Chicken with Lemon Pepper Pasta

Here’s another quick and easy recipe for those evenings you’re just too tired to “really” cook or need to get a hot and nutritious meal on the table quickly! Serve with a tossed salad and some crusty bread and you will be swooning! Feel free to substitute shrimp for the chicken – it’s delicious as well.

Chicken with Lemon Pepper Pasta

Ingredients:

• Pasta of your choice
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 chicken breasts, cubed
• 1 green pepper, sliced
• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 cup white wine
• ½ cup heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon lemon pepper seasoning

Prepare pasta according to package directions.

Meanwhile, heat vegetable oil in large skillet until very hot. Add chicken and sauté until cooked through. Remove from skillet and keep warm.

Add green pepper and onion to skillet and sauté until crisp tender, approximately 5 minutes. Stir in garlic and sauté until fragrant, approximately 2 minutes. Remove from skillet and keep warm.

Reduce heat to medium low and melt butter in skillet. Stir in flour to make a roux. Cook and stir for 3 minutes. Stir in the white wine, scraping up any browned bits on the bottom of pan. Reduce wine by half.

Stir in cream and lemon pepper seasoning. Return chicken and vegetable to skillet and stir to completely coat. Taste and add more lemon pepper seasoning, if desired. Serve over pasta.

Banana Rum Bread Pudding with Rum Sauce

Banana Rum Bread Pudding with Rum Sauce

Ingredients:

• 7 cups day old Bread, cubed
• ½ cup Butter, melted
• 4 Eggs
• 1 cup Sugar
• ¼ cup Brown Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Nutmeg
• 2 teaspoons Vanilla
• 2 cups Half and Half
• 2 cups Heavy Cream
• 3 tablespoons Banana Rum

Spray a 9×13 inch baking dish with non stick spray. Place cubed bread inside baking dish.

In large mixing bowl, combine remaining ingredients until thoroughly combined. Pour over bread, making sure that each cube is coated with mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes or until a knife inserted into center comes out clean. Serve warm or at room temperature. Garnish with sliced bananas and Rum sauce if desired.

Rum Sauce

Ingredients:

• ¼ cup Butter
• ⅔ cup Brown sugar
• 3 ½ tablespoons Banana Rum
• 1 ½ teaspoons Vanilla
• ½ teaspoon Cinnamon

Combine all ingredients in small saucepan over medium low heat. Stir constantly until butter is melted and sugar has completely dissolved. Serve immediately.

Kahlúa Baked Beans

Kahlúa is a coffee-flavored rum-based liqueur from Mexico. Because Kahlúa is made from coffee beans, it does contain a small amount of caffeine. According to the company, this is “approximately 4.85 mg in each 1.5 oz drink” or about 1/10 the amount found in the same volume of coffee. The drink also contains sugar, corn syrup and vanilla bean. Pedro Domecq began producing Kahlúa in 1936. It was named Kahlúa, meaning “House of the Acolhua people” in the Veracruz Nahuatl language spoken before the Spanish Conquest. (Kahlúa was Hispanicized as Ulúa, forming the name of modern San Juan de Ulúa fortress.)

The company merged in 1994 with Allied Lyons to become Allied Domecq. In turn, that company was partially acquired in 2005 by Pernod Ricard, now the largest spirits distributor in the world since its merger with the Swedish Vin & Sprit in March 2008.

Since 2004, the alcohol content of Kahlúa is 20.0% (21.5% alc. is still available only in Ohio); earlier versions had 26.5%. In 2002, a more expensive, high-end product called “Kahlúa Especial” became available in the United States, Canada and Australia after previously being offered only in duty-free markets. Made with premium Arabica coffee beans grown in Veracruz, Mexico, Kahlúa Especial has an alcohol content of 36%, has a lower viscosity, and is less sweet than the regular version.

Kahlúa is used to make cocktails and as a topping or ingredient in several desserts, including ice cream, cakes, and cheesecakes. Kahlúa can be used in a few notable cocktails, including Black Russians, Mudslides, White Russians, Espresso Martinis, Caribbean Mudslides, Baby Guinness and B-52’s.

It can also be drunk in cold milk or cream, or mixed with hot coffee or cocoa. A licensed line of chocolates, with Kahlúa-flavored centers, is sold in Mexico, as well as small chocolate shot glass-style “cups” in which the liqueur may be served.

Kahlua Baked Beans

Ingredients:

• 1 pound dried Navy Beans, picked over and rinsed
• ½ pound Bacon, cut into ½ inch pieces
• 2 cups Onion, finely chopped
• 1 (12 ounce) bottle Chili Sauce
• ½ cup smoke style Barbecue Sauce
• ½ cup Kahlua liqueur
• ½ cup strong brewed Coffee
• ¼ cup Dijon Mustard
• ¼ cup unsulfured Molasses
• 2 tablespoons Heinz 57 sauce
• 2 tablespoons Tabasco sauce
• ½ teaspoon Salt

Soak the beans, covered, overnight in 8 cups of water. Drain.

In a large pot, cover beans with 8 cups cold water. Set the pot over medium heat, bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer, uncovered, stirring once or twice for one hour or until the beans are very soft but still hold their shape. Reserve 1 ½ cups of the cooking liquid and drain the rest of the water off the beans.

Cook the bcon in a large skillet until crispy. Remove bacon and pour off all but 1 ½ tablespoons of the fat. Add the onion to the skillet and cook until translucent, approximately 5 minutes.

Combine the beans, reserved cooking liquid, bacon, onions, chili sauce, barbecue sauce, Kahlua, coffee, mustard, molasses, Heinz 57 sauce, Tabasco sauce and salt. Transfer to a 5 quart casserole dish with a tight fitting lid. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Remove the lid, stir the beans and continue baking, uncovered, for 30 more minutes. Stir beans and continue baking for an additional 40 minutes or until sauce is very thick.

