What's Cookin'?: A Ritzy Meal

It was a ritzy night here in the Raindance house.

You may be interpreting "ritzy" as fancy, and if that is so, you are mistaken. It definitely wasn't fancy. On the menu tonight was:

Ritz Chicken and Ranch&Ritz Asparagus

I got the recipe for the chicken here.

The asparagus, I've eaten it before some where so I try to mimic that. It's super easy and yummy.

-1 lb. of asparagus

-1/2 cup of Ranch dressing

-Ritz crackers, crushed (I think I used about 12-14 crackers)

-shredded parmesan cheese

WARNING: Asparagus has a tendency to make your pee smell quite strange. I have been curious about this of phenomenon, so I did some google research. According to wisegeek.com only 40-50% of people can smell the asparagus pee smell. It's because of a certain gene. Weird, huh?

Anyway, this pee talk isn't very appetizing so I guess I'll give you the recipe now.

Simmer the asparagus in water until they turn bright green, and are cooked but still crispy (about 3 minutes). Toss them in ranch dressing. Sprinkle the ritz and parmesan cheese on top. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes, until heated through, nice and bubbly.

I messed up on a few things tonight. I said up there 1/2 cup of ranch...because I made it with 1/4 cup and it wasn't enough. Oh well, I learned. I also burnt the chicken. It was still edible, just not super wonderful. The basil made the chicken yummy though, I didn't ever know I liked basil until tonight.

So, overall, it was a good learning experience.

I took pictures but I can't find my camera now, and I'm not feeling up to looking that hard for it. You'll just have to imagine what chicken and asparagus look like covered in ritz. You can do it.

For dessert (yes, I went overboard tonight...don't expect this every week, I was just feeling ambitious): Cinnamon roll sugar cookies! Wee! Here's the recipe. Oh my goodness, seriously delicious. If you have a massive amount of free time, and preferably a KitchenAid stand up mixer, you should definitely make these. We just have a hand held mixer and I nearly killed it. This dough gets THICK...I ended up mixing the last cup or two of flour with my hands.

Anyway, this has been way too long.

Bon Appetite.

EDIT: I found my camera. Apparently last night when I was looking for it, Lindsey was sitting on it. Ha. So, here are the pictures. As you can tell, I'm mostly excited about those cookies, because they are AMAZING.

I made half of them with a yummy cream cheese icing, and half of them without. Mostly because I am planning on taking a bunch to my simulation test today to share with my nursing pals, and the icing could get messy during transport.

New Idea

Okay, before I even explain what this new idea is let me start off by saying that I may not live up to it.

Now that I've got that out there, here it is...

What's Cookin'?

It would kind of be like my "Saturday Love" posts (which, i promise will happen again very soon), but it will be a recipe I tried out that week. I have been wanting to cook more, and since my living arrangements next semester will limit my cooking opportunities to microwave only, I figured I should take advantage of that oven and stove while I can. Hopefully I can do this, I really really want to. Plus, I think Brooke will really like this.

I'll attempt to take pictures of the process, or at least the finished product. We'll see how this goes. :)

So, here's what was cookin' this week:

Taco Soup with tortilla crisps:

I got this recipe from a blog that I read, but I changed it up a bit to suit my roommates and I better.

-1 lb of ground beef

-1/2 yellow onion, diced

-garlic salt (not really sure how much, I just sprinkled it in)

-1 can of kidney beans, rinsed and drained

-1 can of pinto beans, rinsed and drained

-frozen corn (probably about 1 1/2 cups)

-2 cans of diced tomatoes

-1 can of diced green chilies

-1 taco seasoning package

-1 package of ranch salad dressing mix

And here's how you do it:

I cooked it in a crock pot, but I'm sure you could do it on the stove.

Brown the ground beef, and mix in the taco seasoning, onion and garlic salt. Dump your taco seasoned, onion, and garlicky ground beef into the crock pot and then add everything else, putting the ranch dressing packet in last. Stir well. Yeah, it's THAT difficult...you can do it though!

It should cook for a while. I let it simmer for 3 hours while we played in the snow, but I bet 2 hours would have been great.

The tortilla crisps (even more challenging, let me tell ya):

Heat the oven to 400. Cut some corn tortillas into strips, spray a cookie sheet fairly heavily with cooking spray and place the tortilla strips on it. Spray the strips with cooking spray and season with salt. Cook for 5-7 minutes, or until golden brown. I didn't cook the first batch long enough and they were a little bit chewy, but still good!

I also put a little cheese on top of my bowl of soup, and it was yummy!

It was the PERFECT snow day meal.

Let me know what you think about this new idea.