Chicken & Rice Dinner

A Quick & Easy Recipe

I haven't done a recipe in a while, so I decided to break up the hair posts with a quick and good Chicken and Rice recipe! Yeah, I kind of do these recipes for you but I do them for me too. When I forget how to make something, I refer back to my own recipe posts. They come in handy!

Boring to Amazing

Spaghetti

Since cutting out some of the unhealthy foods I eat, I've fallen into a rut of cooking the same foods often. A friend inspired me to spice up my regular old spaghetti recipe...so that's exactly what I did!

The internet is great! I researched different things I could do to turn boring spaghetti into amazing spaghetti and I found this article, which was chocked full of suggestions. Here's what I chose to do:

Ingredients:
~ a little over a pound of ground beef
~ half of a turkey sausage link, diced
~ Ragu Traditional spaghetti sauce
~ half a box of thin spaghetti noodles
~ half an onion, diced
~ a few frozen carrot cubes, thawed
~ 1/2 tbsp. of sugar
~ a few leaves of spinach, chopped
~ a few strings of shredded parmesan cheese
~ 3/4 tbsp. of butter

Instructions:
1. Sauté the diced onions in a little olive oil. I like to season my onions with a bit of salt, pepper, and onion powder for some extra flavor.
2. Add the sausage and allow the sausage the onions to cook together.
3. Before removing that mixture from the pot, add the carrots and allow them all to cook for a few minutes.
4. Remove the mixture from the pot, brown, and drain the ground beef. I seasoned the beef with salt and pepper only. I didn't want to add different seasonings since I was using so many new ingredients.
5. Combine the sausage/onion/carrot mix with the ground beef and add as much or as little spaghetti sauce as you'd like. I used half of a 45 oz. jar.
6. Add sugar and stir. I usually don't use sugar, but my mom does so I knew this would be a small but perfect addition.
7. Simmer for about 20 minutes.
8. Cook noodles.
9. Add spinach and parmesan then stir. The cheese is supposed to make the sauce creamy and rich.
10. Add about 3 tbsp. of pasta water into the spaghetti sauce. This is supposed to bring the flavors together and improve the texture of the sauce.
10. Add butter before serving the sauce. This is supposed to make the sauce rich and smooth...a tip from the professionals!

You want to talk about some good spaghetti?! THIS was some good spaghetti. Introducing a few ingredients to the pot turned boring spaghetti into Amazing Spaghetti! The portion sizes of this recipe are little on the small side. I usually cook a larger pot of spaghetti, but I didn't think I would want to eat spaghetti all week. I cut the portion sizes in half but I was still able to get 4 significantly sized portions out of this. Next time I'm definitely making a bigger pot! Also, if you want to make a homemade spaghetti sauce, these instructions would work well for that!

Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

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Shrimp Fried Rice

Homemade Asian Style

It's been such a long time since I've done a recipe post. I decided to share the dinner I made last night. It's not necessarily quick and it's not necessarily the healthiest BUT it's definitely easy!!

Ingredients

1.5 pounds of large fresh shrimp

1 small green pepper

1 small white onion

Rice-A-Roni Fried Rice

2 eggs

(butter, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, salad supreme)

Steps

1. Take a clean green pepper & peeled onion and dice. Sauté both.

(I like to sauté mine in butter but you can use oil.
I also add salt, pepper, and onion powder to season the veggies)

2. Peel and rinse shrimp. (Use whatever size or frozen if you'd like)

3.  Season the shrimp with salt, pepper, and salad supreme (sounds weird, but it's tasty)!

4. Combine both the veggies and shrimp in the same pan and cook to combine flavors.

5. Cook Rice-A-Roni as instructed.

6. Take the extra step by adding 2 beaten eggs to the same pan as the rice;

scramble the eggs then mix the eggs and rice together
and let them cook together for a few minutes to combine flavors.

...and there you have it. Sometimes you don't want to get super fancy. Yeah, I ate my shrimp with Rice-A-Roni. The shrimp also goes well with oriental-flavored ramen noodles. That's what the kitchen is for...mixing and matching!

What are some unlikely combinations you've put together in your kitchen??

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Loco Moco, Mionna Style

I was browsing the blog world one day and I came across a post at Love Bakes Good Cakes! It was a swing on an a meal I already make. I talked about my Green Bean Casserole in this post. You can see the hamburger, onions, and gravy over rice on the side. This is one of my go-to meals. I love it!! It's so good and such a hearty meal after a long day.

