Zusketti with Fresh Mozzarella and Meatballs

During my purge, the questions of utility, need and worthiness needed to be asked of each item.  There are quite a few items that have not made the cut but my spiralizer definitely has. I'm not sure why I've never posted anything about it thus far.  It's a slicer that turns regular ole veggies into super duper noodles.  That's kind of a kitchen essential yes?

There was a period last fall where I was obsessed with spiraling veggies.  Zucchini makes the closest thing to noodles but carrots and beets are also pretty fun.  

What kid or grown up wouldn't eat something that comes out spirally and fun like this?  

I found the that the technique on  Against All Grain's site worked best to remove the moisture. I leave the peel on these days, but if you peel the zucchini and use the oven drying method, the zucchini look a lot more like regular 'ole noodles.  

This is what the "pasta" looks like if you don't oven dry first.  Still tasty and if you don't care and are willing to just drain off the excess moisture, you can skip the drying step.  Either way, it tastes pretty fantastic...if you are a veggie lover.  Let's not kids ourselves here though that you'll think you're eating pasta.  You'll know you're eating a veggie, but a pretty yummy one at that. 

Zusketti with Fresh Mozzarella and  Meatballs

Ingredients:

1 1/3 lbs ground chicken
2/3 cup breadcrumbs
2 minced garlic cloves
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp dried basil
1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 egg lightly beaten
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

6 oz fresh mozzarella

2 lb zucchini, spiralized, 

1 tsp salt
5 cups of a favorite tomato sauce

fresh basil leaves for topping

Directions:

1.  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a large bowl combine ground chicken, bread crumbs, garlic, garlic powder, basil, Parmesan, egg, salt, and pepper.
3. Combine gently with a fork.
4. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
5. With a cookie scoop, drop 1 to 1 1/4-inch meatballs onto sheet pan. You should have about 40 meatballs.
6. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until cooked through and lightly browned.
7. Prepare(or warm up) tomato sauce
8. Remove meatballs and reduce oven to 200 degrees
9. Add meatballs to tomato sauce and cook on low heat while zucchini cooks.  
10. Spread zucchini noodles over baking sheet and sprinkle with salt.  Cook for about 30 minutes or until moisture is released. 
11. Dice fresh mozzarella and set aside
12. When noodles are cooked, place on clean cloth and wring to remove additional moisture.  
13. Serve zucchini topped with meatballs, sauce, fresh mozzarella and basil.

Homemade Egg Noodles for Chicken Soup

What did I say about the weather in my very last post?  We went from spring to Alaska force winds and snow yesterday...it was snowing sideways for a good portion of the day.   Sideways snow and chicken noodle soup is just a great partnership. 

Even better are homemade noodles.  I love, love, love how fat and chewy they are.  Yes, fat and chewy.

I won't start with a chicken soup recipe here...mine is essentially boxed broth (yes indeed), carrots, celery and chicken cooked through.  I have no issues using boxed broth...obviously.  Homemade is way better of course. 

The noodles are where the magic starts.  

You can roll them much thinner than these obviously and they'll still puff up quite a bit.  This thickness made some pretty thick noodles.   If you like them more noodle-like and less dumpling-like, definitely roll them thinner than these. 

What is is about chickie noodle soup that is so wonderful?  It just is right?!

Homemade Egg Noodles for Chicken Soup

makes heck of a lot of noodles

Ingredients
4 eggs
1 cup water
1 tsp. Baking powder
1 tsp. Salt
½ tsp pepper
about 3 ½ cups flour

Directions

1. In a large bowl, beat eggs and water
2. Add dry ingredients and mix well.  Pour out onto floured surface and knead well for 5 minutes.  
3. Cover and let rest for 20 minutes
4. Flour surface and roll out dough to desired thickness
5. Toss noodles with fingers to separate. 
6. Add to hot soup broth and cook for 8-10 minutes depending upon thickness

Not So Cheese Buffalo Chicken Dip

I didn't make up the name, Vitamix did.  I recently made Vitamix's Not So Cheese Sauce and I have to say, I've been a little bit addicted.  I've used the base recipe to make a not so cheese queso and even mac and not so cheese.  While I love me some cheese sauce, I think I'm just in awe that you can throw cashews, roasted peppers and nutritional yeast and some spices into a blender, and have a creamy cheese-like sauce. 

