4 Day Challenge: Day Three

My Baking Addiction has a ton of great recipes! 

Day Three's meal happened but I wasn't able to document it with photos. Bummer.  

Let's get right to it.  We enjoyed some tasty shrimp & scallop tacos with avocado sauce, inspired from this recipe; my corn salad for a side; and delicious No Bake Nutella Cheesecake for dessert.  Both the tacos and cheesecake were new recipes... and I would say were a total hit!

Tip: if you try your hand at the cheesecake, plan to prepare it in individual dishes- it made for a pretty presentation and would be difficult to serve otherwise.

 

4 Day Challenge: Day Two

Sorry for the delay but it was Jake's birthday week, so as you can imagine celebrations were in order... for what felt like every night!

The 4 Day Challenge ended up being more like a 3 Day Challenge which was fine because Jake had a work happy hour on Wednesday night and that is the same day our community group meets, so needless to say time was tight.  Anyway, I'm not worried about it, I gave it an honest effort and I think that's what matters.

Tuesday's dinner (aka Day Two) from fortheloveofcooking.net was OK.  The chicken was a little dry which was totally on me... I didn't realize toaster ovens cook hotter than the oven.  Lesson learned.  I will say however that the squash side was delicious and definitely something I'll make again.  Check it out.

Panko Crusted Chicken Stuffed with Ricotta, Spinach, Tomatoes, & Basil: 

• 1 cup of low fat ricotta cheese
• Small handful of baby spinach, chopped
• Small handful of grape tomatoes, diced (remove the seeds if possible)
• 2 tbsp Parmesan cheese, grated
• 1 tbsp fresh basil, chopped
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• Sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, to taste
• Dash of oregano
• 2 chicken breasts
• Italian seasoned panko crumbs
• 2 tsp olive oil

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

2. Combine the ricotta, spinach, tomatoes, Parmesan cheese, basil, garlic, sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, to taste. Mix until thoroughly combined.

3. Rinse the chicken breasts then cut a long horizontal slit along the center of the thin long edge of the chicken breast, nearly through to the other side. Fill the cavity of the chicken breast with the ricotta mixture. Season each side of the chicken with sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, to taste. Carefully dip the chicken breasts in the panko crumbs until both sides are evenly covered. Close the slit together with toothpicks.

4. Heat the olive oil in an OVEN PROOF skillet on the stove over medium high heat. Once the pan is hot, place the chicken in the skillet and cook for 3-4 minutes or until the chicken is golden brown, flip the chicken over and place the skillet into the oven. Cook for 20 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through. Let the meat rest for 5 minutes before slicing.

I followed this recipe for the side but replaced the zucchini with a squash and left out the pine nuts.  d.e.l.i.c.i.o.u.s.

4 Day Challenge: Day One

Well what do we have here?  Looks like a successfully prepared shrimp, avocado, and tomato pizza to me.  One day down, three more to go.

Truth be told, I got the recipe from Pinterest (they got it from Spice is Nice) and if I had to describe it in three a few words I’d go with easy, fresh, and filling (but not heavy).

Jake gave it 3.5 out of 5 forks (5 being one of the best home cooked meals he has ever had).  I’ll take it.

Directions below.  Try it if you dare.

Shrimp, Avocado and Tomato Pizza:

1 pizza dough ball

6 cloves garlic, minced

3 T. olive oil

1 cup shredded mozzarella and/or provolone cheese

2 scallions, chopped

2 large tomatos, chopped and drained

1 t. adobo sauce or 1 t. finely chopped chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (this ingredient adds a lot of spice, so feel free to opt against adding it or go for more if that's your thing)

10-20 medium sized shrimp, peeled and deveined

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

1 avocado, diced

1/2 a lime's juice

1. Preheat oven to  475°.  Roll out the pizza dough, preferably on a pizza stone. Brush with 2 T. olive oil and 4 cloves of minced garlic. Then spread cheese evenly over the top.

2. In a medium sauté pan  add 1 T. olive oil and bring to medium-high heat.  Add remaining 2 cloves of garlic and stir until fragrant.  Then add the shrimp to the pan and stir for a 1-2 minutes.

  

3. Add the tomatoes, scallions and chipotle peppers to the pan, and sauté for an additional 2-3 minutes to soften the tomatoes and flavor the shrimp.  

Note: The peppers will really add a kick, so if you don't like spice consider leaving them out. 

  

4. Spread the shrimp mixture over the pizza and top with a little bit of cheese.

  

5. Bake for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.  Remove from oven and immediately top with cilantro and avocado.  Squeeze lime juice over top of the pizza, let sit for 5 minutes, and then serve.

4 Day Challenge

Jake’s Birthday is coming up so I decided to enter into a four day challenge of cooking homemade, new recipes for dinner each day this week up through his birthday.  This is my gift to him since last year I did the same thing but just for his actual bday.  Since this year he made the same request, I thought I needed to up the ante just a little bit to make it better than the last.  This may or may not be a very difficult thing to do since I rarely make elaborate (using the term lightly) dinners and traditionally save experimental recipes for baking.  Thank goodness for Pinterest!

Regardless, the cat is out of the bag since I told him already that this was his gift starting Monday.  Eek!  The week’s lineup is:

Shrimp, Tomato, & Avocado Pizza

Panko Crusted Chicken Stuffed with Ricotta, Spinach, Tomatoes, & Basil

Scallop Tacos

Avocado Chicken Parmigiana

Stay tuned to see how things turn out!