Excellent EASY recipe!!

OK-here is a really easy as heck recipe that Wesley made up tonight and it rocked!! Good stuff. Wes calls it

Creamy Black-eyed Chicken Pasta

1 box/bag of pasta, we used Fusilli (aka corkscrew pasta)
1 can Black Beans
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 onion, chopped & sauteed
garlic, chopped & sauteed

Basically cook pasta, saute onion and garlic, warm up beans and soup, and combine it all together. Excellent!!! (If you want to make it even easier, omit onion & garlic).

REALLY good-try it!!

So, this is what my meal plans say for this week:

Monday July 21: Chicken Pillows with veggies and/or salad
Tuesday July 22: BBQ Bacon-wrapped Pork chops
Wednesday July 23: BBQ marinated chicken with pasta side
Thursday July 24: Chicken Stir Fry with rice
Friday July 25: Grilled Salmon with rice pilaf & Greek salad

This is what actually happened:

Monday July 21: BBQ Salmon, Green Salad, Bread, Veggies (Friday's plan)
Tuesday July 22: Chicken Pillows, veggies, salad
Wednesday July 23: Leftover night!

And here is my plan for what is to come:

Thursday July 24: BBQ Bacon Wrapped Pork
Friday July 25: Chicken Stir Fry
Saturday July 26: Dinner at Radiology Welcome thing, Lunch out for Army's B-day!
Sunday July 27: Dinner at Wes's co-worker's house (still pending) If not that, BBQ Chicken & Pasta
Monday July 28: Lasagna or Jeremy's Parmesan Chicken (Bringing Dinner to someone that had a baby, so I'll make double this dinner)
Tuesday July 29: Pork Adobo
Wednesday July 30: Tacos
Thursday July 31: Spaghetti or pasta
Friday August 1: Leftovers?!

Frankly, that's as far ahead as I can think at the moment...

Oh, and as for recipes from the past few days...

BBQ Salmon

Take Salmon and put in center of a piece of foil (you'll be "tenting" the salmon) Then we covered it with the leftover Apricot/ Teriyaki sauce from the other day. Lightly sealed the foil, and grilled it on our BBQ until it was done (about 15 minutes I think). It was AWESOME!!!

Chicken Pillows

2 cups diced, cooked chicken
8 ozs cream cheese, softened
1-2 onions, chopped
2-4 celery stalks, chopped
1 can mushrooms
2 packages refrigerated crescent rolls
melted butter
seasoned bread crumbs
Gravy

Saute onion, celery, and mushrooms in olive oil. Add to a bowl where you have already mixed the softened cream cheese and chicken. Mix the vegetables in. Drop by teaspoonfuls into the center of each roll. Close up the roll and pinch the edges closed. Roll in melted butter, then roll in seasoned bread crumbs. Put on baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 17-20 minutes. Serve with gravy. (see gravy recipe below)

Chicken Pillow Gravy

1/4 C flour
1/2 square butter
salt
pepper
2 C milk
1 chicken bouillon cube
1 can cream or anything soup (I used cream of mushroom)
Bit of extra milk-play it by ear...

Melt butter on sauce pan. Add flour, mix to paste. Add salt, pepper, milk, & Bouillon cube. Mix/stir until white sauce is thickened, then add the can of soup and a bit more milk. Yummy!

That's it for now...enjoy!

Got Frosting?

OK-in the middle of my food update, I asked if anyone had any frosting recipes. Nobody answered (which quite frankly made me sad, and it made me think, dang I miss Cathy-she made great frosting. She would totally have a recipe for me-it was all very sad).

So, I am assuming that nobody commented on that for one of the following reasons:

1-You have no good frosting recipes
2-Your frosting recipe is SO good that it is top secret.
3-You did not read that whole long blog, and so were unaware of my request.

Well now, I think I have resolves issue 3-you now know my request. If your reason is #1, just send any frosting recipe you have even if you don't think it's the best-I am willing to experiment with really any option. And if your reason is #2, well then all I have to say to you is, come on, I'm your buddy, your pal...please share...please...

