Greek Pasta Salad

So I had a bunch of ingredients left over from the gyros I made last week, and decided to put them to use in a pasta salad! It turned out really yummy,came together in about 20 minutes, and used up all my leftovers!

Greek Pasta Salad:
1 lb Tri colored or Garden Rotini
1 0.7 oz packet Good Seasons Italian Dressing Mix (you'll find dry salad mixes on the salad dressing aisle)
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup vinegar
1 cup Feta Cheese
sliced red onions
sliced cherry tomatoes
sliced grilled chicken, or rotisserie chicken

Prepare dressing by combining dry salad mix, water, oil and vinegar. Whisk together well.

Cook pasta according to directions. Rinse under cool water until pasta is completely cool.

Combine cooled pasta and dressing, then add all other ingredients.

Thai Drunken Noodles

I absolutely love Thai food. One day when I am rich, Jared and I are gonna go to Thailand and just eat ourselves silly. It is going to be awesome! Until then, I am stuck paying 12 bucks for a plate of good Thai noodles right? WRONG!!!! My 2 year long quest to duplicate my favorite Thai dish came to an end today. Duplication completed! If you haven't ever had drunken noodles, you haven't lived! They are that good!

Now there are a few semi-hard-to-find ingredients (they should be available in any Asian grocery store though), and there are a few semi-sounds-disgusting ingredients. Just trust me here - they are well worth it, and the noodles don't taste anything remotely close to fishy - so don't let the fish sauce turn you off!

Thai Drunken Noodles:
2 packages Fresh Thai Rice Noodles, or 1 lb dry rice stick noodles
1 medium onion (sliced)
2-3 cloves garlic (minced)
3 green onions (chopped)
1 large green bell pepper (sliced)
2 chicken breasts (thinly sliced)
Lots of fresh Basil (3-5 stems or about 15 leaves, roughly cut)
Oil for cooking

Sauce:
6 tablespoons oyster sauce
3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
3 tablespoons fish sauce
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons lime juice (real juice from real limes my friend, not the crap in the bottle)
1 tablespoon ground chili sauce (sambal oelek, sriracha etc)

Here's a picture of some of the ingredients you might not be as familiar with

First things first. Mix all the ingredients for the sauce in a bowl. whisk until smooth and set aside.

Next if you are using fresh rice noodles you will need to separate them and cut them into strips. Start by microwaving the package for 30 seconds at a time until they become soft and pliable.

unfold them and cut them into single layer strips

Once you have all your noodles cut, chop up all your vegetables and basil. Cut up your chicken on a separate plate.

Now everything is ready to go. Heat up some oil in a wok or deep skillet. First cook your vegetables until soft, but not mushy

Transfer to a plate or bowl, heat up few tablespoons more oil and stir fry your chicken until done. Transfer to another plate or bowl. Heat up a few more tablespoons of oil and wait until very hot. Stir fry your noodles, with several tablespoons of soy sauce so they wont stick to the pan

Stir carefully so the noodles don't break apart. These babies cook pretty fast, so as soon as they are soft go ahead and add your vegetables, chicken and sauce. If you are using dry rice noodles, just boil them until they are soft, drain and then put all the indredients together in your hot skillet. Stir everything together until sauce is incorporated. Top with fresh tomatoes

As good as it looks, it tastes EVEN BETTER!!

Please tell me you'll try them, you will love them!

If you are in the Dallas/Fort Worth area a great Asian market that carries EVERYTHING you will ever need is H-Mart in Carrolton. And I would be more than happy to go with you :)

Banana Nut Bread

I have this neighbor who is constantly bringing us over baked goodness. It didn't take me long to nickname her our Paula Deen friend, because of her very Southern and amazingly good food! She introduced me to buttermilk pie, sweet potatoe pie, pound cake and the best dang banana bread I have ever eaten. It was so good I took one bite and walked back over there to beg her for the recipe!

