Category: Main Dish

Recipes for main dishes.

Categories
Main Dish

Have dinner ‘tortellini’ figured out this week

Pesto chicken tortellini and asparagus uses some pre-made ingredients to allow quick cooking with fresh and colorful vegetables.
Pesto chicken tortellini and asparagus uses some pre-made ingredients to allow quick cooking with fresh and colorful vegetables.

Over the course of our marriage, Joey and I have developed a special ritual, where each of us tries to be the first one to ask, “What do you want to eat?” before every meal, as though the person who asks first is absolved from having to do any choosing.

I mean, the answer is nearly always, “I don’t know,” but we still try it every meal, every day, with very few exceptions.

He was a little shocked last week, then, when I said, “Hey, don’t worry about dinner tonight. I have an idea.”

I knew he was going to be stuck at the office late, so it gave me the perfect opportunity to try a new recipe and hopefully have it ready for him when he got home.

Well, let me tell you, it was a huge hit, and if you or someone you know is cultivating a vegetable garden this summer, this is a great recipe to try out.

This comes from the blog “Julia’s Album.” You can find the original at https://juliasalbum.com/one-pan-pesto-chicken-tortellini-and-veggies. I added garlic salt and more pesto to my version.

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Pesto Chicken Tortellini and Asparagus

Course Main Course
Keyword asparagus, basil pesto, chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, tomatoes, tortellini

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 pound boneless chicken thighs or breasts cut into strips
  • garlic salt to taste
  • 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes drained and chopped, divided
  • 1 pound asparagus stalks cut in half
  • 3/4 cup basil pesto
  • 1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes halved
  • 1 cup cheese tortellini fresh or frozen

Instructions

  • In a large skillet with a lid, heat the olive oil over medium heat.
  • Season the chicken with garlic salt and add it along with 1/4 cup of the sun-dried tomatoes to the pan, sauteing for about 10 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.
  • Transfer the chicken and tomatoes to a plate, season the asparagus with garlic salt and add it to the pan (add a little more oil, if necessary). Also add the other 1/4-cup of sun-dried tomatoes.
  • Cook for another 10 minutes until the asparagus reaches your desired doneness (I like mine very tender, so I added about four tablespoons of water and put the lid on the skillet to steam cook it for a bit, too.)
  • While the asparagus cooks, cook the tortellini according to package directions and drain.
  • Remove the asparagus from the skillet, and cover it to keep it warm.
  • In the skillet, add the chicken, pesto and tomatoes. Stir continuously to allow the chicken to reheat and let the tomatoes release some juice.
  • Add in the tortellini and stir to combine.
  • Serve the chicken mixture along with a serving of the asparagus.

This had amazing flavor and was gorgeous on the plate. I also really liked that, while it looked complicated, it used enough pre-made ingredients that it was easy to put together. It was also awesome as leftovers later on, which I always appreciate about a recipe. 

Joey was extremely grateful to have dinner on the table when he got home and to not have to endure yet another discussion about what we wanted to eat.

The only problem is now that I’ve shown my ability to choose a meal, I have to be extra quick about being the first to ask Joey what he wants to eat. Otherwise, it may become my job every day, and I just don’t think I’m ready for that responsibility.

This piece first appeared in print on June 4, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Main Dish Side Dish

For dinner tonight, choose to go with the grain

Hibachi-style fried rice is easy to create and simple to alter, depending on what's sitting in your refrigerator.
Hibachi-style fried rice is easy to create and simple to alter, depending on what’s sitting in your refrigerator.

Over the years, I have to confess that I have tended to order off of the side dishes part of the menu for a lot of my meals.

Particularly at Chinese restaurants, I’ve been known to just buy an order of fried rice for lunch and skip over the entrees completely. It’s one of my favorite things.

According to an article by Rhonda Parkinson, the recipe for fried rice literally goes back centuries in China and likely came about sometime during the Sui Dynasty, which lasted from 589 to 618 A.D.

The “proper” way to make it is the subject of a lot of debate online if you want to jump into the fray. People differ on the seasonings, the vegetables, what meats are or are not added, and even at what point in the process an egg should be added.

So when I made fried rice to go along with dinner recently, I just chose a recipe that sounded good to try and went with it, fully recognizing that I probably wasn’t accomplishing something “authentic.” But in the grand scheme of things, it was delicious, so I wasn’t too worried if someone in the Sui Dynasty would have recognized my concoction as close to their own.

