Arroz Con Pollo with Three Olives

Arroz con Pollo

Chicken and rice is a great staple for dinner, but when it's Arroz con Pollo, it's even better! This version has 3 different olives in it, added before most of the cooking so they soak up all the lovely flavors mingling in this dish. Cooking it with bite-sized chunks of chicken rather than whole pieces speeds the process so this delicious dinner is ready in no time.

Arroz Con Pollo with Three Olives
Printable Recipe
Hands-On Time: 20 minutes
Ready In: 60 minutes
Serves: 8
Cost Per Serving: $1.25

Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves - minced
1/2 cup sliced green onion
1 large green pepper - diced
1 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts - cut into 1-inch cubes
5 cups chicken broth
2 1/2 cups long-grain rice - uncooked
1 cup frozen peas
2 cans (28 ounces) whole tomatoes - diced and drained well
1/3 cup Spanish olives
1/3 cup ripe black olives - pitted
1/3 cup ripe green olives - pitted
2 teaspoons paprika
1 bay leaf
pinch saffron - optional

Directions:

1. Heat a large deep skillet over medium-high heat and add oil. Saute green peppers until they start to sweat or leach juices. Add garlic and onion and stir.
2. Scoot veggies to the side of the pan making a clear center. Add chicken and cook just until no longer pink.
3. Remove veggies and chicken and stir in stock, rice, peas, tomatoes, olives, paprika and saffron and bay leaf. Add chicken and veggies back in.
4. Lid tightly and reduce heat to low. Cook for 20-30 minutes or until rice is tender.
5. Remove bay leaf, fluff rice and serve.

Slow Cooker Goulash

It's finally warming up here in eastern Pennsylvania which is a blessing and a curse at once. I'm thrilled that winter has finally ended, but warmer weather in Pa more often than not brings high humidity. Some days even the A/C can't cut through it and cooking is the furthest thing from my mind.

There were years we didn't have A/C and learning to feed everyone regardless of the climate was always a challenge. I put my slow cooker to good use for those days and it helped immensely to keep the heat in the kitchen to a minimum.

This is one recipe that I love for its simplicity. it packs a lot of flavor and is very easy to put together.
Goulash is a Hungarian staple though this version is not truly Hungarian in nature and more Americanized with the use of noodles rather than potato dumplings. Slow cooking the beef makes it fork-tender and the resulting sauce is heavenly. Chuck roast is best, but other cuts of beef will work well with the low-and-slow cooking method.

Slow Cooker Goulash
Printable Recipe
Hands-On Time: 10 minutes
Ready In: 6 hours
Serves: 6 to 8

Ingredients:

2 pounds chuck roast cut into 1-inch cubes
1 large yellow onion - diced
3 cloves garlic - minced
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
3 Tablespoons Hungarian paprika
1 teaspoon ground caraway seed
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 Tablespoons flour
1 cup water
10 ounces wide noodles - cooked
sour cream for garnish

Directions:

1. Place beef in the bottom of a slow cooker liner. Top with onion.
2. Combine water, tomato paste, salt, paprika, sugar, Worcestershire, caraway and flour together until well blended.
3. Pour over beef and onions and set slow cooker to low heat. Cook for 4-6 hours on high setting or until beef is very tender. Taste for seasoning and add salt as needed.
4. Serve beef over hot cooked noodles and top with sour cream as desired.

Asparagus and Leek Quiche

Asparagus and Leek Quiche

Quiche is delicious any way you slice it, but spring veggies like leeks and asparagus make it even better. Lightly sauté the asparagus to bring out even more flavor. Change the cheese to anything you like if Swiss is too heavy for your palate, and use green onions in place of the leeks if desired.

Asparagus and Leek Quiche
Printable Recipe
Hands-On Time: 10 minutes
Ready In: 60 minutes
Serves: 8

Ingredients:

1 pie crust
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups light cream
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
4 ounces Swiss cheese - shredded
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 leek - split lengthwise and rinsed well to remove sand and grit
8 spears asparagus cut in 4-inch lengths

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Fit pie crust into an 8-inch pie pan and crimp edges. Weight with beans or other pie weights and bake for 10 minutes. Remove weights and set aside.
3. Beat eggs until light and lemon yellow in color. Stir in cream, salt, pepper and cheese.
4. Slice leeks thinly and cook in olive oil over medium heat until limp. Add asparagus and cook for another 5 minutes until spears are crisp-tender.
5. Pour half of the egg mixture into the par-baked crust and bake for 10 minutes.
6. Top baked egg mixture with asparagus spears, fanning them out from the center like the spokes of a wheel. Sprinkle with cooked leeks and top with remaining egg mixture and put back into the oven.
7. Bake for an additional 30 minutes or until top is puffy and set. Cool for 10 minutes before cutting.

