Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes

When you consider how easy it is to make mashed potato's, it's a wonder that most people only have them a couple times a year, mostly on holidays. The key to making mashed potato's is to peel and cut the potato's into small pieces about 1" x 1" and let the potato's cook in water until completely softened. When the potato's are cooked properly, you will only need a potato masher and spoon, not a electric hand mixer to make creamy mashed potato's.


Ingredients
2 - 3 large russet potato's
1 cup 1% milk, more if needed
1 tablespoon butter
1 whole garlic clove
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
 

Preparation:
Peel the potatos and cut them into small pieces about 1' x 1". Place the potatos in a large stock pot with plenty of salted water. Bring the water to a boil and reduce the heat to simmer and cook for about 20 minutes.

Take your garlic clove and cut off the top. Cut a piece of tin foil, make it into a bowl shape and place on a baking pan. Place the garlic clove into the tin foil cup and drissel with olive oil and a grind of salt and pepper. Loosly close the top of the tin foil cup over the top over the top of the garlic clove and bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. The roasted garlic will be done when the cloves are golden brown and soft as butter.

 

Place the cooked potatos into a large mixing bowl. Add the milk, butter, roasted garlic cloves and salt and peppper. Use your potato masher and mix until creamy smooth. If you find the potatos are still too thick, so add more milk to achieve the proper consistancy. Salt and pepper to tase and your ready to serve. 

Creamed Peas with Roasted Garlic and Black Forest Ham

So what do you do when you've got this ginormous bag of frozen peas from Costco that everyone has had enough of? So, rather than just let them sit in the freezer, I thought there must be some way of making these peas into something interesting. This combination of the roasted garlic and black forest ham added to creamed peas hits the mark.

Ingredients:
4 cups frozen peas
1/2 cup 1% milk
2 tablespoons Wondra brand flour
1 garlic clove
2 slices of black forest ham
Salt and pepper

Preparation:

Prepare your roasted garlic by taking a piece of tin foil, make it into a bowl shape and place on a baking pan. Place the garlic clove into the tin foil cup and drizzle with olive oil and a grind of salt and pepper. Loosely close the top of the tin foil over the top of the garlic clove and bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. The roasted garlic will be done when the cloves are golden brown and soft and butter.
 

Add the frozen peas to a 12" sauté pan and heat the peas on medium heat until they are warm. Add 2 tablespoons flour to the milk and mix until the flour is all dissolved. Add the mixture to the peas and as the milk warms up it will thicken into a nice cream sauce. Add the roasted garlic cloves, black forest ham, salt and pepper and your ready to serve.  

Chicken Parmesan

I like the idea of chicken parmesan, but I can live without the breading and frying part. In my version I marinate the chicken breasts in crushed garlic, grilled them and cover in parmesan cheese and roasted garlic marinara sauce and finish cooking in the oven. This dish tastes awesome and is pretty healthy for you as well.

Ingredients:

Skinless boneless chicken breast
10 - 12 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon olive oil
Roasted garlic marinara sauce, Safeway Select is very good!
Shredded parmesan cheese
Grated parmesan cheese
Red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper

Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Rinse and dry the chicken breasts and place into a large zip lock plastic bag. Crush the garlic and add to chicken. Add a tablespoon of olive oil to the chicken and garlic and marinate for at least an hour or more if possible.
 

 

To cook the chicken I use a grill pan that I can transfer to the oven to finish cooking. Heat your grill pan to medium high and add the chicken breast. Cook for 3 minutes on each side to achieve a nice golden brown color. After 6 minutes turn off the heat.


Place 1 to 2 tablespoons of shredded parmesan on to each chicken breast. Next, spoon about a 1/4 cup of marinara sauce on to each chicken breast. Cook in the oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. When cooked remove from the oven and let the chicken rest for 5 minutes.

To serve, place a chicken breast on a plate and garnish with grated parmesan cheese, red pepper flakes and fresh ground salt and pepper.

