Oven Risotto

I love risotto, it really combines so many delicious things into one dish. This one was in my Food Network Magazine, but I added a few things (chicken and more broccoli) to it to make it into a bit more filling dish that hits all the spots. The worst thing about risotto is all the stirring and adding of liquids. That's what makes this one great! It starts off the same as a normal risotto, but once you add ALL of the warm chicken stock and give it a quick stir you just pop it in the oven and stir it once more in the middle of the cooking time. So easy. We pretty much always have the ingredients on hand to make this and it takes less than an hour to pull together, making it a great weeknight (or weekend!) meal. There are a few dishes with this one so you may want to cook it in exchange for someone else to do the dishes!

Broccoli Cheddar Oven Risotto
(Adapted From Here)

Ingredients

4 cups chicken stock (I used Low Sodium)
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite size chunks
1-2 bunches broccoli, cut up (Cauliflower is also great, or a mixture of both)
1 tablespoon oil
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 small yellow onion, finely chopped
1 3/4 cups arborio rice (I don't always use Arborio, basmati works just fine)
1/4 cup dry white wine (A cheap pinot grigio works great)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup hot water - you don't need this until the end of cooking

Directions:

Move your oven racks in to the upper and lower thirds of the oven, you'll cook the the risotto on the bottom rack while roasting the broccoli on the top rack.

Preheat to 425 degrees F.

Bring the chicken broth to a low simmer in a saucepan. Toss the broccoli with the olive oil on a rimmed baking sheet.

Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large ovenproof skillet or braiser over medium-high heat. You'll want it to have a lid. Add the cut up chicken to the pan once its heated up and sear on all sides of the chunks, mostly cooking through. This will finish up over the remainder of cooking. (You can also cook the chicken through, remove it and add it back in at the end of cooking.)

Add the chopped onion with the chicken and cook, until slightly softened, this will take about 2 minutes.

Add the rice in on top and stir to coat, let the rice "toast" for 30 seconds or so before the next step.

Pour in the wine and cook until evaporated, about 1 minute. Add the hot broth, salt, and pepper to taste; bring to a boil.

Cover and set on the bottom oven rack. Place the broccoli on the upper rack. Bake, stirring the rice and broccoli once about 10 minutes through cooking.

It's done once most of the liquid has been absorbed in the rice and the broccoli is tender, 20 to 25 minutes.


Remove the rice and broccoli from the oven. Add 3/4 cup hot water, the remaining 1 tablespoon butter and the cheese to the rice and stir until creamy (add a little more hot water to loosen, if necessary).

Stir in the broccoli and serve.

Baked Jalapeno Poppers

I love jalapeno poppers, classic ones, baked ones, pretty much jalapeno and cream cheese together are always a perfect match. I would say that these ones are probably hotter than a standard popper from the freezer section in the grocery store. But they're fresh and they don't have any unknown ingredients in them, plus they're so customizable.

I love Rachael Ray. She's most definitely my cooking idol (except for her distaste to baking, but hey its not for everyone). She got me hooked on these types of poppers, I make them quite a bit, I like to take them camping in a foil tray and heat them up on the grill or over the fire. The can get a little mushy if they get too hot though, adding the breadcrumbs on top will help this out a bit.

Kitchen Tool Tip - I use a grapefruit spoon (The kind with the little teeth on the end) to scoop out the insides of the Jalapeno. It gets it all. I like it hot and if I miss any of the seeds or white part, I notice. A lot. That's up to you though.

I also usually only use about half the tops in the recipe.

I top them with more cheese - why not? They're still better than the breaded, fried ones! And if you miss the breading sprinkle some bread crumbs on top with the cheese.

Baked Jalapeno Poppers
(Adapted from Here)

Ingredients:

12-20 Jalapenos, depending on size - the below will fill 14 large jalapenos.
8 oz cream cheese, softened
2 Tbsp Greek Yogurt (or sour cream)
1 cup shredded cheddar (or something else if you like).
1/2 cup shredded cheddar for topping if desiered
Salt & Pepper to taste

Optional:
3 Tbsp toasted panko
3 strips chopped, cooked crisp bacon

Directions:

Cut the jalapenos into little boats as pictured below and chop the tops up. You can also cut them directly in half lengthwise to get a few more out of the recipe.

Mix the chopped jalapenos, cream cheese, greek yogurt, salt and pepper together in a bowl till well combined. (Add other mix ins here if you'd like, except panko) Spoon into a freezer weight zip top bag (sometimes the sandwich ones pop). Cut the corner off of the bag and "pipe" into the jalapeno boats.

Smooth out the tops (I use an offset spatula) and top with cheese.
You can stop here and refrigerate for later or pop them into a 400º F preheated oven and cook until the cheese on top starts to melt, some times a minute under the broiler helps crisp up the top cheese if you'd like.

Stuffed Pork Tenderloin Dinner (3 Recipes!)

