Tag: eats

Pineapple infused meatloaf and roasted vegetables

It’s all about keeping things simple right now and this recipe is just that simple, and delicious. Dinner is served!

I love love love pineapple, it’s fresh, and light and super versatile for using in sweet and savory dishes. It makes food fell island inspired and let’s face it we would all love to be on a refreshing island get away right about now! Tonight I combine it with a simple pork meatloaf and some rustic spicy roasted vegetables.

Here is what you need:

1lb ground pork unseasoned not sausage

1 slice of bread

1 bunch scallions sliced separate greens and whites

1 yellow bell pepper diced

2 small sweet potatoes peeled and diced

1 small chili pepper diced from the middle to the tip discard the stem end and seeds

1 small can of pineapple wedges in juice not syrup

3 tbsp hoisin sauce or teriyaki sauce

Olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 425°F grease a large baking sheet with olive oil and set aside.

Place bread in a large bowl. Open pineapple, reserve 2 Tbsp of pineapple juice for sauce and drain the remaining juice over the bread. Set pineapple pieces aside.

Using your hands mash the bread into a paste and add scallion whites and ground pork. Blend together with your hands add salt and pepper. Form into 3-4 small “loaves” about 1in thick, they do not need to be perfect. Place on the greased baking sheet and wash your hands.

In a small bowl combine hoisin sauce and reserved pineapple juice mix well and baste over top of the meat loaves. Reserve enough for one more coating after initial baking time. Take pineapple pieces and place on baking sheet with the meatloaf.

In a large bowl combine diced sweet potatoes, bell pepper, half of green scallions and chili pepper coat with olive oil and pepper to taste and place in a small roasting pan.

Place veggies on the middle shelf and meatloaf on the top shelf of the oven and bake for 20 min. Remove veggies from the oven check for doneness of the potatoes. Remove meatloaf and apply a new coating of sauce, remove pineapple from pan and place back in the oven for another 10min make sure meat is cooked to correct temp. Top meatloaf with toasted pineapple pieces and remaining scallion greens. Serve hot with a side of roasted veggies! Enjoy!

Creamy Chicken Spaghetti

Tonight’s dinner is filling and simple, with a homemade sauce. Creamy chicken spaghetti with roasted tomatoes and basil! Yummy!

Making a simple homemade pasta sauce is super easy and once you perfect a base you’ll find changing up the flavor is super easy! I encourage you to give it a try!

Here’s what you need for this tasty pasta dish!

1lb chicken cut into strips

Spaghetti

1 lemon zested and quartered

2 Roma tomatoes, cut into wedges

2 tbsp tuscan or southwest seasoning

3 Tbsp butter

1 Tbsp cream cheese

1/4c. Parmesan cheese

2 sprigs of fresh basil chopped

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

Preheat oven to 400°F, and bring a pot of salted water to a boil.

Zest and cut lemon and wedge the tomatoes. Place tomatoes skin side down on a baking sheet, sprinkle with salt pepper and tuscan 1 tsp tuscan seasoning. Place in preheated oven and roast until they start to soften and juices can be seen releasing around the wedges.

Rinse and drain chicken, pat dry with paper towels, add to a preheated skillet with olive oil, salt, pepper, and 1tsp of the tuscan seasoning. Cook until browned and heated to temp.

Meanwhile cook spaghetti reserce 1/2 c of pasta water, drain pasta and set aside, do not rinse your pasta!

In the pot from the pasta add butter, cream cheese, reserved pasta water, lemon zest and the juice from half of the lemon. Cook on medium heat until melted and well blended. Add pasta, parmesan cheese and chicken. Stir until well blended. Add tomatoes and chopped basil. Serve hot! Enjoy!!

Garlic Parmesan Surf and Turf!

It’s been really tough to plan meals with the stores being low stocked on staple items that I use a lot of. So I’ve had to improvise.

Chicken was on short supply at my last visit to the local grocery mart. But they had tons of sirloin and this immediately made me think of surf and turf! So a quick trip to frozen foods and I was in business! Plenty of frozen uncooked shrimp in stock!

I already new I had a few essentials in my pantry. I picked up some parmesan cheese shreds, and a few fresh veggies for a sauteed side dish. The result was a delicious meal with very few ingredients that were super easy to find, or that I already had on hand!

Here’s what you need:

1lb chopped sirloin, stew meat will work too

1lb frozen medium shrimp uncooked and peeled

*unpeeled shrimp is cheaper if cost is an issue you can peel them and devein them at home if needed

3 large cloves of garlic

2 tablespoons olive oil

3 tbsp salted butter

1/2c parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

Parsley garnish if desired

Thaw shrimp under cool water.

Turn a large skillet onto medium high heat add oil, and sirloin. Cook for 2-3 minutes add garlic.

Cook until meat is almost cooked to desired doneness and add shrimp, salt and pepper, cook through and add butter and parmesan cheese. Stir until melted. Garnish with parsley.

Serve hot! You can put this over pasta or rice if you’d like, or like we did eat it on it’s own with some simple sauteed veggies! Enjoy!!

Quick and Easy Flatbread!

