Creamy Tomato Spaghetti with Shrimp

Posted on July 11, 2014 by Georgina

Creamy Tomato Spaghetti with Shrimp

Hi my fellow foodies!

Man I can’t believe how fast summer is going. I’m off on vacation starting TODAY!!! YAYAYAY I will hopefully have lots of pictures to share when I come back and hopefully a few fun food items too.

Take a look at this beauty. This was incredibly tasty, although definitely not a low fat meal. More of a treat from time to time or could be something impressive to make for the in-laws or any guests you may have. You can experiment with different ingredients. I’m a sucker for basil especially in the summer time so I garnished mine with it. Deeeelicious. Hope you enjoy!!

Ingredients:

1/2 lb medium raw shrimp, shell removed
¾ lb spaghetti or angel hair pasta
1 tablespoon olive oil
6 medium tomatoes, diced
1 small onion, finely chopped
¼ teaspoon hot chili flakes
½ teaspoon dried basil, or 2 Tbsp chopped fresh basil(I prefer fresh)
1 garlic clove, minced
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup dry white wine
½ cup heavy cream
salt and pepper to taste
Parmesan to serve

Instructions:

Put the tomatoes, onion, chili flakes, basil, garlic and butter in a heavy pan , season with pepper.
Add the wine and cook over med/high heat until mixture is soft and most of the wine has evaporated. You will have about ¼ cup liquid remaining in the pan.
Peel shrimp and dry on paper towels. Lightly season shrimp with salt and pepper and saute in 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium/high heat, just until cooked through, about 3 minutes. Set aside.
Cook pasta in salted water with 1 tablespoon olive oil, according to the package instructions until al dente (tender but firm to the bit). Rinse, Drain and set aside.
Once the sauce has mostly evaporated, stir in the cream and add the shrimp. Warm through gently for 2 minutes.
Toss the pasta with the sauce. Sprinkle with Parmesan and fresh basil and serve!

Doesn’t it look good?! Yummmmmm. Give it a try and let me know what you think! Thanks for taking a look around the blog!

xoxo

Lemon Thyme Baked Chicken

Posted on July 6, 2014 by Georgina

Lemon Thyme Baked Chicken

I am a sucker for anything with lemon, or garlic and love chicken so naturally I want to put them all together! This is a reallllly simple and delicious meal. It’s easy and quick enough for a weeknight but also tasty and ‘fancy’ enough for a weekend or dinner party with friends.

You could use whatever pieces of chicken you wanted. For this recipe I had skinless chicken breast pieces on hand, so I used that.

*Warning if you use pyrex or glass, it takes a little scrubbing to get the baked bits off the side when you’re done, but you can either use foil or get a good arm workout in for the day. 🙂

Ingredients:

1-2 tbsp olive oil
5-6 cloves of garlic, minced
1/3 cup of chicken broth
Zest from 1 lemon
Juice from 1 lemon
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
2 lbs skinless chicken breasts or however much chicken you want to make
Sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, to taste
Two sprigs of fresh thyme
2 lemons cut into wedges

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Coat a baking dish with cooking spray.

Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat; add the minced garlic and cook, stirring constantly, for 1 minute, making sure not to burn the garlic. Add the chicken broth, lemon zest, lemon juice, oregano, and thyme leaves to the pan. Pour the mixture into the baking dish. Season both sides of the chicken breasts with sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, to taste. Place the chicken in the baking dish along with the lemon wedges and the two sprigs of thyme.

Place into the oven and bake, basting occasionally, for 30-40 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Remove from the oven and let the meat rest for 5 minutes before slicing. Drizzle the pan sauce on top of the slices of chicken and serve. Enjoy!

A before shot

After baking- and so pretty!

Such great fresh flavors with this. Fresh and tasty and easy. I can see myself sitting out on my non existent porch by our non existent fire circle eating this with a glass of cold Chardonnay. Ahhhhhh, see ya! I’m going to go day dream about that now.

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you enjoy!

xoxo

Sausage & Cheese Tortellini

Posted on May 11, 2014 by Georgina

Sausage & Cheese Tortellini

Hi friends! And a special shout out to all the moms on Mothers Day! ❤

This is one of those recipes that was written for the slow cooker but as I’ve stated before those don’t fit into my life that well. So I transposed this, if you will, to be made in a fraction of the time on the stovetop!

Turned out great. And it’s really a fast thing to make, especially when you can buy those pre made tortellini’s in the store. Life savers for a busy mom. I’m not a mom but if I appreciated how fast this one was to make, I’m sure moms do to0 🙂 And the basil added at the end gives this a real boost of fresh flavor.

Ingredients:

3 cups chicken broth
1 20 oz package of your favorite tortellini
1 lb Italian sausage
2 Cans Diced Tomatoes (I used the ones seasoned with basil, garlic & oregano)
4 oz. Neufchâtel Cheese (Or cream cheese)
Grated Parmesan Cheese
Fresh Basil

Instructions:

1. Take your Neufchâtel out of the fridge, and let it sit and soften a bit while you brown your sausage in a large pot.

2. Drain your sausage once it’s cooked and add the tortellini to your pot. Pour the tomatoes with liquid and all, and broth over the top. Add your cream cheese to the pot in chunks.

3. Give it a good stir to get everything evenly distributed, making sure the liquids are adequately covering the tortellini.

4. Cook uncovered on med-high head for a total of about 30 minutes or so or until your tortellini is cooked and your sauce has thickened a bit.

