Baked Manicotti

Once again another week at home. I think I say that every week! I thought I’d make some comforting pasta and since I had more time on my hands, I thought I’d make one that takes a little more time. I decided on a stuffed pasta, manicotti to be exact. Now, the filling that I made can be used for any of your favourite stuffed pastas. Manicotti was what I could find at the store. It’s a little bigger in size than the cannelloni that I usually use and a lot bigger than the jumbo shells that I sometimes stuff as well. So enjoy the pasta!

Stuffing

For this stuffing you will need...

About 2 lbs. of ground beef

¼ cup of parsley

2 cups of mozzarella cheese, shredded

½ cup of parmesan cheese

3-5 cloves of garlic

1 small onion chopped, optional

1-1  ½ cup of tomato sauce

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

Brown the garlic and onions in a pan with some olive oil.

Once browned, add in your ground beef and cook well. Drain.

Once cooked and drained, add in the cheeses, tomato sauce, salt and pepper, and parsley.

Mix it all up and cook until all incorporated and gooey ooey.

Place in a glass dish. Once cooled, cover and put in the fridge overnight.

Usually the next day, I prep a tomato sauce. I add peppers, zucchini, diced tomatoes, etc.  whatever you like in your red sauce, add in. Let that simmer.

While your sauce is simmering, stuff your pasta. Some stuffable pastas you can fill when uncooked and they will cook in the oven when you bake your pasta, but the one that I got requires you to boil them first, so that’s what I did.

I just followed the package instructions and then let them cool slightly so that they were easy to handle.

When they were cool enough, I stuffed each of them with the ground beef filling that I made the day before. Be sure not to over fill as they will explode in the oven.

You can freeze any of the leftover filling or use it in another pasta or sauce.

Once the pastas were all filled and ready, I placed them in a casserole dish (put some sauce on the bottom first) and then cover with more of your sauce and then with a layer of mozzarella cheese.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or until boiling. Since the pasta is already cooked, you want to make sure you don’t overcook and make the pasta mushy. The pasta is ready when the cheese is all melted. You can put it on a broil at the end to brown the cheese a bit.

Serve warm and enjoy!  

Chicken Cacciatore

Yay it’s Thursday! It’s been a long week so far. Anyways, we are taking a break from the baby shower planning for now and we’re going to share with you a simple recipe that you can make on the weekend ahead.

Chicken Cacciatore is a family favourite dish. I don’t always have the time to make it, but this past weekend we had a stormy indoor Sunday so I thought why not. It’s the perfect comfort food dish to have after a long week and on a cloudy hibernating day.

To make Chicken Cacciatore (to serve five people roughly) you will need the following…

16-20 chicken thighs, with bones and skin.

1 can (796ml) of diced tomatoes

Your favorite tomato sauce, we used Classico’s Tomato Basil (or you can make your own)

12-20 sliced white mushrooms

2 tsp. of dried oregano

½ tsp. of dried basil

1 red chopped pepper

1 green chopped pepper

Salt (to taste)

½-1 tsp. of black pepper

3 cloves of garlic

Rice or pasta to serve with the chicken

Start by salting and peppering your chicken. Let it sit for about an hour.

While that’s happening, chop up your peppers and garlic and sauté them in a big pot until a little bit softer but leave some crunch. 

While the peppers are softening, you can slightly cook your chopped up mushrooms in a separate pan and set aside. You want the mushrooms to get a bit darker and softer and to cook some of the liquid out of them.

Add in the seasonings and the diced tomatoes. Stir around and then add in your tomato sauce. Allow your chunky looking sauce to boil and then simmer while you cook your chicken. 

Now it’s time to cook the chicken in batches making sure they get nice and crispy. I cooked them until they were almost fully cooked but you can leave them less cooked and let them finish cooking in the oven. I’m always super worried about under cooked chicken though. I started by cooking them on both sides for 5 minutes and then going back to the original side and cooking for at least 3 more minutes (make sure you don’t burn).

Place the prepared chicken into a couple of Pyrex dishes and cover with the tomato sauce. It’s not meant to be a runny type of sauce; you want it to be thicker over top of the chicken.

Cook further for an hour at 350 degrees.

When it comes out it should be steaming and bubbling.

