La Mia Cucina: What's Cooking in My Kitchen Tonight?

On the menu this evening.....a yummy Chicken and Rice Casserole!

Ingredients:

3 cups diced cooked chicken

1 onion, diced and sauteed

1 8 oz. can water chestnuts, drained and chopped

2 14.5 oz. cans French green beans, rinsed and drained

4 oz. pimentos (optional)

1 10.5 oz. can cream of celery soup

1 cup mayo

6 oz. long grain wild rice, cooked (I used Uncle Ben's)

1 cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix all ingredients together in large bowl and pour into a 3-quart casserole. Bake for 25 minutes.

And most importantly.....enjoy!!

La Mia Cucina: A Taste of What Was in My Kitchen the Night Before

Fettuccine in Asparagus Cream Sauce and Peas

Ingredients:

*about 8 spears of asparagus

*1 tablespoon butter or olive oil

*2/3 cup heavy cream

*Minced zest and juice of 1 or 2 lemons (I only used 1 and I thought it was perfect)

*Kosher salt and pepper (Kosher salt makes ALL the difference)

*3/4 cup freshly shelled English peas

*1 lb fettuccine

*Fresh basil

*Shaved parmesan for garnish

To prepare the asparagus, snap off the tough woody ends of the spears. Cut the asparagus on the diagonal into pieces about 1/8 inch thick. In a small saute pan, melt the butter (yes...I chose to use butter!) over medium heat. Add in the asparagus and saute for about 2 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and add in the heavy cream. Heat until warm. Add lemon zest, salt and pepper to taste. Make sure the cream mixture does not boil.

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add in peas and cook for 30 seconds. Add in pasta and cook until tender rises to surface. Stir occasionally so that the noodles cook evenly. Drain the pasta and peas. Reserve a few tablespoons of cooking water.

Return pasta and peas to the large pot and season with salt. Pour the asparagus-cream sauce over the pasta and toss to coat thoroughly. Add in the reserved water to loosen the pasta if necessary. Add in basil and lemon juice to taste as well as additional salt to balance the flavors. Serve in warm pasta bowls and garnish with cheese.

This was absolutely wonderful and you can add in other things as well for added flavors. I plan on throwing grilled chicken in next time but I have also several recipes that use pancetta. This is a super easy meal to make. It took me a little under 30 minutes to have everything prepared and cooked. SO good! Will be keeping this recipe towards the front of my recipe binder......Brian had three bowls last night ;)

Enjoy!!!!

Our New Experiment

How many times have you gone to prepare a meal, only to realize that you didn't defrost the meat you needed or you had forgotten to pick up some of the ingredients at the store? If you're like us than this has happened countless times. And also, if you're like us, than you'll just hop in your car and drive to the grocery to pick up what you need. If you perform this same routine quite frequently, eventually your pantry, cabinets, refrigerator, and freezer begin to overflow and you run out of room to store everything. I don't know how many times we've gone to the store and brought back something only to find that we already had it and that we had just forgotten about it. Well...no more!

Inspired by another blog that we keep up with, Keeper of the Home, we have decided that we were going to create our menu plan, for the next TWO WEEKS, using only the items that we already have in our kitchen. That means NO trips to the grocery store...except for our "essentials". We consider these to be our milk, eggs, bread, orange juice and of course...Diet Pepsi. If you know us than you realize that we can not function without our Diet Pepsi :)

At first, we didn't think it would be that hard to come up with our menu ideas. When we looked in our cabinets and freezer it seemed that we had plenty to choose from. After sitting down and beginning to make our menu, we realized that this may be a bit more challenging than we had originally anticipated. We came to find that we may be cooking things and creating meals that we may have never thought of.

We're hoping that this little experiment of ours disciplines us and we're also hoping that this will lower our overall cost of groceries.

Breakfasts will consist of cereal, fruit or toast on most weekday mornings. Lunches will be eaten at home or taken to work. Lunches will be sandwiches or leftovers. That is another thing we are working on...eating our leftovers and not letting our food go to waste. We have gotten much better with this.

Here is our dinner menu plan for the next two weeks:

Saturday: Chili Dogs with Mashed Potatoes (Very healthy...we know!!)

Sunday: Turkey Melt Sandwiches with Asparagus

Monday: Eggs and Toast

Tuesday: Vegetable Soup with Cornbread

Wednesday: Chicken Swiss Bake with Green Beans and Corn

Thursday: Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Friday: Chicken and Corn Chowder Soup with Toast

Saturday: We are cheating this night and going out to dinner but it is for a good reason...we're celebrating our April Birthdays!

Sunday: Cheeseburgers with Homemade Hash browns

Monday: Pancakes ( can you tell we're starting to run out of ideas?!?!)

Tuesday: Chicken Noodle Soup with Toast or some sort of sandwich

Wednesday: Parmesan Crusted Chicken and Peas over Pasta with Light Alfredo Sauce and Garlic Bread

Thursday: Egg Sandwiches

Friday: Taco Night!

Saturday: Ravioli and Asparagus with Garlic Toast

We think we did a pretty good job at making this menu plan. Now let's hope we can stick to it!