Health, In the Kitchen, Photos

Stuck in the kitchen

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Yesterday was a pretty productive day in the kitchen.

I haven’t been in the mood lately for meal planning or making anything other than meat and potatoes. So I searched for some recipes on All Recipes.com and ended up making something quite similar to my vodka sauce. Oops. I used this recipe that was on allrecipes.com. I swirled everything together in my fancy cuisinart like the cream cheese, garlic, and pasta sauce. Whipped that up in no time!

While that was heating up in a pot on the stove, I decided to fry up some broccoli and red pepp’s — whoo wee let me tell you. The kitchen smelled SO good that evening.

Our supper consisted of penne pasta with some creamy sauce (recipe here, I ignored the chicken and basil), brocc and peppers. On the side was some garlic bread and a nice spinach salad with pine nuts and croutons. Mouth. Watering.

But that wasn’t all! As everything was slowly cooking, I decided to make my own pesto. I have no idea how I made it, and I’m planning on stuffing it inside some chicken tomorrow night for supper. I put a whack load of spinach in the cuisinart, a dollop of minced garlic, a lot of pine nuts (yum),  lemon juice, salt + pepper, extra virgin olive oil and I don’t even know what else.  I hope supper tastes good tomorrow…

Oh. I also made a enormous amount of cookies. Why didn’t the recipe say how many cookies that it was going to make? I’m not a baker. When I find a recipe or something that I like, I stick to it. But this time I searched All Recipes (hey, it’s addicting) to find a chocolate chip cookie, and boy did I find one – “Award Winning Cookies ” apparently. I swear if I made the whole batter, it would have ended up making about 200 cookies. No joke. I went on twitter and found my answer — I ended up freezing half of the batter. There’s a ton of sugar, and they’re very sweet. The recipe is quite easy to follow, and they turned out beautifully. I’ll definitely be taking some of these into work and share.

There you have it. A nice productive day in the kitchen, yesterday.

I even have my menu plan for the week set out!

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In the Kitchen, Photos, Reviews

How do you work this thing?

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I had a “teaser” post up a few weeks ago mentioning that I’ll be reviewing something from CSN stores in the near future. Well that item has arrived, and I received a food processor.

This Cuisinart food processor is super tiny, and a perfect size for just the two of us.

However, what I didn’t realize is that it shreds chicken and peppers so quickly that you have to be very careful at how long you hold the button for. Whether it be 0.001 seconds, or 0.0005—I mean, it’s really that quick. Press once quickly and bam chicken is OBLITERATED.I think it’d be perfect for making salsa’s or bread crumbs, or what I did last weekend was put a full banana in, and it made it all creamy for my banana bread recipe. Genius idea, Nancy!

Before (about half a cooked chicken breast), during & after. Annihilated.

I know there’s only two buttons, but they basically do the same thing. I wish it had a slower feature, because I don’t like minced bell peppers, lol.

Love how quick it was to make my quesadillas. I’ve even done a step-by-step process on how I made them. But you can just easily view my recipe here.

Only the chicken and red pepper were put into the food processor, I cut the tomatoes by hand and added salsa on top.Mix it all together!

Get the flat breads ready. Fold them in half, and cut them up the middle. See?

Open them up, and fill them with the mixture. Yum yum.

Don’t forget to add the cheese before you close the tops down! Cheese is necessary.

Ready to bake in the oven to crisp up the outsides. You’ll notice that I laid down parchment paper on my baking sheet (makes for an easier clean up!) also a “cooling rack” with all my quesadillas on it. That’s because I find if I didn’t end up doing that, the bottoms of the quesadillas get a bit soggy.

About 35 minutes should do it, on 350ºF. This timer is such a life saver.

The magic of blogging, 35 minutes is up and voila— out of the oven.

All ready to eat!!

I know that was a bit of a lengthy post, but I thought I’d show you what I ended up making using my Cuisinart food processor given to me by CSN stores to review! Awesome, right?

The best part? It’s soo easy to clean. I’m not even kidding you guys. There are only three pieces to clean! Just have to be careful with the blade.

Thanks again, CSN stores for another great product.

