Chicken stuffed with Spinach and Ricotta

Hello again!

Well, I managed to snag some chicken breast for $5 at Publix, and found a recipe that I was sure to enjoy.  I love the idea of stuffing poultry because it tends to scream for help from other ingredients.  I love chicken, mostly because you can add so many flavors to it.  It's like a canvas for food.  Today, I decided to stuff it.  I made a very Italian chicken breast stuffed with spinach and ricotta.  I thought of it as a lasagna without the pasta. I decided to serve rolls with it on the side, though Albert thought a salad would be nice instead.  I am not a fan of salads, so I chose not to pay attention to him.  What else is new? haha

In the end, my dish came out delicious! I hope you enjoy it!

INGREDIENTS
3-4 chicken breasts
1 container of ricotta cheese (15 oz)
1 bag of mozzarella (8 oz)
1 box of frozen spinach- thawed and drained: squeeze out all the juice from the spinach
1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese-grated
2 eggs
salt and pepper to taste
1 jar of red pasta sauce, I used vodka sauce (it was on sale!)

DIRECTIONS!
1. pre heat the oven to 350degrees.
2.  Cut a pocket into each breast and season them inside and out with salt and pepper
3.  Put the chicken aside.
4.  In a bowl, mix the spinach, ricotta, eggs, 3/4 of the mozzarella and Parmesan together to create the filling
5.  Fill each chicken breast with the filling and put them in a lightly greased baking dish.
6.  Glop the rest of the filling right over the chicken.
7.  Pour the red sauce over the chicken and top it with the remaining mozzarella cheese
8.  Bake for about 50-60 minutes, and let it cool for about 10 minutes.

ENJOY!!

Oven Fried Chicken!

I am so sorry it's took me for ever to write something new!  Last Tuesday, I left to Miami. I had a great time.  My friend came down to visit me,so I showed her my neck of the woods.

Anyway!  I have created something NEW!

OVEN FRIED CHICKEN!!! YUM!  A classic favorite of the deep south, but baked!

It's really tasty, and really easy on the budget, since, let's not forget I am a poor college student.  This chicken recipe I got online from allrecipes.com. It was also Albert approved!! I decided to serve the chicken with my very one "Easy Baked Mac n Cheese"

Anyway, here goes!

OVEN FRIED CHICKEN

Ingredients:
3 chicken thighs
1 cup mayo
1 cup bread crumbs
tbsp cayenne pepper
tbsp Italian seasoning
salt and pepper to taste

**Preheat the oven to 350degrees
1.  slather the chicken in mayo.  Use your hands, it's easier.  Trust me.
2.  Mix the dry ingredients and cover the mayo slathered chicken with them.
3.  Stick them in a baking dish and let them bake for about 45 minutes.

TRUST ME! It's delicious!

Baked Easy Mac n Cheese

Ingredients
1 box of mac n cheese.
salt and pepper to taste
the rest of the bread crumbs from the chicken
2 chopped tomatoes
one can of corn
anything else you wanna put in them

1.  Make the mac n cheese according to the directions on the box.
2.  In another baking dish, add the macaroni (with cheese already) and mix in with the corn and the tomatoes
3.  Top it with the remaining bread crumbs
4.  Make at 350 for about 20 minutes, so while the chicken's cooling, you can bake the mac n cheese.

Delicious!

Juicy Steak with Mushroom and Onion Gravy

According to Albert, I am the Queen of Steak!! Flattering.  I've been really tired of constantly making chicken, so I was thrilled when Albert got two inch thick bottom round steaks.  Yes, they're tougher than I'd like, but hey, I couldn't say "no" to $3 steaks.  Unfortunately, there are no pictures because I forgot. BUT I promise, they were awesome!

I marinated the steak with salt, pepper, garlic powder and white pepper.  I don't like to add too much to steak because it's not like chicken.  It already has enough flavor.  After marinating the steaks, I cooked them in a very hot pan for 5-6 minutes on each side, for a medium sear.

When the steaks were done plated them and, I reduced the heat to low. I then added a chopped red onion to the pan.  After the onions became translucent, I added a can of mushrooms, drained.  I let them cook for about 2 minutes, then added about 1/3 cup of heavy cream.  Once I added the cream, I scraped the bottom of the pan with a spatula for another two minutes.

I topped the steaks with gravy and enjoyed!! They came out delicious!

Tales of Javier the Crayfish

Yesterday, I went to my very first crayfish boil!  Great timing before the oil slick hit the beaches.

I had to premedicate because I'm allergic to shellfish, and there was no way I was going to miss out on this.  Come on, tons of crayfish, other food and beer! How could a college student in the South say "no"?!
I armed myself with benedryll and sunscreen and made it to the boil.  It was fantastic!!!  I finally learned how to properly eat a crawdad like a Louisiana Native!

1.  Hold the crawdad with both hands at the base of its tail and head.
2.  Twist the sucker gently to seperate it.
3.  Suck out the yummines in the head (mostly spices, and no, you will not get any brains in your mouth)
5.  Gently peel the tail armor and slide out the meat.
6.  EAT!!!!!

