yummies

Need some ideas for din din this week?  Well here you are!  The following recipes were all prepared in my little kitchen last week, and they were all great!  

Baked Chicken with Sauteed Mushrooms, Bell Peppers, and Spinach

To make this chicken, I sprinkled three chicken breasts with salt, pepper, thyme, and basil.  Then, I put the chickadees in a pyrex dish and cooked those suckers at 375 for about 35 minutes.  Easy peasy!

For the veggies, I chopped up one bell pepper and half of a little box of mushrooms.  I threw those in a pan with a little bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper.  I sauteed those for about 5 minutes, and then I added in about 1/3 cup of white wine and 1 tablespoon of butter.  I kept on cooking for another 5 minutes or until the wine had reduced by half.  Once the mushrooms and the peppers were tender, I added in a whole bag of spinach and let that cook down for about 1-2 minutes.  Also easy!

I had one and a half chicken breasts leftover from that baked chicken, so I decided to turn it into two different dinners for Austin and myself.  Here's what I came up with:

Leftover Dinner #1: Chicken and Bell Peppers in Linguine with Marinara 

I had one serving of linguine and marinara leftover from a few weeks ago, so I cooked the pasta, heated up the chicken/peppers/sauce, and tossed it all together.  Austin said it was yummy!

Leftover Dinner #2: Chicken Salad

To make this chicken salad, I chopped up 1/2 of a leftover chicken breast and combined it with 2 chopped up hard boiled eggs, about 2 tablespoons of mayo, a good squirt of mustard, and some salt and pepper.  This is delicious with a few ritz chips and some gwapes!

Baked Panko Shrimp with Mashed Potatoes and Salad

This shrimp is crispy but healthy because it's baked instead of fried.  It was really good with a side of mashed potatoes and a simple salad.  I also made some tartar sauce from a recipe I found on a little website called google.com.  

Here's the recipe I used

Arroz con Pollo

Here's a link to the recipe!

I made a few changes from the original recipe this time around.  First, instead of cooking chicken breasts, I boiled a whole dang chicken!  I think the chicken turns out more tender that way since there's bones and stuff in a whole chicken.  Second, I added in some sliced jalapenos to kick things up a little.  It turned out spicy and delish.

Pepperoni and Pineapple Pizza

To make this pizza I used the Pioneer Woman's pizza crust recipe (click here for the recipe) and then added my own toppings.  

Once I had the dough all stretched out I spread on some pizza sauce, sprinkled some mozzarella, dotted on some pepperonis, and added the pineapple.  8-10 minutes in the 500 degree oven, and it was pizza time!

Snickers Cupcakes  

I made these cupcakes for Austin's kickball team's playoff games last week.  I got the recipe from my sister who bakes all kinds of delicious things all the time.  They were awesome!  

Here's the link for the cupcakes, and here's what I used to make the frosting.

Go make some of this stuff this week!  All of the above were a hit with me and with the boyfriend!