Lemon Garlic Chicken Pasta

Before I start my post, I just want to say that it's been a little lonely here on the blog.  For starters, two small children that are 3 and 1 - well, it's a LOT of work.  I think though I've finally started to get out of the crazy stage.  Also, I've been doing some side projects that are actually making me money (which is super exciting!) and sadly that means this blog doesn't get as much love as it should.  I'm not to the point of actually making any cash from this site, so until it does, it pretty much is last on my list.  :(

However, even when it's quiet over here, I still stay pretty active on the Creations by Alisha Rose's facebook page.  I post in real time recipes that I'm trying, sewing that I'm attempting, and even sneak peaks of future blog posts.  I love engaging you in conversation about different topics and I've gotten some really awesome tips from you, the reader.  So if you're so inclined, pop on over and say "hi" every so often. I'd love to chat.  :)

***

This recipe I stumbled onto by total accident. I had some chicken that someone had given me because they were moving.  It wasn't quite what I was used to using, so I was trying to figure out something on the fly.  I originally started out cooking it with garlic and basil - something that a friend and I used to do in the high school days.  I then added a little of this and a little of that, and thought I was done.  I then was about to call it done when it still looked like it wasn't cooked, so I did some more cooking.  The first try was just a chicken dish but the sauce was so good that I was eating the dripping from the pan.  And then it hit me - I could make it a sauce for pasta!

So now I present to you  Lemon Garlic Chicken Pasta  (and Basil)

Step One:

Combine the garlic, lemon juice, and oil in frying pan over medium heat.  Season one side of the chicken pieces with pepper and basil (be generous with the basil).  Place season side down and brown until fairly dark.

Step two:

Season the other side and then turn chicken over to brown the other side.  Continue to cook the chicken until no pink is present.  

Step 3:

After both sides are browned, add water and bullion cube to the pan.  Bring to a boil and then cook until sauce reduces to about a third and has started to thicken. During this step, cook the pasta as directed on the box.   

Step 4:

After sauce has reduced to desired consistency,  remove chicken from pan and set aside.  Pour sauce over noodles and coat.  Place chicken on pasta to serve. 

Step 5:

Enjoy!

 

*Lemon Garlic Chicken Pasta*

3-4 chicken breasts
1 Tablespoon oil
3 Tablespoons lemon juice
3-4 garlic cloves
dash of pepper
generous sprinkle of basil
1 bullion cube
1 1/2 cups water
1 Box bowtie pasta or pasta of your choice.

1. Combine the garlic, lemon juice, and oil in frying pan over medium heat.  Season one side of the chicken pieces with pepper and basil (be generous with the basil).  Place season side down and brown until fairly dark. 
2.  Season the other side and then turn chicken over to brown the other side.  Continue to cook the chicken until no pink is present.  
3. After both sides are browned, add water and bullion cube to the pan.  Bring to a boil and then cook until sauce reduces to about a third and has started to thicken. During this step, cook the pasta as directed on the box.
4. After sauce has reduced to desired consistency, remove chicken from pan and set aside.  Pour sauce over noodles and coat.  Place chicken on pasta to serve. 
5. Enjoy!

Chinese Chicken Salad

When the weather starts to get hot I always try to find recipes which don't heat up the house.  As it is already starting to heat up here over on the west coast,  I've started breaking them out a little early this year.  This recipe is super simple.  I also just love the colors.  What is it about summer recipes that make them so colorful?

 Chinese Chicken Salad

• Chicken breasts - grilled and diced  
• Head of lettuce 
• Mandarin Oranges
• Dried Cranberries
• Chow mein noodles or Won-ton strips
• Chinese Chicken Salad Dressing

The chicken can be grilled ahead of time or on the day of.  You can cook it on a grill during the summer, or we like to use our George Foreman grill on days it's a little cooler or we don't feel like getting out the charcoal.

