Southwestern Chicken Salad

For this swap, I had the Southwestern Chicken Salad from the So Tasty So Yummy blog.  I love main dish salads, so I was excited to try this one, especially since I had never made my own salad dressing before.

I made a few modifications to the recipe.  It is a beautiful week here in Wyoming, so I didn't want to turn on the oven.  I marinated the chicken in the spices and some orange juice so that it wouldn't dry out on the grill.  I warmed up the corn and the beans with lime juice instead of olive oil to give it even more of that lime taste.

I loved this dish.  I had a lot of fun making the salad dressing and think that I'm going to attempt making the majority of our salad dressings from now on.  The salad dressing was a little overpowered by the cilantro, so next time I think I'll use less cilantro, but still the salad dressing was a great compliment to the freshness of the salad.

The tortillas added that nice and crispy texture to contrast the tomatoes, avocados.  The salads got kind of large, so I only fried one tortilla instead of two.  But we munched on the strips until the chicken was done grilling, so maybe two would have been better.

The salad was great.  It was nice and fresh yet there was enough stuff to fill me up and satisfy me until breakfast the next morning.  I think that grilling the chicken gave it a boost in flavor that you obviously wouldn't get with baking it, but I think that baking it would work as well too.  I would definitely make this salad again.

Tofu Parmesean

My parents were vegan from the time I was in third grade to the time that I was in sixth grade, so I ate a lot of tofu when I was a kid.  I remember having an issue with the texture, so I was a little afraid when I got the Vegetarian recipe (Tofu Parmesean) from the Recipe Swap.

Another problem I have is that I'm allergic to red sauces.  So, a recipe with red sauce and tofu seemed to be a double whammy.

So, I went through all of my cookbooks to try to find a recipe for a sauce that I thought would not make me sick.  I finally found this one and adapted it from Fix-It and Forget It Recipes for Entertaining: Slow Cooker Favorites for All the Year Round.

Stewed Tomatoes

2 qts of tomatoes cut into chunks

1/3 cup of sugar
1.5 tsp salt
dash of pepper
3 Tbsp butter 
2 cups bread crumbs
3 dashes of white cooking whine
1/2 cup vinegar
1/4 cup water

Place tomatoes in the slow cooker, sprinkle with sugar, salt and pepper.  Lightly toast the bread and spread with butter.  Cube the bread pieces and then put in with tomatoes.  Cover with the wet ingredients.  Cover and cook on high for 3-4 hours. 

I then put the ingredients in the blender with Italian spices and garlic and pureed it until it was the right consistency.

The Tofu Parmesean recipe was from Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks. 
1 package extra-firm tofu
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
4 tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese
2 teaspoons of oregano
1 teaspoon parsley
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons of olive oil
16 oz tomato sauce used from the recipe above
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 c. dry red wine
1/4 c. green pepper, chopped
1/4 c. red pepper, chopped
1/4 c. onion, chopped
6 oz. mozzarella cheese, shredded
Salt and Pepper

1.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Spray a baking dish with cooking spray.

2.  In a shallow bowl combine bread crumbs, half the Parmesan cheese, oregano, parsley, salt, and pepper.  Slice the tofu into 1/4 inch thick slices.  Press into the bread crumb mixture and set on a plate.

3.  Heat oil in a large skillet over medium high heat.  Place tofu in the pan and cook 7-8 minutes or until crisp and brown.  Drizzle with additional olive oil then flip and cook 5 minutes on the opposite side.  Remove from heat and place tofu on a plate.

4. Meanwhile, in a saucepan heat the tomato sauce, garlic, wine, peppers, and onion.  Simmer for 10 minutes then remove from heat. 

5.  Pour 3/4 c.  sauce in the bottom of the baking dish.  Put pan fried tofu on top of the sauce.  Top each slice of tofu with sauce then sprinkle it all with mozzarella cheese.  Bake for 25 minutes.  Serve over pasta.
I had one problem with this recipe.  One was that the breading didn't stick to the tofu.  I think that is just due to the consistancy of the tofu, so I'm not sure how to fix that. 

