Improv Chicken Parm

A few weeks ago I had a pack of chicken breasts in my freezer, as well as pasta and sauce in the cabinet. I knew I wanted to do chicken parmesan, but was sick of just grilling the chicken.  So I looked through one of my cookbooks and found a breaded chicken strip recipe.  Deciding to work from that, I created my own variation with Italian seasonings!

I started the way my recipe said, with flour. After that I added dried basil and oregano, as well as some grated mozzarella I had in my fridge. If I was going to do it again, I wouldn't add the mozzerella, but use parmesan instead. 

Next up I cracked an egg into a bowl and mixed it with a just a small amount of milk. I then dipped the chicken into this mixture, followed by the flour/cheese mixture and then into the skillet, which I had poured a bit of olive oil into (regular oil works too). 

There are a few pieces that I know I burned, but it was really hard to gauge with the breading on it. Overall, I think I did a good job. 

While those were frying, the pasta was boiling, because what is chicken parm without pasta?!?!

And the end result chicken. It actually tasted really good! Even the burned bits turns out well. 

End result? One amazing tasting meal!

~Lisa

Pasta sauce solutions

Sorry I haven't posted much, this is still a new blog to me and I am getting the bugs worked out.

Today I wanted to share something I like to do on a college student's budgets for some of my meals: Pasta!

Now, as someone who is trying to stay healthy, I like to do marinara, because it has next to nothing bad in it (if you get the right kind).  But it also usually isn't the best by itself either.  To save money, I always buy the cans of Hunts for $1 at Dillons, then doctor them up myself.

For me, doctoring up pasta sauce usually just involves a bit of Italian seasoning (mixture of basil, oregano, rosemary) but tonight I figured why not try adding garlic too? 

And while I'm at it, why not parmesan cheese? 

Take all of those, plus a pound of ground beef, and mix into the sauce over medium heat.

Serve with pasta and a veggie and you are good to go!

Pasta is one of those meals I can get away with for under $5 for a whole week's worth, so I like to do it a lot. As long as I stick with healthy sauce and wheat pasta I am not doing to bad on the diet either. What do you like to put in your pasta sauce ?

~Lisa

Salmon Adventures

Good Morning! I just have to share with you what I made for dinner last night! It was so yummy. :)

Summer Salmon over Cilantro-Lime Rice with Kale

Salmon is a great meal for anyone looking for their Omega-3 fatty acids, as well as the protein and amino acid content. Overall, salmon is considered one of the healthiest fish you can eat. 

I have had the salmon in my freezer for awhile, I just wasn't sure what to do with it so I put off cooking it. Finally I did some hunting around Pinterest and found a few recipes that sounded good. I settled on this one because it was easy and the ingredients were few and cheap.

The first thing the recipe calls for in marinating your salmon.  It starts with lime juice, which I got fresh via some cheap limes from Farmer's Market. I figured why not? 

2 tsp lime juice,

2 tsp cilantro (supposed to be dried, but all I had was fresh)

1 tsp honey 

I actually doubled it since it did not look like enough for the amount of salmon that I had. Once again, being me, I didn't fully measure when I doubled it, I more or less just dropped some cilantro in the mixture and called it good. Recipe for disaster? We'll see. 

The next step is to let the salmon marinate while you prepare the rice. I let it soak in a tupperware container for awhile, as shown below. I attempted to take the skin off part of it, so it would cook better, but that didn't end well for the 2 pieces I had tried, so I left it in tact for the other two. It's so weird to still see scales on my fish though!

1/2 lb raw kale
1/4 cup cilantro
1 tsp lime juice
pinch of salt
3-4 diced scallions
2 cups cooked brown rice

Once again, measuring was out the window because I didn't have a scale nor did I care how much kale I had. Never having eaten kale before, I was a bit timid about it anyways. 

Putting the kale and lime juice in a pot, I started to cook it, allowing the kale to wilt. It was already starting to smell amazing!!

Luckily for me I had a box of brown rice (instant) in my cabinet already, so I prepared that viz microwave. What a pain! It takes FOREVER to cook and then is still a bit tough. Maybe I'll try the stove next time.  

