Friday, March 28, 2008

Leftover Recipes

I made a couple of things using leftovers from the Easter dinner that turned out pretty well and I thought I'd share the recipes.

These use the Lemon-Rosemary Roasted Chicken and the Zesty Asparagus mentioned in my previous entry.

Breakfast Burrito:
Chop chicken and asparagus into small pieces. About 1/2 cup of each.
Heat a thin film of veg oil in a large skillet - lightly brown chicken and asparagus.

Remove chicken and asparagus, set aside. Wipe out skillet. Scramble two eggs in the skillet. Mix back in the chicken and asparagus. Add a slice of cheese (I used provolone) and some salt and pepper.

Use egg mixture to fill two flour tortillas. Roll up tortillas burrito style. I added hot sauce to mine for a little more kick.



Leftover Casserole
For this I just modified a casserole recipe that I make quite often.

Cut up asparagus into small pieces - enough to cover the bottom of a casserole dish.

On top of the asparagus - layer small pieces of chicken.

In a small bowl, mix together one cup mayo, one can cream of chicken soup. 1 tsp lemon juice, 1 tsp curry powder. Pour over chicken.

Spread 1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese over the top.

Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.


The combo of the curry and the vinegar and the spices in the chicken was REALLY good. I bet you could modify these to include any meat/veg that you have as leftovers. You could change out the cream of chicken for a cream of something else as well - - use different types of cheeses. the possibilities are endless.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Easter Dinner

At Thanksgiving I was unable to take pictures of the whole "Holiday Dinner" thing as my house was full of company and I was a bit busy. Easter dinner was more laid back - which means I have a blog post for you with pictures and recipes!

For Easter Dinner I made:





We'll start with the chicken. It was pretty easy.

First - prepare the following ingredients to stuff in a 3lb whole chicken.

3 lemon halves
1 small onion, quartered
1/4 cup chopped fresh rosemary
1 clove of garlic, pressed
ground black pepper
kosher salt

Rinse chicken. Rub chicken with olive oil, sprinkle with kosher salt, ground pepper, and rosemary. Stuff cavity with above ingredients.

Place chicken in roasting pan and surround with baby carrots and potatoes. Cook for approximately 2-2 1/2 hours at 350 degrees.



I made two because my roaster is so large -the leftovers will be fabulous turned into different things this week. I also set out lemon wedges to squeeze on the chicken. It was all very good!


Next - Zesty Asparagus
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1. Trim off tough ends of the aspargus.
2. Blanch in boiling water for 60-90 seconds
3. Plunge into cold water.
4. Place asparagus in bag and pour 3/4 cup balsamic vinegar dressing into the bag.

Marinate overnight, turning occassionally.

To serve - drain excess dressing into a small bowl. Arrange asparagus onto a serving dish - sprinkle with ground pepper, kosher salt, fresh parsley, and lemon zest.




The fruit salad is easy enough:



Simply cut up pieces of your favorite fruits and mix together. (I used pineapple, peaches, kiwi, and strawberries.) If you are preparing in advance - store fruit in seperate containters until just before serving so that the fruit juices do not mix and become one weird fruit - - but retain their individual flavors. I also put in two small packets of splenda because the strawberries and peaches were not all that sweet.

Leftover fruit salad was frozen into smoothie-size portions to enjoy at a later date.



This is the world's easiest dessert:

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And then put it all together for a lovely spring feast:





In the end - - the cat wonders where all the food went