I grew up on The Lion House banana bread recipe. It is a good tasting recipe, but I have always had trouble with it. The top always gets too brown and the bread is a little dense. This banana bread recipe melts in your mouth! I also really like that unlike most banana breads you don't see those black flecks of banana in it - it has a really pretty color!

Banana Nut Bread:

1/2 cup butter
1 and 1/2 cups sugar
1 and 1/2 cups mashed bananas
2 eggs, well beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
1 cup nuts
2 teaspoons baking powder

Cream butter and sugar.

Blend bananas (mash with a fork until smooth), eggs, and vanilla.

Sift flour with baking powder, and salt.

Add flour mixture to banana mixture, alternating with milk. Mix thoroughly. Add nuts and mix well.

Pour into 2 loaf pans or muffin tins. Bake at 325 degree. 45 minutes - 1 hour for loafs, approximately 20-25 minutes for muffins.

YUM YUM YUM! My house smells so good right now! Be jealous - or go make some for yourself!

Happy Baking :)

Alton Brown's Indian Rice Pudding (Kheer)

This month my book club read Sister of My Heart, a story of two sisters growing up in India. One of the sisters, Sudha, mentioned that her favorite food in the world was Kheer, Indian rice pudding with pistachios and raisins. So I made Alton Brown's version of Kheer to eat while we discussed the book.

Mmmm Pudding! Warm pudding is comfort food at its best. I grew up on homemade rice pudding, bread pudding and custard. This recipe has all the components of a good pudding....it's sweet and creamy, but then it has a very distinct and foreign flavor because of the cardamom. It was fantastic!

Tonight I am celebrating my hubby's survival of the first year of medical school. A little surf and turf is on the menu - top sirloin steak and king crab legs! Hooray for summer vacation!!

Indian spiced pork scewers with tabouli and naan

Tonight I made this recipe from Our Best Bites! It was really yummy. Lots of flavor and just a little bit spicy. I paired it with some tabouli (you can buy this in the rice section of the grocery store), and some naan bread with hummus. It was a great meal! I will probably make the skewers with chicken next time as I thought the pork was a little on the chewy side, plus I just like chicken better. Try it out!

Tonight I am hosting book club at my house and I made an Indian inspired rice pudding for dessert. Wow, to die for! Check it out tomorrow!

a 10 minute dinner

Remember this yummy pesto I made last week?

Well tonight I came home, cooked a pound of gnocchi and broke me off a piece of my frozen pesto. Within ten minutes I had this on the dinner table

I'm all about an easy dinner! By the way, I am working on a new recipe index so you can sort through my recipes without having to search my whole blog!

BBQ chicken pizza

In Rexburg there's this awesome pizza place called Craigo's. In my humble opinion, they have the best pizza....ever! One of their best pizzas is their BBQ chicken pizza. When we left Rexburg and came to Texas some of our good friends Kelsey and Grant made us their version of BBQ chicken pizza and it quickly came into a monthly rotation at our house. It is so yummy!

First make your pizza dough. You can use your own recipe, or follow mine:

Pizza Crust:
1 1/2 - 2 cups flour (start with one cup and add a little at a time)
1 tablespoon Yeast
1/4 teaspoon Salt
1 tablespoon Sugar
1 cup lukewarm water

In a mixing bowl sprinkle yeast and sugar into warm water. Allow it to sit for 10 minutes. Add salt. Add flour. Start with 1 cup and add a little at a time until you have a soft but not sticky dough. You may or may not use all the flour. Allow dough to rise for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile grill your chicken. Baste with BBQ sauce in the final stages of grilling. Allow chicken to sit for 10 minutes before slicing it. Place sliced chicken in a bowl with some extra BBQ sauce to coat it.

Prepare pizza by rolling your dough out on a floured surface, cover generously with your favorite BBQ sauce ( I used Sweet Baby Rays), Mozzerella cheese, and sliced red onions. Top with BBQ chicken. Bake at 375 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until cheese is melted and crust is golden brown. Sprinkle with fresh cilantro.



