Sauteed Chicken with Zucchini & Summer Squash

Summer's a great time to play with produce, whether you grow it in your own backyard, hit up the local market, or head to the farmer's market to pick up something that somebody else grew in their backyard.

Here's an easy dish with lots of flavor that combines the tastes of fresh zucchini, summer squash, and tomatoes. You can grill the chicken instead of cooking it in a skillet if you like.

Bacon-Wrapped Chicken Tenders

Time has flown, and it sort of feels like I completely missed the month of February. There are a lot of big but exciting changes going on around here, so I've been swamped with everything connected to that and haven't done a ton of cooking.

However, a few weeks ago I had a "we have a bunch of stuff that needs to be used up" day, and decided to play a bit with some bacon. 

Everybody loves bacon. Except vegetarians. And maybe even some of them love bacon, too, just secretly.

This looks a lot more complicated than it really is. Start to in the oven was about fifteen minutes total.

Here's how to make it.

Fried Polenta with Italian Vegetables (Meatless Meals for Lenten Fridays)

Polenta is kind of a weird food. It's basically cornmeal that's cooked into a sort of paste, and depending on the consistency, can be served either as a soft, almost pudding like base for Mexican and Italian dishes alike, or shaped into a sort of sausage that can later be sliced and fried.

This dish, based on the Fried Polenta with Vegetable Marinara from The Pampered Chef 29 Minutes to Dinner cookbook, requires the use of the second type of polenta. I've made it a couple times before, and this time I played quite a bit with the veggies to make it more my own.

You can make your own polenta, but it's also readily available in most grocery stores.

Continue reading to find out how I made this, my way.

Stuffed French Toast

My holiday hiatus lasted way longer than I intended, and for good reasons. But now I'm back, and I have a delicious recipe to share with you today.

So what can you make with all of this?

Stuffed French Toast!

I've been sitting on this recipe for a while, partly because I forgot about it. But since I have a snow day and just made myself some "regular" French toast, it seemed a nice treat to post about.

There are many versions of this treat out there. I've even indulged in the version served at Cinderella's Royal Table in Disney World, which honestly was the best stuffed French toast I've ever had, despite not actually involving toast as far as I could tell. This particular version comes from What to Expect: Eating Well When You're Expecting.

(And since some of you out there may now be asking the obvious question, the answer is yes.)

Sweet & Spicy Shrimp

Some of my best stir fry happens when I'm just playing around in the kitchen. A while back, I came up with this shrimp dish that rated "highly edible" on my husband's food-tastiness scale.

It's very easy and, like most stir fries, quick to cook and serve.  Here's how.

Crispy Buffalo Chicken Bites

Here's an easy, quick recipe you can put together and serve in about a half hour or so, start to finish. It beats commercially made, frozen chicken nuggets hands down. I adapted it from the "Crunchy Whole-Grain Chicken Bites" recipe from The Pampered Chef's 29 Minutes to Dinner recipe book. Mostly because I didn't have any whole-grain chips (meaning Sun-Chips) or ranch dressing mix.

Of course, if you're not a fan of buffalo sauce, you can always leave the chicken bites plain and serve with your family's favorite dipping sauces.

Mexican Grilled Chicken with Spicy Black Beans & Rice

This past week, the thermometer decided to test the "above 90 degrees" thing, which meant by Saturday I was in no mood to heat up the kitchen in order to provide dinner.

Thankfully, we got our grill working.

This recipe was so easy, I'm a little surprised I hadn't figured it out before this.

Korean-Style Beef Bowl from Pampered Chef

I'm a big fan of stir fry style foods, mostly because they tend to be healthy, quick, and relatively easy to put together.  Cook up some meat, add some veggies, throw on a tasty sauce, put it all over some steamed rice, and often in less than 45 minutes (less if you plan ahead and cut everything up the day before). I usually end up doing some type of stir fry dinner once a week on average, and it usually tends to be chicken. But sometimes I mix it up.

Last year, I acquired a copy of the Pampered Chef 29 Minutes to Dinner recipe book, and have since bought the second and third volumes, and there's a pretty excellent recipe for a Korean-style beef bowl.  I gave it a whirl a while back.

I deviated a little bit from the recipe to accommodate the available ingredients, but that's one of the nice things about a stir fry dish - you can adjust to your likes and whatever happens to be in the fridge at the time.