5. Pour into individual bowls and top with basil and cheese if desired.

Sooooo simple and tasty! Hope you like it as much as we did.

xoxo

Fresh Veggie Greek Pasta

Posted on March 30, 2014 by Georgina

Fresh Veggie Greek Pasta

Ahhh, look how pretty this one is. Screams summer time BBQ to me.

NEWS FLASH-I live in Wisconsin (ps. GO BUCKY!)

NEWS FLASH- it’s basically April and it snowed last week……

NEWS FLASH- I’m freaking sick of it!

I was desperate for something that tasted like summer and I came across this recipe. It seemed so fresh tasting, and it was. 🙂

I made a dinner out of this and topped it with some chopped up chicken breast. We ate it warm. But I believe the recipe was originally intended to be a cold pasta salad. Like the ones you bring to SUMMER barbeques with friends when you wear shorts and tank tops and can sit outsiiiiiide and enjoy a cold beverage and possibly see some lightening bugs…ahhhhhh the good times. CAN. NOT.WAIT.

Anyway, we both really liked this dish. It was also a mini-milestone for me beeeecccaauuuse it contains kalmata olives and my Beau ate them! OK – he sort of picked around them while serving and it’s not like he said “these taste GREAT!” but after you hear this story you’ll realize why I’m so happy.

Jake and I have been together for about 6 and a half years. We met in college. Around our 1 year anniversary I decided to make him dinner. Back then it was a rare occurance as we lived in dorms or college housing and no access to a kitchen and we’re poor so there’s that. ANYWAY I choose to make a dish my mom always made called Medditeranean Chicken. Super simple and tasty. Basically 4 ingredients. Chicken breasts, cherry tomotoes, capers, kalmata olives- and then baked. Looking back, I have NO idea what I was thinking. Jake didn’t grow up eating as many diverse flavors as me and his palate was a little, limited shall we say. This was just too much.

Here’s the down and dirty version: I cook. I plate. We sit down. I take a bite=heaven. Jake takes a bite= run to bathroom, spit out food, brush teeth, gargle with Listerine immedietly.

How we are together to this day you ask? I don’t know. My feelings were so hurt but I tried to understand that it was “weird flavors!” for him. Anyway at the time, he pointed to the capers as being the death of him but after that it was both olives and capers that I had to hear about how he dispised them everytime they were in a 5 foot radius of him. I’m taking this dish a sign that almost 5 years later his palate has grown and adapted and they can slowly become part of our grocery repitiore.

But enough about me- Here is how you can make this deeeelicious recipe for you and your family!

Ingredients:
2-3 large tomatoes, seeded and chopped
½ cup Kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
½ cup feta cheese, crumbled
2 tablespoons chopped parsley(I prefer Flat Leaf Italian)
1 tablespoon chopped basil
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
1 pound penne pasta (or whatever pasta you want)
6 tablespoons olive oil
3 teaspoons garlic, minced

Instructions:
– In a large bowl, combine the chopped tomatoes, olives, feta, herbs and spices, salt and pepper. *If you want to serve this dish cold, you could add this mixture to the fridge at this point to chill
– Cook the pasta according to package directions. Drain in a collander.
– In the same pot, (with the pasta in the collander) heat the olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes without letting it turn brown and cripsy.
– Put the pasta back into to the pot and toss with olive oil mixture.
– Add the tomato-olive mixture and toss until the fresh vegetables are thoroughly mixed with the penne.
– Serve!

Hope you enjoy! And I also hope the weather is warmer by you, but if it is please don’t tell me about it. I’m bitter, however I can’t complain tooooo much as it’s about 50 today. SPRING IS COMING!

Thanks for vewing !

xoxo

One Pot Pasta

Posted on March 23, 2014 by Georgina

One Pot Pasta

Literally throw it all in a pot

Happy Sunday! Hope everyone had a great weekend. If you’re struggling for simple recipe ideas for the upcoming week, I’ve gotcha covered. This is seriously one of the simplest and tastiest week night meals ever! I first saw this and was like “ummmm what? there’s no way you can cook it all together and it doesn’t get gooey and mushy and naaaasty” There were too many good reviews for me to not try it and also the hope that it really would be delicious was too much for me to take- I gave it a try.

I’ve made this multiple times since the first time and I’ve made a few adaptations. First of all, I really did find it a little “gummy” the first time- I’ve found that a good way to help reduce this is to not add all the water right at the beginning and then add more towards the end of the cooking if it needs it. Also one time I made this I had some extra spinach lying around which was close to being not so great anymore, I threw it in right at the end and let it wilt and it really look this to the next level. As you can see in the picture above, you seriously just throw it all together and let it cook. Magical! 🙂

Ingredients:

12 ounces whole wheat linguine (or spaghetti, really just a long pasta)
12 ounces cherry or grape tomatoes, halved or quartered if large
1 onion, thinly sliced
4 cloves garlic, sliced thinly or minced
1/2 -1 teaspoon dried red-pepper flakes
2 sprigs fresh basil, plus torn leaves for garnish
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
4 cups water (or chicken or veggie stock for added flavor)
3 oz Fresh Spinach (about half a standard bag)
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese, for serving

Directions

Combine pasta, tomatoes, onion, garlic, red-pepper flakes, basil, oil, 2 teaspoons salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, and about 3 and a half cups of water in a large pot. Bring to a boil over high heat. Boil mixture, stirring and turning pasta frequently with tongs, until pasta is al dente and water has nearly evaporated/soaked into pasta, which takes about about 10-12 minutes. This is where you can add more water if need be.
Remove from heat. Stir in the spinach and let it wilt (like 2 minutes). Then season to taste with extra salt and pepper, plate it up and garnish with basil and Parmesan cheese.