Nachos!

As I am typing this, I realized I should have saved this dinner for Cinco de Mayo. Oops! Well I'll have to come up with another fabulous Mexican Dinner for May 5th.
Or wait, I will make something Irish. B/c you see, on St. Patrick's Day, the hubs & I went to On the Border. And he tried to order a Guinness. Yes, yes he did... Back on topic.

In the past few months, I have discovered chipotle peppers in adobe sauce. These spicy yet smoky suckers are awesome! It took me awhile to locate them at the P.Chop, but I did find them. Now, you don't use too many in any recipe so when I get the urge to have some, I need to find other recipes to use them in before they go bad. Yes I know you can freeze them, but I am weird and don't really like freezing things. Anywho, for a potluck luncheon at work next week, I decided to make the Chili & Cheddar Bow Tie Casserole I went in search of what else I could make with the peppers and found in my "Fall Recipes" document (yeah I know its Spring, I started it in the Fall and haven't gotten through all of them yet) Roasted Chicken Chipotle Nachos w/Avocado Crema. I apparently got this from "Sunset" magazine. Or to everyone else, myrecipes.com

• So I didn't like idea of avocado-crema, we just a bowl of guac & a bowl of sour cream.
• I grilled my chicken breasts with some "Southwestern" seasoning. No clue what was in it, but looked like some red pepper.
• I started to chop up my 2 peppers, then realized I had forgotten to seed them. So I did my best to pick out the seeds but my lips were still on fire!
• I decided to just keep all the mixins' separate. I hate when my nachos get soggy.
  

These were very good & a nice light dinner. So light in fact, that we made a run to Dairy Queen!

Quiche!

I have been really bad the past few weeks about making breakfast in the morning. Unless its already prepared, its doubtful that Hubs & I will have anything to eat. I also hate buying breakfast at work. I mean, $6 for eggs, some bacon & an english muffin? (That is for both of us).
So I was determined to make something this weekend that we could eat throughout the week. I had some pie crust in the freezer so I took it out to defrost on Friday. I also saw Julie's Broccoli Cheddar Quiche & decided to use that, with some of my own additions & deletions.

I basically left out the onion. I did 3 egg whites & 3 eggs and a little milk. I omitted the mustard, b/c DH hates it, and added some ham. I only used cheddar cheese, no other cheese. I think it took closer to an hour to 75 minutes to cook though.

We had it this morning for breakfast and it was good stuff!

Presto Pasta!

Over at Once Upon A Feast , Ruth hosts a "Presto Pasta" blog event. I thought I would enter this one into the Presto Pasta Night. The hubs and I got home last night and went for a walk. I didn't want to make anything too heavy, I also honestly didn't feel like cooking.
So I had the following:
one very large grilled chicken breast
8 boxes of Ronzoni Whole Wheat Pasta (thanks Sam's Club!)
Canned tomatoes
mozz cheese
pecorino-Romano cheese.
Tomato sauce


So I cooked up the pasta, diced the chicken, mixed everything together & topped my casserole dish with some mozz & pecorino-romano cheese. I tossed it in the oven at 375 for about 40 mins.
Dinner was done (& delicious) PLUS we had leftovers for lunch today.

Muffins!

I am so tired of eggs for breakfast. Don't get me wrong, I really love eggs. I just need something else. I like making stradas, quiche, etc... It gives the eggs a little extra something, but to be honest. I only had 4 eggs left and it's pretty hard to bake a quiche out of that small amount.
So onto baked goods. I had some cream cheese in the fridge and I remembered I had bookmarked a Strawberry Cream Cheese Muffin from CL. So I went in search for it.

I realized after reading the recipe, it wasn't all that healthy (not that bad for you in comparison but still not great) and I was missing some things. So I will denote in pink what I did differently.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Filled Muffins
Cooking Light
Ingredients
1/4 cup (2 ounces) 1/3-less-fat cream cheese --> I had reg. cream cheese
2 tablespoons strawberry preserves
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour --> I used 1 1/4 cup all purpose & 1 cup whole wheat stone flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons poppy seeds --> Omitted b/c I didnt have any on hand
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups low-fat buttermilk --> I used 1 Tbsp white vinegar & enough skim milk to make 1 cup. In place of the 1/4 cup I used low-fat sour cream.
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 large egg whites
1 large egg
Cooking spray

Preparation
Preheat oven to 375°.
Combine the cream cheese and preserves; stir with a whisk.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour and the next 5 ingredients (flour through salt) in a medium bowl; make a well in center of mixture. Combine buttermilk, oil, egg whites, and egg; stir well with a whisk. Add to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.

