Pesto Mac & Cheese

Mac and cheese is sooo easy to make from scratch. And it's so easy to change it up! You can do a plain cheese sauce, add some cayenne and paprika for some spice, or add garlic and herbs for something more sophisticated. Add chicken and veggies or just veggies or add nothing! Once you know the ratios for a basic white sauce, the possibilities are endless. Monday nights I try to do a meatless meal for dinner. I had planned to make biscuits and fruit and veggie smoothies but we were prepping for the blizzard Tuesday and it was cold and the wind was howling and all I could think about was a bowl of warm, gooey, mac and cheese. I had some pesto in the freezer and thought it would be really delicious in the mac and cheese so I just went for it! It was REALLY delicious!

Ingredients:
2 T butter
2 T flour
2 c milk
1/3-1/2 c prepared pesto (I was just eye balling as I went along, so just make sure you're tasting as you go along, but you could add as much pesto as you want!)
2 c shredded cheddar (I like my mac and cheese really cheesy so feel free to use less if you want)
Salt and pepper to taste
10 oz small pasta (shells, elbows, etc.) cooked to package directions

In a large sauce pan, melt the butter over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and let cook for about 30 seconds. Slowly pour in the milk, whisking constantly to prevent lumps. Add your pesto and stir well to combine. Add the cheese and turn off the heat. Stir until the cheese is melted. Season to taste. Pour sauce over cooked noodles.

Buttermilk Fried Chicken

When drumsticks go on sale, it's really hard not to buy them at 69 cents a pound. I am not crazy about dark meat, but 69 cents a pound! I have my family's oven fried chicken recipe that uses drumsticks that I really like and this honey-ginger drumstick recipe that I love! But I always like to try new things. I have made fried chicken only a couple times before and it was good every time, but I always felt like it could be better. So I spent a lot of time reading a LOT of fried chicken recipes. There are so many different techniques. To brine or not to brine? Buttermilk or egg? Breadcrumbs or no breadcrumbs? After lots of research I decided to just go for it!

Ingredients:
12-16 drumsticks
Water
Kosher Salt
3 c buttermilk
2 T Sriracha
Salt and pepper to taste
3 c flour
2 1/2 T each garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika
1 T kosher salt
2 tsp cayenne
1 head of garlic cut in half through the middle, skin left on
Vegetable oil for frying

Place drumsticks in a large bowl (you can use 2 if needed). Measure 4 cups of water and stir in 1 tsp of kosher salt. Pour over chicken. Repeat until chicken is totally covered by water. Cover and refrigerate for about 4 hours. You can let it sit in this solution for as long as over night if you want to. When chicken is almost done in the solution, get everything else ready. In a bowl mix the butter milk and Sriracha together and then season with a little salt and pepper. In another bowl, mix the flour, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, salt and cayenne together. Drain the chicken and pat dry. Working with 3 or 4 drumsticks at a time, add to the buttermilk mixture. I let about 4 drumsticks sit in the buttermilk for about 10 minutes. While they were sitting in the buttermilk, I got a sheet pan out and lined it with parchment paper. I also got a heavy bottom pan out and filled about 3/4 full with vegetable oil. Move the drumsticks to the flour and put more drumsticks into the buttermilk. Coat the drumsticks completely in the flour mixture. Put it on the sheet pan to rest. Meanwhile, take the garlic cut in half and put it in the oil. Don't add any heat yet to the pan. Take the drumsticks in the buttermilk and move to the flour to completely coat and then rest on the sheet pan. Repeat until all drumsticks have been dredged in buttermilk and flour. Heat the oil to 325-350 degrees. Once the temperature reaches 325 degrees on a deep fry thermometer, remove the garlic and any skin that may have fallen off and discard. Add 4 drumsticks into the oil. Let cook for 6 minutes on the first side. Turn them to the other side and let cook for another 4-6 more minutes or until internal temp reaches 160-165. (Chicken will come up a few more degrees while resting so I do mine to 160 and let come up to 165) Sprinkle with salt as soon as it comes out of the oil and repeat with all drumsticks. My favourite thing to do with fried chicken is to drizzle it with honey when it's still hot so it just kind of melts over the whole thing... This chicken was so crispy, juicy, and just a little bit spicy. I will probably keep experimenting with fried chicken, but this was an excellent start!

Chocolate Ricotta Pancakes

I had some leftover ricotta from our bruschetta and I wasn't quite sure what to do with it. I don't have a spring form pan so I wasn't going to do cheesecake and I didn't have enough left to make lasagna. I remembered seeing lots of chefs on Food Network use ricotta in pancakes so I started doing some research to see if I had enough ricotta left to try that out. After reading a dozen or so recipes I finally settled on this chocolate ricotta pancake recipe. I did change it a little bit but not much. I took out 2 T of flour from the 1 1/2 cups and added 2 extra T of cocoa powder so they were extra chocolatey. I also did the orange syrup differently. I poured 1/2 c of pure maple syrup into a small saucepan and peeled two clementines. I put the peels from the clementines in the syrup and heated over low heat while I made the pancakes, stirring occasionally. I removed the orange peel and topped the pancakes with the syrup. These were sooo good! They were fluffy and chocolatey, but not very sweet which I love! They were super moist thanks to the ricotta. We were big fans!