Avocado Quesadillas

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with avocados.  I think they're interesting, and I know they're very good for you.  But I have a hard time just eating avocado.  They really don't have a particularly strong flavor, at least not the ones I've encountered.  Some people profess to just sprinkling a bit of salt and/or lemon juice over half an avocado and eating straight from the skin with a spoon.

I need to doctor up my avocados.

These avocado quesadillas are easy and quick, and you can adjust the heat level to make it as mild or as spicy as you like.

Pampered Chef Pecan-Crusted Chicken with Sweet Mustard Dressing

Are you stuck for a mid-week dinner idea? I know it's hard to come home from work and prepare something healthy and delicious for your family.  Here's a tasty dish that you can whip up in about a half hour.

It's the pecan-crusted chicken with sweet mustard dressing, from Pampered Chef's 29 Minutes to Dinner cookbook.  It's crunchy, sweet, salty, and easy.

Slow Cooker Chicken and Black Bean Chili

Normally, people think of slow cookers as an easy way to create warm, delicious meals in the middle of winter.  There's nothing quite like the smell of hearty beef stew or chicken soup filling your house on a cold winter day, and knowing you'll get to dig in after those luscious flavors have simmered for up to ten hours.

So why am I blogging about a slow cooker recipe in June?

Well, just as slow cookers are life-and-dinner-savers in the wintertime, they are great for summer as well.  Think about it for a minute - sometimes you just don't want to grill (hold off on the horrified gasps for a minute, friends), but you want a hearty meal.  Now where I live, we don't usually get super hot summer days until, oh, end of July (this past week's heat wave notwithstanding).  So even though my dear husband likes to fire up the grill, I usually have no qualms about stirring something up on the stove or baking in the oven.

But slow cookers are great for summer.  Minimal fuss, you're not heating up a single element on your stove top, and they don't add much heat to your kitchen.  Do I recommend them for a 95+ degree day?  Not unless you have central air.  (Which I now have, and I'm looking forward to a summer of baking and canning in cool, air-conditioned comfort.)  On the hottest of hot days, a spinach and tomato salad alongside a couple hot dogs is as fancy as we'll get around here.

But I'm digressing terribly.

Chili is definitely a winter food.  But thanks to your slow cooker, you can enjoy it in the summer with minimal fuss and discomfort.  This particular chili recipe has the added bonus of being low calorie and low fat, thanks to the use of boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

And your hands-on time is maybe ten minutes, tops, depending on your dexterity with two forks.

This recipe doesn't have to be made in a slow cooker.  You can make it on the stove as well.  Use a large (three to four quart) pot, and simmer for about a half hour before shredding the chicken.

Chinese Chicken Salad with Honey-Sesame Dressing

Up until about six months ago, I'd never heard of napa cabbage.  Sometimes it's called Chinese cabbage or celery cabbage.

When I read the recipe for this Chinese chicken salad in my Turbo Fire recipe book, I was leery.  I don't care for cabbage in the least.  But I figured it was worth a shot.  If nothing else, I could pick out the chicken and other ingredients, and leave the cabbage for my husband to eat.

But napa cabbage isn't terribly cabbage-y.  It tastes a lot like celery, which is probably why it's sometimes called celery cabbage.

Isn't that a pretty salad?  

I thought so too, and it's so easy to make. Here's how I made mine.

Whole Wheat Penne Primavera (Meat-Free for Lenten Fridays)

I tried out another recipe from my Turbo Fire recipe book a while back, and sort of forgot about it.  But since we're about halfway through Lent, and it happens to be a meatless dish, I thought I'd share it in case anyone needs a tasty meat-free meal idea for this coming Friday.

Now, the way I prepared this meal is a bit differently from the original recipe, mostly because of what I had on hand in my refrigerator.  So I'll give you the run down of what I did when I made it.

Caprese Pizza from Pampered Chef (Meat-Free for Lenten Fridays)

In case you didn't know, The Pampered Chef has a variety of absolutely awesome cookbooks.  A cousin of mine had a Pampered Chef party back in November, and I bought their "29 Minutes or Less" cookbook.  I've tried several recipes, and plan to try several more, because the fact that I can eat these meals within a half hour of starting to prepare them is very attractive during the work week.

