Chicken Alfredo

Sometimes the best laid plans don’t work out.
I work a long day on Monday and always fix something easy for the boys.
TallOne wanted pasta with Alfredo Sauce.
I was SURE we had canned sauce in the pantry only to find out when I got home we had none.
With no back-up plan for dinner that night I needed to figure out how to make Alfredo from scratch.
Turns out it’s pretty easy and very very good!
Most of the staples are in my fridge so after a little research I whipped up dinner pretty fast.
Theirs was served over spinach noodles, I had mine with arugula.

Easy Alfredo
2 chicken breast, cut in strips and pan sauteed seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic powder.
(keep warm while you make the sauce)

Sauce:
1/4 cup butter
1 cup heavy cream
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 1/2 cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium low heat.
Add cream and simmer for 5 minutes, then add garlic and cheese and whisk quickly, heating through.
Stir in parsley and add to chicken.

Update…

Let’s see, since last we crossed paths I was going in for my allergy test.
It had been a full month since lunch tried to kill me.
I avoided certain foods that whole time, for no real reason it turns out.

Day of the test I brought in the egg rolls and the spring rolls.
8:30 in the morning with Himself and Dr. No in the room I took a tiny bite of each.
And waited.
Then NOTHING happened.
15 minutes later another bite, bigger this time.
Waited, and NOTHING happened.
9 am, another bite (bigger) and you guessed it. Nada, Zilch, Rien de Tout, Niks.
Dr. No left the room at 9:15 and Himself was getting restless as well.
Next dose I was getting ticked off so I took a way bigger bite of all the foods.
But 9:30 rolled around with not even a little cough or a tickle.
This is when Himself decided it was safe for him to go to work, leaving me alone to finish off the remainder of the food.
Which I did, with no effects whatsoever.
Dr. No returned and decided I was not allergic to anything I ate, have a nice day!

Since then I’ve added peanuts and other nuts to my food, ate crab at our recent crab feed but have avoided shrimp like the plague.
I have now, count em!, 4 Epi pens on me at all times.

I doubt I’ll ever find out what it was that made me go to the ER which in a way is a bit scary.
But I’m eating food and not letting it scare me.

Happy Belated New Year 2013 and 2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for my blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 2,500 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 4 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

I’m back!

Playing around with foods, testing new dishes and resolving to blog at least 3-4 times a week.
Here are a few other bloggers I like to tie you over until I go live again!

Going Dutch, Malou in France.

My friend Jamie who rocks my gluten free world.

Paleo recipes that taste good, basically gluten-free/back to basics.

It’s been awhile…

Yes I dropped off the blog after Thanksgiving.

I have been very busy with planning our trip to the Netherlands, I’ve been trying to get a grasp on what I want my next 6 months to look like and I’ve been “care giver” of a kind to a friend who was dealt a nasty hand this month.

The whole allergy thing hasn’t been settled, turns out you need to be free of whatever tried to kill you for a month.
That month ends today,testing is at 13:30 (1:30 for the Americans)
I’m still rooting for peanuts but have decided if it is shrimp/shell fish I will go through the weekly torture allergy shots, because I live in sushi/crab land!

I promise to get back here and blog, at least every other day.
Until then, search the 2+ years of foods that are on the blog.
Make something and comment!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

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From our family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving.

I’m cooking up a feast, Turkey, cranberries, stuffing and “peertjes” pears in red wine sauce.

Repost from last year my recipe for “peertjes”

Ask any Dutch person about “peertjes” and they might very well drool.

Growing up this was the one dish my mom could cook to perfection, maybe because she was the queen of all things simmered/cooked forever.

I’ve always made it for Christmas, and for the last 21 years for Thanksgiving as well, because it is a bit of a fancy side dish. One that doesn’t really fit well with an every day meal for us.

