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July 25, 2010

Buitoni Pasta Party

Filed under: Party — Tags: , , , , , , — Kristen :) @ 1:21 pm

This weekend is already flying by!  It always goes by way too fast, especially when you’re trying to balance work and play 🙂  How was your weekend?  I had the wonderful opportunity to host a Buitoni Pasta Party for some of my friends Saturday evening, which included lots of good food, conversation and vino to wash it down.  Join me for a tasty re-cap!   (more…)

January 12, 2010

learning to un-plan

Filed under: Blog,Comfort foods,Dinner,Favorites — Tags: , , — Kristen :) @ 5:03 pm

IMG_3986 Last night was a wonderful example of good things that can happen when I don’t plan all the time!  Chris invited his dad and step mom over for dinner last night.  We were going to try to make some seared tuna that his step mom had given to us, but it wasn’t even close to being defrosted since we took it out of the freezer too late.  Ok, move to plan B. . .

I made some lemony tofu pesto pasta the night before on Friday thinking I was going to take it over to a friend’s house for a little pot luck.  Chris ended up getting home pretty late from a meeting, and their house was all the way across town, so I decided to skip it to be able to wake for the gym the next morning (I hadn’t made it to the gym all week so I was getting a little antsy and felt the need).

So . . . I thought I’ll just heat up that pesto pasta and pair it with some balsamic marinated chicken for tonight!  ‘That will work, but I don’t really have any other stuff, what if they won’t like it that much?  It has tomatoes in it and Chris’ dad hates tomatoes.’ Then Chris invited two other friends to come over last minute.  ‘Wait!  I haven’t planned for this, I need to have things all situated, more appetizers, need to clean, do wash, aaaaahhh!’ This was my inner self talking and feeling a bit out of the comfort zone lol  But I humbly agreed and hoped we would have enough food and the day old pasta would be ‘good’ enough for my guests.  I want them to really enjoy my food and come back!

Turns out the dinner party went pretty darn well!  I mean the pasta wasn’t perfect, got a little cold and was slightly not as bright green as the day before, but it tasted pretty darn good.  That’s all that mostly matters, right?  Chris BBQ’d the chicken and it was a little chewy, but it was still pretty tasty.  I had other munchies like cheese and crackers, along with pretzels and nuts, but I think people secretly wanted to have a little more food.  I should have made something like a salad, but we ended up making smores and having some vanilla ice cream with a drizzling of cabernet (you have to try this!), so that worked out.  Who doesn’t like a little dessert?  Sorry no picture 🙁

We ended up going through 4 bottles of wine!!  And everything’s better with a little wine, right?  lol  We also played a fun game of Cranium into the night.  I love this game, but I am terrible at it lol

Overall success!  Should I have worried so much about not having everything perfectly mapped out?  No, it’s really not that big of a deal, but you know that is something that I’m working on and when something like this happens on a whim it moves me forward in the right direction 🙂  It’s weird because sometimes I will just do things spontaneously that I normally wouldn’t and it’s really cool, but other times I think about it too much and that’s when I get into a funk.  I say just go for it, whatever it may be!

Home Goods is the best for fun, cheap serving bowls and all kinds of other stuff for the home . . .

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So here is the recipe for lemony tofu pesto pasta.  It’s a great dish for at least 6 people as a side.  And hey, it’s even not bad the next day!  It won’t be as bright green, but it’s pretty darn tasty in my opinion 🙂

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This time around, in addition to the version above . . .

  • I used two lemons because the ones I had were pretty small
  • added 1/2 an avocado to the sauce to make it extra luscious.
  • cubed some fontina cheese to add in at the end to get slightly melt-y
  • instead of home made linguini, I used boxed farfalle pasta, and you can use any kind you like really
  • I had about 1/2 cup of pesto leftover to use in other things like sandwiches, yum!

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For the chicken I used a really simple, but flavorful balsamic marinade that gets really sweet and slightly tangy.  In a bag, along with about 1.25 pounds of chicken breasts, you add:

  • balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, olive oil, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper and that’s it!
  • You can also reserve the marinade, reduce it down slowly and baste the chicken with it and serve it on the side as a drizzle sauce.

So I say let’s not plan for once, just go out there and do anything spontaneous!  Who’s with me?

What have you done today that was spontaneous and fun?

September 4, 2009

nice and refreshing

Filed under: Blog,Dinner — Tags: , , , — Kristen :) @ 5:44 pm

IMG_4573ahhhh, Fridays, the love of my life, I look forward to you all week!

Overall the week was good!  Progress has been made in my thesis in that I am meeting with my chair next week to get the ball rolling and hopefully I can come up with a topic that will be both interesting and doable.  I’m really interested in the coconut water topic, but there are no studies out there that I can find as of yet.  This would not be good for me in that I wouldn’t have any suggestions or methods to base my research off of.  Any of you with an MS out there have any suggestions for me as I embark on this crazy journey that you wish you would have done differently? I’m still trying to learn the proper protocol for everything, and I can’t believe all the grammatical rules, yikes!

I am sooooorrre today!  My muscles are not liking me at the moment, but I tried to win them over with some chia, flax, wheat germ oats love this morning 🙂  Workout week looked something like this . . .

tuesday – hip hop

wednesday – kick box (always makes me sore) I think my HR monitor is freaking out because it has told me twice now I maxed at 222, um cardiac arrest?!

thursday – first jazz class in a long time and I have definitely lost a lot of my technique and my hips were in shock.

friday – spin

I have to say though that since I’ve started cycling, my exercise classes have been feeling a lot easier and I don’t get very winded.  Granted I am still sucking air like a girl on my rides trying to keep up with the pros, other things are now feeling easier, just for conditioning.  I’ve got my clipless shoes, so now I just have to get the pedals.  Why did I decide to start something so pricey, geez!  I’m really nervous about this because you are practically locked into the bike and I can just imagine myself falling over while screaming ‘I can’t clip out!!!’  oh dear. positive thoughts.