Serve this with Caesar salad and a simple pasta dish for an incredible meal!
Avocado Garlic Caesar Salad
Linguini with Olive Oil and Red Pepper Flakes

The Bison Cheese Burger

Bison tastes like ground rib eye beef steak, so good and has very little fat making this the most awesome healthy burger choice going.

When it comes to burgers, I'm pretty simple and straight forward. People just try to make to much out of a burger by adding too many ingredients and making the patty too thick.

Here's the way I build a bison burger. I like a soft potato bun, thousand island dressing on the bottom, lettuce, medium rare patty with cheese, couple thin tomato slices and the top bun with a little more thousand island dressing.
 

Ingredients:
1/3 pound ground bison
Sliced American cheese
Iceberg lettuce
Slice beef steak tomato
Potato bun
Thousand island dressing

Preparation:

Prepare your bison burger by making the patty about 6" round and 1/2" think. By doing this you end up with a patty that is the same size as the bun and not so thick that it becomes difficult to eat. Cook the patty on medium high for about 5 minute per side adding the cheese when almost done.

 

Take the potato bun and add thousand island dressing to the top and bottom bun. Place two pieces of iceberg lettuce on the bottom bun, then the bison patty, the sliced tomato and finally the top half of the bun. Serve with a simple salad of mixed greens, raspberry vinaigrette and blue cheese.

Side dish suggestion:
Oven Baked Steak Fries

Oven Baked Chicken Thighs

I'm going to guess I've made this recipe 30 times over the last decade. This is one dish that the whole family will enjoy whether 6 years old or 60. The combination of the panko and Italian seasoned bread crumbs provides a great taste combination and an awesome crunchy crispy piece of chicken.

Ingredients:
8 - 10 Chicken Thighs
2 cups Panko bread crumbs
1 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs
Laurey's garlic salt and pepper

Preparation:

Take a pie plate and combine the panko bread crumbs, the Italian seasoned bread crumbs and garlic salt and pepper. Remove the chicken thighs from the package and wash in cold water. Use your poultry shears to cut off most of the skin from each thigh piece, leaving just enough to cover the top of the chicken thigh.   

 

Prepare a large broiler pan by covering the bottom pan in aluminum foil. By doing this you'll save yourself a lot of clean up work.

To prepare the chicken, I'm not going to use any fancy three dip method, just place a chicken thigh skin side down in the bread crumbs, roll it around and place on the pan. Repeat the process with all of the chicken thighs. Take the left over bread crumbs and sprinkle on top of the chicken thigh for a little extra crunch.

 

Bake the chicken in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes. Serve over a bed of orzo pasta and top with some diced green onions.

 

Side dish serving suggestion:

White Balsamic and Olive Oil Roasted Broccolini.html

Broccoli Cauliflower Soup

This is a wonderfully easy soup to make that tastes so good and fresh. Most all my soups are one pot wonders. Bring the chicken stock up to boil, add the vegetables, cook for about 10 minutes, blend and enjoy.

For added richness you can incorporate 1/4 cup whole milk and 1 tablespoon of butter, but that adds calories so I usually skip it.

 

Ingredients:
1 medium russet potato
1/4 yellow onion
3 cups chopped broccoli
2 cups chopped cauliflower
32 ounces chicken stock

Preparation:

Take the chicken stock and pour into a large 3 quart sauce pan. Peel and cut the potato into small pieces and add to the chicken stock. Cut the onion into small pieces and add to the chicken stock. Bring the chicken stock, potato and onion up to boil and then to simmer for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, add the chopped broccoli and cauliflower and cook for 2 minutes. Carefully add the hot soup to a blender and blend until completely smooth and silky. Sometimes this is best done in 2 batches so that the blender is not too full.

Once blended, return to the sauce pan and taste for salt and pepper and add if necessary. If you like a more rich soup, add a tablespoon of butter and a 1/4 cup whole milk.

