Italian Risotto with Baked Salmon

I was really craving Risotto today so I came up with what I wanted to be in it and just read a recipe on how to make risotto and just incorporated all the ingredients to it. I hope everyone enjoys it. We sure did.

Sorry I havent been blogging, I've been really really busy and really not cooking much at home!

1 lb Salmon

Baked in the oven for 25 minutes on 375 degrees

1 1/2 cup arborio rice

1/2 cup white wine

6 cups chicken broth

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 small onion, diced

1/4 lb pancetta, diced

2 plum tomatoes, diced

a handful basil cut up

1/3 cup fresh parmigiana cheese

Bring a saute pan and 3 tbls of olive oil to medium high heat. Place onion, garlic, and pancetta in pan. Saute for 5 mins until onions are translucent. Add rice and saute for about 2 mins. Add wine and stir until all liquid is gone. Add 1/2 cup of broth at a time until liquid is gone until all 6 cups is incorporated and rice is al dente. Add tomatoes, cheese, and basil and remove from the pan. Sprinkle a little cheese on top of each serving.

Bring a sate

Ultimate Sloppy Joes with Butternut Squash Colslaw

YUM YUM YUM! And what a perfect day we had in Florida to end with such a Fall inspired meal! I have been wanting to make this coleslaw for over a week now and just been really busy. I didnt have to time to go get the ingredients!

I saw this recipe on Tyler's Ultimate on Food Network and it just screamed you have to try this. It contains cranberries, walnuts, and a creamy goat cheese vinaigrette. It was super delightful, either by itself or smack right on top of the sloppy joe between the two buns!

The sloppy joe was so super simple to make I figured why not give it a try too. It was the best sloppy joe I've had in a while and it was made from scratch. Goodbye, Manwich! Hello, Homemade!

I'm going to go ahead and post the link to both recipe here!

In the sloppy joes I used lean ground beef but to make it healthier definitely use the lean turkey meat he uses.

Sloppy Joes:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/the-ultimate-sloppy-joes-recipe/index.html

Butternut Squash Coleslaw:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/butternut-squash-coleslaw-with-honey-goat-cheese-dressing-recipe/index.html

I hope everyone enjoys!

Walnut crusted Mahi Mahi with Curried Couscous

The other day I stopped in at my favorite meat market off Woodbury in Waterford Lakes and grab a few things for the week, one being Mahi Mahi. I knew I wanted to make fish but had no idea what I wanted to make but I definitely didnt want to make any salmon or tilapia so I went with this.

Today, while Brayden napped I was searching the foodnetwork website and saw Macadamia Nut crusted Mahi Mahi, knew I didnt have macadamia nuts or the coconut milk the recipe called for so I decided let me try to it with walnuts and just not worry about the coconut milk since it wasnt a lot. I decided as I was putting it together to add a little coconut flake in the crusting for that sweet coconut flavor.

I decided to pair the fish with a couscous because I saw another recipe for a coconut style mahi with curried couscous. I already knew how to make a curried couscous so I decided lets do it too. I originally got the recipe for this couscous from Publix but tweeked it a little to be my own and what flavors I like to have.

Needless to say this dish turned out so yummy! And I hope this will help bring a little different flavor profiles into your kitchen.

Walnut crusted Mahi Mahi
4- 6-8oz filets Mahi Mahi
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
1 1/4 cup walnuts, ground (I used the food processor to grind it up, I left some chunks)
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 tbls flour
1/4 cup coconut flakes
Salt, pepper, and olive oil for seasoning

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Take the Mahi season with salt and pepper (or nature's seasoning, is what I used) and a little coat of olive oil over the fish on both sides. Spray sheet pan down with cooking spray. Place fish spread out evenly on the pan. Let sit while preparing the crust.

To make crust combine all the ingredients together.

Place mahi in oven for 5 minutes. Bring back out of the oven and put the crust on top of each filet evenly, some may fall off but thats ok. Press down so the it adheres to the fish. Place back in the oven for 10 minutes, until crust is golden brown. Once its done, let it sit for 10 minutes.

Curried Couscous:
1 cup chicken broth or water
2 tsp olive oil
1tbls curry powder
2 tbls brown sugar
2tsp garlic powder
2tsp ground ginger
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
2/3 cup couscous
Salt and pepper to taste

Bring chicken broth and olive oil to a boil. Add in curry powder, brown sugar, garlic powder, ginger, raisins, and couscous. Once couscous is added, cover the pot and remove from the burner. Let sit for 7 minutes. Once its done, flake with a fork and add in walnuts for some added crunch! Add salt and pepper, if needed.

