Zucchini Alfredo with Chicken Sausage and Broccoli

Last week, I made some pretty amazing alfredo sauce and put it over tri-colored pasta with some broccoli and chicken-garlic-spinach sausage. It was so good. But, we are changing our diet and cutting out all grains. That means no more pasta at all. That is one thing that I am really going to miss, or at least I thought I would.

Tonight I decided to try making the alfredo sauce with the chicken sausage and broccoli again. This time, I used my oh-so-handy mandolin to cut zucchini into "noodles." Now these little, slippery buggers were so thin that I was concerned that if I tried to cook them they'd turn into mush. So, I made the sauce and stirred in the zucchini "noodles" in the sauce raw. The heat from the sauce cooked them just enough to soften them up a bit without turning them to mush. And let me tell you, I didn't miss pasta at all. It was so good! We were having spinach salad with it and Eric ripped up some of his and put it in his bowl to add a little more body. That was really good too. I think, next time, I'll chop some spinach and put it in at the same time as the zucchini. Super tasty stuff.

Sorry the picture is fuzzy. I took it with my phone.

Paleo Alfredo - super simple and super yummy

1 1/2 c heavy cream (I used organic)
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
3/4 c Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp black pepper
salt
nutmeg
3 fully-cooked Chicken sausage links, halved lengthwise and then in 1/4" slices
1/2 pound broccoli, cut into bite-size pieces
3/4 pound zucchini, shredded with a grater or mandolin

Bring 1 cup of cream and butter to a boil in heavy sauce pan. Simmer for 15 minutes or until reduced to 2/3 cup. After 5 minutes, start steaming the broccoli and add the sausage to the cream.
When cream is reduced, add the remaining 1/2 cup of cream, Parmesan cheese, pepper and broccoli. Add salt and nutmeg to taste. Stir in the zucchini and allow to warm through.
Serve while still warm. If sauce thickens too much, thin down with a little water.

Chicken with Champagne Cream Sauce

Let me start off by admitting that I really wasn't excited about this recipe. I didn't want to make it at all. And I apologize for not having pictures, it disappeared pretty quickly.



Eric made me a mimosa with my Mother's Day breakfast and we had most of a bottle of prosecco that needed to get used. And although it was a day to celebrate, there really is no excuse to drink a whole bottle of champagne for breakfast, especially by one's self. So, since by the end of the day it was flat, we decided that the next best thing to drinking it would be to cook with it.


I scoured the internet for recipes and none of them sounded very good to me. But out of them all, this one looked the best, even if it only called for 1/2 cup of champagne.


I am SO glad that I found this recipe and made it rather than letting the champagne go bad in the fridge and then dump it down the sink. It was so amazingly good! There are a few changes that I made to the recipe to conform to our new diet and there are a couple more that I'll make when I make it again. (Notice I said when not if.) For one thing, by the time my chicken was fully cooked on the inside, the outside was bordering on burnt and all the brown bits sticking to the pan were charred.


So here's the original recipe. And here's how I think it should be done:


6 chicken cutlets*
2/3 c almond flour (gluten-free and adds a great flavor)
Salt and Pepper
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 large shallots, minced
4 sliced prosciutto, diced small
4 Tbsp butter, divided
1/2 c dry champagne or leftover white wine
1/2 c heavy cream
1 tsp dry tarragon


Line a baking sheet with foil.
Pour almond flour into a shallow dish. Season with salt and pepper. Dredge the chicken pieces in almond flour.
Heat olive oil in a heavy skillet, not non-stick, over medium heat. When shimmering, add half the chicken to the skillet. Cook 2-3 minutes per side, or until golden brown. Place on baking sheet. Repeat with remaining chicken. Once it is all browned, place in oven at 350 degrees to finish cooking through if it is not fully cooked. If it is cooked through, turn oven to 200 degrees and place in oven to keep warm while you make the sauce.
Heat 2 Tbsp butter in the now empty pan. Once it is melted, add shallots and cook for 3 minutes or until translucent. Add prosciutto and cook for 1 more minute.
Pour champagne or white wine into pan, scraping up the brown bits on the bottom of the pan. Once it is reduced by 1/2 add the cream and tarragon. Return to a simmer, cook 2 minutes, stirring to combine. Whisk in remaining 2 Tbsp butter.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.


Serve chicken with champagne sauce over the top.


*You can make your own by slicing 3 chicken breasts in half. Place your hand on the top, press down firmly and gently slice through horizontally with a very sharp knife.


