Spinach Salad

I just made this salad 20 minutes ago and it was so good I'm writing it down on my baby lapotp that I never use. It's a perfect little late lunch food.

Ingredients:
1/2 bag of baby spinach
1 cup of farfalle pasta
1/2 cup feta cheese
3 slices of bacon
1 tsp pepper
Caesar dressing

Begin by cooking the pasta per the directions on the package. I insist that farfalle is the best, but you could play around with texture by using penne or rigatoni.

Cook the bacon like normal. I cooked it in the George because I wasn't really excited to eat all that fat. It also wouldn't jive well with all that Caesar dressing we're about to use.

When all is cooked, drain the pasta and rinse it well with COLD water. Chop up the bacon into bits.

Combine first the spinach and pasta, and swirl in as much dressing as you like. Stir it up, then add the pepper, the feta, and the bacon.

Then enjoy and don't share.

Flawless Mashed Potatoes

When I was on my honeymoon, we pretty much just ate. Savannah had a lot to offer, but we found one thing in nearly every restaurant we visited: AWESOME MASHED POTATOES. Tonight when I was attempting to make potato skins, I ended up making some potatoes that rivaled the ones I had in Savannah. And I just had to post it.

Ingredients:

4 russet potatoes
6 pieces of turkey bacon (or regular bacon!)
3 green onions
1/2 cup shredded cheese (we used Mexican cheese!)
4 tbsp butter (we used I can't believe it's not butter)
lil bit o salt
lil bit o pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 400.
2. Wash the potatoes. Get the grim off of 'em! Then lather them in a bit of canola oil.
3. Cook them in the oven for 45 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, cook up some bacon. I cooked turkey bacon in canola oil until it was crispy. It took about 12 min to get perfect. When it's done, let it sit while it stops being scorching hot. Then dice it up into little bits.
5. Chop up the green onion to an instinctively appropriate size.
6. When your potatoes are done cooking, cut them in half, then scoop out the innards. Put the innards in a mixing bowl. Add the butter, the bacon, the onions, the cheese, and the salt and pepper.
7. MIX IT! I used my AMAZING kitchenaide mixer with the paddle-y-type attachment. The one that looks like it might churn butter.
8. IT'S DONE! And it's amazing. This should feed about 4-5 people as a side. YUM!

Everything Lasagna

I apologize for the sub-par picture. I never took a picture of this lasagna because I initially thought it had been a failure. I took this with my phone and then ate the lasagna and realized holy cow it was delicious. This recipe is going to seem kinda nuts, maybe. I promise it's worth the trouble. I'd recommend that you only make it if you enjoy leftovers or if you have lots of people eating with you.




Ingredients:
1 package lasagna noodles
1 15-oz package of ricotta cheese
1 cup parmesan cheese (grated)
1/2 cup mozarella cheese (grated)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 pound ground turkey/beef/chicken/human
1 packet of sauce mix
1 15-oz can tomato sauce
1/3 jar pre-made tomato sauce (jar kind)
4 mini sweet bell peppers
1/2 cup diced white onion
20? pepperonis (just buy a pack)
6-8 leaves of basil, julienned

Boil a (LARGE) pot of water for your noodles. Preheat the oven to 350. Dice your bell peppers, onions, and basil.

Prepare packaged tomato sauce exactly as is done in my spaghetti recipe.

Cook your noodles SUPER CAREFULLY! They will break and become inferior. Stir very lightly. Be nice!

In a medium bowl (RIP my medium bowl 2007-2009), combine ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan, and oil. Mix them up really well, until it looks like one huge lump of unified cheese.

Coat a metal (foil?) pan with a little bit of Pam or Crisco or whatever you use.

Once your noodles and sauce are done, you are ready to build the lasagna.

First, layer the entire pan with lasagna noodles. Use about 1/2 of your meat sauce to cover this first layer. Next, create a single layer of pepperoni covering the sauce/noodle combo. For the next layer, use a rubber spatula to cover the lasagna with the cheese mixture. Do this like (ew!) you're frosting a cake. I know it's creepy.

Next, create another layer of lasagna noodles. Then use the remaining meat sauce to cover these noodles. On top of the sauce, scatter the basil, then the bell peppers and onions.

Finally, create one last layer of noodles. Use your tomato sauce (the one in the jar) to cover this layer and then if you have any parmesan cheese left over, lightly dust the top of the layer.

