.00 if you cut it yourself)
1/4 each of a large red, green, and yellow bell pepper, sliced into strips (I got a pre-sliced mix for $3.11)
1/2 yellow onion, sliced (already had it at home)
1/2 tub of onion and chive cream cheese ($0.45 on sale)
1 small can salsa verde ($1.25)
1/2 jar Mrs Rendfro's Black Bean Salsa, or salsa of your choice ($1.85)
generous handful or two of shredded "taco cheese" ($0.75 on sale)
beer (the equivalent amount to what you'd typically pour out for your homies) (price is negligible)
1/2 can chipotle peppers in adobo (already had it at home, but typically about $0.50)
4-5 flour tortillas, soft taco size ($1.30)

Total Cost: $10.21  Cost per serving: $2.55!!!

Okay, first things first.  I knew I wanted rice and beans to go with this, so I went ahead and started a pot of brown rice, seasoned with chili powder, salt, pepper, and dried red chilies.  Next, I butchered up my chicken (I bought a pack of split breasts for less than $4, cut one up and put the rest in the freezer for later) and added it to a large skillet with some butter (oil would have been better but I was out) and onions.  When the chicken was seared but not yet cooked through, I added the peppers and the chipotles.

Chicken and peppers and onions, Oh My!

A note on the chipotles, if you haven't used them before:  Always keep these in your pantry.  I use them for everything, and they are so delicious that you have to get in the habit of using them if you don't already.  They come packed in a thick red sauce (adobo) with onions, and you have to fish them out, slice them open, and scrape out the seeds and membranes with a spoon or the back of a knife if you don't want to die from hot-mouth.  If you don't necessarily want to use the peppers in your cooking, you can just spoon a little of the sauce into your dish for an instant punch of flavor (try mixing the adobo with some chopped garlic and mayo for a spicy aioli to spread on sandwiches).

When the pan started to get a little dry, I added some of the salsa, a splash of beer, the rest of the adobo sauce from my can of chipotles, and the cream cheese.  I'd never made enchiladas with cream cheese, but several recipes I've seen call for sour cream, which I hate, so when I saw my favorite flavor of cream cheese on sale, I decided it would made a lovely substitute.  And man, do NOT miss out on this ingredient, because this literally elevated the dish to a level I never could have imagined without it.  The cream cheese makes the dish.  The chipotles are almost as essential, for the spice and smoky flavor they contribute, but the cream cheese is king here.  Trust me on this.

There is no way you could ever understand how delicious this is.  Unless you make it.

Okay, once I had all my stuff simmering away, I got my casserole dish ready.  This would have been way better (and would have fed more people) in a 9x13 dish, but all I had was a little 8x11 (or thereabouts), and it worked out just fine.  Pour the entire can of salsa verde over the bottom of the pan (you can Pam the sides of the dish at this point if you are so inclined, but hunger made me forget) and get your tortillas ready.  If the tortillas are rather flexible, you can use them as-is, but if they are a bit stale or too cold, they might tear, so you should nuke them for a few seconds to warm them up.

By this point, all the good stuff in the skillet was sizzling in a creamy and thick sauce.  If your sauce is too thick or too dry, add another splash of beer.  If it's pretty soupy, let it cook a bit longer.  When it's ready, spoon about a spatula-full of stuff in the center of a tortilla.  Roll it up burrito-style, then place it seam down in your casserole dish.  Repeat until you can't fit any more enchiladas in the pan.  Top with a generous serving of salsa (I do not believe in store-bought enchilada sauce.  Even if you're being lazy and can't make a sauce, use salsa or Rotel and you'll be just fine.  Enchilada sauce is poison.) and top the whole shebang with enough cheese to clog your arteries at the mere sight of it.  Or a healthier portion, whatever.  I opted for the artery-clog.

Don't let anyone fool you: pre-shredded cheese is the devil, but if you don't own a cheese shredder, it's a necessary evil on Enchilada Night.

That's it, folks!  Pop that baby in the oven at about 350 degrees for as long as it takes for the cheese to bubble and the edges of the tortillas to crisp and brown.  Don't set a timer, just keep an eye on it. You'll know when it's done.

For the rice: when it was done, I pulled out the red chilies and added half a can of Bush's Grillin' Beans, black bean fiesta variety.  Huge mistake.  That shit is nasty.  But I ate it anyway, and I have lots of leftovers!

Poor lighting and a chipped plate help to drive home the idea that this is a poor-man's supper.  I was just too dang hungry and intoxicated by the aroma to wait long enough to take a proper photo.

Orange Thyme Roasted Chicken

So, my boyfriend and I were thinking of what to make for dinner tonight, and as usual, I started scanning the weekly supermarket ads to see what was on sale.  I noticed that whole chickens were buy-one-get-one, and I remembered that I had never made a whole roasted chicken before, despite that being one of my favorite childhood dinners, and instantly resolved to roast a chicken for dinner.

