Baked Chicken Cordon Bleu with Spinach

2 skinless, thin boneless chicken breast filets
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp freshly cracked black pepper
1 Tsp of French mustard
3 slices of Provolone cheese
4 slices of black forest ham
EVOO
1/2 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a casserole dish with nonstick cooking spray.

Season each piece of chicken with S&P on both sides. Spread one side of each filet with mustard. Layer a few leaves of spinach over the mustard. (You can use quite a bit. It might look like a lot but it will cook down.) Place 1 slice of cheese and 2 ham slices on top of each breast. Roll up each breast, and secure with a toothpick. Place in baking dish, seam side down. Brush each filet with EVOO and then roll in bread crumbs.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until chicken is no longer pink in the middle and juices run clear. Remove from oven, and place 1/2 cheese slice on top of each breast. Return to oven on broil for about 3 minutes, or until cheese has melted and starts to bubble.

Boil egg noodles according to directions. Drain. Toss pasta with juices from chicken at the bottom of the casserole dish.

Remove toothpicks from chicken and serve over noodles.

Grilled Chicken Pita with Greek Salad

2 chicken breasts, marinated in Italian dressing overnight
1 package of pita bread
EVOO
Tzakziki sauce, premade from Trader Joe’s
1 medium yellow squash, sliced length wise, season with Lemon Pepper and Salt
Red onion, a couple sliced rings
Spicy radish sprouts
Mixed greens
Cucumber slices, for salad
1 small tomato, chopped for salad
¼ red bell pepper, chopped, for salad
5 kalamta olives, sliced
Feta cheese, lemon and oregano flavor, for salad
Balsamic vinaigrette

Over medium high heat, grill chicken until no longer pink in the middle, for about 8-10 minutes depending on thickness. Grill squash slices for a few minutes on each side, until tender. Slice chicken. Lightly brush pita with EVOO and grill on both sides for a couple minutes.

To make pita sandwiches, first spread pita with Tzakziki sauce, add a layer of squash, chicken, onion and then sprouts and fold in half. For the salad, add the rest of the veggies and feta cheese on the mixed greens. Drizzle with balsamic vinaigrette. Serve together and enjoy!

Grilled Salmon with Pesto Pasta and Veggies

2-4 salmon filets, depending on people or how much leftovers you want
Grill seasoning
Lemon and Pepper seasoning
½ box of Gemelli pasta
½ jar of Classico Pesto sauce
1 large yellow baby summer or Pattypan squash, cut in bite sized pieces
About 5 mini bell peppers, red and orange, sliced
½ jar of marinated, quartered artichoke hearts, drained
2 large garlic cloves, minced
Crushed black pepper
Sea salt
EVOO
Freshly grated parmesan cheese

Boil pasta in salted water for about 12 minutes, until soft. Drain, return to pot and toss with pesto sauce. Cover and set aside.

Season salmon and grill skin side down over high heat for about 6 minutes. Flip filet, turn down heat and cook for a couple more minutes until the fish is not longer pink in the middle and can flake easily with a fork. While the second side is grilling you can peel the skin off the other side.

In a sauce pan over medium high heat, sauté squash and bell peppers in EVOO. Season with pepper. When the veggies are almost fork tender, add artichokes, garlic and season with salt to taste.

Plate salmon with a side of pasta topped with veggies. Finish with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

Note: I was going to add sauced baby spinach with garlic mixed in with the pasta, but I forgot to do it! This would add another healthy veggie and nice color to the overall dish.

Orange Brownies

I made these for my boss's and my neighbor's Birthday day and they were a hit! I like how you can see the specks of orange zest in the frosting along with the orange flavor throughout.



