Recipe Reinvention: "Leftover" Pasta, Carbonara Style

This past week we had some leftovers, and when I say some, I mean VERY LITTLE, but I was determined to make lunch for my husband and me out of it on Friday. I realized we had eggs, grated cheese, and bacon grease, and I could make a carbonara-like meal!

Here's what we had:

Leftover Ingredients:

• 1 chicken thigh, cooked and diced
• about 10 cubes of roasted potatoes
• 1 serving of rotini pasta, cooked

New Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• 1 Tbs Bacon grease (technically I guess it's a leftover....)
• 1/2 onion, sliced
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 carrot, cut up (I julienned it)
• 1 rib of celery, diced
• 1/2 cup wine
• 2 eggs, beaten
• A bit of parsley, chopped
• A few leaves of basil, chopped
• Salt to taste
• Grated cheese to taste

Directions:

1. In a saute pan, heat up the olive oil and bacon grease. Add onions, carrots and celery and a bit of salt. Once softened a bit, add the garlic and stir for 1-2 minutes to cook the garlic without burning.
2. Add in the wine and let it sizzle. Once the wine is warm, push the veggies to one side and whisk the egg into the liquid. Pour slowly. Whisk quickly!
3. Add in the pasta, chicken and potato cubes and stir till warmed through. Throw in the basil and parsley.
4. Take off the stove and add the cheese.

Voila!!! "Leftover" Pasta Carbonara.

Crockpot Dinner: Sweet and Sour Chicken

Tonight we have a bit of an Asian theme going on for dinner. I decided to try making Clinton Kelly's version of sweet and sour chicken in the crockpot, but I had to make some adjustments to the recipe. Most importantly, I thought I had orange marmalade....turns out I had apricot (it was in German and I didn't know any better). So I put in some of that, and added in a clementine plus it's peel to help up the orange flavor. I also didn't brown the chicken, which will make a difference, but being 31 weeks pregnant, it just wasn't a top priority for me today.

Here's the recipe I ended up actually making. I had to use the picture from The Chew's website, because we ate most of it! Ours didn't end up as caramelized, but it was still delicious!



Ingredients:

• 1 package of chicken thighs
• Salt
• freshly cracked Black Pepper
• About 6 oz Apricot Jam
• 1 clementine (peel plus the juice - could have used more but that's all I had)
• 3 tablespoons Soy Sauce
• 3 tablespoons BBQ Sauce
• 3 tablespoons Rice Vinegar
• 2 teaspoons Red Chile Flakes
• 1 inch Fresh Ginger (peeled and sliced into coins)
• 2 carrots, in large chunks
• 1/2 package of mushrooms, halved
• 1-2 scallions (sliced on bias)

Directions:

1. Place the chicken in the bottom of the crockpot, and add salt and pepper
2. Mix together the jam, soy sauce, BBQ sauce, rice vinegar, chili flakes, ginger, and the clementine juice and peel
3. Pour the mixture over the chicken
4. Cook on low 2-3 hours or high 5-6 hours
5. About 1/2 hour before the end of cooking, add in the mushrooms and carrots
6. After it's cooked, serve over rice with the scallions

I also served it with Szechuan green beans with oil, garlic, ginger, crushed red pepper, a bit of soy sauce, a bit of rice vinegar, and some salt.

What's your favorite slow cooker recipe?

Reinvention Recipe: BBQ Chicken

Over the weekend we had a lot of friends over and got DELICIOUS catering from Willard's BBQ. Somehow, even though I underestimated, we ended up with leftovers galore. I froze a small amount of beef brisket and pulled pork for once baby Chickpea arrives, and we had my in-law's for lunch Sunday, but there is still so much chicken I had to get a little creative.

Today at work I asked my colleagues what to do with the leftover BBQ chicken. Luckily it has BBQ dry rub seasonings but no sauce. One colleague mentioned enchiladas, so that's what we're doing! Except I'm going with crunchy taco shells because they sounded yummy.

Here's a picture of the ingredients:

Pictured above:

• Leftover BBQ Chicken (will get shredded)
• Enchilada sauce
• Taco Shells
• Lettuce
• Plain yogurt (instead of sour cream)
• Cilantro
• Refried beans
• Other options: salsa, tomatoes, shredded cheese

All I did was heat the shredded chicken in a skillet with some enchilada sauce and heat up the beans and taco shells. Voila...dinner!