Creamy Chicken Spaghetti Casserole - Try this!

Well, this is a first for me. I made this last night and i'm blogging about it today. I deserve a pat on the back - or two :D

I made this wonderful casserole last night for dinner and I must say, I'm a fan. If I could paint my face and put on a big foam hand for this one, I would. But that would be silly and I think big foam hands are kind of tacky. Sorry for all you big foam hand lovers out there. It's time to take it off, and started cooking.

This recipe does take a LONG time. Even by PW standards she has 45 minutes for prep time and 30 minutes for cooking time. So, in real, normal people time you should at least plan to add an extra 20 minutes to it.

She calls for a whole fryer chicken cut up. They didn't have any of those at the store and there was no way i was going to buy a whole chicken and cut it up myself. That would've added another hour to the prep time... well, actually, the recipe just would not have been made. I can't cut up a whole chicken and do everything that comes with cutting whole chickens. That's disgusting. So, I resorted to my favorite chicken part - thighs. Again, i think dark meat gives it a better flavor than white meat anyway.

You need to boil the chicken in a pot of water. She says 20 to 30 minutes. I put the water and the chicken in the pot and when it came to a boil I let it sit in there for about 30 to 35 minutes. Mainly because I thought that would be a good time to sit on my butt and browse the internet for a bit. But you can be good and get to chopping those olives and mushrooms and measuring out the liquid ingredients.

When the chicken is done, remove it from the pot with tongs and set it aside. DO NOT touch the chicken at this point. Remember, it just came out of a pot of boiling water! I know YOU know that, but someone else might not. Then you boil the pasta in that same chicken water. I was a little apprehensive at first, but trusted PW. I don't think it added much additional flavor, but it was nice not having another pot and waiting for it to boil. Make sure you cook your pasta AL DENTE. It will cook extra in the oven later so make sure you don't turn it to mush when you are boiling it. I also used regular spaghetti and not thin spaghetti like the recipe calls for. Thin = mush. I don't like mush.

On to the sauce... When you melt the butter and add the flour, you need to whisk your little heart out and make sure the butter does not burn. Then you add in the chicken broth. I *think* she just uses the chicken/spaghetti water, but I did not do that. First of all, i think it's gross. Second of all, i think the chicken broth that I buy at the store is a heck of a lot tastier than what was in that pot.

Back to the whisking.... continue to whisk in that milk and then when everything is added cook it on low medium for a few minutes. At this point, do not go out and check your mail, go to the bathroom or do anything else that will distract your attention from your pot of sauce. You need to WATCH it so it doesn't bubble too much and burn or evaporate. Trust me. Go check your mail when the chicken is boiling instead.

I think this is the first recipe that Ree hasn't made me chop up parsley. Thank you, Ree. Thank you! But she did make me shred chicken. I would much rather chop parsley than shred chicken, but this was sooooo worth it so I kicked and screamed for about a minute but then dug in my forks and began to shred.

When your sauce is done, you dump all of the good stuff into it. The chicken, the mushrooms, olives and mix it all up. Then you add in the pasta and put it into a casserole dish to bake. Sprinkle it with more parmesan cheese and throw it in the oven at 350. I let it bake for about 30 to 35 minutes until the top was a nice golden brown and crispy.

Dig in and enjoy! This is really one of my favorite recipes and I'm sure i will make it again and again.

Portobello-Prosciutto Burgers - Eh.

I have been soooooo dreading writing this blog post and that's probably why it's taken me two weeks to do it! This is the first recipe that I felt was just so-so. Don't get me wrong, it was GOOD but it wasn't mind-blowing good... and i really wanted it to be mind-blowing good. I mean c'mon what's better than prosciutto? In my opinion, nothing.

