It's Dreen. Why is it Dreen?

I told Kam today that there was a new blog post by one of the bloggers I follow. I was really excited about it, too. And then he said, "Is there a new Jensen Family blog?" And I said, "There could be..." To which he said, "That would be fun."

So that's what I'm doing. Being fun.

I try to take pictures of things we do that I think are blog-worthy, and what I have in there right now is a bunch of pictures of food. (I used to have something against foodies, and so did Kam, but recently when I was about to photograph the 4th dinner that week, he was like, "Make sure you get it close up. You don't have to get me in it." Ha ha.) So, I'll start there.

We've been trying to eat healthier (trying being the operative word for both of us. "Kam, I really want a cupcake..."), so these are a few of the recipes we've tried, with a few minor adjustments.

Avocado Pasta
This tastes surprisingly like pesto, which I thought was awesome. But we ran out of basil after making this dish just twice. We love avocado, so we (probably not so smartly) decided to double the ratio of avocado to other ingredients in this recipe. It made the sauce really sticky, but still delicious. We don't have a food processor, so we just used our blender, but we did have to add just a little milk to make it liquidy enough to mix. Probably another reason for that was that we used lemon juice concentrate instead of a real lemon, so we were already low on liquids. We later decided to try adding chicken to this dish, and it really adds the variety it needs. Otherwise, you kind of end up with a delicious, but slightly monotonous green blob.

Pasta Rosa Verde
This one was way good the first time we made it, and a little disappointing the second time. I think the difference was whether or not we had feta cheese (we used instead of blue cheese). It kind of makes or breaks the dish, in my opinion. We also tried to substitute an onion for garlic, which I think was a loser idea. So basically, don't experiment like we did on this one. It's too good to be messed with (minus the blue cheese thing. Bleh. I mean, unless you're into that kind of thing.)

Mediterranean Chicken and Pasta
Can you tell we like pasta? This recipe can get a little pricey if you try to buy the olives they call for (plus, Kam doesn't like greek olives), so we changed the recipe just a little. The only extra special thing we bought for it were the artichokes. And we love artichokes, so we like to leave the chicken broth out of the recipe so the vinegar flavor is even more poignant. Other than that, we added a red bell pepper, and crushed red pepper seasoning instead of the whole red peppers it calls for. It makes for a little milder of a recipe.

Ancho-Glazed Salmon and Sweet Potato Fries
If the idea of covering your salmon in chili powder sounds weird, I totally agree. I was way nervous about this one. But it's now one of my favorites, and I think Kam's, too. We both really love salmon, and I totally don't feel guilty about it because of all the good omega-3 fatty acids. I will admit, I am not sure what those do, but I know they're good for you. Plus, fish take like, no time to cook.

One of the hardest things about eating healthy, for me anyway (besides foregoing cupcakes), is how long cooking at home takes. We typically eat a lot healthier when we cook ourselves, but by the time we both get home from work it's 6:30, and we're already hungry, or we have somewhere we need to be or homework to do, and we don't have a ton of time to cook. so these 4 recipes have been helpful because they don't take quite as much time. If you have any similar recipes (healthy and quick), I'd love to hear about them. I swear they're the holy grail of recipes.

Look Out, Panda

So, to celebrate Kam's last final and freedom to the summer, I cooked a special meal. His last final took 3 hours, so I had plenty of time to get to it. I almost forgot to take a picture of it, so it's half eaten and doesn't look quite as good as it tasted. Kam said he wants it to be on our regular menu from now on.

One of the things I'm most proud of about this meal is that although it's not exactly healthy, it definitely competes with some of the places we're partial to (Ahem. Panda Express). And it's definitely a money saver in that area as well. The second thing I'm proud of is that I made this up all by myself. (And it actually tasted good! Whoohoo! It's always a gamble with those ones.) With that introduction, I give you my personal orange chicken recipe.

Disclaimer: It is definitely a subtle orange flavor. But I don't really know what else to call it. (How about delicious Chinese flavored stuff?) I said it competes with Panda. Not, tastes just like it.

Orange Chicken (feeds two very hungry college kids (one of whom is a man))
In 5 easy steps! (With a very long commentary)

Like I said, I was way into actually eating this when I remembered to take a picture.
Otherwise, I could probably have made it more pretty.

You will need:

2 bell peppers
1/4 of an onion
1 orange
2 chicken breasts
1/4 cup of flour
1 egg
olive oil
teriyaki sauce
lite soy sauce
honey
corn starch
ginger
onion powder
garlic salt
2 cups cooked rice

1. Chop your fruit and veggies
Slice bell peppers and chop onion and set aside. Chop orange in half and set one half aside. The other half can be used to garnish the dish with some of those fancy orange rings (like in my picture). Or you can just eat it, or save it, or whatever you want to do really. I just wanted my dinner to look fancy.

