Category Archives: Main Dishes

February 25, 2010 · 12:11 pm

Fettuccine Alfredo with Garlic Breadsticks

Okay, technically this is linguini. But if you close your eyes, it all tastes the same anyway.

This is one of Big J’s favorites. It ranks in his top 5 meals (maybe even higher), and is the only non-Asian based meal on the list. It is easy enough to put together that when I’m looking to score some “Good Mom Points”, I will even make it for him for lunch. He definitely counts this as one of the homeschool perks: hot home-cooked lunches instead of soggy PB&J.

I didn’t get any prep pictures of the the Alfredo Sauce, but it is basically a wonderfully rich blend of chicken broth, cream, cream cheese and Parmesan cheese. There is no need for added thickeners (flour, cornstarch, etc). The cheeses make it plenty thick all on their own! It can easily be put together while your pasta is cooking.

You can serve it on its own, but I usually have several “toppings” on hand as well: chopped grilled chicken, cooked & crumbled bacon, steamed or roasted broccoli, barely-cooked baby peas (these are my favorite!).

Garlic Breadsticks

This is an easy to work with dough (very similar to the Cinnamon Twist dough, just without the egg and sugar).

Divide dough in half and roll out into rectangles. Use a sharp knife to cut dough into strips (a pizza cutter works great).

Melt butter in a jellyroll pan (here I have half of a batch of dough in a 9×13” pan). Place strips in pan, and turn each strip over to coat both sides with butter. Cover pan and let rise 30-60 minutes.

Sprinkle with garlic powder and cheese and bake for 10-12 mins.

Serve with your favorite pasta or soup dish.

RECIPES:

Fettuccine Alfredo

Servings: 6-8
Print

¼ cup butter
1 clove garlic, minced
4 oz cream cheese, cut into cubes
½ cup heavy cream
1 cup chicken broth
1-2 Tbs white wine, optional
½ tsp freshly ground pepper
¾ cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese

Fettuccine (or other pasta)

Optional Toppings:
Grilled chicken, cut into bite sized pieces
Bacon, cooked and crumbled
Roasted or steamed broccoli
Baby peas, cooked until just tender

In a saucepan over low heat, melt butter slowly. Add garlic and cream cheese and stir until melted. Add cream, chicken broth, white wine and pepper. Stir in Parmesan. Stir with a whisk as it heats to get a smooth sauce. Cook until sauce is smooth and heated through.

Prepare fettuccine as directed on package. Serve fettuccine with alfredo sauce and desired toppings.

NoEmptyChairs.me

Garlic Breadsticks

Servings: 18
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1 ½ cups warm water
1 Tbs sugar
1 Tbs yeast
1 tsp salt
3 ½ – 4 cups flour
½ cup melted butter
Garlic powder
Parmesan cheese, optional

Mix water, sugar, yeast, salt, and flour. Add more flour, if needed, to make a soft dough. Knead.

Melt butter in a jellyroll pan. Set aside.

Divide dough in half. Roll dough into 2 rectangles. Cut into 1-inch wide strips. Place dough strips ½ inch apart in pan, turning over to coat both sides with butter. Let rise 30-60 minutes (until doubled). Sprinkle with garlic powder and Parmesan, if desired. Bake at 400°F for 10-12 minutes.

Makes about 18 breadsticks.

NoEmptyChairs.me

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Filed under Breads, Main Dishes

Tagged as alfredo, breadsticks, cheese, comfort food, fettuccine, garlic, grilled chicken, pasta

February 16, 2010 · 1:57 pm

Super Simple Szechuan Shrimp

Easy prep, easy cooking, easy clean-up, and ready to eat in under 30 minutes, start to finish (even if your shrimp are frozen). Simple enough for a quick mid-week meal, but elegant enough to serve to company.

This is a recipe that I adapted from Kalyn’s Kitchen. I had bought some Szechuan peppercorns from Penzeys and thought that this would be a great recipe to add them to. Szechuan peppercorns are not spicy in the same way that some other hot peppers are. Rather than a burning feeling, they produce kind of a “numbing” sensation on your tongue. But when used sparingly, they add a great flavor!

To save on clean up, I like to prepare this recipe using Ziploc bags and a foil lined roasting pan.

Combine fresh green beans with a little olive oil, coriander, cumin and ground Szechuan peppercorns (you could also use red pepper flakes or other spicy pepper if you don’t have the Szechuan ones).