As a child, my mother would make amazing whole-roasted chickens surrounded by potatoes and carrots, essentially a whole meal in one pan.  I decided I would kick it up a notch.  After searching far and wide on the world wide web, I integrated several recipes to come up with something I thought would be easy, inexpensive, and delicious: Roasted chicken with a compound butter of orange and thyme.  The result: the richest flavored, most succulent chicken I've ever had in my life.  Seriously, folks, the chicken barely made it to the dinner plate, because my boyfriend couldn't keep out of it while he was carving it up for us (and I may have had a few bites myself).

The recipe is ridiculously simple, and equally as inexpensive.  I think the entire cost for the meal was hovering around $10 including a side dish, and that includes a potted thyme plant because my grocery store didn't carry any fresh herbs.

Ingredients:
1 whole roasting chicken (mine was a little less than 5 lbs)
1 orange
1/2 stick of butter
fresh herbs (I used about 5 sprigs of fresh thyme, but you can use whatever you have on hand)
1 sweet potato
1 large red potato
1 vidalia onion
salt and pepper
olive oil

First you'll want to make your compound butter.  Mix the half stick of butter with the zest of one orange and your fresh herbs, finely chopped.  If the butter is at or just below room temperature, this will be easy, but please don't microwave your butter to get it to the right temp.  You want the compound to be firm and not runny.

Once your compound is mixed, or while you're waiting for your butter to soften, prepare the chicken.  Rinse the chicken and discard the gross innards.  Bend the wings behind the bird so you have a nice base to work on and no wing tips sticking out - they will burn.  Now, with the breast facing up, work your fingers under the breast skin, separating the skin from the meat on each side from the leg end to the neck.  You will end up with two pockets, on each side of the breast bone.  You can use a spoon to separate the skin closer to the neck end if your fingers won't reach, but be careful not to puncture the skin.  Spoon one half of your compound butter under the skin on each side.  In this way, you will flavor the meat of the chicken instead of just the skin, and you will end up with incredibly moist white meat with an amazing flavor.  Massage the breast skin until the butter is evenly distributed under the skin.
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Stuff the cavity of the chicken with the orange, halved, and the stems from the thyme that you used for the butter.  Truss the legs together to close the cavity, and place the chicken in a roasting pan.  Surround the chicken with the sweet potato, red potato, and onion, roughly chopped, and drizzle olive oil over the whole shebang.  Rub the oil into the chicken skin and sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper.  Pop in the oven at 350 degrees and cook for 20 minutes per pound... about 1 hour and 40 minutes for a 5 pound bird.

About 20 minutes before it's done, take the pan out of the oven and baste with pan drippings.  At this point, I made a glaze of orange juice, soy sauce, and honey, equal parts of each, and basted the chicken.  I increased the heat to 450 degrees and returned to the oven until the chicken was a dark golden brown.

That's it!  I can not emphasize enough how moist and flavorful this chicken was.  The skin was crispy and sweet, and the meat was moist and had a very distinct orange flavor.  The meal should serve at least four, but between my boyfriend and I, we took care of most of the bird and all of the vegetables.  There was enough meat leftover for sandwiches tomorrow, but just barely.  Once you make this, I promise, you will never roast chicken another way for as long as you live.

Clean-Out-Your-Fridge Lettuce Wraps

So, in the past few weeks I have been a little overzealous in my grocery shopping.  I bought lots of veggies with no specific plans as how to cook them, and now they are slowly withering away in silence in my refrigerator.  There can be only one solution to this waste of money:  A stir-fry.  Now, this is not a typical stir fry, and it is by no means authentic to any specific cuisine.  It's just a fast, easy, and delicious way to get rid of a lot of veggies that may be a little past their prime.

Now, I'm going to bare my soul a little bit here and let you see the inside of my fridge...

See that bottom shelf there?  Nothing but veggies that are slowly dying.  So, we're going to chop them up and put them out of their misery!

For this recipe, you can literally use anything you want.  Whatever you have left over is fine, even frozen veg will work.  I would definitely stay away from canned veggies, but those will last forever, anyway, so you're safe.  You can make this vegetarian, or you can add whatever kind of meat you have on hand.  I had some chicken strips, so I diced up 4 oz of chicken into the teeniest bits I could muster, threw them in a quick Mrs Dash marinade, and popped them in the fridge while I prepped my veg.

These guys are my favorite things in the world:

I put them in almost everything I cook, and they are SO delicious!  They will never go bad in my fridge.  I diced up 3 or 4 of them, one of each color.

Even this FrankenChili didn't escape my knife!  I did spare his little mutated twin, though.  He was a bit shrivelled.

It may not be corn season yet, but I bought this guy on a whim and it's been about a week so I figure he's gotta go in the pot, too.  Now I have corn silk all over my kitchen.  Oh, and Nugget the Cat got hold of one of the husk leaves and it's her new favorite toy ever.  My cats are cheap dates.

Here's all the veggies ready to go.  There are a handful of diced white mushrooms in here, about 4 stray brussels sprouts, an ear of corn, half a regular green bell pepper, and 3 or 4 small sweet peppers.  I would have added some shredded cabbage but I forgot, so it continues to wilt on the bottom shelf.

