Green Beans

Got rave reviews over my green beans.

3 cans green beans
olive oil
salt
pepper

place in sauce pan, bring to boil
turn down to simmer, leave simmering 3 hours. Eat. Enjoy.

Hey there, virtual mic check. Trying out a new app.

Chicken Spinach Strata

Ok, grocery budget was nil. had left over chicken fingers, spinach leaves, half a tomato, and left over corn bread.

I LOVE the cook book “Better Homes and Gardens: New Cookbook Bridal Edition” that some friends of ours got me for a wedding present. In the back it categorizes the index based on ingredient, so you can look up what ingredient you have and it lists all the recipes with that ingredient.

Now, I did not have the ingredients that recipes called for, so I had to do some improvising.

I had eggs, I had milk, I had bread, a meat, and a vegetable. I found out that in  the two or three strata recipes (I had not known what a strata was before) there were those ingredients. There were several variations but it seemed like as long as you had then staples you were good. So, I was good.

I made up the following recipe and it was really good. Even tasted great today as left-overs at lunch.

Ingredients:

Chicken strips (pre-battered, comes in a bag, pop in the oven for 15 minutes kind)

spinach leaves (about 1 cup)

1-2 slices of tomato

4 eggs

2/3 cup milk

about 2 cups crumbled corn bread

shredded cheese (about 1-1.5 cups)

1/4 cup sour cream

1 Tbsp Honey Mustard

Salt and Pepper to taste

Step 1: put the crumbled corn bread in the bottom of a casserole dish

Step 2: Chop up your chicken strips, spinach and tomator slices. I sprinkled the spinach with salt and pepper. Layer these three into the pan. (I put the tomato on top so that the color shows through)

Step 3: Sprinkle with cheese. Set aside.

Step 4: in a separate bowl, mix the remaining ingredients (the milk, the eggs, sour cream and honey mustard) Whisk until smooth.

Step 5: Pour over the ingredients in the casserole dish, try to pour evenly. Let sit in fridge for 2-3 hours to chill.

Step 6: Bake at 325 degrees for 45 minutes. Serve immediately. Careful it is hot

I also took an iron skillet and filled in with pre-washed and peeled baby carrots that I covered in Olive oil salt and pepper. I let them cook in the oven with the casserole and when the casserole was done we had a nice side dish to go with it.

Omlettes, anyone?

Ok, so when you’re down to eggs and cheese at the end of the month, out come the omlette recipes

My family came over for Memorial Day and we all cooked out burgers. My sweet mother brought onions, tomatos and lettuce to put on them and left me the extras. So this morning I made me a killer omlette.

You put some olive oil in a skillet and let it get hot. While its getting hot, put two eggs in a measuring cup and beat well. Then dice some onion and tomato. It really depends on how much onion and tomato you want, I go with about two rings off a whole onion and about half a slice of tomato. (Keep in mind I was working with onions and tomatos that had previously been prepped for a cook-out) Also, you can do a one egg omlette, just only put one egg where I have stated two. Works the same way, and tastes just as good.

then you sautee about 2 tablespoons of diced onions and 2 tablespoons of diced tomato (about half a slice, chopped up) until tender. (NOT long at all, so don’t leave it)

Once that is tender, spread all the onions and tomato mixture evenly over the bottom of the pan. Then pour in the beaten egg, being sure to pour it over the whole bottom of the pan. Sometimes if you just pour in the center it doesn’t spread all the way out and you have left over onion tomato. Because the skillet is hot, the egg will start to cook as soon as it hits the pan, so put it where you want it (tell that egg whose boss!) Then you let the egg “set up”. It will start to cook at the edges first, it is ready for the last ingredient (Cheese) when you see the egg start to bubble. Don’ wait until all the egg-y ness is cooked, you want to add the cheese when the inside is still a little wet looking.

Lay your favorite type of cheese over top, as much as you want (or as little as you want–this omelette would be good without cheese, but I’m a cheese-a-holic, so I definitely add cheese ) Like I said, mine was for a cookout, so I went with sliced american cheese. I was down to the extras, so there was only one slice but as a hint I would recommend adding one slice per egg that you use, so two slices would be better for this recipe. Then comes the tricky part, and don’t worry if this doesn’t look pretty because it takes practice. The good news is that messing this step up doesn’t change the taste at all. It will still taste good

You take a spatula and slide it around the edge and under one side of the egg mixture. Then flip over one side so that it lays on top of the other. At this point, you can turn the eye off and let the omlette finish just under the heat thats already in the pan. Let the omlette cook a little longer, letting the cheese melt and the inside finish cooking. If you’re ambitious, you can fip the entire omlette over and cook it on both sides, but I usually make a mess of that so I just let it sit for about a minute. Then I slide the omlette into a place, salt and pepper and enjoy

Oh, you can salt and pepper the eggs when you beat them, or salt the tomato/onion mix if you want to add the salt/ pepper while cooking.

Omlettes are very versatile, so you can add anything to them. Let me know what you add to yours. I love omlettes, so I’m always wanting to try new additions

What is Daily Dinners?

I started this blog as a place to post my meal ideas. Newly married, and expecting my first child I find I have to get creative in the kitchen to find that place where my dietary needs meet the appetite of my husband These recipes are just my thoughts on some good dinners I made up and thought you might enjoy

Butterfly Chicken

4 chicken breasts (boneless/skinless)

1 1/2 cups chopped raw broccoli

5 mini-corn kernels (you know, the ones that come in a bag and are like half the size of whole kernels)

1 teaspoon rosemary

2-3 Tsp  butter

1 -2  cup shredded cheddar cheese (or your favorite kind–I suggest mixing white cheddar, mozzarella, ricotta and parmesian cheese but all I had when I made it was cheddar)

6 strips of bacon (pancetta would be good too)

toothpicks or kabob sticks

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Thaw the chicken. Make sure it is not frozen and easy to work with. Then butterfly-cut them (slice them down the side but not completely in half. Then the chicken folds open like a book). Thaw the bacon at this point, too.

Step 2: Melt the butter and mix in the rosemary. Then brush this mixture over the cold corn kernels. The kernels being cold causes the butter mixture to solidify on the corn. This is good–we will grill it in a minute and that will be helpful then.

Step 3: mix broccoli and cheeses together in a bowl. set aside

Step4: lay out slices of bacon on a plate. Salt and pepper both sides. then cook slow in a skillet. Brown the bacon, but be careful. Cook until just starting to get crispy. It can finish cooking in the oven with the chicken.

Step 5: Spoon the broccoli/cheese mixture down the center of the butterfly chicken breasts. Lay bacon over the top of the mixture. Then fold the sides of the chicken together and secure with toothpicks or kabob sticks. Kind of like you are sewing together a seam on a dress or something. It is completely ok for it not to look perfect, and its ok for the insides to spill out. When the cheese melts in the oven it will spill out anyway, so you are just securing it so that most of it stays inside.

Step 6: Start browning your corn on the grill. I used a george foreman and its small, so I could only brown corn 2 at a time. Grill them 5 minutes per quarter turn. You know, when you “flip it”, don’t flip it completely over, turn it a quarter turn and do that 4 times until you’ve gone all the way around. 5 minutes each side. You want the edges of the corn to brown.

Step 7: Using the same skillet you used for the bacon, brown the chicken breasts on each side. Just about a minute per side. Then place in an oven safe pan (if you use an iron skillet, just use the skillet) and cook in oven on 350 for 30 minutes.