Recipe: Jalapeno, Bacon, and Chicken Pasta with a White Cheddar Sauce

Last week, I planned out my meals for the week, buying all of my groceries in one go at the beginning of the week and assigning different meals to each day. My plan got a little kink in it at the end of the week when I didn't end up making the jalapeno-and-cream cheese stuffed chicken I had planned on making and instead used the cream cheese in my lemon and raspberry cheesecake. I also had green onions stashed in the veggie drawer that I had bought for a tuna dish I thought I would be making but couldn't (due to the fact that my crappy local grocery store never has tuna; I grabbed the green onions before making my way to the fish counter and finding out they hadn't gotten any tuna in for the day). So, I had jalapenos and green onions to use, plus the cheddar cheese that was called for in the jalapeno-and-cream cheese chicken recipe, plus half of a red onion from another dish I made, plus some heavy cream. I went through my quite common "What can I make with this assortment of ingredients?" routine and settled on making a spicy, cheesy pasta dish with chicken and a little bacon, for good measure. The resulting meal was quite tasty—tender chicken and pasta tossed with crispy bacon, lightly cooked green onion and red onion, jalapenos (minus the seeds, to help cut back on the spiciness), and a light and creamy white cheddar sauce.

Serves: 4

Prep. time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

• 8 oz. rotini, or other small/short pasta
• 4 slices bacon
• 2 chicken breasts, cut into cubes and seasoned with salt and pepper
• 1/2 red onion, chopped
• 1 bunch green onions, chopped
• 2 jalapenos, seeds removed, finely chopped*
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2-1 cup heavy cream
• Approx. 4 oz. white cheddar cheese, shredded
• Butter, as needed
• Salt and pepper
• Cornstarch-and-water mixture, as needed

*When removing the seeds from the jalapenos, use gloves or whatever is available to cover your fingers so as to avoid getting the seeds and oil on your fingers. The oil in jalapenos is very spicy/hot and stays on your skin for quite some time, even with frequent hand-washing. I made the mistake of not using gloves and I could still feel and taste the jalapeno on my hands after two days. On a related note, if you want more spice in your dish, add in some of the seeds—they're where the real heat is. 

Directions

Heat water in a medium-sized pot over high heat. While waiting for the water to boil, heat a large pan over medium-high heat and add the bacon. Cook until crisp, but not overcooked, and remove to a paper towel-covered plate to drain. Leave the bacon grease in the pan and add the chicken, cooking until golden brown and cooked almost all the way through. When the water in the pot is boiling, add the pasta and cook according to package instructions (approx. 10-12 minutes). To the pan with the chicken, add the green onion, red onion, and jalapeno and cook over medium heat until they are tender. Add the garlic, salt, and pepper (and butter, if needed) and reduce the heat to low. Crumble the bacon and add the bits to the veggies and chicken. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, add the heavy cream and heat slowly over medium high heat. Once simmering, slowly whisk in the cheddar cheese and some salt and pepper. Allow the cheese to melt into the cream. Add some cornstarch-and-water mixture if the sauce seems too thin. Cheddar doesn't always melt very well, so the sauce may not be as smooth as you want, but once mixed with the other ingredients, this isn't noticeable. When the pasta is done, drain it and return it to the pot. Add the chicken and veggie mixture to the pasta and toss to combine. Pour the cheddar sauce over the pasta mixture and toss to combine. Add more salt and pepper, if desired. Serve topped with shredded cheddar cheese.

This dish is a perfect mix of spicy, salty, cheesy, and savory. The cheddar sauce pulls everything together and helps mellow and evenly distribute the heat from the jalapenos. Tender chicken and crispy bacon add a little dose of flavorful protein and the flavors of the green and red onions really kick the dish up a notch. 

Recipe: Thai-Style Steak with Thai Fried Quinoa

During the pasta and grains unit in my Foods 1 class last fall, we discussed a popular alternative to rice and couscous called quinoa. Nutty, grain-like, and celebrated as a healthier alternative to other grain side dishes, quinoa has recently become pretty popular in the food world and I've been dying to try it out. I searched high and low for the perfect recipe and found this fantastic one from Iowa Girl Eats. I picked up strip steaks and created a Thai-inspired marinade, and that this unique, grain-like side dish. Eating the quinoa was a lot like eating fried rice—it's nutty, chewy-crunchy, and fluffy—and it turned out just as well as I'd hoped it would.

