Teryaki Chicken Salad

This is a GREAT summer recipe - lots of fresh ingredients, light, but still very filling!

Teryaki Chicken Salad

Doesn't that just look yummy?!  It IS yummy!!  Now I do have to say, it's not exactly cheap considering that it's 100% fresh ingredients plus a marinated package of chicken.  

(But did I mention it's yummy yet?!)

It IS, however, relatively cheap if you find the ingredients on sale like I did this week! =)

Here are the ingredients:

• Romaine Lettuce (or really whatever type of lettuce you like, I've used mixed greens before too)
• Teryaki marinated chicken (so sorry if this is an HEB only product...maybe you could marinate your own chicken in a teryaki sauce?  haven't tried this)
• Cucumber - diced
• 1 cup corn
• 1 cup black beans
• 1/2 avocado
• Handful of grape tomatoes (you can substitute another type of tomato for this, just dice it up)
• Honey mustard dressing

The prep is pretty simple, just takes a bit of time.  Basically, you chop everything up, cook the chicken and assemble!  

First rinse and cut the lettuce.  P.S.  I found a great deal for $0.88 for the bundle!  I did the price matching deal at Walmart.  I was a little skeptical if the produce would be gross at Walmart, but it was just great!

Then cut up the cucumber (I like cutting slices and then in 4ths)...

Next comes the corn...

And the tomatoes...when I saw that Sprouts had a pint of these guys on sale for $0.99 that's actually when I decided to make this meal.  Seriously $0.99 for an entire pint!

Dump in the black beans (rinsed) along with everything else

Finally cook the chicken breasts,  It's honestly so much better to cook it outside on the grill.  But where I live, it hasn't rained in what seems like YEARS!  So everyone is advised not to use outdoor grills - even gas-powered.  So being a responsible citizen, I cooked my chicken on a skillet.  

Once the chicken breasts are fully cooked, cut them in strips like this.

While they are still warm, add them to the salad.  I usually wait till this point to add in the avocado as well so it's fresh.

Serve it up and drizzle the honey mustard on top.  The combination of teryaki flavor + honey mustard is simple amazing.  You really have to try it!

Enjoy!

Salmon Patties

This is a recipe from my MIL's kitchen!

Salmon Patties

 I like this recipe because it's one of those you can stock and make whenever, since it's made using 2 ingredients and canned salmon (which lasts forever in the pantry!)

The ingredients:

2 6-oz cans of salmon

1 egg (not sure why I got out 2 for the picture?!)

10 saltine crackers

That's literally it =)

You can also add in some onion and bell pepper if you like.  I had frozen some from last week so I put about 2 tablespoons of chopped green bell pepper in there!

I'm a little picky when it comes to the canned salmon.  You can buy it SUPER cheap in a big tall can but it has the bones and skin included.  It. grosses. me. out.  So I spend an extra few cents and get the boneless skinless kind.

Here's what you do.  First drain the juice from the cans and dump them in a bowl

And the crackers - make sure to crumble them all up...

Then add your egg...

If you're adding green bell pepper, throw that in now too.

Then make patties, just like you would for hamburgers.  If you feel like the consistency is a little too watery, just add more crackers.  You don't want too much crackers or your patties will be very dry!  Here's what mine look like:

I make 5 patties from this amount...which is perfect for Trent and myself.  2 for me and 3 for him!

Cook them till they are nice and golden brown with a little oil on a skillet.  They take about 10 minutes (5 minutes on each side). 

And here's the final product!

Enjoy!

Marzetti

This is a meal I grew up on and love!  It's pretty much your basic Italian meal...noodles, sauce, meat and cheese.  I love it because it's simple and easy to prepare and the leftovers taste even better than the original thing!

So I have to admit, I actually never liked it growing up because my mom always used Swiss cheese on top and I'm just not a fan of Swiss cheese!  (Sorry mom!)  Well I tried making it once with mozzarella and I was in love!

