Spicy Mexican-Style Chicken with Lime and Fried Mac

GUESS WHO'S BACK back back

BACK AGAIN 'gain 'gain

Yes, mama's back and better than ever!!!

Well, to be honest, it's hard to better than ever when you're already flawless.

I woke up like this.

Anyway!!

So I did some cooking, and I DID document it, so I've got a few things to show you!!!

AND NOT JUST THIS AWESOME PICTURE OF ME IN A CLONE TROOPER HELMET EITHER.

bUT SRSLY

So we had a lot of chicken breast that needed to be cooked, so I have two chicken-based recipes for you guys.  The first one, as the title implies, is an awesome recipe that was inspired by some sifting through my AlltheCooks app (on the Play Store if you want it, I love it!).  I was in the mood for Mexican, and saw how popular lime and vegetables were in recipes, so I thought I'd give it a go.

The fried mac could have been a little better (cough cough WITH CHEESE), but I was working with what I had and experimenting with something I've never done.

So as with my others, I'm posting this recipe based on how I think it should be done to be improved.

Spicy Mexican-Style Chicken with Lime and Fried Mac

Ingredients:

3 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts

About 2 green peppers (or the kind of your liking), chopped and seeded (SAVE THE SEEDS FOR A SPICY TOPPING!)

1 tomato, chopped

Half a large onion, sliced

1 package of macaroni elbows (adjust amount as needed)

1 1/2 tablespoons butter

Cumin

Onion powder

Tomato marinade/dressing (I used Drew's All Natural)

About 2 tablespoons lime juice

Half a pound to one pound of Velveeta Queso Blanco (depending on the amount of macaroni), cut into small cubes

1/2-1 cup of milk (again, depending on macaroni)

Instructions:

1.) Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

2.) Sprinkle a baking tray generously with cumin, and tomato marinade.  Lay the breasts on, and cover them with marinade, poultry seasoning, and a little more cumin.  Allow them to sit and soak up 'dem juices.

3.) Get the macaroni going over a medium high heat.

4.) Put the tray of breasts in the oven.  Flip them every so often (every ten minutes, I'd say), and don't be afraid to smear them around and get 'em all covered seasonings and marinade.

5.) *Optional: place the tomatoes and peppers in a bowl together and let them sit while you work.  I think it allows the spice of the pepper to be absorbed into the tomatoes and make them a little zestier.  Don't put the onions in, though.

6.) When the macaroni is finished cooking, drain it and set it aside.  Grab a large skillet and put it over medium heat with about a tablespoon of butter in it, stirring it around as it melts to coat the pan.  When it's mostly melted, pour in the macaroni, adding a little more butter if you need it.  Keep it covered, and stir it every few minutes, allowing it to get a little fried and crispy, but not hard or burnt.

7.) While it cooks, get your Velveeta and milk in a large pot over a medium heat, stirring frequently.  Once it's all nice and melty, set it aside.

8.) When the macaroni and Queso Blanco are both done, pour the macaroni into pot of Queso.  Mix well.

SMELL THAT CHEESY GOODNESS.

9.) Now, get the vegetables and lime juice over a skillet (I'd just use the one you used for macaroni) over medium high heat and sautee until nice and tender.

10.) By the time they're done, the chicken should be ready.  Pour a scoop of macaroni onto a place, followed by a single breast, and top it all off with vegetables!!!

Personally, I really love the flavor of the lime juice in the vegetables.  It's tangy, and compliments their taste rather than being overpoweringly sour.  Hooray!!!

It is not 2:09 in the morning, and my other chicken recipe (an Italian one!) can wait until after I've had some sleep.  And later--how to make lazy pasta look like you worked hard on it, and my fabulously sparkly manicure that lasted for an hour!

STAY TUNED!

ECHO out.

Interlude

I know I haven't posted in a few days, but hear me out.

School just started, and aside from the piles upon piles of paperwork, syllabi, and an eight hour loss out of all my weekdays, we're not exactly stocked up on groceries.

But momma didn't forget about ya.

So in waiting to prepare something REALLY AWESOME, I thought I'd share one of my favorite little food hacks for almost any pastry/baked good/bread/sweet treat:

BITE SIZED DELIGHTS

Muffin trays, big or small, are one of my FAVORITE things to use when I bake.  You can make a little version of a big dish, like quiche or Mexican bowls.  Throwing a big fat bowl of brownie batter or cookie dough rewards with an adorable new shape; plus, popping out brownie bites is SO MUCH EASIER than trying to cut even squares out of a pan in my opinion.  Plus, if you're decorating your dessert, it gives you massive freedom to try something new with each one, rather than settling on a giant, whole serving.  Don't get me wrong, I love a big ole heaping pan of fudgy brownies,

But come on.  Tell me those little things aren't just so poppable.

