Tomato & Mozzarella Pasta al Forno

When I stumbled upon this recipe, I didn't even know what it actually meant, but it looked and sounded like it'd be good. Apparently "al forno" means the pasta is cooked twice - once boiled by itself and once baked in the oven. Peter and I both like our pasta to be al dente so we undercooked it in the water so that after baking in the oven it wouldn't be soggy and overcooked.

This dish was easy and delicious! It's definitely being added to our frequent "go-to" recipes!

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

3 garlic cloves
2 (14.5 ounce) cans diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 pound penne pasta
8 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese
2/3 cup parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in pan.
2. Mince garlic and add to oil. Cook for about 1 minute.
3. Add tomatoes and oregano. Simmer rapidly, stirring occasionally until thickened (about 15 minutes).
4. Toss pasta with sauce.
5. Place half of the pasta in a greased 9“ x 13” baking dish. Cover with half of the parmesan and mozzarella cheeses.
6. Top with remaining pasta then remaining parmesan and mozzarella cheeses.
7. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

Chocolate Mint Brownies

It's no secret that I love Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookies. I mean, who doesn't?? Even Peter, who isn't a huge sweets person, likes them. I was in the mood to try something new for dessert on Friday night and found a recipe for brownies that looked good. I altered it a bit and came up with the recipe in this post. They are creamy, chocolate-y, delicious brownies that taste like Thin Mint cookies all at the same time. Needless to say, this recipe is a keeper!

And because I want others to experience the deliciousness, I'm sharing the recipe! It's super easy, but there is some wait time. Make sure to completely cool your brownies or you might have a big melted mess on your hands with the cream layer.

Ingredients:

Brownie Layer:

1 (10.25 ounces) pouch Fudge Brownie mix

⅓ cup vegetable oil

2 tablespoons ter

1 egg

Cream Filling:

2½ cps powdered sugar

4 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons milk

2 ounces cream cheese

¼ teaspoon peppermint extract

2 drops green food coloring

Chocolate Layer:

¼ cup milk

6½ tablespoons butter

1⅓ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Mix brownie mix with vegetable oil, water, and egg.

2. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes in a greased 8 inch square pan.

3. Allow brownies to completely cool.

4. Add the cream filling ingredients to a large bowl. Beat until smooth.

5. Spread filling over brownies and refrigerate for about an hour.

6. Heat the chocolate topping ingredients in a medium saucepan over low heat. Stir constantly until completely melted and smooth.

7. Allow to cool to room temperature.

8. Pour topping over filling. Refrigerate uncovered until topping has hardened.

Tortellini Soup Recipe

A few weeks ago, Peter and I had lunch at a friend's house where she served a delicious tortellini soup. It was so good that the next week I had to get the recipe from her and I've made it several times since. I did make some adjustments based on personal preference and this is the version that I use. It's an awesome soup - hearty and perfect for cold, winter days and nights. I just made some tonight and plan to freeze a small portion as a test to see if it's a good freezer soup.

Ingredients (Parentheses contain more specifics, but you can use any type of the item):

12 oz. package of (Alfresco) Sweet Italian (Chicken) Sausage

64 oz. (Nature's Basket Organic) Chicken Broth

15 oz. can (Nature's Basket Organic) Diced Tomatoes

8 oz. Carrot Chips

1/2 Green Bell Pepper

8 oz. sliced Portobello Mushrooms

Italian Seasoning

4 c. Water

Directions:

1. Boil water to cook tortellini.

2. Remove sausage casing and cut into bite sized pieces.

3. Dice the 1/2 green pepper.

4. Combine sausage and pepper into pan with olive oil. Cook until sausage is browned. Remove from heat.

5. Cook tortellini as usual and rinse. Set aside.

6. In the same pot used to boil the tortellini, combine the broth, diced tomatoes, mushrooms, carrots, and italian seasoning. Add sausage/pepper mixture and water. Bring to a boil.

7. Turn down heat and let simmer 20 minutes or until mushrooms are cooked and carrots are slightly soft.

**Tip: I put the amount of tortellini I want in a bowl and add the rest of the soup to that. If you add the tortellini, then it soaks up a lot of the broth and becomes soggy. I also store the tortellini separate from the rest of the soup.

Makes about 10-12 bowls

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Waffles

Need I say more than the title? Yum, yum, and more yum! This is definitely a new favorite breakfast treat. The recipe below makes 6 waffles on my waffle maker. I love mine. It stores standing up, the cord wraps around the base, it has a red light/green light for knowing when it's hot and when a waffle is done. So great!

