What? Theme Food Week again already? Well, yes. As it turned out this month's Theme Food Week ended up following pretty closely on the heels of September's. You see, my parent's will be out of town for parts of 2 of the weeks, and then the week after that is the last week of the month (and we were trying not to squeeze it in at the very end of the month - like last month) so this past week it was.........
As you may have noticed there is a trend right now for food smash-ups. There's even a food contest show called FrankenFood, all about new smashed up food creations, and there was an article in a recent issue of Rachel Ray magazine with several different smashed up recipes (2 of which were meals this week). And what better theme for October than dishes that are as much a combination of random foods as Dr. Frankenstein's monster was a combination of parts. So as the monster came from Dr. Frankenstein's labratory perhaps these meals have come straight from.............
Dr. Frankenstein's Kitchen
{Menu}
Monday:Applebutter BBQ pulled Chicken Mac and Cheese with cornbread and green beans
{Pulled Chicken Mac and Cheese}
Ingredients:
-2-3 boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts (depending on size, I used 3 but they were pretty small)
-18 oz. BBQ Sauce (I used the applebutter bbq sauce that I've been getting from a local farm market Miller Farms Market...... it is delicious, but you can use whatever your favorite sauce is)
- Vinegar
- 1 box Pasta (elbows, nuggets,mini shells, bowties, rotini, etc.) cooked and drained
- 4 Tbs butter
- 4 Tbs Flour
- 2 cups milk
- 2 cups shredded cheese (I used colby jack to go with the applebutter bbq sauce, but you could choose a different cheese if you'd like)
- Salt and Pepper
- Dry mustard
Prepare Pulled Chicken
{1}Place chicken breasts in a pot with enough water to cover them and a spoonful of bbq sauce and a little bit of vinegar. Bring to a boil
{2} Boil chicken until done through (usually about 20-30 minutes, but I've had it take longer and I've had it take less time, depending on the size of the breasts, so make sure you check that they are actually done.)
{3} Using two forks (or however you want to do it) shred the chicken
{4}(after dumping out the cooking water) return the shredded chicken to the pot and mix in remaining bbq sauce. Heat, stirring every so often, over low-medium heat, until heated through.
Prepare Mac and Cheese
{1} Melt butter in a medium saucepan over low heat
{2} slowly add flour to melted butter, stirring continually as you do to avoid clumping. (you can use a whisk or spoon for this step, but you will need a whisk for the next step) Cook continuing to stir/whisk over low heat until a paste forms (just a minute or two)
{3} Slowly add milk whisking constantly to avoid lumps. Increase heat to medium-high and continue to whisk/stir until sauce thickens and bubbles
{4} Add Cheese and cook until completely melted. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and add a pinch or two of dry mustard (it enhances the cheese flavor. I even do this with box mac and cheese)
{5} Mix cheese sauce into cooked,drained pasta
Combine Pulled Chicken and Mac and Cheese
{cornbread} I just used a Martha White cornbread mix
{green beans} yeah.... I just warmed up canned green beans
Tuesday: off night
{Spaghetti Tacos} Cook your spaghetti as you usually would and add sauce, again as normal, then use that spaghetti to fill crunchy taco shells (leave room for toppings), our toppings bar included, ground beef, sauteed mushrooms, black olives, jalapenos, and shredded mozzarella cheese
{Roasted corn} drizzle frozen corn kernels with olive oil and season with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, spread on a baking sheet (still frozen) and broil for about 5 minutes.
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| the chicken "crust" on these seemed a little thick to me, but that could have just been me, it also could have been that my "crusts" were a little smaller around and therefore thicker than they were supposed to be since I only have 2 8 inch round cake pans and I left them at home (and was fixing these at my parents house) anyway, so I just estimated the size wrapped them in plastic wrap stacked them on a plate and froze them... |
{Chicken Parm Pizzas} the recipe is here.... this is one of the ones from Rachel Ray.... instead of just leaving it as is with the cheese on top I made ours a little more pizza-y by adding toppings such as mushrooms, black olives, and jalapenos (different toppings for different family members..... except mine, mine just had the cheese because, as you may have noticed, the toppings were leftover ingredients from the night before and I don't like mushrooms, black olives, or jalapenos lol) of course you could use any other topping you wanted, I wish I had thought to get mini pepperonis, I think that would have been good.
{broccoli} I just steamed the broccoli (although I didn't pay enough attention and way overcooked it so it ended up being more like broccoli mash by the time I mixed in a little butter and salt haha oops)
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| My ramekins are slightly smaller than what is called for in the recipe and so the "buns" were going to be a bit smaller, in trying to make the burger a little smaller to fit them better they ended up so thick we could hardly eat the whole sandwich.... I think next time I will go with thinner and the burger hanging over the edges a bit lol. |
{Ramen Cheeseburgers} another Rachel Ray recipe...... you can find it here, and of course since there were 4 of us I doubled it, as I did with the Chicken Parm recipe (although it probably could have fed 4 people, because I don't think any of us actually finished our whole pizzas, but I wanted to do an individual one for each person, since we were doing different toppings). We really liked these, but my husband says he would have likde to change the toppings up a little and take it a little more away from the typical American burger. Also we didn't use the siracha mayo that the recipe calls for we just used regular ketchup/mustard/mayo
{Homemade Fries}I just cut up several potatoes, toss them with olive oil, salt,pepper, garlic powder, and a little paprika and bake at 425 until done (the time varies depending on the type of potato, size of the fries, etc., but plan on it at least taking probably 15 minutes at the least, probably it will be more like 20-30, unless you have cut them awfully thick or thin - and that's based on using regular russet potatoes, red or white potatoes cook faster generally)
{P.S. I'm super excited about next month's Theme Food Week.... since it will be November the theme will be "Thanksgiving Deconstructed" .... what exactly does that mean? you might ask..... stay tuned and find out...........}
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