Easy Chicken Spaghetti

This recipe is another one that came to me from Tasty Kitchen.  Chris and I have been looking for healthier recipes that don't involve grease and red meat.  Don't get me wrong, I still love grease and red meat, but my body doesn't react to it like it did years ago.  It all goes to my hips!

I have heard many of my friends talk about having chicken spaghetti and it is something I have never tried. I wasn't really sure what was even in it, other than chicken and spaghetti, so I started looking around at different ways to make it.

This recipe is very simple!  Here is what you will need.

3-4 Boneless skinless chicken breast
4 Tbs olive oil
4 Tbs butter (ok...I said it was a little healthier, baby steps...)
3 cloves garlic, minced  (or as much as you like)
2 Tbs Italian Seasoning
16 oz Pasta of your choice.  We like the thicker pasta, so I used Linguine

Here is what you do.

Start off by heating up the olive oil in a skillet.  Add the chicken and cook until done.

To your chicken, stir in the butter, garlic, and Italian Seasoning.  Then add your chicken broth and allow to simmer for about 20 minutes.  This just give the chicken time to grab up all those yummy flavors!

The next step I debated on what to do.  The recipe I used simply says to toss the chicken with the pasta.  It doesn't say whether to drain the chicken or pour the chicken and the juice in with the pasta. So I did the second one.  The sauce was in no way thick, but I thought it was necessary for flavoring of the pasta.  I think I did the right thing!

To serve, I used a slotted spoon and put a generous amount of the chicken spaghetti on a plate and put just a very small amount of the "sauce" on top.  I served it with a salad and garlic bread.  This was a huge hit with everyone in the family!

Chris made the comment that the pasta would be great without the chicken and as a side to a nice juicy steak. (Yet again, baby steps)  We may have to give that a try.  I think to accomplish this, you would just make the sauce mixture and allow it to simmer until warm, then toss it in with your pasta.

I know that many of you make chicken spaghetti in a very different way. Most everyone I talked to asked if I was using Ro'tel in mine...I would love to try a recipe like that.

Please share your chicken spaghetti recipe with me.


The original recipe I used can be found here.

Chicken Enchiladas

Recently I found the website Tasty Kitchen and I must say, my life has changed! This site is full of recipes that are submitted by people like you and I.  Most of them are not professionals and are just cooking for the pure joy of it.  Living in Texas, my family has grown to love Mexican food.  It is everywhere here!  I use to be so picky (and honestly, I still am).  When I see a recipe...if it has more than about ten ingredients, I usually toss it to the side.  Maybe, I need to change that, but for now, its working.

One thing I like about the Tasty Kitchen site is that you can subscribe to the RSS feed.  I love this because I get 32 different blogs all sent to my google reader and I can read everything in one spot.  Anytime anyone submits a recipe on the site it comes to my reader!  I then can star (or save) that item and go back and view it anytime I want.  Last time I looked I had about 120 recipes sitting there waiting to be tried.   If you would like to see some of the blogs I follow, look to the right side of my web page, they are all listed there.  If you know of a good blog, let me know!

This chicken enchilada recipe is so easy and very yummy.  Their are no weird ingredients and its a very budget friendly meal.  WARNING! It is not figure friendly, but is anything I have posted so far?

WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

I cup onion, diced

2 cups chicken, cooked and diced

1-10oz can Ro'tel tomatoes

2 Tbs butter

1 can (10.75oz) cream of mushroom soup

1 can (10.75oz) cream of chicken soup

1 tsp chili powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup water

1 cup sour cream (this is the small container of the Daisy sour cream)

2-1/2 shredded cheese, I used a blend of Colby and Monterey Jack

8 flour tortillas

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Heat some oil in a skillet and cook your chicken until done.  

In a mixing bowl, combine the chicken and Ro'tel and set aside.

In a medium sauce pan, mix together butter, soups, chili powder, salt and about 1/2 cup of water.  Cook until well heated and the sauce is smooth.  Remove from heat and add the sour cream and 1/2 cup of cheese (add more if you are like me and LOVE cheese).

Stir about 1/2 cup of the sauce into your chicken and Ro'tel mixture.

On each tortilla put about a 1/2 cup of chicken and 1-2 Tbs of the sauce in the center and roll.  Place in a greased baking dish, seam side down.  Continue until all tortillas are used.  My package of tortillas was actually a 10 pack, so I made my chicken and sauce spread a little farther.

Pour remaining over the enchiladas and top with remaining cheese.  

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until cheese is nice and bubbly.  

*feel free to add more or less of any of the ingredients.  Taste your sauce and add more chili powder or other peppers for more of a kick.  You might also get the spicy Ro'tel if you like things hot! (I don't, but my husband does)

To see the original recipe, click here.

Orange Chicken

While at Wal-Mart the other day I cam across an item I had never seen before and decided to give it a try.

There were no directions on the container so I was not really sure what I was going to do.

I decided to just sauté up some chicken using a little olive oil and cook until the chicken was done.  Then I added the orange sauce.  Just enough to coat all of the chicken well.  I turned the heat down to low and let is simmer covered for about ten minutes.  While the that was going on, I fixed some instant white rice and some frozen broccoli.  The end product turned out great.  Chris loves orange chicken and said that it tasted great, not to mention it was quick and cheap!  I am looking forward to trying some of the other flavors in Panda Express line.

The whole cost of the meal was under $10!! You can't beat that!