I am using my pesto tonight! I am pretty dang excited :)

Chicken Gyros- "better than a restaraunt"

So when I was studying in Paris and Amsterdam, I ate gyros like crazy! Oh they are SO AMAZINGLY GOOD! Over there they have a gigantic chunk of meat twirling around and they shave it off into your gyro - Like this



Well obviously I don't have a gigantic chunk of mystery meat (I assume it is lamb), so I made these yummy gyros with chicken. They were a huge hit at our house! Everyone loved them - especially my hubby - whose exact words were "these are better than the gyros we get catered to our school". Followed by "oh man this is the best dinner ever"!

It is a quick weekday dinner, and perfect for these summer months when you don't want to use your oven.

Chicken Gyros: (adapted from www.beantownbaker.com)
1 1/4 pounds chicken ( I used 3 breasts)
4 cloves garlic (minced)
Juice of 1 lemon
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
2 Tablespoons plain yogurt *just reserve 2 tablespoons of your tzatziki
1 Tablespoon dried oregano
salt and pepper

Tzatziki: (adapted from Kat Cora)
2 cups Greek plain yogurt (I used Oikos)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon garlic (minced)
1 teaspoon salt
1 medium cucumber (seeded and diced)

shredded lettuce
red onion (sliced)
feta cheese (crumbled)
diced tomatoes
pita bread or naan bread

So first of all you will make your tzatziki. Combine yogurt, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and salt. Peel your cucumber and use a spoon to get all the seeds out of the middle. Dice the cucumber then place in a dish towel to dry and get all the moisture out of the cucumbers. Let them sit in the towel while you prepare your chicken. Reserve 2 tablespoons tzatziki (minus the cucumbers) and use for your marinade.

Place chicken in a large bowl and combine all the ingredients for the marinade. Cover bowl and let chicken marinade in the fridge for about an hour.

It will look like this

While your chicken is marinading slice your onions, tomatoes and lettuce. When its done marinating cut into strips and cook chicken in a skillet with a little olive oil until its done. To prepare gyro spread some tzatziki onto your pita or naan, crumble a good amount of feta cheese, next add some chicken, then top it off with lots of red onions, some lettuce and tomatoes.

Done! That was easy!


*note- I used naan bread instead of pita bread because I couldn't find any pita bread that was good and soft. If you are feeling like super woman (or man) you could make your own pita bread... otherwise just go with whatever's good at your grocery store. The naan was fantastic...a little large.... but we had no trouble finishing it!

Sunday Morning Brunch

I recently acquired the following lovely ingredients

a huge bag full of yogurt chips (very similar to white chocolate chips)from a good friend, and vanilla beans - brought home from my parent's visit to Bali a few months ago.

I adapted a family recipe to make some AMAZING baked scones for Sunday brunch (ok, ok I didn't eat them for Sunday brunch because of my early Sunday church commitments.....BUT if I had time to make brunch on Sunday, I would totally make these!)

Here's the recipe:

Baked Vanilla Bean Scones

2 cups Flour
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Salt
4 tablespoons Sugar
1/3 cup shortening
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
3 whole vanilla beans
1/2 cup white chocolate chips (or in my case yogurt chips)

Glaze:

1 and 1/2 cups Powdered Sugar
2 tablespoons Butter (softened)
1 whole vanilla bean
3-6 tablespoons of milk

First mix together all of the dry ingredients. Cut in shortening until you have a nice crumbly mixture. Next you're going to split open those vanilla beans and scrape out the good stuff!

(my picture didn't capture this very well so this photo is from www.thepioneerwoman.com)

Mix vanilla beans with dry ingredients until even distributed. Add all other ingredients until you have a nice stiff dough.
PLEASE CLICK ON THIS PICTURE TO SEE THE DETAIL OF ALL THOSE GORGEOUS SPECKS OF VANILLA BEAN!!!

Next you will prepare a greased pie plate and press all of the dough into it. When it's nice and round remove the dough from the pie plate and put in onto a cutting board. Cut into eight equal pieces and place back into the pie plate. This will make serving MUCH easier!! Sprinkle with a little extra sugar for good measure
Like so


Then bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes - keep a close eye on them and pull them out when they are golden brown.

