Wonderful Winter Salad

I've been doing my best to be creative with my foods, adding flavors I don't normally cook with. So far I have been successful. Citrus is in season now and I love grapefruit. I normally eat it as just a fruit at breakfast. Well, while perusing Pinterest, I saw that the Pioneer Woman pinned a salad with grapefruit and kale. I'm a big fan of kale, but don't particularly care to eat it raw. It has a rough texture, so not my favorite to eat as a salad. (I prefer using it soups where it will hold up to soaking in liquid for a long time.) Today I made a similar version to this salad. I had arugula, grapefruit, and crumbled feta and made this beauty.

It was fabulous! I topped it with some slivered almonds and a raspberry walnut vinaigrette. I'm looking forward to make this again!

Cooking with What's in the House

Prior to the holidays, my husband and I made a commitment to each other that we are going to pay down our debt. Like many other Americans, we have a lot, but we are now working on fixing this. Paying down our debt means we are adjusting our lifestyle a bit. We were never ones to really go out a lot, but we would, and when you tally up the cost per month, it was several hundred dollars. Additionally, since I am the one that does the food shopping, I have to really budget my spending. Many times I would just buy things because they are on sale, not necessarily something we needed because we were out. Well that is stopping and I'm working on creating easy meals based on what is in our home already. 

When I originally thought of this dinner, I was going to do a tomato based chicken and pasta dish (which is what we'd always have), but when I opened the pantry and saw a jar of Classico light alfredo sauce, I came up with something else. I knew I had Boar's Head deli ham in the fridge and half a bag of Trader Joe's frozen peas in the freezer. So I created my own version of chicken carbonara and it was delicious!

I had 2 boneless chicken breasts already defrosted in the fridge. I cut them up into bite size pieces and seasoned them with salt and pepper. (Remember, do not use a wood cutting board when cutting up raw meats!) I had a skillet on the stove on medium heat with some olive oil in the pan and added the chicken to get it cooking.

On a separate burner, I had the water going in a pot to boil so I could add the Barilla fettuccine. Once the chicken had no pink visible on the outside, I added the peas and chopped ham and let that cook for a few minutes. Then I added the jar of sauce.

I lowered the heat on the pan and let the chicken mixture simmer until the pasta was finished. I drained the pasta then added it to the chicken mixture and stirred it together. It was such a tasty dish!

Happy New Year!

We've already enjoyed five days of 2014 and here in Long Island, we had our first blizzard. We got about 11" in my area, but it was that really soft fluffy snow so it was easy to shovel.

It's been frigid to say the least so I have been spending a lot of time in the kitchen. I go back to work tomorrow so I started my freezer meals over the break. Some of my favorites are ones I can throw in the slow cooker. All of the ingredients are raw and put into a ziplock. I made several chicken and beef dishes. These will be great on these cold winter days!

On our snow day, I wanted to turn the oven on for breakfast. I wasn't in the mood for eggs so I scoured Pinterest for ideas and found cinnamon buns! I had all of the ingredients so I went to work. My ingredients:

1 can of crescent rolls (I used reduced fat Pillsbury)

1/3 cup of brown sugar

2 T of butter (melted)

2 t of cinnamon

I preheated the oven to the temp listed on the dough container. I opened up the dough and rolled it out onto a cutting board. I pinched together all the perforated seams. In a bowl, I mixed together the butter, sugar and cinnamon, then spread it across the dough. I rolled the dough into a tube with the cinnamon sugar mixture on the inside. Using a sharp knife, I sliced the dough into 8 pieces. In a greased dish, I arranged the sliced dough and placed it in the oven. 

The buns baked for about 14 minutes. I let them cool a few minutes before using a spatula to remove the buns. I decided not to ice the buns and keep it a little lighter. They were delicious and sweet enough on their own!