Serves: 4
Prep. time: 15 minutes (marinate the steaks for at least 2 hours, or up to 24 hours)
Cooking time: 15-20 minutes for the quinoa, 5-10 minutes for the complete quinoa mixture, 5-10 minutes for the steak. Approx. 30-40 minutes total.
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients
For the marinade

• 4 tbsp. oyster sauce
• 1/2-1 tsp. chili garlic sauce (add more if you want it spicy)
• 1 tsp. lime juice
• 1 tsp. creamy peanut butter
• 1 tbsp. brown sugar
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tsp. cilantro, chopped
• 4 strip steaks

For the quinoa

• 1 cup quinoa, rinsed and drained (the brand I used was pre-rinsed)
• 1 cup light/lite coconut milk
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1/4 tsp. lime zest
• Peanut oil (enough to lightly coat the bottom of a large pan)
• 1 bunch green onions, chopped
• 1 tbsp ginger, minced or grated/"zested"
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 1, 8 oz. can pineapple tidbits, drained
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
• 2 tbsp. sweetened, shredded coconut, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup peanuts, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp. soy sauce
• Juice of 1 lime (approx. 1-2 tbsp.)
• 2 tbsp. soy sauce

Directions

Combine all of the ingredients for the steak marinade, then pour the mixture into a gallon size Ziploc bag, add the steaks, and mush the marinade around to coat the steaks. Put the steaks in the fridge to marinate. The longer you let the steaks marinate, the better the flavor (I put my steaks in the marinade at 11:00am and we grilled them up around 7:45pm). 

In a medium pot (approx. 2 quarts), add the quinoa, lime zest, coconut milk, and chicken stock. Bring the mixture to a boil (without a lid), then reduce the heat to medium-low and cover with a lid. Cook for 15-20 minutes, or until the quinoa is tender (a little crispiness is okay) and has soaked up all of the fluid. Once the quinoa is cooked, turn off the heat and let it sit, covered, while you work on everything else. Preheat the grill to medium-high heat, then put the steaks on and cook until they reach your desired doneness (about 5-10 minutes for medium). In the meantime, heat the peanut oil over medium high heat in a large, deep skillet or wok. Add the green onion, ginger, and garlic and cook for about a minute, until fragrant, making sure to stir frequently to prevent the garlic from burning. Add the peas and pineapple and cook for another minute, stirring occasionally. Push the mixture out to the edges of the skillet, scramble the eggs in a small bowl, and add the eggs to the middle of the skillet. Whisk them around as they cook, and once cooked through, break up the eggs and mix them into the rest of the ingredients. Add the chopped peanuts, coconut, and cilantro and stir to combine. Pour in the cooked quinoa, soy sauce, and lime juice and stir to combine. Serve the finished quinoa alongside the steaks. Add additional cilantro and peanuts as desired.

This dish is such a flavor explosion! The marinade for the steak is meaty, savory, salty, and slightly spicy. Oyster sauce is amazing and it has this savory quality that makes it perfect for many Asian dishes, particularly when used with beef. The quinoa mixture, with its sweet pineapple and coconut, salty peanuts, fresh cilantro, and sweet-spicy ginger is delicious. It's like eating Thai fried rice, but it's fluffier, lighter, and nuttier. If you're looking for something out of the ordinary for dinner (well, it was out of the ordinary for an Italian food-loving girl like me), try this out! The unique flavor combinations and the texture and taste of the quinoa make this a winning dish.

Recipe: "Chicken-on-a-Stick" with Fried Rice

As I explained in my last post, my family always celebrates our own Christmas on New Year's Day, sharing a delicious dinner before tearing into presents. For the past few years, we've had this odd tradition of making what my mom calls "chicken-on-a-stick" for dinner on this day. I think it all started because of my brother—though he only lives about an hour away from my parents' house, he doesn't come to visit often, so when he is here, my mom always likes to make whatever meal he asks for, and this "chicken-on-a-stick" dish has always been one of his favorites. It's simply chicken strips marinated in an Asian-style sauce, threaded onto skewers with pieces of green onion then cooked, and we serve it with a simple version of fried rice.

