Recipe Swap: Sweet Beginnings' Summer Pasta Salad

The theme for this week's swap was foods you'd bring to a Memorial Day picnic.  I submitted the uber fabulous and easy Firecracker Shrimp and received Jaida (jaire30) from Sweet Beginnings original pasta salad recipe.  As always, you can see the full blog roundup post in A Taste of Homecooking's blog.

Once again I was thrilled to be able to use up some of my pasta stash and was pleased with the way this recipe tasted.  Very light and refreshing.  The perfect complement to our burgers and dogs!  I wasn't sure about the use of zucchini or the lack of salad dressing "sauce" in this recipe but I have to say, it really worked.  It's not super flavorful (like the salad dressing types) but my-oh-my do those veggies really shine in this dish.  It'll be nice to have an alternative to my standby pasta salad recipe from my mother-in-law when I want to mix things up a bit :).

Please pardon the yellow tint to this photo.  I forgot my camera and so the iPhone was pulling double duty!  But, it's actually not half bad for a camera-phone picture, in my opinion...


Sweet Beginnings' Summer Pasta Salad
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Ingredients

• 2 cups tri-color Rotini or Fusilli Noodles, cooked according to package directions
• 2  Zucchini, sliced into ¼ inch rounds
• Salt, to taste
• Pepper, to taste
• 1 1/2 cups Cherry or Plum Tomatoes, halved
• ½ cup Red Onion, diced
• 1 Tbsp fresh basil, coarsely chopped
• 1 Tbsp + 1 tsp Olive Oil, divided
• 1 Tbsp Red Wine Vinegar
• ½ Lemon (optional)

Directions

1. Lightly sauté zucchini using 1 tsp of olive oil or cooking spray and season with salt & pepper, then cut each round into halves or quarters.
2. Mix olive oil & vinegar together in a small bowl.
3. Toss pasta, zucchini, tomatoes, and onion in a large bowl with the olive oil mixture. Season with salt & pepper, add basil and stir.
4. Refrigerate for 30 minutes, squeeze lemon over pasta (if desired), toss and serve! 

Source: Sweet Beginnings

SweetFire Chicken

Have you tried this yet?  I know I was hooked from the moment these sweet and spicy chicken morsels hit my tongue.  I used to knock Panda Express because I figured it was just another bad Americanized Chinese food joint but this is truly another example where you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

Yes, it's cheap.  Yes, it's not authentic.  But YES, it is DELICIOUS!  As I savored every bite and realized it would be quite a drive for us to get this food often, I thought surely this couldn't be difficult to make at home.  A quick internet search yielded some recipes and a place to begin.  The recipe I ended up finding was precisely what I concocted in my mind when I thought I'd try to DIY.  The only thing I did differently was to add some cornstarch to the flour mix so that it'd help thicken the "sauce" and also some spices for flavoring the chicken.  I also added more pineapple and veggies.  Yum!  You could deep fry the chicken like they do in the restaurant but this offers a slightly healthier option and frankly, we didn't miss the deep-friedness.

Chris was totally delighted by this recipe and asked that it be added to our weekly rotation (which, we don't have a weekly rotation because I rarely ever repeat recipes!).  With much enthusiasm as he wolfed down his portion and went for seconds he boldly declared this dish my "best Chinese dish yet".  In my opinion, it was dead on and it was soooo easy!

With its pineapple, red bell pepper, onions, and chicken in a sweet chili sauce, it's a modern day spicy spin on your regular run of the mill sweet and sour chicken.  But 10 million times better.  An "exotic fusion of flavors" as they call it.  Best Chinese yet.

Two Years Ago:  Quick and Easy Alfredo Sauce - I may not have a weekly menu but this is actually one of them that does make it on my menu often.  Especially on lazy days ;).