Recipe courtesy Paula Deen

Ingredients
•1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
•2 cups sugar
•1 teaspoon salt
•1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
•4 eggs
•2 teaspoons pure orange extract
•1 teaspoon grated orange zest
Glaze:
•1 cup confectioners' sugar
•2 tablespoons orange juice
•1 teaspoon grated orange zest
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease a 13 by 9 by 2-inch pan and set aside. In a mixing bowl, stir together flour, sugar, and salt. Add butter, eggs, orange extract, and orange zest and beat with a handheld electric mixer until well blended. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes, or until light golden brown and set. Remove from oven and pierce top of entire cake with a fork.

Glaze:
Combine all ingredients in a bowl, stirring until smooth. Pour glaze over cake. Cool cake and cut into squares.

Helpful baking hints:

I'm not a huge fan of baking mostly because I don't like to follow directions closely when cooking, which is a must in baking, but here's what I learned (the hard way):

1. Softened butter doesn't mean melted butter. It will mess up the recipe. Don't try to melt your butter in the microwave, instead take it out of the fridge in the morning and leave it out all day to soften.

2. If you make these brownies the night before, don't put them in the fridge over-night becaue it will make them rock hard. Instead, just cover them with aluminum foil and leave them out on the counter.

3. Don't try to estimate on ingredients. Measure carefully. If you've had too much wine and are too lazy to measure precisely, it's better to make your recipe the next day. :-)

Berry and Banana Trifle

Refreshing summer time dessert!



1/4 cup plus 2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 angel food cake, cut into 1-inch slices
1 lb cream cheese, at room temperature
2 cups heavy cream, at room temperature
2 pints blueberries
2 pints strawberries, hulled and sliced
2 bananas, sliced

Heat 1/4 cup sugar, the lemon juice and 1/4 cup water in a saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat and stir in the almond extract.

Brush both sides of each slice of cake with the syrup. Cut the slices into 1-inch cubes.

Beat the remaining 2/3 cup sugar and the cream cheese with a mixer on medium speed until smooth and light. Add the cream and beat on medium-high speed until smooth and the consistency of whipped cream.

Arrange half of the cake cubes in the bottom of a 13-cup trifle dish. Sprinkle evenly with a layer of blueberries. Dollop half of the cream mixture over the blueberries and gently spread. Top with a layer of bananas. Layer the remaining cake cubes on top of the strawberries, then sprinkle with more blueberries and top with the remaining cream mixture. Finish with the remaining strawberries and blueberries, arranging them in a decorative pattern. Cover and refrigerate 1 hour.

Egg Noodle Casserole with Sausage and Cheese

This is a spin off of a Czech recipe and I tweaked it a little. It can also be a creative way to use up ingredients in the fridge or to sneak in some veggies for those non-vegatable eaters. You can eat this casserole hot or cold.


½ package of wide egg noodles
2 eggs
1 Tbsp of heavy cream
1 tsp French mustard
S&P to taste
2 sprigs of green onions, chopped
1 cup of pepper jack cheese, grated
½ cup of cheddar cheese, grated
½ cup of parmesan cheese, split for two uses, grated
½ zucchini, chopped (or I also use broccoli, though I only had zucchini in the fridge this time)
3 turkey sausage links, though I think beef kielbasa works the best, chopped into bite sized pieces

Serves 3 people with a couple extra helpings.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 8 x 8 casserole dish.

Boil noodles according to directions, for about 8 minutes. It’s okay if they are a little harder than you normally would like because we’re going to bake it afterwards. Let the noodles cool a little (otherwise when you mix them with the eggs, the heat will scramble them).

In a sauce pan, sauté sausages until almost all the way cooked. Add zucchini towards the end of cooking, until a little soft (to save on washing another pan). Let sausage and zucchini cool a little.

In a small mixing bowl, mix eggs, cream, mustard, and S&P together.

In a medium mixing bowl, add noodles, sausage, zucchini, green onions, cheese (only half of parmesan) and egg mixture. Mix well, so everything is coated with egg mixture. This will act as a bonding agent and hold the casserole together. Top casserole with remaining parmesan cheese and bake, uncovered, for about 30 minutes. After, turn oven to broil and move oven rack up to cook casserole for 3-4 minutes. This gives the casserole a nice brown color and crisps some of the noodles.

