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?

Ravioli Rosa

Caitlin's feeling better and better about eating, but her tastes are still skewing towards carbs at this point in her pregnancy.  I'm just glad I get to cook/eat something decent at home instead of Panera/Chipotle/Moby Dick's/Happy Uncle Chinese food.  I mean I love all those places and aren't likely to stop going any time soon, but it feels good to be back to cooking at home.

Since we went to the gym for the first time in 2 or 3 months and didn't get home until 8:30 last night, I needed to make something quick for dinner.  On a side note, man, it really felt good to go back to the gym.  I really need to get back in shape.  I'm already on a basketball team that should start playing soon, and on an indoor soccer team (that plays really late at night. . .), but still, that's only 2 or 3 days a week tops and I need to kick it back up a notch and get back down to a nice healthy slim-a-bear weight.  Okay, back to dinner!

We had some Cheese Ravioli in the freezer, and I thought it might be good to mix up some Rosa sauce, like the Penne Rosa from Noodles & Co.  I already had some grilled chicken slices I was using to make paninis, but you can pretty quickly saute up a chicken breast to use in this recipe.

Here's what you'll need:

Ravioli Rosa:

1 Package Large Cheese Ravioli (I used Rosetto Large Round 24oz)
1 Cup Tomato Pasta sauce (I used Francesco Rinaldi To Be Healthy Tomato and Basil)
1 1/2 Cup Alfredo Sauce (I used Classico Four Cheese Alfredo)
1/2 Cup White Wine (I used some chardonnay)
1 Chicken Breast
1 Cup Baby Spinach, roughly chopped
1 Roma tomato, diced
1 Tbsp Crushed Red Pepper Flakes (Optional, but it's good with a little kick)
Parmesan Cheese, to taste

In a stockpot, heat on high 5 or 6 quarts of water with a pinch of salt and some olive oil until it boils.  In a saucepan, add in the red sauce, white sauce, wine and pepper and mix together with a whisk, then heat on medium heat covered.  If you have pre-cooked chopped chicken, add it into the sauce as well.  If not, filet the chicken breast into 2 flat pieces and then cut into 1/2 inch strips and saute in a pan with some olive oil, and top with salt and pepper to taste and then add to the sauce.

Once the water is boiling, add in the frozen ravioli and bring the temperature back to medium or medium-high and let cook approximately 8 to 10 minutes (really until they all start to float).  While the ravioli is cooking, chop the spinach and tomato and add to the sauce, then lower the heat for the sauce to a simmer.  Once the ravioli is done, drain the water and serve the ravioli with the sauce and some parmesan cheese, to taste.  You have a quick 20 minute meal that's delicious and a little spicy!

*  Sorry, there's no photo to entice you to cook this recipe, I was way too hungry to stop and take a picture of it after the gym last night!

Brown Sugar Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread

A couple weeks ago, with Caitlin in the middle of her morning sickness and pretty much only able to eat simple and complex carbs, I made this delicious banana bread.  And seeing as it's a good recipe for bringing to a holiday party/family get together and pretty easy to make, I thought I should get off my big non-posting butt and share it with the rest of you.  Luckily Caitlin seems to be past the worst of the sickness and back to eating real foods, so huzzah, I shall hopefully be back to cooking/creating/posting more often in the near future.

Anyway, back to the recipe at hand, here's what you'll need: (This recipe is designed to make 2 loaves of Banana Bread, mainly because at the time, I had 6 Bananas that had been in the cupboard for a little too long and were starting to get brown.  If you want to make 1 loaf, then just halve everything)


Banana Bread:
2 cup granulated sugar
2 Sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
4 large eggs
6 overripe bananas
2 tablespoon milk
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoon salt

Cinnamon Streusel:
2/3 Cup Brown Sugar (firmly packed)
1/4 Cup Flour
2 Tsp Cinnamon
1/2 Stick Butter, Hard/Cold

So here goes with the instructions: heat the oven to 325 degrees.  In a mixing bowl, combine the sugar and butter together and mix until light and fluffy.  Add in the eggs one at a time while continuing to beat the mixture.  Stop the mixer and in a separate bowl, mash the bananas with a fork and mix in the milk and cinnamon.  Then in another separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients together: flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Go back to the mixer and slowly combine the bananas one third at a time and continue mixing until all the bananas are incorporated.  Then begin to add in the dry ingredients from that bowl also 1/3 at a time.  Once all the dry ingredients have been incorporated, stop mixing and remove bowl from mixer.  In a separate bowl, combine the streusel ingredients: brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and butter.  Using the mixer, blend the streusel ingredients until they are well mixed together and the butter is totally incorporated with the dry ingredients.

