Italian Chicken

Today for dinner, I'm making Italian Chicken.  This is a pretty simple recipe I use as a go-to on days that I want something that tastes fancy but isn't costly.

I started out with a pack of ten chicken breasts, but I only used six for this recipe.  I like having some left over chicken so I can do other things with it later.  I poured Italian dressing into two sandwich baggies for the chicken breasts to marinate.  Before I put the chicken in, I put little slits into them so the dressing can slosh around inside and out, making the chicken savory and flavorful.  I usually let them marinate overnight, but I was really craving this recipe today, so I let them juice up for about four hours.  I went shopping earlier for a zucchini, a squash, and a container of mushrooms.  I sliced them up and stored them in the fridge until I was ready to get cookin'. 

I set the oven to 350 degrees and got my ingredients ready.  In a glass casserole dish, I poured the chicken and dressing out and separated them evenly.  I added more dressing to the dish because I don't want the chicken to dry out during cooking!  Once I put the chicken in the oven, I got my vegetables out and set the kitchen timer for ten minutes.  When the timer went off, I flipped the chicken over so the sides would cook evenly.  I checked the centers to see how they were doing and everything seemed to be cooking beautifully!  I sloshed them around a bit to get more dressing everywhere and set the timer for another ten minutes.

Once the second timer went off, I was ready to put the vegetables in.  This time, I only set the timer for seven minutes, which was plenty.  The chicken was cooked all the way through and the vegetables were cooked, but still had the right amount of crisp. 

This recipe can go great over pasta, too!  I usually put it over penne or rotini, but all I had was spaghetti.

Unfortunately, I was in such a rush making this that I didn't even think to take more pictures.  I didn't know I'd be posting about this, but here I am!  Luckily, I did get an image of the finished product: 

AWESOME. 

Baked Brie

Last night, to get my boyfriend to take a break from editing, I decided that I was going to make some delicious baked Brie.  My parents bought me this cherries jubilee Brie topper to try out because they know baked Brie is my favorite thing ever.  So here's what I did!

I bought basic crescent rolls and placed them like this, so that when I was ready to wrap up the Brie, all sides would be covered. I still had to pinch some of the dough together before putting it in the oven, but that happens. 

Using this jelly, I spread down a sticky surface for the cherries jubilee packet (which I forgot to take a picture of).  It was mainly vanilla sugar, dried cherries, orange flavor, and cashews. I spread these all over the center and a little into the triangles. 

This is the kind of Brie I used. I cut the paper off so it gets super melty inside, but you don't have to do that. I sometimes don't!

The oven was preheated to 350, and I'm sending this little guy off for about 24 minutes. Usually it's approximately 30, but my stupid oven runs too hot sometimes. 

While that was cooking, I put some French baguette slices in the panini press for five minutes to crisp them up...

And I sliced some apples! 

Straight out of the oven, let it cool for a bit. Hot cheese IS lava. Delicious, mouth incinerating lava. 

I'm not usually one for presentation, but baked Brie is kind of classy,  right? Sure. I was too busy stuffing my face with this to take a picture of the inside, but I assure you, everything was glorious. 

What do you do with only 1/2 pound of beef?

I have two pounds of beef I just put in the fridge to thaw out for dinner (or for tomorrow's dinner, depending on how long it takes). Last night, I used half a pound of beef to make a burger. I woke up today not wanting a burger, but felt that I should use the rest of the beef. I had no idea what to do with it! I looked over the internet and founds lots of ideas, but was too lazy to make any of them, especially since I would've had to go out and get the ingredients. And actually, on that note, it's not that I'm too lazy to go out, it's that IT'S TOO COLD. Yes, this coming from somebody from the north living in the south, but it's 32 degrees and windy. If it weren't for the beautiful blue sky, I'd consider this all-around Pittsburgh weather. Anyway, I decided I had to make due with what items I had.

I hoard mac'n'cheese. 

But before I started doing noodly things, I cooked my beef with a little bit of tomato juice and added half a pack of:

Since I only had half a pound of beef, I only used half of the pack. Once the beef was done and the noodles were drained, I mixed them together back in the pot. 

