Anniversary Dinner

Colossal butterflied shrimp, linguine in clam sauce, and garlic parmesan bread

     I cooked a nice dinner at home last night for Matt and I's anniversary.  I love seafood, as I have said many times before, and almost every time I want to cook something nice for dinner, the first thought in my mind is always shrimp.  Anytime we go out for dinner, I almost always order something with shrimp - scampi, in pasta, batter fried, I pretty much love it all.

Everything I made was from Trader Joe's grocery store

    
     Everything I cooked in this meal came from Trader Joe's which is the coolest grocery store in town.  I have only been there a couple times, but each time I do, I find new and fun things that I'm excited to try.  I love a lot of stuff that I get from that place, and the prices are decent too.  I ended up with a box of 15 colossal butterflied shrimp marinated in garlic and herbs, frozen linguini and clam sauce, and garlic and parmesan french bread.
    

Shrimp cooking in the oven

     The shrimp were incredibly easy to cook and tasted like something you'd get at a nice Italian restaurant.  They come with the shell on, and I have never cooked shelled shrimp before, but there are very simple instructions included on the box.  All you have to do is place the shrimp on a baking sheet and pop them in the oven for about 10 to 15 minutes.  When they come out, the shells will have turned red and the insides will be white.  I put a little butter on mine before I ate them and they were great.
    



Linguine "nests"

   
      The linguine came as a frozen package (one of my favorite things!) with the pasta and sauce together.  One nice thing about this package is that the noodles are frozen in little birds-nest looking things, which are separate from the sauce.  This allows it to cook more evenly, since all the noodles and sauce are not frozen into one giant clump.  It cooked really quickly too, about 7 or 8 minutes total.  Once again, all I did was follow the instructions on the bag.
     I served both of these with slices of a fresh garlic parmesan baguette, which went really well with the Italian seafood theme I went with.  Also served with a bottle of White Zinfindel which went so well with the food too.  All in all, the meal was great, and we had an amazing night for our anniversary.

Hint of Ranch Roast Beef

This is by far my proudest cooking accomplishment.  I have been dying to use my Crock Pot for so long, but never really had any ideas of what to make in it.  I always just thought about chili, which I'm not a great fan of, so I never got around to doing it.

This morning, I went to the Farmer's Market with my parents and grandparents.  I set out this morning determined to score some ingredients that I could use in my slow-cooker.  Since I'm still experimenting with cooking and figuring out how stuff goes together, I asked advice from the two best cooks I know: my dad and my grandmother.  With their guidance, I decided on making a pot roast.  My mom helped me pick out some fresh carrots and red potatoes.  It was a team effort for sure, and it was a great morning adventure with my family.

So I looked through my trusty Better Homes & Gardens cookbook (I have no idea how I lived without it for so many years) to find a recipe to guide me.  I found my inspiration in a recipe that was for Ranch Pork Roast.  I liked the idea of tangy ranch in a pot roast.  I made my own unique recipe (for the first time ever!) and did it completely from scratch.  I credit the cookbook for giving me inspiration, but this recipe is 100% made by me.

The roast was so juicy and the fresh carrots and potatoes really made a difference.  I have never had carrots with so much flavor.  My mother decided that they are more "carroty" than other carrots.  This is the perfect way to describe their taste.  If I could, I'd buy farm fresh produce all the time.  I hope to go to the market a few more times before the fall so that I can try out some more fun recipes.

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HINT OF RANCH POT ROAST

1 beef roast (mine was 1 and 1/4 lbs. and fed Matt and I with a little left over)

1 lb red potatoes, cut into eighths

4 carrots, sliced

1/2 yellow vidalia onion, chopped

1 packet Hidden Valley Ranch Dip mix
Salt and Pepper to taste

 Coat skillet with non-stick spray or cooking oil and heat on medium high.  Take 1/2 packet of ranch mix and rub into roast.  Place meat in skillet and brown, making sure to get each side evenly.