I used a peanut butter cookie recipe from Allrecipes in this picture, and not only was the recipe tasty, but they were so easy to remove from the muffin pan.  SCORE.

I promise, I'll have a REAL recipe to post by tomorrow or the next day, once I get settled back into school schedule (and we go grocery shopping; I can only do so much with the random et cetera laying around the kitchen).  I'll also try to post every day, whether it's a recipe, my personal thoughts, anything.

AND DON'T BE AFRAID TO TELL ME YOUR THOUGHTS IN THE COMMENTS!!

ECHO out.

Beefy Potato Casserole with Rice

Man, since I started this blog, I've had some goooooood inspirations for cooking.

As I was telling my boyfriend earlier, I think that knowing anything I cook has the potential to show up here gives me a competitive edge--I want everything I make to be bigger, better, and tastier than anything I've ever cooked before, and that forces me to really think about what I put into a dish.  What kind of flavor am I trying to achieve?  How would this pair with this?  What would compliment this the best?

And it's the fact that I know I have readers out there that keeps me wanting to produce the very best food, to really give you guys a reason to want to keep coming back.

So thank you guys.

I was in charge of dinner tonight (which was pretty much a self-given task), and decided to do something relatively simple.  Then I noticed we had this box of Lipton onion soup mix in the pantry, on the back of which was a recipe for some killer onion roasted potatoes,

Aaaaand well

This little number came about.

Beefy Potato Casserole with Rice

Ingredients:

8 small potatoes, or 4 large ones, cut into large chunks

1 lb. ground beef

1 package onion soup mix

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup of broccoli, cut into small pieces

3 cups brown rice

6-6 1/2 cups hot water

3 beef bouillon cubes

Various seasonings

Recommended: applewood rub

: 

Instructions

1.) Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

2.) Dissolve the bouillon cubes in the hot water, pour into a large pot, and get the rice going.  Depending on your tastes, season the rice as you wish.  Mine came out with a slightly weaker flavor than I was going for, but I wanted to keep sodium to a minimum.

Which is asking a lot with bouillon.

3.) Toss the potatoes and broccoli in the vegetable oil.  Add the onion soup mix and keep tossing.  When fully coated, pour the vegetables into a deep baking dish and put into the oven.

4.) Layer the bottom of a large skillet with seasonings/applewood rub, and put in the meat.  Begin cooking over a medium-high heat, seasoning as you go.  When finished, remove from the eye and keep covered to retain heat.

5.) Cook rice until it's fluffy and suits your taste, and let vegetables bake until nice and soft (mine were penetrable with a plastic spoon by the time they were done, about 45 minutes).

6.) When everything is finished, combine the meat and vegetable bake.  Mix thoroughly.

7.) Serve atop a piping hot bed of rice and enjoy!!

I've found that it's not bad with a sprinkle of Parmesan, either!  It really compliments the onion sauce, I think.

BUT NOW WE HAVE A MORE IMPORTANT MATTER ON HAND.

I'm going to ask a question at the end of every blog post from here on out for YOU to answer!

That's right, YOU.  With the eyes.

Now lately, I've been wanting to cook a little bit healthier, especially looking at the sodium content of my latest dishes.  So whatever I make next, I plan to change it up and make it healthier.

So my question for you today is: what dish should I health-ify?

Leave an answer in the comments for me!!!

ECHO out.

Creamy Chicken Potato Dip

Well, this is easily the prettiest dish I've made so far.

And while it does taste good, according to my professionally enlisted taste testers (my mom and sister), I'm certain that a few changes would compliment it much better.

I was babysitting this beautiful girl

My sister and official taste tester number 1, Rachael

And, surprise!  We both got hungry.

I wanted to make us a healthy snack, and figured potatoes weren't a bad way to go.  Filling, easy to prepare, and delightfully toppable!  My original idea was actually simple baked potatoes, but I got ahead of myself and started chopping the potatoes up without thinking.

"And just as the world seemed to crumble in on itself, a brilliant ray of golden light seeped through the clouds of my storming mind, penetrating the darkness of my unending misery... the words came to me from God Himself, carried through the bejeweled voices of a choir or angels:

"Mashed potatoes."

But I wasn't interested in making plain ol' mashed potatoes, the way they've been made by our forefathers and their fathers before them.

SO I TURNED IT INTO DIP!!!!

Sort of.

...

Creamy Chicken Potato Dip

Now as I said before, the recipe would be a lot better with a few adjustments, so I'm altering the recipe based on how I think it could be improved.  But don't be afraid to play around with the recipe and tweak it to your liking!

