Chicken Bacon Quesadillas

If you’re in need of a fairly easy but delicious Super Bowl party appetizer, I have just the thing. Pair with some ice cold beer and everybody’s going to have a fantastic day no matter what the score is.

Every once in a while, I just throw something together for dinner and it turns out to be a total win. These quesadillas are the result of such an occasion.

Chicken Bacon Quesadillas

Ingredients

1 thin cut chicken breast
3 uncooked tortillas cut in halves
Shredded pepper jack cheese
4 strips of thick cut bacon
Red pepper flakes
Salt
Fine black pepper (like powder fine)
Chili powder
Garlic salt and parsley
Cumin
Fresh squeezed lemon juice
Canola oil

Directions

1. Rinse chicken and pat dry with a paper towel.
2. Rub both sides of chicken in spices.
3. Heat a small amount of canola oil on a pan and add chicken once hot.
4. Reduce heat to medium-low, flipping chicken only once to cook each side. (I have a sort of sense of when to turn it over)
5. Once chicken is white on both sides, squeeze lemon over chicken. Cook for a few minutes, flip, and squeeze lemon on the other side. You can check that the chicken is cooked all the way through by cutting in half. If its white and the juices are running clear, it’s done. Don’t over cook it!
6. Cook bacon and set aside.
7. Cut chicken into strips and then shred it further with your hands.
8. In a separate pan, heat a small amount of canola oil and lightly cook each tortilla half.
9. Put shredded pepper jack, shredded chicken, and bacon pieces on one side of the tortilla and fold in half.
10. Put back on pan and heat on each side until cheese is melted.
11. Serve with plain Greek yogurt or sour cream.

Fire Cracker Chicken

I have been finding a lot of really great Chinese restaurant style dishes on Pinterest lately. Which is super exciting since I’ve never been thrilled with the Chinese places around my neighborhood.

But…I’m going to have to reign in my excitement a little because boy, do these sauces pack in the sugar! So I think I’ll have to try these out slowly, like maybe only one or two recipes per month.

Now on to the deliciousness…

Fire Cracker Chicken (adapted from The Recipe Critic)

Ingredients

Canola oil
3 Thin-cut Chicken Breasts
1 cup corn starch
2 eggs
Salt and pepper
Red, yellow, and orange mini peppers

Sauce:
1/3 cup buffalo sauce
1 cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp water
2 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
Salt
Red pepper flakes

Directions

1. Cut chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces.
2. Fill 2 separate bowls: one with corn starch, one with the eggs, slightly beaten. Coat chicken with corn starch, then egg mixture.
3. Put a small amount of canola oil on a pan and lightly brown chicken.
4. Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees F and mix sauce ingredients in a bowl.
5. Put chicken in a baking dish and pour sauce over.
6. Cook chicken for 1 hour, mixing every 15 minutes. Add chopped peppers half way through.

Meatless Monday – Broccoli Cheddar Soup

It’s Monday again…and you know what that means…it’s time for another Meatless Monday recipe. I’ve been wanting to make a really delicious broccoli cheddar soup for a while now and I may have found the best recipe ever. I modified it a little, of course, and I couldn’t be happier with the result.

The thing I liked best about this soup is that everything was cooked in one pot, making clean up a little less cumbersome. Cooking every night is great, but I do get tired of the constant dishes.

Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
1 cup half n half
1 cup milk
2 cups filtered water (no tap)
2 tsp Better Than Chicken Boullion
1/4 cup orzo pasta
8oz sharp cheddar
1/2 lb broccoli
1 handful of carrots sticks
Chopped onions
Chopped garlic
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Melt butter over onions and garlic
2. Add flour and stir

3. Pour in half n half, milk, water, and chicken paste
4. Cook on medium-high heat until it’s just about to boil
5. Mix in broccoli and carrots, lower heat to a simmer for 20 minutes
6. Mix in cheddar, orzo pasta, and spices
7. Cook for another 10-15 minutes
8. Serve with bread or crackers

Breakfast Taco

I promised myself that I wouldn’t go grocery shopping this week. Mission accomplished. I didn’t think this left me with interesting menu items, but last night I came up with something pretty tasty for being so basic.

That’s right. I made breakfast for dinner again. But this time, I kept the focus on the veggies and less on the fried. Couldn’t resist throwing in a couple pieces of bacon though.

While this basically just an omelet thrown into a lightly fried tortilla, my boyfriend made a simple cooking suggestion that really perfected the overall texture of this meal.

Instead of mixing the sauteed veggies into the eggs, I cooked the veggies around the edge of the pan with eggs in the middle. This helped the veggies to stay a little crisp, which was really nice.

Some of My Favorite Food in Turkey

As if Turkey’s natural beauty and rich history weren’t enough reasons to visit, they also have unbelieveable food.

I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to 3 cities in Turkey: Istanbul, Cesme, and Bodrum; and I wanted to share some of my favorite dishes with you.

Some of the best tasting meat I’ve ever had was during my trips to Turkey. Kebab (kebap in Turkish) houses are a dime a dozen there. Not at all are created equal, but most of the ones I’ve eaten have been exquisite.

This is a Bursa Iskender Kebab. There are a lot different kinds of kebab, but this is my absolute favorite. The meat is in a tomato based sauce, sitting on pieces of pita bread, covered in garlic yogurt and melted butter.

If you’re a fan of pickles, meet pickle heaven. Everything here is pickled to your heart’s content.

This is kasarli pide. The closest thing I can compare it to is a cheese pizza with no sauce. But that doesn’t come close to describing it. This is a must have in Bodrum. Nothing compares.

This köfte from a restaurant in Bodrum. This meat is delicious.

This is manti. It’s sort of like dumplings or ravioli but much much better. Garlic yogurt and melted butter on top!

This is gözleme. I had this for the first time in Bodrum and I fell in love. I’ve had them filled with cheese and potato. I’m drooling just thinking about it.

This is an amazing sandwich from my boyfriend’s friend’s restaurant. This place belongs in Santa Monica!

For some reason, I can’t remember the Turkish names for these. These are mussells filled with rice. My boyfriend and his friends ate hundreds of these during our trip in Cesme!

This is Cesme’s famous kumru sandwich. I ate one 3 days in a row and I would do it again in a heart beat.

Have you ever tried Turkish food? What’s your favorite dish?