Shrimp Spaghetti Marinara

I work at an Italian restaurant and the other day I had some customers who came in who I seriously thought were food critics. The woman ordered spaghetti marinara and added shrimp and I thought I was going to throw up thinking about how absolutely disgusting it sounded. And then I saw the dish! You wanna talk about some delicious looking food? Yeah, it looked awesome. I then started talking to my customers about the dish and how good it looked when the lady told me that she makes this at home quite frequently. Of course, being the foodie I am, I started thinking of ways that I could make marinara at home.

Yesterday, my brain started going ninety to nothing on how I was going to pull of Shrimp Spaghetti Marinara. I looked through about 20 different recipes to try to find something I wanted and was getting frustrated because I couldn't find anything I liked. Like always, I got frustrated with it and decided to wing it. I was impressed with my outcome.

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb spaghetti pasta

1/2 cup olive oil

1 1/2 lbs uncooked shrimp

1 28 oz can peeled plum shaped tomatoes (diced tomatoes are fine too)

1 28 ox can puree tomatoes

1 8 oz can tomato sauce

2 garlic cloves minced

1/2 onion diced

1 tsp cayenne pepper

parsley

oregano

basil

salt

pepper

a couple of splashes of Frank's Hot Sauce


PREPARATION:

I started by sauteing my onions in about 3 tablespoons of olive oil. I let the onions sauteing for about a minute and a half before adding the garlic to saute. Once I threw in my garlic I let that saute for about another minute and a half. 

Once the onions and garlic were sauteed enough, I added the entire can of peeled tomatoes, about 3/4 the can of pureed tomatoes, and the entire can of tomato sauce. I then smashed up all of the whole tomatoes (which is why I say you can use diced tomatoes. I only used the whole tomatoes because they were Italian style). to where the sauce was a little clumpy, but not too much. 

Next, I added my spices and lots of olive oil. I don't know exactly how much basil, oregano, and parsley I used, but I expect it to be about 1 tablespoon or basil, 1 1/2 teaspoons of parsley, and about 1/2 a teaspoon of oregano. The cayenne pepper is optional, but I wanted a spicy marinara so I made I added a lot.

Once I got my sauce to the flavor I liked, I let it simmer for about an hour. I tasted it quite frequently because when simmering, the flavors settle and I had to just the spices more to my liking.

About 3/4 of the way through simmering, I started sauteing my shrimp. I sauteed the shrimp in a few tables spoons of olive oil with salt and garlic added.

Once my shrimp was done I added it to the sauce. I wouldn't do this again though because the sauce had a fishy flavor to it. Next time I will keep the shrimp separated and save the marinara for other things. I really like my marinara and I will definitely be making it again. Even Stacy thought it was really good, and he doesn't even like spicy food.

Here is my finished product. I'm extremely satisfied with the way it turned out and I will be making this again without the shrimp (because Stacy doesn't like seafood). I will also be using this marinara in other dishes and I'm very excited that it turned out so well on my first time making it!!!

Happy eating!

Poppy Seed Chicken

The first time I ever had Poppy Seed Chicken, if I am not mistaken, was at Stacy's (my fiance) family reunion a few years back. I didn't even know what it was; all I know is that it was good! I always look forward to going to the family reunions, especially for that dish! Here recently I went to a "meat and three" in Wetumpka which is a small town a few minutes from my home. I ordered Poppy Seed Chicken for my daughter not even knowing what in the world I was ordering. When the dish came to my table and I tasted it for Autumn to see if she would like it, I immediately ordered some for myself. Point of the story? I love Poppy Seed Chicken. It has so much flavor and my family loves it.

The first time I made this dish I looked online for a bunch of different recipes, like I always do, and tried to make my own but they're almost all the same. I don't like being the same as everyone else, in case you didn't know, so I tried to come up with a different recipe. The first time was awesome, the second time was better, and the third time was almost perfect!

Here's what I did:

I used the basic recipe with a couple of little twists.

INGREDIENTS:

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts

2 cans cream of chicken soup

10 oz sour cream

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 tsp garlic

2- 3 tbsp poppy seeds

3/4 cup melted butter

1 1/2 sleeves Ritz crackers

salt and pepper for taste


PREPARATION:

I first started preheating my oven to 350 degrees and then by cutting my chicken into one inch cubes. Once all the chicken was cut up, I threw it into boiling water and let it cook for about 20 minutes. on med-low heat.  

