Posts tagged ‘spinach’

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March 16, 2011

Chipotle Alfredo Farfalle Pasta – aka “When You Eff Up”

The below looks good enough, right?  I started off with Farfalle Pasta, Ragu Alfredo Sauce, Spinach, and Red Onions.  Sounds simple enough.  I got myself into trouble with my aforementioned affection for hot peppers.  The store didn’t have the ones I wanted in their produce section, so I decided to “go rogue” in the least Palinite fashion possible (or maybe the most?) and go buy some canned peppers.  I settled on some of the “chipotle peppers in adobo sauce” and figured I could make it work (can pictured below).

I cracked open the can of peppers and went to work washing the adobo sauce off of them (it’s kind of a smoky barbecue sauce), meanwhile putting about 2/3 of a red onion and the spinach in a saucepan with some oil.  I added the peppers once I had rinsed and chopped them.  I added ALL of the peppers.  A little sauce and some boiled pasta later, I had my dish.

I added too many peppers.

The dish came out hot as fire.  The Chef, to her credit, managed to hang in like a champ and eat her helping, even though she did say she had some “stomach upset” by the end.  I took mine down and went back for seconds, even though I think I went through about 3 glasses of tea.

Over the next few days, I finished all of the pasta that I had made, leaving out most of the peppers.

Moral of this story?  Taste what you’re putting in your food before you do it.  I had never cooked with these peppers and didn’t realize the heat and pain that I was about to unleash on myself and my guest.  A simple taste would have revealed that a much smaller portion would have been sufficient to bring the spice train to town.

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September 28, 2010

Tuna Enchiladas

I’ll be honest – I’ve never eaten tuna.  I decided to try it because I know it’s very healthy for you AND very cheap.  Here was my attempt.

My ingredient list:

  • 1 bag spinach
  • 1 bunch of cilantro
  • 3 cans of tuna (i could have used 5, to be honest)
  • 1 hot red pepper
  • Taco Blend Cheese
  • 1 bag tortillas

I chopped the ends off the cilantro, then used a butcher knife to chop as tiny as possible.

I chopped the pepper into tiny pieces, opened all the cans of tuna, then heated them up together in a nonstick pan.

I took the tortillas, put the pepper/tuna mixture in the center, topped it until covered with spinach, then added some cilantro on top.  I rolled the tortillas up and placed them into a pyrex pan.

I covered the enchiladas in the taco cheese and baked at 400 (approximately, i don’t really pay attention to this exactly) until the cheese melted and the exposed tortilla started to look crispy.

Turned out pretty darn good.

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July 15, 2010

Enchiladas

Ingredients

  • Pork Loin
  • Red Hot Pepper
  • Jalapeno Pepper
  • Spinach
  • Mexican Cheese
  • Small taco size tortillas

I took a Pork Loin and put it in the crock pot for about 8 hours, then chopped it up until it was pretty fine.  I chopped both of the pepper types up and mixed them together.  Took the pork, pepper mix, and spinach and added some cheese and rolled up inside the tortillas.  I filled one layer of a Pyrex and then put a layer of cheese over the first layer.  I did the same procedure and added the cheese on top of the 2nd layer.  Baked for about 10 mins at 350.

Here’s what it looked like:

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May 6, 2010

Steak Burrito

I’d bought some tortilla wraps weeks ago, and I hadn’t used them so I decided to try and make some burritos.

I bought:

  • Steak tips ($3.14 made 8 burritos)
  • pack of sliced mushrooms
  • 1 hot red pepper
  • shredded mozarella cheese
  • spinach (bag)

I chopped up the mushrooms, chopped the steak tips into smaller pieces and sliced the hot pepper into tiny pieces.  I pan fried all of this at once.

Then I put some of the mozarella in the center of the tortillas and put a decent portion of the stir fry mix on top of the mozarella.  I took the tortilla with all of this on it in the pan, then allowed it to heat until the cheese melted.

I took some of the spinach and put it on top of the cheese, peppers, mushrooms and steak then rolled it up into a burrito.  I ate it with some guacamole and corn chips.  Freakin delicious.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture.

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May 6, 2010

Spinach and Mushrooms

I came up with this dish from a few random things I had in the fridge

The meat in there is chopped deer tenderloin.  I chopped some mushrooms and stir fried the deer with the mushrooms.  When that was done, I took it out of the pan, put some oil in the pan and sauteed some spinach.

A couple things to know about this meal:

  1. this is good with any red meat (and probably pork as well)
  2. a HUGE amount of spinach cooks down to a very small amount

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February 8, 2010

Pork Chops

I had some leftover pork from the green pork chili adventure, so I decided to make it into pork chops.  Granted, this wasn’t exactly normal pork chops – the pork that I had came from a pork roast that I had used for the pork chili, so these were not “bone in” chops.  Technically, they were pork roast fillets.

