Japanese Chicken Wings

These wings may not be the healthiest thing out there, but they sure are good! A lovely combination of tangy, sweet, buttery and crispy, we really enjoyed these.

Japanese Chicken Wings

3 pounds chicken wings
1 egg
1 C. flour
1 C. butter
3 Tbsp soy sauce
3 Tbsp water
1 C. sugar
1/2 C. white vinegar
3/4 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Dip each wing in egg and coat with flour.
Heat butter in a large, deep skillet over medium-high heat. Fry wings until deep brown. Place in a shallow roasting pan.
In a small bowl combine soy sauce, water, sugar, vinegar, garlic powder and salt.
Pour over wings.* Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 45 minutes, basting and turning wings with sauce often.

*I had more than 3 lbs of wings, so I doubled the sauce which wasn't actually necessary. Anyway, when you pour the sauce on the wings, make sure they're not sitting in a pool of sauce or they won't get very crispy. If you have a lot of sauce in the roasting pan, pour most of it back into the bowl and use it for basting.

Recipe slightly adapted from allrecipes.com

Pasta with Asparagus

We made this for dinner tonight and it was gooo-oood!

Pasta with Asparagus

8 oz cavatappi pasta

1 lb asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1 1/2 inch-pieces

1 tsp minced garlic

3 Tbsp walnuts or pine nuts, toasted

2 oz diced pancetta

2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

2 tsp extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 tsp coarse kosher salt

1/4 tsp ground black pepper (freshly ground is nice!)

1/4 C (1oz) crumbled Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Heat oven to 475. Cook pasta according to package directions; add asparagus to pan during last 3 minutes of cooking. Meanwhile, cook pancetta on jelly-roll pan and bake for 6 minutes or until crisp.

Drain pasta. Return to pan and sprinkle with garlic; toss well. In a small bowl, combine lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper, stirring with a whisk. Drizzle over pasta; toss well to coat. Sprinkle with nuts, pancetta and cheese.

Serves 4 (2 cup servings)

Recipe from Cooking Light magazine.

Cajun Pot Roast

We had this a few weeks ago and we both really liked it. Mia would've liked it more but she thought that it was a bit too spicy. The original recipe called for quick cooking tapioca but I didn't have any so I used regular barley, which worked great. I also sauteed the onions while browning the meat so that they wouldn't be so strong....for Jeff's sake. : )

Cajun Pot Roast

1 2-to 2-1/2 pound boneless beef chuck roast
2 to 3 teaspoons Cajun seasoning
1 Tbsp cooking oil
1 14-1/2 ounce can Mexican style stewed tomatoes, undrained
1 C. chopped onion
1 C. chopped celery
1/4 C. pearl barley
2 cloves of garlic, minced
Hot cooked rice

Trim fat from roast. Cut roast to fit in cooker, if necessary. Rub Cajun seasoning all over meat. In a large skillet brown meat on all sides in hot oil.
In a 3-1/2 to 4 quart slow cooker, combine tomatoes, onion, celery, barley and garlic. Place meat on top of vegetable mixture.
Cover and cook on low-heat for 10-12 hours or on high-heat for 5 to 6 hours.
Slice meat; serve with sauce over rice. Makes 6 servings.

Adapted from a recipe I printed a long time ago on bhg.com

Black Bean Chicken Burritos

I made these this afternoon to freeze for lunches - I'm always looking for something new for lunch! - and they were easy and I think they'll freeze well which means I can make a batch and not have to have the same thing all week but enjoy them at my leisure. I used my panini grill but if you don't have one you can cook these in a skillet and place a cast iron skillet on top of the burritos for 3 minutes on each side.

One more thought, this calls for 2 cups of shredded chicken so naturally I only used 1 cup but that left too much of the watery juice so if you only use 1 cup of chicken reduce by half the water, lime juice and seasonings. (You don't want your burritos to be watery.) Also if you use 1 cup of chicken you can use your whole can of black beans.

Black Bean Chicken Burritos

1/4 C water

2 Tbsp lime juice

1/2 tsp chili powder

1/4 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/8 tsp ground red pepper (or to taste - naturally I used way less and found it plenty spicy...)

