Baked Chicken w/ Roma Tomato Pancetta Sauce & Spinach Linguine

Alright everyone, I've been out of commission cooking-wise with the arrival of the Kitchen Bear Cub (trademark pending) and my diet, but I think I'm due for a comeback. I spent most of my drive home this afternoon creating this dish, and let me tell you it was delicious.

The though process all started at Emily and Paul's wedding on Saturday (Congrats guys, hope you're having fun in Hawaii!) when Caitlin had the gouda stuffed baked chicken and said she liked the drier baked chicken. So I tried to think of something reasonably Weight Watchers friendly that had baked chicken and a plan began to form when I spotted the diced Pancetta (which if you didn't know is thick cubes of cured Italian Bacon. . . mmmmm) on my shopping trip through Trader Joe's.

Here's what you'll need:

2 Boneless Chicken Breasts
1 Package fresh Spinach Linguine (I used Buitoni)
2 medium sized Roma Tomatoes, diced
1 large Shallot, diced
1 8oz can Tomato Sauce with Garlic, Basil & Oregano
1 Cup light Alfredo sauce
2 oz (about 1/2 a cup) diced Pancetta
2 Slices Havarti Cheese
1 Cup Baby Spinach, roughly chopped
1 Tbsp Minced Garlic
Dried Basil, Oregano, Garlic Powder, Thyme and Rosemary
Salt
Pepper
handful of fresh Basil to garnish
Pepper

Turn on the oven to 400 degrees. Prep the chicken by cutting off all the fat and lightly pounding the chicken breast to thin it out and soften it up. Try to keep the breast thinner than 1" thick on the fat end. Spray some non-stick cooking spray on an 8x13 glass or metal pan and place the chicken breasts in the middle of the pan. Pour on just enough of the Alfredo sauce to cover the chicken (less is more here, the sauce will thin out and run everywhere, so it doesn't have to be completely covered, use about 1/4 C on each breast). Then spice to taste with the salt, pepper, and dried basil, oregano, thyme, garlic powder and rosemary and bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

While the chicken is baking, put a large saucepan on the stove on medium high heat and add in the pancetta with a tbsp of olive oil, and let that cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally. While the pancetta is browning, dice the shallot and add to the pancetta, then add in the tomatoes and the minced garlic and let them brown for 3 or 4 minutes. Once the tomatoes start softening up, add in the can of tomato sauce and lower heat to medium-medium low and let simmer covered. In a medium saucepan, begin to boil water for the pasta.

Once the 20 minutes is up on the chicken, flip the breasts over and put a slice of Havarti cheese on each chicken breast and bake for another 10 minutes. Add the remaining 1/2 C of Alfredo sauce to the tomato sauce and reduce heat to low, stirring occasionally. The water for the pasta should be boiling by now, so go ahead and add in the spinach linguine and let that boil for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Once the pasta is ready to go, drain and distribute onto serving plates with a scoop of the pancetta sauce. Take the chicken out of the oven and add to the plate and serve!  Man that was good!

Pesto Bowtie Pasta

Wow, 2 posts in one day!  Well, I've had a request for this recipe, since it's been my go-to side dish for almost any gathering: cookouts, parties, etc!  It's real simple to make, so I'll just jump right in.  Here's what you'll need:

1 Jar Pesto Sauce (I usually use Classico Pesto Sauce)
12-16oz Box Bowtie or Mini Bowtie Pasta
1 Jar Julienne Cut Sundried Tomatoes (I use these in 8.5oz bottle)
5 oz Shredded Parmesan, Asiago, or Romano Cheese (or a combination)

Add-ons:
Grilled Chicken
Pine Nuts
Walnuts
Cherry Tomatoes
1/2 Cup Alfredo Sauce

This is one of the easiest recipes to make.  Step 1) boil the pasta for about 10-12 minutes or until al dente and then drain and add to a large bowl.  Step 2) pour in the sauce, the sundried tomatoes (including the oil in the bottle), and cheese and stir. Step 3) Profit!  I mean enjoy!

