I love it when a recipe comes together

A while ago I was rummaging in my pantry and I noticed that we had quite a few boxes of spaghetti. Now I love me some spaghetti with marinara or equivalent sauce but even I get tired of that. So I start to think of different ways to use the spaghetti and I remember having the pasta in a browned butter sauce a long time ago. I remember how I really liked it. I kicked the idea around with the hubby and on grocery day I picked up the needed ingredients.

Garlic Brown Butter Spaghetti with Spinach and Sausage.

1 pound of spaghetti noodles
4 pre-cooked sausages
4 oz rinsed and coarsely chopped spinach
1 1/2 sticks of salted butter
1.5 T of Garlic (can use less if desired)
1/2 cup of shredded Italian cheese blend (mine was Asiago, Parmesan and Romano)
2 T cream (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste

Bring 4 quarts of salted water to boil. Cook spaghetti per directions. Reserve a cup of the cooking water once you drain it.

While spaghetti is cooking, slice sausages and cook with spinach in a medium sauce pan. Cook until spinach is starting to wilt and the sausage is warmed through.

I used this type of sausage. They were pretty tasty.

 

Slice the butter and melt in a separate pan with the garlic. You want to slice the butter to ensure that it melts evenly.
 

Cook the melted butter and garlic down until the butter gets a nice rich golden brown color. You want to keep a close eye on it because it doesn't take long for it to go from browned butter to burnt butter. The butter will have a nutty smell to go along with the garlic. Trust me it smelled so good while I was cooking. If you want you can add the cream to add a touch of creaminess to the sauce. Add the sausage and spinach giving it a quick toss and then add in the drained spaghetti noodles. Add the cheese and toss until everything is coated. You can add some of the reserved cooking water if you want to thin out the sauce if desired. I found I didn't need to. It coated the noodles just fine.

 

Plate and serve with some garlic bread. It was so good. The flavor of the noodles didn't get lost in the sauce, something I find that happens many times with tomato based sauces. And surprisingly it wasn't greasy at all. The sauce was very light and the spinach added a pop of freshness to the dish. I think next time I will brown the butter just a little bit more as I didn't get as much of the nutty flavor from the butter as I was expecting. And I think I'll try it with some Linguica or maybe some Andouille sausage.

New Kitchen Toy!

I have a new kitchen toy and I LOVE IT!

See I do enjoy my coffee. But unless it is on the weekend I normally don't get coffee unless I decide to splurge at the little cafe in the lobby of my office building. But that get's expensive. The thing is I don't like a lot of coffee. I'm good with just a cup. But to go through the hassle of making getting everything put together for a single cup of coffee...especially in the mornings? It ain't happening.

I've heard about Keurig for a bit but didn't think much of it until our best friends got one. Suddenly I learned the joys of having a good cup of java whenever I want it. I became hooked. So when we got our Federal taxes back last week I picked us up one as our splurge item. I picked up some extra coffees and some hot chocolate.

And I have been in love. It's nice to have a cup of coffee in the morning as I'm getting ready for work. A 10 ounce cup is the perfect size. Before I pick up the Keurig I did so some research. Which one was I going to get? What were all the features? The features I decided on that were the most important? Being able to select cup size, a decent sized removable water reservoir, and an auto-off feature. Looking at my options I decided that one of their more basic models would suite us just fine.

The convenience of the Keurig is the best part. Now I can have my coffee when I want it without a hassle. It doesn't take up much counter space at all, no more than my regular coffee pot does. AND I have found you can just run hot water through it if you want. You don't have to put a cup in there. This makes it even better as I can still use my teas when I want. I love me a good strong cup of black tea. The one draw back I have found? The boxes of the kcups can be a bit cluttering. They have a carousel you can buy but eh I'm not a big fan of it. I'm thinking I want a under the cabinet drawer type of thing. Something that I can put ALL the kcups in. Not just the few the carousel holds. I haven't found one yet.

Hmmmmm maybe the husband will be getting a new honey do item for his list. 

New Recipe! Superbowl Munchies

After talking with my friend who is hosting the game day party we decided on....

Sweet and Spicy Bacon Chicken Bites!

It was an meat dish I found on Pinterest but I've made a few tweaks to it for my liking.

You need:
2 pounds of chicken tenders, thawed out (about 13-15 pieces)
1 T of salt
1 tsp of fresh cracked pepper
1/4 tsp of paprika
2 tsp of chili powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

Enough bacon to wrap (about 1 1/2 packages depending on the bacon)
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
Toothpicks

Mix all seasonings in a bowl. I prefer to mix all the seasonings together for things like this to ensure a more uniform flavor.

 

After seasonings are mix, cut each chicken tender into two or three pieces, depending on how big you want the bites to be. Season the chicken liberally with the seasoning. You may end up with a little extra seasoning mix but you can store it in an airtight container for another use.

 

Cut your bacon into smaller pieces. One strip of bacon is way too much for a bite, no matter how much I like bacon. Wrap each piece of bacon around a piece of chicken and secure with a toothpick. (Note: I find it easier to skewer the toothpick at an angle vs straight in. I find it holds the chicken and bacon together more securely for the latter stages).

Take your brown sugar and put into a plate. Scrunch it around so it is nice and loose. Roll, coat each bite into the brown sugar and put into a pan sprayed with a Pam. Don't be surprised if by the time you are done coating the bites, the earlier pieces don't look like they have much brown sugar. The bacon soaked up that yummy brown sugary goodness and it will make for some nice caramelization. Trust me.

Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven. It took about 35 minutes with me turning the bites over every 10 minutes. I hate when something that is bacon wrapped but the bottom part of the bacon is soggy. No I like my bacon crispy all the way around. I found some pieces were done before others so I pulled them out and set aside so they didn't burn. The one good thing is the bacon fat keeps the chicken moist so they don't dry out.

End verdict? Well so far the husband and I have given them two thumbs up. First you taste the sweet smokey bacon and then the juicy spicy chicken. The spice leaves just a touch of lingering...enough to for you to know you had some spice but not enough to over power your taste buds. 

I will let you know what the group thought of them after the game.

Oh, as a bonus picture...my two pups who act like they never get fed kept watch over me while I made these. Every time I looked behind me I saw this:

Please Mom, can we have some? We love bacon!

EDIT: The group LOVED the bites! They are best warm as cold chicken tends to toughen up a bit. But there wasn't a single bite left by the then of the evening. Found out that it is REALLY good with pineapple so next time I just may make a pineapple chutney to accompany the bites.

Superbowl Foods

Ah the Superbowl...a day of football, friends and in our case good foods. See we normally don't do just the standards at our football parties. There is always something different. That is what happens when a group of foodies are best friends. Two weeks ago, for the conference championship games besides the standard chips and chicken wings, we had hummus, cucumber feta dip (which we call crack), one of the girls made this wonderful salad with homemade raspberry vinaigrette and our main dish was meatloaf burgers. They were sooooooo good.

So this brings me to the quandary of what shall I take this Sunday to the game party. I can't do crack as I made that last time. And I don't always like to make sweet stuff. I'm finding that this is where Pinterest is coming in handy. There is always a myriad of recipes and ideas there. I found a cheesy bacon ranch pull apart bread that sounds appealing. As well as some sweet and spicy bacon wrapped chicken. Hmmmm decisions decisions...

So what do you like to have on Superbowl Sunday?