Spoon the batter into 12 muffin cups coated with cooking spray, filling one-third full. Top each with about 1 teaspoon cream cheese mixture; divide the remaining batter evenly over the cream cheese mixture. Bake at 375° for 25 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in center. Remove the muffins from pans immediately, and place on a wire rack.

Yield
1 dozen (serving size: 1 muffin)

Nutritional Information
CALORIES 182(29% from fat); FAT 5.9g (sat 1.7g,mono 1.6g,poly 2g); PROTEIN 5g; CHOLESTEROL 23mg; CALCIUM 94mg; SODIUM 231mg; FIBER 0.7g; IRON 1.3mg; CARBOHYDRATE 27.4g



They were delicious, but, like anything else I stuff, they kind of exploded. I lost quite a bit of filling in some of them. Oh well. I mean, I cant stuff chicken, or tortillas or bread without the insides oozing out, what would make a muffin any different? The recipe also said these would work well for freezing so maybe if you have some extra time, whip a batch and toss em in the freezer for a rainy & non-eggy day.

Corn Off The Cob

Who doesn't love corn on the cob??? It signifies the beginning of BBQ season. You can have corn on the cob all summer long, for any meal! Ask my mom, she likes to have it for "brunch".
(My mom also thinks "brunch" is anywhere between 10am & 3pm. For example,
Mom: Hey come to our house for Brunch this weekend.
Me: Ok Mom, when?
Mom: Oh like 2pm, how does that sound?).
We love corn on the cob at our house, but we HATE how it gets all caught up in your teeth & its so messy.

Enter, the corn stripper.



You can pick up one of these suckers at Bed, Bath & Beyond for about $12.00 Santa brought the hubs one for his stocking this past winter & we busted it out! We have actually used it a few times but this time I took some pictures.

Here is the corn on the cob

Next you have the corn stripped off the cob & in the handy holder.

Here is the corn off the cob & nicely plated.

Talk about super easy! It takes a few times to get it right but well worth it in the end.
And, I didn't get a picture, but the hubs made some great BBQ pork chops last night for dinner. Thanks Hubs!

Strawberry Salad

This salad always reminds me of summer. Probably b/c I associate strawberries with summer, but it is so light & refreshing!
Usually I use a different raspberry vinaigrette but the store was out it the last time I went, much to my despair, so I had to buy a different type & I just didn't like it as much.
Anyway, all you need is some spinach, some sliced strawberries, silvered almonds & red onions if you like. We don't like red onions but sometimes I'll put them in for looks!
Drizzle with your favorite raspberry vinaigrette. I like the kind that is in a clear bottle with black & white writing on it. When I get it next, I'll be sure to post it here!

This was a perfect pairing to the whiskey chops. Since the main dish was pretty heavy, this salad was a refreshing compliment.

Whiskey Chops!

I love mushrooms so whenever I see a picture that has something with sauteed mushrooms in it, you can bet I am going to put it on my "to make" list. So when I saw the One Pan Whiskey Chops screaming at me from my inbox, I glanced at the P.Chop add and to what did I see? You guessed it, pork chops were on sale & so were mushrooms! (It was meant to be!!)
I made this last night. It was the Hubs & my one year wedding anniversary. We spent the day together gardening outside so it was nice to just be able to put something together & let it bake.

One Pan Whiskey Pork Chops
Cooking Light

Ingredients
2/3 cup fat-free sour cream (I used low fat)
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried rubbed sage
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
4 (6-ounce) bone-in center-cut pork chops, trimmed (I used boneless sirloin chops)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion (I didn't have any onions at home)
1 (8-ounce) package presliced mushrooms
1/2 cup whiskey (I used Maker's Mark)

Preparation
Preheat oven to 300°.
Combine the first 6 ingredients in a small bowl.

Sprinkle pork with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add pork; sauté 5 minutes on each side or until golden. Remove pork from pan. Add onion and mushrooms to pan; sauté for 3 minutes. Carefully add whiskey to pan; cook for 1 minute or until liquid almost evaporates. Stir sour cream mixture into pan. Return pork to pan; spoon sauce over pork.

Wrap handle of skillet with foil. Cover and bake at 300° for 1 hour. Serve immediately. (I ended up baking these for about 45 mins at 325F. We were hungry and wanting to eat our wedding cake)

I did have to laugh though when I made the accompanying rice. My friend Betsi asked me on Friday if I had tried this "Nature's Way Parmesan & Romano Rice". Non-chalantly she said, but you would probably make it from scratch. Not so my friend, not so. The rice & I, we haven't had the best experiences. I have tried many a risotto that turns out crunchy, or even mexican rice that also, turns out crunchy. Heck, I cant really even make Minute Rice, it turns out watery. So yes, I turn to the Rice-A-Roni folks to lend a hand. And yes it was delicious, the sauce combined with the rice made a perfect pair!!