And here's how it is done =)

The ingredients:

1 bag of egg noodles (cooked and strained)
1-2 lb of ground beef (or ground turkey if you like)
1/2 onion if you like
1 can (26 oz or more) of spaghetti sauce
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (or swiss if you're a fan)
A little sugar (yes sugar)
and a little water

First prep the ingredients by cooking your noodles and ground beef.  I cook the onions in with the ground beef.

Once the meat and onions are fully cooked, be sure to drain off all of the fat

Then you just layer the ingredients:  noodles...

then ground beef/onions...

then sauce...

then add in a little bit of water...

and a teaspoon or so of sugar...weird I know...

and finally cover with cheese.

Into the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes and that's it!  This is what it looks like before going in to the oven:

I actually decided to divide my batch in half.  We can never finish a whole pan of this stuff before we're sick of it (because it makes a TON of yummy leftovers), so by splitting the batch, we had another meal pre-made in the freezer!

Here's my second dish.

If you decide to pre-make and freeze, just add about 15-20 minutes to the cook time and you're set!

And here's our meal once again!

Enjoy!!

Tuesday Dinner - Mexican Pasta

Another new recipe!  And it's cheap & easy (and yummy!)

Mexican Pasta

I'm super excited to share this one with you, I've had the recipe for a long time, but have never made it and right now I'm seriously wondering why!

Here's the scoop:

Ingredients (not pictured: chicken)

1 box of pasta (I used leftover rigatoni noodles this time, but next time I think I'll use spaghetti noodles...anything works!)

1 cup of shredded Mexican cheese (I added cheddar because I didn't have quite 1 cup of the Mexican kind!)

1 cup Salsa

1 Tbsp half & half

1 Tbsp olive oil

2 Chicken breasts - cooked and chopped (I used 1 chicken breast and 3 tenders this time)

1-2 tsp red pepper flakes

First, prepare your chicken.  Since I was using chicken tenders, I cut up the whole chicken breast to be similar size pieces as the tenders...this helped it cook all at the same rate. 

I decided to bake mine in the oven with some fajita seasoning I found in the cabinet.  It worked great! 

I prepared this like the lemon pepper chicken I made about a week ago...got a little "butter happy"  you don't need as much butter as I used!  Let this cook in the oven at 375 till the juice runs clear and the chicken is completely cooked (about 30 minutes for me!)

Next, start cooking your noodles

And to make the sauce:

Start with a little olive oil in a pan (keep in mind you'll be assembling the whole dish in this pan, so you'll want something deep.  Once the oil is warmed up, add in the half & half and the cheese.  You'll want to have the stove on a medium heat.

Keep stirring till the cheese starts to melt.  Mine was just a big clump for a while (and I thought I'd totally ruined the meal!) so I added a couple more dashes of half and half - I think that helped!  Here's what mine looked like about 2 minutes in.

Then it started getting creamy and yummy...

Once the cheese is all melted, add in the salsa - cheese+salsa = yummy goodness!  (Queso anyone?!

Once this is all warmed up and bubbly, add in the cut-up chicken and crushed red pepper.

I was conservative with the red pepper flakes, but wish I had added more once it was all said and done.  You can also turn the heat down to low now...really you're just stirring together the already cooked ingredients at this point.

P.S. I have the weirdest double jointed thumb....annoyed that it's showing in this picture =)

Lastly, slowly fold in your noodles.  I made WAY too many noodles, so I'd probably say you should have about 3 cups of cooked noodles.  Once the noodles are all covered in the cheesy yummy-ness, let it sit on low heat for about 5-10 minutes.  This made about 4 servings total!

Our meal!  I'm pretty proud of how colorful I got the dinner tonight!

Check out this salad!  Leftover lettuce from the tacos last week, strawberries from my birthday party (a little bit of cheating here, because I didn't include the birthday breakfast in our groceries for the week...it was a special treat), mango's from sprouts that were on sale, cranberries from sprouts...same story,  and mandarin oranges that I found tucked away in our cabinet!

Definitely a new staple at our house!  Hope you like it too =)

Enjoy!