2 C shredded chicken breast

3/4 C black beans, rinsed & drained

1/2 C salsa

4 flour tortillas

1/2 C finely shredded Monterey Jack cheese

Cooking spray

Sour cream, if desired

Bring the first 6 ingredients to a boil in a small saucepan. Stir in chicken.

Combine beans and salsa in a bowl. Add chicken mixture and stir to combine. Divide evenly between 4 tortillas. Top each with 2 tablespoons of cheese. Tuck ends in and roll up the tortillas.

Cook in panini grill for 3-5 minutes or until warmed through and nicely browned. Serve warm with sour cream.

Altered from a recipe in Cooking Light.

Baked Spaghetti

Jeremy and I both don't really care for chunks in our spaghetti so we really liked this recipe. It originally called for 1 lb ground beef, but I didn't think that sounded very good so I left that out. It's really quick to throw together too!

Baked Spaghetti

1 (16 oz) pkg spaghetti

1 jar (24 oz) spaghetti sauce (garlic and onion works well)

½ tsp seasoned salt

2 eggs

1/3 c grated Parmesan cheese

5 Tbsp butter, melted

2 cups (16 oz) cottage cheese

4 cups (16 oz) shredded mozzarella cheese

Cook spaghetti noodles according to package directions. Meanwhile, mix seasoned salt, eggs, Parmesan cheese and butter. Rinse cooked noodles in cold water to cool. Toss with egg mixture. Place half spaghetti in greased 9x13 pan. Top with ½ of the cottage cheese and then ½ of the spaghetti sauce. Top with 2 cups mozzarella. Repeat the layers. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 40 minutes. Uncover and bake 15-20 minutes longer, or until cheese is melted and slightly crispy.

Slightly altered from Simple and Delicious

Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup

I made this for dinner tonight and it was easy and tasty. It calls for snow peas but the store only had sugar snap peas and they worked just beautifully. I only put in 1 tsp of the hot sauce (which was perfect for me) and then put the bottle out for anyone (Dad) who wanted more in their soup.

Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup

2 cans (14.5oz) chicken broth

1 1/2 C water

1 C shredded chicken (dark or light meat)

1 C shredded carrot (about 1 large carrot)

1 C snow peas, thinly sliced

1/4 tsp ginger

2 green onions, thinly sliced

1 Tbsp soy sauce

1 Tbsp lime juice

1-2 tsp Asian hot sauce (such as Sriracha)

4 oz rice noodles

Cilantro leaves

In a large pot, bring chicken broth and water to a boil. Add chicken and simmer 3 minutes. Add carrots, snow peas and ginger; simmer 3 minutes. Stir in green onion, soy sauce, lime juice, and hot sauce.

Meanwhile, bring another pot of water to boil. Place rice noodles in hot water and remove from heat; allow to sit for 10 minutes or until softened. (Check the package first to see if they have different instructions for the type of noodle you found.)

Drain noodles and divide evenly between 4 soup bowls. Ladle soup into the bowls on top of the noodles. Scatter cilantro on top, if desired.

Altered slightly from a recipe found in Family Circle magazine.

Bacon!

Since it's Valentine's Day and so many people seem to be having a love affair with bacon lately, I thought I'd post a new way to cook bacon. Well, it's new to me anyway. I tried it for the first time this morning and I liked the results. The bacon wasn't all curled up, leaving you with chewy gross fatty parts. Instead, it all cooked up nice and crisp. Seriously, the whole piece! I even snapped a picture before it was all gobbled up!

Be warned, though, your house will get all smoky. (Mine always does when I cook bacon though...). I haven't tried it yet with turkey bacon for Chad, but I'll give that a try sometime I'm sure!

There are a couple different pan preparation choices. You could line a cookie sheet with foil. You can put a cooling rack on the cookie sheet and the bacon on top of that so the fat drips off. Or you can use the broiler pan that has the slits in it so the bacon fat drips through those. I opted for the broiler pan method because I really don't care how that pan looks.

So, here's the method.

1. Get your pan of choice ready. 
2. Put the bacon on. 
3. Put it in the oven. 
4. NOW turn the oven on to 400 degrees. (So the oven has not been preheated). 
5. Cook the bacon for 12 minutes or until it's as crisp as you like. (Mine took more like 17 minutes). 
6. Drain on a paper towel-lined tray. Voila!

Recipe from Old School - Self Reliance 101.