 

Peertjes or Pears in Red Wine sauce.
(this will serve up to 6 people)

6, hard Anjou pears
Bottle of cheap red wine
1/2 cup sugar
2 cloves (optional)
1 teaspoon cinnamon

 

Peel pears and cut in 4 parts
Bring pears, wine and all other ingredients to a boil
Lower heat and let simmer until pears are soft.

You can bind the wine sauce with a little bit of corn starch if you want to eat it warm.
I always let the pears cool off and we eat it cold.

 If you do bind it with corn starch, take a little bit of the sauce and stir a table spoon of corn starch until smooth.

Transfer to pan with pears and gently mix corn starch mixture in with pears/wine sauce.

 

Enjoy!

The blog will be back on Monday!

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Happy Wednesday….

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Chicken Waldorf Salad

When I was in Culinary school I learned how to make this salad.
I can’t believe it took until today to make it again.
It has the sweetness of the grapes and the crunchiness of the apple making this a nice fresh salad for lunch.
I added chicken and swapped out one tbs of mayo for a tbs of yogurt.
(and until I find out what caused my allergy reaction there are no walnuts)

4-8 ounces of chopped cooked chicken
1/2 cup chopped, slightly toasted walnuts
1/2 cup celery, thinly sliced
1/2 cup red seedless grapes, sliced
1 sweet apple, cored and chopped
3 Tbsp mayonnaise
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
Salt
Pepper

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise and the lemon juice.
Add 1/2 teaspoon of salt,
1/4 teaspoon of fresh ground pepper.
Mix in the chicken, apple, celery, grapes, and walnuts.

Enjoy!

It’s Wednesday!

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Allergies.

I’ve been so lucky as a cook that I never had food allergies, there have been sensitivities to some foods but no reactions to anything.
Until this past Saturday and it was a very scary incident.

My farmers market has a wide array of food vendors and I’ve picked up lunch from there for about 2 years now and never a problem.
One of the vendors has these amazing spring rolls and they stand out because they are made right in front of you.
I can eat them as a treat because they are gluten free.

I bought them and 3 egg rolls and went to my favorite yarn store to help out and to spin.
Thoroughly enjoyed eating my food dipped in spicy peanut sauce.
15 minutes after I started eating I noticed the rings on my right hand wouldn’t come off, odd because they are sliding easily on and off.
I also felt a bit warm but thought it had to do with eating rather fast.
Got up, washed my hands and helped my friend wind some yarn.

And that’s when it got really scary. As I was winding I felt terribly congested and a bit light headed.
My friend looked at me and commented that I looked a bit fuller in the face.
At that moment I could feel my face swell from the inside out.

I was having an allergic reaction to whatever I ate earlier.

Quick action in the form of giving me 2 antihistamines and getting hold of Himself was taken by my friends.
I went to Urgent Care, was whisked in fast.
Blood oxygen was good and I started to feel less swollen.
The Dr. told me the antihistamines had done their work fast and that my friends essentially had saved my life.
It wasn’t a reaction that needed my epi-pen (beesting allergy) at Urgent Care but he told me next time to use the epi-pen and no antihistamines.

24 hours later I’m feeling fine, a bit loopy from the anti-histamines I’m taking every 4 hours but fine.
And Alive.
Himself told me later that there had been an obituary last week of a young woman who had died from an allergic reaction.
Scary thought.(and not very reassuring coming from Himself)

I always have been a label reader but now I have to be doubly so.
Until I can get tested I need to be super cautious, no shrimp, nuts, seeds or Asian food.
No foods cooked in the same area as shrimp or other shell fish.

In a way I’m rooting for it to be MSG, life without shell fish would be so sad. Crab season opened last week!

But, as my friend Pamela said last night,giving up shell fish beats being dead.

ps….I’m going to have to sit down and write a will. If you have one I applaud you. If not,get one made up.
There are simple templates online you can fill out and have signed by 2 witnesses.
Then you make sure your loved ones know what you want.

Take care….

Swedish Chef Sunday, spice it up!

Hope everyone is having a great Sunday!

Enjoy!

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