Chicken Tortellini Soup

This is seriously in my Top 3 Favorite Soups EVER!!!!
Its hearty, delicious, and easy.
I had this soup last summer when I was renting a room with an oral surgeon and his family.  His awesome wife made it and I fell in love with it!  However, I knew I could do a few things to make it even better.
Every time I make it, I prepare it a little different.   And it always turns out fabulous! This is just the general recipe I follow.  Sometimes I add more broccoli; sometimes more carrots; sometimes more chicken.....you get the idea.

I'd love to hear how this turns out for you!

Chicken Tortellini Soup

5-6 Chicken Breast tenderloins (3/4 lb)

1 T butter

2 T EVOO

1 t minced garlic

3/4 t Italian seasonings 

5 cups prepared chicken broth (or 1-lg. carton)

2 cans Campbell's Cream of Chicken soup

12 oz. baby carrots 

1 large head of broccoli

8 oz. tortellini (I use 3 cheese, from Costco)

1/4 t pepper

salt, to taste

Parmesan cheese (optional)

Dice chicken.  Sautee in pot with butter and EVOO.  When it's almost cooked through, toss in garlic. Season with Italian seasoning.  Add in broth and soup.  As soup warms, it will uncondense.  Add carrots and cook over medium heat 10-15 minutes.  Add in broccoli and tortellini.  Cover and continue cooking until tortellini is no longer chewy and broccoli is tender. Season with salt and pepper.  Garnish with parmesan cheese, and serve with warm dinner rolls.

For an ugly, but delicious chicken 
dinner recipe, click HERE!

Christine's UGLY Chicken

5Star Enchiladas

Credit goes to Get Off Your Butt and Bake for this recipe.
Whenever I find a recipe with rave reviews, it makes me want to make it that much more!  When I found this one, people were saying great things about it:

Seriously these are the best enchiladas you can make at home and better than almost all of the enchiladas I've had at restaurants.  We devoured them. Thanks for the deliciousness!

I just made this last night and I have to say it was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!! Thank you for the recipe!!!!! 

Made these tonight for Cinco de Mayo and loved them! 

And so, in the mood for some mexican food, I made these unique enchiladas.
They were delicious!

Even better reheated the next day.

I hate when people serve starch with more starch, so I just paired this up with a fresh green salad with homemade dressing.  It was a very filling dinner and we definitely had leftovers!

I'd love to hear about how these turn out for you!

FiveStar Enchiladas

1 lb. lean gr. beef 

1 can kidney beans, drained & rinsed

1-10.5 oz. can corn, drained

1-4 oz. can diced green chilies

1/4 t. salt

1/4 t. cumin

1/4 t. chili powder

1/2 c. picante sauce or salsa

2-10 oz. cans mild enchilada sauce {I used 1 mild, 1 medium}

1 can Campbell's Cheddar Cheese soup

10 (6 1/2 in.) fajita tortillas

2+ handfuls grated Mexican cheeses

Preheat oven to 375.

Brown gr. beef.  Drain off & blot out extra grease.  Mix in kidney beans, corn, diced green chilies, and spices.  In a separate bowl, combine salsa, enchilada sauce, and cheddar cheese soup.  Warm up slightly to help un-condense the soup.  Add about 1 cup of sauce mixture to gr. beef filling and stir.  

Put about 1/2 c. of prepared sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 pan.  Start generously filling tortillas and rolling them up, seam down.  I left the cheese out of my enchiladas because of the cheesy sauce, but you can also sprinkle some grated cheese inside of each enchilada if you'd like. Once all enchiladas are rolled up, cover with remaining sauce mixture.  Top with two generous handfuls of cheese, or more.  Cover with foil and bake for 25 minutes.  Remove foil and bake for another couple minutes, until cheese is melted.  

For another great enchilada recipe, click HERE!

Creamy Chicken Verde Enchiladas

Garlic Chicken with a Twist of Lime

Want to throw together a quick and flavorful dinner?

Forget the Hamburger Helper--make this chicken instead!

This chicken is super easy and packs BOLD flavor.  Plus, it utilizes ingredients that are usually readily available at home...so no special trip to the grocery store needed.

The guys loved the sauce this made...and I loved that I didn't have to marinate it overnight.

I coupled it with baked zucchini & squash, and some seasoned wild rice.

Oh, and it did have some kick from the cayenne pepper.  I used 1/4 teaspoon; next time I'll only use 1/8 teaspoon (but, I'm a baby when it comes to spicy foods).

Garlic Chicken with a Twist of Lime

2-3 chicken breasts, flattened & cut in half

Dry Rub:

1 t. garlic salt (or 1/2 t. garlic powder & 1/2 t. salt)

1/4 t. black pepper

1/4 t. thyme

1/4 t. dill (or parsley)

1/4 t. minced onion (or 1/8 t. onion powder)

1/8-1/4 t. cayenne pepper

1/8 t. paprika

3 T butter

1 T EVOO

extra garlic powder 

4 T lime juice

Coat chicken, both sides, with dry rub.  Sauté in a skillet with butter and olive oil over medium heat until golden brown, giving each side a generous sprinkling of garlic powder. Once cooked thoroughly, add in lime juice to deglaze pan.  Flip chicken to coat in sauce and continue cooking just a few (3-5) minutes longer.  Plate chicken, making sure to top with additional sauce.

***If you are cooking for more than 4, or want leftovers, I would double this recipe***

Soft Chocochip Cookies

 In search of a chocolate chip cookie recipe that I could throw together quickly for my boyfriend and some of his friends, I found this recipe on the blog A Chick Who Can Cook.

