Chicken Caesar Pita Bites

I wish I had a better picture of these, but they were delicious! We will definitely make these again!

We got this recipe from a Paula Dean magazine called Quick & Easy Meals :) There are definitely some not-so-healthy recipes in this one, like the Peanut Butter Parfaits pictured on the front cover.. haha! But really.. this was soo good, and soo easy! The recipe makes 12-15 servings, so we cut down on some of the amounts below and ended up making a batch of 8 pita bites.

Ingredients
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 cup caesar salad dressing, divided
1 package pitettes (mini pita pockets!) - split in half
1/2 cup olive oil, divided
3 cups shredded fontina cheese
4 cups shredded romaine lettuce
2 roma tomatoes, chopped in small pieces

To make these bites, you have to prepare the 3 parts - salad, chicken, and pitas. It was definitely helpful to have an extra set of hands since none of the pieces take too long, so you always need to be doing something!

Salad
*Combine lettuce with 1/2 cup caesar dressing, or enough to coat the lettuce. Mix up and set aside.

Chicken
*In a ziplock bag, combine chicken and 1/2 cup caesar dressing. Let marinate for 30+ minutes.
*After marinating, bake or grill chicken (we baked) and then cut into thin pieces.

Pitas
*Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
*Line a baking sheet (or 2, depending on how many you're making) with foil.
*Place split pitas, cut side up, on baking sheets. Brush each with olive oil.
*Bake for about 5 minutes and take out.
*Top each pita with chicken and the fontina cheese.
*Bake an additional 5-7 minutes, or until cheese is melted and pita is lightly browned.

Finally, top each pita with lettuce and chopped tomatoes! Enjoy!

The finished product (minus the tomatoes)

Shrimp Stir-Fry

We made a great, easy stir-fry... and then subsequently lost the recipe :( After trying to find it for awhile, I figured I'd just post it anyways! I'm really bad at estimating amounts of ingredients though.. but I will do my best..

Ingredients
Linguine
1 pound bag pre-cooked frozen shrimp
Shitake mushrooms (chopped)
1 bag frozen pepper stir-fry mix
1/2 bag frozen shelled edamame
Green onions (chopped)
Sesame Ginger stir-fry sauce (1/2+ cup)


Basically... We stir-fryed all ingredients, adding in the order listed above.. and then served over the linguine. This was more of a sweet tasting dish, and Chris prefers spicy - so he added some extra spices to his.

Chopping up the ingredients!

Cooking it all up! Yum!

Time to Update!

So, I realized that I haven't posted in awhile, but I promise it's not because we haven't been cooking! :) We've done a couple repeat meals, one not-so-great meal (turkey sliders.. ended up tasting super bland), and were in Connecticut for 4 days for Boo and Matt's wedding! (Where I had so much amazing food that I didn't have to cook! Woohoo!)

I will post a couple meals today that we did in the past 2 weeks! And we're trying 1 or 2 new recipes this week before we're off to the beach for a long weekend for the 4th of July :)

Yummy! Italian night! Chris made his delicious spaghetti and I did a bread dip with olive oil, parmesan, rosemary, oregano, basil, and garlic powder. We do spaghetti night about once a month and it's one of my favorite nights :)

Chris brought chicken tortilla soup home from work this week, too. This has been a running joke throughout our relationship :) Chris LOVES this soup and got a recipe for it from a co-worker one day so that we could make it... what a disaster it was! It ended up tasting like bean soup.. or just like eating corn masa by itself.. needless to say, we still prefer getting this soup from Freddie Mac! But Sabrina (my sister-in-law) recently passed along a new recipe for it that I'm hoping to try soon! Wish us luck!!

Chicken Skewers w/ Chirmol Salsa

We broke out the grill for the second time this year to make chicken skewers. We served them with Guatemalan chirmol salsa and a broccoli walnut salad.

We marinated a little over a pound of chicken tenderloins (ended up being 10 tenders in the pack) for about 30 minutes with:

-2 tbps olive oil

-2 tbsp lemon juice

-1 tbsp (ish) oregano

-couple shakes of salt & pepper :)

While the chicken was marinating, we made the salsa and the salad. We sprayed the chicken with nonstick spray and then they took about 2 minutes on each side to cook on the grill.

Chirmol Salsa

-4 plum tomatoes

-nonstick spray

-1/4 cup sliced scallions

-1/4 cup mint

-1 diced jalepeno pepper

-1 tsp minced garlic

-pinch of salt

-handful of chopped red onion (this was a last-minute decision, as we were cutting up onion anyways for the salad)

Coat tomatoes with nonstick spray and grill for about 6 minutes, turning until all sides are charred. Remove to a bowl and mash. Stir in rest of ingredients!

Broccoli & Walnut Salad

Easy, easy salad - great for summertime.

We cut a bunch of broccoli up and steamed it. Rinse with cold water & let it drain well. Toss with about 1/2 red onion, 1/2 cup of dried fruit mix (our bag had cranberries, blueberries, and raisins I think) and 1/2 cup chopped walnuts. Then we mixed in some buttermilk ranch dressing. Yum!

