Feta Pesto Pasta

This meal is so simple I'm a little embarrassed to even make a blog post out of it. I wouldn't, except it's become a family favorite and my husband would happily eat it every night of the week if it were up to him. These days I'm feeling less than inspired to be ambitious in the kitchen, being 33 weeks pregnant and sporting a significant waddle. Honestly, all I want to do is sit on the couch with my feet up, eating my fetus' weight in Butterfingers, and work on various craft projects for the nursery. 

What Butterfingers do to ya.

This meal is almost exclusively from Costco (everything but the pasta), but can easily be done with ingredients from a regular grocery store. You just won't be able to brag that you made 8 meals out of a $9 jar of (the best ever) pesto sauce! Considering a small 4 oz jar at the grocery store is about $5, that's a very good deal. This dish is so quick to prepare that it is literally done by the time you boil the pasta.

A great use for leftover rotisserie chicken.

My method is to start my pot of water to boil, roughly chop leftover cold chicken (don't forget to save the carcass for chicken broth), and dice the onion before adding the pasta to the boiling water. Next I throw the onions in a hot skillet to sauté, then add the sun dried tomatoes and chicken just long enough to heat them through. The results look like this:

Onions, sun dried tomatoes, chicken.

When I strain the pasta, I add the cold pesto sauce to the hot pot and dump the pasta in on top of it. This is referred to as "Being Too Lazy To Dirty Another Pan." Next I simply combine all the ingredients and stir, topping with feta. Voila!

This is probably the tastiest 15 minute meal I know how to make. I have bags of Costco rotisserie chicken in my freezer that will make this meal even easier (as if that's possible) after this baby comes. The onions and sun dried tomatoes are completely optional, and I've substituted fresh chopped tomatoes, broccoli, goat cheese, and other frozen veggies in the past. 

Feta pesto pasta

Feta Pesto Pasta

• 1 box pasta (penne or rotini works best IMO)
• 1-2 cups diced cooked chicken (rotisserie works great)
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 3 heaping tablespoons sun dried tomatoes (optional)
• 3 heaping tablespoons pesto
• feta cheese

Cook pasta according to package. In the meantime, chop onions and chicken. Saute onions, adding chicken and tomatoes and stir until heated through, then remove from heat. When you strain the pasta, add the pesto sauce to the hot pan and cover with hot pasta. Stir all ingredients together and top with desired amount of feta. Serve with garlic bread for best results (and maximum carb overload).

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#TBT Chicken Bouillon

This blog post is a Throwback Thursday on Chicken Bouillon. I gave it that title too, but I'm temped to change it to reason #546 Kayte has completely changed my life. Ok - If we are being honest, its really how Mary has changed my life, but Kayte is the one who insisted I try it. If you saw the post on Chicken Bouillon, and thought "Hey, that's neat, I'd like to give it a try" and you still haven't - you need to. Like today. Like now. If you missed that gem, click on the link at bottom of this post.

Photo from when I made Chicken Broth

I tried it for the first time this week. I'm not really sure why I waited so long. I had tried years ago to make my own chicken broth, but found it lacking. I tried again a few months ago, at Kayte's insistence and it was gold. We buy a lot of Costco rotisserie chickens, and it's a great way to use up what would otherwise be garbage. Definitely more bang for your buck.  As an avid soup lover, and a orzo addict, it's really helped my grocery bill. Chicken broth may be cheap, but it adds up. Frozen Chicken broth also takes up way too much room in my freezer. That's where the boullion comes in handy. It is a reduced version of the delicious chicken broth! It takes up only 1/4 of the space!

My poor pot was filled to the brim!

I'll be honest, I was purely motivated by necessity - I was in desperate need of freezer space, and I had FOUR chicken carcasses and a sandwich bag of veggies for just this purpose. I made two batches of broth, slow cooking for nearly 24 hours. Then cooled, skimmed fat/grease, and then heated and reduced. I poured mine into an 8x8 dish and cooled in fridge overnight, then cut into squares. Look at these beauties.

It's like chicken broth jello!

Read the Original Post Here

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Spinach, Mushrooms, and Onions - Pt 1

Bowtie pasta covered in a cream sauce 

with chicken, spinach, mushrooms and caramelized onions

I somewhat recently confessed to not liking veggies. That's a fairly simply version of it. I have a difficult time incorporating a variety of veggies into our meals. I don't hate vegetables, I just tolerate most of them. There are, of course, a few exceptions - two of these being onions and mushrooms. I am of the opinion that you can never have enough caramelized onions, or sauteed mushrooms. Its just not possible.

Cooking onions & mushrooms, while holding baby

I haven't published too many post on either of these things (don't worry, they are coming), but the making of this French Onion Soup - definitely had us discussing how to cook, and use caramelized onions. Just thinking of it makes my mouth water.

This Spinach, Onion and Mushroom recipe from Julia's Album has already become a favorite in our house. Its incredibly simple, and with a bit of creativity we've been able to use it in a variety of dishes. This recipe is intended as a topping or side for meat (chicken, steak, etc) and comes with an optional "cream" recipe. Julia even list a few other ideas. This post is part one of three about different uses for this combo.

