Chicken Skewers

Today since it was quite nice outside, I decided upon a simple tasty dish for lunch. I looked in my fridge and found that I had some Chicken that needed to be cooked soon and thought that skewers were something I have not had in quite awhile.

Ingredients:
1 lb Chicken Breast, cubed
7-10 sm Bamboo Skewers
1/2 cup Caesar Italian Salad Dressing
1/2 cup Italian Roast Red Pepper Salad Dressing
Olive Oil
2 Scallions, diced

I began by cubing the Chicken. This works a little better when you freeze the chicken, or get it close to frozen, and cut it then. I find it a lot easier to cut then.



I got the two bottles of Salad Dressing.



I poured them in with the cubed Chicken. Mix together. Put in fridge for about 30 minutes. You could probably leave out of the fridge, it's up to you.



Now get your Bamboo Skewers and soak them in water. This tends to make them less likely to burn or splinter during this entire process. You can leave them in water for an hour if you would like, however I only left them in for about 15 minutes.



Now once you are ready around 15 minutes later, use your Skewers to put 3 or 4 pieces of Chicken on each Skewer.



Now using a saucepan put in some Olive Oil and turn the heat to MEDIUM.



My saucepan is a bit deeper than usual saucepans and most likely has a different name but I treat it like a saucepan. Anyways, I put four Skewers in at first.



Once they are done, which I tested by cutting open one as the cooking process went on. I turned them over every few minutes in an attempt at a thorough cooking.

So I took them off once they were cooked properly and plated them. To them I added a diced Scallion. Enjoy.

Lentil Soup x2

Lentil Soup is a very easy and tasty dish to make. I made it two different ways and will have both represented here. Originally I made a simplified version only consisting of Lentils and Onions. The second version has more in it. I will explain Version 1 first and follow it with Version 2.

Ingredients:
Version 1:
1 White Onion
1 cup Red/Orange Lentils
1 cup Green Lentils
Italian Seasoning
Celery Salt
Perfect Pinch Cajun
Garlic Salt
6 cups Water
1/4 stick Sun Dried Tomato Basil Butter

I began by getting my spices together.

I then got out my White Onion and proceeded to dice it up.

Oh my, found some tasty Butter to caramelize the Onion in.

Now put Onions in with the melting Butter.

Once Onions are caramelized, add in 2 cups of Lentils.

Pour in your water.

Let it cook, stirring once in awhile, until done. The Lentils will be like little sponges and soak up almost all of the water.

I served this on Wild Rice with some shredded Cheese on top. Enjoy.

Version 2:
1 White Onion
1 cup Red/Orange Lentils
1 cup Green Lentils
Italian Seasoning
Celery Salt
Perfect Pinch Cajun
Garlic Salt
Ground Black Pepper
6 Celery stalks
8 Sm Carrots
1/4 stick Butter
6 cups Water

Alright, this recipe mainly follows Version 1 with a few changes.

First off, like no pictures. Sorry but it's sort of redundant. You begin by dicing up your Onions, Carrots, and Celery stalks.

Then you caramelize the Onions in regular Butter.

Add in the diced up Carrots and Celery when the caramelization begins. Stir together thoroughly.

Add in Lentils once Carrots soften up a bit.

Add in Water at same time. Stir.

Once Lentils are soft enough to eat, turn off heat and serve. Enjoy.

Homemade Arrabbiata Sauce w/Penne

Arrabbiata Sauce is an Italian angry tomato sauce. I say angry because you use a lot of peppers instead of focusing on tomatoes. You usually serve with pasta...which is what I did here.

Ingredients:
2 Roma Tomatoes
2 Greenhouse Tomatoes
4 small Jalapeno Peppers
2 Caribe Peppers
3 Poblano Peppers
2 Anaheim Peppers
1/2 cup Vegetable Broth
1 can Tomato Paste

Alright, I began by slicing and dicing up my Tomatoes. I put these in my deep saucepan first and set the heat to MEDIUM.

I then diced the Jalapeno's up and tossed them in.

Then the same with the Caribe's.

The Poblano's.

Finally the Anaheim's.

Now I added in the Vegetable Broth and stirred everything around. I then added in the Tomato Paste. Do your best to stir this in. It won't happen 100% but the cooking process will take care of that. Cover.

About 10 minutes later it should look like this. I turned off the heat now.

Let sit for about 5 minutes. Then use a food processor or blender to puree. I used a blender. I cooked up some Penne Pasta as well for it to go with. As I created this dish for my lunch while I'm at work during the week, I put in a small tupperware with a sprinkle of Asiago Cheese on top. Enjoy..I know I will.

