Creamy tomato, chicken, and spinach bake

I will do almost anything to get green, leafy vegetables into my child's diet. I think I speak for most moms when I say that I am not above using pasta and cheese in that quest. My husband and I happen to love spinach, so it's what we usually eat most. I threw this dish together one night when I had chicken to cook and wanted to up the nutritional content of just another pasta dish.
As it turned out, it was a wonderful cool weather, comfort dish that didn't last long! 

Creamy tomato, chicken, and spinach bake

Ingredients:

1 lb rigatoni 

3 chicken breasts, cut bite size

8-10 oz mozzarella cheese, shredded

1 bag frozen spinach

1 can petite diced tomatoes

1 29 oz can tomato puree

1 cup heavy cream

1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 yellow onion, diced

2 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1/4 tsp dried oregano

1/3 cup good olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

In a large saucepan, add olive oil and heat to medium. Add diced onion and saute until softened. Add garlic, crushed red pepper, and oregano. Saute 1 minute, then pour in can of diced tomatoes, puree, and sugar. Stir to combine and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 30 minutes over low heat and stirring occasionally, covered, then add spinach, cream, and parmesan. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed. 

In a separate large pot, get water to boil to cook pasta. Add diced chicken into the sauce and allow it to slowly cook while the water boils and pasta cooks.** Cook pasta al dente, drain, and return back to the pot. Pour sauce and chicken over it and stir to combine. 

Pour half the pasta into a large baking dish, sprinkle with half the mozzarella cheese, and repeat with remaining pasta and cheese. 

Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to rest for 5 minutes before serving. Enjoy!

**Important to remember not to taste the sauce after the chicken goes in, as the chicken may only be partially cooked before going into the oven.

Cinnamon Apple Crumble with Sweetened Cream

Apples are just as synonymous with Fall as pumpkins, leaves, and Halloween. Caramel apples, bobbing for apples, apple cider.... awesome apple stuff! This time of year you can usually find good deals on apples in the reduced section of the produce department, and when it happened to me a few days ago, I couldn't pass up the bargain of $1 for a bag of 4 jazz apples. I scooped them up and then spent 10 minutes wandering around the grocery store trying to decide what to do with them. Apple crumble finally came to me and I headed home to start my meatloaf dinner that would be deliciously finished up with a warm yummy apple dish! 

Ingredients: 

6 jazz apples (or any tart, sweet apple) peeled and sliced thin
3/4 tsp cinnamon
5 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 orange, juiced
1 tbsp flour
pinch of kosher salt

Crumble:
1 stick softened butter
1/2 cup oats
2/3 cup flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Optional topping:
3/4 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

In a large bowl, combine all apple filling ingredients and allow to sit for roughly 20 minutes. Stir occasionally to allow sugar to dissolve and juices to come together. 

In another bowl with a mixer, mix all the crumble ingredients until it is coarse and crumbly. 

Pour apples and all liquid into a baking dish and spread out evenly. By hand, crumble the oat mixture over the top until evenly distributed and mostly covering the apples. 

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the crumble has crisped up and is golden brown like the first picture shown. Rest for approximately 15 minutes before serving. 

For the sweetened cream, stir the powdered sugar and cream together and once the crumble is served, pour a bit of cold cream over the top. This dessert would also be delicious with vanilla ice cream. Enjoy! 

Seared Pork Chops and Dijon Pan Sauce

Frying, stuffing, and baking pork chops are all ways you see chops hitting dinner tables at home. I ate a lot of pork chops as a kid (yeah Mom, you know we ate way too many haha) and I spent several years not eating them at all for what I considered as their lack of versatility and boring nature. Now I'm an adult and more advanced as a cook and in my preferred tastes. Pork chops are a lean, tasty way to have a protein on your plate for little money and dietary fat. In an attempt to make some thick cut, boneless chops more worthy of dinner party status, I created this recipe that is both perfect for a weeknight dinner and to feed to company.

The special feature of this dish is definitely the pan sauce. It takes no special skill, ingredients, or time to whip this sauce up in the same pan that the chops cooked in, but it MAKES the plate and sets these pork chops apart from the rest. 

Ingredients: 

6 thick cut chops (boneless is my preference)

ground mustard

onion powder

garlic powder

salt and pepper

2 tbsp olive oil

2 cups chicken or beef stock

1 tbsp apple cider or white wine vinegar

1 tbsp dijon mustard

2 tbsp heavy cream 

Season both sides of each chop with the spices and salt and pepper according to your taste, minimally so with mustard because it's quite strong.

