Grilled Chicken Linguine Alfredo

Chicken, cheese, bacon, noodles, bread.... What more could you possible ask for? 

Lee is a huge fan of pasta... I could make it 3 or 4 nights a week and I really don't think he would get tired of it. His favorite meal is lasagna, and I do love lasagna, but I like to switch things up every now and then, and replace the red sauce with Alfredo. This week I made Alfredo with linguine noodles and grilled chicken, and it was de-lish! Here's how I made it:

Ingredients

2 slices thick cut bacon

2/3 block of Asiago Cheese, shredded or grated

2 cups Italian blend cheese

1/2 cup milk

1 square of seasoned butter

1 tablespoon of flour

1/2 tablespoon of minced garlic

1/2 tablespoon of pesto

2 chicken breast

4 oz. linguine noodles

To start, decide how you want to cook your chicken. I grilled mine because I loved the flavor the grill gives the chicken, but you could bake yours or cook it in a skillet. I thawed my two chicken breast, and threw them on the grill (mine were plain, but you could season yours with garlic or Italian seasoning if you wanted). 

While my chicken was grilling, I made my sauce. To start your sauce, cook your two bacon slices in a large skillet on medium heat. Once the bacon is cooked through, remove the bacon from the pan, but leave the grease. Throw in your butter and let it melt. Then thrown in 1/2 of your Asiago cheese and mix it in with the butter and grease using a whisk. Once your cheese is melted and mixed in with the grease and butter, add 1 cup of Italian cheese and 1/4 cup of milk. Whisk it all together and then whisk in your flour.

At this point, bring a separate pan of water to a boil and throw in your noodles. I like linguine, but you could use any type of noodle you like. Cook the noodles to your preferred texture and drain the water.

While your noodles are boiling, check your chicken. About this time, mine was done and I brought it inside and just covered it in foil and set it aside. If its still cooking, finish your sauce and check it again later.

Back to your sauce:  Now add your garlic and pesto. Then add in the last of your milk (1/4 cup),  2nd half of your Asiago cheese, and your last cup of Italian cheese. The reason I don't just dump all of the cheeses and other ingredients in at once is because by putting in a little at a time, this helps me get my texture just right.Once you add your garlic and pesto, you can taste your sauce and see if you like the texture. If your sauce is too thick, add some more milk, or leave out some of the second round of cheese. If its too runny, add a little more flour and cheese.

I like my Alfredo pretty thick. This is what mine looks like when I make it. 

Once you get your sauce the texture you want, mix in your noodles. Chop up your grilled chicken and bacon into bite size pieces and stir the meat in as well. I do this all in the same skillet I made the sauce in.

Final product! 

Cook up some garlic bread, throw together a salad, and dinner is served! This recipe serves 4 adults as an entree, or 6-8 adults as a side.

*Note: By using all of the ingredients above, your sauce will be pretty thick. It will be more of a coating to your noodles rather than a runny sauce. Kind of like the Carbonara at Olive Garden... YUM! My favorite! 

Dinner is served! 

Super Loaded Baked Potatoes

Some nights I come home after work and I already have dinner all planned out, but some nights I come home and have no idea what to cook. Usually when that happens, I ask Lee what sounds good. Last week I had some chicken cooking in the Crock Pot, but had no idea what I wanted to do with it. I asked Lee and he said I should shred it and make bbq chicken. Barbecue didn't really sound good to me. I was thinking that buffalo chicken casserole sounded good. Lee was trying to get over a sore throat and he didn't want anything spicy.  Since we couldn't agree, Lee suggested that we make loaded baked potatoes. That way we could each have what we wanted. He's so smart! On this night, we even used paper plates and kept dinner simple. Here's how we made them: 

Ingredients 
1 lb. shredded, cooked chicken
6-8 potatoes
Butter
Your choice of sauce: Lee used bbq, I used Frank's Buffalo Sauce & ranch
Shredded cheese, we used colby-jack
Bacon bits, veggies, or any other topping that sounds good


To start, I used Mix and Match Mama's Perfect Chicken recipe. I cooked my chicken in chicken broth. Once the chicken is cooked, shred it with a fork. This night, I cooked a full pound of chicken, but I only shredded enough chicken for our 2 potatoes. We ate the rest of the chicken as left overs on salads and quesadillas later in the week. If you are cooking for a larger family, this recipe makes enough chicken to load up 6-8 potatoes.

Next, we stabbed our potatoes with a fork and cooked them in the microwave. Our microwave has a Potato button, but we flip them over about half-way through cooking.

Once your potatoes are soft, put them on a plate and cut them in half. Butter your potato, and add your chicken. Then add your sauce, cheese, and any other ingredients that sound good to you.

I made a buffalo chicken bacon ranch potato, so I used butter, chicken, buffalo sauce, bacon bits & shredded cheese. Then I microwaved my potato for about 15 seconds to melt the cheese, and topped with ranch.

Lee had a bbq chicken potato, so he used butter, chicken, bbq sauce, and shredded cheese.

Enjoy! You can personalize this anyway you want. Some other potato ideas we have tried in the past: Mexican potato with chicken, queso, and salsa. Regular loaded potato with butter, bacon, cheese, sour cream, & green onions. Instead of cooking crock pot chicken, you can even use left-over ham, chicken, sausage, steak, etc, and use this as a way to get rid of your left-over meat or veggies, The options are endless!

