Desperation in the Kitchen/Bucket List Cross Off: Spaghetti Squash

Have you ever wanted to cook something but the darn thing just looked SO weird that you felt a bit intimidated?

                                                        Enter the spaghetti squash. 

I have this weird obsession with eating seasonally (because that's when stuff goes on sale, and I'm cheap, y'all) and then I got this spaghetti squash...and it sat in my kitchen for four days because I was legitimately scared of it. Scared. A grown woman scared of a vegetable.

And then I grew up and realized if I didn't do something with it, it would go to waste and being wasteful is pretty much punishable by prison time in my house.

This recipe is a mish mash of a bunch of recipes I found on Pinterest....

What you need:
*One Spaghetti Squash
*Olive Oil
* Water
*Salt, Pepper
*Some kind of Spaghetti Sauce (I made a meat sauce)

What you do:
**Preheat your oven to 400 degrees

**Slice your squash in half lengthwise. Side note: This was probably the most time consuming part of the entire ordeal. 

Creepy looking, huh?

**Scoop out the seeds. We dried and saved ours to grow in the spring. 

**Put some salt and pepper on your squash

**Poke a few holes in your squash halves and lay them face down in a bit of water in a baking dish

**I baked mine 45-50 minutes

**Shred the flesh with a fork. It looks like spaghetti! 

**Serve with meat sauce

The verdict: It was GOOD. And even my husband who has for years refused to eat anything remotely squash-like because squash traumatized him as a child...(even though I've been putting zucchini and yellow squash in EVERYTHING, sorry honey)  LOVED it. 

Definite make again. 

As a matter of fact, there is currently a squash in my kitchen staring. me. down. 

Desperation in the Kitchen: Chicken A La King (aka my return to blogging)

I would preface this with a lengthy apology, but y'all, it's almost 1:30 a.m. and the baby is sleeping, so I need to get this typed up ASAP.

My boss made this and it was amazing. So, I stole his recipe.

This is the recipe. I tweaked a few things (like I added frozen peas, but then so did my boss, he just didn't write that up in the recipe)

The ingredients.

sauteing chicken and onion in butter, and cooking rice (it's in the covered saucepan)

Making a roux and adding the frozen peas

Cooking low and slow, and the rice, of course.
Quick backstory: until very recent years, I sucked at making rice. SUCKED. It would always turn out gummy. There's no secret as to why I don't suck, I literally googled "how to cook rice" and I've just stuck with it.

Deliciousness!

Gabe and Ella definitely approved of this dish, and I will be making it again. Bonus: I got to cross a food off my bucket list!

Desperation in the Kitchen: Chicken Gloria

Ever since I saw the idea for this dish on Sandra's Blog , I decided that I HAD to make it. You know, one of those bucket list foods. I can now cross this one off! (It's since been replaced by about 3 other dishes, but that's how it goes!)

Chicken Gloria

Recipe adapted from here .

Here's what you need:

*3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, fileted in half lengthwise (this is probably the most labor intensive part of the recipe)
*salt, pepper
*1/2 cup flour
*olive oil
*2 Tablespoons of butter
*8 oz container of fresh sliced mushrooms (I used baby bellas)
*1/2 cup of sherry wine (I used cooking wine)
*1 can of cream of mushroom soup
*1/2 cup of milk
*6 slices of muenster cheese
*chopped parsley for garnish

Here's what you do:

*Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

*Season your chicken breast halves with salt and pepper and dredge in flour

*Brown it in olive oil. It doesn't have to be done all the way. It will finish cooking in the oven.

*Place the chicken in a 9x13 casserole pan

*Melt butter in the skillet over medium heat, add mushrooms, season to taste with salt and pepper

*Cook until golden brown, then add in sherry wine. Cook another minute, then add in cream of mushroom soup and milk.

*Pour the sauce over the chicken.

*Cover with foil, and bake for 30 minutes.

*After that, remove the foil and cover with slices of muenster cheese,

*Broil for 2 minutes until cheese is melted and bubbly

*Top with parsley

You're done! It's delicious!

