http://www.tosimplyinspire.com/creamy-chicken-casserole.html

They really should have worked the word “Elbow” or “Macaroni” into the title, as once you put a pound of elbow macaroni into a 9 x 13 dish, the recipe becomes 80% elbow macaroni.  Also, it becomes much heavier!

Didn’t modify this too much, as I was cooking it.  I would probably use only 1/4 teaspoon of pepper instead of 1/2 teaspoon, but that could be on me for not sprinkling the pepper in a better fashion.  But it just looked like a lot of pepper.

I would also use two tablespoons of olive oil, as the chicken was a tad dry.  I definitely cooked it at 30 minutes, as opposed to 40 as I knew with the additional 20 minutes of cooking, at the end, that it the chicken was definitely going to get cooked.  Now I’m wondering if I should have cooked it for 25 minutes upfront and added five minutes during the second round?  As our Progresso Panko break crumbs didn’t really firm up.  I don’t trust broiling, it seems high risk and no real reward.  Maybe I’ll try that, next time.  We went with the Italian variety instead of Japanese, it felt right with what we were preparing for.

Apparently Campbell makes a Cream of Mushroom AND Cream of Chicken Soup, in the same can.  So instead of this recipe being 50/50 Cream of Chicken and Cream of Mushroom, it was more 75/25.  So we’ll definitely either buy a can of each soup, next time, or we’ll buy two cans of the combo soup.  I didn’t even know such a combo soup existed!  It looked more like Cream of Mushroom though.

Overall, besides the Panko not being more firm, it turned out pretty well.  I also have to shred the chicken more, as it was still rather chunky instead of being more shredded.  With that much macaroni, the chicken got a tad lost.

. . .

I was able to watch the McGregor v Mayweather fight on Saturday Night.  After hearing about it so much on The Fighter and the Kid and Prinze and the Wolf, I got the idea in my head that I would like to watch it but figured I couldn’t.  I had committed to watching highlights and whatever clips I could obtain but I was able to enjoy watching the fight.  I didn’t realize rounds were like three minutes, so I knew I wasn’t going to be up past midnight.  I still was, though, as I wanted to see if anyone matched my outrage over the Technical Knock Out.  Which, I still find suspect.  A match of this caliber, and on such a large state, shouldn’t be ending on any technicality.  McGregor didn’t even touch the ground!  He could have just moved against the ropes for the rest of the minute and a half and sat down during the brief break.  It did look like he was getting gassed during the seventh round but making it to ten is amazing!  I was super impress with referee Robert Byrd, with lots of his calls but that final call, tainted the whole thing.  I’m glad McGregor said something about that, after Mayweather’s speech.  McGregor was talking fine and was a tad dazed, that’s all it was.

. . .

Television-wise, we finally finished Daredevil Season Two.  I’m not sure when we’ll start on Luke Cage.  We opted to watch Arrow’s Season Five’s first episode instead of making progress on Person of Interest.  It was really late and I had the thought that we started Arrow, when it first came out, before committing to just watching Supergirl and Flash as it aired.  As, at that time, I knew that those two shows were going to crossover and I knew we would be fine with watching the Arrow and Legends episodes of the mega-crossover, without being too lost or spoiled on their individual subplots.  I’ll have to do some research with the upcoming seasons to see which shows we need to follow.  I bet we could do the same thing and just stick with Flash and Supergirl.

Our next episode of The Office is Season Three’s Back from Vacation.

I woke up this morning, wanting to jump back into Jodie Whittaker’s The Assets, so I might try to sneak in another episode of that, as that is only eight episodes, the last one appears to be an interview with the real Sandra Grimes.  I’m on the second episode of that.

http://www.goeatandrepeat.com/ravioli-with-garlic-basil-oil/

Look, I made Thursday Dinner!  My wife had one of our (several) cook binders open and I know how to cook, so I just start prepping it, once we got home.

When I saw that it required 1/2 cup of chopped basil leaves, I was like “gosh, that’s a lot of basil leaves!” It took our entire container of basil leaves.  Once the meal was completed, I chalked it up to it being like a pesto sauce.

I should say, that this doesn’t really make a “sauce,” it is more like a mixture.

