Fried baguette with fresh spinach

We have had some amazing meals but I have not blogged them. The last week has been a special kind of crazy. On a whim, I started grad school (first step toward an MA in European History). And I broke my ankle.

Between boredom and necessity, I started experimenting in the kitchen and developed these:

So good I had to plate them on my fancy Royal Doulton. 

The ingredients are all hunks of leftover things... A day-old baguette, a random chunk of mutilated cheddar, some fresh spinach that is trying so hard not to wilt and a partial stick of butter my eleven-year-old daughter removed from the wrapper so she could use the wrapper to grease a pan.

I sliced the day old baguette thinly, to increase the chances that a layer of butter smeared across it and heated in the cast iron skillet would restore its edible potential.

I prepared each slice with a thin layer of butter on each side, dropping them directly over the center of the skillet preheated on medium. This allowed them to heat quickly and brown nicely on the edges. I flipped the bread over, topped with a very small piece of cheddar, a spinach leaf or two and a second small piece of cheese.

The assembled discs I pushed to one side of the pan, farther from the heat, and covered. I wanted to melt the cheese but not burn the bread. Probably 60 seconds.

I sprinkled with the tiniest bit of garlic pepper and some crushed red pepper flakes. I will be expanding on the concept for dinner.

Turkey Zucchini Spinach Burgers

I'm baking these on my roaster pan at 350 degrees.

Made 7 burgers of about 100 calories/20 grams protein each.

- 20 ounces ground turkey

- about 2 cups shredded zucchini

- about 2 cups raw organic spinach

For spices:

- 1 tsp ras el hanout

- 1 tablespoons raw chives

- 1/2 tsp ground pepper

- 1 tsp curry powder 

- 1 tsp parsley 

- 1 tsp cumin

- 1 tsp paprika

- 1 tsp garlic powder

- 1 TBS cheddar onion dip mix

Chicken and spinach pasta

A quick lighter version of Alfredo florentine, with chicken served over little chicken-shaped noodles.

The sauce:

- 4 tablespoons butter

- 1 cup homemade chicken stock

- 1 cup skim milk

- garlic powder to taste

- paprika to taste

- about 2 cups chopped spinach

Combine all the ingredients but the spinach and bring to a slow boil so it can thicken. Once it starts to thicken, add the spinach. Mix sauce into noodles.

Cook chicken strips as designed with additional garlic powder and paprika. I arranged mine in a circular formation  around the pasta.

I then sprinkled shredded Parmesan on the pasta.

Winter Omelette

Another Snow Day.

So I made omelettes with a side of butternut squash "home fries."

The omelette (for 3)

- 4 eggs, some water

- 3 tablespoons bleu cheese

- 2 ultra thin slices of colby jack

- more than 1 cup spinach (maybe 2)

- about 1 cup peppers

- 2/3 cup dark meat chicken

- garlic pepper

- paprika 

Served with Bolthouse Farms blue cheese yogurt dressing.

The butternut squash... About 2 cups fried in 1 tablespoon butter, drizzled with 1 tablespoon maple syrup and sprinkled with cinnamon.

Green pasta with beef kielbasa

This turned out awesome.

I sautéed a couple ounces of ricotta salada and kielbasa diced in large chunks in Papa John's garlic sauce diluted with a couple tablespoons oil.

Then I added about 1/2 cup frozen spinach, about 1/3 cup frozen kale and probably 2 cups peas (it all fell out of the bag at a rate I couldn't control.)

When that was all thoroughly cooked, I added cooked pasta (about four to five servings) and removed it from heat. I stirred it for what seemed like forever and then drizzled about two tablespoons cold pressed imported extra virgin olive oil.

My Crazy Chicken Spinach Potato Chip Casserole

I hope this works.

I made a chicken rice potato chip casserole. But not the standard kind with cream of chicken soup.

I cooked three chicken breasts (but only ended up using two). Meanwhile my daughter made a sauce of the following:

- one cup homemade chicken stock

- 1/3 cup mayo

- 1/2 cup soy milk

We added spices:

- parsley

- Himalayan pink salt 

- black pepper

- garlic

- mustard

- ras el hanout

- nutmeg

- cheddar cheese dip mix (about 2-3 tablespoons)

We mixed into the sauce:

- 2 cups raw spinach

- 1 cup northern beans

We placed one cup cooked rice on the bottom of the casserole dish. We layered sauce/mix onto the rice, put in the chicken chucks, and then sprinkled a touch of Parmesan and mozzerella cheese on it. We put the rest of the sauce/mix on top, added more cheese and topped the whole mess with crushed potato chips. 

I put it in the oven, uncovered, at 325 for 30 minutes...

It's a tad bland. I need to jazz up the spice blend more.