While my chicken was boiling  I made the sauce that would go over the chicken. I mixed the cream of soups, sour cream, cheese, garlic, salt, pepper, and about a tablespoon of poppy seeds into a small mixing bowl.

Once the chicken was done, I shredded it with my fingers and spread it out into a greased casserole dish. While some people like to keep their chicken cubed, I prefer to cube and then shred mine because I like the chicken in every bite I take once it's on my plate. I learned this time around that cubing the chicken made it easier for me to shred the chicken with my fingers and was less time consuming because the pieces were much smaller to shred!

My next step is to merely spread the soup mixture on top of the shredded chicken.

After all of the soup mixture was spread evenly, I crumbled up a sleeve and a half of Ritz crackers and evenly distributed them over the soup mixture. Once the crackers were evenly spread, I poured my melted butter slowly and evenly  over the crackers making sure to have butter on almost every piece of cracker. 

Lastly, I sprinkled about two tablespoons of poppy seeds on top of the Ritz crackers. I then stuck my dish into my preheated oven for 30 minutes.

Here is my final product. I typically serve my chicken on top of white rice and eat it like that, but this plate was for one of the children who came over to eat so I had to separate it.

This recipe is sure to be a crowd-pleaser! I ended up being able to serve four adults and four children with this dish and still have about two servings left over. It's so good and has become a regular entree in our household. I try not to make it very often because, like every dish, if you eat it too much you're going to get tired of it and no one in my family wants to get tired of this. It's that good! :)

Steak and Shrimp Kabobs & Stuffed Mushrooms

The other night was the last night one of my very best friends, Cindi, had in Montgomery before going off to BFE (just kidding) for two months so I wanted to make her dinner. The original plan was to cook rice, kabobs, squash, and stuffed mushrooms, but I got bored with it so I made Christina's Stuffed Mushrooms, and my own special kabobs.

I must first start by telling you about Christina and how friggin fabulous she is! You can find her website at http://www.dinneratchristinas.com/. Almost all of her recipes are original and are to die for! Every time I have ever made her stuffed mushroom recipe, I giggle to myself because they're one of the most wonderful appetizers I've ever put into my mouth and she hates mushrooms. I don't know how she came up with this recipe, but you have to try them. Man, they're good! It's not only this recipe that I've absolutely loved, but also her Mexican Shredded Pork, too! Anyway, enough about Christina; she's gonna steal all the fame one day! ;)

As for the kabobs-- These things were sooo damn time consuming, but were well worth the wait!

Marinade:

I'm gonna go ahead and tell you guys. I'm not one to measure the ingredients I put into my recipes. On all of my past posts, the've been approximate, so bare with me and use your imaginations if you're going to copy these recipes to a T!

You'll need:

Soy sauce

Worchestershire sauce

Garlic powder

Onion powder

Thyme

1-2 limes


I can tell you that I used half of the worchestershire compared to that of the soy sauce. In other words, don't use much worchestershire. :)

Once I made the marinade, I threw my meats and vegetables into it.

Ingredients for kabobs:
One BA sirloin steak (I think mine was like 1 1/2 to 2 lbs)

3/4 pound of shrimp

2 zucchini

1 extra large purple onion

2 packs of fresh mushrooms

2 large bell peppers



I cut all of my vegetables except, of course, the mushrooms into one inch cubes as best as I could. I marinated the meat in one bowl of marinade and the vegetables in another bowl of the same kind of marinade for a good two hours. Once the vegetables and meats were marinated enough, I just put them onto the bamboo skewers and threw them on the grill for about 5-6 minutes on each side.

The only thing that I urge is that you wait to cook the shrimp lastly because they cook very quickly and you don't want them tough and rubbery. The grill should be cooled down towards the end of cooking the steak kabobs and this is when the grill should be just perfect for cooking the shrimp.

 You see all these dang kabobs I made? I think there were about 25-30. There were only 4 1/2 people eating off of them and I only had two left the next morning. I was pretty proud. We'll definitely be making these agin!

Avocado Salsa

Okay, okay. You've got me. This isn't my recipe, but it's so good that I thought I would post it on my blog.


My coworker let me try this on one of my first days working there and I fell in love with it. When I saw her making it the other day, I took notes and made it! I thought I would share it with you guys, so here it is!