We really enjoyed ours alongside a simple salad and steamed broccoli. If you don't have diet restrictions, this would be really tasty with some mashed or baked potatoes.


Enjoy!

Cooking Day

Every now and then, my friend Debe and I get together and spend the whole day cooking. This last Saturday, we had a bit of a theme. We made Chipotle and Qdoba copycat recipes.

We made guacamole, 

Qdoba's queso,

marinated chicken, 

 fresh salsa,

barbacoa beef, pinto beans, cilantro-lime brown rice and homemade tortillas.

The recipes from chipotlefan.com all turned out wonderfully. The barbacoa beef was a bit lacking in flavor despite the marinade smelling so potent that it made me cough and my eyes water. Kind of disappointing.We used a Cook's Illustrated recipe for the salsa, which was pretty simple and straightforward.

The beans were a chore, let me tell you. I've tried cooking dried beans many times and it's always a crap shoot whether they'll turn out well or not. Most of the time, half of the beans are still rock hard while the other half of them are mush. The only way I've found to cook them with fairly good results is in the crock pot, but that takes all day and the results still vary. I decided that I'd start the beans the night before our cooking day and hope for the best. I started by doing a quick soak: covering the beans with water, bringing them to a boil and letting them sit for an hour. I let them sit overnight instead of just an hour. Saturday morning, I started them boiling on the stove again, simmered them for a couple hours, then put them in the crock pot when I got to Debe's. They cooked in the crock pot on medium for another 6-7 hours. They turned out really well. I guess the secret to cooking dried beans at high-altitude is just cooking the crap out of them. I'm not really sure that it was worth all the work though. I think next time I'll just open some canned beans and add some extra flavor or just cook them in the crock pot for 24 hours and be done.

Dessert was my favorite part. I made angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream. It was my first attempt at making angel food cake. (It called for 10-13 egg whites, enough to measure 1 1/2 cups. No problem there, but what do I do with all the yolks?) It was delicious, so much better than the styrofoam angel food cake you buy at the store. It had kind of a marshmallow-y flavor and a spongy texture. So yummy. Debe made Cook's Illustrated Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies even better by adding coconut! These were seriously the BEST cookies I've ever had! She substituted coconut extract for the vanilla and added about 1/2 cup toasted coconut in with the flour. They were amazing and didn't last long. I mean, can you get any better than browned butter chocolate chip cookies with coconut? I'm thinking, no.

It was a fabulous day.

Amazing Pasta e Fagioli

I found a copycat recipe for Olive Garden's Pasta e Fagioli soup years ago and have made it several times since then. I got a bit of a hankering for it and decided it was time to make it again. I doubled the recipe for the most part, but didn't have everything that I needed. So, I kind of tweaked it this time. I'm so glad I did. It turned out to be the best I had ever made.


Pasta e Fagioli (doubled, exactly how I made it this time)
This makes a HUGE pot of soup, you'll need at least a 5 quart pot to make the full recipe.

2 lbs ground beef
1 large or 2 medium onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 lb carrots, peeled and julienned
1/2 tsp celery salt
1 bay leaf
2 (14oz) cans tomato sauce
1 (5.5oz) can V8 juice
2 (15oz) cans petite diced tomatoes
2 (15oz) cans fire-roasted diced tomatoes
2 cans kidney beans with liquid
2 cans great northern beans with liquid
2 tsp white wine vinegar
2 tsp basil
2 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp pepper
salt to taste
1 lb ditalini pasta

Brown the ground beef. Drain fat.
Add carrots and onions and saute for 10 minutes.
Add rest of ingredients except pasta and bring to boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 1 hour.
In a separate pot, boil pasta for 10 minutes and drain.
To serve, place pasta in bowl and ladle soup over pasta. Top with Parmesan cheese.

It's really best the next day. I know it's tempting to put the pasta into the soup before serving, but the pasta will soak up all the moisture from the soup and get mushy and unappetizing that way. Store them separately.

Chicken Pasta Salad

Salad

4-5 chicken breasts or about 8-10 tenders

1 package Rotini pasta

1/2 cup chopped green onion

1 cup chopped cashews

35-40 grapes

1 can pineapple chunks, drained and halved

2 Fuji apples, cut into pineapple juice

Dressing

1 cup Miracle Whip

1 cup Mayonnaise

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt

1 teaspoon yellow mustard

3 teaspoons sugar

I decided to make this on the first nice day we had in a while. It's such a refreshing meal, but it doesn't normally last very long. This is one of my favorite things to eat when the weather is nice. You don't have to heat your entire house to cook a meal, it's filling, and, if you take out the mayo and miracle whip, it's kind of good for you.

