Italian Baked Chicken and Pastina

[Printable Recipe]

Matt and I were watching Giada on the food network one day, and she made this dish. It looked so good that we printed the recipe and made it the next night for dinner. I also made it for my family when they came to visit. I think my brother ate 4 helpings (probably half of a 9x13 pan – no joke)
I describe this meal as a grownup’s mac and cheese. You have to try it.
Ingredients:
1 c. pastina pasta( or any small pasta – I used elbow)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 c. cubed chicken breast
1/2 c. diced onion ( I actually used more like 1 c.)
1 clove garlic (used more like 2 or 3, but we like garlic)
1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes with juice
1 c. shredded mozzarella
1/4 c. chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/4 c. bread crumbs
1/4 c. grated parmesan cheese
1 tbsp. butter

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400.  Butter a baking dish.
Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil over a high heat. Add the pasta and cook until just tender. Drain pasta into a large bowl.

Cut the chicken into 1 inch cubes, dice the onion and garlic.
  
While pasta is cooking, put olive oil in the pan, and cook chicken, about 3 mins.  Season the chicken with garlic salt, pepper if desired

Add onions and garlic. Cook until onions are soft and the chicken is cooked.

Put chicken in bow with pasta. Add canned tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, parsley, salt and pepper. Stir to combine.


Place the mixture in the baking dish. I used to circular baking dish. I doubled the recipe and used a 9x13.

In a small bowl mix together bread crumbs, and parmesan cheese. Sprinkle over the top of the pasta mixture.
 
Dot the top with small bits of butter. Bake until top is golden brown, about 30 mins.



This was so good. Definitely making the rotation. My only suggestion is season all the layers, season the chicken, then season the mixture. I may try to use melted butter on top next time. There seemed to be some dry spots. But still worth making again, and again.

Lost Cake

Check out my post about this cake on my other blog

WOW!

Welcome to my blog new followers! I can't believe the number of comments and followers I got on Friday. It is going to take me a couple days to visit everyone's blogs. I never thought I would be so close to 100 followers. I got about 60 or 70 followers in one day! Crazy. Now I need to stay consistent with my blogging. At least I have some things on the horizon that will need to be blogged about and some things that I still haven't blogged about. I also want to start doing 1 new recipe a week, either a dinner or dessert recipe. We shall see if that works out. :-D

I am also working on adding printable recipes to each recipe. It is something I love when I go to other pages, because I print out all of my recipes. It will take a while to get it done, but I am going to try!

My 1 year blogiversary  is coming up too! 100 followers and 1 year of blogging! WOW. What a year!

Strawberry Ice Cream

[Printable Recipe]

So Matt wanted to make strawberry ice cream, which is fine with me because it is my least favorite, so I won't eat much (which in all honesty, I have only had a couple bites in each batch, and I think I had a bowl one night- Mr. Matt is the one crushing the ice cream, and still keeping his girlish figure* -NOT FAIR)

*Matt doesn't look like a girl, he is just skinny and doesn't get fat despite the disgusting amount of food he puts into his body. Sigh.

So for the strawberry we stuck with the similar ice cream format.

Ingredients:
2 c. Milk (used 1%)
2 c. Heavy whipping cream
1c. sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 c. strawberries, pureed

Directions:

Slice the strawberries and place in a blender (removing the leaves of course)

 

Puree the strawberries to desired texture, we got ours pretty smooth

 

Mix puree, milk, cream, sugar and vanilla until mixed well.

 

Put in to ice cream maker while it is spinning

 

This one took a little longer to get firmed up - close to an hour.
I totally forgot to take a pic before I put it in the bowl. But I took video at 10 mins in and 45-50 mins in.


[I have videos, but I can't get it to post- If you have tips for posting videos email me at wannabebakerblog (at) gmail (dot) com ]



Put in bowls and put in freezer

 

This tasted so good, very strong strawberry taste, but it was also a good creme taste. It actually reminded me exactly of a strawberry and cream creme saver

[image credit]

Oh yea - now you want to try it!

Austin's Marine Cake

I made a quick cake for my brother. He is going to boot camp in a couple weeks, and my WHOLE family is getting together to wish him well and send him off in style. Ok well maybe not style, but with love.

I asked him what he wanted for dessert, and he said peanut butter fudge and "those little peanut butter chocolate ball thingys" so I made those, but decided that we needed a real dessert too. So I made a yellow pudding cake with a nutella filling.

I originally made the icing to use on cookies and was going to tint it. I used butter flavored shortening (which is yellow) instead of the all white shortening that I would typically use for icing a cake. O well. I didn't have the energy to make new icing.

The logo was hand made minus using a bowl and cup to imprint a circle. It isn't my best and favorite work, but I like it. He will too.

 

  

  

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