To save on time, I bought raw, peeled shrimp (they still had tails, and I left them on). To thaw frozen shrimp, place them in a colander and run cool water over them until thaw.

Combine shrimp with olive oil, lemon zest and salt and pepper. Arrange beans on a foil-lined pan in a single layer .

Roast beans at 425°F for 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes, arrange shrimp on top of beans and roast 8-10 minutes more, until shrimp are done but still tender and juicy. Serve with lemon wedges.

RECIPE:

Szechuan Shrimp and Green Beans

Servings: 3-4
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For the green beans:
1 lb green beans
1 Tbs olive oil
½ tsp ground coriander
½ tsp ground cumin
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp whole Szechuan peppercorns, ground**

For the shrimp:
1 lb medium-large raw shrimp, thawed and peeled
2 Tbs olive oil
zest from one lemon (save the lemon and cut into wedges)
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp fresh ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 425°F.

If shrimp are frozen, place in a colander and rinse with cool water until thawed. Peel and de-vein.

Grind whole Szechuan peppercorns (I use my regular black pepper grinder). Place with green beans in a Ziploc bag with remaining “green bean” ingredients.

Combine shrimp and remaining “shrimp” ingredients in a separate Ziploc bag. Reserve lemon wedges for later.

Line a roasting pan with foil. Spray with non-stick cooking spray. Arrange beans on pan in a single layer as much as possible. Roast beans at 425°F for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, arrange shrimp on top of beans and roast 8-10 minutes more, until shrimp are done but still tender and juicy.

Serve the shrimp and beans immediately with lemon wedges.

**NOTE: If you don’t have Szechuan peppercorns, you can substitute crushed red pepper flakes, or other hot peppers. I get my peppercorns from Penzeys.

Adapted from Kalyn’s Kitchen

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Tagged as Chinese, easy meal, green beans, roasted shrimp, seafood, shrimp, szechuan

February 6, 2010 · 11:23 pm

Comfort Food on a Snowed-In Day: Beef Bourguignon and 100% Whole Wheat Bread

We woke up this morning to a beautiful world of winter white! The kids’ only complaint: that it happened on a Saturday.

After spending several hours digging our driveway out from the storm (no snow-blowers here), I was ready to warm up the house (and me) with some good old-fashioned comfort food. Beef Bourguignon and some Whole Wheat Bread were just what I needed. This had to wait, of course, until I was done helping kids in and out of snow clothes half-a-dozen times during the day (and mopping up puddles of melted snow). And making lots and lots of hot cocoa!

I know you are thinking that this is just a glorified beef stew, but it is so much more! This Beef Bourguignon is packed with flavor, and is thick and hearty, just begging for a slice of bread to mop up all of the leftover goodness in the bottom of your bowl.

And did I mention bacon?

Some of the heartiness (and tons of flavor) in this stew comes from first cooking some (okay, a lot) of chopped bacon in your stock pot. Remove the cooked bacon (to be added back later, of course), drain most of the bacon grease, leaving a couple of tablespoons in the bottom of the pot to brown your beef cubes in. I used some leftover roast beef from a few nights ago. Brown it up nicely in those bacon drippings and then add some mushrooms and onions.

I like to remove most of the alcohol from the red wine, so I add it first, and then reduce it almost dry before adding in the rest of the liquids.

Stir in some broth, tomato paste, and seasonings and let it simmer for an hour or two to get your beef nice and tender.

Add carrots, potatoes, and celery and continue cooking until those vegetables are tender. Add some cherry tomatoes just before serving. They will soften perfectly just from the heat of the stew. Adding them too early will turn them to mush, and you’ll just have floating tomato skins in your bowl.

Waiting (patiently? not-so-patiently?) for mom to snap a few pictures before serving dinner!

After a long day of fun in the snow, a good hearty bowl of stew sure hits the spot!

FEB 6, 2010 009-1

RECIPES:

Beef Bourguignon

Servings: 8-10
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½ pkg (8 oz) bacon, chopped
3 lb beef roast, cubed
1 pkg (8 oz) whole mushrooms
1 ½ cups red wine
4 cups beef broth
1 bay leaf
1 ½ tsp Italian seasoning
1 (6 oz) can tomato paste
1 Tbs Dijon mustard
1 Tbs Worcestershire sauce
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp black pepper
½ tsp salt
1 Tbs tapioca
1 cup pearl onions, or 1 onion, diced
2 potatoes, peeled & diced
2 carrots, peeled & diced
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 cup cherry tomatoes

Cook bacon in a large pot. Remove from pan when cooked. Drain most of the grease, leaving about 2 Tbs in the pot. Brown the beef cubes in the bacon drippings. Add mushrooms (quartered if they are large) and chopped onion (if you are using pearl onions, wait and add them with the potatoes later). Cook for about 5 minutes, or until onions and mushrooms just begin to brown.