Desperation in the Kitchen: Gabe's Favorite Zucchini Boats

I've always been kind of indifferent toward zucchini, except that I really like it sauteed with tomatoes. (and I'm the only one in the family who likes it that way)

And then this summer, everybody seems to have had a bumper crop of zucchini, so what the heck do I do with it all?

Well, I made a lovely chocolate chip-zucchini cake, and that was awesome, but I got sick of shredding zucchini. (For those who cannot imagine why on earth I would get sick of shredding zucchini, try it sometime) I've made zucchini pizzas, and those are fine, too, but I've always wanted to try my hand at making zucchini boats.

I made a practice run of said boats yesterday (because, dude, ya'll, we have a LOT of zucchini) and when I called Gabe at work to let him know that's what he'd have for dinner, he asked "Is there going to be meat on those zucchini boats?"

Yes. There's meat.

And they are delicious, and he loves them. (It's why they're GABE'S favorite zucchini boats, after all)

Here goes.


Here's what you need:

Some large zucchini
Ground beef (I used less than a pound, but you can certainly use more)
salt, pepper
olive oil
salsa
cheese

Here's what you do

*Wash your zucchini. Cut the ends off, and slice in half lengthwise.

*Using a spoon, scoop out the pulp. When you're done, it should look something like....

...see above

*Chop the zucchini pulp, and put the zucchini "boats" in a baking dish.

*Take a moment to thank a cat for her thorough inspection of the zucchini, and for not eating them.

*Brown and drain ground beef. Add salt, pepper, some olive oil, and the zucchini pulp.

*Add salsa. (the original recipe called for tomatoes, onions and peppers, but salsa has all that stuff and is so much faster)

*Stuff the boats with the meat/zucchini/salsa mixture

*Bake at 375 for 15 minutes

*Sprinkle with cheese

*Bake til cheese melts. Yumminess!!!

Desperation in the Kitchen: White Pizza

Last week, Gabe had his first white pizza ever. And he loved it! And since I'm super duper cheap, and I don't want to spend a ton of money on takeout, I decided I must learn to make white pizza.

Everyone knows that a white pizza starts with a white (cream based, not tomato based) sauce. You can pretty much use any dough (I used naan bread, because it's a family favorite) and of course, mozzarella is a must (at least in my house). I didn't want to add a ton of different toppings, so I just used cheese and fresh basil (that I grew from seed, still super proud of that!)

The sauce recipe is adapted from this one and I'll definitely be making this again.

Here we go!

What you need:

*Butter (1/4 cup ought to do)
*2 shallots (or one giant one, like I used)
*4 cloves of garlic (or 2 giant ones)
*1 Tablespoon of flour
*Heavy cream, room temperature or slightly warm
*salt and pepper
*naan dough
*mozzarella cheese
*basil
*(whatever toppings you want: we used basil, cheese, and bacon bits)

Here's what you do

In a large skillet, melt the butter on LOW and add the shallots. You want the shallots to be translucent, but not brown. Take your time and keep the temperature LOW. You don't want the butter to brown.

Mince your garlic (or buy the already minced stuff in a jar, I just can't stand the smell of the garlic in oil) and add it to your shallots and butter. Stir constantly, until the garlic is soft.

Add your flour and stir it in, until it looks gravy-ish...

...then add your heavy cream, drizzling slowly and stirring constantly....

It's done and ready for use when you can make a smiley face in the sauce and it stays. Happy Sauce :)

Spread the sauce on your naan/dough/whatever.

Add your cheese and toppings. This is where Gabe told me that my pizza looked like it had a frowning face on it.

So, I had to fix it. (cough, OCD)

Bake at 400 degrees until the cheese melts. I have major problems with cheese browning in the oven. I don't like it. But you can totally bake it until the cheese is brown, whatever makes you happy.

Disclaimer: I will not be held responsible for any husbands/kids/whoever wanting to lick the skillet. Not.my.fault.

Verdict: Well, he licked the skillet....