Thursday, January 14, 2010

Cooking with Kat: Chicken Spaghetti of Pioneer Woman Fame

It's about time I cooked on this blog! For Christmas I got the Pioneer Woman cookbook and I have already made two recipes from it. So far, they are great!

We had some dear friends of ours over for dinner, and I told Mark he could pick what we were having. I guess it might have been nice if I let my guests pick... oops. Maybe next time. (-: I gave Mark a few choices based on the meals I had planned for and had ingredients, and he picked chicken spaghetti.

I also know I shouldn't have tried a new recipe with guests, but I figured they would still be my friends if it didn't out well, and there's always Papa John's, right?

So, I got most of the ingredients all rounded up at my local Whole Foods. I have been trying to switch things over to organic when I can, and so for this recipe, several items were organic. So, here's the recipe:


  • 2 cups Cooked Chicken
  • 1 lb (3 cups) Dry Spaghetti, Broken Into Two Inch Pieces
  • 2 cans Cream Of Mushroom Soup
  • 2 cups Grated Sharp Cheddar Cheese
  • ¼ cups Finely Diced Green Pepper
  • ¼ cups Finely Diced Onion
  • 1 jar (4 Ounce) Diced Pimentos, Drained
  • 2 cups Reserved Chicken Broth From Pot
  • 1 teaspoon Lawry's Seasoned Salt
  • ⅛ teaspoons (to 1/4 Teaspoon) Cayenne Pepper
  • Salt And Pepper, to taste
  • 1 cup Additional Grated Sharp Cheddar Cheese


And the photo:






 So, to fill you in on the organic ingredients, I got organic cream of mushroom soup, veggies, 1/2 of the pasta was organic and the cheese is from cows that were not given antibiotics/hormones I think. I will say the soup was very different than regular Campbell's. It was more "soupy". You know how Campbells is kind of thick the gel like? This was darker in color and more liquidy. I thought that was interesting. 



So, to start of this recipe, I took a big fat short cut. Instead of cooking my own chicken, I bought a rotisserie chicken, because that's how I roll. And also because they taste SOOO good. AND bonus, I found them at Whole Foods, so next time I will get one from there. Here's my bird:




 While I snuck pieces of the chicken, I started boiling the water, and broke the pasta up into 2 inch pieces and tossed them into the pot. Then things got a little difficult.


I have a Pampered Chef cheese grater. Well, either I'm a terrible cheese grater, or I need to grow some muscles or something, because grating that cheese was wearing me out!








Yeah. That's what I looked like. Clearly not happy. So, I said FORGET IT! And I got out my handy food procesor with my cheese grater thing and all I had to do was throw the cheese in a press a button, and voila! OMG, if you don't have one of these, you've GOT to get one.







 See? Look how happy I am. And look at the beautifully grated cheese. Victory is mine.


I chopped up the veggies, and then I realized something. When I went grocery shopping I bought a lot of  ingredients for a lot of things. One of them was for olive cheese bread, and I mistook the Chicken-spaghetti pimientos for the olive cheese bread, and left it in Ft. Worth over New Year's. Oops. So, no pimientos in this spaghetti!







 Ha - look at that cheese. I think I must have the grater set too fine, so it made it more difficult. Anyway, so, once the pasta was done, I combined all the ingredients except 1/2 cup cheese.





Yay for the little kick that the cayenne pepper adds. (-: You can add the seasonings, and then taste, and add more if you need to.


So, then I poured it into a casserole dish, put the remaining cheese on top, and popped it into the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, or until bubbly.







Looks pretty yummy huh? So, while that was cooking, I ran around like a crazy person picking up the apartment. (-:


And then the guests arrived and we started serving it:





We had some organic spring mix with parmesan with it and some sweet tea, because there's no other way to drink it, in my book. (-:


So, how was it? It was pretty darn good! Mark said it was good enough to do again. So I think we will. Maybe I'll add the pimientos next time, maybe not. I had several taste testers, so here's what they had to say:







They look pretty genuinely happy, but who can ever tell? (-:


Until next time, Bon Appetit! 


~Kathryn

11 comments:

  1. That is a great recipe!! I love chicken spaghetti!! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey you great recipe & I wanted to let you know that I left you something on my blog. Please come take a look when you have a moment :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sounds yummy! And yay for the rotisserie chicken shortcut-- I'll have to use that!

    ReplyDelete
  4. That looks fantastic! You are making me hungry! I really need to buy a food processor. I know I would fall into love very quickly!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Your post made me want a food processor too! I think I'll try this recipe, thanks for posting it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. looks so yummy! reminds me i need to cook more...

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love the PW! I just made her Pico de Gallo and Guacamole last night!

    ReplyDelete
  8. So you're the free spirit and hubby is the nerd? I'm only guessing here! LOL! Love your absolutely adorable blog and personal pics. My hubby and I are also newlyweds-married one month after you in August...living in a 1 br little bungalow duplex, no dogs but now TTC. I am following you and can't wait to keep in touch! Oh and thanks for commenting at POM!
    http://thepursuitofmommyness.com/

    ReplyDelete
  9. Kat, sounds good and looks wonderful. I love chicken spaghetti. Instead of pimentos and cayenne, I add a can of Rotel tomatoes. Gives some color and that little bit of zing. Next time, I'm using the rotisserie chicken, keeping the Rotel, and adding the cayenne too. Sounds like you have a lucky hubby and lucky friends.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Oh I love that recipe!!! I always leave the pimientos out!

    ReplyDelete
  11. You are so funny. I just became a follower!!

    And I love your blog header...so cute!

    ReplyDelete

We LOVE comments!!! Thanks for leaving one!!

 
Blog Design by Sweet Simplicity