Turkey spinach meatball

We made a batch of turkey spinach meatballs tonight to serve open-faced on white Italian sliced bread.

I made chicken gravy from my homemade chicken stock to get that soggy white bread comfort food sensation. I made the gravy in the pan I baked the meatballs in. So the dried turkey drippings and chicken stock mixed with some Italian seasoning and a pinch of flour equaled my gravy.

The meatballs were one pack of Jennie-O lean ground turkey, too much garlic powder, about 2 cups raw spinach, parsley, one tablespoon fresh ground pepper, and about three tablespoons ras el hanout.

I wanted 20 meatballs but only got 12. And they were small. And yummy.

Must make double batch next time.

More comfort food

God bless my husband.

We had a snow storm on Tuesday, and after work on Wednesday he drove me to Target for my closing shift and then he got gas in the car and went to Giant.

You see, I had a coupon for free eggs if I spent $5. Since we're still broke and paying off our new tires, he took a credit card and bought $20 worth of groceries. 

Enough to get us through a few more days. And it's beyond cold. So we planned this comfort food meal:

- Home canned local apples

- Wegmans spirals and cheese boxed macaroni and cheese with fresh spinach

- burgers from the freezer (I don't even remember when we bought ground beef) on potato buns from Giant and more fresh spinach (husband's mom got spinach at the warehouse club and shared).

Dinner last night also came from the freezer:

- turkey leftover from Christmas Eve at my mother-in-law's house

- green beans almandine that I had made for Christmas dinner with my mom and step mom 

Spinach and cheese potatoes

My husband has a gift for making baked potatoes. Like these:

He cooked the potatoes in the microwave, made a sauce of extra sharp cheddar and butter, and then added spinach.

I wanted to lick the plate.

Pizza Dunkers

At school, they serve a dish called pizza dunkers. It's breadsticks with a side of dipping cheese and marinara sauce. How that constitutes a valid meal, I don't know.

Today we made a pizza dough of:

- 1 cup whole wheat flour

- 1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour

- Italian seasoning

- about 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Combined with

- about 1 cup warm water

- about 1 teaspoon local raw honey

- 2 tablespoons yeast

Let rise for an hour, mix with more flour if dough is sticky after kneading.

My daughter lined a large baking sheet with olive oil and we sprinkled it with corn meal.

We spread out the dough into a rectangle on the sheet. We lined it with spinach and mozzarella and folded it in half. We carefully topped it with Parmesan and some more mozzarella.

We cut it into breadsticks.

Bake at 400 for about 15 minutes. Serve with a side of warm marinara or pizzasauce.

Chicken-spinach casserole Mexican style

We don't have much food left in the house. We made a family pack of chicken breasts last night. We froze some and my husband made some into stir fry for dinner.

Today I made some into a casserole.

My husband made some penne while I made a cheese sauce. I started with two tablespoons of butter on low heat with a tablespoon of flour. I mixed them with a rubber spatula and then added about two teaspoons chili powder and one teaspoon cumin.

When that incorporated nicely, I measured out 1 cup of soy milk, which I doled out a bit at a time mixing everything together. I gradually added about 3 ounces of extra sharp cheddar and the rest of a can of jalapeño-cheddar dip (about 2 1/2 tablespoons). 

Next I added about 1/4 cup diced black olives and 1/2 cup mild salsa.

Then I added a block of frozen spinach I'd thawed.

We mixed the noodles and the sauce, added the chicken, stirred, covered and baked at 350 for 45 minutes.

Before serving I sprinkled with the crumbs from the bottom of a bag of Simply Balanced organic blue corn/flax chips.

This was very delightful. I could eat all of it. Wind chill is 4 degrees. It was a casserole kind of day.

What fell out of the freezer

I went into the freezer to find some vegetables and chicken for my dinner tomorrow and stuff started falling out. So I whipped up some processed mac and cheese and added some of the "falling out" stuff.

- one box market pantry mac and cheese

- cauliflower

- peas 

- fresh spinach

- spicy chicken bites

- extra butter

- some extra milk (today I used soy)

- some cheddar jack shredded cheese blend

- a few shakes Frank's Red Hot

Olive pasta

This one is for my friend, Jayne, who stopped to ask my husband if I were okay because I hadn't blogged in a while.

Haven't had anything to blog because our meals have been borrowing.

Earlier this week, my daughter had her ENT appointment. We would be getting her to school late and since I didn't have time nor groceries to pack, it was looking like she'd be stuck with peanut butter and jelly.

There's a Target next door to her doctor's office.

A BIG Target that has different stuff than our local Target.

We found an Archer Farm ready to eat pasta salad in the café. It came with pesto, roasted red pepper, kalamata olives, spinach and feta. Child loved it.

But it made me want to try it.

So tonight I had husband make rotini.

