Caprese Salad

I love May - October when the farmers markets are around and dread the other 6 months when there is none.  :o(  Saturday we went to the farmers market and bought this basil plant, some tomatoes and fresh mozzarella.  The hubs also got some applewood-smoked mozzarella, and can't stop sniffing it.  ;o)  Yesterday, I made a Caprese Salad with my market finds and the kitchen smelled so good!  I learned something, though - when working with fresh mozzarella, let it sit in a strainer for a bit before adding to a recipe.  The tomato is not as bright in the salad, because there was so much white water released from the mozzarella after I tossed it in.  Oh, well.  And although a Caprese Salad is fabulous on it's own, we went one step farther.

We made Giada De Laurentiis' Grilled Portobello Mushrooms with Tomatoes and Fresh Mozzarella.  Just one, grilled portobello cap for each of us, topped with the Caprese Salad was enough to fill our bellies at dinner last night.  So delicious!  Now I know why people grill portobellos as hamburger replacements.  We will be having this dish several more times this Summer.

Smoked Sausage and Tortellini

 

I found this recipe for Tortellini with Edamame and Smoked Sausage  a couple of weeks ago.  I am not a fan of edamame, but I liked the idea of combining smoked sausage and tortellini.  I'd never done it before and wanted to try it. I got out a bag of spinach and cheese tortellini and some smoked sausage Thursday night and thought about what kind of sauce I wanted to put on it.  I finally decided to go with the sauce from my Sautéed Chicken with White Wine and Shallots.  YUM-O!

I sliced up the smoked sausage and browned it over medium heat...

...and cooked my spinach and cheese tortellini.

After the sausage was sufficiently heated and browned, I removed the sausage to a paper towel-lined bowl to drain.  Added a tbsp of butter and a tbsp of Wegmans Basting Oil to the pan.

I chopped up a tomato, a couple of shallots and a couple of garlic cloves...

...and sautéed them for about 5 minutes to soften.

Added 3/4 c white wine, salt and pepper and let simmer for a few minutes.

This is the hubs' plate.  Tortellini and smoked sausage tossed with the flavorful wine, tomato, 

shallot and garlic sauce with parmesan cheese on top.  Mmmmmmmm.

B chose tortellini and smoked sausage with the spaghetti sauce I made yesterday 

and, of course, parmesan cheese.

Leftover Wednesday - Salad!

The hubs was really in the mood for a salad and I caught the fever.  Except for a BBQ, what says "Summer" more than a fresh salad?!  So, I pulled all of these ingredients out of the fridge and off the window sill to make dinner tonight:

• Cilantro
• Tomato
• Red onion
• Swiss cheese
• Iceberg Lettuce (still in the wrapper because we had such good intentions to eat salad daily when we bought it!)
• Carrots
• Celery
• Turkey lunch meat that was on day seven - use or lose
• A Ree Drummond Ranch Chicken Sandwich breast leftover from our water park picnic dinner, Monday night
• Bacon

I threw all seen above, including some shredded cheddar not pictured, into the fabulous, wooden salad bowl my MIL gave me for Christmas several years ago.  It was so delicious! Unfortunately, the avocados I wanted to include expired yesterday and did not make it in the salad.  :o(  There were leftovers for the hubs to take to work with him tomorrow for lunch, as well as for me to eat for lunch.  :oD

Leftover Wednesday - Monterey Chicken & Dirty Rice

After I graduated from college, I went to work at a restaurant named Steak & Ale.  I loved that place - the food was awesome and my co-workers were great.  My favorite dish was Monterey Chicken.  So, when I scoured the fridge and cupboards looking for something to do with the very last 3 chicken breasts in the house, Monterey came to mind.  I wanted something more flavorful than just plain rice to go along with it so I scoured the internet for a dirty rice recipe.  They all called for fresh peppers, which I did not have.  Then I found this recipe from VeggieBelly.com.  It's a homemade dry mix in a jar for gift giving and no fresh peppers needed!  So let's get started on what I did.

Here is a pic of (almost) all the ingredients I found in the house to use.  I had no green onions for the Monterey Chicken so I sautéed a Walla Walla Sweet because I just love them.  After taking this picture and then chopping all that needed chopping, I found 2 ears of cooked corn leftover from the weekend.  So I sliced the kernels off of one cob to add to the chicken and heated the other one up for B to eat with his dinner.

I roasted the corn kernels in a dry pan,

cooked the bacon,

and sautéed half an onion in the bacon drippings.

Salted and peppered both sides of the 3 chicken breasts and cooked in the bacon drippings for 2 minutes a side.  Drained them on paper towels and let the chix ingredients sit until dinner time.

Then I made the rice.  Brought 2 1/4 cups of water to boil and added 1 chicken bouillon cube.  I didn't even remember I had chicken bouillon cubes!  I bought them years ago when I was going to make a Paula Deen recipe and then decided not to make anything with a bouillon cube b/c of the ingredients.  However, I did not have any chicken stock on hand yesterday, so I decided to give it a try.  It worked out great.  After the cube dissolved, I added paprika, garlic powder, 3 times as much fresh oregano and thyme than the dry amount the recipe called for and 1 cup brown rice.  Brought back to a boil, stirred, covered and cooked on low for 55 minutes.

When it was time to eat, I turned on the broiler, rubbed one side of the chicken breasts with some BBQ sauce and put under the broiler for a few minutes.

Took the breasts out of the oven, turned them over and covered 2nd side with BBQ sauce.  Then topped with roasted corn, onions, chopped tomatoes, bacon and shredded cheddar cheese.  Put back under broiler for a few more minutes to heat up.  The broiler really crunched up the cheese.  Next time, I won't put the cheese on that early.  The heat of the chicken and toppings will be enough to melt the cheese if sprinkled on top immediately after coming out of the broiler.

All three of us completely enjoyed this dinner!  I hope you do, too, if you give it a try!