Cover with foil and cook for 30 minutes. Remove the foil, then cook 10 more minutes. You do this so the cheese basically doesn't catch on fire.

Now you have such amazing lasagna omg.

Peanut Butter Chicken

This recipe I consider to be a challenge. I challenge you to find a stranger combination of ingredients that results in something this good. The picture doesn't really make it look to appetizing, but this is definitely a winner. It's infamous in my family for being that one recipe with the peanut butter and soy sauce.







Ingredients:
2 boneless, skinless breasts per person
Rice (I use instant because I fail)
1 cup chopped white onion
1 1/2 tsp minced garlic
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup water
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp peanut butter
1/2 tsp ginger (dried ginger available in the spice section is actually ideal)

There are many ways to prepare the actual chicken part of this recipe. I live in an apartment with no balcony/grill, so I always use my George Foreman. It works decently, but if you can avoid it, I really suggest you cook the chicken on skewers over an outdoor grill. That's how my mom does it. :) Anyway, cook it til it's done to your liking. Same with the rice.

The sauce is the important part. Combine the chopped onion (you can chop it in a food processor, it's awesome), the minced garlic, and the vegetable oil in a sauce pan. Basically, saute over medium to medium-high heat until the onion is translucent. Don't let it burn! Next, add the water, brown sugar, soy sauce, peanut butter, and ginger. Mix thoroughly. Once it's watery-ish, use a whisk to get the ingredients to combine really well. Bring it to a boil, then saute for just a few minutes (3-5?) over very low heat. It thickens a bit and the ingredients incorporate better.

Serve chicken over a bed of rice and pour sauce generously over the chicken. It's basically a really easy meal once you've chopped and diced and all that. I promise you it's so much better than it sounds. This is just a really fun thing to cook since it's so... bizarre.

Chicken Parmesan

I haven't been this excited about a recipe in a very long time. I never thought about making this until one day I was craving it pretty heavily. I went online to find a recipe, but, naturally, I had to revise it to make it better! The one I found was swimming in sauce, but I used a basic knowledge of food skillz and developed this bad boy. One of my best dishes yet.




Ingredients:
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pounded to 1/2-3/4 inch
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup olive oil
a package of basic sliced mozzarella cheese
1-2 cups seasoned bread crumbs
a bit of grated parmesan cheese
a bit of basil
1/4 a package of spaghetti per person
tomato sauce*

Begin by preheating the oven to 350. If you have a crazy oven that burns everything (I had one once, UGH), only preheat it to 325. This is a super delicate recipe.

Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat.

Whisk the egg and milk together in a small or medium bowl. Dip your pounded chicken in that concoction, and then into the bread crumbs (ideally, these are in a seperate bowl).

Now, add the chicken to the olive oil. Cook about 3 minutes on each side, or until golden brown. Note: the chicken will not be fully cooked, so ew, don't eat it.

Take out a baking dish (ideally either nonstick or glass) and pour about 1/2 cup of tomato sauce along the bottom. It shouldn't be a pool of sauce: just enough to cover the bottom very lightly.

Drop your chickenz into this dish. Drip a bit more sauce on top of the chicken breasts. It really doesn't matter how much: if you like sauce, go ahead and add a bunch! Just leave the edges sauce free, as if you're making a pizza with crust. Then, place a slice or two of mozarella on top of each piece of chicken. I only used one and it was perfect. Next, add a bit of parmesan cheese on top of the mozzarrella. Oddly, this recipe is more mozzarella-y than parmesan-y. If you really love parmesan, add more! Then, add another layer of sauce. Cover this with some chopped basil and perhaps a tiny bit more parmesan. Use a little more sauce to fill the wholes in your dish (places where there is no chicken), cause it will taste good.

Cook this in the oven 25 minutes, or until the cheese looks bubbly and not burnt. Ha.

Meanwhile, cook your spaghetti according to its directions. Once it is finished, strain it, then ADD IT TO THE SAUCE PAN with the remaining sauce. Swirl it around in the sauce so the spaghetti really absorbs it.

And once your chicken is done, arrange it how you like, and you're good! Pair with a medium-bodied red wine, I'd say.