Ingredients

1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

2 tablespoons packed brown sugar

1/2 cup canned pumpkin

1 cup milk

2 eggs, separated

1/2 - 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)

Instructions

1. Stir together the pumpkin, milk, and egg yolks.

2. Add the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and brown sugar.

3. Mix until there are no lumps.

4. In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites until soft peaks form.

5. Add chocolate chips (optional).

6. Fold in the egg whites.

7. Use a ladle and pour into waffle maker.

8. Eat up!

Banana Muffins

Makes 12 regular size muffins or 36 mini muffins.

Ingredients:
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 ripe bananas
1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions:
1. Mix sugar, oil, and egg until creamy and light yellow. (And no, I didn't use a yellow bowl on purpose, haha)


2. Add bananas (I used a hand mixer here to smooth out the lumps in the bananas more easily)
3. Add flour, baking soda, and salt.
4. Mix until completely smooth.


5. Spoon the batter into greased muffin tins.
6. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees.

I cooled the muffins by putting them upside down on wire racks.


And then I ate two right away while still warm! They are sooooo yummy!!

Applesauce Recipe

Ingredients:
8 apples
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tbsp ground cinnamon

Directions:
1. Peel, core, and chop the apples into small pieces.


2. Add water, sugar, and cinnamon.


3. Cook over medium heat for 20 minutes, or until apples are tender.
4. Cool for a few minutes and then mash with a potato masher.

Remember the time I told you I burned the applesauce to a crisp? Here's the proof. This is definitely not what you want to do.

This is how it should look. Golden and delicious.


As you can see, it makes quite a bit, but it freezes very well and also stays good in the refrigerator for about 2 weeks.


I love applesauce, especially with chunks of apples in it so I don't mash mine to pieces. If you want yours to be really mashed, you could also use a hand mixer.

Pancakes with Blueberry Syrup

I also got blueberries for $1/pint which is awesome. I'm not a huge fan of plain blueberries, but love them in pancakes, muffins, fruit salads, etc. I was planning on making blueberry pancakes yesterday morning, but remembered having blueberry syrup as a child and thought I'd try make some from scratch. It was super easy and turned out great!

Ingredients for Blueberry Syrup:
1 pint blueberries
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tbsp. lemon juice

Ingredients for Pancakes:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 1/4 cups milk
1 egg
3 tablespoons melted butter

Directions For Blueberry Syrup:
1. Wash and pat dry (with a paper towel) the pint of blueberries and then put them in a saucepan on the stovetop.
2. Add 1/4 cup of water and 1/2 cup of sugar.


3. Bring to a boil and then reduce and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occassionally.


4. Let cool for a few minutes and then put in food processor until you reach the consistancy desired.
5. Add 1 tbsp of lemon juice.

Directions For Pancakes:
1. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.
2. Pour in the milk, egg and melted butter.
3. Mix until smooth.
4. Ladle about 1/4 cup onto a hot griddle. (You can also use a frying pan or whatever on the stovetop if you don't have a griddle.)



The easy way to tell when to flip pancakes is when they start to bubble and pull up on the sides. This is what they'll look like:


I absolutely loved yesterday's breakfast!! I actually double the pancake recipe and froze them between pieces of wax paper to have handy for quick breakfasts during the week. The blueberry syrup also freezes well.

Chicken Alfredo with Peppers and Mushrooms

Last Friday I got a whole bunch of produce on sale. This included multi-colored peppers, which I love! (But rarely buy because they are more expensive.) So I made a huge batch of Chicken Alfredo with Peppers and Mushrooms. We had some for dinner, lunch and even froze some. It was quite easy since I used jarred Classico 4 Cheese Alfredo Sauce.

Cut up mushrooms like so:


Slide mushrooms like so:


Grill chicken with basil, oregano, and garlic powder. Add mushrooms.


Add multi-colored peppers and two jars of alfredo sauce:


Enjoy! This is such a yummy meal :)

Things like this only happen to us!

Well, we had quite an interesting night here at home.  It started off normal with getting home and relaxing.  I decided to make a quick, simple dinner of homemade pizza.  Looks delicious, huh?  It was!

Shortly before 9 PM, I put some water in the kettle to make hot chocolate since it's so cold here.  I was planning on settling in with some hot chocolate while watching "The Office".  The beginning of the show started when the kettle started whistling and Peter jumped up to move the kettle and I'd get my hot chocolate on a commercial.  We heard a rustling sound when he sat back down on the couch and didn't know what it was so Peter went back to the kitchen to investigate.  