I want to ask you guys, is there any sort of machine that can cut chicken, or bell peppers into bite sized pieces without mincing them? Silly me thought that the food processor would do that. But really it’s meant for grinding herbs, making dips like salsa and the like. Which I will use! I just want something that can chop stuff…

[Don’t forget to enter my giveaway]

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Guest Post, Health, In the Kitchen, Photos

Runner Kelly is back!

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Since Kelly stopped blogging, I have missed her dearly. Kelly comments often on my blog and we e-mail each other to catch up, from time to time. Randomly one day I asked Kelly if she was interested in writing a guest post / blog entry here on spiffykerms. She accepted so here she is! SO EXCITING! Miss her face!

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Remember Me? I’m Kelly and I used to blog at Healthy Living With Kelly. (http://www.myhealthypassion.wordpress.com) The link is still active with all my recipes and info if you ever want to go check it out. Last August I had to stop blogging because I had an unfortunate knife accident in the kitchen that required surgery. I chopped my pinky finger 95% off.

I had surgery, was in a cast for about 2 months and spent close to 3 months in physical therapy relearning how to use my left hand again. It was probably the hardest thing I have ever gone through. Ever.  I was severely depressed and spent most every day waking up just to count down the hours until I could go back to sleep. I had gone from a very independent person to someone who couldn’t blow dry her hair, get dressed, make a sandwich, or even put on deodorant without help. It was awful. I was never more ready for a new year as 2010 was not my favorite. After about 3 straight weeks of complete moping around I picked myself up and slowly starting to get my old spunk back. I had ended my blog because I couldn’t type one handed but I never came back to update anyone so when Nancy asked me to write this post I jumped at the chance.

I guess the natural place to start is the hand. My left pinky works about 75%. It doesn’t bend naturally or look 100% normal but I am just thankful that I still have it. Once I “graduated” from physical therapy and no longer had any restrictions placed on me, my fabulous husband (and best support system ever) took me on a 10 day trip to Arizona and the Grand Canyon. We hiked our little hearts out!

It was a very refreshing trip that cleared my mind and really let me appreciate everything we had been through together over the last 3 months. 2010 was such a hard year. It was a wonderful trip and I came away even more in love with Keith. Insert awwwww! I mean who wouldn’t love a guy who “tags” rocks with chalk everywhere we went?

When we got home I felt renewed and ready to start something new. So, I opened my own catering business. I started making ready-made meals for people who were too busy to go home and cook and didn’t want to eat fast food. I started offering a limited menu and before I knew it, it took off! The plan in 2011 is to actually open up my own shop versus cooking out of my house. I am currently working on my business plan so I can go to the bank and prove to them that I am a good investment! Ha! I also started a weekly newsletter to keep giving out my healthy tips without the blog. If you want to be added on just send me an email: Kelly0412@hotmail.com and I will get you added on! It is just a weekly listserv with health tips and recipes.

I still am an avid blog reader just not an avid blogger. But thanks to Nancy for sharing her space with me today and letting me pop in with a recap. I have missed it. J But wait, I couldn’t leave without giving you a recipe, could I? Of course not!

While in Arizona, Keith fell in love with this divvy Chinese food place called Kyoto Bowl. He ate it 3 times while we were there and each time he ordered a teriyaki chicken rice bowl. When I got back I knew I could recreate it for him only it would be better and healthier. Did I? I did! ENJOY!

ARIZONA RICE BOWL

  • 8oz. Boneless skinless chicken breasts, cooked (can also use tempeh or tofu for a vegetarian vesion)
  • 2 cups cooked brown rice
  • 2 small zucchini, chopped
  • 2 tsp. Minced ginger
  • 1 Tbsp. sesame oil
  • 4 Tbsp. low sugar teriyaki sauce
  • 1 egg, scrambled
  • Cayenne pepper, to taste

Heat Sesame oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add zucchini and ginger into skillet and sauté for 3 to 4 minutes.  Add rice and chicken and sauté for 8-10 minutes, or until hot and heated throughout. Stir in Teriyaki sauce stir in scrambled egg. Serves 4

260 Calories; 7g Fat (1.5g saturated fat); 86mg Cholesterol; 665mg Sodium; 29g Carbohydrates; 3g Fiber; 4g Sugar; 18g Protein

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