The recipe I tried comes from the blog “Kitchen Swagger” by Shawn Williams. You can find the original post at https://kitchenswagger.com/hibachi-style-fried-rice-recipe/. I added extra garlic powder to my version, and I realized after starting that I was out of peas, so those ended up being left out by necessity (they’ll definitely get added next time). I also updated the directions a bit.

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Hibachi-Style Fried Rice

Hibachi-style fried rice is easy to create and simple to alter, depending on what's sitting in your refrigerator.
Course Side Dish
Cuisine Chinese
Keyword fried rice, Hibachi, rice, takeout

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon canola or vegetable oil
  • 1/4 cup carrots diced
  • 1/4 cup peas
  • 1/2 cup onion diced (I used yellow)
  • 2 cups white rice prepared
  • 2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
  • 3 tablespoons butter or margarine
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 egg beaten

Instructions

  • In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat and add the carrots, peas and onion. Saute them for several minutes or until the vegetables are to your desired tenderness.
  • Add the rice to the skillet and stir to combine. Then add the soy sauce, butter, garlic powder and salt and pepper to the skillet and keep stirring so everything is well combined and the butter fully melts.
  • For the last step, slide the rice out of the way and dump in your beaten egg, stirring constantly for a couple minutes until it’s cooked through, and stir it into the rest of the rice mixture.
  • Serve.

We really enjoyed this, and I even made it fancy by packing the rice into a small ramekin and then upturning it onto the plates to make uniform mounds of yummy fried rice on our plates.

I also did technically pick a side on the egg debate. I once listened to a chef who said the egg should be added last, because that keeps it from getting too dry and overcooked, and I thought that made enough sense to make it my practice.

The best part about the history of fried rice, in my opinion, is that it’s really just an excuse to use up whatever you still have laying around your kitchen, so adding other veggies or even some protein is completely within the realm of possibility. In fact, a lot of people argue that day-old rice is the only way to make fried rice taste perfect.

Also, if you want to speed up this process, grab a bag of frozen peas and carrots and use that instead of having to cut up your own veggies.

And if you don’t want to make an entree to go with your fried rice, go ahead and eat it as your main dish for dinner. After doing enough research, I can tell you that the only rule with fried rice is that there really aren’t any rules.

This piece first appeared in print on May 14, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Main Dish

Orange chicken for dinner makes for happy ‘peelings’

Baked orange chicken can be made from scratch at home to create the same awesome flavors as the classic takeout dish.
Baked orange chicken can be made from scratch at home to create the same awesome flavors as the classic takeout dish.

My normal mode for making dinner is to keep it simple. If I find a recipe that takes too many steps or too much waiting in between steps, I skip right over it.

What I do tend to do to myself on a regular basis, though, is to make dinner more complicated than it should have been by having way too many ideas to execute at once.

Such was the case a few nights ago, when I started with wanting to make a recipe for orange chicken, which my sister sent over, ranting and raving about how good it was, and finished by also making from-scratch fried rice and a Japanese clear onion soup.

I began making dinner at around 5 p.m., and Joey didn’t have a plate in front of him until after 7. At least he’s used to my idiosyncrasies, and since the meal was amazing, there were no complaints on his end.

The orange chicken recipe comes from the blog “Dinner, then Dessert,” written by Sabrina Snyder. You can find the original post at https://dinnerthendessert.com/baked-orange-chicken/. I added extra garlic in my version, substituted dried ginger for fresh, and updated the directions a bit for clarity.

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Baked Orange Chicken

Baked orange chicken can be made from scratch at home to create the same awesome flavors as the classic takeout dish.
Course Main Course
Cuisine Chinese
Keyword baked, orange chicken, take out

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup breadcrumbs or panko
  • cooking spray
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable or canola oil
  • 1 tablespoon dried ginger
  • 6 to 8 cloves minced garlic
  • 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
  • 1 tablespoon cornstarch
  • 2 tablespoons white wine or rice wine
  • 1/4 cup fresh-squeezed orange juice
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • 3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
  • 10 tablespoons sugar
  • 10 tablespoons white vinegar
  • zest of one orange

