A Week of New Foods!

WARNING: This post is so packed with food, reading it may ruin your dinner.

Oooooooooh, what a week it's been! House guests, dinner with other friends, new immersion blender, and a new meal plan for Mike and I. We start with the house guests and the new immersion blender.

Our very good friend Wes' fiancee, Hannah, is in town from Arkansas so they can work on wedding plans and she is staying in our house. Because of that, I decided to make a really nice Sunday dinner for everyone. This particular meal included Heather's sweet tea ribs, which were a total hit, rolls, and homemade Dutch Apple Sauce. The applesauce recipe can from MJ at My Busy Craft Life (thanks, MJ!). Now, you may notice that MJ's recipe uses the metric system because she lives in England {lucky!!!}. I have converted all of the measurements for anyone using the American system of measurement. I also edited the recipe ever so slightly because I don't have all the same lovely pictures as MJ

Dutch Apple Sauce

2.3 lbs apples (this came to 5 gala apples for me)
3.5 oz sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
water

Wash the apples, peel them, and remove the cores. Cut them into parts. Put the apple pieces in a pan and add some water (I did just enough to almost come to the top of the apples, but you can do less for chunkier applesauce). Cook the apple pieces for about 10 mins on a small flame until soft (I have an electric stove, so I went for medium heat). Stir well while adding the cinnamon and sugar (this is where the new toy came in handy!). The color will change a bit because of the cinnamon. Cook for a few minutes more so that the sugar dissolves well (don't forget to stir) and then let it cool down. If it is too sweet for your liking, add some lemon juice. I usually add a squirt of it; it doesn't need to be fresh juice, bottled will do fine. You can of course have more of a compote, but for real apple sauce just blend it a little bit until nice and smooth. I just love my hand blender! The apple sauce will be all smooth :) Once cooled down, put the sauce in jars and place in the fridge. It will hold for about a week (more if you add some orris root) and can be eaten warm or cold.

There's my Mike cutting up the apples. This method was a little slow, though...


So we pulled out THE DEVICE!!! Okay, I have no idea what this thing is actually called, but it peels, cores, and cuts apple meat into nice little spirals.


Here you can see the peel coming off in ribbons.


There they are, getting all soft and lovely.


Oh yeah. We're about to do some serious damage.


Bwahahahaha! Those apples didn't stand a chance.


And now for the sweet stuff. Mmmmmm...

Okay, seriously, I may never buy applesauce again. This stuff was heavenly! It's so sweet, and you know exactly what went into it! There was a little left after dinner, so I mixed it with oatmeal later on. Didn't even have to add sugar. It was that good!

Now, Mike and I have sort of started to try and change out eating habits in that we are trying to cut out some prepackaged foods. Realistically, we know we can't do this altogether. Well, we could, but we're not going to. The biggest thing we're going to try and cut out are things like Skillet Meals, Hamburger Helper, ect. simply because of all the salt in them. A big exception to this are Man-Can-Plan meals. Yes, I got Mike one of the "A Man, A Can, A Plan" books for Christmas last year. We really can't apply the new rule to these meals because, well, that's kind of the whole point of the book: Throw a bunch of canned (processed) foods together and make a meal. Mike made Cowboy Stew out of there on Monday. Now, I'm not sure if I would be breaking any copyright laws by actually posting the recipe, so I'll just tell you what's in it. A 15 oz can of Hormel turkey chili, a pound of ground beef, a 14 oz can of baked beans, and some shredded cheddar cheese for garnish. I'm sure no one will be able to crack that recipe {not}.

FYI, folks, this is where the pictures end because I'm really not that much of a shutterbug, so I have trouble remembering the visual aids.

This was a really good, really filling meal, but not a great choice for summer. When the temperature is hovering around a hundred degrees everyday, a thick, hearty chili isn't really something I'm jonesing for, so we're going to try this recipe again when it gets colder. Also, I added a little water to mine because this stuff is thick like kindergarten paste.

Okay, then came Wednesday night. Mike and our friend Jon had plans to do some cabling in our house, so Jon's wife Nova came over too, and we all had dinner together. Now, there were some dietary restrictions that had to be observed, so I went with the safest meat ever: Chicken. Ah, Taste of Home, we meet again.

Chicken Artichoke Pasta 

4 Servings
Prep/Total Time: 30 min.

Ingredients

• 2-1/4 cups uncooked ziti or 6 ounces uncooked fettuccine
• 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into thin strips
• 3 teaspoons olive oil, divided
• 1/2 cup fresh broccoli florets
• 1/2 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
• 1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 can (14 ounces) water-packed artichoke hearts, rinsed, drained and halved
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 1/3 cup white wine or additional reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
• 1 tablespoon shredded Parmesan cheese

Directions

• Cook ziti according to package directions. Meanwhile, in a large nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray, cook chicken in 2 teaspoons oil over medium heat until no longer pink. Remove and keep warm.
• In the same skillet, cook and stir broccoli in remaining oil for 2 minutes. Stir in the mushrooms, tomatoes and garlic; cook 2 minutes longer. Add the artichokes, salt and oregano; heat through.
• Combine the flour with broth and wine or additional broth until smooth; stir into the pan. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 1-2 minutes or until thickened. Add parsley and reserved chicken.
• Drain ziti; add to chicken mixture and toss to coat. Sprinkle with cheese. Yield: 4 servings.

Okay, I confess that I did tweak this recipe slightly to suit my own and some other people's particular tastes. I nixed the cherry tomatoes because I don't really like them. I also cooked the mushrooms (Nova's idea and it was actually Nova who cooked them) separately so that Mike wouldn't have to have any. Mike hates mushrooms like Heather hates the gifts I give her children (think drums and toys that shoot things). I also used Penne because that's what I had. Finally, I also totally forgot the parsley and Parmesan cheese, but it turned out great anyway! This is a great one-dish meal because it's healthy and has almost all the food groups in it.

After that was Thursday. Hey, I warned you this post was packed! The inspiration for this meal came from my college days at dear, old Roanoke College. See, Roanoke is a private college, so they can afford proper chefs. The freshman fifteen there is more like the freshman twenty five, except you walk it all off anyway. There were a lot of really fabulous dishes at Noke, but one of my favorites was the chicken noodle casserole. Yeah, it's exactly what it sounds like: Chicken noodle soup in a casserole. I miss that dish, so I've been trying to find something like it ever since. There was a chicken noodle casserole in one of my older, simpler cookbooks, so I gave it a whirl. Once again, I don't know if I'd be infringing on copyright laws by actually posting the recipe (Sorry! I don't know how these things work!). Maybe that's for the best, though, because this casserole was nothing compared to Chef Bob's. The celery stayed crunchy (I'm not a fan of celery), and the pimento in it wasn't great either. The search continues!

And that was my week so far. I'll be doing another new recipe tomorrow night, so I'll post about that next week. Until then, enjoy!