Serve with your favorite side salad. This is a great meal to make for a warm summer evening.

Crab Stuffed Sole with Spinach Rice

This is an easy dinner to make for a special night. It looks nice and tastes delicious!

3 sole filets, or tilapia
¼ red bell pepper, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 can of fancy white crab, drained
1 egg
½ cup bread crumbs
1 Tbsp chives, minced
Herbed goat cheese chunks
Bunch of asparagus
1 cup of long grained basmati rice
2 cups chicken broth
½ cup frozen chopped spinach
1-2 sprigs of green onion, chopped
1 tsp EVOO
Lemon pepper
S&P

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Season one side of fish with lemon pepper and salt. In a sauce pan over med-high heat, sauté peppers and garlic in a little EVOO. Once peppers are fork tender, move to a dish and let cool. When the dinner is almost done sauté asparagus in the same pan for 3-4 minutes until fork tender.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine crab, egg, bread crumbs, chives, goat cheese with cooled peppers and garlic. Lay fish seasoned side down. Top fish with crab mixture and roll. Add to casserole dish, seam side down.

In a 8 x 8 greased casserole dish, bake fish for 30 minutes, covered. Cook until fish flakes easily.

In a rice cooker, add rice, broth, EVOO and S&P. When rice is almost done, 10-15 minutes later, add spinach and green onions, mix together and continue cooking until done.

Plate rice, add asparagus and top with stuffed fish. Enjoy with a nice glass of white wine.

2nd Anniversary Dinner: Pork Chops, Zucchini and Goat Cheese, Mashed Potatoes

4-6 Thin, boneless pork chops

Mashed Potatoes
2-3 medium red, skinned potatoes, skin on and chopped in large pieces
¼ cup of heavy cream
½ tsp of butter
2 sprigs of green onions, chopped
Sea Salt
Freshly Cracked Black Pepper

2 small zucchinis, chopped
2 tsp chives, chopped
¼ cup of pine nuts, roasted
Herbed goat cheese chunks
EVOO

Season potatoes with S&P. Steam potatoes for 15-20 minutes until fork tender. Mash potatoes with cream, butter, salt and pepper. Stir in green onions.

Season pork chops with lemon pepper and salt. Over medium high, brown one side of the pork chops for a couple minutes. Flip pork, turn down heat and cover for 5-10 minutes until pork is no longer pink in the middle.

In a medium frying pan, sauté zucchini in EVOO for about 5 minutes or so until fork tender. Season with S&P to taste. Remove zucchini from frying pan to a plate. Toss with chives. Add pine nuts to frying pan over med-high heat, stir until toasted. Toss with zucchini and chives. Add chunks of goat cheese.

Serve pork chops with mashed potatoes and zucchini side.

Tomato and Goat Cheese Salad

We had this delicious and refreshing appetizer to start off Ben's Birthday dinner at my parent's house. The tomatoes and herbs were from their garden.

large, ripe tomatoes, sliced (about 1 1/2 tomato per person)
fresh basil, roll leaves and slice into strips
Italian flat leaf parsley, minced
Chives, minced
Red onion, sliced
Goat cheese chunks
Freshly crushed sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Balsamic vinegar
EVOO

Place tomatoes on plate in a circle, over lapping the next slice. Top with red onion, cheese, herbs, S&P. Drizzle with vinegar and EVOO.

Yummy Camping Dinner: Sausage on a Stick, Czech Style

It's a family affair! Cooking sausage on a stick is a great family activity to do around the fire.

Cook the sausage until the ends curl up and get nice and crispy.

Serves 5 people

2 packages of beef kielbasa sausages, cut each package into 3 pieces
Crusty French bread loaf, sliced
French mustard

Make a nice, big camp fire. Everyone should find a stick for themselves that’s at least 4 feet long. Sharpen one end of the stick, which will poke through the sausage. Cut an ‘X’ in the end of each sausage, and score along the top and the bottom of the sausage. Poke the stick through the middle of the sausage. Cook sausages over the fire until the ends curl up and get crispy.