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Prepare a large, rimmed baking sheet by lining it with aluminum foil.
  • Cut the chicken thighs into one-inch, bite-sized pieces.
  • Set up three bowls. In the first bowl, add the flour. (I ended up needing a lot more than the 1/2 cup, so be prepared to add more if necessary.) In the second bowl, beat the eggs with a fork. (I also had to add an additional egg by the end of my preparation.) In the third bowl, add the breadcrumbs. (If you’re using panko, run it through a food processor to get it into smaller bits, and again, be prepared to add some extra if necessary.)
  • Dip the chicken into the flour, then the egg and then the breadcrumbs and then place on the baking sheet. Try to keep the pieces from touching each other, but don’t worry about crowding the pan.
  • Spray the coated chicken with cooking spray and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the chicken is golden brown.
  • For the sauce, heat one tablespoon vegetable oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and red peppers and stir, sauteing for about 30 seconds.
  • Add the rest of the ingredients, and bring the mixture up to a slow boil, stirring continuously. Once the mixture starts to thicken, remove the sauce from the heat.
  • Once the chicken is finished, toss it in the sauce to coat it and serve.

This was amazing. It tasted just like takeout orange chicken from our favorite Chinese restaurant, so we were really happy with it. It does have a nice, spicy kick to it, so if you’re spice adverse, I’d recommend leaving out the red pepper flakes just to be safe.

We also really enjoyed this as leftovers later in the week, just like real Chinese takeout.

I’m planning on giving you the side dishes the next two weeks if you want to recreate my meal. It was all awesome and paired together nicely.

Really, it all should have come together more quickly if I would have planned ahead, but despite my best efforts, it seems like every recipe ends up taking longer than it should have.

At least I tend to enjoy my time in the kitchen, and especially, the fruits of my labor.

This piece first appeared in print on May 7, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Main Dish

This will make you come around to a new cut of steak

Onion and pepper smothered round steak has tons of herbs and spices that create a rich sauce to be served over noodles or rice.
Onion and pepper smothered round steak has tons of herbs and spices that create a rich sauce to be served over noodles or rice.

A few months ago, we bought a meat bundle from our local butcher, and since we’ve been stuck at home, it’s been nice to enjoy.

We’ve made roasts and steaks and dinners with ground beef, but I still had a few packages of tenderized round steak that I decided I needed to be creative with—mostly because I haven’t worked with that cut very often over the years.

I know round steak is perfect for chicken fried steaks, but I decided I wanted to try something different and stumbled upon a recipe from Emeril Lagasse that a blogger posted to her site. It sounded awesome, so while Joey and I listened to an audio book, I chopped and sauteed my way to a great dinner.

I will warn you that this has a good amount of heat to it, so if you’re not a fan of spicy dishes, I’d suggest leaving the cayenne out of this one.

This is from the blog “Butter Yum.” You can find the original post at https://www.butteryum.org/blog/2014/03/emerils-onion-and-pepper-smothered.html. I didn’t change much but upping the herbs and spices just a little bit. 

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Onion and Pepper Smothered Round Steak

Onion and pepper smothered round steak has tons of herbs and spices that create a rich sauce to be served over noodles or rice.
Course Main Course
Keyword beef, bell pepper, onions, pasta, rice, round steak

Ingredients

  • 3 tablespoons flour
  • 3 teaspoons paprika
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 2 rounded teaspoons garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1 rounded teaspoon onion powder
  • 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1 rounded teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 rounded teaspoon dried thyme
  • 2 1/2 pounds round steak sliced into 1/4-inch thick slices
  • 1/4 cup oil vegetable or canola
  • 3 cups chicken broth or stock
  • 1 medium-sized yellow onion sliced into 1/4-inch thick slices
  • 3 large bell peppers any color, , sliced into 1/4-inch thick slices
  • 3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
  • more salt and pepper to taste
  • cooked rice or buttered pasta for serving

Instructions

  • Combine the flour, paprika, salt, garlic powder, black pepper, onion powder, cayenne pepper, oregano, and thyme and add it along with the sliced steak to a large bowl. Stir it coat the steak in the flour mixture.
  • In a large, deep pan or Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the steak in batches, sauteing for about two or three minutes on each side and then transferring the cooked steak to a separate plate.
  • Once all the steak is cooked through, add the rest of the flour mixture to the pot, along with the chicken broth, scraping the bottom of the pan to get any stuck on bits mixed in, and bring the pot up to a boil.
  • Now add the onions and bell peppers, stirring frequently, and let them cook for about eight minutes.
  • Turn the heat down to low and add the steak and any juices from the plate back into the pot.
  • Let the mixture simmer for about one hour, stirring regularly. If the liquid level gets too low, add a little water. If, by the time your hour is up, you still have a lot of liquid, whisk in some flour to thicken it up a bit. Your end goal is to have a gravy consistency.
  • Once the vegetables are cooked through and the sauce is done, add the Worcestershire sauce and more salt and pepper, if necessary.
  • Serve it over rice or buttered pasta.