2. Fry your chicken
Chop your chicken breasts up into bite sized pieces. Start some olive oil frying in a wok or frying pan on high or medium-high. You're going to kind of deep fry your chicken in this, but you don't want to have a whole lot of extra oil in your pan (this becomes the base for your sauce), so be conservative (like I said. Not exactly healthy. But olive oil is better than a lot of things. Especially things that chinese food gets cooked in...). Break the egg into a small bowl and put the flour out in a shallow bowl or plate. Dip the chicken in the egg and then flour, and then carefully drop into the hot oil (MAKE SURE YOUR CHICKEN IS COMPLETELY THAWED BEFORE THIS STEP. I've heard a lot of horror stories about this from my old roommate, Sam). You're going to have to do this quickly so the first pieces don't burn before you get the rest in the pan. Stir/flip the chicken as needed, so that it doesn't get too brown on any one side.

3. Add your veggies
Once all the sides are pretty even, turn the stove down to medium-low and add your peppers and onions. If you do this just as the pan is starting to cool down, your onions will get really yummy really fast. :) Stir this every once in a while to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom, but get started on your sauce.

4. Make your sauce
You can either throw everything in the pan right away (If you're real confident) or mix it in a bowl and taste it as you go along. I do a little bit of both. (And unfortunately, I didn't measure anything, so you're going to have to do a little guess work yourself). But, (from what I can remember,) here's how I did it:

Take your half an orange and squeeze the juice out into the pan. (I do this first so it gets as much time cooking with the chicken as possible. They're friends.) Mix teriyaki sauce, soy sauce, and honey to desired taste. I typically find it takes a lot more teriyaki than any of the other ingredients. Lite soy sauce is a little easier to work with, I find, because it's lower in sodium, and thus not as strong. I use it to cancel out the teriyaki's grilled flavor, if you will, just a little bit. If you're using regular soy sauce, keep this in mind (In other words, take it easy on the soy sauce). I like sweet sauces, but I didn't want to add straight sugar to my slightly more healthy recipe, so I figured between about a half a tablespoon of honey and half an orange's worth of juice I could get the kick I was looking for. I then added corn starch to the sauce to make it just a little thicker (this also makes it stick to the rice and chicken a little more and then you don't have to worry about scooping the sauce out of the pan and drizzling it on your food just to have it run all over everything on your plate). If you're adding everything straight to the pan I wouldn't recommend adding corn starch. Just skip this step. If you get too much corn starch (you can tell if you can taste it. Blech), just add more teriyaki sauce. Once you add it to the pan the oil will help null the starchy flavor as well. I added a little ginger to the sauce right towards the end. (My mom used to tell me you needed 4 flavors to make a good Asian sauce. I don't remember what they are, so I try to cover all my bases, and I consider spicy one of them.) After adding my sauce to the pan, I decided it need just a little garlic salt and onion powder, but you could just as easily add this to your sauce before dumping it in the pan.

5. Mix in your rice
Add your sauce to the pan, and heat everything up together. Add 2 cups of rice (or whatever will fit in your pan) and stir that in. Put your cute little orange garnishes on your plates and serve it up! You're done!

If anyone tries this, let me know what you think!

Nom Nom Nom

I'm pretty proud of myself today. Tonight's dinner turned out too pretty for me not to show off a little.

Nummy Enchiladas

These are a popular dish for Kam and I, although we usually use green sauce. We've been making these since last summer, though, so we thought we'd try something a little different this time. The red sauce was a nice change, but I think if we do it again, we'll have to get something a little spicier. It's a great meal to save. We always make extra and keep a few for lunches. Kam usually eats the leftovers before I get a chance, though.

And I got most of the dishes I cooked with cleaned while the enchiladas were in the oven, and then Kam washed the rest of the dishes after we ate, and it took hardly any time at all!

Also, here's a little secret to anyone who hasn't been seeing me on a regular basis recently. My back's been trying to kill me for the past couple weeks, so to get that much done today made me feel like Rosie the Riveter (aka Betty the Beefer. At least, that's what I thought she was called until I tried to google her picture).  Still not sure what the deal is with my back. I like to think it's just that I've been getting such buff abs in my dance class that my back can't keep up, and that's straining it, and I really just need to work out my back more so it can keep up with my 6 pack (lies). Anyone that's got any suggestions for some really good back stretches or , let me know. I've done most of the typical running ones already, and they're just not cutting it.

But really, I've just been rollin' this week. On Tuesday I ran to the store and grabbed some things to make chicken roll ups for dinner, and after I picked Kam up from work I told him, and he said, "Ooh! I forgot about those! Those were so good last time!" That's what makes cooking worth it. (Making tasty food just doesn't cut it if you don't have someone to share it with. I mean, I've got a store-bought chicken pot pie in the freezer that's just begging for Kam to leave so I won't have the desire to cook anything from scratch. Then I will be happy to give that pie a little extra attention.) Then I cut up some oranges and put them out on a plate with some strawberries, and it looked like such a summery dinner! I swear, the oranges and strawberries were more for decoration than anything else. They just made the rest of the dinner look so cheerful. (But they didn't actually taste that good. The oranges were pretty good. The strawberries were a little under ripe. Or maybe Zupas has just given me unrealistic expectations for strawberries.)

So, that's it for today's update in the life of the Jensen family. If you're interested in any recipes, let me know and I'll make a recipe post for you all.

Here. I'll leave you with one right now.