Serve over rice or pasta. I also made some of my cheese biscuits to go along with it. They are always a hit

.http://paperwhitecreations.blogspot.com/search?q=biscuit&updated-max=2016-04-01T18:37:00-07:00&max-results=20&start=4&by-date=false

Wonton Wrapper Raviolis

As we ease into a New Year, we like to throw in a few miscellaneous blog posts of things that we find interesting and want to try out but they may not fit into our themes throughout the year.

First up...easy wonton ravioli. This is something that we wanted to try out for a long time. We actually wanted to make some ravioli at home that was quick and easy so we first tried out fresh store bought lasagna sheets but they were too thick and stiff and didn’t work out at all. Our next plan/idea was to get some wonton wrappers and fill them and make ravioli. These worked out much better. Take a look below to see how made a yummy batch of ravioli.

First of all you’ll want to make a filling. We chose a ricotta cheese and spinach filling. For this you will need ricotta cheese, spinach, olive oil, garlic, eggs, parmesan cheese, and salt and pepper. I cooked up about 10 cups of fresh spinach (yes that seems like a lot but it cooks down so so much) along with 3 cloves of chopped garlic and a drizzle of olive oil. Cook until dark green and until the spinach goes down. 

In a bowl, add in 2 cups of ricotta cheese, 1/3 cup of parmesan cheese, 1 egg, salt and pepper and the spinach. Mix well and refrigerate until ready to use.  

After the filling is made, you can whip out your wonton wrappers and start filling. Either the square or rounds ones will work. We are making slightly larger raviolis so that we can use the entire wrapper without cutting off scrap bits. They are also much thinner than your average ravioli so it’s fine that they are a bit bigger.

Grab a bowl of warm water and put it nearby as you will need to use this to close the ravioli. You’ll also want some baking sheets to place the raviolis on as you wrap them.

Place a dollop of filling in the centre of the wrapper. You don’t want too much as it may split open so a little goes a long way.

Use your finger to put a light boarder of water around the edges of the wrapper.

Fold in half and pinch the sides together.

Place it on a baking sheet and then continue to make more. We were feeding a lot so we made a lot! You can make as many as you want. I did try making some and put them in the fridge overnight. That wasn’t the best idea as they stuck together and stuck to the container and turned really soft. It was a disaster! It’s just best to make them as you need them.

Get a large pot of water boiling. Once it’s boiling, drop about 6 of the raviolis in and let them cook for about 3 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and place on a parchment lined baking sheet in the oven. I put the oven on the warm and hold setting. Continue cooking the rest of the raviolis.

Next, make your sauce. We kept it real simple and just melted some butter in a pan along with some fresh sage and then tossed in the raviolis. I would say just eye how much of each you use. I needed a lot of sauce so I used extra butter and sage. We were so excited to make this and hungry that we forgot to take some pictures along the way! Sorry.

Serve and enjoy...so delicious.

What to do with Thanksgiving Leftovers

With Thanksgiving coming up, you might have a lot of food leftover! I always do the basic reheat or sandwiches, but there is so much more that you can do with these leftovers. This week we have just the blog for you. We’re doing a Thanksgiving leftover blog and we’ll take a look at a bunch of things you can do with your turkey leftovers.

The obvious things would be your cold turkey sandwich. You can make the basic with bread, lettuce, and lots of mayo. Or you can make a warm one with stuffing piled inside of it and cranberry sauce and gravy; really utilize all of the leftovers. You can even make a toasted hot turkey sandwich. I’ve done open faced ones on toasted bread with gravy poured on top or you can add some stuffing on that as well. Make it fancy and upgrade your bread (make it a panini or pita), but you really want to use what you have leftover from dinner; don’t add too much extras. I love making clubhouses with my fresh turkey. On toasted bread with lots of mayo, I layer on turkey, bacon, avocado, tomato, and a little lettuce and sometimes cheese. So divine!

Another popular thing to make with turkey leftovers is turkey pie. Buy a pie crust or make one. Mix some of your leftover veggies (bean, corn, carrots, and peas are the best) add in some chopped onions and celery and then pour in your leftover gravy with a bit of salt and pepper and any other flavours you like. You can decide how runny you want your pie filling to be. If you don’t have enough gravy left you can add in some water, chicken broth, or cream of chicken soup until it reaches the consistency you want. Pour the filling into one pie crust and then place another one on top and brush with some egg wash and put in a few slits on the top. Bake at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes or until golden and you can see the filling bubbling.

