Creamy Italian Chicken

No pictures, just a heads up.  Just deliciousness.  And easiness.  Two of my favorite things.

Word on the street is my mom used to make this, but I don't remember that at all.  I got this recipe from a friend the summer we lived in Dallas, Mariah.

Essentially you take:
1 can of cream of chicken soup
mix it with one 8 oz box of cream cheese
1 package of Italian dressing
1 stick of butter
some milk, however much you want to make it as thick or thin as you want.
I usually only add 2 (frozen or thawed) chicken breasts, but you could easily fit 3 or 4 in the pot.

Crock pot on low for 7-8 hours.  It makes a ton of delicious creamy sauce, so be sure to make pasta or rice to serve it with!

Delicious!!!

Rating:  4.0 stars.

Monterey Chicken

Last night's dinner was a success.  It was super easy.  Callen didn't rant and rave about it like he did the other night with the last chicken dinner I made, but I liked it.

Monterey Chicken

1.  Pound out the chicken breasts until flat, then cook.  I used my George Foreman grill.  (Which, by the way, how do you even clean???  Don't get me wrong, I do my best, but there always seems to be a little left over from the last meal...)


2.  Get your ingredients ready:
     -grated cheddar cheese
     -chopped tomatoes
     -bacon bits (I cooked real bacon and tore it into pieces)
     -BBQ sauce (I used Sweet Baby Ray's)

3.  Layer on your ingredients.
     -1 TBSP BBQ sauce, spread across the top of the chicken
     -1/4 c. cheddar cheese sprinkled on
     -1/4 c. tomato sprinkled on that
     -as much bacon as will fit on top of that
     (I think the actual recipe called for onions, but we don't do onions in this house)

4.  Bake at 400 degrees for about 5 mins, just long enough to melt the cheese.


Enjoy!  I pulled out some limes and we squeezed a little juice on top, which added a nice little...  what's the word, pizzazz!  (How do you even spell that?)

Rating:  I thought it was great, hubs said it was "good".  So overall, 3.7?

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Heck yeah, this was DELICIOUS!  And since I'm trying to be extra healthy, I feel like this counts, since it is FULL of zucchini...  Chocolate, too, but who's counting?


So here goes.


Chocolate Zucchini Bread

I loved her tip of wiping down the top inch of the pan, that was something I didn't know.  And it worked!  My loaf is nice and round across the top.  No sinking in around the edge.  Oh the things you learn.

So, essentially, mix all the dry ingredients,

Mix all the wet ingredients,

Mix the dry and wet together.
Add the chocolate chips.
Pour into the pan.
Cook.

Easy enough, right? (Can you tell I forgot to take more pictures.  I'm terrible at that.  I think I just get so excited to get it cleaned up and in my mouth that I lose sight of what's important.  :) )

And I went ahead and made one loaf of bread and one pan of 12 muffins in liners.

Overall rating:  5.0 stars.  I have no complaints about this recipe and I absolutely LOVED them.

Radishes

What the heck to do with radishes???

I got two bunches in my Bountiful Basket this week.  Here's a recipe I found and need to keep for this week.  So I haven't made this yet, but am planning on it.

SAUTEED RADISHES

I substituted olive oil for the butter and orange juice for the lemon juice. No chives either. Could be why they were only so-so. 

! bunch radishes
Boiling salted water
3 Tablespoons butter
Two tablespoons lemon juice. 
Fresh chopped chives

Thinly slice radishes and blanch in boiling salted water for 30 seconds. (Ok, I skipped this step also).

In a saucepan, melt butter. Add the lemon juice and blanched radishes. Cover and cook over medium-low heat for 2 minutes, shaking the pan gently several times. In the last minute, add the fresh chives and stir. 

Tater Tots

For some reason, I always want to spell it tator tots.  Maybe because they're potatoes?  Not sure.

Anyhow, this was somewhat of a disaster.

Bake the potatoes, then grate them while they're hot.  I've tried this before and this time it went a lot better.

Then add a few things, flour, salt and pepper.  Roll them into balls, then fry them.  Seems simple enough.  However, I don't think my oil was hot enough and the balls sat in the oil for too long, cuz they from this:

to this:

They didn't stay together.  So I turned up the heat, tried the next batch

And they stayed together much better.  I forgot to take a picture of the ending, but they worked for what I need.  I plan to make a tater tot casserole tomorrow and so these are now in the freezer, waiting to go on top.  Cheese will be spread over it, so even if they are crumbly and frankly just ugly, they still taste fine.

Overall rating:  3.0 stars.  Next time I'll just buy tater tots.  Even if I am trying to save money and use up my potatoes before they go bad...

Baked Parmesan Chicken

This recipe really surprised me.  It has such simple ingredients, I didn't expect much from it.  But let me tell you, the flavor really packs a punch.  Callen even said that this definitely needs to go into the rotation.  And he doesn't say that much.  So already, I'm going to go ahead and give it a rating of 4.8 stars.  And the sauce was great, I should have made rice to go with it...

Simple enough.  Lay the chicken in a greased cooking dish.  Mix your ingredients together and pour over the top.  I halved the recipe and used 1/2 greek yogurt and 1/2 mayo to make it a bit healthier.  In fact, I would say I used more 1/4 mayo and 3/4 greek yogurt.  But whatever.

Sprinkle on a little cheese and cook at 350 for 45 minutes!  My chickens were pretty thick, I should've given them about 10 more minutes, but they were still delicious!

Cauliflower

I have tried several recipes lately with cauliflower.  Not that I ever buy it, but it occasionally comes in my bountiful basket.  So I've been experimenting.  I know I don't like it raw.  So I've tried cheesy cauliflower pancakes, they never really got crispy and I don't like mush.  I tried mashed cauliflower.  Oh my gosh shoot me now.

This is what I finally settled on.  Oven roasted cauliflower.  Seems simple enough.  And actually, they were good!

Cut the cauliflower into florets, then wash and dry.  Add a little chili powder, olive oil, and I used garlic salt and boom!  Done.

Roast them at 350 for about 20-25 mins, flipping them every 10 mins and you've got yourself a healthy little side dish!  Callen even liked them.  :)

Definitely a 4.0.