I made this recipe tonight. I found it on SparkPeople’s Recipes, its called Rama’s Chicken Pasta with Goat Cheese & Pine Nuts.

I doubled the recipe since I was feeding 3 people, these are the original amounts.

1 c. Pasta

1 medium tomato, chopped

1 c. chopped watercress

2 green onion (I used more than double)

1 Chicken breast

1 oz goat cheese

3 tbsp roasted pine nuts

Crushed red pepper, salt, black pepper

1) Chop tomato, onion, and watercress.

2) Toast/roast pine nuts however you’d like; I did mine dry in small pan on the stove.

3) Cook pasta, set aside.

4) Slice chicken very thin, and cook in hot pan of olive oil til done.

5) Remove chicken, and set aside.

6) Add some olive oil to the pan. Cook green onions a minute or so over med. heat. Add tomatoes.

7) Add pasta, and chicken. Mix and heat til warm.

Shut off heat. Add goat cheese, pine nuts, and watercress. Mix. Serve.

And, I found these…and I really want to make them…like right now….well, if my butt didn’t hurt.

Chocolate Truffles w/ Sea Salt

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

I am very happy to report that our Thanksgiving dinner was incredibly successful. As expected, Jimmy’s grilled & brined turkey was awesome.

Everything else was also quite tasty. I’m particularly in love with the stuffing & mashed potato recipe I got from PW. I think everyone really liked the mashed potatoes. My applesauce got compliments as well, but it is really hard to mess applesauce up. Apples + spices = goodness no matter what you do. I give all the credit to the apples and the cinnamon.

The mushrooms were also delicious, but not particularly popular among others…due to the fact they are…well, mushrooms. They are also stuffed with Brie (my favorite cheese) but apparently not everyone feels the same.

The whiskey-glazed carrots were good; but I didn’t taste the glaze as much as I would have liked.

Right now we are breaking with Wii Golf…well, I am just watching. After this, blueberry pie & chocolate cake & vanilla icecream.

I’m exhausted & sore. Too much standing. When I did sit, it was on the wooden stool in the kitchen….as it turns out sitting on this for long periods of time makes my butt hurt. :p

…play Madden on the Wii again. Seriously by the amount of yelling you would think there was an actual football game on. For goodness sake shut the freak up. I have a major headache and it is not necessary to shout at the top of one’s lungs at the wii remote or the screen. Boys.

It could just be that I am incredibly frustrated with my blueberry pie. Thus far, today’s cooking accomplishments have been excellent…applesauce…check…cranberry sauce…check…cornbread for stuffing…check…bacon & cheddar dip for crackers…check…the most delicious mashed potatoes I have ever experienced (likewise to the cornbread)…check… Then came this stupid blueberry pie…perhaps it is because it is late, I am tired, and there is lots of loud noise in the background but I couldn’t get my lattice to cooperate…crust was just falling apart all over the place. So, I have a yummy filling in a very ugly pie. Lets just hope I don’t burn the thing now.

I’m not even a huge fan of blueberry pie…or even most pie for that matter. I am thinking next year I will do a peanut butter pie with oreo crust…it’ll be a lot freakin’ easier. Or just say the heck with it and make cookies.

Mmmm…cookies…I’ll make some of those tomorrow or Friday…I’m planning basic chocolate chip, and simple sugar cookies since I want to use Christmas cookie cutters.

I will have surprisingly little cooking to do tomorrow. The boys are doing the turkey. I will need to heat up the potatoes, prepare the appetizers (spread w/ crackers, celery with pb, easy stuff), make the stuffing (easy), green bean casserole (easy), apple cider gravy (easy), whiskey glazed carrots, and mushrooms with stuffed brie…dammit…looks like I had more than I thought. Well, at least the majority of it is on the easy side. I think I am going to chop some veggies and put them in baggies for tomorrow if I have time tonight.

The boys fixed my canister filter…yay!…and they improved upon it…well, at least that is what they would tell you.

My feet & my back hurt.

We got up early, and went to lowe’s to find o-rings to fix the canister filter on the 42g…it didn’t fix it…still leaks. So then I argued with the filter for a few hours…finally have up. I spent the remainder of the day cleaning the house…whole house, no breaks…I cleaned everything. I’m so exhausted and sore. On the up side, the house looks great. Jimmy even complimented me when he got home, and let me buy a new Christmas bathmat & handtowels when we went to Sears. Our first holiday guest has finally arrived, so for the most part I am done with the cleaning. I still have some organizing to do in my office, but now the chores will mainly involve cooking.

Speaking of which…I hate greenbeans…but one of our guests mentioned he really liked them…so I asked Jimmy & the other guest, they are all a fan…so I am thinking of trying out a greenbean casserole. If you have any good recipes, please let me know!

I updated my 101 Things in 1001 Days list to more accurately reflect my progress.

