Helping Hamburger

One of my favorite boxed meals is hamburger helper.  So, one day, when it came to reworking a bunch of leftovers, I decided to see what I could do that would work.  I started out with some ground beef, and cooked and drained it.  Next I added some mushrooms.

 

Next I added a 1/3 bag of egg noodles, a half cup of milk, and a half can of cream of mushroom soup and a cup of water.

 

 I turned the heat to medium/high, in order for the dish to boil, while stirring occasionally.  When the noodles were cooked, I added peas, and turned the heat down, allowing the sauce to thicken.

 

The result was a delicious meal, that had the taste of my favorite boxed dinner!

Gourmet Hamburgers

Hamburgers are something that my husband and I never have.  Ground beef just does farther in other dishes.  However, one day we decided to splurge and patty out some burgers.  Of course, we didn't want any regular old burgers, so we decided to make them "gourmet."

Before we patted them out, we added several different ingredients to our ground beef.

First we added onion powder, garlic power, and parsley.

 

Then we added some shredded cheddar cheese.

We mixed everything together well, and then we added the liquid ingredients.  Worcestershire sauce and some mustard for a bit of a tangy taste went in.

Lastly, we patted them out and cooked them up.  

They were delicious!  So, the next time you want to fix some burgers, don't go with the same old thing.  Spice it up a little with your own gourmet burgers!

Ravioli Lasagna

The ravioli recipe that I shared here makes several of the large ravioli pieces, much more than my husband expected.  So, there we were with about six large raviolis left over.  Of course we could have eaten them later, but I like to mix things up a beat at times.  Remembering a recipe for a ravioli lasagna I decided to try something new.  It's really simple to do, either with your leftover homemade ravioli, or you can even use the frozen ravioli. 

Simply (after cooking the ravioli) spray a pan with cooking spray, and begin to place the ravioli in the bottom.  Cover the bottom with ravioli, and then cover that with sauce and shredded cheese.  Keep layering until you run out of ravioli, or reach the top of the pan. 

Cook the lasagna at 350 until the center is warm and the cheese is melted, then enjoy!

Chicken Ravioli

On Valentine's Day I was kicked out of my kitchen!  What kind of a person would do such a thing?  Well, my husband would.  However, he did so with some great intentions.  He decided to make me a surprise Valentine's meal.  I heard a lot of loud noises and soon some wonderful smells were coming out of there.  When I was finally allowed to see the end product, this was what it was.

 

He had made homemade ravioli for me!  What a guy!  So, I learned the secret of making this delicious dish, and just had to share it with you. 

First, you make the pasta dough (you can find the recipe here.)  Then you roll out the dough.

While this is being done, you can also start on the filling for the ravioli.  My husband decided to use chicken as the filler.  First he cooked then minced two boneless, skinless chicken breasts with a good chopper.  (A food processor would work great too!)  He then placed the chicken as well as a chopped garlic clove, chopped red and yellow peppers salt, pepper, and grated Parmesan cheese into a skillet.  You can cook this mixture on low, while stirring occasionally.  This mixture looks a lot like scrambled eggs when you are cooking it.

 

 

When the filling is done, place spoon fulls of it on the flat pasta dough, in a circle about 1-2 inches in diameter.  You can really make the ravioli whatever size that you want, but we enjoyed large raviolis.  When the filling is placed, lay the other rolled out pasta on top of the first that is now covered with filling.  My husband used a tart press to cut and seal the ravioli.  If you don't have one of these, you will want to coat the edges of the ravioli with some egg whites or butter, to make the edges stick together.  Then cut out the ravioli with a pasta cutter (or a pizza cutter if a pasta cutter is not available).  Make sure the edges of the pasta are pressed tight. (You can use a fork to help seal the edges as well.)  Cook the ravioli in a pot of boiling water for 8-9 minutes, until the pasta dough is limp.  Be gentle with each piece, as they are somewhat prone to breaking open.  Place the ravioli on a plate and top with some marinara sauce that has been warmed in a sauce pan.  Then enjoy this delicious meal!

      

 

 

Spaghetti Sauce

After watching someone make homemade marinara sauce on a cooking show, I knew that it was something that I wanted to try.  There are several different ways to make the sauce, but I took a rather simple approach.  First I minced 1-2 cloves of garlic and cooked it in a skillet with a handful of chopped onions and some oil.  I cooked it until the onions and garlic were tender. Next I added two cans of diced tomatoes and a can of tomato sauce. 

 

Keeping the heat on low, I stirred the tomatoes, in with some seasoning.  I used Italian seasoning, salt, parsley, and about 4 pinches of sugar.  I then added some Parmesan cheese, and continued to stir everything while it simmered.  

 

The sauce takes a long time to cook, otherwise the sauce will continue to taste bitter.  While the sauce is cooking, I browned some ground beef and added it to the sauce.

 

After cooking for about an hour, the sauce was tasty and ready to eat on any type of pasta. Enjoy!

Chicken Fettuccini

With my husband's current interest in making homemade pasta, we decided to have some fettuccine.  It may sound intimidating, but it's really not that hard.

First you make the pasta itself.  Take 2 cups of flour, a tbs of basil, and a 1/4 tsp of salt.  Mix these dry ingredients together.  Next, mix the wet ingredients.  This includes 2 eggs, 1/3 cup of water, and a half tsp of oil.  When both the wet and dry ingredients are mixed thoroughly, mix them together.  When the ingredients are all mixed together, cover the dough and let it rest for 10 minutes.