Ingredients:

4 small potatoes, cubed

1 cucumber, thickly sliced OR 1 package of Saltine crackers (depending on what you like)

1 tablespoon of unsalted butter

1-2 tablespoons light Ranch dressing

1 tablespoon blue cheese dressing

1 ripe tomato, chopped into chunks

1 package Herbox sodium free chicken seasoning

Half an onion, sliced

Various seasonings

Instructions:

1.) Place a plastic bag (such as a Wal-Mart or grocery store bag) into a large, microwave safe bowl.  Fill the inside with the potato cubes, and pour in about 1/2 cup of water.  Tie up the bag, and place the bowl into the microwave on high for 13-15 minutes.

2.) While the potatoes are cooking, begin sauteing the onion slices over a medium-high heat.  Feel free to season as you see fit.  I used just a touch of garlic powder here and there.

Cook 'till they reach that sweet light brown color.

Oooor until they're nice and crispy.  Your call.

3.) The onions and potatoes should be done at about the same time, depending on how you like them.  Drain the potatoes and place them back into the bowl.  

NOW CRUSH THEIR SOULS

I mean, mash them up with a potato masher.

4.) Add the butter, mix until it's completely melted and thoroughly combined into the potatoes.  Add the dressings, mix thoroughly.  Following this, throw in the Herbox seasoning.

5.) Now, arrange cucumber slices or crackers around the edge of a small plate.

6.) Heap a big scoop of potato dip into the middle of the plate.  Feel free to shape or smooth out!

7.) Arrange the tomato chunks around the edge of the scoop of dip.  Top off the scoop with a generous handful of onions.

8.) Polish off with a dusting of pepper, and enjoy!!

Like I said, feel free to adjust this however you want.  I'm thinking about retrying the recipe sometime with a few changes, maybe for our annual Halloween party (which I'll have plenty to post about as it is).

Hope you enjoyed my attempt at not clogging your arteries!!

Echo out.

Hearty Parmesan Lasagna

This completely came about by accident.

I was in charge of dinner tonight, and I was going to cook Hamburger Helper.

Buuuut...

I had a better idea.

The whole entire dish was impromptu.  I was just blindly sifting through the pantry, saw what we had, and just kind of made it up as I went.

Which is the process for, like, 90% of my meals.

But the REAL accident was with the sauce.  What started out as my whipping up a yummy cheese sauce turned into something that I (and everyone at dinner) was definitely okay with.

Parmesan Butter!!!!

Hearty Parmesan Lasagna

Ingredients:

1-1 1/2 lbs. ground beef

1 box of lasagna pasta

1/4 cup of butter

1/2 cup of water

2 packets of Parmesan seasoning (more on that momentarily)

Garlic powder

Italian seasoning

1 onion, thinly sliced

1 tomato, thinly sliced

1/4 can of tomato sauce

Shredded cheese

Parmesan cheese

Instructions:

1.) Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

2.) Begin preparing pasta over the stove.  Note: I've heard a lot of controversy over whether to boil the water first, then add pasta, or put the pasta in right away.  I usually put it in first and then boil the water, and it always turns out fine.  But that's just me.

3.) While this is happening, layer a large skillet with a hearty amount of garlic powder and Italian seasoning.  Throw in the beef and heat up the eye to a medium-high temperature.

Stir and grind up with your spatula occasionally, and season frequently depending on your desired taste.  I like mine with a strong flavor, so I hit it with my seasonings usually two more times.

4.) In the meantime, begin melting butter in another pot over a medium heat.  Stir very frequently.  When butter is almost melted completely, add in half of the water, mix well.  It will be very blotchy at first.

I recommend using a rubber spatula.  It's good for scraping the sides and mixing. 

5.) Add the remaining water, stir well.  The mixture should come together to make a translucent yellow color.

6.) Now, about the Parmesan seasoning--a lot of the time in my house, we'll use the pasta from a box of something like macaroni and cheese or Hamburger Helper for a certain dish, but save the seasoning/cheese packets.  We happened to have 2 boxes of Tuna Helper Creamy Parmesan pasta on hand, from which I took the Parmesan cheese powder.

THIS CAN EASILY BE REPLICATED WITH MOST OTHER CHEESE/SEASONING POWDERS.  They could be prepackaged, homemade, whatever you have on hand.

Anyway.  

Add the cheese packets to the mixture, one at a time, stirring until thoroughly combined.  Let sit over the heat for a few minutes, stirring occasionally.  Watch it closely.

7.) Over a period of 5-8 minutes, the mixture should begin to thicken.  Allow to thicken to a butter-like consistency.  When you've reached this, immediately remove from heat and stir often as it cool, to keep it from cooking and further and ruining the consistency.

8.) By this time, the pasta and meat should both be close to or completely done.  Add the tomatoes and onions to the meat, lower the temperature, and allow to simmer for about 5-10 more minutes.  For nice, stringy onion strips, I sliced the onion whole into big, circular slices, and added them.  Then, as they cooked and softened, I cut them in half with my spatula.

