Pasta Bake & Coleslaw

ZESTY PASTA BAKE

Ingredients:
8 oz sliced mushrooms
1 yellow onion
1 box whole wheat rotini pasta
1 lbs turkey sausage
28 oz crushes tomatos
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup shredded colby-jack cheese
1 medium zucchini chopped into bite sized chunks
crushed red pepper (to taste)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray 9x13 pan with cooking spray
Prepare pasta as directed on box
Meanwhile, place sausage in large skillet. Add onion, zucchini, and mushrooms. Cook until sausage is no longer pink.
Add crushed tomatoes and crushed red pepper flakes to skillet, cook for 2 minutes or until bubbling.
Add cooked pasta to skillet and mix until pasta is well coated.
Spoon half of pasta mixture into pan, layer with mozzarella cheese, the rest of the pasta, and top with colby-jack cheese.
Bake for 15 minutes or until heated through and cheese is melted.


COLESLAW
I was pretty happy to make this recipe for 2 reasons... #1: I like coleslaw, #2: I bought a HUGE cabbage (5 1/2 lbs) for $0.48! Needless to say I made a pretty large batch!

Ingredients
cabbage
carrots
green peppers

Sauce:
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar (or white vinegar)
1/2 cup mayo
salt and pepper to taste
(since I had such a large cabbage I doubled the sauce)

Directions:
Chop/shred/slice all veggies and mix in a large bowl
In another bowl combine sauce ingredients, stir, pour over veggies, and mix well.

Awesome Weather & Grilling!

The past few days have been BEAUTIFUL!! Temps in the high 70's with a slight breeze and sunny... IN MARCH IN THE MIDWEST! Crazy! Birds are singing, the heat in the house is turned off, windows are open, grass is growing, I am able to run outside without a coat on. Everything is just putting me in a good mood :)

To make things even better, we broke out the grill after having it covered up all winter! YAY! On Tuesday I marinated some chicken breasts and made potato and onion foil packets for the grill. It all turned out very moist and yummy (I used a chipotle lime marinade).

Then, yesterday, Brandon made "Juicy Lucy" burgers. These are pretty much taking 2 thin layers of meat and putting a stack of cheese in the middle, then sealing the edges. The result is a hamburger patty with a pocket of melty-ooy-gooy-delicious cheese in the middle. They turned our really well! I love grilling :)

3-2-1 Cake

Here is a simple recipe my mom showed me called "3-2-1 Cake"

Mix together:
One box of cake mix (any flavor...I used chocolate)
One box angel food cake mix

Take 3 tablespoons of the cake mixture, 2 tablespoons water, stir, and heat in microwave safe mug for 1 minute.

The result is a perfectly sized individual portion of cake! (even better with a little scoop of ice cream on top! yum!)

Fish Tacos

For part of Brandon's birthday I took him to the HyVee Wine and Food Festival. At the event there were live cooking demonstrations, and one of them were fish tacos. I have never really been a fish fan, but I decided to try it anyway... and it was really good! Last night I decided to try to make them myself for a healthy yet tasty supper.

4 Tilapia Fish filets cut in to 8 even pieces

1 Package Whole Wheat tortillas

3 Red Fresno chili peppers sliced very thin *optional*

12 oz. honey flavored Greek yogurt

1 10 oz. package Dole® Angel hair coleslaw

Salt and pepper to taste

1 cup diced pineapple (fresh is best, but is you use canned, get the chunks, not crushed)

1 diced bell pepper

1 diced red onion

1 diced large tomato

1 diced jalapeno pepper *optional*

½ bunch fresh chopped cilantro

Juice from 1 lime

Salsa

Combine pineapple, bell pepper, onion, tomato, jalapeno pepper, cilantro and lime juice. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Slaw

Combine coleslaw with Greek yogurt or sour cream, and then add the Red Fresno peppers

Fish Tacos

1.       Heat oil in large skillet over medium high heat

2.       Season the fish with salt and pepper

3.       Add the fish to the hot pan

4.       Cook in each side 3 to 5 minutes until fish is firm and slightly flaky

5.       In a separate pan heat the tortillas until warm

6.       Place one piece of fish in each warm tortilla

7.       Top with slaw and pineapple salsa and serve,

Birthday Meal

Today is my husband Brandon's 26th birthday (Happy birthday hunny!)
I asked him last week what he wanted me to make for his "birthday meal", it could be anything he wanted for a side dish, main dish, and dessert. His choices were:

Main dish: Chicken Cordon Bleu
Side: "anything potato"
Dessert: Ice Cream Cake

For the "something potato" I made smashed baby red potatoes with garlic and dill. Pretty simple and tasty. The ice cream cake was bought at TCBY, waiting for later to dig into that. My main concern was the main dish. I have never made chicken cordon bleu before, so I looked up a couple recipes and decided to improvise, mix/match, to make it my own. Here is my recipe:

