Creamy Taco Pasta

Let me first just say, I would loose my head if it wasn't attached. Seriously! I got a much needed new pan for Christmas that I was SO excited about... and then left it in Georgia! For the past two months, every time I've cooked something all I could think about was how much easier it would be if I had that darn pan. So on a quick weekend treck up to the home state I made sure that I came back to the swamp with my pan. And the other night I finally got to break it in.

I was about to prepare supper for the night with a recipe for a taco pasta I had found on Pinterest and realized that I had already tried it. And while it was good, it was lacking a little something. Not wanting to make the same mistake again I started searching for similar dishes with the ingredients I had on hand. And what I came up with was a little conglomeration of all the different ones I read.

Creamy Taco Pasta

Cooking Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
2 cups uncooked pasta (I used Rotini but any small pasta will work)
1 packet taco seasoning
1 tablespoon sour cream
1 tablespoon cream cheese
1/4 cup salsa
1/4 cup heavy cream
finely shredded cheddar cheese

Cooking Directions:
1. Brown meat in a large skillet while cooking pasta according to package directions.

2. Add taco seasoning to meat (if you like it a little 'saucier' add 1/4 cup of water too). Add in cream cheese, sour cream and salsa. Allow the cream cheese to melt and stir all ingredients together.

3. Drain pasta and add to meat. Stir in 1/4 cup cream.

4. Serve topped with cheese.

Two great things about this meal. 1. It only takes about 20 minutes to make. 2. It only uses two dishes! It is super yummy and made for great left overs for lunch the next day. And if you love your cheese (like the hubs and I both do) you can sprinkle some in when you add the pasta in addition to topping it off when served.

Oh, and yes, my new pan performed wonderfully! ;)

Italian Chicken Crockpot Style

The hubs has been working nights since Thanksgiving which complicates cooking dinner since we now have to eat dinner around 3:30 in the afternoon. That combined with my work schedule has been my excuse for not trying new recipes the past couple of weeks. But this week I'm making up for it with 2 new recipes!

I have Pinterest to thank for this week's inspiration. Seriously, how did we ever come up with new recipes to try and diy crafts to make before Pinterest?

Anyways if you've seen my Pinterest page you've seen the following picture with this recipe:

(Photo Credit: The Girl Who Ate Everything)

Crockpot Italian Chicken

Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts (I used 6 tenderloins)

1 packet dry Zesty Italian dressing

8oz softened cream cheese

2 cans cream of chicken soup

1/2lb bow tie pasta

Cooking Directions:

1. Place chicken in crockpot and cover with Zesty Italian dressing.

2. Over medium heat on the stovetop, combine cream cheese and soup until well blended. Then pour over chicken in crockpot on cook on low for 4 hours.

3. Cook pasta and drain. Serve with garlic toast.

The chicken was so tender it fell apart on the plate so we ended up shredding it and mixing it in with the pasta and sauce. This was really easy to make and quite inexpensive. I think it would have been even better topped with cheese (which is kind of what it looks like in the picture she just doesn't mention it in the recipe?). Because I used chicken tenders instead of chicken breasts we had some extra sauce which is perfect by itself with left over pasta.

So there you have it. An easy, cheap supper (or mid afternoon lunch in our case.) It wasn't amazing, but it was good and we'll probably have it again.

Chicken Florentine and Cheddar Biscuits

Tonight was the first venture into unknown cooking territory. I originally found these recipes on Pinterest (my newest obsession. are you pinning?). The main dish: chicken florentine bowtie pasta, and the side: cheddar biscuits Red Lobster style.

Chicken Florentine Bowtie Pasta from pickypalate.com

(photo credit: http://picky-palate.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Chicken-Florentine-Bowtie-Pasta-text-539x700.jpg)

Ingredients

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 cup finely chopped white onion

1 clove minced garlic (I cheated here and used garlic powder)

4 cups baby spinach leaves

2 cups cooked shredded chicken

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 freshly ground black pepper

2 cups Philadelphia cooking cream (I couldn't find this at the store so I just used store brand heavy whipping cream)

1 pound bowtie pasta

1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Cooking directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and spray a 9x13in baking pan with non-stick baking spray.

2. Cook pasta according to package directions.

3. Cook oil in a dutch oven/large pot over medium heat. Add in onion and cook 5 minutes until tender. Stir in garlic for 1 minute. Add in spinach leaves and cook 2 minutes until wilted. Stir in chicken, salt and pepper. Slowly add in cream, stirring to combine.

4. Add pasta to mixture. (I also added a handful of cheese at this point).

5. Pour mixture into sprayed baking dish and top with mozzarella cheese. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until cheese is slightly golden.

Makes 8 servings.

As you can see, I made a few adjustment. It was very tasty. The sauce wasn't very thick and the spinach helped me not feel too guilty eating only a pasta dish for supper.

This one is definitely going into the recipe box for future reference.

Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits from RasaMalaysia

(photo credit: http://rasamalaysia.com/uploaded_images/biscuits/biscuit.jpg)

Ingredients

2 cups Bisquick mix

2/3 cup milk

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/4 melted butter

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon dried parsley

Cooking directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

2. Mix Bisquick, milk, parsley and cheddar cheese into thick batter

3. Spoon the batter onto cookie sheet and bake for 8 to 10 minutes until golden

4. Melt butter and mix with garlic and drizzle over warm biscuits

Makes 12 servings (serving size = 1 biscuit)

These were delicious! Not exactly like the ones from Red Lobster, but they were quick, easy and cheap which is definitely the better thing in my opinion.

So overall tonight's adventure turned out scrumptious.

Newlywed: 1. Kitchen: 0.