Spicy Chicken Rigatoni and Oven Roasted Garlic Brussel Sprouts

Tonight, I was under a big time crunch. I ran out of lab early to come back and cook an ambitious dinner - spicy chicken rigatoni and oven roasted garlic brussel sprouts. Mostly because I already took the chicken out of the freezer to thaw in the morning, and I bought brussel sprouts last week and I really didn't want them to go bad. I usually deal with frozen vegetables, since they don't go bad on me as quickly and are relatively inexpensive.

Things went downhill from the start. To my surprise, we ran out of crushed red pepper flakes in my apartment, and so I tried to substitute with chili powder. While it does add a slight kick to the chicken, adding the chili powder to the hot oil with salt, pepper and garlic like it instructs to do so with the crushed red pepper flakes was a seriously poor idea. I don't quite know what happened, but it smelled pretty terrible, and at this point I honestly couldn't tell if it was from the chili powder in the skillet or the brussel sprouts roasting in the oven. But it smelled like melting plastic with a hint of spice. It was gross and gave me a headache. But I went on and cooked the chicken in the oil anyways since I was in a rush. Also bad idea. The chicken adopted the weird burnt chili powder taste and I had to add a lot of cheese to the sauce to balance out the flavors. Also, the alfredo sauce that I bought at the supermarket was COMPLETE GARBAGE. Gross. Do not buy the Ragu alfredo sauce, I guarantee you will immediately regret it. Not worth the maybe 75 cents I saved. Made my sauce taste very....off. A heavy dose of parmesan cheese helped thicken the sauce and mask the fake cheesy taste of the alfredo sauce. I substituted cut green beans for the peas that are called for in the actual recipe, since I personally think peas are disgusting. In the end, the sauce came together, and if you ignored the peculiarity of the chicken, the pasta wasn't half bad. I really like that it was rigatoni, the large tubes of pasta carried the sauce well.

I'll be honest. I have no experience with brussel sprouts. A friend made them for me once, and I discovered they weren't half as bad as their reputation. Soon after, I found a recipe and I decided what the hell, I need some more vegetables in my life. I halved the little ones, quartered the big ones and threw them into the biggest pan we owned (which sadly is a 9x9) with some olive oil, a LOT of garlic and some water, like the recipe instructs. Turns out, I added maybe just a little too much garlic, because at the end of the day, the brussel sprouts tasted like leafy, slightly bitter garlic things. I usually say, you can never have too much garlic, but believe me, it was too much. 5 cloves of garlic is just way too much, I'd suggest limiting it to 3. And I think I overcooked my brussel sprouts too because they were pretty soft and mushy, not the most pleasant texture, but some were crunchier than others.

All in all, I think I survived today. I didn't think I would have time to make dinner at all, and I managed to make both dishes, with prep time, in just under an hour. I would definitely like to try the spicy chicken rigatoni recipe again, this time with quality alfredo sauce and crushed red pepper flakes because I think it has the potential to be an awesome pasta dish. The brussel sprouts on the other hand, that I could maybe live without for now.

Spaghetti with Chicken and Corn in a Cream Sauce

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, things have been busy and I swear I've been cooking, it's just the blogging part that's slowing me down. I'll add the posts from the last two weeks later since I still need to upload those photos. I surprised myself tonight by throwing together a couple of ingredients I had lying around to make a pretty yummy pasta dinner! This recipe is all me!

Spaghetti with Chicken and Corn in Cream Sauce

Ingredients:
1/2 medium onion, diced
2 cloves minced garlic
1 chicken breast, cubed
1 bag frozen corn
half box spaghetti, cooked
handful of monterey jack
1/4 cup pecorino romano, grated
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp flour
1 tsp butter
salt and pepper
chili powder

1 tbsp canola oil

Directions:
1. In a large skillet, add the onion, garlic and oil and cook until the onion is soft and translucent (I ended up using only half an onion since I spilled half on the ground in the transfer.....I would recommend actually using the entire onion for some yummy goodness)
2. Season chicken with salt, pepper and chili powder and add to the skillet. Cook until the chicken is almost done, but not quite. I tested this just by poking the cubes of chicken with my fork.
3. In a separate pot, steam the frozen corn for about 4 minutes, or until just cooked. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
4. In a new small skillet, create a roux by combining the flower and butter on medium heat. Add the milk and stir until it thickens. Add both cheeses. I only added the amount above because it was all I had left. I would suggest adding more pecorino, like about 1 cup to make this more of a mac and cheese-like consistency.
5. Combine chicken, corn and sauce in the large skillet and stir to combine. Let simmer for 5 minutes. Add the spaghetti to the skillet and voila you're done!

This dish was thrown together on a whim, but it actually tastes pretty great! It's creamy, but not heavy and this recipe makes a lot! Serves 4

Steak with Pasta and Carrots

Okay, I'll be honest, I wasn't really paying the most attention to cooking this dish. I was running late for an event and simultaneously trying to cook and get ready (shower and everything) so I may have fudged some of the things.