The corn starch is the secret ingredient that makes these so soft. This recipe yielded about 2 dozen medium-sized cookies.  Really quick and easy recipe, and didn't leave me with a ton of extra cookies!

Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 c. all-purpose flour

2 t. cornstarch

1 t. baking soda

1/2 t. salt

3/4 c. unsalted butter, softened

3/4 c. brown sugar

1/4 c. granulated sugar

1 egg

2 t. vanilla extract

1-1/2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.  In a medium bowl, combine flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt.  Set aside.  In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugars until fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla.  Slowly mix in flour mixture.  Fold in chocolate chips.  Drop by the spoonful on a cookie tray.  Bake for 8-10 minutes until the edges are barely just turning golden brown.

Grilled Honey Lime Chicken

Lots of people use ground beef as a kitchen staple, but I prefer to use chicken.  I'm always looking for flavorful main dishes that incorporate chicken because it is inexpensive, tasty, and better-for-you.  I pinned this recipe from Cooking Classy a while back.  The weather was great, so I decided to fire up the grill.

This Honey Lime Chicken turned out yummy, and I only marinated my tenderloins for 45 minutes.  Next time I make it, however, I will be planning ahead of time and marinating my chicken overnight.  I used chicken breast tenderloins which are about the size of a chicken strip, but this recipe would also work well with breasts or cutlets. 

To complete this meal, I roasted some green beans and fried up some potatoes.

Grilled Honey Lime Chicken Marinade

1/4 c. fresh lime juice + 1 T.
1/4 c. honey
2 T lime zest
2 T EVOO
1 T soy sauce
2 T brown sugar
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper
1/4 t. garlic powder
1/4 t. onion powder
1/8 t. cayenne pepper

Whisk all ingredient together.  Reserve about 1/3 c. in a separate container to brush on in the last minutes of grilling.  Pour remaining marinade over 1.5-2 lbs chicken.  (I think I made about 12 tenderloins)  Marinate overnight.

Summer Vegetable Ricotta Pasta

I made this for dinner a couple of nights ago because it seemed simple and delicious. I pinned it from this website--http://rantingchef.com/2012/07/01/no-chipmunk-cheeks-here/

& only made a few adjustments. 

First and foremost, I just added chicken because I felt like it needed some sort of "meat."  I also didn't really measure out anything exactly, as it's really a hassle to measure out 74 different seasonings and I'm not much of a "by-the-recipe" person.  As with almost all hearty pasta dishes, the leftovers were awesome and reheated well.  Lastly, if I make this again, I will probably up the quantity of vegetables I use.  If you are a veggie lover, then I would advise you to also add more than the quantities mentioned below.  

Anyway, here is the general procedure I followed:

Summer Vegetable Ricotta Pasta

• Preheat oven to 400 
• Cook about 3/4 of a 1-lb. box of your preferred pasta in a large pot with salted water--really, any pasta will work (rigatoni, ziti, macaroni, penne, etc)
• In a large saute pan over medium heat:
• Drizzle with EVOO
• Toss in the first round of bite-size veggies, in this order:
• Onion ( I used 1/4 yellow onion)
• Zucchini (I used two medium zucchini)
• Yellow Squash (I used one medium squash)
• Add in diced chicken breast (I used about 5-6 chicken breast tenderloins)
• Season with: 
• salt
• pepper
• Italian seasonings
• pinch of crushed red pepper
• whatever your heart desires!
• After a few minutes, add in a second round of veggies:
• 2-3 cloves of minced garlic
• tomatoes (I used 4-5 Campari tomatoes from Costco)
• In a medium bowl, prepare the sauce by combining:
• 1 egg
• 8 oz. whole milk Ricotta cheese (I used 1/2 of a 15 oz. container)
• 1/3 c. parmesan cheese
• splash of half & half
• fresh, chopped basil (I used ~3T)
• 1/4 t. salt
• 1/4 t. pepper
• Assemble dish:
• Place cooked pasta on bottom of baking dish 
• Cover pasta with cooked vegetables and chicken 
• Pour in prepared sauce
• Toss a few times to incorporate everything
• Sprinkle with a generous helping of cheese (I used pre-shredded 6 Italian Cheeses Blend)
• Bake for about 15-20 until cheese is melted and starting to crisp up

Delectable Cheesecake Brownies

I'm a firm believer that the more sweets you eat, the more sweets you want.

Being around people who have dessert after dinner and cookies lying around, is giving me a real sweet tooth.  As much as I try to resist, I often cave into my desires.  Chocolate is becoming a real weakness for me!  Anyway,  I made these brownies last night, just to be sweet to my boyfriend and his brother :)

Hahaha, who am I kidding?!? I made these brownies because they are soooo yummy and I was craving some chocolatey goodness.   This is a super simple recipe--don't be setback because it includes boxed brownie mix!  Enjoy :D

Cheesecake Brownies

1 box Brownie Mix (make sure the back specifies that it can fit into a 9x13")

Prepare brownie mix according to box directions.

1-8oz. package Cream Cheese, softened

1 egg

1/3 c. sugar

1 t. vanilla extract

Handful semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 9x13" pan.  Pour prepared brownie mix into pan.  Mix cream cheese, egg, sugar, and vanilla together.  Spoon over brownie mix.  Using a butter knife, swirl cheesecake and brownie layers as desired.  Sprinkle a handful of chocolate chips over the top.  Bake 25-30 minutes, until cooked through. 

Try not to eat these for every meal--they are really high in sugar and really low in beneficial nutrients!!!