Pasta with Pumpkin-Cream Sauce

HOWDY friends!  I was home alone and hungry one night, so I just opened the fridge and prayed for ideas.  LOL!  What I came up with just so happened to be delicious, so I had to post this, in case someone out there might like it as much as I did.  (I just love it when an clean-out-the-fridge-experiment turns out so good!)  

I had some leftover pureed pumpkin in the fridge, along with some dairy products that needed to be used, so I thought I'd see what I could come up with.  (Canned pumpkin would work fine, just be sure it is NOT pumpkin pie filling!)  I didn't measure anything, so I can't give you the exact recipe.  I just added stuff to the pumpkin I had left until it looked like the consistency I wanted.  Then I tossed it with some pasta and voilà...total deliciousness!

First, I put some pasta on to boil.  (I had some rigatoni in the pantry, so that's what I used.  It went really well with the sauce.)  While the pasta was cooking, I basically just dumped the pureed pumpkin in a saucepan and added some heavy whipping cream and fat free half & half until it was the consistency I wanted.  Then I heated it over medium heat until hot, and stirred in some shredded Parmesan, crumbled bacon, garlic powder, salt, pepper and a little pasta water.

Once the pasta was done, I just had to drain it and toss it with the sauce.  Oh yeah, this is important...I tossed a few diced roasted almonds on top for garnish too.  (You don't want to leave those out...sooooo good!!)

Last, but not least, I toasted bagel (that needed to be used) and spread with some pesto (also from the fridge) on it, and I had a yummy meal in just a matter of minutes!  The only bad thing was that I just made enough for one meal, so there weren't any leftovers.  Next time, I'll make a bigger batch!

Hope all is well with you my friends.  Get out there and enjoy this lovely fall weather if you can.

Blessings,
--Faithy

Jalapeño-Lime Chicken

HOWDY folks!

I’m back with another simple recipe I found in an My H-E-B Texas Life flier at the local grocery store.  (It’s also available online - click here to find the original recipe.)  It sounded wonderful, so I tried it soon after I came across it.

It’s truly super easy!!!  The first time I made it, I just dumped everything into a gallon-sized zipper bag and stuck it in the fridge on a Sunday night.  When I got home from work on Monday, I just dumped it all into a pan and popped it into the oven while I changed clothes, etc.  It was ready in no time!

It’s very versatile too…I sliced the cooked chicken breasts (although they would also shred very easily) and made soft tacos the first night, adding a little diced tomato and avocado along with a bit of Mexican crumbling cheese.

The next day, I had a yummy salad with the leftovers.  I just added the chicken (along with some of the cooked onions & jalapeños) to some lettuce & grape tomatoes from my garden, along with black beans, diced avocado, seedless cucumber & shredded carrots...oh so good!

The next time I made it was on a busy weekend.  Again, I dumped the zipper bag full of stuff into the fridge one night, and then poured it all into the slow cooker the next morning.  It simmered all day while we stayed busy with multiple projects.  By the time evening came around, we were exhausted, and ready for something to eat.  All we had to do was lift the lid on the slow cooker and eat!

I think it would also be good served over rice.  Just use your imagination.  The possibilities are endless!

Jalapeño Lime Chicken

Ingredients:

2 lbs. boneless skinless chicken breast

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

3 Tbsp. olive oil

1/2 tsp. cracked black pepper

8 cloves garlic, chopped (the original recipe calls for 4 cloves, but I’m a garlic fiend…feel free to use as much or as little as you like)

4 jalapeños, halved & seeds removed

2 limes, zested & juiced

1 sweet red onion, quartered (you can use regular red onions if you can’t find the sweet ones)

1 can (14 oz.) low-sodium chicken broth 

Instructions:

Combine all ingredients in a gallon-sized zip-top bag or a large bowl.  (If using the bowl, be sure to cover it with a lid or plastic wrap.)  Marinate over-night (or for at least 6 hours) in the refrigerator.

Oven Version:

Preheat the oven to 450°F.  Place chicken in a lightly greased 9x13 inch pan and top with marinade.  Bake for 35 minutes or until juices run clear when poked with a fork.

Slow-Cooker Version:

Place chicken in a lightly greased slow-cooker, and top with marinade.  Cook on high setting for 6 to 8 hours (until chicken is cooked through & juices run clear when pulled apart with a fork).