While they are cooling prepare the glaze. Mix powdered sugar, butter and vanilla. Then add milk a tablespoon at a time until it is a nice thick glaze. *You probably wont need all of the milk, but just do what feels right to you. **You might not use all of the glaze. I had some extra glaze in the bowl and my other half took the liberty of pouring the rest of the glaze onto the scones. They were a little sweet for my taste. Just do what you like :)

When scones are warm, but not hot, drizzle glaze

SO DELICIOUS!!


Best if served warm!

Note: Vanilla beans are pretty expensive, so if you want to try this recipe without using the beans I would sub the 3 beans in the scones for 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract in the glaze. I'm sure it will still be way yummy!
Also- the original recipe is a Baked Chocolate Chip Scone- and the only difference is subbing the vanilla beans for just ONE teaspoon of vanilla extract and using chocolate chips instead of white chocolate. I've never made a glaze with the chocolate chip scones!

Tune in tomorrow to find out what meal I made this weekend was what my husband called "better than a restaraunt, the best meal you've ever made"!

I'm of the opinion....

Just like Remy, my favorite little mouse chef (and one of my kiddos only movies that doesn't drive me crazy)...


ANYONE CAN COOK!


Thank you for reading my little blog! Hope you have a wonderful weekend! I will be working on more culinary surprises for next week!

Cait

the perfect summer meal

Tonight's meal is what I would consider the perfect summer meal. Grilled Italian chicken, a light caprese salad and a rustic summer squash tart with gorgonzola cheese. Heaven on earth I tell ya!

I started off by searching the web for some creative way of using all the squash in my garden! I finally decided on the idea of a tart. I stir fried my yellow squash and zucchini with some olive oil, garlic, fresh thyme and chives until just tender. Roll out a pie crust ( I made mine from scratch, but I'm sure frozen would work fine), sprinkle with gorgonzola cheese (blue cheese or feta cheese would also be yummy). I arranged my squash, zucchini, sliced tomatoes and sliced roasted yellow and red peppers and folded the sides of the pie crust. Bake at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes.....AND.......

Ta Da!
Don't mind my little boy's foot in the background :)

Seriously DELICIOUS!


For the meat, I simply marinated my chicken in my favorite Italian Dressing for about 5 hours and threw it on the grill. So simple and so yummy! During the summer months (in Texas this is February-November) we fire up our grill almost daily! If you have any amazing marinades I need to try send them my way!

I found some fresh mozzerella pearls the other day at HEB and I thought they made the perfect caprese salad! Throw some fresh balsamic vinegar on top - Perfect! Sorry no recipes this time.... hopefully just some inspiration! Here's to all the perfect summer meals coming our way!



Happy Cooking!

Pesto

This has been calling my name everytime I look out my kitchen window. It's yelling out "make something delicious with me"!


Today I made pesto! I love pesto because I can make it in advance, freeze it, and use it for quick and delicious meals! It is delicious on pasta, as a pizza sauce or in sandwiches. And best of all....it is SO simple!

Here are the ingredients:

Fresh Basil, some parmagiano reggiano (grated parmesan or romano cheese), toasted pinenuts, and a good high quality olive oil

Recipe:
3 cups fresh basil
1 1/2 cups parmagiano reggiano (grated parmesan or romano cheese)
1/2 cup Pinenuts, toasted and cooled
1/3-1/2 cup high quality olive oil

First toast your pinenuts at 350 degrees. Keep a close eye on them and stir every few minutes. When they are a nice golden brown remove them from the oven and cool completely. In a blender combine basil, cheese and pinenuts. Add olive oil as you blend, until you have a creamy paste. For a thicker pesto, use less olive oil. For a creamier pesto, use more.


Can't wait to get this on some pasta!


This is how I like to store my pesto. I freeze them flat, then break off however much I need for my pasta or pizza


Don't mind if I do!


This tasty gnocchi (from www.tastespotting.com) is on my menu!