Many of you around the blog world have been joyously praising the new fall weather coming your way and I’m jealous!!!  Please send some out my way!  It’s still freaking hot here and I look forward to the days when I can actually do activities outside in the afternoon without dying from heat stroke and bake lovely comforting warm casseroles without heating the house to oblivion.  So because of that I have a nice refreshing pasta dish, adapted from my pasta idol Giada, that is great really at any temperature and very refreshing!

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Lemony Roasted Chicken & Broccoli Pasta

Ingredients

  • about 3 bunches broccoli, trimmed and chopped
  • 1/2 box of your favorite long pasta (I usually make fresh fettuccine, but in a crunch we had spaghetti rigati)
  • 1 (14-ounce) can reduced-sodium chicken broth
  • 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 3 cups shredded roasted chicken (from about 1 roasted chicken)
  • 3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
  • 1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon lemon zest
  • Salt, freshly ground black pepper and all-purpose seasoning

Directions

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  Add pasta and cook until 4 minutes from al dente, then add broccoli and finish cooking together.  Reserve 1/2 cup liquid; drain and rinse with cold water.

Meanwhile, bring the broth and lemon juice to a boil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Boil until the broth reduces a bit. Add the garlic and chicken, simmer on low.  Add broccoli and pasta to the chicken broth and stir to combine. Add 1/3-1/2 cup of Parmesan, pine nuts, oil, and lemon zest. Toss to coat, adding some of the reserved cooking liquid, 1/4 cup at a time, to moisten if needed* Season to taste. Sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan and serve.

*note  this is a really light sauce so it will seem as if it’s not ‘coming together’  give it time and some good light stirring.  The chicken and broccoli will absorb all that lovely juice.

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It’s great as a cold salad for leftovers too!

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If you couldn’t tell, I’m really looking forward to the extra day this weekend.  We don’t have any specific plans, but I do hope to make some progress on my school projects, organization and sanity, along with other house stuff like cleaning and wash.  Oh and hopefully a bike ride in there somewhere.  Tonight I plan to get together with a good friend for a little bite to eat and some drinks 🙂

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

April 19, 2009

seeing green

Filed under: Blog,Dinner — Tags: , , — Kristen :) @ 9:37 pm

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We found out that we are going to close on Monday!  Woo-hoo!  Let the madness begin.  While we haven’t progressed in our packing endeavors, we did make a trip to drop off a load of furniture to the new place.  I also bought some quarts of paint to test the colors out and make sure they will work.

At the moment I’m fighting off a viral URI (found out it’s not strep thank goodness!), but it’s been about 5 days and I’m hoping I’m half way through.  Plus that lovely time of the month has greeted me.  I guess they say when it rains it pours right? 🙂  I’m just looking through to the end of packing, moving, painting, flooring, getting settled, finishing finals and being able to . . . . RELAX!!  I see a little bit of light, but it’s in the distance.  Many thanks for all your kind words, I really appreciate it!

On to a lovely dinner . . .

Lemony Tofu Pesto Pasta

Yield

4 servings (serving size: about 1 1/4 cups)

Ingredients

  • 1 lb cherry tomatoes, halved and seeds squeezed out (I used TJ’s heirloom tomato mix)
  • 1 cup sliced mushrooms
  • Cooking spray
  • 4  teaspoons  olive oil, divided
  • 1/2  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper, divided
  • 2  cups tightly packed fresh baby spinach (about 1 1/4 ounces)
  • 1 1/2  cups cubed reduced-fat silken tofu (about 6 ounces, I only had firm on hand and it worked well)
  • 1  cup packed fresh basil leaves
  • 1/3 cup grated fresh Parmesan-Romano cheese blend
  • 1  tablespoon rice wine vinegar
  • 3/4  teaspoon  salt
  • 2  garlic cloves, minced
  • juice and zest from one medium lemon
  • 4  cups  hot cooked whole wheat spaghetti (about 8 ounces uncooked)  We made fresh!  **Be sure to save 1/2 cup pasta water to thin sauce if needed.
  • 3  tablespoons  pine nuts, toasted

Preparation

Preheat oven to 450°.

100_2705 Place tomatoes, cut sides up, and mushrooms on a jelly-roll pan coated with cooking spray. Drizzle with 2 teaspoons oil; sprinkle evenly with 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper. Bake at 450° for 7 minutes or until tender.  Broil just until charred.

100_2701 Combine remaining 2 teaspoons oil, remaining 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, spinach, tofu, and next 6 ingredients (through lemon) in a food processor; process until smooth.

Combine spinach mixture and cooked pasta in a large skillet; cook over low until thoroughly heated, stirring occasionally and adding pasta water if needed. Gently stir in tomatoes, mushrooms and toasted pine nuts; sprinkle with a bit of parmesan.  Enjoy!  We had the Bridlewood Chard featured here along with it.

This dish has about 300-350 kcals, 11g fat, 14g protein, and 44g Carbs

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Here is the tower of pasta! We like to place our pasta on this drying rack until we get ready to boil it all.  It helps it to rest and dries it out just a bit so they don’t all end up sticking to each other.  It’s also great if you want to dry the pasta out all the way and save for later.

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A little close up . . . this dish was very refreshing!

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I haven’t forgot about the demo site giveaway!!  I am planning to close the entry at the end of April and announce 5 winners with their choice of a 1GB hard drive or 3 iTunes downloads.  So there’s still time, I’d love to hear your feedback on the site survey!

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