Amy's Lazy Garlic, Lemon, Chicken Pasta

Well, tonight I was on my own for dinner. Also, my freezer is getting low on Lean Cuisines for work so I wanted to make a dinner that would have leftovers for work this week. I also ate my fill of fat earlier in the day and I am tired. So, my dinner had to be low fat, easy, and have enough for tomorrow's lunch.

I have about a million recipes saved on my computer for just such an occasion. Unfortunately, my internet connection was down just as I was about to access one of these delights. So, I improvized. I used some ingredients that foodies would call shameful but I cook like a real person. I mean, I work full time and I am taking two graduate classes this semester, so sue me if I use pre-minced garlic. I am doing my best.

Amy's Lazy Garlic Lemon Chicken Pasta

Ingredients:
1 can pre-cooked chicken (gasp!)
1 forkful of pre-minced garlic (double-gasp!)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Spaghetti
Lemon Juice
Romano Cheese
Parm. Cheese
Salt
Pepper
If I had broccoli or green peppers I would have used them as well!

Directions:

Cook pasta according to directions. Add broccoli toward end of cooking if you have some (I wish I did!)

Meanwhile, heat EVOO over medium heat and add forkful of pre-minced garlic
Add the can of chicken (or fresh chicken if you aren't as lazy as me)
Keep stirring until heated through,add some salt and pepper
When pasta is done mix in chicken/garlic/EVOO mixture
Squirt in a few squirts of lemon juice
Throw in as much grated Romano and parm. as you like (I like a lot)
Mix it up in the hot pot until its melty and yummy.

Serve it and enjoy! This is a great meal for a lazy night when you don't feel like cooking but want something yummy! Simple and delicious!

I am submitting this for Ruth's Presto Pasta Night on Once Upon a Feast. Everyone always has very complicated and delicous pasta dishes, but I thought I would mix it up a bit with a novice cook's version of pasta! Enjoy!

Look What I Made!

So, as I mentioned in my "It's Fall" post, I went to Michael's craft store because they were having some good sales. I got a ton of ribbon for 5 for $1.00 and some beautiful scrapbooking paper for 5 for $1.00 as well! So, I decided to make some stationary. I don't know if I will use it as a gift for a family party where we bring handmade items or if I will just save it for myself. I LOVE it! I came up with the combonations on my own which is usually very difficult for me, which is why I am so pleased! I hope everyone had a great weekend. Mine was hectic but nice. I had to write a very, very long paper tonight but I had a lovely night by myself where I could cook dinner and make some crafts while watching a chick flick. It was a great way to unwind at the end of a busy week and weekend. Now all I have to do is clean up, take a shower, and relax in bed. Chad has to work tonight so I have the place to myself (and sometimes I don't mind that!)

It's Fall!

Today is the first official day of Fall and the leaves are starting to turn. If you ignore the fact that it was in the 80s today and that it will be again tomorrow it really is starting to feel fall-like around here. Well, I went to Michael's craft store on Saturday because everything for fall was 1/2 off and I wanted to do something crafty. I bought some fall flowers and a styrofoam pumpkin and went to work. I am very happy with the result and I am proud of my craftiness!

Football Saturday

I finally made the infamous Weight Watchers cake (well cupcakes) and the yummy low-fat pudding/cool whip frosting. Let me just say, it was SO good. I could have licked that bowl of frosting. And of course by could have I mean, I did. The consistency was a little sticky but so good.

Lucious Low-fat Cupcakes

1 box of cake mix
1 can of Coke Zero
Yield 24 cupcakes

Mix together. I put them in cupcake pans with paper liners, which I sprayed because I was worried they would stick because of the lack of fat.

Frosting From My Cooking Blog

1 8oz tub of Cool Whip Light
1 big box (5.1 oz) Fat Free/Sugar Free Instant Vanilla Pudding
1 1/2 cups Milk
1/3 cup confectioner sugar

Mix pudding, milk, and sugar until well combined. Fold in the Cool Whip.
I frosted the cupcakes by using my Pampered Chef cake decorating set. It took a lot of work to keep filling up that little frosting squirter but the frosting was a little runny so it made it easier to get them on the cupcakes.

But that wasn't all. You can't have people over for football and not serve like a million things to snack on. So, in addition to the cupcakes I served:
Shuler's cheese spread with Ritz crackers.

Cheese and Meat dip with tortilla chips
1 small block (or half large block) Velveeta Cheese (2% milk reduced fat)
1 can No Bean Chili

cut Velvetta into small cubes. Mix can of No Bean Chili and cheese and put in microwave until melted (about 3 minutes) stirring at least once during cooking.


I also made a really DELICIOUS pizza roll that I found on Amber's Delictable Delights which is a delightful blog that I have been frequenting.

The pizza roll was a huge hit with the football crowd.



Ingredients:
1 roll Pilsbury French Bread Loaf refrigerated bread dough
2 cups shredded mozzerella cheese
parmesean cheese
Italian seasoning
pepperoni
egg wash (egg white and water)

Directions:
Preheat Oven to 350*
Unroll bread dough and cover with almost all of the mozzerella cheese and also sprinkle with parm. Add some pepperoni and a little Italian seasoning. Roll up the bread into a log. Pinch the ends and the seam. Cover with egg wash and cut some slits in the top to let out the steam. Add a few pieces of pepperoni and the rest of the cheese.
Bake at 350* for 20 minutes
Allow to cool 5 minutes
Slice into pieces. I should have sliced into smaller pieces because this disappeared very, very quickly! Everyone loved this quick, easy recipe. I will DEFINTELY make it again! Next time I think I will have to make two because it was gone before you could blink. SO YUMMY!

Well, its almost Friday!