I like to make my dressing from scratch, but you could use store bought to make the recipe even easier. The dressing that I make has a nice little kick which I think balances out the sweetness of the oranges and cranberries making a wonderful flavor experience for your taste buds.

  I didn't include any specific proportions because it's a recipe that's made very much based on your tastes.  Add a little bit of this, a bit of that and you have a very scrumptious summer salad.  Enjoy!

Easy Stir Fry

One of our favorite meals to make is stir fry.  It's such a quick and easy meal.  It's fairly healthy too.

Here's how we make ours.

You will want to prepare all your ingredients ahead of time because once you start cooking it goes pretty fast.

First cut up some onion slices, and mince a few garlic cloves. Pour a couple of tablespoons of oil in your wok (or frying pan).  Turn your heat on high, and once hot throw in your onions and garlic. The amount of garlic and onions is really to your taste, but I recommend not skipping this step because they really add flavor to your dish. Saute until onions are clear.



Next put in your meat.  Chicken, beef or tofu all work well.  Your local grocery store even sells beef precut for stir fry if you're really short on time.  Make sure your meat is cut into about square inch pieces. Cook until meat is done, constantly stirring.  One of the tricks to stir fry is to continually mix it to evenly cook it and to keep it from burning.

The next step is to add vegetables.  We usually buy a premade bag of stir fry vegetables to save on time, but you can choose any veggies that you prefer.

In addition to the premade bag, we also add bell pepper slices.  One thing to note is that you add veggies in the order of longest cooking time.  Broccoli and carrots go in first, bell peppers go in last.  You want all your vegetables to stay crispy, so you only want to cook them a little while.

We also like to add noodles. The brand we buy is pictured below, but we just use the noodles and throw away the spice packet that comes with it.  These are prepared by poking holes in the plastic they come in inside and microwaving for one minute. Then add them to your wok.  If you rather, skip the noodles and serve your dish over rice.


Add about a quarter cup of water and add your stir fry sauce.  I'm sure there are some great recipes out there to make yourself but our favorite is House of Tsang. (Remember this is a quick meal, making sauce from scratch adds time). Their classic is good, but if you like spicy try the Szechuan sauce. Add to taste, I think we usually use about a quarter of a bottle.

Mix until sauce is hot and food is coated.  Serve immediately.

And that's it! Just 15 minutes to make a quick satisfying meal!

Zucchini Bread - Take 2

I was recently given more zucchinis and decided that it would be a great time to make more zucchini bread.

 
You can check out the last time I made zucchini bread in this post:  July 22nd- zucchini bread .
As I was trying to decide what recipe to use this time, I asked my  husband what he thought of the recipe I had used previously.  He couldn't remember so he looked it up in the past post... and he found out that he thought it needed to be a little sweeter.  Ha ha... good thing I wrote it down!  He then went searching for a recipe that fit his requirements... more sugar... and this is what he came up with. 

 Food Network's Zucchini Bread Recipe by Paula Deen


So we got to work grating the zucchinis:

And no recipe is complete without a little help from mommy's helper:

We also put in chocolate chips instead of the nuts because everything is better with chocolate!  It turned out quite yummy.  He said it was sweet enough this time.  Ha ha.. it better be with 3 cups of sugar!   The baby girl thought it was delicious too.  She thinks it's dessert so it's a good way for me to trick her into eating her veggies. I would definitely use this recipe again.

Meatless Dish: Black Bean and Corn Pitas

It's hot here in  sunny California, so I'm always trying to find recipes that take little to no cooking.  The less I have to heat my kitchen, the better!  We unfortunately don't have air conditioning, so we try to do our best to keep our house cool.   This recipe fits the bill and is totally yummy too!  I also love recipes which only take a few minutes to make.  I love whipping up a good meal, but after a long hot day that last thing that I want to do is spend an hour in the kitchen.  The meal takes just minutes.  Chop some veggies, toss them in spices and eat up! 