INGREDIENTS:

1 onion, chopped

3 avocados, chopped

1 small bundle of fresh cilantro, chopped


1 large tomato, diced

1-2 jalapeno, finely minced

2 limes

salt and pepper to taste



PREPARATION:

It's pretty much as easy as that. Once everything is chopped and minced, just mix it all together, squeeze the lime juice into it, add the salt a pepper, and well... that's it! You're done!

It's very yummy. I hope you all love it as much as I do!

After I let mine chill in the fridge for about an hour, I tasted it and I didn't like the texture as much as I thought I should, so that's when I added my third avocado. I've been eating it all day today and the texture is much, much better. Like many of you, I am not a big fan of avocados, but this recipe has made me able to tolerate them.

Enjoy!

Lumpia (Filipino egg rolls)

Drum roll, please...

You guys kept asking for it, and here you have it! This is one of the most famous Filipino dishes amongst Americans, next to Adobo. I have had so many people ask me for this recipe, but up until a couple of weeks ago, I'd never attempted it on my own. My mother and I used to roll the egg rolls together and I always use to enjoy fixing this with her. I remember her using the recipe as a way to make a little extra money because everyone absolutely loved her egg rolls.

A couple of weeks ago, I went on a big Filipino cooking kick (for lack of a better word) and I tried everything from lumpia to mungo beans to pancit. I loved the way every single one of the recipes turned out but since this is such a popular one, I figured I would share this now.

This recipe means  a lot to me because, like I said, my mother use to make it with me and it was kind of our bonding time, so it was very hard for me to decide whether or not I would share this. Even now, I'm having second thoughts. :) After doing a little research, I got an idea of exactly how my mom did hers. It brought tears to my eyes when I tasted it and it tasted just like hers. Proud is an understatement!

INGREDIENTS:

1 LB Ground beef

2 Cups cabbage, thinly sliced

1 cup shredded carrots, shredded

1/2 onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, crushed

3-4 tbsp soy sauce

salt and pepper to taste

1 package lumpia wrappers

Vegetable oil

PREPARATION:

If your lumpia wrappers (which, by the way, you can find at the Oriental Market or any Asian market) are frozen, you want to let them thaw out for at least two hours. While I was letting mine thaw out, I went to the grocery store to kill time and clean up. Just so you know, I was pretty excited about making lumpia again! :)

After getting everything chopped, sliced, and ready to go, go ahead and start cooking your ground beef. You're going to need a pretty large frying pan or wok to get all of the ingredients in there, so be prepared!

When the ground beef is no longer pink, drain off most of the grease and throw in the rest of the vegetables, soy sauce, and salt and pepper. Let the vegetables cook for about 5-8 minutes over medium heat. You don't want the cabbage and carrots soft because (as stated several times before) I like the vegetables with a crunch. You definitely want these vegetables to be a little raw because when you begin to fry the egg rolls, the vegetables with cook a little more.

Now for the hard part: pulling the egg roll wrappers apart one by one. Believe me, it's a pain in the rear! Just make sure that when you are pulling the wrappers apart, start from one corner or edge, and slowly, and I do mean very slowly pull the wrapper back. If you do it too fast, you're going to rip it!

After all of the wrappers are pulled apart, you're going to start filling them. I usually put about three small spoonfuls in the middle of the wrapper.

Next you're going to fold the wrapper up and over the filling. You're going to want to use very gentle movements with your fingers so that you don't tear the wrapper, which is very easy to do!

Now you're going to gently fold the right side (or left, whichever you feel more comfortable with) over and you'll do the other side exactly the same.

Once your wrapper looks somewhat like an envelope, you're going to want to secure your egg roll. When I secure my egg rolls, I use a small bowl (about 1/4 of a cup) of vegetable oil, get my fingers wet with the oil, and wet the edge of the egg roll wrapper with it. The oil is used as an adhesive to keep the wrapper together. Once this is wet enough, I roll my egg roll up and lay it edge-down in my casserole dish so that the weight of the egg roll will keep it from coming open.

This recipe should make right at about 25 egg rolls.

After I'm done making all of my egg rolls, I like to freeze mine overnight. You don't have to do this, but I do it because I know that the wrappers will be completely secured and they're much less likely to bust open while frying.