Well...at Love Bakes Good Cakes she posted about this meal called Loco Moco! I had to try it. Here's how I did it!

Ingredients

rice
1 pound of ground beef

1 can of beef gravy

1 white onion
1 egg

salt and pepper

butter

Steps

1. Cook your rice the way you cook your rice
(my boyfriend taught me how to cook rice after many years of doing it incorrectly
so I'm holding it a secret...I will never reveal it!!)
2. Next I cook the hamburger. I begin by seasoning the hamburger meat to taste with salt and pepper.

(some times I'll add an egg or milk with bread crumbs, 

but I like for the hamburger to taste as much like hamburger as possible)

3. Then I'll shape the hamburger and put them in the pan that's been coated with butter

4. I'll cook the hamburger until the outsides are brown, 

then cut each patty in half and let it cook until it's completely done.

5. After the hamburgers are done, I'll take them out of the pan 

and cook the onion in the hamburger juice left over in the pan.

6. I'll then add the canned gravy.

(I know I should make my own gravy, 

but the canned gravy is just as good and much quicker!)

7. I fried and egg in a separate pan, then joined everything on one plate (seen below!)

My version of Loco Moco!

This meal was DE-licious!! During Thanksgiving my mom makes giblet gravy, which includes the leftover parts of the turkey and diced boiled eggs. I love that gravy. I've learned over time that gravy is one of my favorite foods!! LOL. So, when I saw this meal with the egg there, a light bulb turned on. If I love eggs in gravy so much, why not use them in my gravy meals more often?! I even went to Johnny Rockets this past weekend and ordered a Patty Melt with a fried egg on it!! I made chicken and gravy yesterday and guess what?? That's right, I added a boiled egg in it!!! I'm definitely learning a lot about my palate.

I'm recommending you trying this meal out!! If you do, let me know so I can check it out!!

Also, this is my favorite post for the week!! I loved this meal so much,

I can still taste it. It's just something about that egg!!!

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My Sauteed Meal

Good Saturday Morning Mi-ettes & Saturday Morning Coffee-ettes! It is such a beautiful day today and before I get out there and on the road, I figured I would take some time for myself. My friend, Nicole, has been begging me to blog about this recipe, so here goes it!

Sauteed Sausage, Onions, Green Peppers, Squash, & Zucchini 

So, since becoming so overwhelmed, I haven't been putting so much thought into cooking meals. I make something extremely simple or eat out...usually pizza. I was getting tired of that and my appetite wasn't being fed, so I found this on Pinterest. The picture didn't have a link, unfortunately, so I had to improvise. It was very simple and took no time at all.

 

1. Cut up all vegetables (any vegetables you'd like; cut as big or small as you want).

 

2. Oil your pan. Use any type of oil you'd like. I chose butter, because I love butter, plus I feel it cooks things better. Use as much or as little oil as you'd like.

 

3. Cook all vegetables on low heat. Add any seasonings to the vegetables you'd like.

 

4. Cut up sausage (or any meet you choose) as the vegetables cook.

 

5. After vegetables have softened, remove them from the pot.

 

6. Saute sausage (in the juices of the vegetables).

 

7. After sausage has cooked and softened, add the cooked vegetables.

 

8. Cook until both the vegetables and sausage are done and eat over rice.

I ate off this delicious meal for a couple of day. As the vegetables and sausage sat in their own juices each day it was even better! I will be creating a menu for myself shortly so I can take some of the thought out of having to decide what's for dinner. This will definitely be on the list!!

What do you guys think of my self made meal??

Pork Chops in Country Onion Gravy

Another food item I love, along with cheese and broccoli, is ONIONS!!

I finally found a place that sells some pretty decently priced meats. I don't like buying meat in bulk. There are a few reasons for this: 1. I only cook for myself and 2. I prefer cooking fresh meat. I don't like buying meat in bulk, separating it, then storing it in the freezer (for who knows how long). When I cook, I like to be able to eat off the meal for about 2 days at the most. I'm not a big fan of leftovers, so I'm not trying to eat off one meal for a week! My dilemma is that most items in the grocery store are packaged for families, but I always keep an eye out for good single-serving sized items.