Serve with bread and mustard. Enjoy with a pivo (Czech for beer!).

Yummy Camping Dinner: Chicken Fajitas

Since there is limited "refrigerated" space when camping, I try to plan meals out so I can buy one ingredient and use it for several other meals in the trip. For example with this meal, I used the tortillas to make breakfast burritos one mornring, salsa for a chips & salsa snack, cheese & onions for the chili bowl and garlic for everything else!



2 chicken breasts, sliced
Fajitas seasoning, I found a packet in the Hispanic aisle with the $.99 seasonings, which worked perfect
1 large garlic clove, minced
½ yellow onion, sliced
¾ green bell pepper, sliced
Shredded cheddar cheese
Flour tortillas
Salsa
Sour cream
EVOO

In a frying pan over med-high heat, sauté chicken and garlic in a little EVOO. Sprinkle chicken with fajitas seasoning. Move chicken to a plate once it’s cooked and no longer pink in the middle. Sauté veggies in EVOO for a few minutes, until fork tender, then remove from heat. Heat tortillas by placing them on the grill over the fire or by flipping them over in the frying pan.

Add chicken and veggies to tortillas, top with cheese, salsa and sour cream. Enjoy!

Yummy Camping Dinner: Chili Bowls

We enjoyed this traditional, camping meal the first night since it took the least amount of time. You can save the soft middle of the bread to dip in the chili or I used it to feed the geese on the lake in the morning.



2 cans of chili
2 small sourdough bread bowls
A bag of shredded cheddar cheese
½ yellow onion, finely chopped

Heat chili over the stove top. Cut tops off of the bread bowls and scrape out the middles to create a bowl. Be careful not to poke holes in the sides so the chili won’t spill out. Pour chili in bread bowls and top with cheese and onion. I also like to add a dollop of sour cream, if you have it.

Yummy Camping Dinner: Salmon Foil Packet

I've heard this type of meal referred to as a "hobo packet" but we like to fancy it up by adding salmon! This dinner is so good that we usually have it twice in one week when camping. Basically, you add all your ingredients in a foil packet, throw in the fire to cook for 45 minutes and enjoy. The perfect camping meal!

Layer the ingredients you like:

Cooking the foil packets in the fire:


Open packet carefully so ashes from the fire doesn't get into your food:

Slide dinner out of foil packet and carefully onto a plate:


Ingredients (split veggies into two halves for two packets)
2 salmon filets
1 large red potato, sliced
1 large carrot, sliced about half as twice as the potato (not too thick or it won’t cook enough)
1 sliced mushroom (for my packet only, not for Ben’s since he hates mushrooms)
½ green bell pepper, sliced
1/2 yellow onion, sliced
1 small tomato, sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
Salt and freshly crushed pepper
EVOO

Start fire with wood or charcoal. Wait until fire dies down a bit before adding foil packets to heat.

Lay a piece of aluminum foil on the table. Drizzle EVOO on the foil. This will prevent the food from sticking (hopefully). Start layer with potato slices, then salmon, minced garlic, S&P, the rest of the veggies and another layer of potato slices. Try to put the heartier ingredients, like the potatoes and carrots, on the outside of the packet since these will take longest to cook. Drizzle more EVOO over the top of the other layer of potatoes, to prevent the top from sticking to the foil.

Take two sides of the foil and crimp and roll down together, to make a tight seal. Repeat with the other two sides, or twist tightly to make a candy wrapper shape (like a Werther's). Add packets on top of hot wood or coal, covering packets with hot pieces of wood/coal. Cook for about minutes.

Carefully open packets so the ashes from the fire don’t fall into the dinner. Enjoy!

You can also make these packets with sausage, chicken or ground beef.

