Wordless Wednesday: What Every Wine Wednesday Should Look Like

Quick Meal: Chicken and Spinach Alfredo Pasta

Remember my Steal of the Week on an Easy Alfredo? I decided to try something different with the same basic sauce. I had left over rotisserie chicken from the chicken and herb white pizza and wanted to use it in something other than my usual Mexican ventures and this unusually warm Fall weather is not calling for chicken soup. I thought why not add it to the Alfredo sauce but better yet get a little green in there too and we always have frozen spinach on hand!

I started by adding the spinach and fresh garlic to the melted butter used to make the sauce. Once the spinach was heated through I added the cream cheese:

Next the milk, black pepper and I used the last of our parmigiano reggiano:

While the sauce heated and thickened, I cooked a bag of our favorite Wacky Mac pasta and added the hot cooked pasta to the sauce:

The finished meal was quick, simple and tasty and made leftovers to freeze for work lunches:

This has really become my go-to way to make Alfredo and by using light butter, reduced fat cream cheese and 2% milk...it is even better for you than the light Alfredo sold in the store!

Sunday Supper: Chili-Corn Chip Pie

Continuing with cooking new recipes out of Cooking Light I next attempted a recipe I really wanted to try: Chili-Corn Chip Pie. If you have never had the full fat version of this, with handfuls of corn chips (of course I love Fritos) in layers topped with beef chili and gobs of cheddar cheese, it IS delicious but of course not good for you. This recipe sounded like a good compromise since it still had the meatiness but just the flavor and crunch of the chips instead of handfuls of them.

The recipe starts with making just a simple skillet chili. I used ground beef instead of sirloin and while I understand the reasoning of using the sirloin, I had no issues with the ground beef.

Once you add the tomato paste, broth, water and tomatoes and chilies, it's a lot like making taco meat: waiting for the liquid to reduce down:

I found I had to add another tablespoon of tomato paste to get it to thicken to my liking. Once the chili is done, the assembly is a snap!

My step-daughter had two helpings as did I! We all enjoyed the quick chili so much we are already dreaming up other ways to use it. It could have also used a little more heat too but I think that also depends how we use it.

Wordless Wednesday: Number One Tool for This Fall and Winter