Tomato Cream Sauce with Grilled Chicken over Linguini

I've been perusing AllRecipes.com a lot lately in search of inspiration for new cooking ideas.  I stumbled across this sauce recipe and it sounded pretty tasty, so I decided to go for it.  I'm at a point now where I don't really follow recipes as much as I used to, but I use them as a basis and work forward from them to make what I think sounds good.  It has taken some time to get to this point, but now it comes easily to me to modify recipes without royally screwing them up!  If you're interested in cooking, stick with it, and you will eventually get to the point where you don't feel the need to follow every recipe to the tee.  With that being said, onto the food!

This ingredient list came from the website, but I modified a few things in the list.  The original is here if you want to see it.  The measurements are per the website, I actually just tossed what I thought was a good amount of most things in.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped or diced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 (14.5 ounce) can Italian-style diced tomatoes, undrained

a handful of fresh chopped basil

3/4 teaspoon white sugar

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/2 cup Philadelphia cooking cream

1 tablespoon butter

Method:

In a saucepan, saute onion and garlic in olive oil over medium heat. Make sure it doesn't burn. Add tomatoes, sugar, oregano, salt and pepper. Bring to boil and continue to boil 5 minutes or until most of the liquid evaporates. Remove from heat; stir in cream and butter. Reduce heat and simmer a few more minutes.  Remove from heat and cool a tiny bit.  If you like the sauce chunkier, leave it as is.  Otherwise, move sauce to food processor, and add fresh basil.  Blend until it's at a consistency that you like.

My Recommendations and Changes:

The original recipe called for heavy cream.  I didn't want to use that or half and half, so I ended up grabbing the Philadelphia brand cooking cream.  It actually worked out pretty well.  It came out a bit rich though, so next time I'm going to try using part cream and part plain greek yogurt.  The original also didn't call for the sauce to be pureed, but after suggestions in the comments section on the website, and the sauce itself not looking very appetizing while chunky, I decided to put it through the food processor.  It was definitely the way to go for us.  Also, the fresh basil was a change that I made.  I have a basil plant that needed a harvesting.  If you're using dried basil, you can add it in with the other spices when the sauce is cooking.  If you are using fresh, add at the end, or before you run the sauce through the food processor.

Verdict:

This sauce came out exactly as I'd hoped it would, which is a big confidence booster for me since it was one of my first times kind of winging it based off a recipe.  I'll definitely be making it again.  I'll probably make some and freeze to have on hand since I have some left over cream.  I also decided to have the hubby grill up some chicken breast to top it with to fill the meal out a bit.  Otherwise, the sauce is vegetarian.  I served some garlic bread on the side.  If I was making a full on meal I probably would have also had a salad as well.

Easy Pasta Alfredo

As promised, here is the alfredo sauce recipe I made for myself last weekend.  I had a craving and did some recipe searching.  One from Campbell's ended up being the healthiest one, so I used it as the basis for my own recipe.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder OR 1 clove fresh garlic, minced

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 3/4 cups chicken broth (possibly replace with vegetable broth to make vegetarian)

1/3 cup plain yogurt

6 tablespoons grated Parmesan Cheese (or any blend you prefer)

Half and Half

Preparation and Cooking Method:

Stir the flour, garlic powder, and black pepper in a medium sauce pan.  Add the broth and stir until the mixture is smooth.  Cook and stir over medium heat until the mixture boils and thickens.  Stir the yogurt and the parmesan cheese in the sauce pan and blend well, whisk if needed.  Add some half and half.  Once well blended, cool mixture for a couple minutes to thicken.  Then pour over your favorite kind of pasta, cooked of course, and top with more parmesan and other toppings of your choice.

My Recommendations:

The original recipe didn't call for the half and half.  It became a bit of a weird color so I just added some until I got it to be the white color I wanted.  It also helped make the mixture less thick.  I didn't measure, so I apologize.  I would say I used maybe 1/4-1/2 cup at the most.  The recipe recommended mixing the sauce and pasta together before serving.  I didn't do this but you can if you like.  If you want to make it vegetarian, I suppose vegetable broth could work in place of chicken broth, but I haven't tried it.