I hope you all enjoy! Now I'm off to boot camp and get to actually enjoy this meal afterwards!

Mama's Lasagna

Not my mama's but the ever popular Neely's on Food Network's Mama's Lasagna. And OHHH it was soo soo soo good. Generally, you will look up recipes on Food Network that look good but read the reviews and you just get turned off by the negative reviews from some of the people. This recipe had a 5 star rating and every single review was " This is the best lasagna I have ever eaten!" So of course I couldn't not try it.

Like I have said in the past, I'm not a huge down home kind of cook, I normally don't cook all your typical homey foods. But tonight I was stumped and had ground beef out, so I turned to my favoritest site EVER, FOOD NETWORK. I went on the website and searched under beef, dinner, and in 30 minutes. Well a few steak ideas came up and then I saw lasagna rolls and decided let me search Lasagna. I went down the list and this popped out to me so I read it, then read the reviews and decided Lasagna is "what's for dinner!"

Let me just reiterate when I say best Lasagna I have ever had, I mean BEST I HAVE EVER HAD!

I served it with steamed broccoli and cauliflower mix, and Cuban bread baked in the oven with garlic butter on top.


The Cuban bread is easy and oh soo yummy! Get a fresh loaf of Cuban bread from your local grocery store, soft butter in the tub, and 4 gloves of garlic. With the garlic you are going to peel, and mash, grate, mince (whatever is easiest for you) mix it together with about a 1 cup of butter. Once the lasagna is done, cut the loaf in half lengthwise, smear the butter mixture on top and place both halves in the oven until golden brown 5-10 minutes. This is how my Mima makes her garlic bread whenever we go to her house!

I hope you all enjoy it and try it out! You will not be sorry if you do!

www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/neelys/mamas-lasagna-recipe/index.html

Pretzel chicken and zucchini

YUMO! Kelly thank you so much for telling me about this recipe. Carl was very interested in what I was making tonight so he took a chicken finger and instantly said "This is by far the best chicken I have ever had. I think its the perfect amount of salt that makes it!" haha and my friend Kelly said the exact same thing when she told me about it a couple of days ago! I, too, thought it was amazing and the zucchini fingers were to die for. Im not sure how healthy this meal was but it was fried in EVOO so that has to make it a little better, right!?! Either way I hope everyone will try it out for the family or children because it is definitely a winner in the Schuster household!

Here we go:
1 lb chicken cutlets, cut in strips or kept as whole (next time I will not do strips, too much work)
2 med zucchini, cut in strips
1 sm bag pretzels
1tbls dried thyme
cracked black pepper
2 eggs
milk (splash)
evoo

Put bag of pretzels into a food processors and grind until a powder like consistancey but has some small bits of pretzel left. Put into a shallow bowl, add thyme and fresh black pepper. Mix 2 eggs and a splash of milk together in another shallow bowl. Place strips of zucchini and chicken into pretzel mixture, then into egg mixture and back into pretzel mixture.

In a large saute pan, place EVOO about 1/4 inch high in pan. Once the oil is HOT, place chicken and zucchini that you have ready in and cook 3 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Repeat the process until all are fully cooked. Do NOT crowd the chicken of zucchini because it will take a lot longer to cook and brown up.

If you want to keep warm place in a 200 degree oven while the rest is finish cooking.

I used a ranch dipping sauce but you can use a honey mustard or a heated honey dijon sauce with it. My friend Kelly made her own heated honey mustard sauce that she said was amazing but I didnt make a sauce.

We also had roasted red potatoes alongside of these.

Salmon Picatta

After being on vacation and working the past three days we havent had the opportunity to eat anything from home. Im so sorry I havent blogged.

Tonight we had Salmon Picatta with seared scallops and steamed mix veggies (broccoli and cauliflower). It was very yummy! Carl and I were craving something light so I decided on salmon and the came up with the rest from making picatta in the past, knowing how well a lemon flavored sauce always pairs nicely with salmon. For those who have never had a picatta sauce it is a strong lemon garlic cream sauce.

While at the store getting the salmon, Carl had this great idea of buying scallops and said it will be something to try new, that you've never cooked and try it out! So we did and it was super good!

So how did I cook it all, it may be a long recipe but it is super easy to cook.

Salmon 1lb:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Place salmon on cookie sheet or a shallow baking pan

Pour about 1 tbls of evoo (extra virgin olive oil) over the fish

Splash 1/2 lemon of juice on top

Season with Nature's seasoning or if not available, use garlic powder, salt , and pepper

Place in the oven for 20-30 mins until flaky and golden.