Now it's time to get cracking.  I turned my skillet to medium-high, sprayed some Pam (feel free to use oil, but I'm on a diet), and added my chicken.

When the chicken had a nice sear going on, but before it was done cooking, I added my veggies.  Now, in a traditional stir-fry, you'll add your veggies in order of how long they take to cook.  But remember, I warned you that this was not traditional.

Now add some soy sauce, about 1-2 tsps (3 good shakes).

Now, if you like things spicy, this is the way to go.  You can find this stuff at any Asian market, and I've seen it at World Market, but I'm not sure about supermarket availability.  But trust me, it's worth an extra trip.  Chili Garlic sauce, and it's so crazy spicy it should be illegal!

This one forkful proved to be a bit much.  I liked it, but I am insane.  If you're not a fan of crying through your meals, maybe cut this down by half, or omit altogether.

Now for my secret weapon:

Yes, it's crushed pineapple.  I put it in all of my stir-frys.  Some people use honey as a sweetener, but I like the pineapple.  It's not too sweet, it's all natural, and it's a great texture for this kind of dish.  I added three forkfuls.  (I'm using a fork instead of a spoon for this stuff because I'm trying to avoid adding too much liquid, which will only steam the veggies and not let them stay crisp.)

Keep stirring for a few minutes, or until all of the liquid (from the soy sauce and the liquid released from some of the veggies) is gone.  It's best to let this cool down a bit, as the heat will somewhat wilt the lettuce, but I was hungry so I went ahead and plated up.

Add a few spoonfuls to a double-thick leaf of iceberg lettuce and roll up like a taco to eat.  But not before adding my very best friend, Mister Sriracha Sauce!

I've had this bottle for a month and it's more than halfway gone.  I would sprinkle this stuff on my cereal, it's so good!  Again, if you can't take the heat, stay far away.

That's it!  Fridge cleaned out, belly full, sinuses clear (ew).  This should have served two, but I was hungry, so  I ate both pieces and there was a little less than half the veggie mix left over.  It'll go great in an omelette!  But the whole entire pan of stuff only clocks in at 400 calories, so eat to your heart's content!

Apricot Curry Chicken

I saw this recipe at Cooking Light and it reminded me of a similar dish my mom used to make that was always one of my favorites.  The best thing about this recipe is that it only calls for 4 ingredients!  It's sweet and salty and absolutely delicious.

 I made this using only ingredients out of my pantry, though I know some people might not have curry powder or apricot preserves on hand.  A tip on curry powder:  I bought mine at the grocery store for some ungodly price.  While I thought it was worthwhile, as curry powder is one of my favorite spices, if you are thinking of buying some, check out your local ethnic foods market for a much better deal.  I know for a fact that India Spice, at the corner of Valleydale Rd and Hwy 31 has this in stock, along with many other spice rack staples, at a fraction of the cost.

The ingredients:

24 ounces chicken (I used chicken breasts, but I think thighs would be lovely in this dish as well!) cut into 6 4-oz pieces, 1/3 cup apricot preserves, 1 tsp curry powder, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper, 1/2 large red onion, sliced into strips.

Lovely spices!

 Mix the curry powder, salt, and pepper together and rub into the chicken pieces.  In a large skillet, heat 1 tbsp butter or cooking spray over medium-high heat.  You want the pan to be hot before you put the chicken in!  Hot pan = delicious searing.  Warm pan = gray meat.  And nobody likes gray meat.

Fry the chicken 6 minutes on each side or until nearly cooked through.  My chicken pieces were fairly thick, so it took a little longer than 6 minutes, and they weren't quite done in the center.  No worries, though, we're not done with this bird yet!  I did only 3 pieces at a time to avoid overcrowding the pan.

This is the sear you want to get...  not burnt, only delicious flavor!

As an afterthought, I sliced up some red onion I had in the fridge.  I think a nice vidalia onion would be even better, but this wasn't bad at all!  Sauté the onion over medium heat until you can smell them.  That's how I do most of my cooking, by the way... your sense of smell, touch, and taste are a much better gauge than any egg timer.

Now it's time for the apricot preserves!  I could eat this by the spoonful...

Add the preserves plus 1/4 cup water to the onions and stir til well-blended.

When the mixture comes to a slow boil and starts to thicken, add the chicken back into the skillet.  Turn heat to medium-low and let simmer for about 10 minutes or until chicken pieces are cooked through.  Every few minutes, get a spoon and ladle some of the onion/apricot mix over the top so everything stays nice and moist.

That's it!  Serve over rice or with a nice salad.  Actually, any kind of green veggie would be wonderful with this.

Recipe - Serves 6

• 24 oz chicken, cut into 6 4-oz pieces
• 1/2 red onion, sliced
• 1/3 cup apricot preserves
• 1 tsp curry powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1. Blend spices and rub into chicken pieces
2. Cook chicken in a skillet on medium-high heat for 6 minutes per side, remove from heat
3. In same pan, sauté onions until tender
4. Add apricot preserves and 1/4 cup water to pan, cook over medium heat until boiling
5. Add chicken pieces back to pan, reduce heat to medium-low and cook, stirring often, for 10 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.