Remember-you can comment without a sign in, so I have made it easy to send! :)

Food Update

Thursday July 17: Tunaburgers with veggies & Jell-o as sides: I did not make the jello...but for dessert I used the cherry chocolate bars recipe from my mother in law and made cherry chocolate cupcakes, half with chocolate frosting, and half with that funfetti frosting (store bought of course-I don't make frosting...)
Here's the Tunaburgers recipe:

1 can Tuna
2-3 hard-boiled eggs
1/2 t minced onion
2 T sweet pickles, chopped (use sweet relish-it's easier)
1/2 t mustard
3 T Mayo
1 C grated cheese (really use any kind you like-I used sharp cheddar)
hamburger buns

Mix all ingredient but the cheese and buns together. Spread bus with tune mixture, sprinkle with cheese. Place under broiler until warmed through and cheese is melted, or wrap in foil and heat in 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes or so (until cheese is melted). (as a side note, these work awesome as camping food-use the foil method and put in coals.)

Friday July 18: Chicken and Rice Casserole: turned into Chicken and Orzo casserole. I made up the recipe as I went using the leftover Orzo & leftover BBQ chicken I had. It turned out GREAT-really yummy!! Here is my recipe for Greek-like Casserole:

Leftover Orzo
Leftover BBQ chicken
1 big can diced tomatoes
1 small can tomatoes
1 can green beans
leftover mini corns
some balsamic vinegar
bread crumbs
Parmesan
Lemon butter

Mix all together in a pan except bread crumbs, Parmesan & lemon butter. Mix bread crumbs and Parmesan together, make the lemon butter. Sprinkle the bread crumb and Parmesan mixture over the casserole and put the lemon butter over that. Bake in the oven uncovered for about 25 minutes or until warmed through and until top is nice and crusty. It is an awesome recipe!!

Saturday July 19: Turkey Burgers and Fries and veggies: worked out well. I did get a bit creative here though. We bought pre-made turkey burgers in a box. The box had a serving suggestion to just make basically a Hawaiian burger by putting the turkey burger on a bun with a pineapple round and sweet n sour teriyaki sauce. Sounds good right? I thought so, but I had no sweet and sour teriyaki sauce, so I decided to make up my own. Here is basically what I did for my teriyaki sweet and sauce:

In a small sauce pan mix the following and simmer for about 15-20 minutes or until it thickens-

Teriyaki sauce
brown sugar
white vinegar
garlic
cornstarch (I used flour cause I was out of cornstarch-would have been better with the cornstarch)
garlic
apricot gelatin (just about 1/3-1/2 of a package for some sweet fruitiness)


Sunday July 20: Puetro Rican Pot Roast with roasted veggies, green salad & bread: This meal is in the works as we speak. The pot roast is in the crock pot, basically done. I was going to do roasted/baked potatoes & carrots with Greek seasoning to go with it, but we did not buy potatoes, so that side is out. Instead I am serving it with rice, veggies (broccoli), green salad, and my favorite take and bake bread from the grocery store here. Mmmm, I am getting hungry just smelling it as I type. Also, I made a version of cherry chocolate bars that are actually Orange yellow cake bars, and I made (get ready for a shock) homemade frosting to go on it as I have no good frosting left. Oh-and BTW-the recipe I used is not something I liked enough to share. If anyone has a great frosting recipe, please, please share it!!! Here is the recipe for Puerto Rican Pot Roast (from my mother in law):

Crisp Bacon in small chunks
stuffed green olives
pot roast
garlic (fresh or powdered)
salt & pepper to taste
16-20 oz tomato sauce
flour

cut random slits in pot roast and stuff them alternately with the bacon and the green olives throughout the meat. Next, sprinkle the meat with pepper and garlic (if using fresh garlic, rub it on the outside of the roast). Then, dredge (pound) the flour into the meat. Brown the meat in the bacon grease in a pot. When it is all browned, drain the fat. Add 1/3 C green olive juice to the meat in the pot (I used a crock pot). Pour over the top of the meat, the tomato sauce. Put the lid on and simmer for 6-7 hours for best results, or at least 3 hours. Check meat for desired doneness before serving.


MMMMM....Good stuff. I'll keep updating the food lists. So far so good!