Chinese Honey Chicken

My baby boy loves chicken. He will stuff his cheeks with it like a squirrel and then chew and chew and chew with his little gums just trying to swallow it all. Then he decides he is thirsty and spits out everything he couldn’t swallow to take a drink. Because he doesn’t want to waste his precious chicken he normally fishes everything he spit out from his lap (where it falls because of the gap between him and his tray) and he continues to eat it. It always makes me laugh when I see his little arms disappear down to his sides and I know he is trying to find some more food to eat. Funny baby.

This is a quick and easy Chinese dish that is sweet and goes perfectly over white rice. The chicken ends up being very moist and practically melts in your  mouth.

Ingredients:

1/2 C Honey
1/2 C Water
4 Cloves Garlic Minced
2 tsp Rice Vinegar
1 1/2 tsp Salt
4 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts Cubed

Combine all ingredients in a large skillet. Simmer for 15 Minutes.
Let Sit for 15 Minutes.

Tips from Kj:

Alternatively you can cook this in a crock pot on high for 3 hours or low for 5-6.
Add a drained can of pineapple chunks, sliced onion, mushrooms, and diced bell peppers for a nice Chinese meal!

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Balsamic Chicken Pasta Bowls

I have been off the map. I might be popping in and out for a bit. I know this isn’t helping me get more followers but I have kinda decided that for now at this point in my life this blog just has to be for me. Not for my followers (even though I LOVE YOU ALL!) I just have to blog when I can and not beat myself up if I am not posting regularly. Life is crazy we are at a full rolling boil right now! I know eventually we will get back to our light simmer and then you will be seeing a lot of me!

For now we are getting ready for family to come, for my husbands graduation, we are packing, we have an almost 1 year old who is having a party this weekend,we have family pictures, zoo trips, did I mention packing to move (but really packing our stuff to store and trying to figure out how to live out of suitcases)? On top of that trying to sell every single thing we own. (Pretty much) Yikes. Wish me luck and don’t worry. I’ll  be back and better than ever soon! 

Good news is that I have a super easy dinner that practically makes itself for you. Just in case you are very busy too :)
Make a marinade of:

1/2 C Balsamic Vinegar
1/4 C Baking Soda
1 tsp Oregano
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp minced Garlic

Pre-Heat Oven to 400 Degrees
Cut 4 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts into strips and place in marinade in baking pan.

Bake in oven for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile while baking make some pasta. Your favorite kind. We used rotini pasta. Delicious curly noodles! Our baby loves them too.

When finished baking pour some of the sauce and chicken over pasta and enjoy!
Tips from Kj:

I put some diced mushrooms and zucchini in the oven while the chicken was cooking. I seasoned them with Olive Oil, salt, garlic powder, and Mrs. Dash. We put this on top of the chicken on the pasta and had pasta bowls. They were so good! Pin It

I’d only eat this if….

This is what my husband said about dinner last night, “This is something you would eat if you were starving in a barren wasteland and you needed something to eat to generate saliva”

I giggle every single time I read that. Seriously I do. And I was the chef! You know that dinner was bad when your husband says something like that about the food you made and all you can do is burst into hysteric giggles.

This post is a true testament to the fact that almost every recipe you see on here is a creation of my own mind inspired by something I heard about or saw. Sometimes the creations are epic failures.

Last night I tried to make Sweet Potato Gnocchi. We have made Gnocchi before with regular potatoes and it was good, delicious, great and wonderful. One day I’ll post a recipe for it. I decided to try using the same recipe for sweet potato gnocchi. I should work the same right? Potato=potato I thought. NOT TRUE. I added more and more and more flour to the sweet potatoes and they were just not turning into dough. Finally we decided to try to just drop balls of the sticky “dough” into the boiling water and maybe we could have Sweet Potato Gnocchi Balls. ha

We covered them in a yummy butter sauce and started eating. Then we started talking about them. I was trying VERY HARD to decide they were good. I had spent so much time making them. I wanted them to be good. I was even telling my husband they were good. And then all at once my hubby was like these are just not good. It is like eating raw dough with butter sauce. I finally admitted that I agreed. He laughed at how I was trying to make them sound good. Even our baby agreed that they were gross. His high chair was full of spit out “gnocchi”.

We threw it away. We ate the asparagus it was super good. A while later we had homemade Orange Julius and muffins for post dinner dinner.

Tips from Kj:

Don’t ever make these.