Pasta is always popular. You can make a tomato based sauce or rose and add turkey to it along with some veggies or you can make more of an alfredo sauce with turkey added to it or you can make a baked tetrazzini.

Soup is also a good way to use up your leftovers. You can make a turkey noodle soup with veggies and your turkey. You can even add in some mashed potatoes in. If you like a really hearty soup you can make a chowder as well.  

Other less obvious but creative things to make are waffles topped with turkey trimmings, mashed potato pizza, cranberry mixed in with your oatmeal/yogurt, turkey poutine, frittata, quiche, turkey dumplings, apple/pumpkin pie milkshakes, turkey and stuffing stuffed peppers, turkey lasagna, turkey roll ups, turkey nachos, turkey chilli, enchiladas, turkey egg rolls, turkey and veggie casserole, turkey and veggie Shepard’s pie, turkey hash...the recipes are endless! 

One recipe that really stood out to me was this turkey dinner in a biscuit.

https://www.bobbiskozykitchen.com/2015/12/turkey-dinner-in-biscuit.html

Take a look here for more ideas..

https://www.google.ca/search?q=thanksgiving+leftovers&rlz=1C1PRFC_enCA731CA731&oq=thanksgiving+leftovers&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0l5.3423j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Comfort Foods Part 3 - Mac and Cheese

It’s the last week of comfort food. I can’t believe Halloween is next week and October is over already. 

There is nothing more comforting than a good ol’ plate or bowl of mac and cheese. You can keep your mac and cheese real simple by doing a simple cream sauce with macaroni and a cheddar cheese baked topping. You can do a time saving pressure cooker mac and cheese (Nicole will share more about that later on) or you can do a “grown up” mac and cheese with chicken and bacon and a few different cheeses. 

Nicole has a recipe for mac and cheese that you can do in a pressure cooker. It looks so simple and quick to make. For this you will need a pressure cooker of course. You will also need...

4 tbsp. of butter

¼ cup of flour

4 cups of low fat milk

1 ½ cups of chicken broth

1 tbsp. Dijon mustard

1 tsp. dried thyme

½ tsp. salt

½ tsp. pepper  

1 pound of dried Penne pasta

1 cup Gruyere cheese

1 cup of Parmesan cheese

Melt the butter in the pressure cooker on the browning setting. Then sprinkle in the flour and whisked until dissolved. 

Whisk in the milk slow and steadily. Pour in the broth and whisk until smooth. Then whisk in the mustard, thyme, salt, and pepper. Stir in the dried and uncooked Penne pasta.

Lock the lid and cook at high pressure for 5-8 minutes.

Use the pot’s quick release method to bring the pot’s pressure back to normal. 

Unlock and open the pot and stir in the cheeses. Cover without locking and let sit for a few minutes to melt the cheese in. Open and stir thoroughly before serving. 

For my more “elaborate” version of mac and cheese you will need a simple white sauce. You can make your own or buy a plain Alfredo sauce in a jar from the supermarket.

First of all boil some pasta. Penne, Rotini’s, or regular Macaroni will do. Your choice. I usually do 4-5 cups or more of dried pasta because I cook it for my family, but you can make enough for how many people you are cooking for. Once that has cooked, drain and set aside. 

Warm up the sauce in a pot. Stir in some grated Parmesan cheese about a cup and about 2 cups of either cheddar cheese or Mozzarella. Warm it up, but be sure not to boil it. Keep on low heat.

While you are cooking the sauce and pasta, you can put the chicken in the oven. Use the method from a few weeks back when we did the chowder. Cook about 3-4 chicken breasts if you’re cooking for a large amount of people. This will take about 30 minutes. Then chop up into bite sized pieces and add to the sauce. 

After you make the sauce, fry up some bacon in small bites. Drain and pat and then add this directly to the sauce. If want a healthier mac and cheese then you can add some boiled broccoli or some spinach leaves. 

Once you have the bacon and chicken in the sauce, pour the pasta in and stir until all is coated. 

You can put it in a large casserole dish or you can do what I enjoy doing and make individual mac and cheeses. 

 Sprinkle with a mix of cheddar and Mozzarella cheese. 

Bake at 375 degrees for about 30-45 minutes or until bubbling and the cheese is browned.  

Serve right out of the oven, but be careful... don’t burn your tongue.