I hope you’ll try this one.  It’s really good and easy.  I’ve even made the slow-cooker version for guests…so easy to pull together after a busy day of sight-seeing!  I received rave reviews from all!

HEB has lots of great (and healthy) recipes available on their website, so take a minute to check it out.  Just promise you’ll let me know if you find anything interesting that I haven’t come across yet!

Blessings,

--Faithy

Asparagus, Tomato & Avocado Salad

HOWDY my friends...I hope that everyone enjoyed a blessed Easter weekend.  Our weekend was wonderfully busy hosting our annual family reunion BBQ bash (204 in attendance this year!), but Easter Sunday was much more laid back and relaxed as a much smaller group of us attended church and had lunch together to celebrate the resurrection of our precious Lord Jesus!  Then hubby & I enjoyed a nice, S-L-O-W, afternoon watching old movies, and being determined to put off any major party follow-up tasks (cleaning the house and putting away all the stuff, etc.) until later in the week.

It was a very refreshing, uplifting weekend for me, filled with fun, food, family & friends AND a glorious celebration of the resurrection!  Thanks God...I needed that!

Anyway...now that I'm getting back to "real life", I thought I'd share an incredibly yummy recipe I found over on my friend Kathleen's blog last week.  Asparagus and avocado sounded like an interesting combination, so I just had to try it out.  It was so yummy, my hubby didn't even get much (just his initial serving. and he really liked it too), as I promptly cleaned out the entire bowl!  And yes, I even licked out all the good stuff at the end! 

We were busy with our Easter party preparations, so we didn't have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen last week.  This recipe was really quick & easy, so it fit the bill perfectly.  I served it with some simple pan-seared pork chops (just plain pork chops seasoned with little seasoned salt).  YUM!  Kathleen served hers with some broiled salmon, which sounds good too.  I also think it would go well with just about any grilled or broiled meat...or just by itself.

Asparagus, Tomato & Avocado Salad

For salad:
1 bunch of fresh asparagus (I prefer to use the small stemmed asparagus)
1 pint of cherry (or grape) tomatoes (halved)
1 Haas avocado, ripe (I think I used 2 small avocados)
Mexican crumbling cheese - optional (I added this, and we really liked it.  I think Feta cheese would be good too.  Heck, if you really want to go crazy, some crumbled bacon would probably be delish!)

 
For dressing:
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp whole grain mustard
juice of one medium lemon
kosher salt, fresh cracked pepper & granulated garlic to taste (I added the garlic, 'cause I LOVE garlic...feel free to leave it out if you don't.)

Whisk together dressing ingredients, and let stand to allow the flavors to develop while you assemble the salad.

Trim or snap the tough stem ends of asparagus and discard.  Cut the spears into bite-sized pieces.  In a large skillet (with a lid), bring enough water to cover bottom bottom of pan and a pinch of salt to a boil.  Add asparagus, cover and boil for three minutes.  Quickly remove from heat and rinse in cold water to STOP cooking, and keep it crisp.  Drain well.

Cube avocado, and toss with the asparagus and tomatoes in a large bowl. 

Pour dressing over salad and serve.  (NOTE:  I did NOT use all the dressing...just enough to flavor it all, not drown it.  :-)  The leftover dressing is delicious on a regular green salad, or a tomato/cucumber salad too.  I'm going to have to keep that as a separate recipe for future use as well.)

We'll DEFINITELY be having this again...soon!  Be sure to give it a try, I can't recommend it highly enough.

As a side note, I'm a huge fan of avocados...they taste good, AND they're very nutritious.  I came across this website with all kinds of interesting information about avocados, and tons of recipes.  Can't wait to try some of them.

Okay...enough rambling for today.  TRY THIS RECIPE!!!  (Did I already say that?!)  Then let me know what you think.  And don't forget to stop by and say hello to Kathleen, and thank her for passing it along! 

Blessings,
--Faithy 

Fish Tacos

HOWDY friends!  Sorry it’s been so long since I checked in.  I have been crazy-busy with real life, and just haven’t had time to blog.  I have been doing some recipe testing though, so hopefully I’ll have a chance to catch up on posting some of those soon.