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Smore’s Birthday Cake

So I have some pretty excellent baking help sometimes. My mom and Mark were in on this one and it turned out awesome! It was my dad’s birthday. We had no idea what kind of cake to make him but we had all of the ingredients for smore’s so we decided to invent a cake. It was so much fun!

Here is how to make this smore’s cake:
You need-
1 chocolate cake mix
1 1/2 cups melted chocolate chips
10 crushed graham crackers
1 Recipe marshmallow chocolate glaze (recipe below)
Bag of Small Marshmallows
1. Bake a chocolate cake. Flip out of the pan when finished baking and let cool.
2. Take your melted chocolate chips and spread over the cooled cake.
3. Sprinkle 2/3 of the crushed graham cracker over the top of the chocolate chips
4. Make the marshmallow glaze frosting stuff (below…and a total invention but it was so good!) and pour over the cake.

Glaze Ingredients
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
6 large marshmallows
4 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup plus
1 teaspoon vanilla
Mix the powdered sugar and cocoa powder together in a bowl. Then place the marshmallows, butter, and milk in a medium-size pan over low heat. Stir until the marshmallows are melted remove the pan from the heat. Pour the powdered sugar and cocoa mixture over the marshmallow mixture. Add the vanilla and stir until the frosting is smooth and shiny….and yummy!! :)
After we had finished the above steps making the chocolate cake even more chocolaty and delicious than it started out as we added one more thing:
MARSHMALLOWS!

We stuck them under the broiler so they could get nice and toasty!

We ended up calling it the Chocolate Smore’s cake.

DELICIOUS! :) (if you like chocolate anyways…Mark helped create this but it was not his favorite because it was a chocolate dream and he doesn’t really like chocolate) My dad on the other hand loved it because he loves chocolate and doesn’t like frosting so the chocolate glaze was just what he needed!

Tips from Kj:
Add some melted marshmallows or marshmallow fluff to the melted chocolate chip layer in step #2 to make it more Smore Like

Adding caramel to step 2 is also delicious!

Instead of chocolate chips use chunks of your favorite candy bar. Sprinkle them on top too!













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Stuffed Crust Pizza

We love love love pizza here in our home. We especially like making our own pizza because we like being able to load it with as much cheese as we want and as many toppings as our hearts desire. I’m sure some of you can relate with me when I say, “Sometimes you get your nice delivery pizza and it is a sad disappointment when you open the box and can still see the red sauce or there is like one olive” haha I don’t think pizza should be disappointing so…you should make this one and I promise you will be so happy you didn’t call pizza hut!

First Make some  Pizza Sauce:

(This is how I make pizza sauce EVERY TIME…we love it especially because you can use extra for English muffin pizzas)

2 tablespoons oil
1/2of an Onion diced
3 cloves garlic diced
2- 14 oz cans of petite diced tomatoes

I used our pizza seasoning for a while until we ran out now I use Thyme, Basil, and Oregano to taste…Just shake some of each in…taste it and add more if you feel like it needs it.

2 pinches of salt-or more to taste
A couple of shakes of pepper

Simmer this while you prepare the rest of your pizza (for about 10 minutes)

Next Make THIS pizza dough recipe. I loved it! It rose so nicely and tasted delicious! The only thing we changed was to do 1/2 wheat flour (we’re trying to be healthy)

Now you are ready to assemble your pizza. You need:

Spinach Leaves
Basil Leaves
Mozzarella Cheese
Mushrooms
Pepperoni
Sliced Tomatoes
(Or whatever you want)

Roll your dough out about 1 inch bigger than the pan you are using. Cut Mozzarella cheese into pieces as thick as you want…and lay them all around the edges. (Aww look at my cute hubby helping me)

Then fold the dough over the cheese and press it together.

Now you are ready to add your ingredients. I love to put the sauce down and then everything else and THEN the cheese! We put more pepperoni on top of the cheese for dramatic effect. I just love having the cheese on top and all of the other toppings hidden like a surprise underneath.

Bake at 450 for 15 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and delicious :) Eat and Enjoy!

Tips from Kj:

The ingredients I listed were just what we like on our pizza. Other ideas are:
Artichokes, Peppers, Onions, Olives, Ham, Pineapple, Sausage….etc. You know Pizza Stuff!