Add the wine and let wine reduce for 10-15 minutes, or until almost completely evaporated. Add cooked bacon, beef broth, bay leaf, Italian seasoning, tomato paste, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, pepper, salt, tapioca, and pearl onions. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer 1- 1 ½ hours.

Stir in potatoes, carrots, and celery. Add additional water if stew is too thick. Cook until vegetables are tender. Taste and add additional salt, if necessary. Add tomatoes 5 minutes before serving. Remove bay leaf.

Serve with Parmesan cheese and hot bread.

NoEmptyChairs.me

100% Whole Wheat Bread

Servings: about 36
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2 ½ cups warm water
2 eggs
1 Tbs molasses
4 Tbs honey
¼ cup olive oil
5 cups whole wheat flour
½ cup wheat gluten
¼ cup dry milk
1 Tbs salt
1 Tbs instant yeast ***
1 ½ – 2 cups additional whole wheat flour

Mix wet ingredients. Add dry ingredients. Mix in enough additional flour to make a moderately stiff dough. Knead 5-6 minutes.

Divide dough into 3 greased medium-sized loaf pans (or 2 large). Brush with additional oil, cover and let rise until doubled in size.

Bake at 350 °F for 35-40 minutes. Remove from pans; cool.

TO MAKE ROLLS: Shape into desired shapes. Place on greased pans; brush with oil, cover and let rise until doubled in size. For a shiny roll: brush with slightly beaten egg white just before baking. Bake at 375 °F for 15 minutes.

***Note: If using instant yeast, the dough only needs to rise once (in the pans). If using regular yeast, allow dough to rise before putting in pans, then rise again in pans before baking.

Yield: 3 medium loaves (or 2 large) or 3 dozen rolls

NoEmptyChairs.me

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Filed under Breads, Main Dishes, Soups/Stews/Curries

Tagged as 100% whole wheat bread, beef, beef bourguignon, bread, comfort food, snow, stew, whole wheat bread

January 25, 2010 · 7:59 am

Last Minute Dinners: Salsa Chicken (and a Mexican Coleslaw)

Looking for something quick, easy and delicious to throw together for a last-minute dinner? This Salsa Chicken has been the answer to many of my “Oh no! It’s 5 o’clock already! What am I going to cook tonight?” dilemmas.

Simply brown some chicken breasts (generously seasoning with garlic powder, cumin, and chili powder).

Mix together a jar of taco sauce or salsa with just a little cocoa powder and cinnamon and pour over your chicken. (since there is a lot of sauce with this dish, I use a mild or medium variety of taco sauce/salsa) Cover and cook about 10 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. Stir in some chopped cilantro.

Top with cheese – Provolone is my favorite, but I also use Swiss, cheddar or Muenster if I don’t have any provolone.

Let the cheese melt and serve with rice. We like Vigo brand “Yellow Rice”, a mild saffron flavored Spanish rice.

And if you are organized enough to plan ahead for this dinner, this Mexican Lime & Cilantro Coleslaw goes really well with it:

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The coleslaw goes together really quickly if you use a prepackaged coleslaw mix. The pre-planning just comes in the grocery shopping part.

RECIPES:

Salsa Chicken

Servings: 4-6
Print

4-6 chicken breasts, trimmed
1 Tbs oil
½ tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 ½ cups taco sauce or salsa
1 tsp cocoa powder
1/8 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbs (or more) chopped fresh cilantro
4-6 slices Provolone or Swiss cheese

Heat oil in skillet; add chicken. Sprinkle with cumin, chili powder, and garlic powder (I don’t usually measure these spices; I just sprinkle them on both sides of the chicken). Cook until chicken is browned on both sides. Combine salsa, cocoa, and cinnamon. Pour over chicken. Cover and cook about 10 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. Stir in cilantro.

Just before serving, top each chicken piece with a slice of cheese. Cover and let cheese just begin to melt. Serve over rice (our favorite is Vigo brand “Yellow Rice”, a Spanish saffron flavored rice).