30 Days of Grilled Cheese with Land O' Lakes: Italian Beef Grilled Cheese

Italian Beef Grilled Cheese

Land O Lakes^® 4 Cheese Italian Blend is the best combination of the most flavorful Italian cheeses—Asiago,

Parmesan and Romano—blended with the creamy goodness of Land O Lakes^® Deli American Cheese. Add this delicious cheese to everything from favorite dishes to lunchbox sandwiches or burgers hot off the grill. The creamy, decadent taste truly makes each dish an everyday masterpiece. The Land O’Lakes Test Kitchens have developed recipes and tips that highlight the wide range of uses for this cheese. Find recipes, photos and tips on the Taste of Italy product inspiration page at http://www.landolakes.com/4CheeseItalianBlend.

Did you know April is National Grilled Cheese Month? And who doesn't love grilled cheese? To celebrate this, Kitchen Play and Land O' Lakes have teamed up for "30 Days of Grilled Cheese" ... Yum. There is currently a gallery at Kitchen Play that lists the 30 bloggers and their grilled cheese creations - one post for each day. What a delicious month! Click the image below to see the other recipes.

My personal favorite grilled cheese is a nutty Swiss paired with deli ham on rye. Simple, but so tasty. For this event, though I decided to do a riff on the famous Chicago Italian Beef sandwich. I sandwiched deli sliced Italian beef between slices of Land O' Lakes 4 Cheese Italian Blend deli cheese and topped it with a classic giardiniera on garlic buttered Italian bread. It was near perfection.

My oldest daughter and I shopped for the ingredients for this delicious grilled cheese and once we got everything home and tasted the cheese we were too excited to have these. The 4 Cheese Italian Blend is my new favorite cheese. It's tangy, sharp and creamy all in one and was the perfect complement to the strong flavors of the Italian beef, giardiniera and garlic bread.

I'll share the recipe below, but I have to share the most important part of this event with you:

From April 1 through May 1, Land O’Lakes will donate $1 to Feeding America every time someone pins or repins a Land O’Lakes recipe on Pinterest. That’s eight meals for a hungry family when you pin a recipe—and eight more every time anyone else repins it. Giving goes viral. Find your favorite Grilled Cheese recipe to pin on landolakes.com. 

You all know I love that last part, so please follow the link and PIN your favorites to help feed others!

Now, if you've ever had a real Chicago Italian Beef sandwich you know there's no cheese involved and there should be a good amount of au jus, but as a grilled cheese I felt the jus could stay home and the beef and cheese would pair well with the giardiniera and I was right. Give this one a try!

Italian Beef Grilled Cheese
Printable Recipe
Hands-On Time: 10 minutes
Ready In: 20 minutes
Serves: 4

4 cloves garlic - roasted in oven until soft (instructions here)
6 Tablespoons salted butter - room temperature
8 large slices rustic Italian bread
16 slices Land O' Lakes 4 Cheese Italian Blend
1/2 pound deli sliced Italian Beef
1 cup prepared giardiniera - chopped

1. Squeeze roasted garlic from skins and blend well with butter until spreadable.
2. Spread one side of each slice of bread with garlic butter.
3. Lay bread on a grill pan or other heavy bottomed pan over medium-high heat.
4. Add one slice of cheese to each slice of bread in pan.
5. Layer on beef, giardiniera and other slice of cheese. Top with remaining slices of bread.
6. Cook until bottom side is golden brown and carefully flip to other side.
7. Cook until other side is golden brown and cheese is melted. Be careful not to let your grilled cheese burn!



Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Land O’Lakes as part of the Kitchen Play Sidecar series. As always, all opinions given are my own.

Simple Strawberry Cake

Strawberry Cake

I feel I need to begin this post with a disclaimer, so I will. This cake is made with a boxed mix AND a boxed gelatin mix. So, there. If you have any arguments, feel free to dial up Tyler Florence who shared a recipe using a boxed mix in his book, Family Meal. Not only was that cake fabulous, but easy to make, and thus, more likely to be made.

This was made by request as a birthday cake, and perfect for this time of year. Because it's so easy to make but so pretty in presentation it's good for every day or to serve to company. This would also be a beautiful addition to any Mother's Day table.

Any boxed yellow cake will do and any brand of gelatin, as well. Just use the sizes recommended for best results.

Strawberry Cake
Printable Recipe
Hands-On Time: 15 minutes
Ready In: 1 hour 45 minutes (includes cooling time)
Serves: 8-10

Ingredients:

1 quart ripe strawberries, washed and hulled - leaving one with the stem and leaves
One yellow cake mix (18.25 ounces)
One strawberry gelatin mix (3 ounces)
2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar

Directions:

1. Slice all but one strawberry thinly and set aside. Slice one strawberry from end to stem being careful not to cut all the way through. Leaving stem attached, fan out berry and set aside.
2. Blend cake mix as directed on box and place half of batter in another bowl. Mix gelatin into one half of batter.
3. Pour plain batter evenly into two 9-inch round cake pans. Add strawberry batter to top and swirl with a spoon or fork. Bake as directed on box.
4. Cool cakes completely once baked and remove from pans.
5. Add powdered sugar to heavy cream and beat until fluffy.
6. Set one cake on a plate and top with half the whipped cream and half the strawberries.
7. Add second cake layer and whipped cream. Arrange strawberries in concentric circles from center out. Add berry with leaves to the center.