Pesto Chicken Florentine

Yay for another pesto recipe! This was a delicious way to combine a typical alfredo-sauce pasta dish with pesto. I've decided pesto can go into almost any meal. :)

This recipe is very good. It combines mainly spinach, pesto, and alfredo pasta to make a fabulous meal. I added tomatoes, onion, and mushrooms because I love my veggies.





Ingredients:
*Olive oil
*2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed/diced
*3-4 boneless/skinless chicken breasts
*2-3 cups of spinach leaves
*1 jar of alfredo sauce
*3 tbsp. pesto (see my recipe if interested)
*1 (16oz) pkg of penne pasta
*parmesan cheese
*1/2 sweet onion, diced (optional)
*2 roma tomatoes, seeded and diced (optional)
*4-6 mushrooms, sliced (optional)

Directions:
1) Begin cooking pasta according to box instructions.
2) As the pasta is cooking, saute chicken in olive oil until almost done (almost no pink). Take out of the pan and cut into cubes. Add back to pan along with garlic, onion (optional), and mushrooms (optional). Cook until onion is tender and chicken is finished. Add spinach and saute for another minute.
3) Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine the alfredo sauce and the pesto sauce. Add as much pesto as desired. (I made my sauce quite green)
4) Drain pasta, put back into its' large pot. Add the chicken/spinach mixture and the alfredo/pesto sauce. Top with tomatoes (optional). Mix. Place on plates and add parmesan as desired. Enjoy!

Comments:
*This recipe is open to creativity. The main part is having a chicken-alfredo pasta with spinach and pesto for some nutrients. Be creative!

*Make sure to add enough garlic. I always use less garlic in my meals b/c if there is too much, I won't eat it. I should have actual amount for this one...mine needed more garlic.

*My onion ended up still being crunchy, but my husband informed me that he LOVED the crunchy onions in this otherwise "soft" meal. So I will continue to add onion for that texture. This is just a head's up about that in case you are not as thrilled about crunchy onions in your pasta as we are!

Penne Gorgonzola with Chicken

This is another fantastic and simple meal. When I was home visiting family in Michigan a while back, I was paging through my mom's Taste of Home cooking magazines. This recipe won first prize of all the meals from 2010. That should be the best proof of how delicious it is. It makes 4-6 servings.

I have not changed anything about this recipe because it is perfect the way it is. Well, okay, I admit, I DO add more gorgonzola than the recipe requires because of my addiction to cheese. :)

What I love about this recipe: It is quickly prepared, simple, yet elegant and SO good! I love the wine, garlic, and gorgonzola combination, it is marvelous.

Ingredients:
*1 package of penne pasta (16oz)
*1 pound of chicken cut into pieces
*olive oil (approx. 1 tbsp.)
*1 garlic clove, minced
*1/4 cup of white wine
*1 cup heavy whipping cream
*1/4 cup of chicken broth
*2 cups (8 ounces) crumbled gorgonzola
*basil (dried or minced fresh)
*salt, pepper, parmesan

Directions:
1) Cook pasta as directed on box. Meanwhile, brown chicken in oil on all sides. Add garlic, cook 1 minute longer. Add wine and stir.
2) Add cream and broth, cook until sauce thickens and chicken is no longer pink. Stir in gorgonzola and spices; cook until the cheese is melted. Combine the sauce and pasta. Enjoy!

Comments:
*This is one of the few chicken recipes that I make where I do NOT use rotisserie chicken. Rotisserie chicken is too shredded-like for this recipe. I used it once and I did not care for it. Instead, grab some frozen boneless/skinless chicken breasts and use them. I cut the partially frozen chicken into cubes. I like the texture of cubes of chicken in this pasta dish.

*If you are wary of gorgonzola, add less and taste. You can always add more. I love it so much that I usually add 10 ounces of it. Yum...

*One of the coolest things about this recipe is that when you start boiling the water for your pasta, you should start at the same time making the sauce. Both the pasta and the sauce will then be done at the same time! It works out perfectly and it is not a difficult multi-task cooking job at all.

*Of course, if you open a bottle of wine for the recipe, you can't let that wine go to waste! I highly recommend drinking the remaining wine with this meal. It's a great combination! :)

Seafood Spaghetti

Okay, I promise this meal is AMAZING even if the picture isn't very good quality. I had two hungry guys (Paul and our friend Rick) trying to eat and they were in no mood to wait for me to make a pretty dish of food for a picture.