*An Ingenious Tomato Sauce Recipe to go with it
Ingredients
1 15-oz can tomato sauce
2 Roma tomatoes, peeled
a bit of basil
1-2 tbsp butter (depending on your love for butter)
2 tbsp minced OR sliced garlic
a dash of red wine (recommend Chianti)

Heat the butter in a saute pan over medium to medium-high heat, until melted. Add the tomato sauce and allow it to come to a bit of a boil. Once it has boiled, reduce heat to a sort of high simmer. Add the Roma tomatoes. (Sidenote: peel your own tomatoes! Just boil water, add tomatoes, allow them to cook 2 minutes, then skin them with a knife!) Initially, I suggest you chop them, then later crush them in the sauce. Add the garlic and basil. Add the wine at the point of your choosing. If you like the taste of burnt-off wine, (that is, if you're not a wino), add it straight away. If you enjoy winey sauce, add it about 3 minutes before you eat. Let this all simmer while you're cooking something else. Ideally, you should let it simmer for about 8-10 min. Then yay, sauce!

Chinese Chicken Salad

So it has been quite a while since I updated, for a lot of reasons. 1. It's really hot, I don't like cooking in 90+ degree heat. And I don't really have my shit together. Anywho, this is what you do with leftover roasted chicken! It's really really yummy and the main feature is the dressing.




Ingredients:
Leftover roasted chicken, shredded
4 green onions
1/3 a can of crispy chow mein noodles
a bunch of lettuce

Dressing:
4 tbsp sugar in the raw
2 tsp salt
2/3 vegetable oil
3 tbsp sesame oil
6 tbsp white vinegar

Make the dressing first, cause it takes a few hours to settle/decompose/whatever. Combine all the dressing ingredients in, ideally, a squirt bottle thing for dressing. I am from the ghetto and I just used a Tupperware with a lid. Shake it vigorously for about a minute, then put it in the fridge. The key is to have the sugar in the raw dissolve.

When your dressing is ready, simply chop the onion and the lettuce as needed, combine with the chicken and the chow mein noodles, and drizzle with the dressing. Voila. Simple Asian salad. So good.

Roasted Garlic Chicken

Alright so this is another recipe I found and heavily modified, which effectively made it my own. It involves a TON of garlic peeling, so I would advise you either enlist friends to help you shuck that garlic or that you buy PRE-PEELED stuff. It is a delicious little bugger and the leftovers can be made into a salad which I will be posting later. ;)




Ingredients
1 whole fryer chicken
40 cloves garlic (holy crap) peeled
1 white onion
1/2 cup sweet white wine (pinot grigio or sweeter)
1/4 cup sweet vermouth
1/4 cup olive oil
4 stalks celery (1/2 -to 1-inch pieces)
2 tbsp oregano
1 lemon
salt and pepper
garlic salt

Preheat oven to 400. Also: START PEELING THAT GARLIC. It took me 1/2 an hour alone. Meanwhile my fiance read cosmo behind me. Awkward.

Once that madness is over, take the gizzards out of your chicken and, if you want, rinse him. Mine was really clean and I like the chickeniness, so I was okay without washing it. Put him in a shallow baking pan. I would extremely recommend a glass one cause my metal one was ruined after this. Then again, I own crap.

Cut the onion into quarters, and slice 1/4 of the onion into two-inch pieces. Put the other 3/4 in the poor sucker's hole. This will ensure flavor throughout.

Now pour the white wine over the little guy. Then the vermouth. Next, the olive oil.

Then decorate him with the oregano. On top of that, layer as much garlic salt as you'd like. I like a ton, as you know. The salt and pepper will be the final layer.

Cut the lemon and squeeze it over your dolled-up bird. Finally, sprinkle the garlic cloves, celery, and remaining onion on top of the chicken. It's definitely okay if most of it is just lying around it, because the baking process will cause enough garlic smell to intoxicate your chicken.

Place the bird in the oven and make a foil tent over him. I'd say cover it as tightly as you can get it.

Cook for approximately 30 min. per pound. Ours was 4 pounds, so we took 2 hours. For the first hour to hour and a half, keep him in the tent. The last hour or or and a half, remove the tent so that you can char the skin. Ocassionally, baste the bird with the juices around him. Honestly, I did this about every 15 minutes.

And then you get a yummy chicken! I would HIGHLY recommend you serve it in the juice because it is OH SO GOOD.