SweetFire Chicken

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Ingredients

• 2-3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1" chunks
• 1 cup flour
• 2 Tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 3/4 of a red bell pepper, seeded and sliced
• 1/2 of a small onion, sliced
• 1 1/2 cups fresh pineapple, chopped (can substitute drained canned pineapple chunks)
• 1/2 cup Thai sweet chili sauce
• Vegetable oil

Directions

1. Chop and prepare all ingredients before starting. 
2. Heat oil in pan on stovetop. Mix flour, cornstarch, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper in a gallon ziplock bag. Add chicken pieces and coat evenly. Once pan has heated, add the chicken pieces. Throw out the leftover flour mixture. Cook 4-5 minutes, stirring several times to cook chicken. If the pan surface gets dry, add a little bit more oil.  Once the chicken has browned and cooked, remove and set aside.
3. Add the bell pepper and onions to the pan and stir fry about 3-4 minutes. Add the sweet chili sauce and stir. Then immediately add the cooked chicken and pineapple. Allow to cook for 2-3 minutes. Serve over rice immediately.

Source: Modified from So I Married a Triathlete

Recipe Swap Rewind: Roasted Sweet Potato Coins with Pancetta and Chives

I think I've figured out why May is like a recipe desert (yes, desert, not dessert...which has 2 s because you always want seconds of those!) around here.  May historically is a time of madness in my household:

• For the past few years we've gone to Europe for 2 weeks in May
• My Sister and Father-in-Law's birthdays are in May
• Our Anniversary is in May (today is our 3rd Anniversary, actually!)
• We "adopted" our dog Toby in May, AND 
• My birthday is at the beginning of June so the preparation is in...you guessed it, MAY.

It's no wonder that I've kept with previous years' trends and sort of dropped off the face of the Earth and not blogged much.  

I'm still trying to keep up with the recipe swaps and my last one was another from Jey of Cooking.  With the theme being Vegetarian I knew it'd be a gamble but I went for it anyway.  She sent me her Pineapple Fried Quinoa with Honey Ginger Soy Marinated Tofu.  I felt horrible because when I read the ingredients, I knew there was no way in heck that my husband would eat it as written and I had already skipped a recipe from her blog last time due to lack of time to cook..  He doesn't eat tofu (or "estrogen cakes" as he calls them), eggs (that look/small like eggs), and would have no idea what quinoa is.  I thought about modifying it to meet our needs but then it would in no way resemble her original recipe.  So, I simply just did not participate this round.  If that recipe sounds like your thing, feel free to try it thought and let me know what you thought!

To help my conscience feel better, today, I'd do a recipe rewind for you.  Since I missed making Jey's Sweet Potato Coins with Pancetta and Chives before vacation in April, I got the opportunity to do so when we got home and am sharing it now.  They were really delicious but honestly, I would have preferred to skip the sour cream (which, I did on some in order to make them Chris-consumable...are you noticing a trend here?).  Of course, then I'm not sure that the other delicious toppings would really stay on...minor detail.  The real star was the roasted sweet potatoes anyway.  I loved the way they tasted and should roast them more often!

One Year Ago: Buckeyes

Two Years Ago: Garlic Cheddar Chicken

Sweet Potato Coins with Pancetta and Chives

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Ingredients

• 2 Sweet Potatoes
• 6 Clementines, juiced (or other citrus juice equivalent to about 1 cup)
• 2 Tbsp. Brown Sugar
• 2 Slices Pancetta (I used bacon)
• 1/2 to 3/4 Cup Sour Cream
• 4-5 Chives, snipped (I used green onions)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Cut sweet potatoes into thick rounds.  Toss with clementine juice and brown sugar. Transfer potato coins to a parchment lined baking sheet.  Bake for one hour, flipping once halfway through.
3. Meanwhile, cook the pancetta over medium low heat until cooked.  Crumble and set aside.
4. Remove potatoes from oven and let cool 5 minutes.  Transfer to a serving platter.
5. Put sour cream into a piping bag with a decorative tip (or a plastic baggie with a corner snipped.)  Pipe onto coins and top with pancetta and chives.

Source: Jey of Cooking