The Caprese pizza recipe has proven to be one of the "old reliable" recipes of the ones I've tried so far.  With the onset of the Lenten season, and thus the need for meatless Friday meals, I jumped all over this particular pizza last week because, lets face it, you can only stand pasta with marinara sauce or frozen fish chunks for so long.

I do deviate from the original recipe a bit, but not much.  Here's what I do.

Sea Scallops in White Wine Sauce

My husband's birthday was Wednesday, and to celebrate, I experimented a bit in the kitchen with one of his favorite food items - sea scallops.  He loves scallops of all shapes and sizes.  Usually I use bay scallops, which are the little ones, because the sea scallops are on the pricier end of things.  But I splurged a bit because he's such a wonderful husband.

The result was beautiful and tasty.

You could serve this over your pasta of choice or over brown or white rice.  It's really quite easy and rather fancy, so if you have a special occasion to celebrate it's worth the price of the scallops.  It may take a couple attempts to get the scallops right - there's a very fine line between undercooked, tender, and overcooked, and you're more likely to err on the overcooked side due to food safety fears.

Baked Tilapia with Roasted Zucchini, Penne, and White Wine Cream Sauce

Prepare to drool a little bit, oh ye fish lovers out there....

I find tilapia to be a relatively versatile fish, as it's on the mild end of fishiness and there are a gazillion different ways to prepare it.

Of course, I generally just make lemon pepper tilapia.  Which is delicious, and we love it, but it's not very glamorous.

I got a little bit adventurous last night, despite the fact that it was a Monday, I was tired, my brain was still fried from having done 24 report cards in about three and a half hours straight over the weekend, and I was trying to get the house straightened out for a dinner party I'm hosting Thursday night.

The result was this:

What was particularly beautiful is the fact that it was a three-pan meal (a baking sheet, a sauce pan, and my melting pot).  And it only took 40 minutes start to finish, and only about 15 of that was hands-on work.  And I also managed to make this entire dish without using a single grain of salt.

Easy Healthy Eggplant Parmigiana

Did you know eggplants are technically berries?

I found an adorable little eggplant at the local farm market last week when I was out getting fruits and veggies, and it just cried out, "Turn me into eggplant parmigiana!" in its little purple eggplant voice.

Okay, maybe I was just wiped out from a busy day with 24 second graders....

But I did make this into a small batch of eggplant parmigiana.  Normally this is a recipe I serve up as a side dish, but with some rolls and a side salad, this was a perfect meal for my husband and me.

Now, if you've done any research into the making of eggplant parmigiana, you'll find that the instructions call for breading the eggplant, frying it in hot oil, then baking it.  Well, that's all fine and good and very traditional, but it's also a lot more time consuming than I think is necessary, especially for a weeknight meal. And all that frying can't be good for you.

And honestly, my mother has never fried her eggplant parmigiana.  So I don't either.  My way is a lot easier, a lot quicker, and, I think, a lot healthier overall.

Buffalo Chicken Wing Pizza

I like pizza. I like chicken wings.  I like to put the two together.

My husband requested pizza the other night, as I hadn't made it in a while.  It's really very easy and takes about an hour and fifteen minutes start to finish, including bake time and the time it take to let the pizza dough rise.

Grilled Steak with Orange Teriyaki Sauce

Summer means grilling, and in my house, grilling, much of the time, means steak.

I like me some steak.

Recently, I pulled out an "old favorite" recipe and gave it a little bit of a change up.  I came up with my recipe for orange teriyaki steak last fall when I discovered some steak in my freezer that had been there about three months.  The steak I made recently with this recipe didn't require as much help as the deep-freeze steak.  And I happened to have some mushrooms (I'm on a bit of a mushroom kick), so I added those to the mix.  Pair it with some fresh sweet corn - oh wow!

Now, I will share the marinade for the steak, but the process I want to go through with you specifically is for the sauce.

Jen's Spicy Secret Stir Fry

I'm a big fan of stir fry for dinner as it tends to be a quick meal that can feed several people - or two people for several days.  I generally use various stir fry kits, but if I don't have one on hand, I get a little experimental.


I got experimental one evening and created my own stir fry recipe.   It's spicy. It's secret.

But I'm willing to share.