Joey and I were both pretty skeptical about this, just because we’ve never had a dish like this one before, but boy, was it delicious.

It made more than enough for us to put plenty of leftovers into the fridge, too, which was nice. We opted for some spaghetti noodles under our round steak, and the recipe author also suggests rice, but I also think mashed potatoes would be good.

And I’m super excited that I have another great way to use round steak going forward, although I don’t think I’ll be giving up chicken fried steak any time soon. It’s pretty tough to give up those old classics.

This piece first appeared in print on April 30, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Crockpot Main Dish

Parsnips can help keep your pot roast rooted

At the start of the stay-at-home order, Joey and I made our normal trip to the grocery store, planning to get ingredients for some meals that would yield plenty of leftovers for our freezer and keep us out of the public for a couple weeks.

We already had a roast in the freezer, so we were on the hunt for ingredients to put with it in the crockpot for a good, old-fashioned crockpot.

Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones who made a trip to our local grocery store that day, and we found ourselves staring at a lot of empty shelves, especially in the produce section.

I was surprised to see there wasn’t a single potato to be had, and while I’d normally add carrots to my roast, there was only a tiny package of shredded carrots left, and I didn’t think that would do.

We weren’t sure how to pivot until Joey began examining the shelves for what was still available and wondered aloud what we could substitute for potatoes or carrots in our recipe.

A quick Google search yielded the solution: parsnips.

I’ve never cooked with parsnips before, but there they were, on the shelf, in abundance, so we bought a big bag and decided to see what would happen.

So, this week, I’m sharing with you how we normally put together a pot roast and highly recommending that you give parsnips a try.

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Pot Roast with Parsnips

Pot roast is a versatile dinner. This roast was made using parsnips instead of potatoes and carrots due to quarantine shortages.
Course Main Course
Keyword beef, carrots, crockpot, mashed potatoes, onions, parsnips, pot roast

Ingredients

  • Chuck roast we normally get a 3- to 5-pound roast, thawed
  • 4 to 5 stalks celery cut into 1/2-inch pieces
  • 6 to 8 cloves garlic minced
  • 1 small yellow onion cut into 1/2-inch pieces
  • 4 to 5 carrots cut into 1/2-inch rounds
  • 2 pounds potatoes or parsnips cut into 1-inch pieces
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 3-4 cups beef broth or a medium to dark style of beer

Instructions

  • While you prepare your vegetables, pull the roast from the refrigerator to get it closer to room temperature.
  • Start with adding the roast to the center of your crockpot and then sprinkle in the vegetables, herbs and spices around it. Pour over the broth and Worcestershire sauce and place the lid on the crockpot. You don’t need to have the broth all the way to the rim or completely covering the roast, but I’d recommend having it at least three-quarters of the way up the meat and veggies.
  • Cook on low for six to eight hours or on high for about three to five hours. (The cook time will really depend on how big your roast is, but that’s pretty standard.)
  • For proper doneness, a pot roast should be at least 145 degrees in the thickest part.
  • Check the doneness of the vegetables by piercing them with a fork. If they’re done to your liking, serve the roast by slicing it and then spooning lots of vegetables with it. We like to eat ours in a bowl so we can serve it with some of the juices from the crockpot.
  • Leftovers can be stored in the refrigerator or freezer. Make sure you include juice in the containers, too. It will help it stay moist when you reheat it.

If you’re curious, a parsnip tastes a bit like a carrot but with a bit more of an earthy, nutty flavor. We didn’t miss the carrots or potatoes too much with the addition of the extra flavor.

There are probably a million ways people make pot roast. I have a friend who uses French onion soup mix, water and frozen, mixed vegetables in hers.

A lot of folks also like to thicken up the juices to make gravy and serve the roast over top of mashed potatoes.

The best part is that it’s a flexible dinner to make, and as we discovered, despite potatoes generally being considered a staple with pot roast, you can even get away with leaving those out, too.

Our local store is certainly returning to normal for the most part, but if nothing else, I suppose this quarantine has taught me how to be flexible—both in life and in the kitchen.