My wife didn’t care for it, at first, but after a few more bites, she was enjoying it.  It is one of those recipes where I already wanted to modify it as I was cooking it.  Walker Dennis, on the other hand, loved it – that kid of ours loves pasta.

I used Celentan’s Cheese Raviolis – which were pretty good.

We already had minced garlic, and I used six 1/2 teaspoons – I thought about with ten 1/2 teaspoons but held off.  I really should have, as my wife wanted more garlic.

At no point does the instructions state to include the red pepper flakes, I figure the best place was when I added the basil leaves.  I already committed to using a 1/2 of red pepper flakes as opposed to 1/4 teaspoon.  I think that improvement added just enough of a kick.  Especially compared to how much basil leaves the recipe calls for.  Next time, I will just do a 1/3 cup of basil leaves.  There was plenty of basil so I think a tad less would be okay.

After cooking, I had to add basil leaves and Parmesan to our grocery list.

My picture and the picture from the website looks pretty different.  Our raviolis are smaller, and our basil leaves were already chopped.  We’re a McCormick household and we’re finally getting our pantry filled with spices.  Like most families, I’m sure, we buy the Kraft Parmesan cheese, as well.  For the garlic, I’ve always gone with The Garlic Company of California, 1/2 teaspoon equals one glove.  Which now I see, that the recipe calls for “large garlic cloves” so I should have gone with ten 1/2 teaspoons, at a minimum.

. . .

TV wise, I finally watched the “Girl Who Died” episode of Doctor Who’s ninth season.  I really should have watched the next episode, the second part, but it was already late and I thought I was going to be able to watch it on Wednesday but my son stayed up to see me so I had to go straight to bed.  Which, really, is better for my work day on Thursday.

Our next episode of The Office is Season Three’s Branch Closing – this show, we can pretty much watch anytime.  Usually we watch one episode at dinner, and sometimes, we will watch a second episode (if we’re not done eating or if we just want to) and we might sneak in another episode at night.  We’ve been searching for a good 22 minute show for dinner purposes and The Office is right up there.  Seeing Rashida Jones makes us feel silly that we watched Parks and Recreation last year and dismissed The Office then, too, when we should have been watching the original show this entire time.

http://www.deepsouthdish.com/2012/11/southern-fried-potatoes.html?m=1#axzz37vY2lGzh

This is the breakfast potatoes recipe that I hinted at a week ago.

I think I finally got the hang of it.

I’ll probably eventually work my way up to adding bacon to the recipe, but for now, I’m using vegetable oil.  The “add enough just to cover the bottom” took some work, as I wasn’t sure how much was too much.  Or, I thought I did, but still ended up with too much, in my first two attempts.   Now I know it is like basically half way up the Crisco cap.

I definitely have been making them the Potatoes O’Brien way, with both green and red peppers.

The very first time, I did add the onions to the potatoes at the initial phase but I’ve learn to not do that, as the onions get really burnt.  I also have experimented with not cooling the potatoes for ten minutes, as I start hearing the pop of the oil around the four minute mark.  Maybe that’s a sign that there is still too much oil?  I just had that thought.  So I usually, at the five minute mark, flip the potatoes, let them cook covered for an additional five minutes.

Then I add my peppers and onions, turn in sections of every two minutes for a total of ten minutes.  I think I have it done in five minutes, so next time, I’m going to try to stop cooking at five minutes and see how it looks as the potatoes seem done around then.  Five or six minutes.

The peppers really do make it look appetizing, and I’ve becoming more interested in adding color to my meals.  I’m probably being influenced by all of those cooking shows that we’re watching.  Taking my cooking game to the next level.  Or, at least, trying to.

. . .

We’re on the final episode of Daredevil, Season Two, that was the other television series we made progress on.  I love that Netflix is doing a countdown to the Defenders.  If only we were not two entire series behind, we could be getting hyped for that new series.

http://www.thepinningmama.com/easy-fajita-chicken-bake-recipe/

I was going to make another Fajita Chicken recipe but my wife knew there was a simpler version of it.  So I followed her advice and made the above recipe.  I take forever to cut or dice vegetables.  I like doing it, but I have to add 30 minutes to every prep time.