Since this Friday was a holiday, I thought we could up the ante and do a fancier dinner. Sort of our own Easter dinner to ourselves. We've had a pork tenderloin in our freezer for a month or so and I decided this would be a great time to use that. Stuffed pork tenderloin is usually my go to, and today was no different. I wasn't feeling quite ambitious enough to make stuffing from scratch so we bought a "Stovetop" box. Totally ok! We had an abundance of carrots in our fridge from my random decision to start Juicing this week and roasted Cauliflower is always a good side and goes with pretty much everything. I like to use one or two spices that are the same in each dish to tie it all together. The bonus with this dish is that you can cook everything together in the oven at one temperature for the same length of time.

Stuffed Pork Tenderloin

1 pound Pork Tenderloin, (1 or 2 pieces)
2 Cups (one box) prepared stuffing
1 Tbsp butter - Melted
1 Tbsp olive oil
Fresh or dried Thyme Leaves
Dried Onion Flakes
Salt
Pepper
Garlic clove - Grated
1 Tbsp Roasted Red Pepper (I used Epicures dried)

Roasted Carrots

10 - 14 carrots peeled and cut into 2 inch pieces
1 Tbsp butter - Melted
1 Tbsp oil
Fresh or dried Thyme Leaves
Dried Onion Flakes
Salt
Pepper
Garlic clove - Grated

Roasted Cauliflower

See Recipe here

I left out the cheese and chickpeas this time.

Directions:

Pork - Preheat oven to 425 º

First, you have to open your pork up to pound it out a bit thinner. Do do this you slice it length wise down the middle until almost through, about 1/4 inch left. Then, slice each half length wise down the middle leaving the same amount of space till the bottom. Cover with saran and pound out with a meat mallet until about 1/4 inch thick. If you have two pieces, do this to both. Having 2 makes it a little easier to wrap up because its more of a sandwich than a jelly roll.

Mix last 8 ingredients under pork together. Brush onto inside of the pork. Leave a bit for the top.

Season inside of pork with salt and pepper if desired on top of butter mixture.

Spoon stuffing onto one side of pork spreading to about 1/2 inch away from edge of meat, you can pile it up.

Layer other piece of pork, inside down, on top of the stuffing. Tie together with kitchen twine or use toothpicks. If you have one piece of pork you will roll up like a jelly roll and secure together.

Place in roasting dish, (wait to put in oven with vegetables) cook in preheated on bottom rack for 15-20 minutes and place on top rack for last 5-10 minutes of cooking. Temperature should register 160º.

Let sit for about 10 minutes before slicing. Serves 2-6 depending on loin size.

Carrots

Mix all ingredients together in a dish, coating carrots. Spread on baking sheet with cauliflower and roast on top rack of oven for 20 minutes, switching with pork for last 10 minutes.

Bacon Jalapeno Deviled Eggs

This was my very first pin on my "Appies" board on Pinterest, it's been a long time coming! I finally got the chance to make these for our Easter dinner appetizer. I have to say I'm pretty impressed with how they turned out. I changed the recipe a bit to fit what I had around the kitchen, but not too much. The hardest part about these is peeling those eggs. Any tips would be much appreciated. If you want to pipe the filling in with a star tip (like I tried to do) you're going to want to really crumble that bacon or it will get stuck in your star tip and you will have to jab it out dangerously with a knife. Otherwise a zip-lock bag will work just fine (I switched). I put this recipe into a calorie counter (just to see!) and they're about 75 Calories/half. You can certainly knock that down with less bacon, but why? Its Easter!

Bacon Jalapeno Deviled Eggs
(Adapted from here)

Ingredients:

12 eggs, hard boiled and peeled
1 dash rice vinegar
3/4 cup light Miracle Whip
1 Tbsp Bacon Mustard (Or Dijon)
2 jalapenos, seeded and chopped fine
6 pieces bacon, crispy and chopped or crumbled
paprika for topping

Directions:

Cut the peeled eggs in half, lengthwise

Scoop out the yolks and place in mixing bowl

Mash the egg yolks till crumbly with a fork

Add the miracle whip, vinegar and mustard to the mashed egg yolks and stir until well combined, add more mustard if the mixture needs to be looser.

Mix in 3/4 of the jalapenos and bacon, setting aside 1/4 of each for topping.

Put the mixture in a zip-lock bag and cut a small part of the corner off of the bag

Fill each egg hole with the mixture

Sprinkle with paprika and remaining bacon and jalapenos

Chill until ready to serve

Bacon and Potato Frittata

My mom bought me a new piece of Le Crueset to add to my collection for Easter, a tarte pan! I wanted to try it out with a baked frittata for Easter Brunch. This was a recipe I pinned pretty recently, it has a lot of good for you ingredients to fill you up first thing in the morning or into the afternoon. It was a bit heavy in preparation though, so I would recommend precooking the bacon and potatoes or at least having everything cut up and ready to go if you want it early. It took a little over an hour from start to finish. It turned out great, especially for the first frittata I've ever made. It served 4 nicely but could probably be stretched to 6.