This piece first appeared in print on April 23, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Main Dish

Homemade pizza helps you go with the ‘dough’

This pizza dough comes together with only two ingredients and is fairly low fat, not that it makes much difference when you want to have pizza for dinner.
This pizza dough comes together with only two ingredients and is fairly low fat, not that it makes much difference when you want to have pizza for dinner.

When we were kids, one of our favorite suppers was when my mom would make a Chef Boyardee pizza kit.

It came with a mix for making the dough, along with pizza sauce and some grated parmesan. Mom would add meat and some veggies and cheese, and we’d have pizza night.

I think Mom might be a little appalled that I claim this to be on my favorites list, especially since she made so many from-scratch, amazing meals for us over the years, but a kid wants what a kid wants.

Recently, we decided to have a pizza night of our own at home, after a friend of ours recommended a crust recipe she’s been using regularly. Not only is it easy and only two ingredients, but it is also lower fat and doesn’t take any rising time, unlike a lot of other from-scratch doughs.

The recipe she shared with me came from the blog “Crazy for Crust” by Dorothy Kern. You can find the original post at https://www.crazyforcrust.com/weight-watchers-pizza-dough/. I didn’t really spice this one up, since it’s only two ingredients. Also, if you don’t have self-rising flour, visit Dorothy’s website for how to substitute it out.

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Two-ingredient Pizza Dough

This pizza dough comes together with only two ingredients and is fairly low fat, not that it makes much difference when you want to have pizza for dinner.
Course Main Course
Cuisine Italian
Keyword dough, low-fat, pizza, self-rising flour, yogurt

Ingredients

  • 1 cup non-fat, plain Greek yogurt
  • 1 cup self-rising flour

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 400 degrees
  • Add the yogurt and flour to a mixing bowl and mix until combined, turn it out onto a floured surface and knead until the dough is smooth and everything is well incorporated (I kept running into little pockets of yogurt, so be prepared to keep flouring your surface until it finally all combines.)
  • Roll out your dough to your desired thickness. (For ours, which ended up in the hand-tossed thickness category, I rolled it out to about half an inch. If you want thin crust, I’d suggest going for more of a quarter inch, if not thinner.)
  • Place the dough onto some parchment paper on a pizza or baking pan. Top with your favorite toppings.
  • Bake for 20 to 30 minutes or until the crust is browned slightly and cooked through.

For our pizza toppings, we started by brushing the entire crust with extra virgin olive oil. We then tried two variations. For one, we spread on pizza sauce and then sprinkled on some oregano, basil and fresh minced garlic, along with some spicy, precooked sausage and turkey pepperoni, and of course, we sprinkled on plenty of cheese.

Our second pizza used alfredo sauce, along with oregano, basil, fresh minced garlic, spicy sausage, and cheese, along with some fresh spinach leaves.

They were both really tasty, and since I made a double batch of dough, we had tons of leftovers.

Also, I didn’t bother with rolling my dough out into a circle. I just made a square and put it on a rimmed baking sheet. I figured I didn’t really care about the shape as much as the taste.

According to the website this comes from, this is Weight Watchers friendly, so if that’s something you’re working on right now, you might visit the post for more information.

This might be a fun recipe to try with kiddos, too, especially if you separate the dough out for everyone to top their own mini pie.

And despite the fact that our pizza was probably closer to “traditional” than the good, old Chef Boyardee variety, I still have some nostalgic cravings for my childhood pizza nights. Nowadays, I think Mom and Dad would much rather have us take them out for pizza, but while we’re all still stuck at home, maybe I should think about adding a kit to my next shopping list.

This piece first appeared in print on April 9, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Main Dish

Beef up your dinner menu with casserole

Hamburger casserole dresses up tomato soup into a hearty, Italian-inspired dish.
Hamburger casserole dresses up tomato soup into a hearty, Italian-inspired dish.

A quotation I saw online, attributed to Rob Fee, is one of the best explanations of the conversation Joey and I have every day: “Relationships are just two people constantly asking each other where they want to go eat, until one of them dies.”

In our case, it’s not really asking where we want to go eat so much as what we want to make to eat.

Both of us like cooking, so it’s rarely a battle to see who is going to be tasked with dinner preparations, but we tend to fall into ruts. For me, my common fallback is just to make tacos.

I nearly succumbed to my same rut again this week, but while my hamburger was defrosting, I stumbled across another, just as easy, recipe, and I decided to give it a try.