I made the Chicken with Creamy Chive Sauce tonight. Tonight’s meal was signficantly better than Monday’s. Edamame with salt- simple and delicious, orzo with a bit of butter and toasted almonds has a surprising amount of flavor, and then the creamy chive sauce was pretty good. I didn’t follow the instructions exactly…I browned my chicken then baked it especially since one piece was huge. The cream sauce wasn’t really creamy, just thick…which isn’t necessarily bad. It’s mainly low sodium broth, lowfat sour cream (just 1/3 of a cup) and white wine. So, all the creaminess comes from the 1/3 cup sour cream. I love the addition of the shallots- they smelled fabulous.

UT is making me angry. Despite accepting my health insurance waiver back in August, they have decided to deny it- and Jimmy’s. We got an auto-generated e-mail at 11:30pm tonight. It doesn’t give any info as to *why* we are all of the sudden being denied. I double-checked the waiver criteria, and we are fine. I can’t check anything online, I have to call the school’s health insurance company (which seems biased and just wrong) to find out why tomorrow. I am a giant stress bubble about these things, so I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight, thanks UT.

Maine Trip invitations will be going out tomorrow.

Today’s recipes were: Spiced Apples & Chicken and Cardamom Carrots.

I decided that I wanted some potato in there, so I through in Eatingwell’s Lemon-Oregano Potatoes….

Spiced Chicken & Apples:

The time listed for the chicken was inappropriate. I cooked it as recommended, then check it…still very pink. I made several more cuts in the chicken before it was finally cooked….almost double the cooking time. The apples were just okay. I am a huge fan of apples and spices…my homemade applesauce is one of my favorite foods, but this fell short…it was boring.

Carrots:

Another wrong cooking time, in my opinion, I cooked these as suggested…correct temp, correct placement in oven, stirred around a few times…I need to take them out 10 minutes early due to burning. Once again, flavor was just okay.

Potatoes:

Just okay…

Part of this meal’s mediocrity was my fault…while they sounded reasonable together, it was perfectly clear upon plating the food that I had WAY too many spices and too much activity going on.

When comparing this to last night’s recipe (potato soup)….despite being no where near as healthy, the potato soup still wins….super easy and super tasty, this meal was a bit of a PitA and totally not worth it.

Related to goal #26- Lose 10 lbs

Saturday- Takeout

D&D night…so takeout for dinner. I believe the current plan is Jimmy John’s, so I will just get a simple turkey sub with mustard.

Sunday- Tara’s Potato Soup

Okay, so this doesn’t fit in with my health plan. But it looks good, Tara recommended it, its chilly out so perfect time for soups, its a Sunday, etc…. You can find the recipe here. I’m going to replace the turkey sausage with lunguica, since I have loads of it.

Monday- Chicken & Spiced Apples, Roasted Carrots with Cardamom Butter

Tuesday- Chicken with Creamy Chive Sauce, Orzo, and Edamame

Wednesday- Turkey & Balsamic Onion Quesadillas, Oven Fries

Thursday- Peanut Noodles with Shredded Chicken and Veggies

For the veggies, I will be doing red pepper, carrots and water chestnuts.

Dessert Possibilities

Cherries with Ricotta and Toasted Almonds

Chocolate & Banana

Almond Cream with Strawberries

A mutation caused a crazy looking apple – it’s bi-colored split right down the middle!

Opi’s Chow Mein Noodle Casserole

(aka what we had for dinner tonight)

You can find versions of this dish all over the web. It’s a great and super simple recipe, so I love it. Here is my version…

Ingredients:

~1 lb of ground beef…or ground turkey…Actually, 1 lb is a bit much, but I’m lazy…

1 yellow onion

Garlic to taste (~5 cloves is what I used today)

Rice (I use long grain white)

2 cans sliced water chestnuts

bag of shredded carrots

sm. bag of slivered, or sliced, almonds

1-2 cans of cream of [fill in with your favorite] condensed soup…I like to mix it up…I choose 2 different flavors…mushroom and onion work well

Ground Ginger….amount?….I have no idea…I just sprinkle a bunch in…1 tsp? maybe?

Celery Salt….1 or 2 tsp….I like the flavor of celery, but not the consistency.

Soy Sauce…..several squirts? I think I used about 4 to 5 tbsp.

Chow Mein Noodles!

Note: Really, you can change out the types of ingredients and the amounts so easily. Take out what you don’t like, add what you do, change amounts to taste, etc…

Suggestions for things to add: Celery, Mushrooms, Scallions, Green Peppers, Pea Pods, Cooked Chicken, Cashews

If you have anymore suggestions, let me know!

Directions:

1. Cook rice according to directions.
2. Meanwhile, cook beef, onions and garlic over med. high heat. Sometimes, I toss in a tbsp. of butter.
3. Preheat oven til 375.
4. After the beef mixture and rice is cooked, take a big bowl and combine all the ingredients except for the chow mein noodles.
5. Dump this into a large casserole dish.
6. Sprinkle lots of chow mein noodles on top.
7. Cook for 15-20 minutes…til the noodles start to turn golden.

The mixture will look disgusting….

The chow mein noodles don’t improve it much…

And when it comes out, it’ll look just like that, only golden.

But it’s pretty good.