Bacon & Potato Frittata
(Adapted slightly from here)

Ingredients:

8 large eggs
4-5 leaves chopped fresh basil
3+ Tbsp grated Parmesan
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 slices bacon, chopped
4 medium potatoes peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 small shallot, chopped fine
3 garlic cloves, chopped fine
1 - 2 handfuls chopped Spinach
1/4 cup Roasted Red peppers (if desired)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350º

Whisk together first 3 ingredients in  large bowl, salt and pepper to your taste levels. I would say a heavy pinch or two.

Cook bacon over medium heat, stirring, until crisp. Transfer bacon to a separate dish and pour off most, leaving 1 Tbsp or so of fat in the pan.

Add potatoes to hot pan and fry over medium-high heat until golden, about 5-7 minutes, stirring. In last 3 minutes, add the chopped onion and garlic to the pan stirring in. In last minute, add the spinach to wilt slightly.

Place all ingredients in tarte pan, covering with the egg mixture. Salt and pepper the top.

Place in preheated over for 20 - 25 minutes, depending on dish size.

Cut and serve in wedges.

Shrimp & Bacon Salad

Ok, there's a lot more ingredients in here than just those. But you cook the shrimp in the bacon grease and its pretty much amazing. I loved this salad. I didn't make the dressing from the orginal post, but I probably will next time. I may or may not have forgotten to pick up those ingredients. So we just used a bit of Renee's Dill and Cucumber Yogurt dip on the side. I find with an avocado in your salads they have a nice "built in" dressing from those, so you don't need one as much. Throw in a splash of that feta brine and you're pretty set. This salad hits every craving you might have, but I mostly found I wanted more bacon after... That could just be me though!

Shrimp & Bacon Salad
(Adapted from Here)

Ingredients

1/2 cup corn kernels frozen or shaved off a cob.
3 strips of bacon, diced
10 large shrimp, peeled with tails on or off
4 cups chopped Romaine lettuce
1 avocado, peeled, pitted and diced
1/4 cup crumbled goats feta (whatever kind you have is fine!)

Directions:

1. Heat a pan over medium high heat. Add the corn kernels and let cook until they start to get a little toasty around the edges, around 6 minutes, stirring off the bottom to help prevent sticking. Transfer the corn to a dish and set aside.

2. In the same pan, add the bacon. Fry for about 5-6 minutes, stirring until crispy or to your liking. Remove the bacon, leaving the grease in the skillet. My bacon didn't have a lot of fat so you may want to drain a bit off if you don't want to drown your shrimp in it. (Here comes the best part!)

3. Add the shrimp and cook for about 3 minutes per side (depending on size). Remove shrimp and prepare your salad.

4. Assemble your salad by tossing together the lettuce, toasted corn, bacon, shrimp and avocado.

5. Top with crumbled cheese and dressing if desired.

Tomato Basil Soup

This is a recipe I've been making for quite a while, I finally decided to take some pictures and add some ingredients. You may have seen it back on my Italian Evening post a year or so ago. Its a decent tomato soup recipe and filling enough to accompany just a salad or a nice grilled cheese. I also really like that it can be done in under an hour, less if you're in a crunch. You can add more layers of flavour to the soup just by buying some more intense ingredients. I used a Tomato basil tomato paste and I used a whole can and I bought tomatoes with basil already in there and mashed them myself. That way you can really get the basil freshness, even if your basil isn't that fresh (mine was not). 

Tomato Basil Soup
(Adapted slightly from Here)

Ingredients

2 tablespoons Grapeseed or olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

4 large cloves garlic, grated

1 carrot, finely diced
Salt and pepper
2 tsp dried thyme leaves or 2 Tbsp Fresh (Chopped)
1 large fresh bay leaf
3 tbsp - 1 small can tomato paste
1 box (946 mL) low sodium chicken stock
32 ounce can whole or crushed tomatoes (I Bought Eden Whole Roma tomatoes with Basil)
A few leaves basil

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 cups 1% milk (or whatever you have)

Directions:

1. Heat the oil in a large soup pot over medium-high heat.

2. Once the pot and oil are warm, add onions, garlic, carrot, salt, pepper, thyme, bay and cook partially covered to soften 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. You will really be able to smell the thyme and onion, such a great kitchen smell.

3. Add tomato paste and stir 2 minutes to let it caramelize a bit, it was in a can. Add the stock, tomatoes and tear in basil leaves. Simmer partially covered for 30 minutes, *Remove and discard bay leaf.

4. Purée soup with an immersion blender, or transfer to a blender and back to the pot when smooth.

5. To make the béchamel sauce to thicken the soup, melt butter in a sauce pot over medium heat, whisk in flour and cook 1 minute. Whisk in milk, season with salt and pepper, and let thicken to coat a spoon. Stir béchamel into soup to combine. **Don't tell the real chefs, but you can do this in the microwave! Melt butter in the microwave, add flour and stir, microwave the paste another 10 seconds, add milk and microwave in 30 second bursts on medium high, whisking in between until thick. It takes a couple minutes.

6. Let soup simmer another 10 minutes or so to thicken and serve with your favourite salad or sandwich (or both!). I served mine with a basic Kale Salad topped with sunflower oil, lemon juice and a few crumbles of goat feta.