With all the craziness at the grocery stores lately, bread can be a tough item to sometimes find. So, today I’m sharing a quick and easy recipe for homemade flatbread! This recipe is also a fantastic way to introduce kids to simple, tasty, basic cooking techniques!

This bread is super versatile, use it to wrap up your favorite sandwhich meats and cheeses, use it to dip in hummus, or greek yogurt dip, fill it with taco or fajita fillings, make mini pizzas, or add sweetened cream cheese and fresh fruit for a healthy delicious dessert! It really doesn’t get any better than this!

Another big plus for this recipe it uses very few, simple, everyday ingredients! You probably have everything you need to make this right now!!

Here’s what you need!

2c. All purpose flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

1tsp sea salt

1Tbsp oil, butter, or shortening

11/3c. Luke warm water

Optional: seasoning mix like southwest seasoning, garlic herb seasoning etc… Add to your own tastes

In a large bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt. Stir until well blended. Add 1c. of water and oil and stir to bring ingredients together, add additional water as needed until dough is the consistency of sticky pizza dough. Knead for another minute or two until all the extra bits are gathered up out of the bowl by the dough. When you have the dough together remove from bowl, grease bowl with a little oil and replace dough turning over once to coat with the oil. When you touch your dough it will depress without bouncing back. This is perfect!

Allow dough to rest cover with a damp towel for about 15-20 minutes. This will allow the gluten to rest and make the dough easier to roll out.

Once rested cut into 6 pieces and roll into thin (tortilla thickness) irregular rounds they do not need to be perfect!

Preheat a non-stick pan or lightly greased pan on the stovetop to medium heat. Add flatbreads one at a time allow to brown slightly and turn over, remove from heat and serve warm, or allow to cool and freeze for later use!

Simple. Delicious. Versatile. Perfect! Enjoy!

Sweet and Spicy Breaded Chicken

Snow days make me want to cook!! Something about being cooped up that pushes me into the kitchen everytime. So for dinner tonite a sweet and spicy breaded baked chicken breast.

This is a no dredge recipe making it even easier! No messy dunking and breading just a crispy coating full of flavor!

Here’s what you need:

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts

2 Tbsp olive oil

2 Tbsp spicy bbq rub

1 Tbsp butter

1c. Panko bread crumbs

3 Tbsp sour cream

Sweet Hot honey to taste

Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 425°F

In a microwave safe bowl add butter and melt in microwave about 20 seconds. Add 1 Tbsp olive oil, salt, pepper, panko crumbs, and bbq seasoning. Stir mixture together. Set aside.

Rinse chicken and pat dry on paper towel. Add the additional one Tbsp. Of olive oil to a glass baking dish coating the bottom of the pan. Add chicken. Spread sour cream onto the chicken and top with crumbs mixture pressing it lightly onto the chicken.

Bake 20-25 minutes until chicken is cooked through and crumb topping is golden brown.

Drizzle with honey and serve! Enjoy!!

Spicy Sausage with Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli

There’s just something about a really good pasta dish on a cool fall night that just hits the spot. I recently found a new favorite fresh pasta at a local Kroger grocery store and put it to great use in this flavorful dish!

Below is a photo of the pasta, the one shown is cheese ravioli, and the one I used in this dish was actually a spinach and ricotta ravioli of the same type. Although I believe either would taste great in this recipe, and the colored stripe in the pasta makes it pretty too!

This pasta paired with a spicy sausage and light delicious sauce really hit the spot!

Here’s what you need:

1pkg spinach and ricotta ravioli

1lb spicy sausage

1 roma tomato chopped

1 sm bunch of green onions chopped and separated into greens and whites.

1 clove garlic finely chopped

1 lemon quartered

2Tbsp butter

2 Tbsp sour cream

Salt and Pepper

Cook Ravioli according to package directions, drain reserving 1/4c. of pasta water.

Heat a small amount of oil in a medium sized pan add sausage, onion whites, and garlic cook on med-high heat ubtil sausage is browned and cooked through. Add 2 Tbsp butter, sour cream and pasta water. Squeeze half of the lemon over top and add tomatoes. Stir well, and simmer until thickened.

Top ravioli with sausage mixture, plate and top with onion greens. Enjoy!!

Sometimes Pinterest wins my heart

So while on IG recently I came across a recipe that was blindingly pretty to look at. You know what I mean…it was a scroll stopper!

My interest peaked and so I clicked to see the recipe which took me to pinterest and finally to the recipe! It’s here I found a super simple dessert with lots of design Wow factor! My first thought…. “I think I can pull this off!!”

So I gave it a go! And here was I learned!

#1 my knife skills are not as good as theirs…or maybe they “cheated” and used a mandoline

#2 knowing how long is long enough to microwave apples until “pliable” is very a tricky observation to make.

And #3 Apples add water and will increase baking time!

Other than these few things it came out great! And I encourage you to search for this recipe as described above and give it a try, you can easily find it on Pinterest. The recipe is not mine and I did not request permission to publish it myself so…sorry but you’ll have to look that one up! Enjoy it though! It was very good!!