Steak with Pasta and Carrots

First, the night before I marinated my steak (don't ask me what cut it is, I went for something thin and inexpensive at the supermarket) using the best steak marinade in existence. However, I didn't quite measure out the ingredients, just kind of eyeballed it and called it a day. Don't. I ended up adding entirely too much Worcestershire sauce and turned my steak a disgusting brown color. It also didn't taste like much else. So moral of the story: be cautious with the Worcestershire sauce - that stuff is potent.

I cranked the heat on the skillet, and then seared both sides of my steak, cooking on 2 minutes on each side. Honestly, this is probably good enough, since the meat was only about an inch thick. But then I threw it in the oven while I showered, and added some carrots to roast as well. The carrots were cut into half inch thick rods (for lack of a better term) and coated with salt, pepper, a little herb seasoning and olive oil. They baked in the oven at 350ºC for about 10 minutes. I whipped up some simple pasta, dressing it with a sauce made from the drippings left in the pan from the steak and some cream. And bam, a new homemade meal in less than 20 minutes! I ended up making my steak well-done and my carrots a little undercooked, but at least it was still edible! I made another piece of steak done in the same marinade the next night and only seared it on the skillet and it was pretty kick-ass!

Baked Chicken Parmesan

I want to preface this post with a couple of things:
1. I am not a foodie. As a college student on a budget, I don't have the time, or the burning desire to make everything from scratch. I'll use canned tomato sauce instead of making my own, use premixed seasonings like garlic and herb seasoning because it's easier, faster and I honestly don't care enough to make my own.
2. As I said, I'm a college student on a budget, so a lot of my ingredients and substitutions are going to be because that's simply what was in my pantry or refrigerator that day, or was on sale at the supermarket that week. So by all means, if you have better ingredients, please use them! I'm sure it'll come out a lot better than my creations.
3. I'm not a good cook. Not terrible, but not great. I am definitely not pretending I know how to do anything in the kitchen, haha.
4. I suck at taking pictures of the food I make, help!

Okay, so last week, following in the Italian vein, I made chicken parmesan, adapted from the recipe found here.

I modified this recipe modified from an America's Test Kitchen recipe mostly because I used what I had instead of trekking out to the supermarket in the cold. Lazy, I know. Directions are as follows!

Ingredients:

- two boneless skinless chicken breasts

- 1 cup Progresso Garlic & Herb breadcrumbs

- 2 egg whites

- 1 teaspoon water

- 1/2 cup flour

- 2 teaspoons garlic salt

- 1 cup tomato sauce

- 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella 

- salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Place chicken breasts on cutting board and cut the breast horizontally to create two thinner cutlets. Pushing down on the breast with your other hand (the one without the knife) tends to help evenly cut the meat in half.

2. Lay out 3 shallow bowls - here I just use plates. In the first, mix salt, pepper, garlic salt and flour. Mix well to make sure there aren't spots of salty regret. In the second, beat the two egg whites with 1 tsp water until it becomes homogeneous and frothy. Lastly, in the third, lay out a nice even layer of breadcrumbs.

3. Pat each chicken cutlet dry, then dip in flour, egg and breadcrumbs in that order. Make sure to shake off excess flour before dipping in the egg mixture to create a lighter crust. 

4. Place chicken onto a wire rack on top of a cookie sheet. Bake at 475ºF for 10 minutes. Then top each piece with a spoonful of tomato sauce and sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.

5. Bake for another 5 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly and golden brown. Serve on a bed of spaghetti if desired.

Baked Ziti

Sorry for the late post - things have been hectic with the start of the new semester and I haven't had a chance to sit down and properly write out a post. This one will be short and sweet, and hopefully I'll have another one up soon for this week.

So last week my friend and I decided to come back to campus a week early to catch up on some lab work, and made a huge pan of baked ziti, which lasted us about 4 days. We're lazy, I know. I take absolutely zero credit for this recipe, this one goes to Brian. The recipe is (sort of) as follows:

Ingredients:
1 pound of ziti
1 pound of ground turkey
salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon Adobo seasoning
8 ounces shredded mozzarella
8 ounces shredded colby jack
8 ounces cottage cheese
1 jar (25 ounces) pasta sauce

Directions:
1. Cook pasta in salted water as directed on the box.
2. In a large skillet, add ground turkey, salt, pepper and Adobo seasoning and cook for 10 minutes on medium-high heat. Add the jar of pasta sauces to the pan and let simmer.

3. In a large casserole dish, add a layer of pasta across the bottom (about half of the pasta). Layer half of all the cheeses on top, and top with half of the sauce. Repeat the layers, and save a small amount of cheese to add to the top of the ziti.

4. Bake at 375ºF for 20 minutes or until the cheese is melty and golden brown on the top

And voila! It's delicious, can feed a crowd and stores well. I know I'm going to fish this recipe out a couple of times throughout the semester when I'm in a pickle and need something in my fridge I can pick at for a while.