Chicken Nacho Dip

This dip is super simple to make, and is great served as an appetizer, and is also good as a meal. Here's how I make it:

Ingredients

1 pound cooked chicken

1 block Velveeta Queso Blanco 

1 jar of your favorite brand salsa

To make my chicken, I used Mix and Match Mama's perfect chicken recipe. I cooked my chicken in chicken broth. Once your chicken breasts are cooked, remove them from the broth and set them aside. Dump your broth, and rinse out your Crock Pot. (Or simply throw away your crock pot liner if you use one.) 

Chop your block of Velveeta and put your chunks of cheese at the bottom of the crock pot.

Next, chop your chicken into bite size chunks. Some of it may fall apart on its own from being cooked in the Crock Pot, and that's okay.  Layer your chicken on top of the cheese chunks in the Crock Pot. 

Last, dump your entire jar of salsa into the Crock Pot. 

Cook your dip on high for about an hour and 15 minutes, or until your cheese is melted, be sure to stir it (mix thoroughly) about halfway through, and again at the end. Once your cheese is fully melted, change your crock put heat setting to warm. 

Serve poured over tortilla chips as an appetizer, or make it a meal, like I did! I whipped up some beans and rice, and served them with our chicken nachos. 

Mexican night is always a big hit at our house! 

Doritos Chicken Casserole

I saw this recipe shared on Facebook a while back and thought it looked so yummy! I re-vamped it a little, and made it for dinner one night last week. It was a big hit! Quick and easy to make, which is always good for busy week nights. Here's how I made it:

Ingredients

3 chicken breast cooked and shredded.

1 can cream of mushroom soup (Or you could use cream of chicken soup, too)

1 can Rotel (In this recipe, I used two, but it was too tomato-y for our liking, so next time I will only use 1 can)

1 bag Nacho Cheese Doritos

1 8oz. bag Mexican style shredded cheese

Cooking Spray

To start, you need to get your chicken ready.  If you have chicken breasts at home, you could always cook them in a crock pot and shred them up. I didn't plan that far ahead, so I bought a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store. I love using rotisserie chicken because its already cooked and it saves me some time! I pulled off the chicken legs and wings and set them aside. Lee and I ate these later this week. Next, I pulled all the other meat off the bone and shredded it up. I figured that would equal to about 3 chicken breasts like the recipe called for.

Next, I mixed up the Chicken, cream of mushroom soup, and Rotel. If you just use one can of Rotel, your mixture won't look as tomato-y as the pic below. For Lee and I, 2 cans was too much tomato. So next time, I'm planning to just use one can. 

Next, take 1/3 of your Doritos out of the bag and set them aside. Keep the other 2/3 in the bag, and crush them up. They don't have to be broken into teeny tiny pieces, but about bite size is good. 

Spray your 13x9 pan, and cover the bottom with your crushed Doritos. Then spread our your chicken mixture on top. 

Next, layer the 1/3 of unbroken doritos on top. 

Cover with cheese and bake at 350 degrees until cheese is melted and chicken is warm. I cooked mine for about 25 minutes. 

Once your cheese is melted, dinner is served! 

If you read my post, leave a comment! I love reading feedback from my blog posts.

Shrimp, Steak, & Bacon Quesadillas

Everyone has those nights where you really just don't feel like cooking, or you simply don't have time. Tonight, for me, was one of those nights. I have an assignment due for my online class on Saturday, and reading to do for my night class tomorrow. Thursday and Friday night I'm going to be busy making cupcakes for my nephew's birthday party this Saturday, so tonight I really need to get my assignment and reading done for my classes (Check out my page later this week to see my cookies n cream cupcakes). Since my night is already pretty busy, I decided to make a quick dinner: quesadillas.

I love making quesadillas because there are no rules! You can put almost anything in them and they'll be good. Last night I grilled steaks for Lee and I, but I couldn't finish all of mine. I also had a few shrimp thawed out that didn't get used from our Yummy Shrimp Tacos last week, and some corn left over from our steak dinner. These three things, along with some chopped bacon, onions, and mushrooms got put into our quesadillas. Here's how I made them:

Ingredients:
2 tortilla shells
1/3 cup shredded cheese (I like Colby-Jack)
*left-over meat and veggies (I used steak and peppers, but chicken or shrimp would both good too!)
*1 chopped mushroom
*1/3 chopped onion
*2 slices of bacon, cooked and chopped
*These ingredients are all optional! Use what you have in your fridge, and personalize this to what your family likes.

Each recipe makes 2 servings.

I had some bacon thawed out that needed to be cooked up, so I took two pieces of bacon, cut them in half, and cooked them in the skillet. Once they were cooked, I removed the bacon and set on a paper towel, and left my grease in the skillet. Once the bacon cools, cut it into smaller pieces and set aside with the other chopped meats. If you're wanting to eat healthier, skip the bacon all together and just heat some extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) in your skillet.

Next, I chopped my onion and mushroom and threw them in the skillet with the bacon grease. Once the onions were nearly soft, I threw in my chopped steak, de-tailed shrimp, left-over corn, and chopped bacon pieces. I stirred all of them up over medium heat until they were all warm.

Then I plugged in our quesadilla maker and put a tortilla on the bottom. (If you don't have a quesadilla maker, you can use a Panini press, or simply a skillet on the stove.) Fill the tortilla with your heated food mixture and throw some cheese on top. I like lots of cheese, so I used about 1/3 cup, but you can go more or less depending on your preference. Slap another tortilla on top, close the quesadilla maker, and let it cook. Once the tortilla shell is browned, take it out a cut into triangles using a pizza cutter or kitchen scissors.

I like to serve my quesadillas with queso and salsa. I love this meal because dinner can be ready in about 20 minutes!

If you read my post, leave a comment. I love reading feedback from my blog posts!