Apparently the bag of BBQ chips we had bought on our grocery trip last night fell out of the open cupboard (I left the door open to get the hot chocolate from).

Where did it land?

On the hot burner of course!

The bag melted the chips were burning.  We couldn't help but laugh.  I grabbed oven mits and removed the burner.  We put it in the sink and cleaned up the chips, but there was plastic melted on the burner.  I was afraid the burner would be unusable, but as it cooled, most of the plastic came off.  I'm hoping we'll still be able to use it, haha!

The bag burned and so we decided to throw the whole bag out because we weren't sure if there were plastic pieces in the bag or anything.  Better safe than sorry!  :)

It was fun to tease Peter as we were cleaning up.  I kept bursting out with laughs because it was so funny.  He laughed too :)  

In the end I didn't make hot chocolate or watch "The Office".  I'll try again tomorrow haha.

Peanut Butter Cookies with Hershey Kiss Chunks

I found this great recipe online through the recipe swap at Grocery Cart Challenge.  It was originally posted here.

Ingredients:• 1 cup butter or margarine
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 25 Hershey Kisses, quartered into chunks (I used more like 30 kisses for a little extra chocolate :) )

1.  Cut Hershey Kisses into chunks.

2.  Mix together butter or margarine, peanut butter, white sugar and brown sugar until creamy.

3.  Add eggs and mix until combined.

4.  In a separate bowl-whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda.

5.  Stir into peanut butter mixture.

6.  Fold in Hershey Kiss chunks.

7.  Drop by teaspoon onto greased cookie sheet.

8.  Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes, until lightly browned.

I got 6 dozen cookies out of this batch and they were DELICIOUS!  When Andrew was here, the 3 of us enjoyed devouring a dozen or two.  I also gave some to Jerry to take home when he came over for dinner.  And then I even had some left to bring to work so I wasn't left eating the rest!

I love finding great, easy and YUMMY cookie recipes. It's a great alternative to just placing the Hershey Kiss in the center. I had a couple bags of Hershey Kisses left from Christmas cookie baking since they were on sale and then I picked up 3 more bags this week at Giant Eagle because they were $1/bag! I'll definitely be making these cookies again soon!

Chicken Marsala

This is another great recipe that I've recently been using.  I love Chicken Marsala and was really in the mood to make it a few nights ago...so I did!

Ingredients:1/4 cup all-purpose flour for coating
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
3 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cut into chunks
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons olive oil
2-3 cups sliced mushrooms (I love to use Portobello for this recipe-yum!)
1/2 cup Marsala wine
1/4 cup cooking sherry


Directions:

1.  Cut chicken into bite sized chunks.  (You can also leave chicken whole and serve as a piece of chicken.  I often make "army style" because it's easier to pack the leftovers away for lunches and storage in the fridge/freezer.)

2.  In a shallow bowl-mix together the flour, salt, pepper and oregano. 

3.  Coat chicken pieces in flour mixture.

4.  In a large skillet, melt butter in oil over medium heat. 

5.  Place chicken in the pan, and cook until golden brown.  

6.  Turn over chicken pieces, and add mushrooms. 

7.  Pour in wine and sherry. 

8.  Cover skillet; simmer for 10-15 minutes.

I like to serve mine with pasta (bow tie, mini shells, etc) and to add a little grated Parmesan cheese to the top.  Sooo good!!

Orange Chicken with Veggies and Rice

I loooove vegetables.  I really, really do.  I like mixing tons of random veggies into meals.  I previously tried this with a store bought marinade and it was good, but then I got a home made orange sauce and it was so much better.  Plus there weren't all kinds of preservatives which is always a plus.  

I just cut up some chicken and cooked it in a saucepan and then added veggies like carrots, water chestnuts, bamboo chutes, broccoli, and mushrooms.  Then I made this awesome sauce and poured a bit on top.  I don't like my food to be drenched in any kind of sauce, so you may use more if you like.  It was delicious and I've been eating it for days!

Orange Sauce
3 tablespoons flour (to thicken the sauce-may need more if you want the sauce to be thicker)
3/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup sherry
1/4 cup teriyaki sauce
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter or margarine
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

All I can say is it's yummy, yummy, yummy!  A new favorite for me :)

Chicken Cordon Bleu

Last night I made Chicken Cordon Bleu and it was delicious!  Here's the recipe if you're interested in trying it.  It's super easy and super tasty!