Instead of trimming the chicken breasts, I cut the chicken thighs into strips.  We were going to make fajitas, so we wanted to not have giant chunks of chicken in our wraps.

We, embarrassingly, were out of taco seasoning so my lovely wife looked up Taco Seasoning on Pinterest.  I settled on the one that said it was the equivalent of one packet of store bought taco seasoning.

http://www.nutritionwithnat.com/2013/09/favorite-taco-seasoning.html#.WZGy51V95hE

Whatever the recipe calls for, in the order it is listed in, is the order I pour the ingredients in.  Am I the only one who does it?  What is the alternative?  Unless it is a dry good and I’m pouring liquid onto it, then I go in that order.  Starting wet and putting the dry goods in later, never seems to get everything moist like it should be.

Once I poured the Cumin in, I knew it was going to taste mostly like Cumin – which it did.  I was just working off the image but now that I looked up the recipe (so I can get the link above for it) I see they offer to double up the chili powder – which I would have definitely done.  Gosh, I just printed it to make that change, and I see “1/2 T chili powder” I wonder if I did one teaspoon instead of one tablespoon.  Though, I do recall making sure I put a tablespoon on the counter, so I must have done that.  Cumin has such a strong smell, that I already knew it was going to overpower the other seasonings.  I looked at everything, and couldn’t figure out what would have given it that distinct taco seasoning taste.  I would have gone more pepper instead of chili powder but I knew that wasn’t right.  It still tasted good, it just didn’t taste anything like taco seasoning.  Looking for that recipe, my wife found a slew of other “Do It Yourself” seasonings that we might try out.

I cooked it for 40 minutes and that seem to be perfect, probably could have been done in 35.  There was this liquid at the bottom, I’m sure it was the moisture from the vegetables and probably even the chicken.  I drained that as best as I could, as there was a lot of it.  Not sure how to counter that, but that’s what happened to mine.  Done was the wiser, but I knew I had to drain it before we started spooning the contents into our burrito shells.

I also went with the Kraft Mexican blend of cheese, as Cheddar is nice but I prefer various cheeses to just one cheese, if I have an option.

. . .

I think I did master that breakfast potatoes recipe, so I probably get that uploaded this week sometime.

Where am I in my current shows?

I’m currently on The Girl Who Died episode of Doctor Who.

Our next episode of The Office is Season Two’s Christmas Party.  All I want to do, is work in dialogue from the Office or talk about a show that has been off the air for four years.  I kept thinking it was five or six years, but the show ended in 2013.  Nine seasons instead of the seven I thought it was.

I’m thinking of doing back-to-back episodes of Doctor Who and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend as I’m on the second or third episode of the latter and should finish that episode.

No additional progress with Sherlock but I feel like Doctor Who and Sherlock, back-to-back, might be a bit much.

Turns out, we were completely out of the loop on Hollywood Game Night’s fifth season so we caught the first two episodes of that.  So far, so good – hard to mess up that show.  I do feel like there are only a handful of truly great episodes or segments but can’t really beat the pool of talent they draw from.

This weekend was mostly made up of watching Trolls and Sing with Trolls being watched twice, I believe.

I keep debating, once I finish Living Between Wednesdays, I sort of want to go back through Turtle Soup and compile a list of favorite moments – like I did for the Uncanny X-Cast.  I feel like I want to take on a giant project and I might end up with some additional free time soon.  By “soon” I mean in a few months, as I’m on episode 21 of LBW and there are a total of 104 episodes, so I”m doing it.  Its just slowly.  It is the only podcast, where I can’t hear it loud enough unless I have headphones on.  All of my other podcasts, I can turn the volume as high as possible, put my phone in my van’s cup holder and still hear it well.  I keep thinking that is going to change but it hasn’t.  So I mostly can listen to it at lunch and right before bed, if I’m not trying to work in the back catalog of Fighter and the Kid, which I’m tempted to give up on doing that.  Those episodes are so long.  Hey, does anyone listen to Mixed Mental Arts?  I saw they are on episode 270 (or so) and that’s another one, if I decide to give it a shot, that I’ll just listen to the current episodes forward.  I do enjoy me some Brian Cullen.

I thought I had one more television item but I can’t think of it.  The weekend went pretty fast, as it always does.