The expert griller hard at work! :)

Chorizo & Tomato Pasta

Ingredients


12oz bow-tie pasta (this ended up being way too much - next time, I'd only cook half the box!)
1 tbps olive oil
2 tsp minced garlic
6oz chorizo sausage, cut into small slices
1pt cherry tomatoes, halved
1 tsp crushed red pepper
1/3 cup goat cheese
parsley



Pasta
Cook pasta as package directs. After cooking, drain the pasta over a bowl, keeping about 1/3 - 1/2 cup of the water to add to the sauce if necessary.


Sauce
Saute garlic. Add chorizo and saute an additional 3-4 minutes over medium heat until browned. Add tomatoes and crushed red pepper. Turn heat down to low until ready to pour over the pasta. Add water from the pasta as necessary to make it more saucy. We also added some parmesan cheese and Italian seasoning at this point.


Top the pasta with the goat cheese and parsley.




And..... for the man who LOVES sauce.... You may choose to add some Prego ;)

Yum! This made enough for either 2 dinners, or 1 dinner and 2 lunches for me :) And, like I said, LOTS of extra noodles.

Homemade Salsa

One of my favorite things to make in the summer is homemade salsa. I've definitely gotten the comment before: "Wait... can't you just buy that at the store.. in a jar? Why waste your time?" My answer to that is... you can buy most things pre-made at the store. But if you like to cook, why not make salsa? Anyways, I made this over Memorial Day weekend and my mom asked for the recipe so here's my best shot :)

*One of the big cans of diced tomatoes

*Can of black beans, drained & rinsed

*Can of corn, drained

*1 jalepeno, diced

*1/2 of an onion, diced

Basically I mix up those ingredients until I think the ratio is right. I don't usually use all of everything. It works out well to also have a taco night around the same time so the extra ingredients can get used up! :) Then I add garlic, lime juice, pepper, chili powder, and fresh cilantro! Yum!

Roast Rosemary Chicken & Vegetables

I'm going to start this entry off by saying: On Thursday, Chris and I both had pretty crappy days at work. After getting home from work, neither of us really wanted to do anything other than drink wine and lay around. After this meal though, we both were in GREAT moods :) We both loved this meal and will definitely make it again and again.. it was super easy and soooo good. Plus, it was the perfect amount of food for 1 dinner + 1 lunch for me. Here's how we did it..

Ingredients

5 chicken drumsticks

2 large red potatoes, cut in bite-sized wedges

1 red pepper and 1 green pepper, again cut in bite sized wedges

1 onion, thick slices

3+ tbsp rosemary

Garlic, salt, and pepper to taste

Olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Kalamata olives (Well, the recipe called for them - but I don't think we'll add them next time. The flavor was already so good that the dish didn't really need the olives.)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees and cover a cookie sheet with foil.

2. Put chicken, potatoes, peppers, and onions in a big bowl. Drizzle with oil and season with rosemary, garlic, salt and pepper. Toss to coat everything evenly.

3. Put the chicken & veggies on the cookie sheet and roast for 30 minutes. Turn veggies and chicken over after about 15 minutes.

4. Arrange on plate, drizzle lightly with balsamic vinegar and add the olives if you want :)

A little taste of New Mexico!

Chris and I both LOVED this Santa Fe Beef salad!! It's also from Eating Light magazine.

Ingredients

2 tsp oil

1 lb flank steak, about 1 inch thick

1/4 tsp salt & pepper

1 bag of a Mexican salad kit (such as Fresh Express' Salsa Ensalada Supreme - comes with dressing, cheese, lettuce, sour cream, and tortilla strips)

2-3 plum tomatoes

1 can black beans, rinsed

1 avocado

Directions

Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Season steak with salt and pepper, cook in skillet.

Slice steak into thin strips.

Arrange the salad fixings however! We also put a scoop of sour cream and salsa in the middle :)

A Recent Favorite

Here's a yummy meal that Chris and I recently made!

The meal consisted of: Asian lettuce wraps with cucumbers, cantaloupe, and miso soup. The cucumbers were tossed with rice vinegar, sugar, garlic, and sesame oil. Chris was really not a big fan of the cucs.. I was neutral on them. The cantaloupe was tossed with orange juice and mint leaves which I thought was super yummy and continued to eat the leftover for breakfasts! Overall, I think we were pretty successful. :)

Here's the recipe we got for the lettuce wraps, altered slightly from Eating Light magazine.

Sauce

1/3 cup orange juice

1 tbps sugar

1 tbsp rice vinegar

1/4 tsp sesame oil

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

Wrap Filling

1 cup uncooked brown rice

1 pound lean ground beef

2 tsp minced garlic

2 tsp minced ginger

1 medium red pepper, diced

6 scallions, thinly sliced

2 tbsp hoisin sauce (I think we added an extra tbsp!)

And of course, don't forget the lettuce leaves!

Sauce:

Mix up all the ingredients.. easy!

Filling:

Cook the rice according to directions, don't add any butter/salt.

Cook beef, garlic, and ginger over medium high heat until beef has browned.

Add red pepper, cook 1-2 more minutes.

Remove from heat & add scallions, hoisin sauce, and rice.

Scoop filling into lettuce leaves and drizzle the sauce on top! :)