In the bottom of the Crock Pot, add the potatoes, carrots, and onions.  Sprinkle second 1/2 of ranch mix packed onto veggies and stir lightly.  Place roast on top of veggies and pour 3/4 cup of water over top.

Place lid on top and cook.  Cooking times will vary based on whether you cook the roast on low or high, and also on the weight of the meat.  My 1 and 1/4 lb. roast cooked in about 3 hours on high heat.







Cream Cheese Chicken Enchiladas

     This afternoon I really wanted cream cheese enchiladas from Taco Inn.  I thought about it, and decided that I'd try my hand at making them instead.  So, i googled "cream cheese chicken enchiladas recipe" and found one that sounded simple enough (where some recipes had me making sauce from scratch, and I didn't think I was ready for that yet).  I tweaked it very very slightly, and tried it out. This is the link to the original recipe.  I will post my recipe below.  It took me about 45 minutes all together to prepare, and is also the first recipe I've tried where I haven't used some sort of "convenience food" (like the frozen meals or the homestyle mac & cheese).  Where the recipe calls for shredded cheese, I used a 4-cheese mexican blend from Kraft that I think tasted really good with it, and I subbed 1/3 fat cream cheese.

    

      I was a little anxious to see how they turned out, being the first time I'd made something like this.  We literally just finished dinner as I am typing this, and I have been getting compliments on how good they are from everyone around.  I personally loved them as well.  Not exactly the same as Taco Inn's, but to tell you the truth, I may like mine better.  They're the perfect amount of creamy and spicy.  And they weren't all that hard to make after all.

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Cream Cheese Chicken Enchiladas

• 2 10oz cans of chicken breast, drained
• 1 tbsp fresh minced garlic
• 1/2 small onion, finely chopped
• 2 8-oz. packages cream cheese
• Tortilla shells (taco size)
• 1 1/2 cans enchilada sauce
• Shredded cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

In a medium-sized bowl, combine the chicken, garlic, onion, and cream cheese.  Fill the tortilla shells with the cream cheese mixture and place in a baking dish.  Top with enchilada sauce and shredded cheese.

Bake for 25 minutes, or until cheese is melted and bubbly.

Cheesy Chicken & Potatoes

Yet another frozen entree (can you tell I love these?).  So easy and quick to make, nice for the evenings when I've had a long day and I don't want to have to fuss over dinner much.  This one is Bird's Eye brand, and I got it at Hy-Vee for about $4.  The entrees are called Voila! and there are several varieties, the one I prepared being Cheddar Chicken Potato.  It honestly only took 10 minutes from start to finish, and includes all you'll need for an entree for two people.  Also needed are a cup of water and a 10" skillet.  So easy, anyone could make this.

Since the entree was SO easy and quick to make, I whipped up some homemade garlic bread to go along with it.  Baked it while the chicken and potatoes were cooking, and so the whole meal really only took me about 15 minutes from start to finish.  Amazing!

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SIMPLE EASY GARLIC BREAD

Hamburger buns

Butter

Cilantro

Garlic salt

Butter the bread sides of the hamburger buns and place on a baking sheet.  Sprinkle on garlic salt and cilantro to taste.  Bake at 425 degrees for about 10 minutes.

Home-Made Mac & Cheese

Matt loves mac and cheese made with Velveeta.  I prefer the type from the box.  You know, add the cheese powder, milk, and butter, and you magically get cheese.  That's what I grew up on, and was my favorite food for most of my life (and is still a favorite, as you can see, I make it a lot) but now, I've branched out and have decided to work on some variations.  Tonight, I made Matt's favorite version, and although I still love my cheese powder, this stuff was not too shabby either.

18 oz. Velveeta (cut into 1/2 inch cubes)
3 cups uncooked macaroni noodles
1/2 cup milk
Pepper to taste

Bring water to boil in a large pot (I always add just a dash of salt to the water before it boils.  My dad always told me that it makes the water boil faster.  I have no idea if this is true, but I do it anyway).  Add macaroni noodles, cooking until pasta is tender.  Drain and return to pot.  Add milk and Velveeta and pepper.  Cook over low heat until the Velveeta is completely melted, stirring occasionally.