NoEmptyChairs.me

Mexican Lime & Cilantro Coleslaw

Servings: 8
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1 bag coleslaw mix
5 green onions, thinly sliced
½ cup chopped cilantro
½ cup mayonnaise
2 T fresh lime juice, (about half of a large lime)
red or green Tabasco sauce to taste (I use 5 “shakes”)
½ tsp salt (or to taste)
½ tsp fresh ground pepper (or to taste)

Combine coleslaw mix, green onions and cilantro.

In a small bowl, whisk together mayonnaise, lime juice, hot sauce, salt and pepper. Taste and adjust seasonings. Mix dressing into cabbage mixture.

Serve immediately, or chill for a few hours.

Adapted from Kalyn’s Kitchen

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Filed under Main Dishes, Side Dishes

Tagged as chicken, cilantro, coleslaw, last minute dinners, lime, quick meals, salsa chicken

January 21, 2010 · 11:02 am

Chicken Stir-Fry in Peanut Sauce

Stir-fries are a great way to use up small amounts of vegetables left in your crisper. That stray half of a bell pepper, or 6 lonely mushrooms starting to wilt. Such was the state of my refrigerator when I made this stir-fry. I had small amounts of broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, cabbage, pea pods, and red pepper that needed to be used up or tossed out. And I just hate throwing food away.

The key to a good stir-fry (tender chicken and crisp vegetables) is to cut EVERYTHING before you start cooking. And get the sauce mixed ahead of time too. I am always tempted to save a few dishes by cutting and adding directly to the wok as I go, but this never ends well. Something always ends up mushy and overcooked.

Start by cutting your vegetables into bite-sized pieces and setting aside. You will need to add them separately to the wok, so you can either use separate bowls for them (which I avoid-again, the extra dishes) or one large bowl. If you are using one large bowl, add the vegetables to the bowl in the reverse order that you will add them to the wok: pea pods and cabbage first (as they will cook the quickest), carrots and broccoli last (as they will take longer to cook). Place a layer of plastic wrap or waxed paper in between your layers for easy removal of vegetables from the bowl to the skillet.

Cut chicken into very thin slices and set aside.

Stir together sauce mix and set aside.

Heat a little oil in the bottom of a wok or large skillet. Start with your longest cooking veges. I add the broccoli first, sauté for 2-3 minutes, or until bright green, then add about 2 Tbs water, put the lid on for about 2 minutes and let it steam. Remove to a serving bowl. Add a little more oil and start adding additional vegetables. If you are making a large amount, cook in small batches, removing cooked vegetables to the serving bowl when they are still crisp (just barely tender-a little under-cooked is best).

Once all of the vegetables are cooked and removed from the pan, add a little additional oil and cook chicken over high heat until tender. The chicken is mixed first with some curry paste (I like red) and ginger before cooking. Adjust heat or find a lid if the chicken splatters a lot.

Stir sauce mixture into chicken and cook until thickened slightly. This sauce has a soy and peanut butter base with some red curry paste.

Stir the vegetables back into the pan and cook just until heated through. Serve immediately over hot rice.

RECIPE:

Chicken Stir-Fry in Peanut Sauce

Servings: 6-8
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2-3 Tbs olive oil or coconut oil
2 cups broccoli florets
1 large red bell pepper, sliced thinly
2 medium carrots, cut into matchsticks
2 cups thinly shredded cabbage
1 cup sliced mushrooms
Handful of snow pea pods
1 onion, diced
4 chicken breasts, thinly sliced
2-3 tsp curry paste, hot or mild, to taste (I use red curry paste)
1 Tbs fresh ginger, grated
4 cloves of garlic, minced

Peanut Sauce:
1 cup hot chicken broth
¼ cup smooth natural peanut butter
¼ cup soy sauce
1 Tbs fresh lime juice (about half of a lime)
1 pkt Stevia (or 1 tsp sugar)
1/8 tsp red pepper flakes, adjust to taste
1 Tbs cornstarch + 2 Tbs water, mixed

**NOTE: Vegetable types are adjustable based on what you have on hand (or what your family will eat).

Mix together sauce ingredients. Set aside. Cut vegetables and chicken and set aside.

Heat 1 Tbs oil over high heat in a wok or large skillet. Cook the vegetables in small batches until crisp-tender (but slightly undercooked). Remove from pan and set aside.

Stir curry paste and ginger into sliced chicken. Add 1 Tbs additional oil to hot wok. Stir in chicken and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in garlic. Cook 1 additional minute.

Add sauce mixture (stir first to incorporate cornstarch) to pan with the chicken. Cook until slightly thickened. Return vegetables to pan and heat through.

Serve over white or brown rice.