The guys boiling the crayfish boiled potatoes, mushrooms, corn and garlic, along with some spices they wouldn't let me get a hold of.  Needless to say, it was delicious and I only flared u once!!  The day progressed as we listened to a mix of old rock and roll, booty, crunk beats and the like.  It's great to have the beatles playing, then switch it up to Jeezy!

Every year, the guys also choose to save one crayfish.  This year, his name was Javier, and I had the honor of keeping him alive!  That is, until he died last night at approx. 12:30AM.  He was dubbed, the most interesting Crayfish in the world.  Unlike his brethren, he spent the day by the pool with some very attractive college girls and hanging out with some wild and crazy college guys.  He made the other crawdads very jealous, I'm sure.

Unfortunately, toward the end, it started pouring! It was torrential!  That didn't slow down the party at all.  People in the pool didn't get out and people eating crawdads never stopped! It's like the rain was never there.

Lasagna Night

I made my famous lasagna and for dessert, I made probably the easiest cake ever: pineapple upside down cake.

Eileen's Awesome sausage/spinach lasagna:

Ingredients:

lasagna

Spinach

Red Sauce:

1 lb ground beef

3 links of Italian sausage

1 small (not tiny) can of tomato paste

2-3 good tbsp of Italian seasoning (oregano, rosemary, thyme, basil and marjoram)

pinch of salt and pepper

White Sauce

14 oz ricotta 

14 oz cottage cheese

1/4 lb grated Parmesan

tsp salt

1. cook the pasta.Cut open the sausage links and mix that with the ground beef, and marinate it with the seasoning and salt and pepper.

3. In a rather large pan, add about a tbsp of oil.  I used extra virgin olive oil, but any type will do.  When it's nice and hot, add the seasoned meat.

4.  Brown the meat.

5.  Add the tomato paste to the meat and let it cook in, stirring it every few minutes or so.

Make the white sauce

1. Mix all the ingredients for the white sauce and put it aside.

Put it all together!!

Layer the lasagna however you like.  I put the meat on the first layer, then the white sauce, topped with the spinach.  I usually leave a little extra of both sauces to put right on top before smothering it in shredded cheese.  I used "three Italian cheese"

For the pineapple upside down cake!!! 

Ingredients:

1 can of sliced pineapples

pineapple cake mix (this made things much easier after I discovered it)

maraschino cherries

whatever else the cake mix calls for

brown sugar

1.  butter the bottom of a 13x9 pan.

2.  Evenly coat the bottom of the pan with the brown sugar.

3.  Add the pineapple slices to the bottom of the pan with the cherries

4.  make the cake mix, as it says.  Substitute a portion of the water with the remaining juice from the can.  

5.  Bake the cake for as long as it says.

Refrigerate and Enjoy!!!!

Tonight's Menu: Caprice Salad, My famous Lasagna, and some kind of dessert.

Albert really wants to have a dinner party, so I figured that my lasagna would be a slam dunk.  (Go Celtics!)  I plan on dressing that up with spinach and sausage.  In addition to that, I will be serving caprice salad, since that's fun, easy and tasty, and I hope to be making some sort of dessert, I'm just not sure what.

Here's what I can think of in 5 seconds:

Strawberry Shortcake
Lemon Bars
some sort of pie

and that's about it.

I've been scouring allrecipes.com and foodnetwork.com to maybe find something new.  Any suggestions would be FANTASTIC!  


Thanks,
FAB

Tres Leches

This one's for all the milk lovers out there!  Seriously, I did not have any time to take pictures of this awesome cake.  Fortunately, I will be making the cake for Albert's birthday, so I'll have another chance to take pics. Here is a pic I found online:

Tres Leches is a hispanic dish.  It's called tres leches because it is soaked with three types of milk: whole milk (we already know it's fatty), evaporated milk and condensed milk.  In my cake, I took the liberty of adding a fourth milk.  Caramel.  So I guess, this is no longer tres leches but quatro leches.

This cake is for those with a sweet tooth.  It's creamy, moist, and by no means light.  This will definitely give anyone the "itis" (thanks, Dave Chapelle)

INGREDIENTS
one can of condensed milk
one can of evaporated milk
1 1/2 cup of whole milk
1 cup sugar
1 jar of caramel: the kind you can stick in a microwave for about a minute to heat it up
yellow or white cake mix
1 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream
1 tbsp of vanilla extract

1.  Set the oven to whatever the box mix says, and follow the instructions on the box.
2.  Take the cake out of the oven and let it cool.  Once it's cooled, poke holes in it with a fork.  Poke the holes all the way to the bottom, you really want the cake to absorb the milk.
3.  In a separate bowl, mix the three milks
4.  Pour the mixture onto the cake.  ALL OF IT!! Don't worry, the cake will absorb it all!!!
5.  let the cake stand for about an hour.
6.  heat the caramel in the microwave (follow the directions on the jar) and pour it all on top of the cake.  (this is still not the icing
7.  In a separate mixing bowl, whip the whipping cream, sugar and vanilla extract into submission-- or until you get soft peaks. (This is your icing)
8.  Ice the cake and enjoy!!

Mind you, this is one of those cakes that get better the next day.  This cake mist also be refrigerated!!!