If you care to add in some of the add-ons above, go nuts!  The pine nuts give it a little extra crunch, and adding in some chicken will make it more of a meal.  My only real tip is not to refrigerate this dish.  Even if there are leftovers, if you seal it in some tupperware and place in the cupboard, it will stay good for 3-5 days.  Putting it in the refrigerator will cause the oil to be absorbed into the pasta, and will make this dish incredibly dry and hard to eat.  Of course there's usually not too many leftovers!

Low Carb (Atkins Friendly) Dark Chocolate Mousse

Hey everyone!  Well, it's long since time I've updated this blog, but between preparing for the arrival of the Kitchen Bear Cub and me going on the Atkins Diet 2 months ago I haven't been my normal recipe creating self.  Now normally, I'm not much of a dessert person.  I mean I'll eat it if it's there or whatever, but I generally don't get too many cravings for sweets or chocolate or whatever (maybe caramel, I love me some caramel. . .).  However, on the Atkins diet, where you pretty much can't eat any cakes or fruits or sugar, it's really limiting for what you can eat as a dessert.  With that in mind, I took my (well, Bobby Flay's) dark chocolate mousse recipe and made it nearly carb free!

Here's what you'll need:

1/4 Cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder (I used the Ghirardeli Unsweetened Cocoa Powder)
1/2 to 3/4 cup Granulated Splenda with Fiber (use 3/4 if you want a sweeter chocolate taste)
2/3 C Heavy Whipping Cream
4 Large or 5 medium Egg Whites Whipped
16oz Heavy Whipping Cream Whipped

Okay, so a few notes on the ingredients.  Look around for the cream with zero grams of carbs per serving (or else the carb count in this recipe is going to go way way way up).  At our local giant I have to get the organic brand for it to have no sugar, or else go to Shoppers and get the Richfood brand.  Secondly, use the granulated Splenda with fiber, because the regular granulated Splenda has a filler that contains carbs (I think less than one gram per teaspoon, but there are 32 teaspoons in a half cup, so do the math).  The granulated Splenda with fiber uses the fiber as a filler and therefore has zero net carbs.  Okay, notes complete, on to the directions!

First off, in a bowl or 2 cup measurer, add in the Splenda, cocoa powder and the 2/3 cup of cream and mix until the consistency is similar to cake frosting.  It needs to be well mixed and soft enough to whip in with the rest of the ingredients, so if 2/3s a cup of cream hasn't smoothed it out, add another tablespoon of cream at a time and keep mixing until it reaches a soft, pliable consistency.  Once that's done, whip the remaining 16oz (2 Cups) of the cream until peaks and valleys form and set aside, about 3-5 minutes depending on the mixer.  Separate the egg whites from the yolks into another mixing bowl and whip with the mixer until it turns a solid white color and forms peaks and valleys as well, another 3-5 minutes.

Once the eggs and whip cream are whipped up, add the chocolate paste to the whipped cream and then add the whipped egg whites on top, and using a whisk, fold the mixture together.  Make sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl and completely mix the 3 groups together.  Once done, either spoon into individual bowls (makes about 6-8 portions) or spoon into a seal-able container and put in the fridge.  If you are not serving immediately, make sure to refrigerate, or else the mousse will wilt and all it's deliciousness will be gone. Serve it with a dollop of whipped cream on top or add some low carb berries like strawberries or raspberries   Yum

As for the carb count, well, it's pretty low.  The only thing in this recipe that contains carbs is the unsweetened chocolate, which, if you use the Ghirardeli chocolate linked above, contains 2 net grams per tbsp.  Since we're using 4 tbsp, that's only 8 grams of carbs for this whole batch of mousse.  Not bad, eh?  Don't get too excited though, there's a ton of fat.  I used the Richfood brand heavy whipping cream, which has 5 grams of fat per tbsp, and well, there are about 26 tbsp of cream in this recipe, so that's 130grams of fat for the whole batch, which is about 16 to 22 grams of fat, depending on how many servings you break it out into.  Don't worry though, on Atkins, that's not that much fat, so enjoy!