Adapted from Glutenfreegoddess

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Tagged as chicken, Chinese, curry paste, peanut butter, peanut sauce, stir fry

January 7, 2010 · 10:20 pm

Zucchini Boats with Turkey Sausage

One of my resolutions for the year is probably the same as at least half of the rest of the women in this country: to lose weight. My goal is pretty specific however, and has nothing to do with pounds, involves no commercialized diet plan, or even involves such vague undefinable goals like “eating healthier” or “exercising more”. My goal has to do with inches: I want to lose ½-inch (and I may be satisfied with about ¼-inch). Pretty ambitious, don’t you think?

The kicker comes in where I want this ¼” – ½” to come from. I need it to come from the ring finger of my left hand. So that I can remove the wedding rings from my finger! Not that I want to keep them off, it would just be nice to BE ABLE to take them off – for cleaning and such. So if anyone has any sure-fire finger-fat-shrinking diet they would like to share, I am open for suggestions!

Until then, I will have to stick with those unmeasurable methods of eating healthier (I am taking the “whole food, very limited sugar/refined starch” approach) and exercising more. We have always eaten a mostly whole foods diet, but I am going to be much more diligent about the exceptions that I allow myself to eat (like the cookies and desserts that filled my life over the holidays). I’ll let you know when I reach my goal, or my rings completely cut off all circulation to my finger.

Zucchini Boats with Turkey Sausage

This recipe, from Simply Recipes, turned out to be both super healthy and a new family favorite (probably because no one could tell just how many vegetables were packed into that filling-Hurray for the food processor). Most of them even ate the zucchini boat! Which actually surprised me, as we have only one admitted-squash-liking child.

The zucchini I used were pretty long, so I cut them in half both length-wise and width-wise. This also made for better kid-sized portions. Just be sure to leave part of the shell on both ends when you are scooping. A small melon-baller worked great for scooping out the insides. I softened these “boats” slightly before filling by brushing with olive oil, sprinkling with s&p and microwaving for 2 minutes.

jan10 149-1

The turkey sausage filling is made using ground turkey, onion, garlic, mushrooms, tomatoes, zucchini-insides, seasonings and Parmesan cheese (I kept that a secret from Big A, as well). I chopped all of the vegetables, except the tomatoes, in the food processor so that they would not be recognized. This is not a dish that it would be easy to pick out more coarsely chopped mushrooms and squash bits. Once my home is occupied by fewer picky eaters, I will keep those veges more chunky. They would provide a nice texture. But for now, the food processor is my friend.

Fill your zucchini shells and bake about 45 minutes, until browned. The crispy browned pieces of filling were especially delicious, so don’t take it out of the oven too soon!

In fact, the browned bits were so good that I broiled the extra filling until most of it was brown and crispy (thinking that the original amounts would not feed our whole family, I made much more filling than I ended up needing) and made a breakfast casserole with it the next morning.

RECIPE:

Zucchini Boats with Turkey Sausage

Servings: 4
Print

jan10 170-1

2 zucchini
about 4 Tbs olive oil, divided
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
½ cup chopped mushrooms
1 lb ground turkey
2 Tbs white wine
2 diced tomatoes (I used ½ of a well drained can of diced tomatoes)
3 Tbs chopped fresh basil
1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
2 tsp salt
2 tsp black pepper
¼ cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese

Cut zucchini in half lengthwise. Scoop out insides (a melon-baller works great here), leaving about ¼ inch of the shell on all sides. Chop zucchini insides; set aside. Place zucchini shells in a glass baking dish and brush insides of zucchini with a very small amount of olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Microwave for 2 minutes to soften zucchini slightly.

(For my vegetable-adverse children, I chopped the onion, garlic, mushrooms, and zucchini-insides in a food processor)

Heat 1-2 Tbs oil in a large skillet. Sauté onion, garlic, and mushrooms until tender. Add zucchini-insides and cook until tender. Remove from pan and set aside.

Heat an additional 1-2 Tbs oil in the same skillet. Add the turkey and cook until browned. Drain any fat. Add wine and stir to deglaze pan. Stir in onion/mushroom mixture, tomatoes, basil, rosemary, salt, and pepper. Cook, uncovered, for 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in Parmesan cheese. Fill zucchini shells.

Bake, uncovered, at 375°F for 45 minutes, or until well browned. Serve hot.

Adapted from Simply Recipes

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Tagged as healthy, low carb, low fat, resolutions, turkey, turkey sausage, zucchini, zucchini boats