Dinner at our house: Mac N Cheese

Mmmmmac N Cheese!

Some of you saw this on my facebook tonight, and I thought I'd share the recipe. It turned out really yum! This is sure to become a regular in my house, and I plan to try and make my own alfredo sauce next time so I can make it lowfat. There is a skinnier version I can make I'm sure!

Ingredients:

1 lb corkscrew pasta

1 15 oz jar alfredo sauce (I used Bertolli)

3 cups shredded cheese (I used Kraft 2% Sharp Cheddar + 2% Colby Jack Blend)

Sour cream (I used low fat)

Bacon crumbles

Croutons (I bought an asiago blend)

Directions:

Cook your pasta as normal. While it's boiling, in a deep sauce pan heat up sauce over medium-high heat. Mix in your shredded cheese. Make sure it's smooth and not lumpy. Once it's melted all the way, you can go ahead and add in your bacon if you'd like (Tim didn't want it so I set it to the side). Add in your pasta and stir til covered. Add a dollup of the sour cream, bacon (if you didn't use it before) and top with crushed croutons. Eat!

Dinner at Our House: Creamy Basil Chicken tossed in Angel Hair Pasta

I forgot to post this one. Sorry, I plan on playing catch-up this weekend. Last week I made a variation of this recipe.

Dad's plate had all the veggie options too.

This was a closer shot of the pasta.

• 6 ounces angel hair pasta
• 1 12 oz. can evaporated skim milk
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons basil
• 1/4 cup shredded fresh parmesan cheese
• 2 tablespoons shredded fresh parmesan cheese
• freshly ground black pepper
• 2 -3 chicken breasts cut into pieces

Cook pasta according to package directions.

For Chicken:
Cook chicken in a sprayed skillet over medium-high heat. Add ground pepper, garlic and basil to season. Sit to the side.

For sauce:
Stir together milk and flour. 

Stir in garlic and basil. 

Cook and stir over med. heat till mixture is bubbly and thickened. 

Cook and stir 1 minute more.
Add 1/4 cup parmesan cheese. Stir till cheese is melted.
Cook 1 minute more.
Toss pasta with sauce and add chicken.

All in all it was ok. It was almost too sweet from all the basil. It needs something salty or spicy with it. 

Quick Fix Lunch: Creamy Bow Tie Pasta

This isn't a regular Dinner at Our House post, but I just had to share with you all the lunch I just tried out on this lazy holiday Monday. I'm at the computer scanning my usual suspects (Skinnytaste, tasteofhome, and allrecipes) looking for things to make for the week. I'm actually not looking for anything new, but rather I am checking out my "saved" lists.

However, I stumbled across this little gem that is going down as one of my new favorite quickie lunches (I may even whip up another batch tonight to take for work tomorrow). If I do the math correct, the WW total for this would be 5 points. I'm not quite sure that what I just made would amount to that though. We keep all low fat, fat free, etc products in our home (Update: I did the tedious math on all of our products at home and it brought it down to 4 points). I'll have to take some time to figure it up. Try it for yourself, it took me little to no time to prepare and we had all the ingredients at our house.

Ingredients

• 1 cup uncooked bow tie pasta
• 1-1/2 teaspoons butter
• 2-1/4 teaspoons olive oil
• 1-1/2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
• Dash salt
• Dash dried basil
• Dash crushed red pepper flakes
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 2 tablespoons chicken broth
• 1 tablespoon water
• 2 tablespoons shredded Parmesan cheese
• 1 tablespoon sour cream

Directions

• Cook pasta according to package directions. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, melt butter. Stir in the oil, flour, garlic and seasonings until blended. Gradually add the milk, broth and water. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until slightly thickened.
• Remove from the heat; stir in cheese and sour cream. Drain pasta; toss with sauce. Yield: 2 servings

Dinner at Our House: Rosemary Chicken Pasta

So tonight I cooked again. It went muuuuuuch better than last night. I made Rosemary Chicken Pasta and it is soooo easy to make and actually pretty good for you. I enlisted some help from Tim and the whole dish took less than 30 minutes to pull off (including prep time). It was also nice to get some verbal feedback from my dad when he said "You know, you could do this every night."

This is my plate. It was soooo yum.

If you're interested in the recipe I'll post it below. It came from a great website called http://www.lowfatlifestyle.com
Ingredients
 8 ounces uncooked penne, ziti or other pasta
 1 clove garlic, minced
 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into thin strips
 16 - 18 asparagus spears, sliced thin (fresh or frozen)
 3/4 cup fat free chicken broth
 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
 2 tablespoons reduced fat Parmesan cheese
 salt and pepper to taste
Directions

1. Prepare pasta according to package direction; drain.
2. Heat 1/4 cup broth in a deep non stick skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and rosemary and cook 15 seconds. Add chicken and cook, tossing well, until lightly browned, about 3 minutes.
3. Add asparagus*, remaining chicken broth, parsley and pasta to skillet. Increase heat to high and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally, until liquid has reduced enough to lightly cover pasta.
4. Sprinkle with reduced fat Parmesan, salt and pepper and toss. Serve immediately.
5. *If using frozen asparagus, make sure to thaw and drain before slicing. If using fresh, make sure to snap bottom portion that is rough off before rinsing and slicing.

Per Serving: 494 Calories

4g Fat (7% calories from fat)
66g Protein
45g Carbohydrate
4g Dietary Fiber
139mg Cholesterol
295mg Sodium

Dinner at Our House: Baked Ziti

A few nights ago I (Kelly) came home from work and cooked dinner. My mom had already gone to church for a meeting, and dad was still at work. We were going to have baked ziti. I enlisted the help of Tim to make the salad while I cooked.

Now, I have to share some of the events that happened. When you make baked ziti (a la Kelly style), it makes a LOT of food. This is about the 4th or 5th time I've made it at my parents' home. I curse my mother's Pyrex dish because it is actually not big enough to hold all the pasta.  Basically, we ended up having to use this:

Fan used to blow out smoke...

The pasta ended up bubbling some of the sauce over the sides of the Pyrex dish. Needless to say that sauce burned badly at the bottom of the stove and caused the entire house to fill with smoke. And with perfect timing my dad came home right as Tim and I were trying to eradicate all the smoke. He thought we had burned dinner, but alas...

Dinner turned out well!

everything was OK! It was quiet yum as usual. If you want to know how to make Baked ziti I'll post the recipe I use below.

Ingredients

• 1 pound dry ziti pasta
• 1 pound lean ground beef
• 2 (26 ounce) jars spaghetti sauce
• 6 ounces provolone cheese, sliced
• 16 ounces ricotta cheese
• 6 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded
• 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add ziti pasta, and cook until al dente, about 8 minutes; drain.
2. In a large skillet, brown ground beef over medium heat. Add spaghetti sauce, and simmer 15 minutes.
3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9x13 inch baking dish. Layer as follows: 1/2 of the ziti, Provolone cheese, ricotta, 1/2 sauce mixture, remaining ziti, mozzarella cheese and remaining sauce mixture. Top with grated Parmesan cheese.
4. Bake for 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until cheeses are melted.