Valentine's Day Dinner

A few months ago, we tried fennel for the first time. We've been trying to try new vegetables and branch out a little and this was one of the new things we tried! We had it roasted in a pasta the first time and it was delish! It was a little sweet and almost spicy in a licorice spicy way. With Valentine's Day coming up I was planning what to make. I do not like going out to dinner on Valentine's Day, it is way too busy for my tastes. So as part of my gift to Greg for the last few years I've made him a fancy dinner. I've always made salmon since it's Greg's favourite so I decided to stick with tradition and make salmon again. I wanted to make it special and fennel came to mind. With citrus being so tasty right now, I thought it would be really delicious with some oranges. Slowly the menu started to come together. The first course was some bruschetta. Toasted bread, ricotta, spring mix greens, pears and a balsamic reduction. Those were a big hit with Greg. But this orange and fennel salad (recipe below) was one of our favourites from the night. Fennel and orange dressed in some lemon and olive oil on top of perfectly cooked, fatty salmon... The crisp fennel and the bright citrus with that salmon was so excellent. This salad will be a regular for us now. For dessert I decided to try something new that I thought Greg would love. He's a big fan of fruit desserts, but especially lemon desserts. I also like lemon desserts but I am a big fan of textural difference in desserts and usually I find lemon desserts to be very one note texture wise. So I decided to try filo dough for the first time and get it nice and crisp to go with some tart lemon pudding. Layers of buttery, crisp filo with pudding in between, topped with whipped cream and a quick raspberry sauce on the side. It was a hit. I already can't wait to use the rest of the filo dough. Recipe/instructions below.

Orange and Fennel Salad
Ingredients:
1 fennel bulb, core removed and bulb chopped
2 clementines, peels removed, sliced into rounds and divided into the small triangle sections
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp olive oil
Fennel fronds roughly chopped (optional)

After chopping fennel bulb and slicing and separating clementine pieces, put into a bowl. Dress with lemon juice and a drizzle of olive oil. Toss well to combine. Add chopped fennel fronds if desired. Eat plain or on top of salmon, chicken or pork.

Bruschetta:
Bruschetta is so easy and can really be anything you want so there's not much too it! Slice a baguette on a diagonal so you have more surface area on your bread. Lay out on a sheet pan and drizzle with olive oil. Bake at 375 for about 6-8 minutes per side or until lightly golden brown. Top with whatever you want! This one was spread with a little ricotta, some greens on top, a slice of pear and then some balsamic vinegar that I cooked down. I put about 1/3 c of balsamic in a small sauce pan and heated it over medium heat. Add a little sugar, maybe 1 tablespoon. Cook until reduced by half. Let cool. That's what I drizzled over the top of this bruschetta.

Dessert:

2 sheets of thawed filo dough
2 T melted butter
1 small pkg cook and serve lemon pudding
Whipped cream (I prefer homemade but am not about the stuff in the can!)
Sunny Anderson's 1-2-3 raspberry sauce from here

Make the lemon pudding according to package directions and make the raspberry sauce. Let both cool in the fridge. Preheat the oven to 375. Carefully fold one sheet of filo dough in half so it resembles a book (I think we called it hamburger style in elementary school?), then fold in half again but this time the other way (hot dog style from elementary?). And fold in half one last time as hamburger style. Take a 2 inch round biscuit or cookie cutter and cut two rounds from the folded filo. You should end up with 12 thin layers of cut outs. Do the same thing with the other sheet of filo. Take a cookie sheet and brush the whole thing with a layer of melted butter. Take 6 rounds of filo and place them individually on the sheet. Brush with a little melted butter and layer another round on top. Repeat by brushing each layer with some melted butter and then topping with filo until you have 4 rounds in each stack.* Bake in the oven. I checked mine at about 8 minutes and then every 2 minutes after that. I pulled mine out at 12 minutes when they are just golden brown. Carefully remove from the baking sheet and let cool. Carefully place one stack of rounds on a plate and gently spoon some lemon pudding on top. Layer with another stack of rounds and then more pudding. Finish with the last stack of rounds and top with whipped cream. Use as much or as little raspberry sauce as you want!

*Note: make sure you read the instructions on your filo dough. You will want to keep it covered when you aren't working with it as it dries out quickly.