The finished product was good.  I really liked the onion and the green pepper in the sauce.  I still have a tofu texture problem, but the dish tasted good. 

Other recipes from this swap can be found at Vegetarian Recipe Swap Roundup


Finished Product



Fresh out of the oven





Bulgoki- Korean Beef BBQ

The theme for this Recipe Swap was Asian food.  My last experience with Asian food (Thai lettuce wraps) was a massive flop in my house, so I was looking for redemption from a bad meal.

I put together the marinade the night before.  The smells of the soy sauce and sesame oil quickly filled my kitchen.  Jacob came in and made a comment about how the marinade was a lot like the marinade for homemade beef jerky.  Which quickly scared me that the steaks would taste like warm beef jerky.  I let the flank steaks marinate over night in the mixture.

Jacob loved them.  He kept talking about how great the marinade was.  I thought they were good, just a little sweeter than I expected.  I did really like the addition of the green onion and the sesame seeds.  The seeds gave it that crunch, and the onion pieces offset the sweetness of the marinade.  I served it over a bed of rice, just something simple since I knew the marinade would be pretty strong.   I think this will definitely be a dish that will be made again.

Recipe from macau1ce on TheNest

• 3-5lbs of flank steak or beef ribs
• 12 oz soy sauce
• 6 oz sesame oil
• 1/4 cup sugar
• A splash or two of hot chili oil
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 bunches of scallions, sliced finely
• 1/4 cup of toasted sesame seeds

Mix soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, chili oil, garlic, scallions, and sesame seeds together in medium bowl.

Combined with meat and let marinade for a few hours.

Grill and serve with white rice or with Lettuce as lettuce wraps.

Green Bean Salad with Salsa Fresca

This week's recipe swap was side dishes.  Jacob isn't really a fan of side dishes, he'd definitely rather eat more of the entree than worry about a side.  So it was nice to break away from the standard side salad.

I was sent a recipe for Green Bean Salad with Salsa Fresca from RedKitchensRock.

I thought this recipe sounded great and have never made my own salsa from scratch, so was excited to get started.

I was in kind of a rush since Jacob had already started grilling the entree from dinner so I threw everything in a food processor.  I learned that this was a huge mistake because the salsa became super fine instead of the amazing chunky salsa that I saw on the example picture.

I used feta cheese and am still getting used to the pungent taste of feta as well.  Our store didn't have a very good variety of cheese though, so my options were limited.

I have to say that the dish tasted okay, but I think I made those two major errors: 1) making the salsa too fine and 2) using feta instead of goat cheese.  My problems with the dish stemmed from these problems just because it became super hard to eat.  The salsa was too fine and slid off the green beans and the feta just seemed like it didn't mix well with the other ingredients and overwhelmed everything to me.

I think I'm going to put this one back on rotation and take better care of my ingredients the next time I make it.

Linguine with Clams

I decided to be a part of a recipe swap to add more new things to our menu.  Growing up, it seems like we lived off the same staples over and over again, and I think it is often fun to branch out.  Thought the recipe swap was a great place to start off. :)

This week was pasta week.  I made Linguine and Clams from Hezzi-D's food blog.

I have to admit that I don't cook with seafood that often and so when I saw this recipe in the swap e-mail, I was a little scared. 

But, I rounded up all of the ingredients and started cooking.  Halfway through the cooking process, the kitchen smelled so good.  I couldn't wait to eat it, and J made several comments about how good it smelled too.

When I served it, J examined it like it was a dish from a foreign country.  I just told him to eat it and not worry about the ingredients.  I sat down and swirled my first bite up onto my fork and was in pasta heaven when I put it in my mouth.  It tasted like something I'd expect to get at Olive Garden and the flavors were complex but not overwhelming.  It was such a great dish and so easy to make.  I'm excited to put this into my regularly made recipe list.