Arroz Con Pollo

I got a slow cooker recently, and one of the first things I made was arroz con pollo, which is a very tasty Cuban dish consisting of saffron rice with shredded chicken, peas, and red peppers. Slow cookers are very easy to use, because you just put all the ingredients in the pot and cook it for a long time.

Ingredients:
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
about a cup of frozen peas
1 (14 oz) can of chicken broth
1/2 a red pepper, cut into strips and sauteed lightly
1 (5 oz) packet of saffron rice
shredded cheese, to taste

Directions: Combine all ingredients in slow cooker (mine recommended using the 4-quart pot for this, but I found that the 2-quart pan was plenty big). Cook on high for 4 hours (I found that it only needed to be on high for about 3 hours and then I turned it down to low for an hour, although it was fully cooked after 3 hours on high. The most important thing is that the chicken be fully cooked.) Slow cookers naturally make the meat very tender, so after cooking you can easily shred the chicken using a fork or spoon, and then stir to combine before serving. If you like cheese, you can also stir in some shredded cheese before serving, and then you can season with salt, pepper, garlic, and paprika to suit your tastes. Note: If you want to cook this all day while you're at work, you can cook it on low for eight hours, but set it to cook on high for 1 hour before it switches to low. For food safety reasons, raw chicken needs to be cooked on high at first to kill bacteria, because it grows too fast when its cooked on low.

Avocado Corn Quesadillas

This barely even counts as a recipe, but I love to make quesadillas - they are quick, easy, tasty and involve almost no clean-up. However just using cheese and some kind of meat gets boring quickly. The other day I had some frozen corn and an avocado on hand and I decided to make an avocado-corn quesadilla.

Ingredients:
about 1/3 cup of corn (I used frozen corn but I'm sure fresh would be even yummier)
1 avocado
handful of shredded mozzarella cheese
1 flour tortilla
olive oil

Directions:
Heat olive oil in a frying pan. Chop up avocado and prepare corn according to package directions. Cook the tortilla until it is brown and crispy on one side. Top half of it with mozzarella cheese. As cheese is starting to melt, add the avocado and corn on top of the cheese. Fold over the half without filling and serve!

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

I love baked mac and cheese, and am always trying new recipes to find the perfect one. I think I finally may have found a winner in this one, which is apparently originally from Fannie Farmer.

1 8-oz package of macaroni (I actually used rigatoni, which makes it a bit more like Boston Market's mac and cheese which is my fave ever)
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
dash of salt
dash of pepper
2 cups chedder cheese, shredded (The recipe said to use good quality cheese - I used grocery store brand cheese, because that was what I had available. I can't even imagine how good it would be with really high quality cheese!)
1/2 cup buttered breadcrumbs

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cook and drain pasta according to package directions. While
pasta is cooking, melt the butter in a large sauce pan. Add the flour mixed with salt and pepper, whisk until blended. Pour milk and cream in slowly, stirring constantly. Bring to a boiling point and boil for 2 minutes stirring constantly. Turn heat down, simmer for 10 minutes stirring constantly. Add cheese, simmer until cheese melts. Add pasta to the saucepan and stir until coated. Transfer the pasta to a glass baking dish, top with buttered breadcrumbs. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes until top is golden brown. Delicious!!

Penne Alla Vodka

When I'm craving cheap, easy, comfort food there's one meal I usually turn to: penne alla vodka. I've been using the same recipe for several years and I've always gotten lots of positive feedback:

Ingredients (for 2 very generous servings or 2 smaller servings and some leftovers)
1/2 pound penne (I like to use whole wheat penne to be a *little* healther)
garlic powder
salt
pepper
1 14-oz can tomato sauce (plain sauce with nothing added, e.g. Hunt's - not a prepared pasta sauce that's ready to heat and eat)
1/3 cup vodka
1/3 cup heavy cream (you need the real deal - no half-and-half)
parmesean cheese
fresh mozzarella cheese (to top)

Directions: Prepare pasta according to directions. While pasta is cooking, heat the tomato sauce over medium heat in a frying pan. When tomato sauce begins to boil, add the vodka and garlic powder/salt/pepper and turn the heat down to medium-low. Simmer uncovered, stirring constantly, for 8 minutes. Add the cream and turn the heat to low. Stir well. Add the pasta, and stir to coat it well. Stir in a good amount of parmesean cheese (1/4 to 1/2 cup) and serve immediately, topped with more parmesean and fresh mozzarella!