Summery Fruit Plate:

You'll need:

Oranges

Strawberries

Cut them up. Put them on a plate. Look at them. Be happy.

Tada!

Cheater Chicken Cordon Bleu

Kam mentioned to me once that he likes Chicken Cordon Bleu. So I looked into making it. Dannng. That is no small feat. But somehow, I stumbled across some hopeful recipes that made it look not entirely impossible. So I thought to myself, "Self, there's a recipe for easy everything. There's got to be a recipe for easy Chicken Cordon Bleu somewhere out there." And there were. There were a few actually. But to save you the pains of sorting through all of the hits and misses out there, I have adapted my own version of this recipe to make the easiest, cheatingest (read: inexperienced) chicken cordon bleu ever. Now, of course this doesn't compare to the real thing. But Kam said it's good, and I liked it (and I'm my worst critic, usually), and I know I'm not the only one who feels a little less than experienced in chefery (that's a word now).

So here it is:

Ok. Not the most attractive looking picture, I know. But remember? I don't take pictures of my food? It took so much self control not to eat all of this before I got a picture of it. So that mess on my plate is from the piece that I already ate.

(When I say piece, I mean each chicken breast wrapped up. Kam and I each ate 2 (Our chicken breasts were on the small side), so plan your servings accordingly.)

For each piece you'll need:

1/2 - 1 chicken breast

Note: If you already have flat chicken breasts, great. These usually make larger pieces. You'll need to either pound these with a meat tenderizer or work them with your hands (what I did) until they're about 1/2 inch to 1 inch thick and are malleable enough to roll. If you have fatter chicken breasts, you can cut them in half lengthwise and get 2 pieces out of them. You'll still need to massage them a little so that they'll roll up. Tip: Don't let them start to cook when you defrost them. It makes them less bendy.

1 slice of ham (I just used lunch meat ham.)

1 mozzarella cheese stick (I know you're supposed to use Swiss cheese, but remember? Easy. And I think I liked the way this tasted better, honestly.)

Butter (just enough that you'll be able to roll the pieces in it)

Breadcrumbs (Same idea. Just enough to cover your pieces)

Toothpicks


For the sauce:
(Kam said he thought they were good with or without the sauce. This makes a freaking ton of sauce (probably 8 servings) but we have cream of chicken soup out to wazoo so I didn't feel too guilty using a whole can anyway.)

1 can (10.5 oz. I think) of Cream of Chicken Soup

1/2 cup of sour cream

Thyme (optional)



Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (I actually remembered this time).

2. Work chicken into flat malleable pieces (see above).

3. Wrap chicken around 1 piece of ham and cheese stick (I sometimes folded the piece of ham in half and ripped the cheese stick in half if the piece of chicken was smaller) and secure with toothpicks.

4. Dip pieces in butter, and then roll in breadcrumbs (or sprinkle over it. I found that easier).

5. Place in baking dish and cook for 40 minutes.


Sauce:

1. Mix cream of chicken, sour cream, and thyme in a sauce pan and heat up on the stove.


That's it! For real!


One of the things I loved about this recipe was that it called for pretty regular ingredients. I bought everything I needed for it and Kam never even knew I was planning a special dinner! He actually put all of the cheese sticks in our lunches before I got a chance to try the recipe, and we had to go buy more. I felt pretty clever. I was also afraid they would be too dry without the sauce (and usually the sauce you put on chicken cordon bleu calls for some kind of wine and fancy mustard, and we don't even like regular mustard. Or wine.) so I was happy to find a simple sauce that fit the bill and only called for ingredients I already had.

So let me know what you think. If you hate it, that's ok, too. I won't be offended. I'm happy enough when I can make something I'll eat. :)

What You Know You've All Been Waiting For

The Pizza Soup Recipe!

It's super yummy and delicious.

So, my beautiful and lovely former roommate, +Chelsea Hurst, gave me this recipe. Which she got from a family she met in Belgium! (So basically, this is as legit as it gets, folks.)

So if you like it, she did it. If you don't like it, I must have typed the recipe wrong.

(Chelsea made this soup and took this picture. I always eat my food before I think to take a picture of it.)

Pizza Soup

For 4-6 people

1 lb. hamburger
2 onions
1-2 jars of mushrooms (Kam and I skip these because he doesn't like them, but I secretly think it makes the soup)
2 cans of diced tomatoes
3/4 lb. of a spreadable cheese (We use the reduced fat laughing cow triangles and have a lot of fun opening each and every one. But I've heard it also works fine with velveeta if you like that sort of thing.)
generous 1 1/2 cups cream (When Kam asked me how much of this to put in the soup, I just said, "I dunno. There's a pint in there, and we're never going to use the rest of it. Just put the whole thing in.")
pepper, salt, paprika seasoning (We don't usually have paprika, so if you don't have it either, don't worry. :) )
pizza seasoning

Sautee the hamburger. (I always insist that Kam drain the grease.) Add chopped onions until they look glassy. Season with salt and pepper. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil. Season to taste. Serve with a baguette bread (or regular nonfancy bread. Or just eat it).

So there is your legit Belgium pizza soup recipe (and my commentary which probably ruins the authenticity, but it still tastes good!). Let me know what you think!