This comes from the blog “Baking with Mom.” The original recipe only calls for four main ingredients: hamburger, tomato soup, pasta and cheese, but as you can see, I added quite a few more flavors to my version. You can find the original post at https://bakingwithmom.com/hamburger-casserole/.

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Hamburger Casserole

Hamburger casserole dresses up tomato soup to make a hearty dinner.
Course Main Course
Cuisine Italian
Keyword casserole, kid-friendly, pasta, tomato

Ingredients

  • 16 ounces small pasta I used macaroni
  • 1 small yellow onion
  • 6-8 cloves garlic minced
  • 1 pound ground hamburger or turkey
  • 2, 10.75- ounce cans tomato soup
  • 1 heaping teaspoon dried basil
  • 1 heaping teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 heaping teaspoon dried parsley
  • 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 2 cups shredded cheese I used a combination of monterrey jack and mild cheddar

Instructions

  • Prepare a 9-by-13-inch baking dish by spraying it with non-stick spray and set aside. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
  • Brown the hamburger and onion in a large skillet over medium heat.
  • While the hamburger is browning, cook the pasta according to package directions and drain.
  • Once the hamburger is cooked through and the onions are soft, drain as much grease from the pan as you can and then add the garlic. Saute for a couple minutes until the garlic starts to brown slightly, and add in the tomato soup, spices, and fill one of the soup cans halfway with water and add that into the pan as well. Stir to combine.
  • Let the mixture cook for a few minutes to let the flavors meld.
  • Dump the cooked noodles into the prepared baking dish and top with the hamburger mixture. Just spread the hamburger mixture over the top of the noodles; there’s no need to mix it together.
  • Top the casserole with cheese and cover the dish with aluminum foil.
  • Bake for 20 minutes, remove the foil, and bake for another 10 minutes. Then turn the broiler on high to brown the cheese just a bit—probably about two minutes, but keep an eye on it.
  • Let the casserole cool for about 10 minutes and then serve.

This was really simple to put together and was yummy, too. Plus, I managed to put away quite a bit of leftovers in the fridge.

If I’m being honest, I doubt neither Joey nor I will ever get sick of tacos, but it was a nice change of pace to try a new casserole, and with such simple ingredients, it was easy for me to make on the fly, which I appreciated.

Now, with plenty of leftover casserole in the fridge, tonight’s dinner should be easy to figure out. Unless, of course, one of us starts craving Mexican food instead.

This piece first appeared in print on March 12, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Air Fryer Appetizer Main Dish

Try a recipe that’s ‘taquito’ happiness

Chicken taquitos are quick to make and can be cooked by frying, baking or using an air fryer.
Chicken taquitos are quick to make and can be cooked by frying, baking or using an air fryer.

As a general rule, I avoid a lot of specialty appliances in my kitchen.

While I’ve been tempted in the past to consider a rice cooker or a cake pop baker, I haven’t given in—mostly because I have no idea where I would store such contraptions.

But I do have a couple trendy pieces that make me feel like I fit right in on the food blogs, mainly an electric pressure cooker and most recently, an air fryer.

If you’re not familiar, air fryers are all the rage these days, making it possible to get crispy “fried” foods with little to no oil. Really, it’s just a mini convection oven, but it does seem to work as advertised.

With my new purchase on hand, I decided to try a recipe I’d been eyeballing for awhile: chicken taquitos. The recipe reminded me a lot of some chicken flautas my favorite Mexican restaurant makes, and I needed to see if I could recreate the experience at home.

If you don’t have an air fryer, don’t worry. You can still make these by frying them traditionally in oil or by baking them, and I’ll give you the details for all three methods.

This recipe comes from the blog “Chili Pepper Madness” by Mike Hultquist You can find the original post at https://www.chilipeppermadness.com/recipes/chicken-taquitos/. I added some seasonings to my version.

