Oven-baked Parmesan Chicken

This title is misleading. Instead of eating this with spaghetti, it probably should be paired with straight side dishes because it tastes a little too summery for spaghetti (or we just put too much lemon juice on them).


This recipe was super easy and fast. And it doesn't have a lot of ingredients, so even more points for it.


Results: yummy. We'll definitely make this again.


Recipe:
**so apparently this recipe book is from Australia (or at least it is according to the copywrite page), so all the measurements are in oz and grams. So that translated into a lot of dumping and saying "that looks about right" even though we had no idea if it was right or not. So it's not my fault that I have no idea how much of each item we used.**


- 2 oz breadcrumbs 
- 3 oz parmesan cheese, finely grated 
- 2 spring onions, finely chopped (we figured these were green onions. it worked)
- some lemon zest and lemon juice (about half a lemon...at least thats what we used)
- 4 tbsp butter, melted
- 4 chicken boobies (we actually used thighs and it worked fine)


1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees (or, much to my confusion, 190 degrees C, which is what it listed first, and considering our oven starts at 200, I was very confused). 
2. In a small bowl, mix breadcrumbs, cheese, butter, onion, lemon rind (so basically make a paste). Smear on top of chicken.
3. Cook for about 20 minutes, or however long it takes to cook the chicken and melt the cheese. About 5 minutes before taking them out, Jeff pulled them out and doused them with mozzarella cheese, just to be sure.
4. When you pull them out of the oven, squeeze lemon juice over them. Then eat them.


Everyday Cooking, p160

Jeff loves me a lot

This is what I woke up to on Valentine's Day. Which makes these even that much more special because he waited for me to go bed before even starting, so he was baking at midnight. 


So what you're looking at are Red Velvet Rice Crispy Treats with Chocolate Chips and Cream Cheese frosting. And I can't really tell you anything about the process on how to make them, since I was sleeping. This is what I can tell you:

• Jeff learned that night that cookie cutters he was using had a wrong side and right side. He learned this after about the 4th one.
• Jeff also learned that when making a bag of frosting, dont use the cheap fold over ones, but an actual ziplock. Otherwise you get frosting everywhere.
• Jeff actually found this recipe a couple of months ago and emailed it to himself.
• They were SO GOOD. I ate three the first day. And considering how rich they are, that's impressive.

Recipe: http://foodfamilyfinds.com/red-velvet-rice-krispies-treats-hearts-for-valentines-day/

Chicken & Stuffing...in a Crockpot

This was one of Jeff's meals of the week, and it was interesting. We were very intrigued by the list of ingredients and how it would all come together. 


Sidenote: this was the first time we left the crockpot on in the apartment and went back to work. I was pretty sure we would come home to either an apartment full of smoke or no apartment at all.


Result: Quasi-good. It really needed a crunch and didn't have one. Also, the stuffing was a little too soggy for our taste. So all-in-all, it probably would have been better if we had just made chicken and stuffing separate. But that's what experiments are for right?


Recipe:
4 chicken boobies
one 10 oz can cream of mushroom soup (the recipe says you can use either cream of celery, chicken, or mushroom)
1/3 cup milk
1 pkg stuffing mix (we found this unit of measurement very disconcerting and after telling the book off, picked the Stove Top box that is normal 2 person size, not the massive Thanksgiving box (although I fully endorse homemade stuffing for Thanksgiving and basically think it's crazy if you don't make it from scratch on Thanksgiving). also the recipe actually says "stuffing mix and seasoning packet, but ours was apparently pre-mixed, because we had no seasoning packet)
1 2/3 cup water


1. put chicken in pot
2. mix soup and milk. pour over chicken
3. mix stuffing mix and water (and seasoning packet if provided). spoon over chicken (so basically make a layer of stuffing over the chicken)
4. cover and cook on high 1 hour, low for 4-6 


also, note: the stuffing will basically cement itself to the side of the crockpot, so start soaking that puppy immediately after the food is out of it. 

Baked Ziti

I love the fact that Italian food is basically the same 5 ingredients just mixed together in different ways (the same principle applies to Mexican food). So I was looking for new ways to mix them together (and really had a hankering for ricotta cheese) and stumbled upon this. One reason it intrigued me: the recipe was sized out for a small army. And who doesn't love Italian leftovers? Another reason: it had sausage in it. I don't usually cook with sausage, so I thought it would be interesting to try.


Result: amazingness. I've actually made this three times now, it's so good (yes, we're that behind on posting). What I've learned from these different attempts:

• use sausage. it makes all the difference. The second time I did it I used ground beef and it wasn't as awesome.
• the more garlic the better (but I think everyone knew that already)
• it tastes better with smaller onion chunks, and since I love big slices of onion in my spaghetti sauce, I was surprised by the revelation
• use as much cheese as you want. Do not skimp. Also, I have never measured the noodles out. I just dump until it looks good.

I basically followed the recipe, except for one thing. Instead of following the guy's instructions on the sauce, I just made sauce like we were going to eat straight spaghetti, which had a few different ingredients. The first time I made it Jeff walked in when I was cooking noodles and making sauce and said "How is this different from regular spaghetti?" I then told him about the pounds of cheese I was going to add and he approved.


Recipe: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/baked_ziti/ (I'm being lazy today, so this is what you get).