Roasted vegetables and Italian sausage

I love anything roasted. Don't you? I mean, it's just so good!

Last night I made a simple roasted veggie and sausage dish. It was so hard to wait for it. I mean, smelling veggies roasting, with garlic and oil, oh mercy.

The inspiration for this dinner came from KayoticKitchen. I think I liked it because of her name for the recipe - Lazy Sunday Casserole. It sounded perfect to me! =]~

I only changed a few things, and of course, I didn't measure a thing. Hate me.

Ingredients:
5 russet potatoes, washed, unpeeled, and cut into chunks
5 carrots, washed, unpeeled, and cut into 1 - 1 1/2 inch sized pieces
1 red pepper, washed and cut into strips
2 onions, cut into wedges
Minced garlic
About 2 pounds Italian sausage
Kosher salt
Fresh ground, black pepper
Balsamic vinegar

Process:
Heat oven to 450 degrees. Throw all the veggies in a deep roasting tray. We have a pretty deep cookie sheet, and that's what I used. It gave all the veggies plenty of room to spread out. Once you lay the veggies out, drizzle a good bit of olive oil over the veggies, add the salt and pepper. Now toss with a set of tongs. I did add a bit of chicken broth into the pan, just so they would have some moisture while they were roasting. You might wanna do that, too! =]

Cover with foil and put the pan in the oven for about 45 minutes.

While that's cooking, heat a large skillet on the stove and sear all sides of the Italian sausage. Remove from heat and cut into 1 inch pieces. They won't be cooked all the way, don't worry! They'll finish off in the oven.

When the timer ends for the veggies, uncover and toss the veggies with a set of tongs. Add the sausage in strategic places all around the pan. Place the pan, uncovered, back in the oven for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, turn over the sausage pieces, drizzle the vinegar, and place back in the oven for about 15 minutes or until the sausage is done.

There ya have it!

Chicken three ways...

Yep - this was a chicken sorta weekend. I don't know why, it just was. I had two whole chickens and made a yummie broth and three filling dinners! Wanna know about it? Yeah? OK... here's my master plan....

• Take two chickens, place in large soup pot, cover with water. WAIT!!! If you've never cooked a whole chicken, remove the giblets and stuff that are packed inside the bird! Thanks. =]
• Add 1 whole onion (cut in half) with only the outer skin removed, some seasoned salt, whole peppercorns, a smidge of poultry seasoning, a bay leaf, a couple tablespoons ready minced garlic, and whatever other vegetables you have on hand. Oddly, I didn't have celery or carrots, but I would have added both. I think I added a couple other spices, but I don't remember what they were now... that was SO two days ago. =]
• Bring that to a boil, then lower heat to maintain a steady low boil for about 1 1/2 hours.
• Turn the burner off and let the meat cool directly in the broth. This will keep your meat moist and give your broth a little extra "steep" time with the chicken.
• After about an hour or so... remove your meat from the pot (it should be falling off the bone so be careful when you pull it out) and place it on a cookie sheet to finish cooling.
• Pour your broth, through a colander to catch any bone, skin, fat, bay leaves that try to creep into your broth, and into two medium sized bowls. Set those on the counter to cool.
• After a sufficient cooling period, begin to pick your chicken... The fat should come off pretty easily. If you aren't familiar with picking meat off a chicken, it isn't so bad... just dig in. I put a plastic bag in the sink and toss bones, skin, and fat in there as I work. Then I can just tie it up and take it to the trash.
• Pick through both chickens and put the meat into a large bowl. Mix it up so all the meat is being friendly and you don't have all white or all dark in a handful.

Now, you have enough chicken to make at least three meals (depending on how many you're cooking for) and two large bowls of broth. Once the broth cooled, I poured one bowl into a gallon sized freezer bag and popped it in the freezer for future use. The other one I used a little for the following meals and put the rest in the fridge and I plan to use it in the next day or so to make some corn chowder I've been waiting for fresh broth to make!