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Boiled Then Baked Red Potatoes

So over the last week things have been crazy with my blog. After finding out that my blog name wasn’t as original as I thought it was I decided to go into a blog transforming process and give it a new name and a new look! There was a lot of brainstorming involved. Names were thought of that made me so excited only to find that they were already taken by someone who was smart to snatch it up. Sometimes I’d think of a name and find a blog with hundreds of followers and think, “Dang! That could be me!” but nonetheless it isn’t…I am pretty new on this journey in the blogging world though and I hope that by re-vamping my blog I can find new followers and help new people find delicious recipes!
After sending a long list of names to my mom one of them made her get the “On top of spaghetti…all covered with cheese” in her head. She text me back “On Top Of Spaghetti!!!” and the blog title was made. I decided to change it up to give it a more irish feeling. Because I am 1/4 Irish. NOT! haha My husband had the idea to do the O’ and I loved it! What would I do without my family to help me with my lack of creativity? I love them.

I have a lot of new exciting recipes to share! Over the next few months we are going to be graduating from college, moving somewhere in the country (location still unknown), going to a wedding, and going on a cruise. I am excited to share with you my food adventures along the way!

Now for Boiled and Baked Red Potatoes. This recipe was inspired by the Pioneer Woman. Her recipe is here. I apparently do not have the finesse of the Pioneer Woman to make perfectly cookie shaped smashed red potatoes. Mine ended up being a whole conglomeration of smashed up red potatoes on a cookie sheet. I couldn’t stop laughing when I showed my husband how my potatoes did not smash into beautiful round shapes like hers.
You need:
6-8 Red Potatoes
1/3 Cup Melted Butter
Pepper
Garlic Powder
Rosemary
Salt
Here is what you do:
Pre-Heat Oven to 450
Take your Red Potatoes and Boil them whole until you can poke into them easily with a fork (About 15-20 minutes)
Put Potatoes on cookie sheet and smash them with a potato smasher. You don’t want them to be like mashed potatoes you want some nice chunks!
Drizzle melted butter all over the potatoes and then stir them up a bit. You really want them to be covered! If they don’t seem buttery enough melt a little more.
Then sprinkle a little bit of each of the herbs over the top of the potatoes. Make sure you don’t skimp.
Bake at 450 for about 20 minutes. You want the tops of the potatoes to get nice and golden.
While you wait you can give your baby a peep. He will love you!

Tips from Kj:
Add some bacon bits  and green onion. Then in the last 5 minutes add some cheese! Almost like twice baked potatoes. Pin It

A Needed Change and What We Made Today

Hello everyone! I first want to thank all of you for reading my blog. Next I wanted to let all of you know that as you might have noticed I am changing the name of my blog to:
On Top O' Spaghetti

I'm really excited about this change because it is the start of amazing things to come and the inspiration for the new places I want to take my blog. I just wanted to give you all a heads up so that you won't be sad when you try to go to Cupookies and it is missing.
So be sure to change your links to my blog to:
ontopospaghetti.blogspot.com before Friday Night so you don’t miss my next post!
Make sure you only put "O" spaghetti. Not "of" spaghetti...or you will still be lost!
Thanks for following!

Also go to the store and get some discount Easter peeps and make these today: 

Peeps Rice Crispy Treats

We did and we are SO HAPPY! :)

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Garlic Lemon Pasta with Salmon

I love a nice Salmon Fillet grilled to perfection. I also have a husband in the MBA program at BYU. So needless to say we don’t have perfectly grilled salmon very often. But we do have cans of salmon. (Like canned tuna fish but pink!) So now I ask all of you to look at the picture below and pretend that there is a nice juicy blackened salmon fillet on the top of this pasta. Because one day…there will be. Thank you.

You need:

1/2 Cup Lemon Juice (about 2 lemons)
1 Tbsp Garlic Minced (about 4 Cloves)
1/2 Onion diced
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
1/2 tsp Salt
2 tsp honey
1 tsp mustard
1 tuna fish sized can of salmon

2/3 package cooked fettuccini noodles

You will also boil some pasta. Save about 1/4-1/2 cup of the pasta water after you drain the pasta. You will need this in the last step.

First sauté the garlic and onions in the oil until the onions are nice and transparent looking. (This is my favorite part! Smells so good!!) This takes about 4 minutes.

Meanwhile mix all of the other ingredients in a bowl including salmon. When the onions and garlic are ready add the sauce/salmon mixture and simmer for 3 minutes. Then add the cooked pasta to the sauce. This is where you need the pasta water. If the pasta is seeming a little dry add some of the water. We added about 1/4 cup.

Tips from Kj:

Like I said…a nice salmon fillet on this would be so yummy!

Mark loves to put parmesan cheese on this.

If you don’t have salmon use tuna or chicken!

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