Perhaps the best part of this year's meal was the well-planned gift-opening we did before making everything—my parents wanted us each to open one gift before we started dinner, and they planned it so that my mom opened up a rice cooker and I opened up pristine white plates that I'm able to use for plating for the blog. My brother and dad...well....Adam got new underwear and dad opened a tie or something...but hey, mom and I were certainly excited and the guys opened up some great gifts after dinner. Haha.

 

Serves: 4-6

Prep. time: Approx. 1 hour, 15 min.

Cooking time: Approx. 45 min.

Difficulty: Easy

Special equipment: Wooden skewers

Ingredients

For the fried rice:

• Approx. 3 cups dry white or brown rice (makes 6 cups cooked)
• Approx. 24 cocktail shrimp, tails removed, each cut into 4-5 pieces (you can use any sort of shrimp, so long as they're properly cleaned and cut into bite-size pieces—cocktail shrimp are nice because they're already cooked through, so that saves some time when making the fried rice)
• Approx. 1/2 cup peas
• 1/2 bunch green onions, minced
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 eggs, scrambled
• Sesame oil (enough to coat the bottom of a large pan; you can use any other lightly flavored oil if desired)
• 1-2 tsp. butter
• Soy sauce for flavor (add as much as you want to achieve the desired flavor and brown color in the rice)

For the chicken: 

• 1/2 cup soy sauce (we use low sodium)
• 1/2 cup sake
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1-2 garlic cloves, minced
• 6-8 boneless chicken breasts, sliced into long, thin (about 1-2 inch wide) strips
• 1 & 1/2 bunches green onions, cut into 2 inch long pieces (see the picture below)

*Note: When using green onions, you trim of the little bit of root on the white end and then only use the white and lightest green parts of the stalk—that's where all the flavor is. The green tops don't have much flavor, but you can use some of it for color if desired.

Shrimp, green onion (short pieces for the chicken and minced for the rice), and garlic

The finished skewers

Directions
In a medium bowl, combine the soy sauce, sugar, sake, and minced garlic. Stir together, then add all of the chicken strips to the bowl and stir to coat. Cover the bowl and set it in the fridge, allowing the chicken to marinate for approx. 1 hour. While they're in the fridge, fill a long, shallow dish with water and set the wooden skewers in to soak. Preheat the oven to 400*F. When the chicken is done marinating, take it out and thread 2-3 pieces of chicken onto each skewer, separating them with pieces of green onion. Lay them side by side in ungreased, long, shallow dishes. Bake the chicken for 20-30 minutes, until cooked through. In the meantime, cook the rice according to package instructions (we used a rice steamer and made sticky rice, which worked out really well, but you can cook it any way you like—just be sure to time it so that the rice finishes right before the chicken does). In a large, deep pan or wok, over medium heat, add the sesame oil and butter, then add the egg and cook it, breaking it up into pieces as it cooks (2-4 minutes). Add the minced green onion and garlic and cook until fragrant (about 5 minutes). Add the peas and shrimp and cook for about 10 minutes, until warmed through. Add the rice last—we always set a cup or two aside to serve plain—and gently mix the ingredients into it. Add soy sauce until the desired flavor and color is reached and cook until everything is hot. Serve the rice alongside the chicken.

This dish takes a little time to pull together and you need to be careful with your timing so you don't have one thing finishing way before another. The rice is incredibly simple and you could easily switch out or add in ingredients—carrots, cooked pork or another meat, and/or onion would all be great in this. You can also add more than just soy sauce to the rice—I'm sure there are some great recipes out there for a fried rice sauce, but we like to keep it simple with the soy sauce. The chicken can be grilled or baked, so this dish works any time of year. The rice and chicken both have great flavor from the garlic, soy sauce, and green onion and this meal is great for family dinners or a big party.