Grilled Salmon with Bulgur and Veggie Salad

3 Salmon Filets
Grill seasoning
½ cup of Bulgur
1 cup of chicken broth
1 small zucchini, diced
1/3 red bell pepper, diced
2 rings of a red onion, diced
1 large garlic clove, minced
Herbed goat cheese, in chunks
Lemon Pepper seasoning, a few dashes
Sea salt, a couple dashes
2 tsp of EVOO
Juice of 1/4 a lemon

Season salmon and grill skin side down for about 8 minutes. Flip filets over and grill for another 4 minutes or so until no longer pink in the middle. Should flake easily but don’t overcook.

Boil broth, add bulgur, cover and turn off heat. Stir occasionally and let sit for about 15 minutes. In a small sauce pan over med-high heat, heat EVOO and sauté zucchini, pepper, onion, garlic, lemon pepper and salt.

Let bulgur and veggies cool. Mix together. Add lemon juice and goat cheese.

Serve salmon with bulgar and veggie salad.

NOTE: Bulgur is a grain similar to cous cous or quinoa.

Carne Asada Tacos

1 – 1 ½ lb of pre-marinated Carne Asada (you can buy this at the grocery store in the meat section or a specialty meat shop)
1 medium tomato, chopped
¼ small red onion, minced
2 Tbsp of cilantro, minced
2 tsp of fresh lime juice
¼ jalapeno, finely minced (or a few dashes of Tabasco, if you forgot to buy a jalapeno at the store like I did!)
Sea salt
½ avocado, sliced
White cheddar cheese, shredded
6 small yellow corn tortillas
1 can of black beans

Heat grill over med-high heat. Grill steak on each side for 2-3 minutes. The steak should still be pink in the middle. Slice steak against the grain so it’s easy to chew.

Mix tomato, onion, cilantro, lime juice, jalapeno/Tabasco and salt together.

Heat beans in the microwave for 2-3 minutes. Stir a few dashes of Cholula into the beans. Grill tortillas on each side for about 1-2 minutes, to warm them up and to give them nice grill marks.

Assemble tacos by filling tortilla with steak, Pico, avocado and cheese. Serve with beans. Top beans with cheese and left over cilantro.

Mediterranean Flat Bread Pizza

3 flat breads, jalapeño and cilantro flavor
½ red bell pepper, sliced
2-3 rings of red onion, sliced
5-10 Kalamata olives, sliced
1 ½-2 sweet turkey sausage, removed from casting
1 large garlic clove, minced
Herbed goat cheese
Feta cheese, lemon and oregano flavor
EVOO

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

In a frying pan over medium high heat, sauté sausage until cooked all the way through, until no longer pink.

Brush flat bread with EVOO. Top flat bread with peppers, onions, olives and sausage. Sprinkle with garlic and feta cheese. Break off chunks of goat cheese and place on top. Bake pizzas for about 8 minutes, until veggies are cooked and flat bread is crusty. Don’t bake too long or the bread will turn into a cracker!

Note: I would have added sliced tomatoes and quartered, marinated artichokes, but I forgot to add them!

Crab Rolls and Veggie Salad

2 sourdough rolls
2 slices of sharp Cheddar cheese

crabs salad
2-6.5 oz cans of white lump crab, drained
2 Tbsp of mayo
1 small garlic glove, pressed or grated
1 rib of celery, minced
2 radishes, minced
1-2 Tbsp parsley, minced
Juice of ¼ lemon
½ tsp of sea salt
½ tsp lemon pepper
¼ tsp freshly cracked pepper

veggie salad
1/2 of a large carrot, diced
¼ red bell pepper, diced
1 slice of jicama, diced
1 small Roma tomato, diced
1 bunch of green onions, sliced
1/3 cucumber, diced
Crumbled feta cheese
Sea salt
Freshly cracked pepper
EVOO
Balsamic vinegar

Split rolls in half and toast. Add cheese on one side of roll and melt. For crab salad, mix all ingredients together. Add to other half of roll and close.