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Chicken Taquitos

Chicken taquitos are quick to make and can be cooked by frying, baking or using an air fryer.
Course Appetizer, Main Course, Snack
Cuisine Mexican
Keyword chicken, taquitos

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon olive or canola oil
  • 1 small onion diced
  • 1 large jalapeno diced (remove seeds and ribs if you want milder flavor)
  • 6-8 cloves garlic minced
  • 1.5 pounds chicken breast cooked and shredded
  • 2 tablespoons taco seasoning
  • 1 packet sazon seasoning
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 cup Monterrey Jack cheese
  • 20-24 small soft corn tortillas
  • 2 cups vegetable/canola oil if frying
  • vegetable/canola spray if air frying or baking

Instructions

  • In a saute pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat and add the onion and jalapeno, stirring regularly, until they are both soft, about six to eight minutes.
  • Add the garlic and saute for another two minutes or until it slightly browns and becomes fragrant. Remove the pan from heat.
  • In a large bowl, combine the contents of the saute pan with the shredded chicken, seasonings and cheese, and stir to coat the chicken evenly.
  • To properly heat the tortillas and make them pliable, wrap the stack in a damp paper towel and microwave for about 30 seconds. Keep them covered with the damp towel while you work.
  • If you are frying, heat your oil in a deep pan over medium heat to about 350 degrees. If you are baking, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. If you are air frying, you’ll set it to air fry at 400 degrees for about 8 minutes (you may have to experiment with the timing a bit).
  • To assemble the taquitos, place a spoonful of the chicken filling on the middle of each tortilla and then roll it up tightly, leaving the ends open. Secure it by placing a toothpick through the center of the taquito.
  • If frying or air frying, cook the taquitos in batches. If frying, fry them for about three minutes until they are golden brown. If air frying, mist the taquitos with cooking spray before frying them.
  • If baking, place the taquitos on a baking sheet and lightly spray them with cooking spray. Bake for 20 minutes, turning the taquitos halfway through.
  • Remove the toothpicks and serve hot taquitos with your favorite salsa and sour cream.

We loved these, and they were really easy. I ended up deboning a rotisserie chicken instead of cooking my own to make the process go even more quickly, and I paired these with some Mexican rice. They also reheated really nicely in the air fryer or the oven. They do reheat in the microwave, but they lose their crispiness.

Making this recipe solidified for me that the air fryer won’t be taking up unnecessary space in our house, and I’m looking forward to playing with it more.

Many people claim it’s a great way to cut a lot of extra oil and fat out of your diet. Of course, as Joey helpfully pointed out, if I keep buying frozen French fries now that I have the option, it may have the opposite effect.

This piece first appeared in print on Jan. 30, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Main Dish Soup

Leftovers may necessi’tater’ cooking some soup

Leftover mashed potatoes can be easily transformed into a creamy, filling soup.
Leftover mashed potatoes can be easily transformed into a creamy, filling soup.

Well, I can officially say I survived my first experience with hosting Thanksgiving dinner. 

I floated the idea a little over a week out from the big day to my mother-in-law, not wanting to step on her toes but also knowing she’s been extremely busy at work lately and could likely use a break from cooking all day—especially with family coming from out of state to stay with them.

And she took me up on my offer, which meant I took a deep breath, made an overly detailed list, and got to work.

The meal was a little late, since I wasn’t very good at timing out my side dishes on my first attempt, but everyone walked away full and seemingly happy, and it’s already been announced that the Young Family Thanksgiving meal is mine for the foreseeable future.

And while hosting is definitely an exhausting experience, it does have its benefits, namely: leftovers. While that’s arguably one of the best parts of Thanksgiving, it also gets tough to get creative with eating the same meal again and again over the next week, so I have an option for you if you, like I, had plenty of leftover mashed potatoes.

This is from the website “Thrifty Fun.” You can find the original post at https://www.thriftyfun.com/Leftover-Mashed-Potato-Soup-1.html. I added more seasoning to my version, but remember to take the amount of seasoning you did to your mashed potatoes originally into account when adding spices. I normally season my potatoes pretty simply with salt, pepper, milk and butter only. The amount of each of the ingredients depends on how much leftover mashed potatoes you have, but your rule of thumb is to add the amounts listed in the directions for evert two cups of potatoes. In my case, I had four cups leftover, so I doubled all those amounts as I made my batch of soup.

Print

Leftover Mashed Potato Soup

Leftover mashed potatoes can be easily transformed into a creamy, filling soup.
Course Main Course
Keyword bacon, leftovers, mashed potatoes, soup

Ingredients

  • Mashed potatoes
  • Milk I used skim
  • Chicken broth or vegetable stock
  • Butter or margarine
  • Celery salt
  • Garlic powder
  • Onion powder
  • Salt and pepper
  • Shredded cheese
  • Cooked crumbled bacon

Instructions

  • You will add the following ingredients to every two cups of mashed potatoes you have—do so in a large cooking pot—1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup broth, 4 tablespoons butter, 1 teaspoon celery salt, 1 teaspoon garlic powder, 1 teaspoon onion powder, salt and pepper to taste.
  • Place the mixture over medium heat, stirring regularly, until the soup is hot and creamy.
  • Serve with shredded cheese and crumbled bacon on top. (Cook up about a strip of bacon per bowl of soup you’re serving.)