The most recent experiment was turning this into a buffalo chicken dip and I have to say it was love.  Not just, "this is healthy so I guess I should love it" love but more like the  "I love the volleyball scene in Top Gun" love.  The fact that the ingredient list makes you feel a lot less guilty does contribute to this, but it tastes good as well.  Throw this on the table as game day eats and you might have a few people ask what's a bit different about your version, but I doubt it.  I served it up (with full disclosures that it contained nuts) and peeps thought it was just as good as the 45 packets of cream cheese version.  

What is nutritional yeast you ask?  I don't really know much except that it's full of Vitamin B, protein and is  popular amongst vegans as a cheese substitute.  I'm sure its unfortunate name precludes many from even trying it, but it's quite tasty.  It definitely doesn't taste like white cheddar on your popcorn but it's strangely addictive.  I actually prefer my popcorn with nutritional yeast these days.  

Blended with other ingredients, it definitely has that tangy cheese-like flavor.

I have to admit that when blended, the color was eerily so similar to nacho cheez with a "z" that I hesitated before tasting it.   Turns out it was pretty yum poured over broccoli.  Does it taste exactly like Nacho Cheez?  Probably not but that's not necessarily a bad thing in my eyes.  I've been eating a lot more broccoli recently.

To turn it into buffalo dip I reduced the salt, added a bit of garlic powder,  Ranch dry dressing mix, Franks Red Hot Sauce (you could use wing sauce but adjust amount to taste since pre made sauce usually has oil/butter/margarine as well) and of course shredded chicken.  

This dip definitely taste best served up in a platter like this.  

I topped it with blue cheese crumbles.  You can leave that off (and omit the ranch dressing)of course and the dip stays dairy free.  

Even though it's not a  identical to the version with the packets of cream cheese and cheddar, it's still super creamy, and full of tangy buffalo sauce.  Since buffalo sauce is the shining star, you don't miss the cream cheese.  And given that most of my Game Day Eats posts are hardly nutritional superstars, it feels good to get something healthier on the game day table.  This dip makes even celery palatable.  

This town is ready for a little football tomorrow.  Time to Ride folks.

Not So Cheese Buffalo Chicken Dip

Ingredients
2 c water
1/4 c  lemon juice
1/2 c chopped roasted red peppers (if you use jarred make sure they are not pickled)
1 1/3 cup  whole raw cashews (or almonds)
1 1/4 teaspoons onion powder
1/2 c  nutritional yeast
1 tsp sea salt

1/3--1/2 c Frank's Red Hot Sauce

2 tbsp Ranch dressing dry mix

1 tsp garlic powder

3 c shredded cooked chicken
blue cheese crumbles for topping (optional)

Directions

1. Place all ingredients except Chicken into the Vitamix container in the order listed and secure lid.
2. Blend for 2-3 minutes until sauce is fully blended. 
3. Pour into pan, add chicken and heat through
4. Serve hot with celery sticks, tortilla chips and/or pita chips.
5. Top with blue cheese crumbles if desired.

Southwestern Chicken Soup

Do you remember Ross's Thanksgiving sandwich with the "moist maker?"  Oh Ross...I miss him.  And while he and most people I know fall into the camp that is super duper excited to eat those Thanksgiving leftovers, I'm pretty much in the opposite camp. I've never been a huge leftover fan--In  my opinion, Italian is the only food that remotely tastes delish reheated.   And reheated poultry--can't stand it.   I will leftover chinese straight from the fridge before I will ever reheat chicken.

Soup is the exception. 

Yep, soup is the perfect way to eat leftover chicken or turkey. 

My friend made this soup for me years ago and it was love at first bite.  When she told me it was as easy as opening a couple of cans and jars,  I knew it was destined to become a quick kitchen staple.  Even if you love your day after Thanksgiving sandwich, this soup  is the perfect  easy and tasty way to use up the day three turkey leftovers.  

Who doesn't want easy eats after a some serious Thanksgiving cooking?

Southwestern Chicken Soup
adapted from Real Simple

Ingredients
1 teaspoon ground cumin 

1 12-ounce jar salsa verde
3 cups cooked leftover chicken or turkey
1 15-ounce can white beans, drained and rinsed
1 quart container of chicken stock
tortilla chips and sour cream for serving

Directions

1. Heat stockpot over medium-high heat.  Add cumin and stir, cooking until fragrant.
2. Pour salsa verde into pan
3. Cook for 2 minutes then add the chicken, beans and broth. Bring to gentle boil
4. Reduce heat to simmer and cook for 20-30 mins.  Soup can be eaten after 5-10 minutes but I like to reduce the broth a bit.
5. Serve with tortilla chips and sour cream if desired.