I made two of these with the chicken and broth. One was for an awesome family who lets their husband/daddy help me when I have flat tires and things like that. Isn't that nice?!

Then I made a chicken pot pie with the rest of the meat. I'll post that recipe, maybe later today. Or tomorrow. Who knows... I have no idea. =]

Tuna Casserole success!

OK… another request from the man, which I have not made in years, but because I have an strange habit of wanting to make the menfolk in my life happy (which, by the way, is why I haven’t made this in years—my other (young) manfolk doesn’t like Tuna Casserole, so I have avoided it like the plague!!). But, in my aiming to please all involved, I made it on a night when young manfolk was out and older manfolk was in… all were happy! I had no real idea where to start with this, so I went to allrecipes.com to get a base and then I made some severe changes to make it my own. Here’s what I did:

 

My Ingredient list:

• 12-14 oz wide cut egg noodles
• ¼ large Vidalia onion, chopped and diced and small ish!
• 2 large handfuls (yes that’s a real way to measure) shredded Monterey Jack and Cheddar Cheese blend (divided)
• About 1 cup or so of frozen peas
• 2 cans of tuna (I’ll add one more next time), drained
• 1 can Cream of Onion Soup
• 1 can Cheddar Cheese Soup
• Some half and half
• Sm. can of evaporated milk
• Salt, pepper, other seasoning you see fit… taste it before you put it in the oven and adjust for needed flavor to suit your taste
• About ½ - ¾ cup seasoned bread crumbs (I poured, didn’t measure… no idea really)

And, go…

 

Preheat over to 425. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, add noodles and cook until al dente. While those noodles are cookin up, sauté your onions in a small pan with a little EVOO – oh, I probably threw in a little garlic, too… because it’s what I do.

 

In a very large mixing bowl toss in one handful of cheese, peas, tuna, and soups. Mix together. Add your pasta (by the way, did you know that when you cook pasta and drain it, you should then rinse it with cold water because it stops the cooking process! Good news to know!) and mix. Go ahead and add your onions and can of milk and then you can gauge the amount of half and half you need. You want it to me nice and creamy… if not, it will dry out while it’s cooking and—GROSS—who wants nasty, dry tuna casserole?!?!

 

Spray a casserole dish with some non-sticky stuff and pour the mixture in. On a paper plate or bowl or whatever’s handy, mix the bread crumbs with the other handful of cheese and then top your casserole with it. Put it in the oven for about 17 minutes or so… you want it to be bubbly and the bread crumbs to brown just a little.

 

Enjoy!

 

Chicken Spaghetti

So, Ree Drummond, has a great blog. Have you all seen it? I aspire to have one only half as awesome as hers one day… One day.

Schools over now (can I get an AMEN!) so one of my goals is to work on, as diligently as I can muster, my much neglected blog. Right now, it’s just about food… why? Because I love food. I love everything about food.

One of Ree’s recipes is for something called Chicken Spaghetti… oh, yum. I have adapted it just a little bit to suit me and my family… so I thought this would be a great first entry for the New Year!

Players

• 3-4 boneless chicken breasts, cooked and chopped (and I add a can of chicken for good measure)
• 1 box whole wheat elbow macaroni (yes, I use WW to hopefully make up for the rest of the bad, bad stuff in here…lol)
• 1 can Cream of Chicken soup
• 1 can Cream of Onion soup
• 2 cups shredded cheese (I use Cheddar here)
• 1 jar (4 Ounce) diced pimentos, drained
• Fresh or frozen (and thawed) peppers, diced (I have used both… sometimes I grab a couple handful of frozen mixed peppers and dice those if I have no fresh ones handy)
• Some seasoned salt
• Some cayenne pepper
• Some salt and pepper
• Some garlic powder
• 1 cup (or more) shredded Taco Cheese

And, go!

