Sure, at first glance, it may just look like a big dish of tender pasta, creamy white sauce, and melted cheese, but it's really so much more than that. Well, actually, that's pretty much exactly what it is. But there's also shredded chicken and spinach tucked between each rolled noodle, which both gives it a...
Search Results for: leftover
One Pot Penne Alla Vodka with Sausage
All logical reasons considered, I should NOT like Penne Alla Vodka. I've only recently come around to tomato-based sauces (and still approach them with caution), and the vodka-- well, for all of the reasons I've ever imbibed, "Vodka is delicious" has never been one of them. Yet here I am, eating a bowl full of...
Sweet and Sour Chicken
The feeling you get when you're eating Chinese takeout is kind of strange, isn't it? It's part excitement and part self-hatred. Part, "I'm way too full to continue eating," and part, "I'll just eat that delicious egg roll they threw in and then I'm done. Oh, and a bit more rice. And I can't not eat...
Chipotle Chicken Fried Rice
I have a weakness for Chinese takeout, especially with a heaping side of soy sauce-drenched fried rice. In fact, I always order extra so that I can eat the leftovers for lunch the next day... or two... or three. What can I say? I really like fried rice. So when I was asked to participate in the...
Frico Egg Breakfast Tacos
Raise your hand if you go to bed excited to wake up and eat leftovers for breakfast. (My hand's up, and I really hope I'm not the only one.) Or, better yet, you forget about them, wake up starving, open the fridge, and the refrigerator light illuminates your leftovers like some kind of divine answer to your...
Slow Cooker Honey Chipotle Stout Enchiladas
Can you believe that it's already August? Where did the summer go? We're just over a month away from swapping out lemonade for pumpkin lattes and, you guys, I'm so not ready for the sun to start setting before I leave the office. We'll be packing away our swimsuits and taking out our sweaters in no time. NO. Nooooo!...
Easy Greek Tzatziki Chicken Salad
Is it too late for me to start working on getting a bikini bod in time for summer? Yes? Probably? But I mean I have this Easy Greek Tzatziki Chicken Salad, and that has to count for something. You see, this spin on chicken salad fulfills some pretty difficult criteria: it's healthy, it's simple, and it...
Crispy Salami Chips with Warm Muffuletta Dip
You know how, on the best pizza slices, the pepperoni forms little cups that get super crunchy along the edges and it's the most delicious thing to ever happen to cured meat? Or when you get the entire strip of bacon (including the fatty streaks) to get crispy without burning it, and it's like a...
Easy Vegetable Enchilada Skillet
In an unexpected twist of events that would shock and appall my former 5-year-old self, I have grown to love vegetables. I am like a kid in a candy store in the produce section during the warmer-weather months. Aside from the massive (and I do mean massive) amounts of cheese in my fridge, there are...
One Pot Pesto Carbonara
Looking outside, I can hardly tell it's spring. The sky is grey, the grass is brownish, and the trees are still barren. O Sunshine, where art thou? We get less and less "spring weather" here in Jersey every year, it seems. Is it like that everywhere? Do you feel like it's either scorching hot summer...
Thai Cashew Coconut Rice with Ginger Peanut Sauce
I go to barbecues and shovel pasta salad in my mouth like it's going out of style. Seriously, I load up with enough dressing-doused noodles to make my paper plate sag down in the middle, and then I go back for seconds. And thirds. I love the stuff. For obvious reasons, pasta salad has been...
Cilantro-Garlic-Lime Seafood Packets
It's been a few years since I first made these Cilantro-Garlic-Lime Seafood Packets (or "The BOMB" Packets, as we like to call 'em around here), and they are still one of my favorites. Hence the fact that we call them "the bomb". But more on that in a second. The Cilantro-Garlic-Lime Seafood Packets are loaded...
Crock Pot Hawaiian BBQ Chicken Tacos with Pineapple Slaw
When I'm in a creative slump, I always go to my friends and family for recipe inspiration. What does my cousin Ashley tell me to make every time? Hawaiian Chicken. Every. Single. Time. Even though she's been telling me to make Hawaiian Chicken for over a year now (seriously), I kept putting it off because......
Loaded Greek Chicken "Pitzas"
Sometimes my cooking "failures" work out even better in the end. When I say "sometimes", I mean almost never, but this recipe was one exception to the typical disaster that is my kitchen on a bad cooking day. (Yes, we all have them!) I wanted to make a regular pizza with Greek toppings, but my dough was...
Homemade Flour Tortillas
If there is, in fact, a "wrong way" to live, then I've been doing it wrong for years. Okay, that might be a little excessive, but the fact that I've been using store bought tortillas my whole life just feels so wrong now. If you've never had homemade flour tortillas, let me tell you, it's amazing...
Chili Rubbed Steak Tacos with Chimichurri
If you've hung around here long enough, you know that I already made Steak Tacos a little over a year ago. And if you've ever met my boyfriend, James, you probably know that they were his favorite meal I've ever made. That's really a big deal considering I do this for a living. The man has...
Crispy-Outside Creamy-Inside Garlic Herb Potatoes
I know that the name of this side dish is on the brink of ridiculousness, but I could not, for the life of me, think of a way to describe them that gave them justice. They're so flavorful from the chicken stock, herbs, and garlic, and they have that texture combination that makes you swoon--...
Chipotle-Pesto Chicken Burrito Bowls
It all started in college, when I stumbled into a new fast food restaurant to hold me over in between classes. I wasn't expecting much, but after just one meal, I was hooked. Love at first bite. But after I graduated, I quickly outgrew that fast food obsession. I opt instead to cook all...