Copycat Rumbi Island Chicken Rice Bowl

One of my favourite places to eat at in Utah is Rumbi Island. I cannot get enough of their teriyaki sauce they have with their rice bowls! As far as eating out goes, it feels like one of the healthier options. Veggies, rice, and lean chicken! Well, I usually get the pork which isn't as healthy... But for this version I made at home, I did use chicken. The veggies, chicken and rice are easy enough to duplicate, the secret's in the sauce! It's sweet and thick... Mmm I love it!

Ingredients:
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 small zucchini, cut into half moons
2 cups small broccoli florets
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into matchsticks
2 cups cooked Jasmine or brown rice
Teriyaki sauce, recipe follows
Olive oil
Pepper to taste

One all your veggies are cut, set them aside. Trim fat from chicken breasts and cut them in half through the middle, a butterfly cut all the way through. Heat a grill pan to medium heat. Brush chicken breasts with olive oil and season with pepper. Brush oil on the grill and grill chicken breasts, about 4-5 minutes per side or until done. Remove from the grill and let rest for 5 minutes. While chicken rests, heat a saute pan over medium heat and put about a tablespoon of olive oil in the pan. When oil is hot, put all the veggies in the pan. Saute for 4-5 minutes until cooked but still quite crisp. Remove from heat. Cut chicken into small cubes. Assemble the bowls by putting the rice in the bottom of the bowl and top with chicken and veggies. Add as much or as little teriyaki sauce over the top as you want.

Teriyaki Sauce Ingredients:
1/3 c soy sauce
2/3 c water
1 1/2 T grated garlic (I like a lot of garlic, so feel free to lower the amount of garlic)
1 1/2 T grated ginger (see note for garlic)
3 T brown sugar
4 T honey
1 T rice vinegar
1 T plus 1 tsp cornstarch

In a small saucepan, combine all ingredients except for the cornstarch. When well mixed, add the cornstarch slowly while whisking. Heat over medium heat. Let come to a boil and boil for 1 minute or until thick. Stir well and let cool before using. I made the sauce before cooking the chicken and then just let it sit while I finished everything else.

Fried Rice

One of my favourite restaurants is Benihana. The food, the environment, it's all great. One of my favourite things there is the fried rice. They cook it in a ginger garlic butter and it is sooo good. I decided to try it out at home a year or so ago because I had leftover pork chops in my fridge as well as leftover rice. I've changed a few things and feel like it's almost as good as Benihana's now. It's a little different because I don't put veggies in mine, but the flavour is there. I have made this with both white and brown rice and we much prefer the brown rice. We've used leftover pork, leftover chicken, and even used mushrooms to make it meatless. It's so easy to change and just use whatever you have on hand. I love topping it with a fried egg no matter what rice or protein I use.

Ingredients:
2 cups cooked white or brown rice, preferably a day old
10-16 ounces leftover cooked pork chops or chicken cut into bite sized pieces
3 T softened butter
1 T grated garlic*
1 T grated ginger
Pepper to taste
1-2 T soy sauce

In a small bowl, combine the butter, garlic and ginger. In a large pan with high sides, melt the butter over medium heat. Once butter is melted, add rice and pork. Stir everything together and then let sit for a couple of minutes to get some texture on the rice. Add pepper to taste. When rice is warmed through and a little crispy on the bottom, turn the heat off and add the soy sauce. Mix well to combine.

Spiced Pear and Cranberry Crostata

A crostata is one of my favourite desserts. It's basically like a pie, but it's free form so you don't even need a pie pan to make one. They are so easy to make (especially when you cheat and use refrigerated pie crust like I do) and I love the crust to filling ratio. With a pie, I feel like there is too much filling for that little amount of pie. A crostata is thinner so there is a perfect amount of crust for the filling. I had bought some cranberries for a loaf of orange cranberry pound cake and didn't want the rest of the cranberries to go to waste. So I bought a couple of pears and threw this together. It was so easy and so delicious. The pears were just as sweet as the cranberries were tart and the spices warmed everything up and made the crostata sing!

Ingredients:
2 pears, peeled, cored, and chopped
1/2 c cranberries
1/4 c sugar (taste a piece of your pear and if it is really sweet, just use about 2 T of sugar)
1 T lemon juice
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 refrigerated pie crust
1-2 T milk and sugar for sprinkling (optional)

Preheat oven to 375. In a bowl combine all ingredients from the pears to the cloves, including the cloves. Mix together well and set aside while you roll out the crust. On a sheet pan lined with parchment paper, gently unroll the pie crust and put in the center of the pan. Carefully spoon the pear mixture into the middle of the pie crust, try to drain most of the liquid off before putting on the crust. Spread the mixture out leaving about 1-2 inches of pie crust around the outside. Or if you are like me and really love pie crust, leave about 4 inches of pie crust around the outside. Then gently fold the crust over the fruit. To help the crust brown and look pretty you can lightly brush the folded crust with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 375 for an hour or until the crust is golden brown.