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grill the chicken on your stove top or outside, or boil it or cook it however you like in order for it to be considered cooked. =] While the chicken cools (trust me, you want it to cool some because on top of cutting it, you may want to shred it a little with your fingers), cook your pasta until it’s done, but don’t cook it too long… we don’t want squishy noodles!

Now for the fun part… OK, maybe it’s only fun for me, but, eh, to each his own… You want to have a really big bowl handy because everything except the shredded Taco cheese needs to go into that bowl. Once it’s all in there, you need to mix it up… really, really well. I use my hands—yes, I said it… I use my hands! And, since I don’t measure seasonings, it’s all about taste to me… I will add as I go which means lots of tasting and hand washing! You may want to add about 1/2 can (from one of the soup cans) of water if it seems to dry... that's what I typically do. You want to make sure it's nice and moist.

Good, now that it’s all mixed and yummie… spray a baking dish with non-stick spray and pour it all in there, top with the taco cheese. Cover with foil and bake for 35 minutes.

Now. Go eat. Trust me; you’ll be thanking me later. =]

Comfort food ground beef style!

With my kidlet getting older and wanting to "hang out" with his friends all the time now, I feel like I am always cooking for one! This makes a lot, but I had dinner tonight... enough for dinner (me and the kidlet) tomorrow and I froze two servings (or so) for my lunches over the next couple of weeks.

1 lb ground beef
1/2 onion, chopped
some minced garlic
cayenne pepper
cumin
salt & pepper
1 can cream of chicken (or whatever you like) soup
1 can peas, drained
1 can carrots, drained
1 can corn, drained
1/2 bag frozen, shredded hash browns
about 1 - 1 1/2 c. shredded cheddar

Preheat your oven to 350. Add ground beef, onions, and garlic in a skillet and brown it up. Drain off any excess fat and add it back to the pan. Add in your seasoning, you can use what I used or whatever you prefer... I don't measure, I just throw it on in there... Mix it all up. Add your canned veggies (you can use any you like, or even use frozen - I used what I had on hand) and your can of soup; mix well over medium heat.

Prepare a 13x9 pan with cooking spray. Add about half of the meat mixture in the bottom of the pan, then add a layer of hash browns, and some cheese. Add the rest of the meat mixture on top, then a good handful of cheese (I have big hands!) over the top of the entire dish. Cook for about 45 minutes. Enjoy!

Creamy Chicken & Biscuits (Gooseberry Patch - Comfort Foods)

As usual, I will give you the recipe (then let you know what I did differently).

2 c. potatoes, peeled and diced (I used about 4 cups)
2 c. carrots, peeled and sliced (I bought already shredded carrots!)
1 onion (I used 1/2 large sweet onion)
3 T. butter
3 T. all-purpose flour
2 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper
2 c. milk
1 c. chicken broth
2 cubes chicken bouillon (I used 2 t. of granules)
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cooked and diced (I boiled to Large bone-in breasts and it gave me some fresh chicken broth and then I picked the meat off when it was done)
12-oz tube refrigerated biscuits (I used 7 oz tube, 8 regular size biscuits)

Cover potatoes, carrots, and onion with water in a medium pan and bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until tender. Drain and set aside. Melt butter in pan, stir in flour, salt, and pepper, stirring constantly. Gradually add milk, bouillon, and broth and cook until thickened; about 3 - 5 minutes. Set aside. Place chicken in a 13x9 pan (spray with PAM first), layer the vegetables over the chicken and pour the sauce on top. Arrange the biscuits on top and bake, uncovered, in a 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes, or until the biscuits are golden and the sauce is bubbly.

** OK, so for MY tastes, this was a bit bland, so I added some more spice to it. I added a lot more pepper, garlic powder, and salt. It was probably more bland because I used so many potatoes and I use skim milk. I also boiled the chicken the same time I was boiling the vegetables and then cooled the chicken in a cold water bath before I picked it. It's what I had on hand, and I like to make my own broth. It's so easy and a lot cheaper than buying it! =] I think those were the only things I really did differently.. it was pretty yummie and most certainly "comfort food!"