Cold Nights, Hot Pasta

I had to scrape off my windshield this morning for the first time since April. I was not amused.

The weather has officially changed and I think we're going to be cold for a while, so I wanted a delicious comfort food pasta dish tonight for dinner. I succeeded in making delicious comfort food pasta.  Creamy Shrimp Pasta is super easy to make, and was delicious. The original recipe is from the Lauren's Latest blog.

Comfort food + red wine = a good Monday night

Again, this recipe is really easy to make! And it didn't make the entire house smell like shrimp either, which was appreciated by all :)

Creamy Shrimp Pasta

Ingredients:
1 lb raw shrimp (I used frozen raw peeled and deveined shrimp-THAW first if using frozen)
1 stick lactose-free butter
1/3 tub Tofutti cream cheese
1/2 box of gluten free spaghetti (I use Barilla gf pasta)
1 to 2 T parsley
1 to 2 T basil
1 to 2 T paprika or cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste
the juice of 1 lemon
1 can petite diced tomatoes

Voila!

Directions:
1. Start pasta water.
2. Melt butter in skillet on medium-medium high heat. Start this right before you put your spaghetti in the boiling water and the timing should be almost perfect.
3. Sprinkle shrimp with herbs, salt and pepper and seasonings*
4. Put shrimp into melted butter and cook for approx 4 minutes, stirring occasionally
5. Add lemon juice, stir, and then add tomatoes and cook until heated through.
6. Add cream cheese spoonfuls at a time and stir until combined.
7. Toss in the spaghetti noodles, stir to combine, and enjoy!

*Make sure you've thawed your shrimp if using frozen and dry them really well on a paper towel-lined plate, topped with more paper towels.

Shrimp seasoned and ready for the butter bath

Stir gently to cook the shrimp 

The lemon juice and tomatoes are added

I got distracted and forgot to put the parsley in, so I think it will taste even MORE amazing the next time I make this.

What a Great First Half! And Then...Let's Eat!

Oh to be a Cyclone fan...

Well. Remember how last week I said I was going to make a bunch of stuff for tailgating, including maybe a cocktail? That didn't happen, but I did make a couple of super delicious items last week and this weekend, some of which I actually remembered to take photos of.

But first...Oh man! Football Saturday was not kind to me this weekend. It was Homecoming at UNI and we lost...which is a bummer! ISU played SO WELL in the first half...and then didn't. And we lost. And Minnesota ALSO lost. To Nebraska. And Nebraska is the Worst! Vikings won on Sunday though, so that helped the pain. A little bit.

My Mom came to the game with  me! We had fantastic
seats. This is before the game. We're not freezing yet. :)

Thursday afternoon/evening I made pulled pork in the slow cooker. I made it with a 2 1/4 lb pork loin and am STILL eating it! Original recipe on Food 52 website.

Crockpot Brown Sugar Balsamic Glazed Pork Tenderloin

Ingredients:
1 tsp ground sage
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 c water
2 lbs pork tenderloin
1 T cornstarch
1/4 c balsamic vinegar
1/2 c water
2 T GF soy sauce

Directions:
1. Put 1/2 c water into crockpot. Place tenderloin in the crockpot and then sprinkle sage, salt, and pepper on top and then rub into the meat.
2. Cook on low for 6-8 hours
3. After 6 hours, mix the cornstarch, balsamic vinegar, water, and soy sauce together over medium heat in a saucepan. Heat and stir until mixture thickens, about 4 minutes.
4. Brush roast with glaze 3 times (every 15 minutes) during the last hour of cooking. Shred the pork with two forks, pour in the rest of the glaze, and cook for another 15 minutes.

I made a batch of homemade mashed potatoes (plain NOT vanilla coconut milk and lactose free butter) and ate it with the pulled pork on top. Delicious!

Reheated shredded pork in my mini slow cooker for the tailgate
on Saturday! 

I didn't take any pictures of the prep of this because it cooked while I was at work and then when I got home, I had just enough energy to make the mashed potatoes and eat dinner. But it tastes amazing and worked really well reheated in my mini slow cooker on Saturday! I had also planned on some fantastic tailgate cocktail for Saturday, but that didn't happen either...maybe I'll be more organized for the Texas game. Maybe...not.

Sunday was another gorgeous fall day in Iowa and I have a new favorite place to walk just north of town. I think it might be Story County's biggest secret, because Peterson Pits (glamorous name, right?) is beautiful, secluded, and really nice. I have yet to encounter anyone else when I'm out there...so if I ever come up missing, look for me there, and then sit back and wait for my Dateline special sometime in the next twelve months. #dontwatchalone

The Skunk River at Peterson Pits.
The scenery is nicer than the names suggest :)

Meal #2 is something that I put together Sunday around noon and then let marinate all afternoon. I actually remembered to take pictures of this one. The original recipe is from the Plain Chicken website.

Yumm-o, right?

Buffalo Lime Chicken

Ingredients:
1 lb boneless chicken breasts or tenders
1 c Crystal hot sauce
1/4 cup fresh lime juice (about 2 whole limes worth)
2 T olive oil
1/4 tsp salt

Directions:
1. Whisk together hot sauce, lime juice, oil, and salt.
2. Pour over chicken and marinate a few hours to overnight
3. Bake at 375 degrees F for 25 minutes (you can also grill or saute)

I made the chicken with brown rice and green beans. Super filling and SUPER easy for a Sunday night.

Crystal hot sauce is the only hot sauce that I have found that doesn't
have garlic or onion powder, and I use it in a lot of recipes. 

Glamour Shot! Before marination process.

What's up, raw chicken? I love using aluminum foil and a rack
to make meat. Spray the grill with oil for easy clean-up.