New Year, New Bathroom!

Happy 2011 Everyone!  Caitlin had the week between christmas and new years off (since her work closes for that week, sweet huh?) I took off that week as well so I could work on some home projects.  The big one I wanted to tackle was to update our basement half bath to make it look newer/better than one from the mid-80's.

The old bathroom down there was rough (as you can see at below).  The toilet would barely flush water, and routinely got clogged at the drop of a hat.  The mirror was the old school 80's style with the plain mirror attached to the wall with the plastic elbow brackets and a really really old light with a frosted glass cover that was impossible to get any real light out of.  But the worst part of the bathroom was the floor.  It was some disgusting linoleum/vinyl tile that looked horrible and was a weird pinkish/off white color with roses in the middle of each tile.  Ick.  

In anticipation of my week working on updating the bathroom, our friend Kirk came over a couple weeks ago and helped me put in a ceiling fan (how does a bathroom not have an exhaust fan?!) and run some wiring to put in a new power outlet near the sink, since the old bathroom only had an outlet on the light fixture.

So we had a good christmas.  I relaxed christmas weekend in anticipation of working on this project.  Then on Monday, I ripped out the toilet, the vanity and sink, the mirror off the wall and pried up all the crappy vinyl tiles.  Tuesday I layed down a nice porcelain tile and Wednesday I grouted.  Thursday I patched all the holes in the walls and cut floorboards and quarter rounds.  Then Friday and Saturday I painted the walls and ceiling, twice.   Then all the fun began.

On Sunday, I got up early, changed the light fixture to our new brushed nickel 3 light fixture, which looks about 1000 times better.  I also installed a dimmer switch, so we can make it brighter or darker, which is handy at night so you don't blind yourself.  Then I powered up my new air compressor/finishing nail gun combo and nailed up the baseboards in about 10 minutes (totally worth $200 for that tool!).

Then I put in our new pedestal sink and faucet combo, which clears up so much space in the bathroom without having the whole big vanity.  The pedestal sink went in fairly easily, I had a little leak in the drain because I initially didn't realize that the drain vent was 1 1/4" and the p trap was 1 1/2", but that was quickly fixed by swapping the right plastic washer in the pvc fitting.

Then the real fun began.  It was now about 12:30 on Sunday afternoon, and I wanted to try to finish everything in time to watch the Seahawks game at 8:15, and all I had left was the toilet and some other minor fittings.  Man, whoever designed the toilet attachment system is an idiot.

If you don't know, a toilet is attached to a plastic ring (called a closet ring) where the waste pipe meets the floor.  There's to little slots to stick bolts with a rectangular head on them.  You put the wax seal/funnel thing on the bottom of the toilet and drop it down onto the waste vent with the bolts going through the holes in the bottom of the toilet.  However, in the kit that you buy at home depot, the bolts just sit there, and when you try to tighten the nut onto them, the bolts spin around and eventually come out of their little grooves in the closet ring.  Ooops.

So, it also turns out that our closet ring was cracked right where the bolt should go, and in my attempt to tighten the bolts, pretty much destroyed one half of the closet ring.  Double oops.  Luckily I watch a lot of HGTV these days and I know you can go to home depot and buy a "super ring" that will fix that without having to call a plumber.  So I bought one of those, anchored it through the tile into the concrete subfloor and finally got the toilet attached by tightening an extra pair of nuts onto the bolts so they were basically attached to the closet ring and wouldn't turn when I tried to tighten the toilet bolt on.  After that, I put the tank and seat on the toilet, connected the water supply and caulked around the bottom.

After that, I just had to hang the mirror, the wall art I bought and attach the toilet paper holder and towel ring.  Ta-da, all done, with 45 minutes to spare (and about 5 trips to Lowe's on Sunday. . . blerg).  What do you guys think?  Good job by the Renovation Bear?