I was going to retake the picture the next day, but there were NO leftovers! A great clue to how delicious this meal is... :)

This recipe came from my Aunt Roxanne. Once upon a time, our family ate dinner at their house. She made this fantastic meal and our family begged my mom to get the recipe. My mom made it occasionally and then I made sure to get the recipe from her when I left home for college and married life. I LOVE this meal and Paul is a big fan as well. Apparently, Rick is as well, as he told me: "I must be over from now on whenever you make this for dinner..." Yay for compliments on making fantastic meals! :)

What I love: there is no sauce for this spaghetti and yet it still tastes great! The seafood and feta cheese mixed together are also delicious.

Seafood Spaghetti

Ingredients:
*1/2 onion, chopped
*olive oil
*1-2 cloves garlic, minced
*1 bag of cooked shrimp, with the tails taken off
*1 package of imitation crab legs, chopped
*1 package of scallops (optional)
*1 package of feta cheese with tomato and basil
*1 package of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
*1 package of spaghetti
*dill weed
*salt
*Parmesan cheese

Directions:
1) In a large pan, saute garlic and onion in olive oil. When tender, add shrimp and scallops (optional), salt and dill weed (2 pinches).
2) Drain and thaw spinach. Squeeze out all of the water. Add the spinach to the pan. Add the crab and some of the feta cheese.
3) Boil noodles according to the box. Drain. Return to pot and add the shrimp mixture.
4) Put on plates, top with parmesan and additional feta and salt. Enjoy!

Comments:
*Seafood can be expensive. To avoid making an expensive meal, I keep my eye on seafood prices every time that I go grocery shopping. Whenever something is on sale that goes in this meal, I get it. For example, last week, shrimp was 'buy one get one free' so I have shrimp stocked up for the next time that I make this meal. *I only add scallops every other time that I make this meal. Paul does not care for them very much but I LOVE them. This is our compromise. It tastes great with or without them.

Vegetarian Baked Pasta

When pasta is on sale at the store, but you are sick of eating just normal 'pasta and sauce', what do you do? I decided that the solution to this problem was to make a lasagna-type pasta bake. It was a great idea! :)

This was the first time that I used this recipe, and I will be using it again! It was SO good. While it was more time-consuming than just 'pasta with sauce', it made up for it by tasting delicious and making plenty of food. We ate this for three days straight, and there was STILL leftovers, so I froze them for later. I will make this recipe the next time we have guests over for dinner, because I know that it will feed everyone there. Makes 8-10 servings.

What I love: The distinct, unique twist of using gorgonzola cheese made this meal amazing and NOT boring tasting! Also, the portobello mushrooms combined with that type of cheese was heavenly.

Ingredients:
*1 pound of penne pasta
*olive oil
*8 ounces of portobello mushrooms, sliced
*dried basil
*oregano
*1-2 cloves garlic, minced
*2 roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped
*1 (28 ounce) jar of spaghetti sauce
*shredded mozzarella cheese (approx. 4-5 cups)
*5-6 ounces of crumbled gorgonzola cheese

Directions:
1) Boil lightly salted water in large pot, then add pasta and cook until al dente (approx. 8 min.), then drain. Pour ice cold water over the pasta to stop it from cooking more. Set aside.
2) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 9 x 13 pan with spray.
3) Heat olive oil in large skillet. Add mushrooms and cook for 2 minutes. Add basil, oregano, and garlic and cook for another minute. Add tomatoes and spaghetti sauce, stir and heat just until warm.
4) Pour some of the sauce mixture on the bottom of the 9 x 13 pan until bottom is just covered. Combine remaining sauce and pasta together in the large pot. Place one-third of the pasta/sauce in the pan. Top with approx. 1 cup of mozzarella cheese and then with half of the gorgonzola cheese. Repeat for a second layer.  Put the final layer of noodles in the pan and top with remaining 2-ish cups of mozzarella cheese.
5) Bake for 35-40 minutes or until cheese is browned. Serve and enjoy!

Comments:
*I strongly recommend using portobello mushrooms and not 'normal' mushrooms. The texture of portobello makes people think that there is meat in this recipe. It is also the best tasting mushroom with gorgonzola.

*I found an 8 ounce container of sliced baby portobello mushrooms at the store. It was perfect for this recipe! If you can find something like that, use it. Otherwise, sliced normal-sized portobello mushrooms into long, thin strips or chop up in whatever size you like.

*The next time I make this, I am thinking that I will use white wine instead of olive oil to saute the mushrooms. I think that sounds really good...if anyone tries it that way, let me know what you think!

Pasta with blue cheese alfredo sauce

I am SO proud of myself: I invented my own recipe! :) Okay, okay...all I did was add blue cheese to a can of alfredo sauce, but it's a start!


I don't know if alfredo sauce is VERY healthy, but when you add all the veggies to it, I think it still counts as a healthy-ish meal. It still beats eating gravy-heavy meals, or ground beef, or other heavy foods!