Not watching Monday Night Football tonight, but who else is excited about the Star Wars trailer that will debut at some point tonight!? I am :)

Having a rough day? She'll help you out.

1. 
   

This Girl Likes to Eat

So...four weeks in and I'm still going strong! I even made sure to make a meal tonight so I would have something to write about. I was *this* close to just having popcorn.

Tonight's meal is based off of the back of a bag of frozen tuna. Because sometimes, you just want baked tuna, am I right? I am sitting in the living room watching the Cardinals/Cubs Game 3. I don't really care who wins this because my team has been out for over a week. Thanks Twins... And I'm telling you this because I am also drinking a glass of wine and can't be bothered to go to the kitchen to actually grab the recipe from the back of the tuna packaging, so this is by memory. Also, I totally cook by throwing stuff in a bowl, which is what happened tonight too because the recipe is for three tuna steaks, and I only made one. I want to say the recipe is called Hawaiian Tuna, but I'm going to call it Vermonter Tuna because of a substitution. And also because this is America and I can do what I want.

Vermonter Tuna
Ingredients:
3-4 Tuna Steaks, thawed
1/2 c GF soy sauce
1/4 c 100% maple syrup*
3/4 tsp ground ginger

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375
2. Mix the marinade and then marinate at least 20 minutes.
3. Bake for 14-16 minutes

*the maple syrup is a substitution and the basis for the name change to Vermonter Tuna. The original recipe calls for honey, which I can't have.

I served the tuna with brown rice and carrots.

Four ingredients=easy and delicious quick dinner

Make sure you have colorful veggies if your food is all the same
color. My Fiestaware is still in storage, otherwise I would eat
this on a dark blue or purple plate :)

But Kim, are those organic carrots? No, they're not. Guess what, I was at a meeting tonight and marinated the tuna while I was gone, and when I got home, I was hungry, so I just pulled the vegetables available in my freezer. And I'm alive. And my eyesight is probably .002% better because I had carrots tonight.

I have been compiling some awesome pictures for my sister's birthday party that is coming up, and I pulled some of me when I was little too... This Girl Likes to Eat. And it's not a new phenomenon.

I also love that I'm eyeing that butter like I'm about to pounce.

I'm going to try to prep some good tailgate recipes for this weekend and post. We're playing TCU, so the game is probably going to be...brutal...but that's why you bring fun cocktails to the tailgate! Drown your sorrows! OR...be lubricated enough that by the time the game starts, you're having a great time and the final score doesn't matter!

Go Cyclones!

Year of Saying Yes

I decided this summer that the next 12 months were going to be the Year of Saying Yes. If someone asked me to join a team or a club, if I got invited to a concert (or WANTED to go to a concert, movie, game, etc) I was just going to say yes. I have promised my sister that I wouldn't say yes to anything illegal, but other than that, all bets are off.

The last six months have been kind of all over the place for me, with a lot of highs, some lows, and some scary health stuff that turned out to be not scary. (The best phone calls involve the word 'benign' by the way). All I have to say is that my support team is amazing and there is nothing that can't be fixed with drinks on the patio of The Mucky Duck. I re-established my Wine Club With Books that I had started when I first moved to town three years ago, I started a new job that I'm loving, and I am working on breaking patterns, sharing recipes, and learning cool new stuff. Just this week, I decided to learn to kayak, which makes sense, because it's October and we're probably mere weeks away from below freezing temps and river ice. But bring it on, because it's the Year of Saying Yes!  Like last weekend...had the opportunity to go to a Vikings game, so I went! And it was beautiful weather! And we WON! It was a Christmas Miracle!

We won! And we had great seats!

This week's recipe is Kim's Amazing Chili.  It got COLD this weekend, which means it was time for chili. You can't have chili when it's warm. That is a rule. I checked. Feel free to modify as always. I do a mix of ground meat because ground beef is expensive and ground turkey is not, but I don't like the chili just with ground turkey. So again...modify as needed! Also, you might look through the ingredients and go 'shredded carrots?' and 'pumpkin?!?' and I'll explain. I was raised in a house where my mom snuck shredded carrots and/or shredded zucchini into everything for extra nutritional value, and so that's how I cook still. And the pumpkin helps thicken the chili since my chili can't have beans in it. 

Kim's Amazing Chili

Ingredients:

1 lb ground turkey

1/2 lb ground beef 

3 15 oz cans diced tomatoes

1 24 oz can crushed tomatoes

1 can pureed pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie)

1 jar jalepenos (I use medium because I like my chili spicy)

1 c shredded carrots (or more or less-I don't really measure-I shred about 4-5 carrots and throw it in)

1 T cumin

2-3 T chili powder (or more...I always add way more)

Directions:

1. Brown ground turkey and ground beef

2. While that is browning, throw everything else into a slow cooker. Stir it up and set the slow cooker to low. 

3. Drain the meat and stir into the mixture. 

4. Cook the chili on low for 6-8 hours. 

Enjoy!

Now, you can enjoy your chili with tortilla chips and [fake] cheese, and be done with it. This makes a huge amount, so I freeze most of it in individual containers and then take out as needed. I made this on Sunday, which everyone knows is football watching day, so I decided to pretend I was like the rest of the world, and made some chili cheese fries 'my style' by baking some waffle fries in the oven, sprinkling some shredded fake mozzarella, pouring some chili on top, and then sprinkling with MORE mozzarella. And it. Was. Awesome. 

And today, when I was home for lunch, I made some gluten free pasta, reheated some chili, and mixed together for a delicious and fast meal. Chili Pasta: It's real, and it's spectacular. 

I really like the gluten free Barilla pasta.
It tastes great and is wallet friendly

Any good book recommendations for Wine Club with Books? Send them my way!