I use frozen chicken tenders and simmer the chicken with a bit of seasoned salt. Cool about 4 hours, or until room temp.

For best results, refrigerate overnight before serving.

Cheese & Sausage Bundles

I haven't been cooking a whole lot lately, because of work. But what I have been making has been delicious. With this recipe, I dabbled with frying food. They turned out very well and it's very simple. I personally think that the salsa is best the day after it is made. The flavors mix together and it tastes more like a salsa you would buy.

Filling

1/4 pound Italian sausage

1 cup shredded Monterey Jack Cheese

1 can diced green chilies, drained on paper towels

2 Tablespoons finely chopped green onion

40 won-ton wrappers

1 quart vegetable oil, for frying

Salsa

16 ounce can petite diced tomatoes w/green chilies

2 Tablespoons olive oil

2 cloves minced garlic

2 Tablespoons chopped green onion

3 Tablespoons chopped parsley

Prepare the salsa before frying the bundles. This salsa is supposed to be served warm.

I put a rounded teaspoon of filling into the middle of the won-ton, wet 2 edges, and fold over into a triangle. It's the easiest way I have found.

To fry, use a stock pot, Dutch oven, or electric skillet. With the electric skillet, it will heat the oil, tell you when it's ready, and make sure the temperature remains the same throughout cooking.

To reheat any leftover bundles, either fry, bake, or put in the microwave. With the microwave, they get a little chewy, but if you put salsa over the top, it' not so bad.

A Not So Easter Dinner

One of my friends is coming over this afternoon for dinner and we decided we didn't want the typical ham for our Easter Dinner.  Instead, we'll be having French Dip Sandwiches, Tomato Avocado and Corn Salad with a Honey Lime Dressing, Homemade Mac and Cheese, and Ricotta Pound Cake with Strawberry and Raspberry Topping.  I've made these sandwiches several times and each time I get excited to eat, because they are so good!  They are so simple.  Just throw your pot roast in the crock pot with worchestershire sauce, a little red wine, beef stock and a packet of onion soup mix.  (Even though I don't serve the carrots, I put some in the crock pot and eat them later while I cook.  Those are always my favorite part of pot roast!)  Leave to cook for about 8 hours.  When the roast is done, pull the meat apart and put a generous amount on a roll (I like ciabatta) with your choice of cheese, my favorite is horseradish cheddar.  Put under broiler until cheese is bubbly and beginning to brown.  Serve the sandwiches with the juice left in the crock pot.  Delicious and easy!  The mac and cheese will just be thrown together with whatever ingredients I pull out at the time.  It's not rocket science.  The reason for my post today is to tell you about the pound cake!  I was looking through my fridge last night and was trying to decide what I could make with strawberries and ricotta, because they've been in my fridge for a little bit and needed to get used.  I went on to foodnetwork.com and found a recipe for ricotta pound cake.  Perfect!  I'll make pound cake with strawberries and whipped cream!  Most recipes for pound cake call for all butter, but since this recipe has part skim ricotta, it's practically health food!  Then with the strawberries on top, there's no doubt this food is good for you.  Here is Giada's recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups cake flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, room temperature, plus more to grease the baking pan
• 1 1/2 cups whole milk ricotta cheese (I used part skim)
• 1 1/2 cups sugar, plus 1 tablespoon
• 3 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 orange, zested (I didn't have an orange, so I did without and it still turned out delicious!)
• 2 tablespoons Amaretto
• Powdered sugar, for dusting
• 1 pint strawberries, hulled and quartered or 3 oranges, cut into supremes

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 by 5 by 3-inch loaf pan with butter. In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir to combine.

Using an electric mixer, cream together the butter, ricotta, and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. With the machine running, add the eggs 1 at a time. Add the vanilla, orange zest, and Amaretto until combined. Add the dry ingredients, a small amount at a time, until just incorporated. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean and the cake is beginning to pull away from the sides of the pan, about 45 to 50 minutes. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Using a mesh sieve, dust the cooled cake with powdered sugar.

Meanwhile, place the strawberries (or orange supremes) in a small bowl with the remaining 1 tablespoon sugar. Let sit until the juices have pooled around the strawberries.

To serve, slice the cake and serve with a spoonful of strawberries and their juices over the top of the cake.