• 2 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, pounded to 1/2inch thickness
• 2 slices Swiss cheese
• 3 thin slices smoked deli ham
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 cup dry white wine (I used a chardonnay)
• 3 chicken bouillon cubes
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• Dill weed to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper

1. Pound chicken breasts if they are too thick. Place 1 slice cheese and 2 slices ham on each breast.  Starting at smallest end, roll chicken over the filling, and secure with toothpicks. 
2. Mix the flour, 2 ground bouillon cubes, and paprika in a small bowl, and coat the chicken pieces.
3. Heat olive oil and 3Tbs butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat, and cook the chicken until browned on all sides.
4. Transfer chicken to a small baking dish (I used a Pyrex bread loaf pan) add 1 Tbs melted butter, and wine. Lightly cover with tin foil and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.
5. After 30 minutes drain liquid from chicken into skillet. Return chicken to oven, uncovered. Blend the cornstarch with the cream in a small bowl, and whisk slowly into the skillet. Add salt, pepper, and dill weed to taste. Cook, stirring until thickened, about 5-8 minutes.
6. Remove the toothpicks from chicken, drizzle with cream sauce, and serve.

There was plenty of the cream sauce, so we put some over the smashed potatoes and it was quite good. Not to toot my own horn, but the chicken turned out AWESOME! For "wingin' it" and experimenting as I went, I am pretty darn proud. Plus, Brandon said he really liked it, so mission accomplished! I forgot to take a picture, but you better believe that I will make this again, and next time I promise to post a pic!

2 Things to Share...

Before I go to work I have 2 things to share...

#1- I started the "Couch to 5k" running plan even though it has been cold outside. I bundled up and have gone out for 2 miles the last two days. I am just starting this, so I hope I can keep it up! yay!

#2- I lightly put a piece of Duct tape on the tip of Ellie's (our dog) nose yesterday... HILARIOUS!!!

Oh Motivation...

My husband has worked out for the last year and had wonderful results, lost weight, feels better about himself, has more energy, and enjoys working out. So I thought, why not try to do the same?

I did try... I worked out 4 days a week and ate healthy for 3 months... gained 3 pounds and then lost 5. So a grand total of 2 pounds lost in 3 months. I did not notice any change in inches or feeling slimmer, and it was still a struggle to take the time to work out when there could be other things I was doing.  Can we say, FRUSTRATION!? So naturally, I stopped working out. If Brandon is in the living room working out, I don't join in, I simply do other household chores, check Facebook or Pinterest, or just do something else to avoid watching him work out. This makes me feel like a lazy pile. Looking back I think my motivation was in the wrong spot, and I didn't have any reasonable goals that I was working towards.

So recently, I got on another kick of "I want to better myself" and I talked to a few friends who run. I like running, it just hurts my knees after a while. But I have always wanted to do  5K. It can't be that bad right? It's only a little over 3 miles, so why not stop procrastinating, get up off my butt and just do it? Well now that I had my motivation, I looked up the "Couch to 5K" running program that outlines what to do for 2ish months to get a person ready to run a 5K. PERFECT!!

Yesterday I had a day off and I was excited to start running... then I went outside... too freaking cold to run out there, I don't have a gym membership nor the $ to start one, and I don't have a treadmill... Why is it that it can be beautiful outside all winter and then right when I get motivated to run outside mother nature decides to make it so cold and spoil my plans? Motivation went down a notch...

Next option, I tried doing one of the workout videos my husband has. It started using weights and resistance bands, and I tried using my husbands which are WAY too heavy for me, so much that I can't even move them. Then I tried using wine bottles or canned goods which were too light and did no good. Motivation down another notch....

Finally I called Brandon, told him about my plans, and how frustrated I was that nothing was working. He gave me the name of another workout that was on his computer, and I completed that workout. I felt good afterword, and I was glad that I actually did something active. Today I was going to try to run again... but once again... way too cold. So I am going to try another workout that doesn't use the weights, maybe an ab workout. 

I guess that my main point in this entry (besides bitching and venting my frustrations) is that I really want to work out/be healthy. I don't feel like I need to lose any ridiculous amount of weight, but just to be healthy and feel like I am doing something good for myself. Of course a few lost pounds would be welcome, but that is not my goal. A goal that I do have is a 5K to start with. Maybe after that a 10K, but lets not get carried away. So until it gets warmer and I can run outside, I will try to work out 3-4 times a week with various videos that Brandon has. I know my sister-in-law is working up to complete a running event, and maybe sometime I can run with her... that would be way cool! 

But for now, any words of wisdom, encouragement, or positive thoughts would be appreciated!