I roasted the remainder of the pork in the oven for about an hour at approximately 400 degrees.

After it was done roasting, I think sliced it thin and pan-sauteed it to brown the sides a little bit and make sure it was cooked thoroughly (for the love of God, do not eat raw pork – sick).

I served it with some spinach (heated up from frozen) and some wild rice.  Turned out delicious.

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December 5, 2009

Pasta Bake

I decided to make what was told to me after the fact was a pasta bake.  Here’s what I did:

Pasta : Penne (i think you could put almost any pasta.  penne looked good when i was in the store)

Vegetables: Stewed Tomato and Spinach (I already had tomato, I love spinach)

Meat : Hot Pork Sausage (worst name ever, but delicious)

I mixed the tomatoes and the spinach in a big bowl

Then I browned the sausage and added that to the mixture

I boiled the penne until it was soft (the taste test is usually enough) and added that to the mixture.

Then I dumped the entire mixture into a pyrex pan (greased) and covered the top in a layer of parmesan cheese.

I let this bake at 375 for about 20 mins (these are estimates and I just guessed about how long)

End Result:

As I said, I think you could substitute almost any combination of vegetables, meat and pasta and make this dish.  Really easy and really good.

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October 17, 2009

Breaded Tilapia with Pepper/Onion CornBread

I bought some tilapia (fish) filets at the store this week since I’d been at the beach and had been craving seafood.  If you’re curious what a tilapia is, you can check out the wikipedia here.

I decided I wanted to bread and then oven cook the seafood.  I also bought some cornbread mix since I thought I was either going to try and make hush puppies or some cornbread.

Because the cornbread said it would take longer to cook, I made it first.

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cornbread

I made the cornbread using a mix and simply following the instructions on the back of the box.  However, I wanted to add something to it – I decided on using some frozen peppers and onions that I had in the freezer.  I defrosted the onions and peppers, chopped them up as small as I could and put them in the cornbread mixture and stirred it up.

I poured all of this into a round pan and then put this all in the preheated oven at 425 as described on the box.

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Breaded tilapia

Once the seafood was defrosted (for this, I put it in a bag and sat the bag in warm water as the packaging suggested), I used a classic breading technique.

1) took some bread crumbs that I had left over from the meatlof making, putting a large portion of those out on a plate.

2) put a large portion of salt and pepper also on the plate with the breadcrumbs and mixed this all together.

3) cracked and egg and stirred it up on another small plate

4) dipped the fish in the egg plate on both sides

5) put the fish in the breadcrumb mixture on both sides and pressed down until fish was covered in breadcrumbs

I then put the fish in the oil-greased pan and then put this is the oven with the cornbread.

I then defrosted some frozen spinach.

The key with fish is that you don’t let it overcook, so when it had been about 10 minutes, I took the fish out of the oven.  This was how much time they suggested for oven cooking on the tilapia package (8-10 mins) and the fish appeared to be done.

I place the spinach on the plate in the shape of the fish and cut the cornbread into 6 slices, then I placed one piece of the fish on the spinach.  This dinner turned out really well and also looked great.

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October 11, 2009

Pasta Dish

I’m a big fan of anything that’s simple with regards to food.  I started with rotini pasta (boil until not crispy), added two things I really like (tomatoes and spinach), and then a little garlic salt.

Here’s what I got

A few things to keep in mind about this dish:

1) colorful – color goes a long way towards determining how appetizing a dish is.  i know this sounds insane but it’s true

2)  different textures – soft tomatoes (stewed canned), slightly chewy spinach, and pasta.  I feel like this dish could use something else frankly (maybe a crunch?) but I haven’t decided what yet.

Here’s the brief recipe

1 large can of stewed tomatoes

3 cups of rotini

2 cups of spinach (frozen)

garlic salt to taste

1.  put rotini into pot of boiling water – easiest way to tell this is done is to use a fork to spear one piece of pasta.  if it’s soft and not chewy, it’s ready

2.  put spinach in a microwave safe bowl with a small amount of water, cook in microwave for 2 mins.

3.  add tomatoes to bowl of spinach, heat for 1 minute in microwave.

4.  drain water from rotini.  add rotini and spinach/tomato mixture to large mixing bowl.  sprinkle garlic salt on top (this stuff is strong, don’t be shy but don’t go crazy).  STIR.

Again, I added the tomatoes and spinach because I like tomatoes and spinach.  Add stuff that you like to this simple dish and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

This also makes PLENTY of leftovers and is easily reheated and served again.  If you’re cooking it for a lady friend, add some garlic bread or a salad to make it more impressive.

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