Cooking for One:: Basil Ranch Chicken and Pasta

Basil Rach Chicken and Pasta
Use::
Two boneless skinless chicken breasts
Two servings worth of uncooked penne pasta
1 diced roma tomato
1/4 cup ranch dressing
1/4 cup parmesian cheese
1/2 cup mozerella cheese
1 tbs olive oil
1 tbs basil
1tbs oregano
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste

Do it!!

Wash and dry chicken (As Julie and Julia says, meat never browns evenly unless it's dry!)

Dice chicken into half inch cubes, or strips. Toss in small mixing bowl. Season with basil, oregano, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Heat olive oil in skillet. While heating oil, begin to boil water and cook the penne while preparing rest of recipe.

Toss the chicken in the skillet and stir until no longer pink on the outside. Stir in tomato, 1/4 cup ranch dressing and the parmesian. Continute to stir until chicken is browned evenly and ranch and parmesian are cooked into meat. Use rest of ranch and simmer.

Drain pasta and put into large mixing bowl. Stir in chicken. Add more ranch and parmesian if desired, and sprinkle with mozerella. Stir until cheese melts and serve.

New Page :]

So I am still fairly new to the serious blogging world, ha, but I'm trying something new. I've added a new page to the blog. It's called Cooking for One and it's going to be a collection of my own and others' adapted recipes for my fellow spouses of military men or anyone that wants to take advantage of a yummy meal solo style. I haven't quite figured out how to get that to come up on the dashboard, so maybe I will post on the home page every time I put up a new recipe. Anyways, keep checking the page in case I forget to update on here. There are two up now to check out so I hope ya'll enjoy!

Mmm cookies!

So my husband is home! For a week and a half ha. But I'm not complaining, I will take what I can get. In celebration of his little homecoming, I decided to make one of his favorites. I picked up a ham, made corn, and roasted garlic potatoes from the For the Love of Cooking. This was actually my first time making mashed potatoes, since we both love instant (bad, I know!) and they turned out really well. Thanks, Emily, for giving me the rest of your taters haha. I also made Chocolate Chip Oreo cookies, from the same site.

I'm also excited to announce that we are getting a new couch!! It's being delivered tomorrow and I will post pictures once our living room is complete. If you know me, you know the couch we currently have is my least favorite thing in the house. It's just a big eyesore, and it's been to hell in back from our friends dog when they had it, our dog, and now the baby that I watch and her fun reflux excersize she decided to try one day. When this couch comes, I will be in heaven!!

Strawberry Bread (finally!) and Apple Dumplings

Once, many moons ago, I created a wonderful strawberry bread that I told you about here. I've been wanting to make it again but I got careless and lost the recipe, never to find it again. Well after numerous attempts at making one just as tasty, I finally had a successful attempt. The thing that made this bread stand out was that it was crumbly on the outside and moist on the inside. I got the recipe here.

Today I realized that this pay period was shorter, since it's February. That means that when I went shopping, I got a lot of fruit to bake with over the pay period that was going to go bad if I didn't use it soon. So there's been a lot of baking. Emily lent me some of her Costco cookbooks a few weeks ago and I stole some recipes I thought I could work with. Today I made a really easy but delicious desert. These apple dumplings were simple but unique and oh so tasty.

 

Apple Dumplings::

2 granny smith apples

8 crescent rolls

Ground Cinnamon

1 cup orange juice

1 cup sugar

2 tbs butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350*. Peel and core the apples, and cut them into fourths. Un-roll the crescent rolls and wrap one peice of apple in every one. Place in 8x8 baking pan. Next, mix sugar, butter, and orange juice together and bring to a boil. Take off heat and stir in vanilla. Pour over the rolls and bake for 30 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbling and the rolls are golden brown.

I swear this was the easiest and tastiest thing i've made. I also had Spaghetti with Butter and Parmesian from the same book, but I didn't exactly measure anything out so maybe next time I will post the recipe.

Mikey's Best Banana Bread!!

I'm back!! I've had a hard time getting motivated to blog because I missed so much, and I just couldn't decide what to start up with again. But now, I've been blessed with a fabulous idea so I'm going to write a quick blog about it before the hubby makes me finish my homework!

The other day I made white chocolate chip cookies and banana bread to break in some new baking pans. The white chocolate chip cookies were good but nothing beyond average. The banana bread, however, was a shocker. I've never made a successful banana bread in my time. I did once make a strawberry banana bread that turned out fabulous, but I can't seem to replicate it. When I pulled this loaf out of the oven, it looked attrocious. I even took a picture to show you all how horrible it looked. I thought for sure it was dry, burnt, and trash material. But of course I wanted to see how horrible it tasted first. It was amazing! The center was moist and full of flavor. I think that the flavor was from the secret ingredient- white chocolate chips.

I modified this recipe from this one, http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/The-Best-Banana-Bread/Detail.aspx. All I did differently was add 1/2 cup chocolate chips. I also used half whole wheat flour and half white, but I am waiting to hear from Emily to see if that really mattered or not!

All in all it turned out wonderful, and I think the way it looks is just a fluke.

It is the fear of one's own self that haunts the lonely.