I started a new job today, and I believe it will be a true blessing.  I should have a much lighter work schedule now, and hopefully more time to spend with my family…and you.

Anyway…I celebrated getting home early today by cooking dinner for my husband, Mom and step-father.  My darling hubby has been doing most of the cooking during the week for a while now because of my crazy schedule.  I’m hoping I’ll get to do more of that now as well.

I made some yummy fish tacos, one of our favorites, and I thought I’d take a minute to share my recipe…if you want to call it a recipe.  I don’t really measure anything, just mix it up and cook it.  I made these up based on my father-in-law's fried catfish recipe...with some panko added for extra crunch.

We eat these pretty often.  They are soooooo easy to throw together in a hurry, and even good left over to take in your lunch the next day.

Give these a try…you’ll like ‘em, I’m sure!

Fish Tacos

fish (I prefer a mild white fish – I’ve used Swai and Mahi Mahi)

hot sauce (I prefer Frank’s Red Hot)

yellow corn meal

panko

lemon pepper

hot oil

coleslaw (your favorite…or mine…)

corn tortillas (recently I’ve been using HEB’s Mixla corn & flour blend tortillas…they have a good corn taste, but don’t break as easily when bending)

salsa (any kind will do, but I love Zaasschila Salsa Guacamole and Habanero)

Basically, I just cut the fish into bite-sized pieces, dip it into the hot sauce, then dredge it in a mixture of cornmeal, panko (about 2 parts cornmeal to 1 part panko) & lemon pepper (to taste), then fry it in hot oil, and drain on paper towel before serving.  You can deep fry it or just fry it in a skillet on the stove.  If you do it on the stove top, just be sure to turn the fish so that both sides get nicely browned.

I don’t really know how long to say you should cook it…just until it starts to brown on both sides.  It cooks very quickly, and the whole meal comes together in no time.

Fill warm corn tortillas with fish, and top with coleslaw and salsa.  Enjoy!

I’ll post my coleslaw recipe too, just so you’ll have it.

Have a wonderful weekend my friends!

Blessings,

--Faithy

Baby...it's cold outside! (Apple Pfannkuchen Revisited...)

HOWDY friends...

Just popping in to say hello and wish you all a blessed Thanksgiving.  I hope that you'll be able to spend it with the ones you love.  That's exactly what I plan to do!

We've had a blustery cold front blow in today, bringing our South Texas temps down from the mid 70's to the high 30's in just a few hours.  Aaaaahhhh...gotta love Texas weather!  This change has put me in the mood for one of my favorite cold weather suppers (Apple Pfannkuchen) tonight, so I thought I’d share a link for the recipe along with a few thought-provoking quotes on Thanksgiving!

I posted this recipe a while back, but I thought this would be a good time to share it again, in case you haven't had a chance to try it.  It's really easy, and a sure-fire hit.  My hubby loves it as much as I do, in fact, he's the one doing the cooking tonight!  He’s definitely a keeper!

 

Anyway, here's the link back to my original post with my recipe for Apple Pfannkuchen.  Give it a try and let me know what you think!  I hope you like it as much as we do.

If you're traveling for the holidays, please travel safely, and enjoy the time with your family...it's precious and fleeting.  AND…if you come across any new and interesting recipes while you’re at it, please share!! 

Gotta run, but I'll leave you with these thoughts for thanksgiving…

As we pause to thank Him for the blessings of the past year,

we must not forget to thank Him for the lessons we have learned through our difficult times.

We are not to be thankful for just the pleasant, easy things, but ALL things.

-- Millie Stamm --

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We tend to take all the gifts and pleasures and happiness and the joy

without saying much to God.

We take our health and strength, our food and clothing and our loved ones, all for granted;

but the moment anything goes wrong we start grumbling and complaining

and we say 'Why should God do this to me, why should this happen to me?'

How slow we are to thank and swift to grumble.

-- Martyn Lloyd-Jones --

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In ordinary life we hardly realize

that we receive a great deal more than we give,

and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer --

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You say, 'If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.'

You make a mistake.

If you are not content with what you have,

you would not be satisfied if it were doubled.

-- Charles Haddon Spurgeon --

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Thanksgiving is nothing if not a glad and reverent

lifting of the heart to God

in honor and praise for His goodness.

-- Robert Casper Lintner --

Blessings,

--Faithy