On to the recipe... PW calls for TWO portobello mushrooms per sandwich. If you've never seen a portobello, they are usually the size of your head. Well maybe not the size of YOUR head, but I have a pretty small head. If they aren't the size of your freakishly small head, then they are at least the size of your hand. Now take your hands and put them on top of each other, now put them inside of a bun. Do you really want to eat a sandwich with that much mushroom on it? No, you really don't. I'm a big fan of mushrooms and this was even too much mushroom for me. I would recommend cutting it down to one shroom per sandwich. You'll be glad you did.

PW recommends marinating the mushrooms in red wine. But it's totally optional. I tried it because she's usually always right (except when she tells you to put Apple Cider in Chicken and Dumplings... then she's wrong. VERY, very wrong). Okay, let's try this at home. If you make the recipe according to her specifications it calls for 8 portobello mushrooms. And she says to marinate these 8 small-head-sized mushrooms in 1 cup of red wine. Seriously try it. Okay, did you? good. You probably noticed that 1 cup of red wine is not enough to marinate 8 freakishly large mushrooms in. First of all, 8 of these won't fit in a normal sized bowl. Even if they did fit in a normal sized bowl when you pour in 1 cup of wine the only ones that are getting marinated are the ones at the very bottom of the bowl. So, it really doesn't work. Personally I would lay them out in a pan and drizzle them with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Then i would flip them over and do it on the other side too. Let them sit like that for 30 minutes to one hour and I have a feeling it will be a trillion times better than the one cup of red wine.

You need to grill the mushrooms either on an outside grill or on one of those grill pans that you put on the stove. It was cold so I didn't want to go outside and grill (read: I have no idea how to light the thing) and I don't have one of those fancy grill pans.

Mental note: buy a fancy grill pan.

So I stuck them on a panini maker. I thought my reasoning was good.... it LOOKS like a grill and it gets hot like a grill so it must work like a grill. Wrong. It took FOREVER to cook those suckers.

So when they were finally done, I followed the rest of the recipe as it was written. Please, please, please don't skimp on the mayo/basil dressing that's in this recipe. That really did make the whole sandwich. Halfway through eating it, I pulled off one of the mushrooms because like i said before it was too much.

Next time I make these (if there is a next time) I will definitely try marinating them with the olive oil/balsamic combo. I don't even like balsamic vinegar, but I have a feeling it will be MUCH better than the red wine.

Stay warm and happy cooking :)

Ginger Steak Salad - YUMMERS!

After this past weekend of junk food and Chipotle, I was craving some veggies so I dug through the Pioneer Woman's recipes and found this little gem. If you are craving greens and are craving some steak, this is the perfect salad for you! Or if you aren't craving either, you should still try it. Branch out and live a little.

I just went back to the recipe to see how many servings she says this makes. She says it serves 1. ONE?! That MUST be a typo. Alicia and I had it last night and we have PLENTY left over to have two more servings. So, I would say it serves at least four. The recipe calls for 8oz of salad greens, but I only used 6oz so it may even serve more if you use the total amount.

I love Thai Steak salads and this recipe reminded me of one. Thai salads usually include cucumbers, red onions and cilantro so I went ahead and added those ingredients to the salad. I also doubled the salad dressing recipe. If it ends up being too much for you, you can always keep it in the fridge and use it on a plain salad. It would be just as delicious.

As for the steak, I like my steaks medium-rare with a strong emphasis on the rare. I bought a nice Rib-Eye that was about 1lb in weight. It was a thick cut steak so it took about 2.5 minutes on each side in a REALLY hot skillet. I would flip it over every 1.5 minutes though because the brown sugar in the marinade will burn quickly. Speaking of the marinade - PW suggests that you marinate it for 30 minutes to 2 hours. Mine marinated for around 45 minutes and it was perfect.

As I was making this recipe, I realized that I not only hate chopping parsley but I also hate chopping ginger. I found this little tutorial for you though in case you want to reference it... it may make it easier for you, but if you are like me you will still loathe the task. I do LOVE chopping garlic though. Go figure.

I made this recipe pretty much exactly as Ree wrote it, except for the little changes I mentioned above. This is a GREAT salad that will satisfy any appetite!

Happy Cooking!