9.) Drain both the pasta and meat.  Add the Parmesan butter to the meat mixture.  Once again, I'd use the rubber spatula.

10.) Layer the bottom of a deep baking dish with a slightly thin layer of tomato sauce.  Lay in one layer of lasagna noodles.  Add the meat mixture, and layer the top with more noodles.  Cover with various cheese to your heart's desire.

11.) Bake for about 10 minutes, or until the cheese on top is gloriously melted.

Enjoy with some buttery wheat toast.

My whole family loved it, and reported that it had a really zesty flavor that popped.  You could taste the cheese in every bite.

I thought that putting the tomato sauce on the bottom instead of on each layer of noodles would give more room to enjoy the meat inside, with just a hint of creamy tomato to follow.

So far, so good on the feedback.

Echo out.

Extreme Ice Bucket Challenge

My aunt nominated me for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

So I decided to make a complete fool of myself.

Enjoy!!!

Hannah's Extreme Ice Bucket Challenge

If you get nominated for it, HAVE FUN WITH IT!!!

ECHO out.

Late Night Snack: Po' Boy Stuffed Pierogies

Is it just me, or are store bought pierogies never full?

Whenever we buy pierogies, they're always so thin, and that scarce layer of potato in the middle hardly qualifies as a filling.

I mean come on now--I want a pierogi to be like my wallet: fat and overflowing with goodness.

Haha, just kidding.  My wallet is never full.

BUT IF IT WERE, IT'D BE LIKE MAH STUFFED PIEROGIES.

Anywho, my pierogi complaints mingled with a craving for a midnight snack, and

BAM.

I present to you: Po' Boy Stuffed Pierogies

Yes, I ran out of sausage and was too lazy to make more, so some of them aren't stuffed, but you catch my drift.

Ingredients:

1 package of pierogies, any kind (I used potato and cheddar)

About 10 frozen microwavable sausages (I used Banquet)

Shredded cheese

Parmesian cheese

Garlic powder

A bit of butter

1.) Preheat the stove to a medium heat.  Put a small lump of butter in the pan so it'll start melting ahead of time; garnish with garlic powder to your desired taste.

2.) Microwave the sausages for around 2-3 minutes.  MAKE SURE YOU PUT A PAPER TOWEL UNDERNEATH AND ON TOP OF THE SAUSAGES.  This will keep them moist!

3.) Add the pierogies to the pan, mixing them around in the butter.  Add a little more butter if you need it.  Season with garlic powder or any other preferred seasonings as you like.  Cook them for 15-20 minutes, or until they're nice and soft.

Props if they're a little crispy!

4.) Remove the pierogies from the heat and let cool.  Pull out the sausages and dice up.

5.) Slice the pierogies into halves.  Open them up, careful not to tear them apart.

Now stuff some sausage into 'em.  Insert your own visual here.

6.) Garnish the finished plate of pierogies with shredded and grated cheeses.  Serve up and enjoy.

Great for clogging your arteries late at night.  Indulge in moderation, friends.

That's it for me tonight--it's 1:20 a.m., and my tummy is full of these babies.

ECHO out.

Spartan ECHO, Reporting for Deliciousness!!

So, my mom was all, "You should totally start a food blog!"

It was one fine, breezy summer evening, and like any normal teenager of the infamous #Twerk generation, I was watching the SciFi channel with my mom whilst writing Zelda fanfiction.

Now I should tell you, within the recent weeks, I've decided to change my career plans from pediatric medicine to culinary arts.  Weird jump, I know, but hey.  I like what I like.

And I likes me some food.

So my mom saw me writing, and, being the infinite suggestion machine that she is, threw out the idea that I ought to combine my love of writing with my love of food.

How?  Well, blog form seemed like a pretty good place to start.

And so, with the additions of sugar, spice, and a splash of Chemical X, The Spartan's Kitchen was born!

I suppose this would be a good time to address all your burning questions, beloved reader.

My name is Hannah, and I'm headed into an awesome Senior year of high school.  My passions include video games, art, music, theater, languages, friendly people, long naps, and of course, writing and cooking.

As of today, I'm challenging myself to produce a dish for you guys every single day.

Some of them will be fancy and fabulous.  Others, not so much.

I'm not trying to run through an entire cookbook, or create a brand new, never-been-done recipe every day. 

I just want to share my passion for words and tasty things with the world.

I am cordially inviting you, my companion on the other side of the screen, to join me in my newfound blogging adventure.  Your opinions, suggestions, and friendship is welcome and dear to my heart.

...why do I call myself Spartan, you ask?  Well, you see, back in my top secret black ops military days

Okay, it's a Halo reference.  One of my favorite games.

See you guys tomorrow!

ECHO out.