Simple Cookin! (And a Bonus Section!)

Howdy all! Somehow it's the 10th of September today...so much for increasing the frequency of my postings. But, never fear, here I'm am, writing this post. And for those who are counting, this definitely wins more points than the homework I could be doing...let's write!

I rolled into my apartment at 8:30pm tonight and boy was I hungry...time to check the fridge and find out what I can cook. Operation inspiration began yet again. This one actually started with the freezer where I had some frozen chicken breasts - check. Then onto the fridge: pull open one of my drawers and there's a bag of broccoli - check. Went to the pantry next: my eyes settled on a 1/3 filled bag of pasta - check.
Chicken. Pasta. Broccoli. How'd I do it?

Chicken: shocker alert here, I followed the instructions on the bag. Preheat the oven to 375 F, place frozen breast onto a foil-covered cookie sheet, bake for 20 minutes. So I did all of that, but before I put the chicken in the oven, I sprinkled Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute onto the chicken (you could insert you favorite spice blend instead).
Some notes to take care of: Make sure the chicken is cooked throughout! If you have a kitchen thermometer (that's probably not what's it's called), poke your chicken and see how hot it is internally. If not, the taste and eyes test can be deployed. Also, not all chicken can go straight from freezer to oven, you might have to thaw first. Check the instructions.

Pasta: Simple stuff here, I cooked orecchiette pasta (sounds fancy, I know). Remember to always boil the water first - especially if you live in my apartment where it takes quite a while to boil. Here's my sauce concoction for the evening: Olive oil, butter, alfredo sauce, red pepper flakes, oregano. I got these from my fridge and just put together a little bit of everything. I intentionally went light with most of it because I didn't want one flavor to complete dominate - every bite was more of an adventure this way!

Broccoli: I put the broccoli into a pampered chef microwavable steamer, added a little water, salt, and pepper, and put it in the microwave to steam - again, pretty simple stuff.

And poof, you've got yourself a well balanced meal that tackles multiple food groups! 

P.S. I really didn't go into a lot of nitty-gritty detail here, so if you'd like more info or instruction, just ask!

BONUS: Check out my dinner from last night:

And one more BONUS: Here's the crew I shared the meal with! The food is important but so is the company that you eat with!

Caution: Selfie Sighting!

Hunger Action Month

Yes we talk about food a lot on this blog, but we must recognize our great fortunate...

September is Hunger Action Month, a campaign organized by Feeding America to help drive awareness and action to solving hunger issues. It's their campaign, read about it by clicking here. Take note of ways in which YOU can contribute to finding a solution.

As I continue to post this month, I'll mention and talk to the issues of hunger - 1 in 6 Americans struggle with hunger. 

How will you help?

Back Again!

Welcome to September! And welcome back to Joe's Jamaican Dinner! 

But before we get to September, let's talk August...somehow I managed to keep my blog silent all last month - not good, not good. But rest assured, I still ate dinner on most nights although I failed to post once...ONCE!

So as we get into September, I might drop in some pics and recipes from August, but most will be fresh content, like the rest of this post...

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I had just played basketball with some friends yesterday afternoon, including my apartmentmate (that's not a word) Matt. Matt and I returned home with growling bellies - the clock had struck whatever time and we were hungry! So we decided to make the following: Chicken and Pasta. That seems so bland, so we cranked it up a few notches.

Here's how we prepared the Chicken:

--We used leftover chicken that I brought home from a meal earlier in the weekend. Still not sure what sauce was on the chicken to begin with but we went with it. I cut up the chicken into small, bite size pieces.

--In a pan, I melted some olive oil, butter, and garlic. Yes I said some, because I could not tell you how much I used. I just poured "some" olive oil in, scooped "some" butter in, and dropped "some" minced garlic in.

--Then I added the chicken and combined the flavors over a low heat and stirred occasionally.

We cooked a pound of pasta but our last-minute decision was what sauce to use. We didn't want to use marinara sauce, just weren't in the mood. So I opened the fridge, looked around, and...got creative! We made our own sauce and if you've read my blog before, you'll know the concoction.

In a mixing bowl, I added some maple syrup, sriracha, lime juice, and salt...yep, I did it again with the "some" quantity. Poured a little bit of everything into the bowl and kept tweaking it until I had a delicious sauce! This specialty is especially tasty, because it's a great blend of sweet and spicy - sweet from the maple syrup and spicy from the sriracha.

Drizzled the sauce all over those noodles and then went after it! Bon Appetit! The blog is back in action!