The other perk to this meal is it is also very low in cholesterol.  Mozzarella cheese is a lower cholesterol cheese, but you could leave it off and it would be just as tasty.  


If you would like to try this recipe, go to Champions for Change under their lunch menu.  It's listed as a lunch but it was filling enough for dinner, especially on a hot summer day. 

Here is the direct link to the recipe:  Black Bean and Corn Pitas

Meatless Dish: Fish Tacos

So technically the title of this post is inaccurate.  I know that fish is meat, but for my purposes it is not meat.  I recently have been trying to change my diet to lower my cholesterol.  My doctor told me to reduce my animal products and my dairy.  He also indicated that fish is good for me so I should replace some of my other meat with fish hence why to me it is not meat.  Does that make any sense?

I have never really liked eating fish before but I am trying to find ways I like it.  I always hated it because I didn't like the real fishy taste and I thought it was gross that the whole house smelled like fish.  Well, come to find out the fresher the fish, the less fishy... who knew?  And as for having your house smell, well, it depends on how you cook it.

So this recipe I found as I was glancing through one of my cookbooks one day searching for new and yummy recipes.  A couple of summers ago, I helped pass out food at my local food bank and they were giving away these cookbooks to help people eat healthier.

I love how pretty the filling is... so colorful and vibrant.  The other appeal that this recipe has is that it has very little cooking.  Just chop up some veggies, and you cook up the fish in under ten minutes.  Nice and cool for summer.

So I've never really eaten fish tacos before, but my husband tells me that normally the fish is fried.  These aren't the traditional fish tacos, but yummy all the same.  The recipe calls for sour cream, I just put a dallop of plain yogurt which seemed to work just as well.  What also made them especially delicious was that we served them with hot sauce. It made them just perfect. 

If you want to check it out go to  Champions for Change and you'll find a whole list of recipes.  The actual recipe is called Simple Fish Tacos .

 

Meatless Dish: Black Pepper Tofu and Green Beans

So in my quest to lower my cholesterol I have been searching for yummy recipes that don't have meat or cheese in them.  I don't mind having tofu in a dish, but I don't like to pretend it's meat.  I remember when I was a child almost being fooled that Tofu was eggs, but whenever you bite into something expecting the taste of something else it's always disappointing.  Why not just call it what it is?  Don't try and pretend that the tofu is a burger... because it'll never taste the same. 

So this leaves a whole world of cultural foods to try because they seem to be more up front about calling it what it is. We've tried different Thai, Indian, Chinese recipes and often times they are quite delicious. 

My sister in law was going through Sunset magazine and thought of me when she saw a whole section on tofu.  She ripped out the pages and they've been sitting waiting for me to try.  I recently cooked one of them up and was quite suprised by how good it tasted. 

Black Pepper Tofu and Green Beans

I think it will definately go into our regular rotation.  It had a very nice kick to it, and the way you cook up the tofu leads to a nice texture.  Not soggy at all, and a very nice flavor.  The tofu was browned with brown sugar and then the whole dish flavored with a black pepper mix.. a little sweet with the hot.  Quite good... I recommend you give it a try!

Meatless Dish: Pasta and Roasted Mushrooms

I had a dish at a pub once which was a pasta with cream sauce and portabella mushrooms.  It was so good, and I really liked that fact that it had no meat but the mushrooms were so hearty they made me feel like I was eating steak. 

Since then I have been looking for a recipe for something similiar so I could make it at home. I searched and no luck.  Then one day last month I saw a giveaway from Prudent Baby for a cookbook from The Pioneer Woman .  All you had to do was take a look around and post in the comments a dish that sounded yummy. And there it was:  a recipe that sounded like what I ate... and to top it off it had whiskey and white wine it.  What sounds better then that?



