Arugula Avocado Pasta

Tonight's Dinner:

Pasta with Arugula, Avocado, and Sun-dried Tomato Alfredo

Super Delicious

also, leftover zucchini fries and chicken roll-ups

This pasta was really super delicious.  I can't wait to eat the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.  

In other news, I'm headed to Charleston tomorrow so I can run the Charleston Distance Run on Saturday.   It's supposedly a pretty tough 15 miler.  I'm curious to see how I do; my goal is to place top five, which will probably require me to run my fastest half marathon pace, and hold it for an extra 1.9 miles.  I wonder how that last 1.9 will feel since my body is used to being done at 13.1...

Stuffed Chicken Roll-ups

INGREDIENTS

thin-sliced b/s chicken breast

dried bread

bacon

onion

ginger

garlic

celery

heavy cream

1) Cut the bacon into small pieces and fry it in a pan. 

doesn't look like much...but it's actually 3 slices of bacon

my trusty bacon-cutting scissors

in another life (1st grade?) they were my first pair of sewing scissors

 2) Add some chopped onion, and let them cook til crispy. 

3) Add chopped ginger, garlic, and celery, cook briefly and mix well.

 4) Remove from heat and add the bread (break it into small pieces first).  Add small amounts of heavy cream until the stuffing is slightly moist.  

5) Clean and dry the chicken, then place a spoonful of stuffing on each piece of chicken, roll them up, and secure with a toothpick.  

6) Sear on each side in a pan on the stovetop, then place in a pie plate and bake in the oven at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes. 

7) Make a meal. Eat.

Chicken Roll-ups, Zucchini Fries, Deviled Eggs

Photos to Salivate Over: Part 3

Provolone-topped Mac N Cheese

Look at that burnt goodness...only took 20 minutes @ 375

mac n cheese and steak tenders

1st Mojito of the summer!

(I should have made this in May...but somehow I didn't get around to it until late July)

Quinoa with shrimp 

on a bed of arugula, a slice of tomato, and some avocado on the side

(August 21)

More quinoa with shrimp.  And asparagus.

Sloppy Joe Nachos

(Made with the Bacon-y Joe recipe, original recipe here)

Green Bean Fries

Green Bean Fries

and some carrot fries as well.

I came across this awesome recipe for zucchini fries yesterday, and got really excited to make them.  Then I discovered that I had less than half of a zucchini in my fridge.  I briefly considered a quick trip to Kroger for more zucchini, but nixed it because I already went over my grocery budget for the week.  Then, I remembered that I had some french cut green beans in my freezer.  So I took them out and spread them on some paper towels to thaw.

I was cooking dinner for me and a friend, and I decided that there were not enough green beans to make fries for both of us, so I also chopped up a carrot. 

Once the beans were thawed, I blotted as much of the water off them as possible, then I dunked them and the carrots in an egg/heavy cream bath.  Then, coated them in a mix of Italian breadcrumbs, garlic powder, and shredded colby jack cheese.  

Plopped them on a greased baking sheet, and shoved them in the oven for 15 minutes at 425.

Took them out of the oven and gazed at the crispy deliciousness. 

Ate them with some tortellini and shrimp.  The tortellini had some of this delicious sauce, with added olive oil because the leftover sauce from the other night was rather thick.

Bacon Pancakes

Genius Idea from Cooking Club.

I found this picture posted from them on Facebook a week or so ago:

Pure Genius.  

A great Saturday morning breakfast when it's so cold out, you can actually get away with procrastinating the long run because you don't have to worry about it being too hot out if you wait too long.  I can't believe it's only August and it's that kind of a day out...but that's how it is.  I just spent 2 hours wearing sweats, curled up on the couch, under an afghan, procrastinating my 10 mile run.  (and this after almost 2 months of running at 6:30 am every Saturday to beat the heat for my long run)  At the rate I'm going, I might get my run started by 11...

Oh, and in case you were wondering, its 63 degrees out.  I guess 63 in August feels like 15 in January.  I should probably move to Florida where maybe it's actually warm more often, but I hear it's flat there.  I shudder to think what would happen to my running if I moved away from the awesome WV hills.

BACON PANCAKE DELICIOUSNESS

fry the bacon

mix up the batter

(this morning I used 1 egg, a little bit of berry juice, a spoonful of pumpkin leftover from here, 2 heaping tbsp of milled flax seed, some bisquick, and some chocolate chips)

pour the batter over the fried bacon

(I suggest removing as much of the grease as possible first)

make sure the batter spreads thin enough

flip when ready

look at the deliciousness!

eat.  with some raspberry jam.

Ok, I really must stop procrastinating now.  Gotta get 10 miles done before lunch...

Ginger-Carrot Cream Sauce and Figgy Chops

Ginger-Carrot Cream Sauce

3 small-medium carrots, grated

1/4 small vidalia onion, chopped small

1 clove garlic, chopped small

1-2 inches ginger root, grated

heavy cream

Figgy Chops

First, buy some of this amazing stuff

Then, rub it all over some boneless pork chops and cook them in a skillet with some olive oil

Ginger-Carrot Sauce

Figgy Chops and Asparagus

Chops, Pasta, Meal.

Arugula Rolls and Bacon-y Joes

The original Sloppy Joe recipe can be found here.  Today's was mostly the same, but I added two big, thick, strips of bacon.  And didn't measure any of the ingredients.  And instead of tomato soup I used a bunch of leftover sauce from the last time I made meatballs.  And I used a bit of heavy cream this time too.

Here's the Arugula Rolls recipe:

Side note:  these are still a work in progress.  They were pretty good, but not nearly as taste-full as I had hoped.  I will definitely be playing with this recipe some more in the future!

Breakfast Eggs

scrambled with onion, asparagus, and fresh oregano

w/bacon

omelet with fresh oregano and gouda cheese

w/toast

scrambled with mushrooms, grape tomatoes, and fresh basil

w/bagel

scrambled in bacon grease

w/bacon and leftover arugula rolls