Roasted Beet, Blue Cheese and Walnut Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette Dressing

I would say this is one of my all time favorite salad combinations. The roasted beet, blue cheese and walnuts just work so well together. This is one of the dishes that by picking the right ingredients you can save your self a lot of calories and fat.

Treasure Cave lite blue cheese has about 30% less calories and fat than regular blue cheese. Secondly, you can find incredible raspberry vinaigrette salad dressings, but they have 120 - 160 calories and 12 - 16 grams of fat  per serving. Go with Bolthouse Raspberry Merlot Vinaigrette with 30 calories and .5 grams of fat per serving.

Ingredients:
Green or red leaf lettuce
Roasted beets (canned, not packed in high fructose corn syrup)
Treasure Cave lite blue cheese
Bolthouse Raspberry Merlot Vinaigrette salad dressing
Chopped walnuts

Preparation:

Take your cleaned and chopped lettuce and add to a large salad bowl. Mix with the Bolthouse Raspberry Merlot Vinaigrette and top with roasted beets, blue cheese, chopped walnuts and a grind of fresh black pepper.

Chipotle Chicken Tostada

I have been a long time follower of chef Rick Bayless from Chicago who had a television show called: "Mexico, One Plate at a Time." His famous Chicago restaurant is called Frontera Grill and I actually had dinner there one time and it was awesome. So, naturally when I see this new line of products from Frontera at Safeway, I'm going to try them out.

 

Ingredients:
Boneless skinless chicken thighs
Frontara Chipolte Garlic Skillet Sauce
1/2 yellow onion
Corn totillias
Salsa fresca (diced tomato, yellow and  green onion)
Sour cream
Avocado

Preparation:

Dice the onion and saute in a 12" saute pan. Cut the chicken thighs into bit size piece and add to the saute pan. When cooked through, add the chipotle garlic sauce and bring up to temp.

Bake your corn tortillia in the oven for 6 - 8 minutes at 400 degrees to achieve the perfect totasda bowl. Place the tortillia bowl on a plate and add some the chipotle garlic chicken, salsa fresca, avocado, sour cream and finish with some shedded cheese. Serve

with cole slaw and black beans.



Linguini with Olive Oil, Red Pepper Flakes and Parmesan Cheese

This is simply a lovely side dish to serve with many different main courses. I served this along with my deconstructed chicken parmesan and sautéed asparagus and it was perfection.

Ingredients:
1 pound Barilla linguini
Olive oil
Parmesan cheese
Red pepper flakes
Italian parsley
Salt and pepper

Preparation:

Cook the linguini to perfect Al Dente according to the directions.

When finished, add the linguini to a 12" sauté pan. Add one to two tablespoons of olive oil, pinch of red pepper flakes, small amount of chopped Italian parsley and salt and pepper to taste. When completely heated through, place onto serving platter and top with parmesan cheese.

General Tsao's Chicken

I was looking though one of a number of  blog's that I follow and this product was highly recomended from Trader Joe's. I don't think I've ever tried it and so I did a little research of what ingredients make up General Tsao's chicken and gave it a try. As promised the suace is really good and the overall dish was as you would expect from a chinese restuaraunt. 

Ingredients:
Skinless boneless chicken thighs
1 small zucchini
1/2 red bell pepper
4 green onions
4 garlic cloves
3 tablespoons general tsao's sauce

Preparation:

Cut the boneless skinless chicken thighs into bit size pieces. Dice the vegetables into a small dice about half the size of the chicken pieces.

Heat a 12" suate pan with 1 tablespoon avocado oil and add the chicken, zucchini, red bell pepper, green onoins and garlic. saute on medium high for about 6 - 8 minutes.

When the chicken and vegetables are cooked add the General Tsao's stir fry sauce and heat through.

Serve the General Tsao's chicken over steamed basmati rice and top with diced fresh green onions