Roast Chicken

I'm pretty good at planning side dishes, pasta dishes, appetizers, and desserts, but entrees often escape me.  I'm not a big meat eater, though I definitely appreciate it when done right.  With an impending road trip with the husband, I'm trying to find creative ways to empty out the fridge and eat up our leftovers.  Unfortunately, a lot of it is carb-o-licious and not exactly full-meal material.  In an effort to incorporate more protein into our meals, I decided to prepare one item so versatile that it could compliment any of the dinner leftovers in my fridge: chicken.

I was doing my meal planning from the passenger seat of the car today, so I decided to travel light and take Real Simple's Meals Make Easy: Quick and Delicious Recipes for Every Night of the Week.  Lo and behold, the very first recipe in this book is one for "Roast Chicken and Vegetables."  I left out the vegetables part of this recipe because I was already planning to make "Spring Salad with New Potatoes" from my favorite food blog, smitten kitchen.  You can see how that turned out on the right.

Yankee Doodle Dandy Baked Macaroni and Cheese

Every so often I attempt to continue my quest for the perfect macaroni and cheese.  I say every so often because while I would be happy to partake of the dish every day, I would need to constantly replenish my stretchy pant supply, and that's just expensive.  Based on it's ingredients alone, the "Yankee Doodle Dandy Baked Macaroni and Cheese" recipe from the Macaroni and Cheese cookbook by Marlena Spieler appears quite a contender for mac & cheese perfection.  Will it measure up?  Let's get cheesy and find out!

Italian Egg Sandwich

It's no secret that much of my love of food and cooking comes from the Italian side of my family.  Thinking back on my childhood brings memories of vegetables fresh from the garden, days full of making sausage or deep fried cookies, and countless meals surrounded by family.  That's why when I'm feeling a little homesick, or when I want to taste a bit of my past, I devote the better part of a Sunday to making Giada's marinara sauce.  The result is complex, fresh, and far surpasses anything that you can buy in a jar.  However, in addition to a great deal of tastiness, making a full batch of the sauce presents a delicious dilemma: What on earth do you do with two quarts of sauce?  You can only eat so much spaghetti in a week's time before your husband starts complaining & insists on making burgers or something.  Therefore, I had to start getting creative...or keep reading the cookbook and let Giada do the work for me.  Whatever.

The "Italian Egg Sandwich" from Giada de Laurentiis' Everyday Italian cookbook called for simple ingredients that were already in my fridge and pantry and less than half an hour cooking time.  After hours slaving away on marinara sauce, I'm SOLD!