Day #224 - Island Chicken Sandwich

Are you sick of seeing chicken patty sandwiches yet?   I've fallen back into my pre-blog eating habits - too lazy to go grocery shopping and too lazy to do any active cooking.    I'm even behind in my posts, so they don't appear until a couple days after I actually eat them.   I was doing so great for the first 200 posts of my blog, and now I'm letting all my followers down.  But at least I'm still taking pictures each night, which was the original intent of the blog.    Maybe this weekend I'll spend some time browsing my large stacks of cookbooks, food magazines, and printed recipes, and pick out a couple new recipes to try.  Maybe that will spark my food "energy" again.

Anyway, so tonight I made a chicken patty sandwich with sweet potato fries.  About halfway into the cooking time, I took them out of the oven to add some seasonings.  I took a tablespoon of coconut milk and mixed in some of the Sweet Island Blend spices (the ones I bought in San Francisco).  I brushed it onto the chicken patty and drizzled it over the sweet potato fries, and then put everything back in the oven to finish cooking.  The coconut milk helped the seasonings soak into the chicken patty and fries.  
The rest of the sandwich consisted of a whole grain Sandwich Thin, swiss cheese, and a little mustard.

Day #223 - BBQ Pork Quesadilla

I like quesadillas.  They are easy to make, and can be filled with any combination of ingredients.  

Tonight I took the leftover pork chop from Tuesday night, sliced it into thin strips, and cooked them in a skillet with a handful of frozen corn kernels.  When the pork and corn were heated, I added some Barbeque sauce, thinned down with a little bit of water, and let it simmer on low for several minutes.   I took a large whole grain tortilla shell, topped it with a few slices of swiss cheese, and microwaved for about 30 seconds until the cheese was starting to melt.   Added the pork & corn filling to the Quesadilla, folded the tortilla in half, and then popped it into the toaster oven for the "Light Toast" cycle, just to toast up the tortilla slightly.  

Day #222 - Birthday Burgers

Happy Birthday to my cousin, Michelle!!

Tonight we had a birthday dinner for Michelle.  The menu consisted of Grandburgers Gram Burgers* (giant burgers with an onion/cheese/pickle relish filling), bowtie Mac & Cheese, salad with a variety of dressing choices (I used the Dove Chocolate Fig Vinaigrette), chips & dip, and fruit pizza (which I ate without taking a picture).

And for dessert, birthday cake & ice cream!! The birthday cake was a spice cake colored in the Hogwarts house colors.  It's difficult to tell in this photo, because the icing smeared when the cake was cut, but even the icing in between the layers was colored per the houses - red cake with gold icing for Gryffindor, green cake with silver icing for Slytherin, blue cake with bronze icing for Ravenclaw, and yellow cake with black icing for Hufflepuff.  Very creative, girls, very creative!!

*I have been kindly corrected by my cousin.  They are called Gram Burgers, not Grandburgers. Everyone says the name so fast it all blends together, and the letters M & N sound remarkably similar.   I had a 50/50 chance at typing it correctly.

Day #221 - Alternative White Mac & Cheese

Tonight I tossed together a delicious plate of pasta, using the sparse ingredients in my pantry.  And by sparse, I mean that I have no pasta sauce, no ground beef or chicken, no tomatoes, no spinach, no eggs, and no milk available to cook with.  So "traditional" pasta dishes weren't an option.  I had to be creative.

I boiled my elbow macaroni noodles, with a couple chicken bouillon cubes thrown in the water for some flavoring.  I created a sauce for the noodles using the leftover cooked white beans from Tuesday night and some various seasonings.   And I tossed in some frozen vegetables for additional nutritional value and color.   It actually turned out really well, and I thought I was being creative....until I looked online and found many many other recipes for pasta with a white bean sauce.  Oh well.   Here is my version:


Theresa's Alternative White Mac & Cheese

Ingredients:
1 cup cooked Great Northern White Beans
5-6 dashes Worcestershire Sauce
1 teaspoon butter or margarine
1 palmful dried Italian herbs
2 cups elbow macaroni (or other short-cut pasta.  Whole grain would work too)
3 chicken bouillon cubes
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/2 cup frozen corn
1 cup shredded Mozzarella cheese (or other white cheese)

