~* Food Glorious Food *~

I've been wanting to share a few recipes with you that I've made for my family since the holidays and this blog post is about two of them.  One is an older recipe I created and we love and the other is a brand new recipe that we discovered but tweaked and it ROCKED!

The first recipe is one I've been making and improving for years.  I call it "Baked Chicken Mozzarella"

Baked Chicken Mozzarella

4 - Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
4 - Mozzarella String Cheese
1/4 cup of Pesto (homemade or store bought - for this recipe I used Trader Joe's)
1/2 cup of Bread Crumbs
Italian Seasoning (I use a local spice store's seasoning)
Cooking Spray
1 cup of your favorite Marinara sauce

Look easy doesn't it?  That's because it is!

^^^The chicken breasts I had were SO big that I was able to cut them into four portions shown below.
 

Here's where you get to pound out some aggression.  Between sheets of wax paper, pound the breast out to about 1/2" thickness. 

 

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Once you have the breasts pounded out to the right thickness, give them all a nice coating of the pesto.  Place a piece of the string cheese on the chicken breast and roll the breast around the cheese using toothpicks to secure it.

 

Here's the Italian seasoning I use from Allspice a local spice store in the East Village area of Des Moines.  Best spices and seasonings ever!

Once you have your chicken breast rolled up and secured with toothpicks, dredge them in the bread crumbs as best you can around the picks.  I like using my seasoning mixed with the bread crumbs and then sprinkle a bit more once I have the breast covered.  

 Place the breast in a baking dish that has been lightly sprayed with cooking spray.  I also spritz the breasts themselves with a bit of butter spray so they crunch up nicely in the oven.

What I can't believe I did was not get a photo of the finished product on a plate with a dollop of marinara sauce and served with crusty Italian roll and a leafy green salad with zesty Italian dressing.  I think I was too excited about digging in and eating it then I was getting that final photo.  :)

 

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The second recipe is a remake of a recipe I saw on Facebook from a website called Six Sisters Stuff, but I changed up the ingredients enough that I call my recipe inspired by theirs.

 

 

Slow Cooker Mongolian Beef

 

1 pound of whatever steak you want to buy (sirloin, flank, flat iron) - cut into stir-fry strips

1/4 cup of cornstarch

2 Tablespoons of Olive Oil

1/2 teaspoon of minced ginger

2 gloves of garlic (I didn't have any fresh but I had jarred minced in my produce drawer so I used that)

1/2 cup of light soy sauce

1/4 cup of Tamari sauce

3/4 cup of water

1/2 cup of brown Splenda

1 pint of fresh mushrooms, sliced or quartered

3 medium green onions, sliced

 

 



Dredge the beef strips in the cornstarch, shake off excess and place in a slow cooker that has been lightly sprayed with cooking spray.

The next seven ingredients are what is needed to make the sauce to go over the beef mixture.  Dump them all in a bowl and whisk it up.  Do you have a rasp to grate things?  I love that thing, I had it for years and can't even remember when I got it....it's one of a set of two and they have held up well.

Once you have the sauce mixed up, pour it over the beef in the crock pot and let it go!   Set on high for 2-3 hours and low for 4-5. 

 

The original recipe had carrots and my spouse is not fond of cooked carrots in things, especially his stir-fry, so my recipe uses fresh mushrooms.  Since I'm using those I'm not going to add them until the final 30 minutes of so of cooking.  They don't take long to cook and I didn't want them mushy.

 

 

The results after the low slow cooking of about 3 hours was a heavenly smell and sight of ginger, soy, beef so tender it falls apart on your fork and mushrooms cooked to just the right doneness (is that a word?)  :)

 

One of favorite things in the world is sticky rice.  I adore it and it is SO carb heavy that I don't fix it very often, maybe 3-4 times a year but this recipe was begging for it, so I made sure I had the sticky rice soaking (a major part of making it......don't forget....for at least 4-6 hours).

 

Once you steam the sticky rice and no, you don't use a traditional rice steamer....won't work...you use a stainless steel pot and a bamboo hat and no, I don't have a photo right now of ours.....I bought it at a local Asian market.  I do have a photo of the bamboo serving container I have for sticky rice that I bought when I bought the pot and hat.



Here's the sticky rice!  SO good..........I can't even......

Slice up a few green onions to top the Mongolian Beef .

Enjoy!   After a couple of weeks of slug like behavior I am attempting to get some things done this week in addition to keeping up with a very demanding business class, the biggest of which is painting a guest bathroom that has never been painted in the almost 11 years we have been in this house....and for a bathroom that is rarely used, it sure was dirty....I had to clean before painting and really clean after too....I share it once I'm done......and it's the first of two I have to do.