This was a great belly warmer for a cold day’s dinner, especially paired with some leftover Thanksgiving cornbread.

And, ironically, if you have leftover soup, it reheats nicely, too, which is a nice bonus.

I’ll probably be making another batch of this soup in the coming weeks, since I, for some reason, made enough potatoes to feed the family four times over.

Cooking for Thanksgiving made me extremely thankful for all of the wonderful cooks who have provided that same spread for me over the years. It’s a lot of work, but seeing family enjoying themselves around the table makes the sore back and aching feet seem worth it.

This piece first appeared in print on Dec. 5, 2019.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Main Dish Soup

Chicken mushroom soup is ‘chowder’ this world

Creamy chicken mushroom chowder is a hearty soup for a cold night's dinner.
Creamy chicken mushroom chowder is a hearty soup for a cold night’s dinner.

Thanks to this column, I’m constantly on the lookout for recipes I have never tried. If you look at a lot of food blogs and recipe books like I do, you’ll find several common words and phrases in the titles of recipes.

There are quite a few that include the descriptor “Amish” in the title, and while I’m not necessarily qualified to say what makes a recipe particularly Amish or not, there are some I wouldn’t peg as particularly authentic.

And, of course, people love making recipes that claim to be like “crack.” I’ve also always found that one strange, considering that the bios of most of these online chefs don’t seem to indicate drug problems on their end.

But this week, Joey and I ended up trying to figure out what makes a “chowder” a “chowder,” and after searching online quite a bit, I’m not sure if that isn’t just another random adjective cooks use. The only official explanation that seemed to show up more often than not was that a chowder must be cream based, but folks differed on that rule, too.

I found this recipe on the blog “The Chunky Chef.” You can find the original post at https://www.thechunkychef.com/creamy-chicken-mushroom-chowder/. I changed the amounts of some of the ingredients in my version. I also actually doubled the recipe below to give me some leftovers for the freezer.

Print

Creamy Chicken Mushroom Chowder

Creamy chicken mushroom chowder is a hearty soup for a cold night's dinner.
Course Main Course
Keyword chicken, chowder, mushrooms, potatoes, soup

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 small yellow onion diced
  • 3 carrots peeled and diced
  • 3 stalks celery diced
  • 8 ounces mushrooms sliced (I used baby bellas, but use what you like)
  • 6-8 cloves garlic minced
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 teaspoon thyme
  • 1/4- cup flour
  • 4 cups chicken stock or broth
  • 5 medium-sized red potatoes diced
  • 3 cups shredded or cubed chicken cooked
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 2/3 cup heavy cream or half and half

Instructions

  • Heat the olive oil and butter over medium heat in a large pot.
  • Add the onions, carrots and celery and saute until they’re soft (about five minutes). Add the mushrooms and garlic and stir, cooking for about two more minutes.
  • Add the salt and pepper, thyme and flour and stir to soak up any liquid in the pan. Let the flour cook for about one minute.
  • Stir in the stock, making sure the scrape the bottom of the pot.
  • Add the potatoes, chicken and bay leaf and bring the soup to a very low boil. Let it cook for about 15 minutes or until the potatoes are to your desired tenderness, stirring occasionally.
  • Add the cream and let the soup simmer until it’s hot again.
  • Serve.

I went about this a little differently by boiling my chicken in the broth to cook it to start and making my veggies in a saute pan on the side. I did all the steps up to adding the broth in the saute pan and then dumped my veggies in with my cooked chicken that was already boiling in the stock pot.

If you do it that way, you will probably need to add a little water or more broth to the pot.

And while the recipe is called a chowder and does meet a lot of the definitions of what a chowder should be, I’m still not sure if everyone would agree.

What I can tell you is that I’m pretty sure it’s not Amish, it certainly doesn’t mirror any drugs I’m aware of, and it’s an extremely satisfying, good soup, especially when served with a thick slice of crusty bread.

I may never figure out what a chowder is, but it won’t stop me from eating seconds until I figure it out.

This piece first appeared in print on Nov. 14, 2019.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

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