Directions:
1) In medium pot, bring enough water to a boil, per the pasta box instructions.   When boiling, drop in the bouillon cubes and pasta, and cook for 6 minutes.  Add the frozen vegetables to the pot with the pasta and continue boiling for another 2-3 minutes, until pasta is al dente and vegetables are tender.
2) In a microwavable bowl, reheat white beans for 2 minutes.  Use a fork to mash beans to a smooth consistency.  Add the Worcestershire sauce, butter or margarine, and Italian herbs to the bean paste, and stir well.  **
3) Once pasta and vegetables are cooked, use a small measuring cup to scoop 1/4 cup of the cooking liquid and set aside.   Drain out the rest of the liquid.
4) Slowly pour the cooking liquid into the bowl with the the bean paste mixture, and stir until well-combined.  You want this sauce to be thin enough that it can pour over the pasta without being too soupy.
5) Pour the bean sauce into the pasta pot, and add in the cup of shredded cheese.  Mix together well and serve immediately.

The result was a creamy, cheesy pasta dish.  And no, it did not have an overwhelming bean taste.  The Italian herbs, cheese, and Worcestershire sauce helped mask the bean taste.   You might be wondering why I chose to use Worcestershire sauce in this dish?   Because Rachael Ray often uses Worcestershire in some of her dishes as a secret ingredient, so I figured I'd sneak a little in for an extra pop of flavor. 


**NOTE: This combination of beans, herbs, butter, and Worcestershire sauce was good enough at this point, that I could have scooped it out of the bowl and eaten with pita chips.  Try serving this bean dip at your next party!


P.S. If anybody can think of a really good, creative name for this dish, let me know. :-)

Day #220 - Mexican night

Tonight I went over to dinner at my parents house.  We had giant burritos, stuffed with lettuce, sour cream, shredded cheese, sliced cherry tomatoes, ground beef, wild rice, and salsa.  For our side dishes, we had tortilla chips and salsa and halved strawberries.   Instead of having a second burrito, I made a helping of nachos on my plate with all the burrito fixings.  Yum! 

Day #219 - Island Sweet Pork

First dinner back at home.  Since I haven't had a chance to get to the grocery store yet, I rummaged through my freezer and pantry to find something to cook.   I pulled a package of pork chops from the freezer first thing in the morning and let them thaw in the refrigerator during the day.   When it was time for dinner, I drizzled olive oil over the pork chops, and coated them with an "Island Sweet" spice blend that I bought at  San Francisco's Pier 39.   The "Island Sweet Blend" (from the Spice & Tea Exchange) is a combination of sumac, mustard, coconut powder, rosebuds, dill weed, vanilla sugar, turbinado, and orange zest.  It had a slightly sweet, citrusy, earthy flavor, and it paired nicely with the pork.  I cooked the pork chops in my stovetop grill pan.   Near the end of the cooking process, I drizzled a little pineapple juice over the chops to form a "glaze" with the spice rub on the chops.

For my side dishes, I found a can of Great Northern white beans in my pantry cabinet.  I poured the contents of the can (beans and juices) into a microwaveable bowl, and added a small pinch of the Island Sweet Blend to create a more cohesive pairing with the pork chops.  I microwaved them for 3-4 minutes, stirring at the halfway point.   I also chilled a can of crushed pineapple, and had a few spoonfuls on the side.

Day #218 - Travel Fast Food

Vacation is coming to an end. Today was a long day of traveling home from California. Lunch was at McDonald's in the Denver Airport terminal. I had Chicken Selects and a Fruit & Yogurt Parfait, but didn't take a picture for you.

After we arrived home in St. Louis and picked up the car from the parking lot, my parents and I stopped at Arby's for dinner:

 

I just had a Jr. Roast Beef and a small Jamocha shake.  Not a very large dinner.   Then again, I also had lots of small snacks on the airplane ride (pretzels, peanuts, pita chips, and granola bars), so I didn't have a huge appetite.  And it was close to 8pm.

What a trip!   "Regular" dinner posts will resume tomorrow night.