Buffalo Chicken and Potatoes

Sometimes Game Day Eats should be made for one. And sometimes, they can even be made on a bye week when your team is not playing.   I love a lazy Sunday and I love Buffalo chicken so I decided that I'd bring those two things together.  

This was a Pinterest find (of course) and what drew me to it was that it wasn't just buffalo chicken--but also buffalo potatoes.  Genius. 

Buffalo sauce.  Seriously, I think I would eat shrimp if it was coated in Buffalo sauce.  That might be stretching it, but I absolutely adore that vinegary, spicy goodness.   You can buy the actual Buffalo wing sauce premade or you can buy the Red Hot sauce and mix it with some melted butter and make your own.  Yes, my high school years of working at Shakey's Pizza taught me how to mix butter(they used margarine) and hot sauce to make wing sauce.  I checked a bottle of pre made sauce and the one I picked up used butter flavoring and lots of other ingredients.  I feel better just mixing in my own butter--and you can control the ratio. 

It took a crazy amount of self control and logic to stop myself from eating these raw potatoes with buffalo sauce.  

The other perfect part of this recipe is that it has lots of cheese, bacon and green onions.  

The recipe calls for cooking the potatoes first until they are browned and crispy.  

You then top with raw diced chicken and the cheese and bacon.  It goes back into the oven for 15 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through and the cheese is bubbly. 

It comes out of the oven as a cheesy, bacony buffalo sauced delicousness.  This might be one of the world's most perfect eats. 

Buffalo Chicken and Potatoes

adapted from Cook Lisa Cook

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
4 medium potatoes

1/3 cup hot sauce

2 tbsp olive oil

1/4 cup melted butter
1 tsp freshly ground pepper
2 tsp paprika
1 tbsp garlic powder

Topping:
1 cup shredded cheddar jack
5 slices of crispy bacon crumbled
1/2 cup sliced green onions

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees
2. Dice potatoes into 1/2 inch cubes
3. In a large bowl whisk hot sauce, butter, olive oil, pepper,  paprika and garlic powder until well blended and smooth. Add the cubed potatoes and stir to coat. 
4. Use a slotted spoon to transfer potatoes into lightly greased casserole dish or oven proof pan (I used a cast iron pan).   
5. Bake the potatoes for 45-50 minutes, stirring every 10-15 minutes, until cooked through and crispy & browned on the outside. 
6. While the potatoes are cooking, add the cubed chicken to the bowl with the leftover hot sauce and mix well to ensure evenly coated.  I sprinkled additional hot sauce onto the chicken because I could.   Once the potatoes are brown and crisp on the outside and tender inside, remove from the oven and lower the oven temperature to 400F. 
7. Top the cooked potatoes with the raw chicken. 
8. Return the casserole to the oven and bake for 15 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through and the topping is bubbly

Spicy Chicken Pasta

Sometimes it's just about saying that you could and you did.  I borrowed my mom's pasta maker just to see if homemade pasta would be one of those life changing experiences like the homemade tortillas were.  

These little guys were definitely a lot of work.  A lot, a lot, a lot.  Some things that are labor intensive are worth it in the end...like chocolate babka.  Seriously, the first time I made that and then tasted it, I swore I'd make it every single weekend, despite the effort that went into the bazillion turn, roll, fold, refrigerate steps it took to get that awesome flaky bread.   And homemade ravioli and sheet pasta is definitely worth the extra effort on occasion. 

So how about homemade ziti/rigati pasta?  It sure looks like it's something pretty special as it comes cranking out.

After its cooked it looks like it's exponentially better than dried pasta--kind of like the fat chewy yumminess of homemade noodles in chicken noodle soup.  

I figured pasta this substantial needed a bit of bite in the sauce so I opted for a super spicy red tomato based sauce for these little fat pasta guys. 

And the result....drum roll please...........  eh.   After all that work, this was really like any other pasta dish.  It was yummy and I loved the spiciness, but when something takes that much work, it should jump off the plate and into your mouth.  A little dance on your tongue would be nice as well.  Worse than the work of making the pasta though was cleaning that machine and scrubbing the gooey covered molding plates with a mini brush.  Yuck. 