I am proud to say that today I came to realize that i'm actually rather used to this occassional living on my own situation. Which is good, because it's nowhere near it's end haha. The last week has been hard on Mike, since he's working shifts between 12 and 14 hours a day, and he will be underway for most of the next two weeks. So i've taken to hobbies and cooking again.
Tonight I decided to make something up, since I saw an attractive recipe that didn't QUITE fit my needs. So I took a single boneless skinless chicken breast, butterflied it, and filled the inside with swiss and parmessean cheese, and crumbled bacon. I took vegetable oil (olive oil would have been better), and made a baste with oregano, basil, lemon pepper, minced onions, a little bit of garlic salt, and pepper. I baked it in the oven and had pasta with a jazzed up alfredo sauce as a side. MM! I wasn't sure if the lemon and garlic would go well, i'm just delving into new tastes, but it was great. Next time I would like to cut the lemon pepper and mix lemon juice with the olive oil. Here's what it looked like.

I also got a really great 'family photo' of us and our tree and I wanted to share that even though the holidays aren't so close as i'd like.

The 1st Voigt Thanksgiving :]

Well Thanksgiving turned out great! We woke up this morning with Willow in time to catch the Thanksgiving day parade, which we watched and flipped around channels for a while. I skipped breakfast because I just knew that we were going to get stuffed at dinner. After talking on Skype to my family in Texas, I started getting hungry and bored with not cooking. Since it was just the two of us we decided hey- we can eat whenever we want! So I put the last few things in the oven and it turned out loverly.
I thought I showed pretty good restraint, waiting until the evening to start puttin the tree up, but Mike still thinks it's a little early. Well I didn't need his help, haha, I put the tree together and decorated it and I think it's a great first Christmas tree! I'm just goint to put a few of the pictures up because it's not even December yet and i'm sure we are going to have a bunch more pictures throughout the month. Happy holidays :]



Oh- I also wanted to share a picture of my side of the family, who we really missed today but are so glad to have in our lives!

Back to blogging!

Well, it has been quite a while, and still not much has happened. As you have read in past blogs, Mike has been gone for the majority of the last month or so. While I missed him dearly, I am proud to say that my husband was involved in the rescue efforts for the collision of a Marine Copter with a Coast Guard plane. I was very shocked at how much the tragedy shook me up, as well as the Fort Hood shooting that followed, but I guess for the first time reality really hit me on the dangers that not only every day people face by going out into the world, but also that our soldiers and sailors face, even when not on duty overseas or otherwise. I would just like to take a second to say that we are very sad for the families that lost people in the recent tragedies, and we hope their souls rest in peace.
On a lighter note, I did not get nearly as much accomplished as I had hoped in my husband's absence. The first half of his being gone I hobbled around on a bum ankle, and the last two weeks I had a horrible case of the flu, in which I learned that military hospitals will nearly always have atleast a three hour wait in the emergency room. I did, however, manage to try the little recipe I got from Emily, who got the recipe here This is a double decker pumpkin pie, and while the picture I took do not do it justice, it was absolutely amazing!!

I'm also putting up some updated pictures of the adorable Willow, as she has hit a growth spurt, and a picture of my very handsom husband sporting the new working uniform, as I know a few women on my side of the family that would love to see how well-dressed the Navy keeps its sailors these days. I am very excited to soon be posting our Thanksgiving photos, along with the Christmas tree I am so anxious to put up! Happy pre-holidays to all!

Mike in Uniform

She loves the camera


I guess it was too bright for her nap?

Baked Spaghetti and Pictures from Our Walks

Tonight I thought Mike'd be home pretty late so I thought I'd make baked skettie for dinner, that way I could prepare it during the day and just throw it in the oven when he got home. Well he got home AS I was preparing it but was patient enough to let me finish, haha. Anyways this dinner was a COMPLETE success because I made half to his liking and half to mine. His taste is minimal with very little flavor and I love seasoning and cheeses and sauces. So both of us ended up completely satisfied.

I also got around to stealing some of the pictures from Emily of our walks, so here those are.

Mt. Helix

The View

Molly and Ellie!!


Willow!!

Fall Findings

It finally feels like fall here in La Mesa. We are still getting our hot afternoons but nothing like it was, and the mornings are pleasant. That's great for the walks Willow and I take with my friend Emily and her pups Molly and Ellie. The view is great and I will post some pictures when I can steal them from Emily.
We tried to do a little decorating for Halloween, though it's a bit difficult with our balcony being blocked in by a tree. We did hang the old Keplar Pumpkin my dad and I made years and years ago, and a wreath on the door. We also decorated and carved our own pumpkins. Unfortunately the pumpkin we chose looked perfect on the outside but only took two days to rot so I never got a chance to get a picture of it. I do have pictures of our decorated baby pumpkins.


Our family pumpkns.


A sleepy Willow after I finished her pumpkin.
Last night I tried a new recipe, called Bacon Cheeseburger Upsidedown Pizza. I thought it was something Mike would definitely enjoy but I thought wrong, though that says nothing for how good the dish actually was. I'd say next time I could cut out the bacon and use a little less sauce, but I loved it and think it would be a great family meal.


The end result.
Today I notices our strawberries weren't going to last much longer so I wanted to use them all with something, so I searched for recipes. I ended up making a delicious strawberry bread.