Grease bread pans with some Crisco or Baking Pam and split the bread batter evenly between the two pans. Once that is done, split the streusel mix on top of the batter in each bread pan, and then take a knife or spatula and stir/swirl the streusel around in the banana bread batter.  Be careful that you do not stir too much or too vigorously, because you don't want to mix the streusel into the batter, just simply allocate it in a swirl within the batter.

Once they are ready in the pans, place in the oven for 60 to 70 minutes, or until a tooth pick or knife inserted into the loaf comes out dry.  Then remove from the oven, let cool and enjoy.  Slice the loaves into 1/2"-3/4" thick slices and eat plain, toasted and buttered, or get fancy and put some caramel ice cream on top.  Any way you slice it, it's delicious!

Tales from Public Transport

Those of you who follow this site (all 7 of you!) might be wondering why I haven't updated it in awhile.  Though frankly, I think all of you know the reason why.  Basically, I've taken an extended vacation from cooking anything interesting because Caitlin is pregnant (8 weeks!) and going through the morning (haha, we wish it was just the morning) sickness phase, and well, cooking for one and eating it hastily in the corner lest the smells cause her to vomit is not the best environment for creating good recipes. Plus cooking for one is a good way to make you want to hang yourself.

Hopefully the nausea will go away soon and I can get back to cooking some great recipes (and there's probably going to be some weird ones with a pregnant wife as my customer)!  In the meantime, I probably need to throw some updates up here, regardless of actual recipe content.

Okay, so based on the number of funny stories I have from my daily commute of driving to the MARC Commuter train and then taking a bus to work 3 times a week, I've decided to start regaling my readers with these tales in a recurring series I will call Tales from Public Transport.  Most of them involve me noticing someone else doing something really weird, or some kind of confrontation with an annoying entitled jerk whilst riding the train or bus.

Our first tale comes from last summer.  I have a nice timbuk2 messenger bag that I carry with me so I can take an umbrella or jacket (if needed), and a book or my PSP for some enjoyment and distraction while on the train. When it's hot out, I also have a water bottle with a clip that I hook onto my bag so I can have some ice water on my trip.  MARC is pretty lax about food and drink, to the point that a good portion of the passengers heading home on Thursdays and Fridays are toting 6-packs and/or 40oz bottles of beer.  Hell, I've even seen a nice little clique of passengers bring beer, wine, pizza, wings, and fried chicken and have a nice little MARC train happy hour.

On the other hand, Metro Bus is significantly less flexible about food or drinks in theory, but pretty much just as lax in practice.  They have big signs everywhere (also in Spanish!) about no food or drink on the bus.  Now, I generally take that to mean "don't be a dick and eat your breakfast/lunch/dinner on the bus", but sipping from a drink is pretty low on the public-shame-meter.

That day, I get on the bus and I sit in one of the side facing seats towards the front of the bus.  There's a guy about 5 or 6 feet away in one of the front facing seats with a leather briefcase on his lap and a giant cup of Starbucks in his hand.  I'm only usually on the bus for about 15 minutes, but it's amazing how bored you get during that time, so I opened up my book and was blissfully/ignorantly reading away.

This is on my way to work, and at 8:15 in the morning it was already 90 plus degrees outside, and this particular bus had no air conditioning (at least not running anyway) and frankly, opening the window would've only made it worse. After 5 minutes on the bus, I'm getting pretty hot.  Then I remember I have a nice water bottle full of ice water, so I unclipped my bottle from my bag, folded out the straw and took a sip.  Before I can close the straw and clip it back to my bag, the guy with the coffee (coffee douche from here on out) looks at me with disgust on his face and loudly says "You're not allowed to have food or drink on the bus!" Surprised, I look over at him, notice his coffee and reply "Okay, are you the pot or the kettle, because you've got a cup of coffee in your hand, and at least my bottle wouldn't spill if I dropped it, unlike  your crappy Starbucks cup".

Now, I really wanted to follow up that statement by knocking his coffee cup out of his hands to prove my point, but I didn't want to be the dick who made a mess or start something any more than I'm already into. In response, coffee douche says "Well, I'm not DRINKING it, just holding it. . . " as if that somehow made him better than me.  The sign doesn't say "no eating or drinking on the bus", it says "no food or drink on the bus".  Subtle I know, but I guess not everyone can grasp the minutiae of the printed word.  Point being, we were BOTH breaking the rules.  Anyway, I casually clipped my water bottle back to my bag, chuckled derisively at his comment and continued ignoring him and reading my book until I got to my stop. Reading is Fun. . damental!

What a way to start the day. . .