If you prefer, you can use Light Velveeta and skim milk to lower the fat and calorie content.

Chicken Alfredo

This is really really basic, and I did almost no cooking for this meal.  1 pound of ground chicken, 1 jar of Cheesy Ragu Roasted Garlic Parmesan sauce, and a package of fettuccine noodles.  Just prepare the chicken the same way you would ground hamburger for spaghetti sauce, but add some olive oil to the pan, as chicken doesn't have its own grease the way hamburger does.

After cooking the noodles, I mixed the sauce in with the chicken, and poured both the noodles and the chicken sauce into a casserole dish and topped with shredded cheese.  It would probably taste best with Mozzarella cheese, but I only had cheddar in my fridge, so that's what I used.  Bake at 425 degrees for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the cheese on top is melted.

I love seafood!

Last night's dinner was a seafood extravaganza!  Baked salmon, shrimp scampi, and cheese bread!

I started with a pre-packaged shrimp scampi meal by Gourmet Dining, which I found in the frozen food aisle of Russ's Market for about $5.00.  While I was there, I picked up a box of 5 cheese Texas toast (Best Choice brand) for about $2.50.  The salmon is a frozen, single fillet pack, which I found on sale at Hy-Vee at 10 for $10.

I followed the instructions on the shrimp scampi package exactly, it only took about 10 minutes to cook from start to finish.  The garlic sauce it came with was really good and the nice thing about it is that you don't have to add all the sauce if you don't want to, for a lighter garlic flavor.

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This is a recipe I made, just pretty basic baked salmon.

2 Tablespoons olive oil (divided)

Penzey's Sunny Paris seasoning

Garlic salt

1 salmon fillet

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Grease the bottom of a baking dish with 1 tablespoon olive oil.  Place salmon fillet in center of baking dish, and brush on 1 tablespoon of olive oil.  Sprinkle on Sunny Paris seasoning and garlic salt to taste.  Bake on center rack of oven for 15 minutes.

Baked Mac & Cheese

THIS IS SO DELICIOUS!

I got the package of Kraft Homestyle macaroni & cheese, the classic cheddar flavor (I'm not sure if there's more than one flavor, but this is the one I used).  This was honestly the best mac & cheese I've ever had, and Matt agreed with me.  I followed the directions on the back of the bag, finished with the "oven baked finish option."  The only things you need besides the package is milk and butter and, if you want to go the baked route, some shredded cheddar cheese (you don't have to bake it, it's good to go straight from the stovetop if you prefer).  The mac & cheese package includes the noodles, a packet of seasonings, a packet of bread crumb topping, and a packet of cheese sauce.  That's right, no powdered cheese, it's some seasoning mixed with cheddar cheese sauce.  I highly recommend this meal, and the package was only $2.00 at Walmart.  Cheap and great meal, perfect for two people with a little leftover!

Black beans & corn over white rice with Italian sausage

I made this for dinner two nights ago, and Matt said he liked it a lot, so I will share my recipe.

1 12oz. can of sweet corn, drained

1 12oz. can of black beans, drained

Olive oil

2 cups cooked white rice

Penzey's Ozark seasoning

Dried parsley

Drizzle some olive oil in the bottom of a 10 inch skillet, and put it over medium heat.  Once skillet is warmed, add corn and beans, stir.  Once mixed, add seasoning and parsley to taste, and mix together.  Cook over medium heat for about ten to fifteen minutes.  When the bean mixture is almost done, put a layer of the cooked white rice down on the plate.  Remove bean mixture from heat, and plate on top of the rice.

I also cooked up some Italian sausage.  I used the same skillet that I had cooked the bean mix in, just added a small amount of water to it, and cooked the sausages covered on low heat.