The story: I had leftover chicken from my smoky-spicy chicken and wild rice soup. In addition, the grocery store had a sale on alfredo sauce. We haven't had pasta in a long time, and it sounded like a nice way to use up the chicken. However, I have always found alfredo sauce to be a bit bland. I couldn't think of what to do to make it have a more bold taste. I pored over the recipes and apparently, most people like the bland taste of alfredo sauce. This wasn't good enough for me. Suddenly, I thought about how much I love the gorgonzola sauce recipe that I use for my pasta dishes on occasion. However, I didn't want to fuss over the stove with whipping cream and whatnot to make my own sauce. I wondered if alfredo sauce would taste good with blue cheese in it. It seemed like a nice short cut to having a bold sauce, and blue cheese sounded really good at the time. So I risked it and made this recipe, and it was so good! You might be reading this and thinking it's not a very creative idea, but I couldn't find any recipes that suggested it, and I am NOT creative or daring with recipes, so I am proud of my creation. :)

What I love: the combination of mushrooms and blue cheese was delicious. Also, alfredo sauce and blue cheese combine very well together. Paul and I were going 'mmm' throughout the whole meal!

Ingredients:
*Penne pasta (1 box)
*1 jar of alfredo sauce
*4-6 oz. blue cheese crumbles
*chicken, shredded/cubed, and cooked
*olive oil
*1/2 onion, diced
*1 clove garlic, minced
*mushrooms, chopped
*tomatoes, seeded and diced
*basil
*parmesan

Directions:
1) Cook penne pasta as directed on box, drain and set aside (with top on to keep warm)
2) In a large pan, saute onion and garlic until tender. Add mushrooms and chicken. Cook until heated through. Then add alfredo sauce, blue cheese, and tomatoes. Heat and stir until blue cheese melts into the sauce.  Taste and add spices of choice.
3) Add the sauce to the pasta. Mix and serve. Top with basil and parmesan. Enjoy!

Comments:
*We enjoyed this meal with wine as a beverage. This was a wonderful idea! Blue cheese and alfredo and pasta are great to eat with a side of wine. I highly recommend it.
*The main cool thing about this recipe is adding blue cheese to the alfredo sauce. Everything else that you add is up to you! For example, I think that next time I make this, I will experiment with steak (instead of chicken) and I will add spinach as well. Be creative!
*I don't know if I am daring enough to try it, but I started thinking that cooking the veggies in wine instead of in olive oil might make this meal even better. If anyone tries it, let me know if it's good like that...

Spaghetti Squash, Greek Style

My wonderful sister-in-law Christy suggested that I try this meal. I was a bit skeptical about the spaghetti squash, since I've never had it before. However, this was very delicious! It tastes just like pasta, but you don't have to feel like you had a heavy-on-the-carbs meal.

It fed us for two days, so approx. 4-5 servings. You can out find more about the recipe here.

What I love about this recipe: feta cheese and tomatoes! The fact that the entire meal is ALL veggies is also a plus. :)


Spaghetti Squash, Greek Style

Ingredients:
*One spaghetti squash, halved length-wise and seeded
*Olive oil
*1 onion, chopped
*1 clove garlic, minced
*1.5-2 cups of tomatoes, chopped
*3/4 - 1 cup of feta (or more if you are feta-crazy like me!!)
*One small can of sliced black olives, drained (approx. 3 tbsp. olives)
*2 tbsp. fresh basil (or dried)


Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2) Put spaghetti squash halves in a large baking dish, face down in 1.5 cups of water. Add to preheated oven for approx. 30 minutes. Test the tenderness of the squash by inserting a sharp knife into squash. If it slips through flesh of squash with little resistance, it is done. Remove squash from oven. Set aside so that it can cool off.
3) Heat oil in a large skillet pan. Saute onion until tender. Add garlic, saute for 2 more minutes.
4) Use a fork on the spaghetti squash to make it "noodle up" by combing it with fork. (It's really simple to do!)
5) Add tomatoes, olives, some feta, basil, and spaghetti squash noodles to the skillet pan. Heat until warm and serve. Top with Parmesan cheese if desired!

Comments:
*I have not made this with fresh basil yet, since basil plants aren't in season. It tasted fine with dried basil, but I bet it will taste even better with the fresh! I can't wait to try it out again!
*Spaghetti squash is pretty cheap in the winter, so this is a great, cheap meal for a winter day.
*Since I LOVE tomatoes and feta, I went crazy with how much I put in of these two ingredients. The nice thing about this simple recipe, is that you can add extra or less of whatever you want, and it will still taste fine!
*Great job, Christy! I was very happy with this recipe. You rock! :)