When I'm ready to fry my lumpia, I usually put about a cup or so of vegetable oil in a frying pan and fry them like that. There are several ways that you can fry an egg roll, but this is the way I prefer to do it. I usually let them fry on each side for about one minutes turning them 3 or 4 times until each side of the egg roll is golden brown. Be careful and make sure you watch them closely because they burn quickly! Not that I would know, of course! ;)

This last picture is the sauce that I like to use with my egg rolls. It's actually a Thai sauce! My family introduced this to me a few weeks ago when I went to their house for dinner. It's delicious! I have an egg roll sauce recipe that my mother used to make me make for our guests when they would come over, but I haven't made it in years so I am going to hold off on tell you guys how to make it right now.

I really hope you all enjoy recipe as much as we do. Even my fiance (who, by the way, is one of the pickiest eaters I have ever met) told me it's the second best egg roll he's ever had, so I was definitely happy with the results!

*Note: I don't mind anyone messaging me and commenting on my Facebook statuses about the recipes, but my blog doesn't look like it's getting any love. Only I can see the awesome amount of traffic it's getting when I look at my stats, so please comment here too! It'd make me super happy! Thanks! :) :) :)*

Spinach stuffed chicken

This is one of my absolute favorite recipes and the reason being is because I completely and solely made this recipe on my own with my own imagination, and it turned out great! I came about this recipe for the first time when a friend of mine was telling me how he has stuffed chicken with spinach before. Now to me, just plain spinach in a chicken didn't sound very appetizing so I did a good bit of research to find a recipe that suited my taste, and I couldn't find anything! I finally decided to experiment and I was very happy with the results!

INGREDIENTS:


4    BONELESS SKINLESS CHICKEN BREASTS


3    CUPS (ABOUT) OF SPINACH CHOPPED


1/2 ONION CHOPPED


1 1/2 OUNCE CREAM CHEESE


1/2 TEASPOON GARLIC POWDER


3    TABLESPOONS FETA CHEESE


3    TABLESPOONS PARMESAN CHEESE


8    SLICES OF BACON


1    TABLESPOON OLIVE OIL


SALT AND PEPPER TO TASTE




PREPARATION:


Alright, so before I tell you how to properly stuff the chicken breast, I have to tell you how I stuffed the chicken breast the first time I did this recipe. Up until the other day, I was wondering why on earth my food turned out so messy when I stuffed my chicken. It's because I really wasn't even stuffing my chicken to begin with. I was rolling it. Yes, rolling it-- let me explain.


I would start by pounding out my chicken breast with whatever that hammer looking thing is that you use to pound your meats with (don't judge me... my kitchen vocabulary isn't proper, obviously). After I got my chicken really thin, I would spoon the stuffing on into the middle and roll the chicken. (No, I am NOT kidding.) I would then secure the chicken by wrapping it with bacon and poking toothpicks all throughout it. Folks: Don't try this at home! It's disastrous!


Now if you're laughing at me, I certainly don't blame you. The mess I made with that was something I still laugh about now. So I get it! Laugh on!

Now I will tell you the proper way to stuff the chicken breast. It's so much easier and much less messy! :) I start off by sauteing the onions and spinach. Once the spinach has the bright green color (which won't take long at all) , remove from heat and pour into a mixing bowl. Then add the garlic, all cheeses, salt, and pepper. It's okay to taste test this and add until you get to the flavor that you like.

Now for the Rachael Ray way of stuffing chicken. You start by inserting a pairing knife into the fattest, plumpest part of the chicken and going into the chicken about 3/4 of the way down. Next, twist the knife a couple of times so there is enough room to stick your fingers inside of the chicken so that you can loosen it up enough to insert the stuffing. Your hole should look something like the hole in this picture.

After making a hole deep enough and big enough to add the stuffing, I began with a spoon full of stuffing and tried to insert it. For me, it didn't work out well so I just got my hands clean and started stuffing the breast with my fingers. Once the breast is stuffed as much as possible, I wrap the breast with two pieces of bacon.

Once all chicken breasts are stuffed and wrapped, place them in a casserole dish and bake them at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Your chicken should be a light golden color and your bacon should be well done.

I also served my chicken with yellow squash and this smashed potatoes recipe from Giada at Home. I must say, this is a very delicious dinner. Everything compliments one another and  the chicken is to die for!