Once I FINALLY got my rice done, I added it, along with the cilantro and did some mixing (you are also supposed to add scallions, but I didn't have any to add so I skipped that step-- where the heck do you find those in the grocery store?!?!)

By this point my kitchen was beginning to smell amazing and it was finally time to cook the salmon.  Pouring  a bit of olive oil into the pan, I dropped my salmon fillets and let them cook a bit before flipping over and adding the rest of the marinade. It was basically cooking in the marinade, absorbing as it went, and I think that helped the overall flavor when all was said and done.

Not really knowing how to tell when salmon is done, I just kept flipping and stirring and flipping and stirring. In the end, I think it was done, or at least I didn't get sick!

Serving it all up was such a treat! It had taken so long to prepare and smelled so good, that I almost didn't want to eat it. But I did, and you know what?! It was amazing! The perfect balance of sweet and tangy in the salmon, paired with the interested flavors of the the rice lent itself to an amazing dish. If I ever do it again, there are a few things I'd change.

• Less lime juice in the rice.
• Watch how much cilantro I add.
• Don't attempt to de-skin the salmon.
• Add the scallions like it says. 

Paired with broccoli

One thing you will all come to learn about me is that I tend to cook a lot of one dish. This helps me, being a busy student, in that I can refridgerate the left overs and reheat them all week without having to cook again! So dinner for the rest of the week is this amazing salmon!

And then...the dishes. Look how many I used in the process. Was it worth it though? Heck yes!

. 

I hate doing dishes, especially in this little kitchen. But I knocked them out and now my countertop is overloaded with drying dishes! Oh well.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

~Lisa

Salsa Explosion!

Hello Everyone! Happy Monday! As my first official post, I wanted to share with you all my adventures in salsa making this past weekend. I was lucky enough to acquire many tomatoes and peppers for free last week and figured why not try? (since I don't like plain tomatoes or peppers anyways)

With the peppers and tomatoes in toe, I got together the other ingredients I needed for the basic salsa recipe my mom gave me.  (note that in the end I DID NOT follow the measurements below)

•  1/4 tsp Oregano
• 1/2 tsp Garlic powder
• 1;4 tsp vinegar
• cilantro to taste
• onions to taste

I really should have realized from the get go that this wasn't going to end well. Stuff like this never does for me, but I wanted to experiment, and experiment I did.

Starting the usual way, I chopped up the tomatoes and put them in my bowl, followed by all the other ingredients in their specific amounts. I then started adding peppers at random. I wasn't fully sure what kind of peppers I had, what with them being given to me for free. I knew I had bells, and some larger green long ones, and some small red ones. I started with bell and added a few of the long green ones. I also had some store bought Jalapenos that I decided to add. 

Looks good right?

This looked really good, really? But somehow it still tasted nasty. I think it was because (as I learned later) the tomatoes I was using were not the kind you should use for salsa and sauces, but more for just eating. Go figure. That and I fell in love with Cilantro, so I think I over added that.

Thinking maybe, just maybe it would get better, I decided to try blending and grinding it all down in the blender. The result?  A somewhat decent tasting salsa that looks like baby puke.

I really does taste all right, but the tomatoes are so acidic that I just don't think my stomach can handle it: two chips yesterday just about killed me! So for now it is sitting in the fridge. It will likely meet Mr. Garbage disposal this week sometime.  Still, I learned a lot from this experiment.

1. Know exactly what types of veggies you are using for things like this.
2. Always follow instruction amounts of what to add.
3. Don't use a blender! Or really any type of food processor. When it comes to homemade salsa, chunky is better.
4. Learn to be O.K. with you mistakes. Things happen, especially when it's the first time. Live and learn.

I hope you all enjoyed my first post, I can't wait to share more!

~Lisa

Welcome!

Welcome to "Lisa's Tiny Kitchen".  You may know me from my other blog, Wicked Artsy, or you may have just stumbled upon me some other way. Either way, welcome.

This blog is going to be all about the cooking endeavors in the tiny kitchen of my one bedroom apartment. As a college student, my goal is to become a much better cook throughout the year. Part of this goal is to share with you my ideas and recipes, most of which are usually improvised. I hope you will stick around for all the fun I am going to have!

~Lisa