Pasta with Whiskey, Wine and Mushrooms by The Pioneer Womam

I forgot to take a picture of my attempt at it.. my presentation didn't look as good as the original, so it's probably best.  I halved the recipe and it was still plenty of food for two of us with leftovers.  I also don't know if I bought the right kind of cream.  I ended up buying half and half and it called for heavy cream.  I wasn't sure if heavy whipping cream was the same.  I usually don't cook with cream especially now since that I am trying to lower my cholesterol.  It didn't quite thicken as it was supposed to at first, so I added a bit more cream and some cornstarch.  One of those did the trick.  Next time I am going to try it with lowfat yogurt to attempt to make it low cholesterol.

Overall the dish was quite delicious.  The cream sauce was alright, but the part that was really good was the roasted mushrooms.  They were very flavorful, rich and full.  (I kept thinking about them later.. how yummy they were. It made me want to find lots more recipes with roasted mushrooms. )  Next time I would still half the recipe but keep the amount of mushrooms the same as the original so that every bite would have at least one heavenly mushroom in it. 

Spicy Chicken Rigatoni

I love Pinterest!   It seemed like a weird idea at first but then I tried it out and I'm in love!  It's great for finding new recipes and fun craft ideas.  I pin cautiously, usually things I think I'll actually try someday.  Some people are crazy pinners, but I am not one of them - too many pins overwhelms me and I start to get lost. 

I have recently been looking for recipes which have a little to no meat.  I love meat and cheese but I'm trying to lower my cholesterol :(.  I  found this recipe which has become one of our new favorites... it has a little meat - only one piece for the entire dish.  It also has a little Alfredo sauce which might be a little unhealthy, but I still think the amount is minimal.  We add corn instead of peas but otherwise the dish is good as is -  so yummy and just a bit spicy.

Check it out!
 Spicy Chicken Rigatoni - by Tastebook  
See if you don't just love it too!

buffalo chicken - crockpot style.

I made this tonight for dinner. it was pretty good, though definately hot. we had celery to go with it, and served it on rolls which helped cut the hotness. not a meal that you can eat a ton of, but probably healthier then wings. all and all - pretty good, especially to eat while watching football and drinking beer (or so my husband tells me :) )

http://mykitchenapron.blogspot.com/2011/07/crock-pot-buffalo-chicken.html

Chinese Chicken Salad Dressing Recipe

So I often have an idea of what I want to make and what ingredients i have to make it. ... I usually search around the internet until i find something similiar. I often don't find exactly what i'm looking for... so I take ratios from other recipes and put what I want in it....

Yesterday I made Chinese Chicken Salad Dressing... it actually turned out pretty good and I would like to actually make it again.

So here is about what I did.

1 TBS seseame seed oil
2 TBS soy sauce
3 TBS white vinegar
1/2 tsp heaping of ginger
1/4 tsp heaping of chili flakes
4 tsp or so of brown sugar (to taste)
a dash of lime juice

later, i realized I didn't even put in garlic.. which i put in everything.. so next time I may add that. also the dressing had a little kick to it, but could use a little more depending on your likes.. so you could add a little more chili flakes to taste.

pour over salad ingredients of your choice.. top with cranberries, crispy wontons and delish.....!

Chicken Piccata

My friend Julia sent me this recipe for Chicken Piccata. It was pretty good.. and I'd never used capers before. They kind of add a lemony zing to it. And the presentation looked pretty....

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/chicken_piccata/

Here is the end result.

July 22nd - zucchini bread

Today I'm making Zucchini bread. Jon brought home some Zucchini from his boss' garden. I do not like Zucchini, so I thought I'd make it into bread - which I loved when my mother made it as a kid. I don't know if she has a specific recipe she uses... I should ask her.
But I used this recipe today

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Zucchini-Bread-IV/Detail.aspx

I'll post the verdict later tonight...

** ** ** ** **

Jon gave it a 4/5 - He ate two really large pieces, so he obviously liked it. He said that maybe it could be a little sweeter.. it was good, but I'll keep looking for the perfect recipe.

Also, made hungarian goulash tonight, but used hamburger instead of beef. It was good, but more like a real fancy Hamburger Helper.