I poured some extra virgin olive oil in my skillet. I put the heat on low and added garlic powder and cracked peppercorn. I added organic fresh spinach, roasted red peppers, Spanish olives, and kalamata olives.

I put the topping on the noodles and sprinkled with Parmesan. 

I served with a side of chicken bites because they were on clearance and I wasn't sure the pasta world be enough. I wish I hadn't included them. 

Chicken salad variations

To use up the cucumber salad, my husband and I opted to make chicken salad. We had some skinless, boneless chicken in the freezer that he cooked.

We mixed the cucumber salad with the chicken once we chopped it. Then we added spices: Italian seasoning, garlic pepper. I also added golden raisins.

I split the chicken into two bowls, one heavy on the cucumber and the other heavy on the meat. The meaty bowl got mayo while the other got serious amounts of buffalo sauce. I added soft goat cheese crumbles to both.

Served on apple fritter bread with heaps of fresh spinach.

Beverage was a strawberry yogurt smoothie. (Serves three.)

- two cups strawberries

- one container strawberry rhubarb noosa yogurt

- one carnation instant breakfast packet in French vanilla

- about four ounces very vanilla soy milk

Cheesy spinach orzo

It's 95 degrees here and for some reason, I get the idea it would be *nice* to have baked mac and cheese for dinner. My mother gave me this really nice block of aged sharp provolone. She deemed it "too stinky" for her crew to eat.

But then I had no full sized pasta, just spaghetti or orzo. So I made orzo. A LOT of orzo.

Ingredients:

- about eight ounces aged extra sharp provolone

- about three ounces Monterey Jack

- about two ounces cheddar

- about 4 ounces grated Parmesan 

- 3 cups coconut milk

- 2 tablespoons flour

- 3 tablespoons butter

- 3/4 teaspoon fresh ground four color peppercorns

- 1 teaspoon garlic pepper

- 1 block frozen spinach, thawed and drained

Preheat oven to 375.

Prepare pasta as desired. Set aside.

Melt butter in pan, slowly mix in flour. When bubbly, slowly mix in coconut milk so flour-butter roux blends in nicely.

Add desired seasonings. 

When bubbly, add all cheese but Parmesan, in tiny chunks. Remove from heat. Stir. When melted, add spinach.

Mix sauce and pasta in oven safe dish. Top with Parmesan. Bake, covered, for 30 minutes.

Clearance Indian

I bought Chicken Tikka Masala on clearance on Target. $2.48 for 2 servings. Archer Farms. To offset the processed food, I made a nice plate of fresh spinach and spring mix, which we'll put the chicken and rice on top of it. Then we'll have non-dairy fruit smoothies-- my new recipe of coconut milk, pomegranate juice, strawberries, peaches, pineapple, mango, banana and local raw honey.

Summary

Haven't made anything stellar in the last few days-- but used a pie crust to make this pastie like creation of sausage-meatballs and spinach dip filling. It was so good I got a small sliver of it, what I tasted to make sure it was properly cooked. The family ate it all before I got home from work.

Yesterday we had sandwiches. Mine was on a big hunk of baguette with turkey, vegetarian bacon, romaine, homemade apple butter and red delicious apple slices that I microwaved a few seconds to soften them.

Leftovers in vodka sauce

Dance Friday night. Husband home sick. I'm trying to write my thesis. Child must be fed.

I took one bag of Bertolli dinner for 2 chicken in vodka sauce (I had a coupon) and promptly followed the directions. Now, the directions suggested frying for three minutes in high in a non-stick skillet and then reducing heat for six more minutes.

Try this is a cast iron Le Creuset skillet and you get an overheated pan with pasta caked to it, even if you cook it stir-fry style.

I added a generous dose of coconut oil before the pasta/sauce bricks because I foresaw this. But I should have never put the heat over medium on my baby. I call my skillet baby.

I added to this mix:
- fresh spinach
- frozen peas
- one chicken breast stuffed with crab meat leftover from my husband's dinner out with his parents (chopped)

And that made it delightful.

But I gotta say, for the price, their dinner for two would have left me hungry and disappointed. Though the vodka sauce was dead on.

Salmon with garlic cheddar spinach sauce

I took some butter, half and half, four color pepper and unsweetened soy milk. I added spinach, cooked slowly until bubbly hot and added about one-quarter pound garlic cheddar from Klein Farm.

Delightful sauce for our salmon filets.

Lasagne soup

The title is a joke.

I made lasagne in a bread loaf pan because I only had 8 no boil lasagne noodles.

So I layered plain sauce, noodles, ricotta from Klein Farm, heaps of spinach, some garlic powder and some Italian seasoning.

I didn't do the egg and multiple cheese thing. Wanted to keep the dairy to a minimum and keep the recipe quick.

It was tasty even if it was soupy.