The Verdict:

This meal came out AWESOME!  I had a craving for alfredo and this quenched it for sure.  This recipe made enough for my meal and a few more.  If you need to feed the family, I might recommend doubling.   It was very quick and easy to cook as well.  This is a very versatile recipe, which I topped with steamed broccoli and diced tomatoes.  You could also top with chicken, steak, shrimp, or anything else you like on your alfredo!

Click here for printable PDF page!

Baked Macaroni and Cheese with Peas and Ham

I have been making this dish for a while now, but finally remembered to blog it!  It's a yummy baked mac and cheese with a couple of twists.  I modified the Campbell's recipe to make it my own, and it's always a hit.  This batch is a double of the original recipe, so if you don't need a lot, you can cut everything in half.

Ingredients:

2 cans condensed Cheddar Cheese Soup

1 soup can milk

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

3 cups (about half of a 16 oz box) uncooked elbow noodles (you can also use rotini or small shells)

2 cups frozen peas

1 large or 2 small ham steaks, diced.

Preparation and Method:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Start cooking the noodles to desired consistency.  While the noodles are cooking, in a 3 qt casserole dish, combine soup, milk, and pepper.  I also added a little bit of garlic powder.  Stir to mix as best you can.  Add the peas and diced ham.  Drain the noodles, and add to dish.  Stir everything until well combined.  Put in the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes (20-25 if making a half batch).  Check half way through, pull dish out of the oven to stir mix to ensure even cooking.  Return to oven and finish baking.

Recommendations:

If you want the cheese to be a little creamier, use less noodles, and add the noodles slowly so you can gauge the sauce to noodle ratio.  I have made this with too much before and the leftovers aren't very cheesy.  Also feel free to add more peas or ham if you want to.  I like to remove the skin on the outer edge of the ham steak, but that's my preference.  It doesn't make too much of a difference if you leave it on.  If you want a vegetarian meal, feel free to omit the ham, and add in other veggies or none at all if you like. 
I tend to leave the casserole in a little longer than listed because it's very thick and doesn't always cook through in the middle, but that's why I added the stirring half way through.  Just keep an eye on it if you decide to let it bake a little longer.

The Verdict:

This is a go to recipe in our house.  Everyone likes it, it lasts for a while, and we can live off of it for most of the week.  I made the original once, and it was VERY thick, so I decided to make the few additions.  Now it's a budget friendly go to recipe that I can always fall back on!

Click here to download a printable recipe page!

Super Chicken Casserole

Here is another Campbell’s Kitchen recipe I tried over the weekend, which got rave reviews.  It’s an easy chicken casserole with noodles and veggies.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup Pepperidge Farm® Herb Seasoned Stuffing, crushed

2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1 can (10 3/4 ounces) Condensed Cream of Broccoli Soup

1 cup milk

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 cup elbow pasta, cooked and drained

2 cups cubed cooked chicken or turkey

1 package (10 ounces) frozen peas and carrots, cooked and drained

Preparation/Cooking:

Heat the oven to 400°F.  Stir the stuffing, Parmesan cheese and butter in a medium bowl.

Stir the soup, milk, mozzarella cheese, garlic powder and black pepper in a 2-quart baking dish.  Stir in the pasta, chicken and peas and carrots.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the chicken mixture is hot and bubbling.  Stir the chicken mixture.  Sprinkle with the stuffing mixture.

Bake for 5 minutes or until the stuffing mixture is golden brown.

  

My Recommendations:

I didn’t change anything except for adding more noodles to the amount of my personal liking.  I think one cup was way too sparse, unless it meant one cup of uncooked pasta at first.  I can never tell!

 So as I said before, the hubby LOVED this one, possibly more than the pork roast.  He had two heaping plates, and the leftovers lasted one day, when I had expected them to last a little longer!


Click here to download a printable page for this recipe!