Bacon Mac & Cheese

It's been a minute since my last post, but I'm hoping to be posting more frequently again now that I'm settled in our new house. Yes, the delay in posting is because we bought a house! I have a new, spacious, beautiful kitchen that really lends itself to loads and loads of baking. That said...this post isn't about a baked good. Woops.

I know I've mentioned that when it comes to cooking, I am not really a fan. I love recipes that are quick and easy and require few ingredients. I just don't have the patience for complicated. So, obviously, I love Crockpots. They are the most amazing invention ever. You just throw everything in in the morning before work and when you get home it's done. Yay! This particular recipe isn't an all-dayer, but look for some in the future.

I also love mac & cheese (and honestly, who doesn't?) and was so excited to find this easy Crockpot recipe on the interwebs. I made it as is and it was awesome, but, of course, I decided to step it up and put my own delicious twist on it. Which clearly started with adding bacon.

Bacon Mac & Cheese
1 1/2 cups whole milk
12 ounce can evaporated milk
1/4 cup of butter, melted but cooled to room temperature
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup shredded Italian blend cheese
1 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar
1 1/2 cups shredded regular cheddar
2 cups elbow macaroni 
6 pieces of cooked, chopped bacon
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Grease the inside of the slow cooker with butter. Combine milks, butter, eggs and salt in the slow cooker and whisk until smooth. Add the Italian blend and cheddar cheeses, macaroni and bacon and stir gently until everything is evenly spread/coated. Sprinkle the Parmesan on top. Cover and cook on high for 30 minutes. Reduce to low heat and cook for an additional 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Edges will begin to burn if left in too long.

Lemon Basil Chicken

Mark this recipe under the category of "shit I came up with by looking at what I already had available in my kitchen." It has been snowy and extremely cold this week in Denver and besides making the drive to and from work, I haven't been stopping anywhere along the way (I usually run errands on my way home from work) because I'm trying to reduce the possibility of getting into an accident. Also, it's ridic cold and I don't want to get out of my car more often than is completely necessary.

Note: not an actual photo of what Denver looks like right now

I had defrosted some chicken from the freezer and hadn't prepped/marinated it in anything and was about to just bake in plain but I just couldn't bring myself to do that. I opened the fridge and looked at what was in there and then hit up the spice rack/cabinet. The following was what I was able to come up with. I was pleasantly very surprised at how well this turned out.

Lemon Basil Chicken

2 chicken breasts
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon dried basil
2 teaspoons shredded Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350.

Cut fat off chicken and place in a glass dish. Cover with lemon juice. Sprinkle on garlic salt, basil and cheese. Bake for 30 minutes.

Pumpkin Bread

First, I need to explain why this post is so delayed. Especially since I am so backed up on my posts (and there are quite a few pumpkin treats). But, I feel like I have a very valid excuse. I was on my honeymoon! Yes, I got married over 11 months ago, but when you elope, especially right before Christmas, there's not much time to plan, let alone time for, a honeymoon. So there you have it, my extremely valid excuse for being an absentee blogger.

Wanna look like a rock star this Thanksgiving and not have to do a lot of work for it? Then this, my friends is the recipe for you. It's super easy and super tasty and I was even told it was "better than Starbucks'." Yup. I got the recipe from my favorite high altitude tome. I've made it a few times and it's always a hit!

**Update - In my haste to get this post out, I forgot to include this awesome picture of my friend, Angela, enjoying a piece of pumpkin bread topped with a Frosted Pumpkin Cookie. Apparently it was delicious this way.

Pumpkin Bread

1 3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/4 cups canned pumpkin
1/3 cup water
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups sugar

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine dry ingredients (excluding the sugar) and set aside. In a mixing bowl, mix pumpkin, water, eggs, oil and sugar together until smooth. Add dry ingredients and mix until well combined. Pour into a greased 9x5 loaf pan. Bake for 60-65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Fiesta Chicken

There are two things I almost always have in my fridge - salsa and cheese. I'm not sure why - well, actually, I guess I do know why - because salsa and cheese are awesome. Especially cheese.

But I digress. Anyway, I had chicken and was trying to figure out what I could do to make it delicious. I did my typical fact finding mission by looking through the fridge to see what was in there for me to use. It was hard to miss the gallon of salsa verde (green salsa) and 5 pound bag of shredded Mexican cheese.

I figured it taste great on chicken tacos, so why not just bake with them? It was super easy and ended up tasting great. As mentioned previously, I used salsa verde and Mexican cheese, but you can use any salsa/cheese combination (I'll definitely be experimenting with these). Go nuts. And enjoy another super easy, why-didn't-I-think-of-that? dinner!

Fiesta Chicken

2 chicken breasts

1/4 cup salsa
1/4 cup shredded cheese

Cut fat off of the chicken. Combine chicken with salsa in a large zip locking bag. Shake until chicken is completely covered. Let sit in fridge for 30-45 minutes (or longer).
Preheat oven to 350. Place chicken in a glass dish and sprinkle cheese on top. Bake for 20-40 minutes, depending on size of chicken.

Caesar Chicken

I mentioned before how one of my favorite ways to prepare chicken is to marinate it in dressing. This recipe is probably one of the easiest and it one of my absolute favorites. The chicken and Caesar dressing really compliment each other and the cheese on top just adds a little bit of awesome.