Picatta Pasta:

1/2 of pasta of your liking ( I used small shells because I had it on hand)

3 gloves of garlic, minced

1 shallot, chopped

6 white mushrooms

2 tsp capers

1 lemon

2 tbls evoo

1 tbls butter

1/2 cup of white wine

1/2 cup chicken broth

1/4 cup or a splash of heavy cream ( to thicken sauce)

Bring medium pot of water to boil for pasta and cook accordingly. Dont forget to add salt because its the only time you have the ability to season the pasta.

Place a saute pan (medium to large size) on a medium high stovetop. Bring olive oil to high heat and add garlic and shallots to the pan. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes making sure they do not burn. If it burns it will be very bitter. Now add butter and mushrooms to pan. Let cook down for 3 to 5 mins until mushrooms are half their size. Now add the lemon and let cook at the high tempurature to bring out the lemon flavor until it reduces down almost half. Now add in white wine and cook out all alcohol for about 2 minutes. Once it is all reduced and alcohol is out, add chicken broth bring to a boil. Turn down the burner to low and stir in heavy cream. Keep on low until pasta is ready. Once the pasta is done, drain and add to the saute pan, combine.

Sea Scallops:

10 medium sea scallops

Garlic salt and salt to season with

1 turn of the pan of Evoo

2 tsp butter

Came up with this recipe by watching top chef all the time. They always sear scallops to perfection and if not they say why it didn't cook right. So I took a stab at it!

Dry scallops completely on a paper towel making their is no moisture because it will not sear properly if there is.

Bring a small saute pan to a high heat. Add olive oil and butter until it is sizzling. Once the pan is hot enough, season the scallops on both sides with garlic and salt. Place in the hot pan and let sear for 2-3 minutes until a rich golden brown color and then flip and repeat. Once it is seared on both sides they are cooked to perfection.

I hope everyone enjoys this dish if they make it. Boy, did we! I will no longer be afraid of cooking things I've never cooked because we a little guidance from recipe books and a little top chef, you can make anything.

A boiled egg?! Who would've thought?

Growing up and into my adulthood I had no idea what the proper procedure was to boiling the perfect egg. I used to just put the eggs in water boil it and just guess when I thought they were done. Most of the time I wouldn't even make them for the fear of not doing it right. Boiled eggs were basically my culinary enemy, ha, if there is such a thing.

Well the time came a couple weeks ago when I was making a chicken salad that called for a 2 boiled eggs and thank god the recipe had the perfect way to boil an egg. Who would've thought it was that easy?!

So here it is the easiest and best way to cook a boiled egg:

Place 2 eggs in a small saucepan and fill with cool water until eggs are covered. Place on a medium high- high stovetop. Once the water comes to a boil, cover and remove from burner. Keep covered for exactly 15 minutes and then remove them from water. Run them under cool water and peel! You have no made the perfect boiled egg.

Some of you may think how stupid a boiled egg thats not hard, well for me it was very annoying not knowing how to make it.. HAHAHA!!

Im sorry I missed blogging for a couple of days just had a busy couple of nights and now Im on vacation! My Mima is making Spaghetti and Meatballs tonight! If I'm in the room while she's preparing it I'll post the recipe.

Slow Cooker Orange Chicken

So I hate to post a recipe I wasnt very fond of but I think maybe we can start a thread of comments about how to change a recipe up to make it taste better..

Today I made this recipe being very excited to finally have an Asian inspired healthy meal in my kitchen, the only other thing I can make is sweat and sour chicken but that is in no way healthy for you. So I started the whole thing before I went to work and slow cooked it all day! It wasnt bad! Carl rated it a 6.3 on a 10 pt scale but it tasted more like bbq ribs than orange chicken. Im going to post the recipe I used and I want everyone to comment and give me and everyone else ideas for what would be better to use other than the bbq sauce. The taste was so overpowering it definitely didnt taste like "ORANGE CHICKEN" like in the Asain cuisine.

8 pcs of boneless skinless chicken thighs
3 tbls flour
1/3 cup orange marmalade
1/3 cup sweet BBQ sauce
2tbls soy sauce
1 tbls of ginger (I used ground but it called for fresh grated)

Toss chicken in flour inside crock pot. Next add all other ingredients, combine together.

Cook on low 6-8 hrs or high 3-4 hrs.'

I served it with white rice.

I hate posting a recipe I wasnt fond of but I promised one everyday!