Plain spinach, onions and mushrooms

I have used it as a steak topper, pasta w. chicken, Alfredo pasta w. sausage, and for flat bread pizza. I even threw it in an egg scramble with some sausage!. I think it would be delicious in a red-sauced pasta. I'm sure you could make some kind of quesadilla, or even some kind of fancy veggie taco or burrito. Each time I have made it, I have varied the ratio of onion, mushrooms, and spinach based on what I have on hand. I have always "doubled" it though, and used a portion of the left overs for another dish.

With the cream sauce

This recipe is three basic steps: (1) caramelize the onion, (2) saute the mushrooms, (3) combine mushrooms and spinach with onions. Then use as you see fit.The first time I made it, I doubled the recipe, then removed half when finished. I added 1.5-2x the cream sauce, and added costco rotisserie chicken, and poured over pasta.I saved the remaining recipe (without sauce) for another recipe.

Spinach, Mushrooms & Onions

From Julias Album

Ingredients

• 3 Onions, sliced
• 10 - 15 small mushrooms (I used baby bellas)
• 2 Tbl Olive oil
• 1 Tbl Balsamic Vinegar (I use dressing)
• 3 Garlic Cloves
• 3 C Spinach
• Salt

Directions

1. Caramelize the onions: heat 1 Tbl olive oil in a large pain, add onions. Begin on high heat, then lower and add a pinch of salt. Cook until caramelized (approx 30 minutes). Use 1TBL balsamic to deglaze the pan. 
2. Saute Mushrooms: while onions are cooking, heat 1 Tbl olive oil in another pan, add mushrooms, garlic and a pinch of salt. Cook approx 20 minutes.
3. Combine mushrooms with onions, and add spinach on low heat until spinach wilts

*Note More detailed instructions on the original website*

Optional Cream Ingredients:

• 1/3 C Heavy Cream
• 1/4 C Milk
• 1/2 C Parmesan Cheese (I used italian blend)
• 1/4 Tsp Salt

Instructions for Cream Sauce: Add listed ingredients to mix on med-low heat and mix until melted and coating all vegetables. 

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What I Ate Last Week ... Meals On The Cheap

While I absolutely love to take a meal out of my freezer and pop it into the pressure cooker or slow cooker and walk away, then come back to something hot and delicious...I do also really enjoy cooking. These BBQ ribs were pretty much the bomb. They were super easy. Pre-cooked in a pressure cooker, then broiled following Mrs. Vickie's recipe. We ate them with some costco Cesar salad, and asparagus and butternut squash. . Both of these veggies came from my freezer stock pile, at less than $1 each! (and that is Why I Coupon).

I tend to save my freezer meals for crazy days, or when I am working, particularly since we have a baby coming. Menu planning works best, when there some predictability to your schedule. Between traveling, family visits, and pre-term labor scares, life has been far from predictable for me lately. That is when a stocked pantry and freezer, and the means to bulk buy comes in handy!

At the beginning of last week I stopped at Kroger, purchased some fresh groceries and stocked up on a fantastic meat deal: Pork Shoulder was only $1.99/lb. This was a great stock up price! I purchased two 8 lbs pork shoulders, but you'll have to check back later to see what I did with it. I also got the rack of ribs at a great stock up price.

After this I stopped at Costco and purchased a Costco Rotisserie Chicken ($4.99) and a Prepackaged Cesar Salad ($8.99). I've already written about my love for the rotisserie chicken, though I often forget how much I really do love it until its in my possession. This wonderful blog post, breaks down the cost of making one's own chicken vs costco chicken - honestly, the price and convenience can't be beat! We had chicken salad sandwiches, chicken Cesar salad, chicken quesadillas. My kiddo had some quesadillas, and dipped chopped up chicken in BBQ sauce.We always have shredded Mexican cheese, BBQ sauce, sour cream, and tortillas on hand. This chicken fed two adults and a toddler for more than 3 meals! The salad was used for one of those meals, and a side for two others. We easily spent less than $5 a meal for all of those meals.

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Chicken Enchilada Pasta

This is a family favorite and a good freezer meal. I ran across a great chicken sale, and stocked up. This was one of the recipes that I chose to make with all that chicken. It makes a lot, but I doubled it anyway. One serving makes enough for us to all eat at one meal, and then have left overs the next day. I split the other half between two pans to freezer for later use. I'll just be able to pop the frozen pans (or defrosted pans) or pasta into the oven for dinner.

This recipe comes from Pearls, Handcuffs & Happy Hour. I used rotini and penne pasta because it is what I had on hand. Both were "veggie" pastas - in case you were wondering about the funky colors. You'll have to click the link for the full recipe, but here are some pictures of the steps.

First you saute onions, then add peppers and garlic. Add chicken, green enchilada sauce, regular (red) enchilada sauce, salt and some spices. Let that simmer. Add cheese, then sour cream, and then add the pasta in. Be prepared to be amazed. Once done, I used half for our dinner and dumped the remainder into two small square pans lined with foil. I'll let these "flash freeze" over night, and then pop out of the pans, then into a ziploc bag and into the freezer. (This means my pans are always free). 

Stay tuned for more posts on freezer friendly meals, and how to stock your freezer. 

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