No, this post was NOT sponsored by Kraft

 

Caesar Chicken

2 chicken breasts
1/4 cup Caesar dressing
2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese

Cut fat off of the chicken. Place in a large zip locking bag with dressing. Shake until chicken is completely covered with dressing. Let sit in fridge for 30-45 minutes (or longer).

Preheat oven to 350.

Place chicken in a glass dish. Top with desired amount of Parmesan cheese. Place in oven and cook for 20-40 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken.

Pizza Chicken

This is a super easy and totally customizable dinner option. I've made it simply with just sauce and cheese and it was great. In this version I decided to add some vegetables (because they were in my fridge and I didn't want them to go bad).

I decided to make this recently because I didn't feel like going to the store and didn't want to order out. Also, I've been trying really hard to cook at home more often. Also, I hate wasting food so I wanted to use the leftovers in our fridge. I call it "re-purposing" and it's quite possibly my favorite thing to do (hey, when you are fearful of cooking you gotta try to take the edge off by making it "fun"). 

What I found: marinara sauce left over from cheesy bread we had ordered, half a tomato, 8 stalks (plus or minus 2) of cooked asparagus and mozzarella cheese.

Pizza Chicken

2 chicken breasts
1/4 cup marinara or pizza / tomato sauce
1/4 cup mozzarella cheese
vegetables (optional)

Preheat oven to 350.

Wash chicken and cut off fat. Place into a glass dish. Cover with desired amount of sauce. Add vegetables (if you want). Covered with the desired amount of cheese. Bake in oven for 30-40 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken breast.

Asian Toasted Sesame Chicken

One of my favorite and probably the most simple ways to spruce up chicken is to simply marinate it in salad dressing. Sometimes I'll top it with cheese, sometimes I won't. There are a ton of variations that I've tried and will try that I'll surely share with you in the future.

This variation came about as I was just walking through the aisle at the supermarket looking at the dressings. I saw the whatever dressing and was thought it sounded good and different from what I usually make (which usually leans towards Irish or Italian). That and stir frying is quite terrifying of a concept to me as well as ridiculously time-consuming.

While I was getting ready to prepare the chicken I was like, "dang (okay, let's be serious, I probably did not use the word 'dang' in my head), it would be really awesome if I had sesame seeds. I should have gotten some!" Then in a stroke of brilliance I realized I should check my spice rack (I usually only use the cinnamon, garlic, basil and garlic salt) and lo and behold, I actually did have some. If you don't have any, I'm sure your chicken will be just as good. I don't think it added any flavor, it was just a nice touch, but I could be totally wrong cause I really don't know anything about cooking, which I mentioned previously.

Asian Toasted Sesame Chicken

2 chicken breasts

1/4 cup Asian Toasted Seasame (or something similar) dressing

1/2 tablespoon sesame seeds

Wash the chicken and remove any excess fat. Pour dressing into a large plastic zip locking bag. Place chicken in bag, shake a bunch until the chicken is covered and then let it sit in the fridge for 30-45 minutes (or longer, it doesn't matter). 

Preheat oven to 350. 

Remove chicken from bag and place into a glass baking dish. Top with sesame seeds. Bake for 20-40 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken breasts.

Apple Mustard Pork Chops

Although I enjoy baking, I am not much of a fan of actual cooking. I'm actually pretty terrified of it, if I'm being honest. What, I thought we were in the trust tree in the nest, were we not?

But, since you really can't healthfully live on baked goods and eating out every night gets expensive, I do the bare minimum. If a meal requires more than 5 ingredients, it's not happening.

I've started experimenting and trying different stuff together and so far nobody has died so I thought maybe I'd start sharing some of my creations. They are all super simple and easy and are usually the end result of me just looking through my fridge and pantry to see what I have.

To reiterate, I do not consider myself to be a cook and I actually have quite a fear of cooking. So who better than to show the world that maybe cooking might not be so scary than the girl who is afraid?

I figured I might as well start with what I cooked this week. I'm not typically in the habit of taking pictures while I'm cooking and didn't want to post a recipe without them. I came up with this concoction on the fly and it ended up being quite tasty.

The apple butter and the dijon mustard I used for these pork chops really compliment each other quite nicely and the mixture makes it so that neither overwhelms the other. If you prefer the taste of one over the other you can change the ratio of the apple butter to dijon mustard (50/50 in this version). I'll offer some variations I've tried in the past at the end of the post.


Apple Mustard Pork Chops
2 pork chops
1 1/2 tablespoons apple butter
1 1/2 tablespoons dijon mustard
Planko Japanese style breadcrumbs

Mix together apple butter and mustard in a medium-sized bowl (alternately you can mix them in a large zip lock bag). Dip pork chops into the mixture, one at a time, until fully covered. Place in a large zip lock bag and let sit in the fridge for 30 - 60 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400.

Place breadcrumbs into a medium sized bowl. Dip pork chops into the breadcrumbs until completely covered. Place into a glass dish. Bake in the over 30-40 minutes until thoroughly cooked (depending on the size of the pork chops).

Alternate versions:
Apple Butter Pork Chops:
2 pork chops
3 tablespoons of apple butter
with or without Planko Japanese style breadcrumbs or  regular style breadcrumbs (like Shake 'n Bake)

Cook as directed above.

or

Dijon Mustard Pork Chops:
2 pork chops
3 tablespoons of dijon mustard
with or without Planko Japanese style breadcrumbs or  regular style breadcrumbs (like Shake 'n Bake)

Cook as directed above.