One Dish Chicken Pasta

I had some chicken strips that needed to be used and was feelin kind of lazy, this is what I did.

Ingredients:
1 lb chicken, cut into strips or cubed, rinsed
favorite Italian seasonings
2 cups chicken broth
1 can diced tomatoes, I used a basil, garlic, oregano variety
pasta, about 1.5 cups uncooked

Steps:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees
In a baking dish (I used 8x11 sized dish), place cut up chicken, season chicken
Put broth, tomatoes, and pasta in dish, make sure pasta is mostly covered
Cover dish w/ foil and put in oven
Depending on your altitude (higher elevations take a bit longer), should take 30-45 minutes.  Dish is done once chicken and pasta are done.

Serve with cheese, garlic bread, and a nice salad.

It's not super quick, but it's tasty and healthy option for that chicken sitting in your freezer/fridge

Creamy Pesto Chicken and Pasta

Another Campbell's Kitchen adaptation.  I like the recipes on this site, but rarely use actual Campbell's products due to added things like high fructose corn syrup and gluten that's added to their products.  With that said, their recipes are easily adaptable to any dietary guidelines you personally follow.  I try to cook as much gluten free food as my husband and I both get plenty in our beer and his sandwiches.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons of butter (you can use olive oil instead)
1 lb chicken, cooked and cubed
an Italian seasoning for your chicken
1 can of condensed cream of chicken soup (I used an organic option)
1/2 cup pesto
1/2 cup milk (I have not tried it, but unsweetened/flavored soy milk may work)
1/2 of a 1 lb bag of your fave pasta, cooked and drained (I use gluten-free pasta only)

Steps:
1) cut chicken and cook in the butter/oil with seasoning over medium-high heat.

2) While you cook your chicken, bring water to boil and cook pasta

3) Stir in soup, pesto, and milk and heat to a boil

4) Reduce heat to low and cook for 5 minutes or until chicken is cooked through (though it really should already be cooked)

5) Stir in pasta and cook until mixture is hot and bubbling.

6) Serve with homemade garlic bread or cheddar biscuits (recipe to come)

This was super yummy!  When I said I was definitely making this again, my hubby thought I said I wasn't and started pestering me why lol.

Thinking on my toes

Last night as I planned on fixing chicken alfredo.  I placed a pot of water on the stove to boil with just a splash of olive oil and bit of sea salt.  Then in my big pan, started cooking my chicken.  I'm SOOOO glad I bought the thin sliced chicken strips for this meal!  As the chicken cooked, was almost completely done actually, the power went out!  There was still heat on the stove so I stirred the chicken to finish the cooking process.  As the last of the heat left the pan I made my husband bring me my phone (it's got a flashlight) so I could look at the chicken.  It was all cooked!  He then asked what I planned to do if the power didn't come on soon.  To my own surprise I said "we can have chicken tacos or wraps".  We both were kind of impressed with how quickly I said that.  We waited for the power to come on for 30 minutes but nothing, so with a bit of mayo (for my husband, not me), lettuce, tomato, and a wee bit of shredded cheese we had chicken wraps.  I'm glad I keep tortillas on hand at all times!

The moral of this story: always have a backup of what you can do with what you're cooking in case of power outages, especially on nights where you have heavy rain or severe storms.

Oven "fried" Chicken Chimichangas

My adaptation of this recipe from Campbell's website.

Ingredients:
2/3 cups Pace picante sauce
taco seasoning mix
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano, crushed
1 1/2 cups chopped cooked chicken
1 cup shredded cheese, either cheddar or Mexican mix
2 green onions, chopped
6 8-in tortillas
2-3 tablespoons melted butter

Steps:
Preheat oven to 400°F
Cut chicken into cubes and cook in a skillet with olive oil and taco seasoning, cook until cooked through
In bowl, mix picante sauce, cumin, oregano, cheese, and green onion

Add cooked seasoned chicken.

Place about 1/2 cup of chicken mixture in the center of tortilla, place on cookie sheet
Brush butter onto each chimichanga, making sure tortillas each have a nice coating.

Bake for 25 minutes.

Great sides are black beans and Spanish rice!

Taco Seasoning

You know what I hate? Prepackaged spices like taco seasoning.  Half the time you can't make out what is exactly in it and the other half there is just too much salt in it.  So here is my old reliable taco seasoning mix.  I use it for more than just tacos as well.  

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons chili powder

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon minced onion 

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon garlic powder

Instructions:

mix all ingredients together.  

Use all and a bit of water to make delicious tacos from a pound of ground beef.  Also use it to season chicken used in Mexican dishes, such as the oven fried chimichangas recipe I will post later.

Lasagna Soup

Ingredients:

1/2 pound ground beef/turkey/bison

1/2 pound mild Italian sausage

1 small onion, chopped (about 1/4 cup)

1 teaspoon minced garlic (1 or 2 cloves)

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon dried basil

1/4 teaspoon dried parsley flakes

3 1/2 cups (28 oz) beef broth (I use organic)

1 can (14.5 ounces) diced tomatoes (I use the basil and garlic kind)

1/4 Italian seasoning

1 small can of tomato paste

1 1/2 cup uncooked mafalda or corkscrew pasta (I used radiatore)

1/4 grated parmesan cheese

Directions:

Cook meats, oniion, garlic, oregano, basil, and parsley over medium-high heat until well browned.  Pour off most fat.

Stir in the broth, tomatoes, tomato paste, and Italian seasoning.  Heat to a boil.  Simmer for about 10 minutes.

Stir in pasta and reduce heat to medium.  Bring to a boil.  Once pasta is tender, lower heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes.  Add in parmesan cheese.  

Serve with additional parmesan cheese.

Pot Stickers, Redneck Gourmet Style

Ok, I was vegetarian for quite awhile and came up with this originally as a vegetarian meal, but have found that turkey will work as well.

Ingredients

1 lb either vegetarian sausage or turkey sausage (ground turkey will work, but not as flavorful)
1 package of dumpling rounds or even won-ton wrappers (found in produce section near vegetarian food)
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
ginger, minced (equivalent to amount of garlic)
soy sauce (I just add enough for taste & color)
1 green onion, finely chopped
olive oil

Steps

1. Mince garlic and ginger.  Chop green onion

2.  Mix in a medium or large bowl garlic, ginger, sausage, and onion.  Add in soy sauce slowly.

3.  Using a small spoon (like you would eat cereal with... well what you would give a kid to eat cereal with lol), spoon a small amount into round or wrapper.  Seal with water.  You want to make sure there are no air bubbles in the dumpling and that it isn't too full.

4.  Continue the process until all the meat mixture is used.  Left over rounds or wrappers can be used to make home made raviolis.

5.  Bring a pot of water to bowl, place small amounts of the dumplings into the water.  Boil until the pasta part is done.

6.  Drain and place in a skillet hot skillet on medium heat with a little olive oil.  Lightly brown the dumplings.  

7.  Serve with your favorite dumpling sauce... They're perfectly fine with just soy sauce.