Recipe: Pad Thai

If you read my last post, you'll recall that I'd planned to make four or five new dishes for dinners last week, but unfortunately, I was only able to try one recipe due to busy evenings and a trip out of town this past weekend. I guess the upside to this is that all of the ingredients for the dinners this week are ready and waiting for me in the fridge, though, as I learned (and feared), some ingredients go bad quickly, which can really throw a wrench in dinner plans. Anywho, I had a bag of half-bad bean sprouts and some slightly wilted cilantro that desperately needed to be dealt with, so I made sure that my cousin's pad thai recipe was the first on my list of things to make this week, and fortunately, it worked out well (after picking out the good sprouts and good cilantro leaves, haha). This dish has a really interesting (and some might think weird) combination of flavors and trextures—crunchy salty peanuts, crisp green onions, tender chicken and rice noodles, tart lime—which is what drew me to it. My cousin first made this dish for me during a visit to her college apartment when I was a senior in high school. I was wary of this new dish, having, at this point, gotten used to lots of pasta dinners and my mother's various "chicken and *insert starch and vegetable side dish here*" meals (all delicious, but very "normal" compared to this pad thai dish), but I was pleasantly surprised with the unique flavors. We had this dish again when I visited her this past Labor Day weekend and I made sure to have her write the recipe down for me so I could make it for my parents. It's a delicious dish that you can make up in a big batch (like I did) or make in individual portions to allow for more personalization by the people who will eat it. I'm kind of estimating ingredients because it really comes down to preference, so you can use more or less of each thing as you see fit—I apologize if this is confusing, but just go with your gut. Obviously, if you make and plan to use all of the noodles, you should plan to buy more of each of the other ingredients. Remember, you can always add more, and it reheats well, so don't worry if you end up with a lot.

Serves: 4-6
Prep. time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 10-20 minutes
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

• 8-16 oz. rice noodles (I bought A Taste of Thai brand; you can use any width—my cousin uses wide, I used a thinner noodle; I made up a whole box of noodles and tossed them in as desired)
• Approx. 2-4 chicken breasts, cubed (small pieces work best because they cook faster)
• Approx. 2 bunches green onions, chopped
• Approx. 1-2 bags (1-3 cups?) bean sprouts
• Approx. 1 container (a few ounces) fresh cilantro
• Approx. 2-4 eggs, scrambled
• Approx. 1 cup peanuts, whole or coarsely chopped
• Approx. 3-6 limes, cut into wedges

For the sauce:

• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup fish sauce (it smells kind of like cat food, which is obviously not appealing, but it tastes wonderful once it's cooked and added to the noodle mixture)
• 1/2 cup tamarind (this can be hard to find—I looked up substitutions for it and found that certain fruit juices, like orange and lime, can be used; I used the juice of 3 limes instead of tamarind and I think it tasted good)
• 1 tsp. chili garlic sauce (I didn't have this, so I just sprinkled in a dash of garlic powder and a dash of chili powder)

Directions
Follow the package instructions for cooking/soaking the noodles (the brand I used said to soak the noodles in very hot water—I boiled water, then poured it in the bowl—and soak for at least 30 minutes). You don't want them to be super soft and soggy, but you don't want them to be too firm either.

If cooking one large batch: In a large hot pan or wok, heat about 1 tbsp. oil (a mix of peanut and canola is what my cousin recommended; don't use olive oil). Add the chicken and cook until just cooked through. Add the noodles (as much as you want) and mix them with the chicken. Add the green onion, sprouts, peanuts, and scrambled egg (make sure it's broken up into small pieces). Add the sauce and mix and let it cook for a few minutes, until the noodles and chicken soak up the sauce, the peanuts start to brown lightly, and the green onions and sprouts are crisp yet tender. Serve topped with fresh-squeezed lime juice and cilantro, if desired. Additional peanuts, fresh sprouts, and fresh green onion may be set out in small bowls so people can add more to their dish if desired, and cilantro and lime can also be set out in bowls.

If cooking in individual batches/per person: Basically, you'll do the same as above, but in smaller portions. Ask each person what they want and how much and add a smaller amount of noodles and sauce. Serve in the same way as above.

This dish combines interesting textures, tastes, and smells to create a delicious, tart, nutty, sweet dish. The bright, clean taste of the lime and cilantro add a burst of flavor to the sweet green onion, tender chicken, and salty peanuts. The sauce is a delicious mix of sweet, from the brown sugar, and salty, from the fish sauce, and the soft rice noodles easily soak it up, making them incredibly flavorful. Feel free to play around with the ingredients—subsitute shrimp for chicken, try cashews instead of peanuts, or experiment with other vegetables. This dish reheats really well, especially if you warm it back up in a pan with a little bit of oil rather than in the microwave (we actually had the leftovers for dinner tonight, along with fruit salad from my grandma and some leftover desserts from a party last week—an attempt to clean out our overloaded fridge, haha).