It is almost Friday and my plans for the weekend include . . .
Oh wait, that's right, I don't have ANYTHING to do this weekend. I have a short paper or two to write for my master's classes but at this point, one paper qualifies as NOTHING! I can clean or not clean, cook something amazing (as I am still in a nesty type of mood) or I could eat fast food all weekend. I have no idea what I will be doing but for Saturday I will be alone for most of the day as Chad will be going to a football game for most of the day. I see myself browsing through the clearance areas of Target, Kohls, and Marshall's as I love shopping but have spent about 3 months worth of spending money in the past few weeks! Oh man, I am just imagining this awesome day shape up. The reality will likely be me laying in bed watching 90210 and the food network until noon then lazily shopping around town before coming home to do a whole lotta nothing! OH the DREAM of it! Now all I have to do is get through tomorrow.
The first full week with the kids has gone okay so far! It has been tiring but worth it. The kids are learning more and more and are starting to get the hang of things. As a Kindergarten teacher, this is the dream of all dreams, a group of kids who don't need every single direction given to them on a silver platter! YAY!
Oh, and I worked out for 15 minutes on the elliptical tonight and then did about 7 or 8 minutes of ab work afterward. I feel pretty good about that (if you ignore the fact that I had two very small servings of cake today!) I would have eaten the cake anyway though so I guess I am still better off! Anyway, off to bed for me, gotta get through that Friday!

Sunday Brunch!

On Thursday my friend Kacey came to school with an Egg McMuffin from McDonald's and a hashbrown that looked SO good. I know that type of breakfast is a bit low brow but growing up McDonald's breakfast was always such a treat! Well, this morning I woke up and thought, hmmm . . . I want a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit and hashbrowns. Wait a minute, I have bacon, eggs, cheese, biscuits, and little hasbrowns. I can make my own McDonald's breakfast.

So, I asked Chad if he wanted that and of course he said he would rather have some jelly on his biscuit and no bacon. So, we had the same ingredients but different overall breakfasts.

First I put two frozen biscuits in the toaster oven and preheated the oven for the "hashbrowns" which were actually Ore-ida crispy crowns. They are essentially flattened tater tots and they are SO yummy!

Then I scrambled up 4 eggs and whipped in a few splashes of milk. I cooked the eggs and added some green peppers from my garden. When the eggs were almost done I threw in some shredded Colby Jack cheese to make them extra yummy.

At the very end I nuked two pieces of ready-bacon in the micro and made myself a little sandwich. I put the eggs/cheese/green pepper mixture on the biscuit and topped it with the bacon. Of course, my biscuit was smaller than I thought so I had a little side of eggs too. Then I just piled on the hashbrowns and ate up.



Chad just had the deconstructed version of the dish, minus the bacon, and he was a happy camper once he added grape jelly (yuck) and ketchup (of course, he eats it on EVERYTHING).


What a yummy morning! We had such a great breakfast (well at 10 am) that we decided to skip lunch. I love Sundays! ;)

Cheesy Baked Tortellini

I have been an admirer of Presto Pasta Night for a few weeks now. I am by no means a food blogger and I am surely not a chef but Chad and I had some people over to watch football today so I thought I would try my hand at a new pasta dish. I am so excited to add my recipe to Ruth's fabulous blog.

I went on Food Network and found Everyday Italian's Giada DeLaurentis's Cheesy Baked Tortellini. I changed it up a little bit and doubled the recipe.

Cheesy Baked Tortellini
4 cups Marinara Sauce
2/3 cup Mascarpone Cheese
1/4 cup chopped Parsley (it calls for Italian parsley, I used whatever was in my garden)
3 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme leaves (at least I am pretty sure that is what I used from the garden!)
2 pounds frozen tortellini (it called for fresh but the frozen was on sale)
4 ounces thinly sliced mozzarella (originally called for smoked mozzarella but some reviews said it was too overpowering so I used regular, shredded would have worked just as well in my opinion)
1/2 grated Parmesan

Preheat oven to 350*F (or forget to heat the oven until it is time to cook like I did.) Lightly grease or spray a 9x13 baking dish.

Whisk the sauce and mascarpone together in a large bowl. Add parsley and thyme.




Meanwhile cook the tortellini as directed, drain and return to the pan.
Add the the sauce to the tortellini and mix to coat.
Pour the tortellini and sauce into a greased 9x13 inch pan.


Top the mixture with the mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses.



Cover and bake until the cheeses melt and the sauce bubbles. The recipe said this would take 30 minutes, it took my oven a good 40.



It was SO delicious. The sauce had just the right amount of creaminess thanks to the mascarpone which was a new ingredient for me. The dish was very cheesy and rich. I fed 5 adults and a three year old with two huge leftover servings. I gave everyone a lot of pasta, however. The amount I made should have easily fed 10 adults. The dish is rich enough that a much smaller portion would have been enough for most people. I ate WAY too much because I gave myself too big a portion and couldn't stop eating once I started! So watch out!



I served the tortellini with delicious garlic bread from my best friend The Humble Housewife.



Everyone loved dinner and I can't wait to eat the leftovers at work this week for lunch!

Long Time, Sorry

I made it through the first day today! I have a couple of stinkers and my special ed kids are truly in need of the aides they get during the day! I had a WONDERFUL time at my sister's wedding. I love my sis. We don't have too many pics yet but I will share one of me with the bride and bridesmaids.
I also had class tonight for three hours so I am a bit tired. Did I mention I am taking TWO master's classes this semester as well. I can't imagine why I feel a bit stressed and overwhelmed lately. The beginning of the school year is always a bit time consuming so please bear with me as as I will be sporatic. I hope everyone is having a good time in their lives right now.
For those in the know, my stomach is feeling okay but we have to kind of start over with the diagnosis so any prayers etc are appreciated! I am stressed enough right now without all of this business added but oh well!