After the dough has rested, split it into four equal parts, and roll each part out into a 12x12 inch square.

  At this point you can cut the pasta into whatever you want.  My husband has made fettuccine, bow ties, and ravioli.  Either cook the pasta in boiling water then, or let it dry to store it in the fridge (to be used in the next couple of days) or in the freezer (for storage up to several months).

For the rest of the meal, cut some boneless skinless chicken breast into strips.  Place some oil in a skillet and heat it up.  Add some salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning to the skillet, and place the chicken breasts in to cook.  Cook them until they are cooked all the way through.

 

When the chicken is cooked, add some Alfredo sauce (we just used the plainest Alfredo sauce from the store.)  I added some more seasonings to get the flavor I wanted.  

  
 As the sauce continues to cook (set it to a low heat), place the pasta in a pot of boiling water.  Cook for 5-6 minutes or until the pasta is limp.  Drain the pasta.

  
Then, pour the Alfredo sauce, with the chicken, on top of the noodles.  Enjoy!

BBQ Chicken Bites

Although the loss of the Colts was a bit bitter, the great food that we had at our Super Bowl gathering helped make up for it.  It was my first chance to host people in my "new" apartment, and any chance to make some food is a fun one.  So, I decided to try something new.  BBQ Chicken Bites were a tasty addition to the evening, and they are pretty easy to make.

First, cut up the boneless skinless chicken breasts into cubes.  Dredge the pieces in flour and place in a skillet that has hot grease in the bottom.  Fry the chicken, letting it get a golden brown on all sides.

 

The crispier you get them in the pan, the crispier they will be after all of the bbq sauce.  Next, either place the chicken bites into a sauce pan, skillet, or slow cooker.  I've used a skillet and a slow cooker both.  Add the bbq sauce. 

My bbq sauce consisted of regular sauce, a bit of a honey sauce, salt, pepper, parsley flakes, onion powder, garlic powder, ketchup, and Worcestershire sauce.  Let the sauce simmer and soak onto the chicken bites.  You want the bites to be hot, but if you soak them too long, they will just become soggy.  

There you go, some nice bbq chicken bites for you to enjoy!

Fried Pickles

Sitting in a restaurant one day, I was finally able to try the dish I had heard much about.  I assumed that I would love fried pickles, I mean, they were pickles, and they were fried.  What's not to love?  With some extra pickles on hand, I decided to try and make some of my own.

There are several recipes and ideas on how to batter and fry the dills, but this is the way I did it.  First I put a cup of flour, a sprinkling of salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder in a ziploc bag.  I also sliced my whole baby dills into 1/4 inch slices.  The sliced pickles were then tossed in the bag of flour until  each piece was well coated. 

The pickles were then dropped into the fry-daddy.  I stirred them carefully, so the flour wouldn't fall off too much.

 

I cooked them until they were a golden brown and then placed them on a napkin.  They were pretty good!

Chicken Cacciatori

Chicken cacciatori, Chicken cacciatore,... the words rolled round and round my head like an 80's pop song.  In a desperate attempt to purge my mind I spewed the words out of my mouth.  "Chicken cacciatore!"  My husband looked at me oddly, and asked, "What's that?"  To my surprise I couldn't answer him.  I've heard of chicken cacciatore a lot, but I didn't exactly know what it was.  A quick recipe search, some cooking, and soon I had my first taste.  It was rather delightful if I do say so myself.

Although the recipe calls for a whole chicken cut up, I used chicken breast cut into slices.  After it thawed out I dredged the chicken by putting it in a plastic bag with flour and shaking until the chicken was covered.  With my flour I had 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder and onion powder, as well as some salt and pepper.  In my skillet I added a little oil and placed the pieces of chicken in, cooking them until they were brown on all sides.

When the chicken was cooked, I added two chopped garlic cloves, a handful each of chopped onions, red peppers, and yellow peppers.  Keeping the heat on medium I slowly mixed the ingredients together.

I then added 1 1/2 cups of diced tomatoes, some oregano and basil. 

 

I covered the dish and let it simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  After that time, I added mushrooms.  The real recipes calls for some white wine (which I don't have).  However, when it appeared that the dish needed more moisture, I added half a can of chicken brother and a smidge of water.  Then I let the dish continue to cook while everything melded together. 

When everything was done we served it over some cooked pasta.  Now I know what chicken cacciatore is (as does my husband).  It was a little different than our usual fare, but we enjoyed it.

Chicken Enchilada

After the recent chicken toasting fiasco, I was left with some, well, less than succulent pieces of meant.  However, meat is too precious to throw out, but what could be done?  After a few minutes of racking my brain, I remembered that there was a can of green chilies in the cupboard.  Chicken enchiladas were the perfect thing to make!

These are incredibly easy and taste delicious.  All you have to do is cover the bottom of a cake pan with pieces of tortilla shells.  I use about 5-6 medium shells. Next mix the rest of the ingredients into a mixing bowl.  Use a handful of chopped onions, two cans of cream of chicken, shredded or cubed cooked chicken, half a can of chicken broth, one can of green chilies (partially drained) and garlic to taste.  Mix it all together and pour this into the pan with the shells.  Cook the enchiladas at 350 degrees until the top begins to turn a golden brown, and the rest is hot all the way through.  Enjoy!