Crock Pot Pesto Pasta

This recipe started out as a recipe from Picky Palate, but I made quite a few changes, so here's my version of a very simple dinner.  A lot of the recipes in Picky Palate's cookbook call for already cooked chicken, which I never have, so this is a way to do it without cooked chicken.  The calories for this easy pesto pasta are 457 per serving, it makes about six servings, and Noah and I gave it a 9, and Aaron and Owen gave it an 8.  I like that this can be made in advance, stored in the refrigerator, and then just add the pasta and warm it for a few minutes and serve.  That's what I did on a day when I was sick, and my family still had a good dinner with almost no effort on my part.  Love it :).  Here's what I did:

3/4 lb chicken breast meat
1 jar pesto sauce (about 16 oz)
4 oz cream cheese
leftover cauliflower
salt and pepper to taste
8 oz pasta, cooked

Mix everything except pasta together in the crockpot, and cook for about 4 hours on low.  Check for doneness, then serve immediately with pasta, or cool, and serve with pasta at a later date.

Cauliflower Soup

Hooray!  A picture!  We had PW's cauliflower soup last week, and we really really liked it.  The boys said it was their all-time favorite soup, and Aaron and I liked it too.  You can find the recipe on PW's website, and I used an immersion blender at the end to get it all creamy, rather than chunky.  This was great, and we had some rolls with it, so it was a great dinner.  Noah and Owen gave it a 9, and Aaron and I gave it an 8, Aaron says he wishes there were chicken in it.  Sigh... :)  Anyway, make it and you won't be sorry! 

Muffins, Oven Fried Chicken, Twice Baked Potatoes, and Roasted Cauliflower

I have so many recipes to share with you today! We had some breakfast food, and we tried 3 new recipes for dinner tonight. First the breakfast recipe was a recipe from the Ocean Spray website. Cranberry Blueberry Muffins I was sure were going to be divine. I was wrong :(

The batter was flavorless, and although I often like not super sweet muffins, these were not sweet enough.  I was really disappointed, we gave these a 4.  The calories are 199/muffin, since I cut the oil in half and substituted sour cream for 1/2 the oil.  I think if I added some vanilla and some lemon peel, the muffins would be better, and maybe a little more sugar.  I didn't like them enough to want to play with them though.
On to dinner!
Our potatoes tonight were Twice Baked New Potatoes from the Pioneer Woman.

These were really good, we gave them an 8, and for 8 baby potates, so 16 servings, the calories were 87/potato half.  They are small, but super tasty.

We had oven fried chicken from Cook's Illustrated's Best Recipe cookbook.  That's my favorite cookbook, and we loved this, just like all their recipes.  Here's the recipe.

Oven Fried Chicken

2 full chicken legs (2 drumsticks and 2 thighs), separated                 3.5 c buttermilk

1/4 c salt                                           1/8 c sugar

1 t paprika                                                     1 1/2 heads of garlic, separated

2 bay leaves

2 T oil                                          3/4 c bread crumbs

1 egg                         1/2 T dijon mustard

1/2 t dried thyme                              1/8 t garlic powder

1/8 t cayenne pepper                                       1/4 t oregano

salt and pepper to taste

Mix together in a bag the sugar, salt, paprika, bay leaves, and garlic heads.  Mash them together with a rolling pin.  Add buttermilk and bagged mixture together in a large covered pot, then fully submerge the chicken.  Place in refrigerator and brine for 2-3 hours.  Remove from brine, shake off excess, and sit chicken on a wire rack over a cookie sheet in fridge for 2 hours. 

Mix together oil and bread crumbs in a shallow dish.  In another shallow dish mix together egg and mustard and the spices.  Take chicken, dip it in the egg mixture, then coat completely with the crumbs.  Place on wire rack over cookie sheet (I used a broiler pan) and repeat for all pieces of chicken.  Position oven rack to upper middle position.  Bake at 400 for 40 minutes.

This was so delicious, so flavorful, and although it took a lot of time in the fridge, it wasn't a lot of work to actually make it.  We gave this between a 9 and a 10, (2 of us gave a 9, 2 of us gave a 10), and the calories were 329/serving.

We tried oven roasted cauliflower from the Pioneer Woman's second cookbook, and we gave this an 8.  This was tasty and pretty healthy, I reduced the oil and butter to make it better for us. 

Roasted Cauliflower

1 small head cauliflower                 2 T olive oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

3/4 c panko                            2 T butter, melted

Cut up cauliflower into bite-size pieces.  Drizzle with the olive oil and salt and pepper.  Cook in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes.  Remove from the oven, place in a serving dish, and cover with the panko mixed with the melted butter.  Bake for an additional 5 minutes approximately, and serve.

The calories on this were 189/serving.  It was a really yummy dinner!

Tomorrow we're having some burritos and taquitos.

Cheese Stuffed Pork Chops, Pioneer Woman's Potato Skins, and Cauliflower

We had Cheese Stuffed Pork Chops  tonight, and we really liked it.  I liked having the beans along with it, and we used our garden lettuce instead of the escarole.  Very yummy, and pretty easy to make.  We only had 257 calories a serving, because of less oil and how we served it up, and we gave it an 8.

We also had potato skins from the Pioneer Woman's first cookbook, and these were a 9.  All the kids loved them, my kids and my friend's kids, they thought they were super yummy.  163 calories/potato skin.

We also had what we call Germany cauliflower, because I learned how to make it in Germany, and we all love to eat it.  Even Aaron who swore he didn't like cauliflower likes this stuff.

We just take a whole head of cauliflower, place it in well salted water, and boil it until it is soft but not mushy.  Then top with butter and if you want bread crumbs.  I only add 1 T butter for the entire head of cauliflower, so it's not super buttery.  93 calories/serving for a large head.  We love it this way.

Tomorrow we're having red beans and rice and rolls.