There is however, a little satisfaction in knowing you've tried something and can cross it off your to-do list.  I've shared the recipe below minus the homemade pasta part.  I'd recommend you skip the homemade noodles and whip up some chocolate babka with the time you save. 

SPICY CHICKEN PASTA

4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 lb chicken breast sliced

2 cloves minced garlic
2 tbsp red pepper flakes (adjust to your taste)

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 1/2 cup favorite marinara sauce (my fav recipe coming soon)

1 cup peas 

3 cups hot freshly cooked pasta
freshly grated parmesan

1. In a large sauté pan, heat 2 tsp olive oil over med high and cook chicken just until done. 
2. Remove chicken from pan and turn heat down to med.  Add remaining 2 tsp olive oil to pan along with garlic and 1 tbsp red peppers.  Stir and cook for 1-2 minutes
3. Add chicken back to pan and stir to coat with garlic and peppers.  Add salt and pepper.
4. Stir in pasta, peas, marinara and extra red pepper flakes and cook 3-4 minutes or until all ingredients come to temp.  Serve with freshly grated parmesan. 

BBQ Pulled Chicken in the Breville Fast Slow Cooker

First I'll start with the disclaimer....I am not a BBQer, charcoal pit queen or carnivore extraordinaire.  If you are a serious BBQ connoisseur, you probably want to skip the rest of this post. If you think BBQ is akin to heaven, well this post will shock you with it's lack of authenticity....I just use bottled sauce.  

You were warned. 

My crockpot broke last year and after blowing through 3 crockpots in as many years,  I decided my next one would be an investment.  I had/have my heart set on the All-Clad 7 Qt deluxe because of the aluminum insert.  I love the idea that it's stove top friendly so you can brown and sautee in the same pan before you begin the slow cooking.  Seriously, how cool is that right?

Then one day my eyes beheld the  Breville Fast Slow Cooker and after a couple of weeks of reading the (limited) reviews and debating, I found that this little baby was quite happy to come home with me.  

What's so special about her?  Well aside from the minor detail that she's quite lovely, she also gives you the option of sautéing/searing in the metal insert pan (score 1), she's a slow cooker (score 2) steamer (score 3) AND  a pressure cooker (score 4).  

Pressure cooking is completely new to me but now that we've been introduced, I am a little obsessed.  You can make just about anything in a mere fraction of the time required to cook on the stove....imagine slow cooked beef stew in under an hour.  I made potato salad last week by adding diced potatoes and whole uncooked eggs in the shell to the steam basket and pressure cooking it for......5 minutes.  It's like magic. 

This Breville is not your mother's stove top pressure cooker.  I'd read so many horror stories about those, but this little beauty is quiet and as easy to use as a regular slow cooker.  

It hasn't been quite cold enough to make pots and pots of soup and chowder yet but can tell you this makes fantastic pulled chicken and pulled pork in almost no time at all. 

Yep, bottled sauce.  I used purchased rub as well. If you are going to use bottled sauce, I will add that I think Famous Dave's is pretty good despite the HFCS.  I love Devil's Spit but just use that as a topping sauce since others don't necessarily agree with me there.  I used the Rich and Sassy in recipe. 

A "crockpot" that sears.  It's genius...why had this not been done decades ago?

There's no recipe really.  I rubbed about 2 tbsp of a BBQ rub on 3 lbs of boneless chicken breasts.  (If you are in Denver, Savory Spice's Platte River Rib Rub is pretty yum).  Turn Breville function to sauté, add 10 minutes to the timer and press start.  Allow to preheat and then sear 3 lbs of boneless chicken breasts in batches.  Add all chicken back to the Breville, add 1/2 cup beer (or water) and 2/3 cup BBQ sauce.  Lock lid, turn function to pressure cook, add 25 mins to the timer and press start.  It's that easy...no shaking, sputtering pans or continual whistling.  There's a little bit of steam whistle  in the beginning as it comes to pressure and then a click and then relative silence.  After 25 mins, I slowly let the steam escape in batches.  Once all the steam is released, open the lid (it won't open with any steam pressure----score 5) and let cool a bit.  Shred chicken and add back to pot.   I didn't have a ton of liquid, but you may want to remove some and add back as needed if you do.   The pressure cooking keeps meat  juicy so you won't need much. 

I think pulled chicken/pork is one of those things that needs soft squishy rolls, but you can of course serve it on pretzel rolls, ciabatta or baguettes.  Top with additional sauce and let everyone think you spent all day making this.