Dehydrated Apples

I know a lot of people buy these as snacks since they are healthy and tasty. I also know that you can make them yourself. Luckily for me, I already had a food dehydrator so that makes this really easy.

Ingredients:
6 Apples

I know, I know. That's a lot of ingredients. I used 3 different kinds to vary the flavor up.

I began by cutting them up and peeling them.

I then placed them on the racks in the food dehydrator.

Now, once you fill it up with your slices of appels, you turn it on.

Pretty difficult, eh? About two hours later or so they should start to be ready. It really depends on how thin you slice them and preference on their consistency. I took one rack worth of them off since they were done while the other two were not, so they stayed on for another hour. Enjoy!

I just took them off and put them in a ziploc bag that I put in the fridge.

Chicken Caesar Salad

This dish is a very very simple recipe to throw together when you want something quick and easy. I decided to do this a couple days ago and finally got around to it for dinner this evening.

Ingredients:
1 cup Italian Caesar Salad Dressing (FAT FREE)
1 lb Chicken Breast
Salad Mix
Bacon Bits
Parmesan/Romano Cheese Mix
Olive Oil

Alright, seems quite simple doesn't it?

Well that's because it is!

The marinade is literally just the Italian Caesar Salad Dressing. That's it. Boom, so easy. I put it in a bag due to the ease of marinating the Chicken in it.

I cut the Chicken up into smaller strips so it would cook faster and absorb the marinade quicker. Then into the marinade the Chicken goes!

I put a saucepan on the stovetop and turned the heat to medium. I added in a drizzle of Olive Oil.

About 15 seconds after turning the heat on, I poured the marinade and Chicken into the saucepan.

I turned the Chicken strips over about 2 minutes later.

This is what the look like when done. Total cook time should take about 6 minutes, but check to be sure by cutting one of the pieces open.

After they were done I turned off the heat and got my Salad Mix out. It is a simple Salad Mix from the store so I did nothing more than take it out of the container, wash it, and plate it. To this I added some Bacon Bits (fake bacon but tasty) which the Chicken went on top of. Topped with a healthy dose of Parmesan/Romano Cheese Mix. Enjoy.

Chef's Original: Lunch for Work!

This is a dish I threw together last week and have since repeated as it is amazing for lunch on a workday. It began as a rough idea of throwing some things together. Namely, quinoa and peas. However, this changed to include a few more ingredients.

Ingredients
1 box Small Shell Pasta
1 cup Frozen Peas
1 cup Frozen Corn
2 cup Quinoa
Sea Salt
Italian Herb Mix
Shredded Asiago Cheese

I began this by filling my deep saucepan with water for the Pasta. I then put a dash of Sea Salt in the water and turned the heat to HIGH and covered it. I also turned the heat to MEDIUM for the Peas and Corn to start them cooking.

Now I turned to the Quinoa portion of this recipe. This part is made simple by use of a Rice Cooker. If you do not have one of these, I strongly suggest investing in one to suit your needs. I measured out the 2 cups of Quinoa and put it in the Rice Cooker.

Then I put in the 2.5 cups of Water that is required. Then plug the Rice Cooker in and push the level to COOK. Now let it be. You might need to let out some steam later on though, it does tend to bubble over a little bit with Quinoa.

Now turn to your pot of water for the Pasta. It should be boiling or close to it. Add in the entire box of Small Shell Pasta. Make sure they all sink. No, I am not sure why you should do this but I do it and so should you. It's what all the cool kids do...

Now that the Pasta is cooking, you might want to turn the heat down a little bit to around MEDIUM. I added in 2 large pinches of Italian Herb Mix at this point to flavor up the pasta a little bit.

Now stir it to make sure it mixes well.

A few minutes later the Pasta should look like the following picture as it is done. Taste test to make sure.

Oh look, the vegetables are done as well so turn their heat off.

Now it's just waiting on the Rice Cooker to cook that Quinoa. Oh no! It's almost foaming over!

Just take the top off long enough for a quick picture and it dies down.

It will click off to WARM once the cooking is done. You can leave it on that, but it dries the Quinoa out so I just unplug it.

Now, strain the Pasta first using a strainer. We don't want any water in this dish. Now put the Pasta into a large mixing bowl. Strain the frozen vegetables and put them in the same mixing bowl. On top of this add the Quinoa. Then stir some life into it! Go crazy and make it consistent throughout.

Then serve! I added a sprinkle of Italian Herb Mix and pinch of Shredded Asiago Cheese to the top. Enjoy!