Beefy, noodly goodness. I could've eaten it without the cheese! But I didn't. The masterpiece was complete when:

So beef. Much noodle. Very cheese. Wow. 

Let's get to know each other over dinner

Thanks for coming by.  I'm making spaghetti carbonara.  My recipe and some pics will be at the end of this post.  First things first, let me introduce myself:  I'm Kristin.  I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on April 6, 1988, but despite loving my city as much as a person can, I moved to Charleston, South Carolina because my body rebels against me when the weather turns cold.  My friends here in Charleston get pretty annoyed with how much I talk about Pittsburgh.  Have you ever met a fangirl over a city (who didn't just base her love on sports)?  Well, I think you just have. 

My parents brought me up on Marvel Comics, Star Wars, Star Trek, other science fiction movies like Stargate, fantasy movies like Willow, and my brother gave me his hand-me-down memories (and toys) from growing up in the early 80s, so He-Man and Rainbow Brite were bffs.  My parents never really supervised the television and movies I watched, so my first introduction to rated R movies included the Alien series, the Terminator movies, and plenty of other not-for-six-year-olds films.  They knew I fell in love with movies at an early age when I wouldn't stop quoting The Princess Bride and Mortal Kombat (which is something I geek out over the hardest...Christopher Lambert!).  Eventually, sometime in elementary school when I was pretending to be an immortal witch with glowing green eyes and superpowers (I was a little drama queen), I learned that film, writing, and nerdery were my passions. 

I started writing poems and stories in elementary school, but they were terrible. Once I started reading books not recommended for my age group (we're talking Stephen King), I learned how to form a compelling story.  The more movies and television shows I watched, and the more books I read, I started to draw inspiration for more writing projects.  I'd write a lot of romantic poems, angsty poems, depressed poems (ah, puberty).  I also wrote a lot of science fiction with myself as the protagonist.  Nothing ever came of my writing until I made it to high school.  I took two creative writing classes, one that was offered at the school as an elective, and one at the local community college.  Some of my short stories or essays made it into the high school literary magazine, and one ended up on the internet, though that website has since been shut down.

I stopped writing for a while because I lost my passion for it and picked up the passion for film as a replacement.  I've taken film classes, both in film making and film analysis.  My first blog (which I unfortunately neglect) focuses on film analysis and critique, but it's mostly just an amateur's opinion.  I see my future taking place in the film world, whether it be screen writing, adaptation, acting, critique, or just being a grip.  My boyfriend is a DOP and my best friends here in Charleston are also in the film business.

If you continue reading my blog, you'll find out more about other things I love.  Stick around and I promise not to bore you.  Anyway, didn't you come here for food?  Here's what you need:
Spaghetti noodles
Four eggs
Bacon
1/4 cup grated Romano cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Parsley
Salt & Pepper


Boil some water! Sprinkle some sea salt or garlic salt in there to spruce up your noodles.

 

Place your four eggs in some warm water so the sauce comes together more easily when you mix everything together. 

 

Grab a pack of bacon and leave it as it was packaged.  Cut the slab in lines so you'll have little chopped cubey bacony things.

 Break those eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk the hell out of those little buggers.

Mix the Romano and Parmesan cheeses in a 1/2 measuring cup.  You can add more cheese if you want later.

Sorry for the picture quality, I had a cat using me as a scratching post.   This picture is supposed to show the shredded cheeses mixed with the eggs.  I also added some black pepper to add more flavor.

When your bacon is nice and crispy (feel free to take a sample just to make sure it tastes okay), let 'em hang out on a paper towel to de-grease until you need them (which will be soon!)

 god that looks good

While your spaghetti is still hot (right out of the boiling water, or having had hot water running on it), plop the noodz into the egg-and-cheese mixture, along with your bacon and some chopped up parsley.  Use salad tongs to mix it all up.  Look at those glistening noodles!  If you want, sprinkle some more cheese on top and zap it in the microwave for 30 seconds to ensure better meltage.

NOW EAT.

Thanks for listening to be ramble on about myself.  If you took anything away from this one-sided conversation, let it be the carbonara recipe.  If you take more with you, then I hope to see you back here soon.