Back of the box recipes- Penne Pasta with Spinach & Tomatoes
I always see the recipes on the backs of boxes and insides of labels, but I never actually use them. I tend to think they’re there just to make the food look good. Plus, I usually don’t even have the ingredients on hand that those funky recipes tend to call for.
Well for whatever reason, I decided to change that and try out some of those dishes that are supposed to be oh-so-good.
Success! I already had everything and it turned out delicious.
I even got the dingy orange/yellow color going on to match the picture on the box, woo! Really, though, the pasta was more this color and was much more appetizing than the grainy box image let on.
Recipe, in case you can’t read the box:
Penne Pasta with Spinach and Tomatoes
Ingredients:
8 oz penne rigate
3 oz chopped pancetta or bacon (about 4 or 5 slices)
2 T olive oil
2 cups baby spinach (I used frozen and it was fine)
1 large garlic clove, minced
1/4 red wine vinegar
1 1/3 cups grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
1/3 cup parmesan (good without it, too)
Prepare pasta according to package. While cooking, saute pancetta in olive oil until crisp. Remove from pan, leaving oil in pan, and set aside. Add spinach and garlic to pan, sauté until wilted. Add vinegar and cook for 2 minutes. Add tomatoes and cook until softened and hot (2-3 minutes). Add drained pasta and bacon to pan and gently toss. Sprinkle with cheese. Serves 4.
Ladybugs on boats and bacon caterpillars – Tyson grilled chicken
I guess they’re more like rafts, since I didn’t add bacon sails like I considered, but still better than ants on a log.
Actually, my final dish is completely different than what I originally had in mind. Tyson and Foodbuzz sent me a coupon to try out Tyson’s new Grilled & Ready items. Turns out, my store only carries the chicken variety and not the steak like I was planning on, so those plans got scrapped.
Then I thought they were more stick-like and less flat, so my ideas involving various sized cubes wasn’t really going to look right. The next step I got mostly right, realizing they were larger pieces, but I was a bit disappointed to see that it wasn’t all strips like I thought it’d be.
See? There are a fair number of chicken strip type pieces but most weren’t very long and there were way more “bits” than I would’ve expected. Oh well. At least there were plenty of little pieces to taste test, I guess. :P
Ultimately, instead of the chicken becoming the main focus of the dish like would be typical of a review, the pieces were used as vehicles for my ladybugs. Had there been more full pieces like there should’ve been, there would’ve been way more ladybugs.
I wanted some bacon caterpillars, but wasn’t sure how well they’d hold up.
To get this little guys, I sliced turkey bacon into smaller strips, folded it onto toothpicks (skewers for the larger snake-esque ones, and just free form with the squiggly ones), and baked them on an greased baking sheet.
They slid off surprisingly well, but that left me with some holes to deal with. Which of course meant, more smiley faces. :P
It looks more like a ghost there, huh? Ooooooo.
While I’m at it, I had some other, um, odd turnouts. Before I settled on exactly how to make the ladybugs, I tried several variations.
Some were obviously better than others. When I was trying to cut the tomatoes the other direction, I got some weird lumpy ones, so I added smiley faces to those, too, and made ‘em look like something from Monsters Inc.
Alright, alright, enough pictures. Anyway, Tyson’s Grilled & Ready chicken was definitely tasty. L even said it was her favorite part of the dish, even over and above the bacon (*gasp*). It stayed tender and moist, heated up quickly, and the grill marks were a nice touch. I do wish the pieces had been more uniform in size and shape, but oh well, it tasted great and gave me a reason to split up the package into two dishes.
Salmon guacamole wonton cups – Work what ya pantry gave ya
Okay, so the song is really Shake What Ya Mama Gave Ya, but the idea is the same…..work what you have.
On one of many nights where I just didn’t feel like cooking much at all and hadn’t gone grocery shopping in a while, these babies were born with little effort and items already sitting in my pantry.
The girls loved them. And I was happy they were edible and only took 10 minutes to throw together.
What’s in them?
- A can of salmon, a can of spicy diced tomatoes on the bottom
- An avocado chopped small and mixed with sour cream (mayo or cream cheese would work, too), lemon juice, and some salt
- Baked wonton cups made by slicing eggroll wrappers into quarters, putting in muffin tins, spritzing with cooking spray and salt, and broiling for 3-4 minutes
- Chopped chives sprinkled on top because as L says, it makes them “look fancy,” and suddenly a million times more appealing to them.
Yay for another laziness-inspired success.
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