In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Lay the chops into the pan and do not disturb them. You will cook them for about 3 minutes per side, making sure not to push them around in the pan as they will release from the bottom when they are sufficiently browned. Like this: 

Once the chops have reached an internal temperature of 155-160 degrees (they will rest and cook a bit more and even this puts them more to the well done territory if you worry about that sort of thing) put them on a plate and cover with foil to allow them to rest. Your pan will look like this: 

Combine stock and vinegar, and without reducing the heat, pour in your stock and whisk until you've deglazed and removed all the yummy bits from the pan. Simmer and reduce nearly by half, then reduce heat to medium low. Whisk in dijon mustard until it's perfectly incorporated. Simmer an additional minute. 

Whisk in cream and simmer an additional 2 minutes, remove from heat. Sauce will be thin but is the perfect consistency for drizzling over your pork chops. Enjoy!

Cheesy Potato and Ham Quiche

I decided last night I would check quiche off the list of things I had tasted and cooked. I usually don't try and make up recipes for things I have never even eaten before, but it couldn't be too hard, right? I lucked out. This was so delicious and even my 2 year old ate a whole piece. Enjoy! 

Cheesy Potato and Ham Quiche 

Ingredients:

Pie crust-
1 1/2 cups flour
1 stick cold salted butter, cut into cubes
1/4 tsp salt
5 tbsp ice cold water, possibly more

Filling-
4 eggs
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 cup diced ham steak
1 large white potato, diced
1/2 cup shredded cheddar
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella
2 green onions, chopped
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp canola oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Start the pastry in a large rounded bowl by adding flour, cubed butter, and salt. With a pastry cutter, work the butter into the flour until it is pea sized. Slowly pour water in a couple tablespoons at a time until the dough just comes together. Try not to use your hands much because you want this dough to stay cold. Once the dough comes together, wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

While that's chilling, par boil your potatoes until about half cooked. Next, pour the oil into your skillet and bring to medium heat. Add your diced ham and cook until well browned. Remove from the oil and add in the drained potatoes and saute until they get a little browned. Set aside to cool a bit. Whisk eggs, cream, and salt/pepper. 

On a well floured surface, roll your pastry out to approximately a 1/4 inch thickness, or to the point that it is an extra inch around the size of your pie dish. Transfer over to the dish and crimp edges, lay foil or parchment into the bottom, and pour in some beans (you won't want to use these beans after blind baking) to keep the pie shell from rising during the first bake. Bake the shell for 10-12 minutes or until the edges start to get a light golden color. Remove from the oven and remove the beans and foil.

Once the shell has had a chance to cool a bit, pour in half your potatoes, ham, and then cheese. Top with half your egg mixture. Add remaining potatoes, ham, egg mixture, and top with cheese and green onion. Give the dish a little jiggle to help the custard settle into all the nooks of ham and potatoes.

Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes and the quiche is set. Allow to rest for 8-10 minutes before cutting into it and serving. 

*If your ham has water added, press it dry really well with a paper towel before browning. All the extra water and juices can burn to the bottom of your pan. 

French Onion Green Beans

Green beans. I ate so many of them growing up that I swore them off for roughly a decade. Now that I'm an adult (in most ways), I have to put thought into eating vegetables and you can only eat so many green things cooked a handful of ways before you're just burned out and bankrupt of ideas. I had seen a recipe on Food Network's site where Tyler Florence had used caramelized onions in a green bean dish and I got inspired to write a recipe that transformed green beans into something even I would love. Hope you enjoy!

Ingredients:
12 oz bag of frozen green beans
1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced into strips
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp butter
a pinch of dried thyme
2 tbsp of Sherry*
1/2 cup hot water
1 tsp beef base**
salt and pepper to taste

Dissolve beef base into hot water and set aside.

In a large skillet, melt butter and oil together over medium low heat and add onion. Sprinkle 1/2 tsp salt and thyme over and toss together. Keep the heat at the same temperature and slowly cook the onions, stirring occasionally, until they are soft and golden brown (about 15 minutes; you don't want them to brown on the edges, it needs to be a low and steady softening/browning).



Once your onions look about like this, pour in the sherry and stir until it has reduced almost completely. Turn heat up to medium and pour in your beef stock. Add frozen green beans and toss/cook until most of the liquid is absorbed and the green beans are tender yet still a little crunchy. At this time, taste and season with salt and pepper accordingly. 
 
*If you don't keep sherry around, much like I don't, you can buy cooking sherry in the grocery store where you find all your different vinegar. 
**Beef base is usually in the grocery store where you find bouillon and comes in a short little jar. If for some reason you can't locate it, beef bouillon (1 cube) dissolved in water will suffice. You just don't want to use beef stock because it will provide too much liquid to the recipe.