* Beans may be cooled, covered and refrigerated overnight. Reheat over a medium-low heat on the stovetop.

** The Kahlua may be omitted if you prefer a non-alcoholic option. Substitute an additional ¼ cup each of the barbecue sauce and coffee instead.

Crock Pot Wine and Tomato Braised Chicken

A Crock Pot, also known as a slow cooker is a countertop electrical cooking appliance that is used for simmering, which requires maintaining a relatively low temperature compared to other cooking methods (such as baking, boiling, and frying) for many hours, allowing unattended cooking of pot roast, stews, soups, “boiled” dinners and other suitable dishes.

The Naxon Utilities Corporation of Chicago, under the leadership of Irving Naxon, developed the Naxon Beanery All-Purpose Cooker. Naxon was inspired by a story his Jewish grandmother told about how back in her Lithuanian shtetl, her mother made a stew called cholent, which took several hours to cook in an oven. The Rival Company bought Naxon in 1970 and reintroduced it under the Crock-Pot name in 1971. In 1974, Rival introduced removable stoneware inserts making the appliance easier to clean. The brand now belongs to Sunbeam Products, a subsidiary of Jarden Corporation. Other brands of this appliance include Hamilton Beach,West Bend Housewares, GE, Magic Chef, and former American Electric Corporation.

There are many advantages to using a crockpot including being able to cook with cheaper cuts of meat. The slow moist cooking process softens connective tissue without toughening the muscle. The low temperature of slow-cooking makes it almost impossible to burn food even if cooked too long; however, some meats and most vegetables will become nearly tasteless if overcooked. Perhaps the biggest advantage for those who must be gone from home all day is that food can be set to slow-cook before leaving for the day and will be ready upon return. Better models include timers or thermostats which bring food to a given temperature and then lower it.

Cooking the meal in a single pot reduces the cleaning up process to just a few minutes and the low cooking temperature and glazed pot make cleaning easy. To make cleanup even easier, spray the pot with non-stick cooking spray before adding ingredients or better yet, use crock pot liners that are available in the foil and baggie section of the supermarket.

Crock Pot Wine and Tomato Braised Chicken

Ingredients:

• 4 slices Bacon
• 1 large Onion, thinly sliced
• 4 cloves Garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon dried Thyme
• 1 teaspoon Fennel seeds
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground Pepper
• 1 Bay leaf
• 1 cup dry White wine
• 1 28-ounce can Tomatoes, with juice, coarsely chopped
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 6 boneless, skinless Chicken Breasts
• ¼ cup finely chopped fresh Parsley

Cook bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp, about 4 minutes. Transfer to paper towels to drain and crumble when cool.

Drain off all but 2 tablespoons fat from the pan. Add onion and cook over medium heat, stirring, until softened, 3 to 6 minutes. Add garlic, thyme, fennel seeds, pepper and bay leaf and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add wine, bring to a boil and boil for 2 minutes, scraping up any browned bits. Add tomatoes and their juice and salt; stir well.

Place chicken in a 4 quart (or larger) slow cooker. Sprinkle the bacon over the chicken. Pour the tomato mixture over the chicken. Cover and cook until the chicken is very tender, about 3 hours on high or 6 hours on low. Remove the bay leaf  and sprinkle with parsley before serving.

Oven Roasted Honey Pork Loin

Honey is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees is the one most commonly referred to, as it is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans. Honey bees transform nectar into honey by a process of regurgitation and evaporation. They store it as a primary food source in wax honeycombs inside the beehive.

Honey gets its sweetness from the monosaccharides fructose and glucose, and has approximately the same relative sweetness as that of granulated sugar. Most microorganisms do not grow in honey because of its low water activity of 0.6. However, honey sometimes contains dormant endospores of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, which can be dangerous to infants, as the endospores can transform into toxin-producing bacteria in infants’ immature intestinal tracts, leading to illness and even death.

The physical properties of honey vary, depending on water content, the type of flora used to produce it, temperature, and the proportion of the specific sugars it contains. Fresh honey is a supersaturated liquid, containing more sugar than the water can typically dissolve at ambient temperatures. At room temperature, honey is a supercooled liquid, in which the glucose will precipitate into solid granules. This forms a semisolid solution of precipitated glucose crystals in a solution of fructose and other ingredients.

Honey has a long history of human consumption, and is used in various foods and beverages as a sweetener and flavoring. It also has a role in religion and symbolism. Flavors of honey vary based on the nectar source, and various types and grades of honey are available. The main uses of honey are in cooking, baking, as a spread on bread, and as an addition to various beverages, such as tea, and as a sweetener in some commercial beverages.

Honey Roasted Pork Loin

Ingredients:

• 2-3 pound Pork loin
• Salt and pepper to taste
• ¼ cup Honey
• 1 cup dry White wine, divided
• 2 tablespoons Olive oil
• 1 teaspoon dried Thyme
• 1 teaspoon dried Basil
• 1 teaspoon Lemon zest

Trim off any excess fat and silver skin from the loin.  Season the pork with salt and pepper to taste and place in roasting pan that has been coated with cooking spray.

Mix together the honey, 1/2 cup white wine, olive oil, thyme, basil and lemon peel in a small bowl.  Pour over the pork loin. Pour remaining 1/2 cup white wine into the roasting pan.

Bake at 375 degrees for 45-60 minutes or until a thermeter inserted in the loin registers 150 degrees.  Place pork on serving platter and let rest 15 minutes.

Strain the pan juices into a saucepan.  Boil over medium heat for 3 minutes.  Remove from heat.

Slice pork to desired thickness, arrange on serving platter and drizzle with sauce.  Serve remaining sauce on the side.