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.

Three-Cheese Stuffed Shells

I can't believe it's been over two months since I last posted a recipe. All I can say is that Mommyhood and the holidays combined to steal most of my free time.

Anyway, I have a new dinner recipe for you today. It's easy as can be, with hands-on time hovering around the 30-minute mark. They look a lot harder than they are and will impress your guests.

Here's what to do.

Savory Beef and Root Vegetable Stew

The chilly weather is moving in here in the Northeast, and that means it's the season for soups and stews. Beef stew is a winter staple in our house, but I decided I wanted to play around a little bit to see if I could come up with something with some different flavors.

This stew is pretty versatile, as you can adjust the herbs and spices to your liking, as well as play with which root vegetables you include.

Read on to see what I did.

Caprese Chicken

Back in November, I was looking for a new and tasty but easy to prepare dish that I could serve when we invited our priest to dinner. In my search, I discovered a creative recipe for Caprese chicken from The Novice Chef, and it turned out delicious.

Last night, in my efforts to finish up a few odds and ends around the kitchen, I realized I had the ingredients to make Caprese chicken again. But this time, I added a few slight twists to make it my own.

The beauty of this recipe is that you can easily multiply the ingredients to increase the servings - or just make it for one! Here's how I made it.

Spicy Sicilian Style Sauce (Meat Free for Lenten Fridays)

Since I'm finally getting back the energy and drive to cook again, it felt good to be in the kitchen, putzing with one of my favorite recipes. This was something I experimented with a couple summers ago when we had a boom year for tomatoes, and it was so tasty, this spicy Sicilian style sauce has become something of a standard in our house.

I'm not 100% sure if it's accurate to call this "Sicilian style", but based on what I saw and ate when I was actually in Sicily a few years ago, I think it's close enough.

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.)

Spinach & Broccoli Quiche with Pepper Jack Cheese

Normally I'm not a huge fan of quiche. I'm not a huge fan of eggs to begin with, and most quiches taste like eggs. So I was pleasantly surprised upon trying my friend Andrea's recipe, which is a bit of a "whatever veggies you happen to have in the fridge" sort, how much I liked her version of this breakfast dish.

My attempt didn't taste quite the same as hers, and I think it may have been due to the cheese (hers was a lot spicier than what I procured).

Anyway, it's really easy, and here's how you do it. Remember, you can really put any veggies in that you like - red peppers would be another great addition, you could use kale instead of spinach, maybe kick the whole thing up with a few dashes of Tabasco.

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.

Fresh Lemon & Rosemary Tilapia (Meat-Free for Lenten Fridays)

This recipe started off as an experiment in making lemon pepper tilapia after discovering that *gasp* I had no lemon pepper seasoning mix in the house.  So I started playing around and came up with something even better!

Aside from being meat-free and super simple, there's no salt at all in this recipe, so it's even healthier for you.

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.

Tex-Mex Venison Chili

Winter has returned to the Northeast, and it's great weather for hot and spicy foods like chili.

Our neighbor across the street was kind enough to give us some venison (neatly sealed in airtight packages), but having had no experience up to this point with cooking this particular meat, I was at a bit of a loss for what to do with it.  I figured my best bet would be to start with something simple using the ground venison.

I decided on chili.  And since I had a package of McCormick's Tex-Mex chili seasoning (which appears to be a relatively new product), I thought I'd give it a go.

Unfortunately, I have no in-process pictures, because I'd been home sick from work for a day and a half and really didn't feel like doing much fussing with the camera.  My only goal was to feed my husband.

I made this batch the "old fashioned" way on the stove, but it would easily translate to a slow cooker.  It's also really low in calories - a 1 cup serving has about 140 calories.  Plus, venison is a really lean meat.

TurboFire Chicken Cacciatore

People seem to love slow cooker meals.  I do too.  Relatively little prep work, easy clean up - especially if your slow cooker has a removable insert that you can put in the dishwasher - and your house smells great all day.

Here's a great, healthy chicken cacciatore recipe from the TurboFire cookbook that went over well with my family.  I did some adjustments to meet my taste preferences from the original recipe. Here's what I did.

Skillet Okra Gumbo

I'm really starting to think I was born in the wrong part of the country. I'm just in love with my copy of The Savannah Cookbook.  Southern food, in general, just seems to make me happy.

When my husband and I went to Georgia during spring break, I ate okra for the first time.  It happened to be fried and had this really tangy mustard sauce to dip it in, but I enjoyed it, much to my own surprise.  Okra isn't particularly prevalent in my corner of the U.S., but this summer, one of the vendors at our local farmer's market had some for sale.

It was adorable and delightful, and I made this delicious skillet okra gumbo with it.

Now, you can buy okra at the grocery store, but it's not always a given and probably isn't nearly as good as what you'd buy at the farmer's market (or anywhere in the South, for that matter).  But I would imagine that, if you're like me, you're willing to do with what you have available.

Served over steamed rice, this recipe is enough to serve as a main course for up to six people.  It can also be used as a side dish without the rice, or if you need to stretch it over more than six plates.

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.

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.

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.