Tomorrow will be how to boil the perfect egg and a little other advice because tomorrow's cheat day! Eating out! YAY!

Baked Spaghetti Squash with Chicken

I found this meal on the food network mobile website. I was at a blank on what to make tonight so I turned to my favorite website, television programming, and people to watch, to help guide me for my dinner tonight!

I have loved spaghetti squash for a long time but never knew how to incorporate it into a meal as a replacement for my starch so I was intrigued to try it out. And boy am I glad I took the plunge, it was soo soo soo yummy! Who needs pasta when you have a healthy substitute like Spaghetti Squash?! Well I wouldn't always use it as a sub, I mean come on a girl's gotta have her pasta every so once in a while... hahaha!

So here's the recipe and I hope everyone will enjoy it or at least try spaghetti squash as a veggie choice. It is a very buttery yummy squash that literally looks like spaghetti strands!

Enjoy Everyone! I know we sure did

1 medium sized Spaghetti Squash
2 tbls butter
2 tbls flour
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup chicken broth
1 lb of chicken breast, boneless skinless, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup finely shredded parmesan
1/2 cup of fresh parsley
Salt and pepper

Pierce Spaghetti squash many times and place in a preheated 375 degree oven for 30 mins. After 30 mins cut in half, remove the seeds, and place halves cut side down back on the cooking sheet for an additional 30 mins.

In a skillet, medium sized, place butter and melt. Once melted add flour and stir constantly til a light golden color. Add garlic and chicken broth and whisk until combined. Now add chicken and cook on a simmer (med-low) 3-5 mins until chicken is cooked through. Remove from heat and add milk. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Once squash is done remove from oven and flip over so that you can scrap out the squash. If you use a fork to remove it, you use a flaking motion to make a stringy consistency. Place a good amount of squash in a pasta bowl. Now add cheese and parsley to the chicken mixture. Once fully combined and cheese melted spoon chicken and sauce on top of the spaghetti squash and enjoy!

Shepard's Pie

After talking on the phone with my sister, Jennifer, and talking about this blog, I got some great advice on how she makes her Shepherd's pie so I've decided to make her version with a little of mine! She told me the key is to make it a double layer pie and I have decided to top it off with a puff pastry! Does this sounds HEALTHY?! Nope but oh well! Is comfort food supposed to be healthy, I DONT THINK SO...haha!

So this is how it will go...

1/4 c. shredded carrots, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

4 white mushrooms, chopped

2 gloves of garlic, smashed and chopped

1/4 cup corn, frozen or canned

1lb. of lean ground beef

1 sheet puff pastry, thawed

1 box of mashed potatoes or fresh mashed potatos, about 6 whole (tonight I have to use boxed because I have no fresh but I definitely prefer fresh)

2 cups of mix cheese ( Im using Mexi blend but you can use any cheese you like)

1 egg white

Where to start:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease an 8 inch round baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.

Boil water for potatoes. Make as described on box or put potatoes in water and boil while doing the next step.

Brown meat to almost done; drain. Now add all veggies except corn and saute until meat is fully cooked and onions are translucent. Add corn to warm through.

Once you have each layer ready. Start with a layer of meat, then potatoes, then cheese; repeat. After the second layer of cheese, lay puff pastry on top pinching the sides under in order to hold everything in and create a pie like look. Score the top with an X in the middle to allow steam out. Before placing in the oven lightly brush the top of pastry with egg white to minimize browning too fast!

Bake for 15 mins

Good Luck and enjoy if anyone is trying this recipe out!

Thanks Jen for the idea! I'll let everyone know how it turns out!

The Beginning of a New Journey!

Today I have decided to start my blog for cooking! After seeing Julie & Julia last Tuesday I was inspired to start a blog about all the new meals, desserts, and just about anything I cook!  I know many people ask me how I make things or where I got a recipe or how to cook fast and easy, SOO I decided to set up a blog so anyone can see how I do it! I will try to keep up with it on a daily basis, but I know there are days we do eat out because I am a mom full-time and a hairstylist part time.

I hope that this will be a great place for many of my friends and family to come to, to learn new tricks and recipes to share with their family!

If anyone has advice or any tips/tricks please post for everyone to see!

I am excited about this journey and cant wait to start!

Day 1: I will be cooking Shepard's Pie! You will see throughout my blog to come that I DO NOT enjoy comfort food but I like to cook it every so once in a while because Carl, my husband, enjoys it, as well as, non-traditional home cooking!

I will post the recipe I follow or the steps to making it in my next blog! 

As Julia would say "Bon Appetit!"

What are you cooking tonight!?