What Did You Call Me?

Violet Baudelaire: Dinner is served. Puttanesca.

Count Olaf: What did you call me?
Klaus Baudelaire: It's pasta... Pasta Puttanesca.

I love "A Series of Unfortunate Events".

The books and the movie.

Not an actual series of unfortunate events...who enjoys unfortunate events?

I guess if you enjoyed them, they wouldn't be unfortunate, they'd be quite fortunate.
{but I digress}

Since Husband is now Chubsband, I'm being supportive of his diet and exercise.
And since reading the aforementioned books, I've wanted to try Pasta Puttanesca and lo and behold, I found a pretty easy recipe on Southbeachdiet.com

Chicken Puttanesca

Ingredients:

4 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
4 large boneless, skinless, thin-sliced chicken breast cutlets {i found frozen chicken breast filets}
Salt and black pepper
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 can (28 ounces) plum tomatoes, chopped {i used diced tomatoes}
1/2 cup kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
2 tablespoons capers, drained
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes {i didn't add these for fear of children screaming}
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
8 ounces whole-wheat pasta {can also use regular}

Preheat oven to 250°F. Warm 2 teaspoons of oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Season cutlets with salt and pepper; add to hot pan and cook 3 minutes, until browned. Flip; cook 1 minute. Transfer cutlets to a baking sheet; cover with foil and place in oven to keep warm.
Add remaining 2 teaspoons of oil to the same skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and cook 10 seconds, stirring. Add tomatoes, olives, capers, and pepper flakes and bring to a simmer. Cook 5 minutes, until slightly thickened, stirring to break up tomatoes. Stir in lemon juice and basil.
Meanwhile, cook pasta according to package directions; drain. Toss with tomato sauce; serve with cutlets.

♥ K8

Italia Bella

I lost my SD card last week {I think it was stolen personally, but don't see how} so there's no pictures for this post. Next time I make it, I'll put the pictures on here.

I made a dinner for a girl in our ward who just had a baby and decided to make a bunch of it and we would have it for dinner too!

I felt clever.

Well this girl has a toddler about the same age as my little girl so I was thinking of something that would be kid friendly.

What kid doesn't like spaghetti?

But spaghetti would be hard to transport seeing as all my gladware was dirty or in use.

So I did Baked Ziti instead.

Only I don't know how to make Baked Ziti...so I kind of made it up as I went along.

Ingredients:

Penne pasta cooked
Spaghetti sauce {can do with meat or without, I used about 3 cups}
Mozzarella cheese {one of the pre-shredded bags}

Pour 1/2 cup of spaghetti sauce into the bottom of a casserole dish. Toss 1/3 of the cooked pasta with spaghetti sauce and put in the casserole dish. Sprinkle with cheese. Repeat with the remaining pasta. On the last layer, add a layer of sauce before the last layer of cheese. Bake {covered} at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

♥ K8

BTNBS

Beefy Tomato Noodle Bake Stuff

its good, I promise.

I don't have a story to go along with this one...just know that while it looks like barf, it doesn't taste like barf.


Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef (can also turkey)
1 onion chopped
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can RoTel (or off brand equivalent)
8 oz wide egg noodles
some cheddar cheese (of course)

Cook beef and onion until browned, add soup and RoTel and stir until its all mixed up and coated in soupy goodness. Boil noodles until they're done, drain and return to pot. Grate cheddar cheese. Combine beef mixture with noodles and, yup, give it a stir until noodles are well coated. Transfer to a casserole dish and sprinkle cheese on top. Cover and bake at 350 for 10 minutes, uncover and bake 10 more minutes. I whip up either garlic toast or cornbread to go with it.

If you don't like the spice too much, you can do plain diced tomatoes in place of the RoTel.

♥ K8

Macky Cheese

Enlarged to show texture

So my two year old talks fairly well for her age...but she has a hard time saying Mac and Cheese.

Sometimes we can get "maca-oh-ni", but it's usually Macky Cheese.

She loves it.

I felt a little guilty giving her the boxed stuff all the time because, well lets face it, that stuff ain't exactly healthy.

So after several trial and error dinners I made my own Macky Cheese.

You can make as much or as little as you want depending on the amount of noodles you cook, but the sauce recipe is usually good for about 3 or 4 good sized bowls.

Sauce:

2 cups milk
6-8 slices American Cheese
1/2 cup grated Cheddar Cheese

Heat milk in a sauce pan over medium heat, break American cheese slices into quarters and add 2 slices at a time. Make sure you stir REALLY well and all cheese is melted before you add the next slices...keeps the sauce nice and creamy and smoooooooth. Once all the American cheese is added and melted, add the Cheddar cheese and stir until melted and smooth. Turn heat to low. Cook and drain your elbow macaroni and return to pot. Dump the cheese sauce into the noodles and give her a good stir. Yup, just like with the chili. You can add more grated cheddar or even some mozzarella if you want. If you want to fancy it up a little, you can use Gruyere or swiss cheese as well, or in place of, the cheddar.

To make a thicker sauce, either do less milk or more American Cheese. To make a thinner sauce, do the opposite of what I just said.

For some reason kids love this stuff and so does my husband. As was stated in my previous recipe, I am a cheese fiend...so you know I be grubbin' on this bizness.

♥ K8