Guinness Beef Stew with Cheddar Herb Dumplings
Rich and hearty Guinness Beef Stew is a classic that you'll find at pubs and family dinner tables all across Ireland. This version features ultra-tender meat, deep flavors, and Cheddar Herb Dumplings that will make you swoon. It's the ultimate comfort food. It's been cruelly cold and frosty for the past couple of days up...
One Pot Spicy Chicken Riggies
6 years ago, my then-roommate and good friend, Allie, asked me to make her something "spicy with chicken" for her birthday dinner. I wanted to make something that she'd never had before, and after scouring the web for inspiration, I became smitten with the idea of making Chicken Riggies. I'd never heard of them before...
Bacon, Cheddar, Caramelized Onion, and Potato Pierogi
I wish I could tell you that there was some deep background history behind these pierogi-- that my father grew up in Poland and brought back the recipe from his family's long tradition, or that my mother used to enjoy them in the heart of Pittsburgh and shared the city secret of adding sour cream...
Parmesan Crusted Chicken with Herb Butter Sauce
January, for me, is always a time of reflection. As I begin another 365-day cycle, I can't help but reminisce on the experiences I've had in past years-- from people I've met to places I've ventured, lessons I've learned to things I still haven't quite figured out yet. Unsurprisingly, a lot of my memories have...
Pomegranate Mojito
Am I the only one who is completely blown away by how close to Christmas it is? Where did the time go? What have I been doing for the past month? I feel like Anchorman 2 has gotten more attention than the holidays this year, or maybe I just have selective hearing. Either way, I'm...
Roasted Garlic Gnocchi with Bacon, Spinach, and Smoked Gouda Cream Sauce
Since I started experimenting in the kitchen a few years ago, there hasn't been much that I've been too scared to attempt. Most of the time, my eagerness to jump right in to a new technique or use a new ingredient has proved well worth it, although I have to admit that I've had more...
Freezer-Friendly Athenian Chicken Quesadillas
I'm not ashamed to admit that out of all the awesome places I've eaten (and there have been many), my favorite place to frequent has always been a little dive bar just up the road from my mom's house. It's an unassuming spot that's far too small for the amount of locals who crowd in for...
Apple Butter BBQ Ribs
I have somewhat of a torrid love affair going on this season with the classic pork and apple flavor combination. Sure, it's been around forever, but for whatever reason, something about the sudden chill in this year's air has got me thinking in one direction. (Hint: it's a direction that involves an entire apple grove and...
French Onion Soup Sticks
Meet my new favorite fall food. I was looking over my collection of "must make" recipe ideas the other day when I realized I still hadn't tackled the "French Onion Soup, but not soup" request that has been sitting on the top of the list for almost a year now. It's probably been...
Baked Pulled Pork Egg Rolls
Ever since my trip to North Carolina, I can't get two things out of my head: one, I really miss my cousin and wish we lived closer to each other (cue "d'awww"s), and two, I am developing an unhealthy obsession with pulled pork. When I say "unhealthy obsession", I mean that I've been...
Shrimp Satay Skewer Shooters with Thai Spicy Peanut Sauce
On nights where I can't be bothered to cook, I begin to really miss college. Back then, I was young, impressionable, and a budding future food-fanatic, thanks to the many competing restaurants and extreme cultural diversity in the area. There was cuisine from nearly every country-- from Lebanon to Italy to Ethiopia-- and despite being...
Spinach and Artichoke Dip Alfredo
If you were reading last week, you already know about my tendency to eat appetizers for dinner, which is exactly what inspired me to make this meal. Spinach and Artichoke Dip is up there on the all-time-appetizer-favorites list for pretty much everyone I know, including James, who claims to hate artichokes. Side note: I say...
Southern Baked Chicken
It's been 2 weeks that I have been hiding this recipe from you and I'll tell you without hesitation that it has been down-right wrong of me to do so. Why? Because this recipe is up there on the list of my favorite things I've ever made. Far up there. Lately, I've been craving Southern...
Hummus Crusted Chicken
If you're one of the people who realized off the bat that this is a healthy recipe and said, "No way; That's just not for me," I have to advise you to reconsider. One, this tastes great. Two, it's quick to put together. Three, it's easy to put together. Four, a fourth point shouldn't be...
Captain's Passion Punch
I originally had planned to start this off with a mention of the sudden shift we've had from freezing cold to sunny and 80-someodd degrees. We seem to have skipped spring all-together, I would have said, and bounded into the days of BBQs and backyard events. At least that's how it seemed last week when...
(Esquites) Mexican Street Corn Salad
It's likely that I've been staring at an empty blog post box for an hour or so now. I can't be sure. It's almost 9PM [Edit: 11PM], and I'm absolutely out of it, guys. I really hate to be a complainer, but yesterday's hopefulness for better luck in May has disintegrated. Sunday was the car break-in....
Boozy Shamrock Shake
These Irish eyes are smiling. Why? Because I now know how to make a Shamrock Shake at home. Cocktail-style.
Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Can Cake
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm no baker. Seriously, if you're searching for some beautiful work of culinary art, look away now. However, I've got to say that these turned out pretty awesome, aesthetically, for the amount of amateur ability that was put into them. They taste even better. ...
S'mores Martini
S'mores Martini. This creamy, chocolatey cocktail tastes like a boozy version of your favorite campfire treat. I have been so tempted to say "bring the bonfire inside with these martinis" but I feel like I am opening myself up to lawsuits. So instead I'll say that this drink is like your favorite bonfire treat, but with...