For veggie salad, mix all veggies together. Season with S&P to taste. Drizzle with EVOO and vinegar to taste. Top with feta cheese.

Chicken Picatta

Used and revised Giada De Laurentiis' recipe on www.foodnetwork.com.

1 lb of chicken tenders
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Flour, for dredging
6 Tbsp unsalted butter
5 Tbsp EVOO
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/4 cup capers
1/3 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/2 bag of wide egg noodles
freshly grated Parmesan

Season chicken with salt and pepper. Dredge chicken in flour and shake off excess.
In a large skillet over medium high heat, melt 2 tablespoons of butter with 3 tablespoons olive oil. When butter and oil start to sizzle, add 2 pieces of chicken and cook for 3 minutes. When chicken is browned, flip and cook other side for 3 minutes. Remove and transfer to plate. Melt 2 more tablespoons butter and add another 2 tablespoons olive oil. When butter and oil start to sizzle, add the other 2pieces of chicken and brown both sides in same manner. Remove pan from heat and add chicken to the plate.

Into the pan add the lemon juice, stock and capers. Return to stove and bring to boil, scraping up brown bits from the pan for extra flavor. Check for seasoning. Return all the chicken to the pan and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove chicken to platter. Add remaining 2 tablespoons butter to sauce and whisk vigorously.

Cook pasta according to directions, boil for about 8 minutes. Pour sauce over chicken and garnish with parsley. Sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan.

Helpful lemon hints: Press and roll lemon between palm and counter top to loosen up juices. Squeeze lemon juice by holding lemon cut side up, so when you squeeze the lemon, the seeds stay on the lemon instead of your dish.

Grilled Salmon with Vegetable Rice

For my Birthday, my grandparents sent me a box of dried mushrooms from the Czech Republic that they picked from the forest themselves. I couldn't wait to cook them with rice since it gives the rice such an amazing flavor!

3 servings

3 salmon filets
Salmon spice rub from William Sonoma
1 cup of long grained Basmati rice
2 cups of beef broth
½ cup of dried mushrooms
15-20 asparagus stalks, cut in 1” pieces
1 small zucchini, chopped
1 large garlic clove, minced
2 green onion stalks, diced
EVOO
Salt and Pepper

In a rice cooker, combine rice, broth, mushrooms, S&P and 1 tsp of EVOO. Cook until almost done and mix in green onions for the last 2-3 minutes of cooking.

In a small frying pan over med-high heat, heat 1-2 tsp of EVOO. Sauté asparagus and zucchini for 3-4 minutes. Season with S&P to taste. Add garlic and sauté for another minute or so. When veggies are fork tender, mix into rice and mushrooms.

Grill each filet for about 10 minutes until fish is no longer pink in the middle. It should flake easily when pierced with a fork. We’ve found the easiest grilling method is to grill with the skin side down over high heat, then flip over and turn the heat down. The skin will peel off easily.

Serve salmon with vegetable rice. Enjoy!

Shrimp and 3-Cheese Quesadillas

Shrimp and 3-Cheese Quesadillas

Servings: 4 quesadillas

8 flour tortillas
15-20 shrimp, defrosted,peeled and chopped in bite sized pieces
1 red bell pepper, sliced
½ yellow onion, sliced
Crushed red pepper flakes, a couple dashes
Salt
½ cup of shredded pepper jack cheese
½ cup of shredded Monterey Jack cheese
½ cup of shredded Mozzarella cheese
Olive oil spray

Over medium-high heat, sauté peppers and onions until fork tender. Sprinkle with salt and red pepper flakes. Add shrimp for a few minutes, just until they turn pink. Do not overcook or they will become tough.

Over med-high heat, spray frying pan, add tortilla, add cheese, add shrimp/pepper/onion mixture and add more cheese. Cover with another tortilla. Cook for a couple minutes. Flip and cook for another few minutes.

Cut each quesadilla in quarters. Serve with guacamole, salsa and sour cream.