Ingredients:

6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts 

1/2 lb. ham (cubed)

1/2 lb. swiss cheese (cubed)

1/4 cup white wine

1 tsp. parsley

salt 

pepper

breadcrumbs

1/2 cup milk

***Tip:  At our last grocery shopping trip, I had Peter get a half pound of ham and swiss cheese from the deli, just a big chunk cut off.  And then when we got home that day I was making a few different things (chicken noodle soup, tuna noodle casserole and prepping beef stroganoff for the next day) s oI just took another minute and cubed up the ham and cheese and put them back in the baggy until I was ready to use them.  

1.  Cut a slit in each chicken breast lengthwise.

2.  Mix the swiss cheese, ham, white wine, and parsley in a small bowl.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

3.  Fill in the chicken pockets with the ham and cheese cubes.

4.  Dredge chicken in milk and then breadcrumbs.  Then place in a baking dish sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.

As you can see, I needed two pans.  And I only made 5 pieces of chicken because that's how much I had defrosted.

5.  Cook at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until chicken is golden brown.  

***Tip: Cut a piece of chicken open to make sure it's done if you're not sure.

Close-up shot.  Look how yummy with the melted cheese and ham flavor!

I served mine with fresh cut green beans (cut by my helpful hubby) and baby red mashed potatoes.  You can actually see the steam coming off the dinner in this picture.

And since this recipe makes 6 full chicken breasts, we had plenty for left overs.  I packed up one meal for my lunch today and put the rest in tupperware in the fridge for later.  These would also freeze well for quick meals later on if you want.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

A few weeks ago I made some Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies that were oh-so-tasty and after a few of my own personal modifications, I got even yummier results this time.  I cut out the nutmeg because I didn't like them being too spicy with that coupled with the pumpkin and cinnamon.  And this time I used puree from my own pumpkin instead of from the can, just because I had it to use.  Other than that, I modified the amount of margarine, pumpkin and chocolate chips.  As well as the baking time.  

Incase you're interested in making your own pumpkin puree, here's how I did mine.  Since I had the two pumpkins from my harvest decorations on the porch that were still not carved, the pumpkins were still fresh enough to do this with.  I generally just buy the cans of pumpkin puree, but I felt wasteful just throwing away these perfectly good pumpkins.  Especially when I can freeze it for later uses.

After cutting the top off the pumpkin and cleaning out all of the insides, I cut the pumpkin into smaller pieces and then put them on baking sheets lined with foil.  I also saved the seeds to bake later.  The pumpkin pieces baked at 350 degrees for about 2 hours and looked like this:

I didn't feel like letting the pumpkin cool before moving on, so I just took the skin off the pumpkin with a fork and knife and put the pieces in my new food processor from Peter.  :) 

**Sidenote:  When Peter saw I was starting this project with the intention of using my mini chopper food processor, he decided to surprise me with one of my Christmas presents early!  We sometimes struggle to keep the presents we buy for each other.  Especially when the other person can use said gift.  He bought me a new blender that has a big food processor attachment.  Just what I needed (and secretly wanted)!  My blender from the 70's that is older than me, not exaggerating, has seen better days.

Check out my new appliance:

After pureeing the pumpkin, I measured out 2/3 cup increments and put into Ziplock freezer bags.  I chose 2/3 because that's how much each pumpkin roll I make uses and that's also how much I use in one batch of cookies.  So I made a few 2/3 cup baggies as well as 1 double portion bag for making a double batch of cookies.  All this from one pumpkin and I still have a whole 'nother one to chop up and puree-whew!

Now, onto the cookie recipe...

Ingredients:

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup margarine
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 egg
2/3 cup pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease cookie sheets.

2.  In a large bowl, cream together the shortening, margarine sugar and egg until light and fluffy.  

3.  Stir in the pumpkin and vanilla. 

4.  Add the baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and flour.  

**Tip: I added half of the flour and mixed that in and then added the remaining flour until everything was evenly mixed.  I also used a hand blender :)

5.  Stir in the chocolate chips. 

6.  Drop dough by teaspoonfuls onto the greased cookie sheets.

7.  Bake at 350 for 13 minutes or toothpick inserted in the center of a cookie comes out clean.  For crispier cookies, back for 15 minutes.

I got 5 1/2 dozen cookies from this recipe so I have more than enough to take some with me tomorrow to work to share and also to keep some at home.

Don't they look delicious?  Let me tell you, they are!