Weekday dinners: Spicy cream rigatoni and chicken cordon bleu

 Chicken cordon bleu, roasted red potatoes, and spinach, feta, and apple salad. All made from stuff I had lying around.

I hate wasting food. I once had a roommate who was basically a food hoarder. I exaggerate not. She would always have at least five different juices, ten to fifteen salad dressings, multiple jars of mayonnaise, butter, and sauces, and overflowing drawers of deli meats and cheeses. (Not to mention cupboards so full of rice, pasta, and other boxed and canned items that they didn't shut. But at least that doesn't spoil.) Stuff would literally fall out of the refrigerator when I opened it. While I was trying to make some room for my food--no easy task--I checked some of the labels and discovered at least half of her food was expired, some of it having never even been opened. Unbelievable. Not only are you literally throwing money away when you toss moldy cheese or wilting produce in the trash, but it just feels, well...wasteful. And yet it turns out her habit wasn't all that extreme: one-third of food produced for human consumption is thrown out every year.

I try to avoid throwing out food by being selective with produce and deli items--since it spoils fast, I never buy more than we can eat, and I try to buy vegetables that can be used in a lot of different dinners (like sweet potatoes, spinach, onions, and peppers) rather than exotic fruits and vegetables that will be bad in three days. To save money and reduce waste, I occasionally put a moratorium on grocery shopping and make dinners from stuff we already have. And doing this is actually fun. It's a creative challenge to look through the fridge and the pantry and see what entrees and side dishes I can come up with. Sometimes, I'll even Google around for recipes that use random ingredients I have lying around. This Wednesday, it was rigatoni with spicy cream sauce and sausage, with a side of roasted asparagus. And as my husband can tell you, it was good.

The low-calorie recipe I based this off of called for a combination of marinara and light alfredo sauce. I didn't have any alfredo, so I used melted reduced-fat cream cheese mixed with fat-free half-and-half.

Ingredients:
2 cups of rigatoni
1 cup of marinara sauce
2 cups of light alfredo sauce, OR 4 ounces of melted reduced-fat cream cheese mixed with 1 and 1/2 cups of fat-free half-and-half
1 clove of minced garlic
1/2 cup of chopped spinach (optional)
1/2 tablespoon of crushed red pepper*
Cajun seasoning (optional)*
2 chicken sausage links, cooked and sliced. (Johnsonville and a few other brands sell chicken sausage, which is way leaner than the regular stuff. I used a Chipotle-flavored sausage. Kyle liked it, but I thought the pasta would have been better plain or with sliced chicken breast pieces.)

*Spiciness is an individual preference. I love spice, so I used a tablespoon and a half of crushed red pepper and a generous sprinkling of Cajun seasoning. If you like your food milder, start with 1/2 tablespoon of the red pepper--or less--and taste it before you add any more.

Directions:
1. Cook pasta according to package directions and set aside.
2. Cook sausage according to package directions, slice, and set aside.
3. In a saucepan, combine the alfredo and marinara. (If you're using cream cheese and half-and-half instead of alfredo, put those in the pan first and stir over medium-high heat until cream cheese is melted.) Add garlic, crushed red pepper, and cajun seasoning. Pour over pasta. Add sausage, stir everything together, and heat through before serving.

Tonight's dinner was a little more challenging. It's the end of the week here at 206, since Kyle and I have a lunch outing planned for tomorrow afternoon, and then we're going to my parent's house for Easter weekend. I had a lot of lunch meat, cheese, spinach, and red potatoes (from last Friday's German dinner) to use up. Since I also had bread crumbs and frozen chicken breasts, I decided to make chicken cordon bleu (breaded chicken bundles stuffed with Swiss cheese and ham), with roasted red potatoes and a spinach, feta, and apple salad. The chicken cordon bleu came out so tasty, and was the perfect way to use up meat and cheese that we use for sandwiches during the week.

Ingredients:
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 to 4 slices of Swiss cheese (any sliced white cheese--such as provolone or mozzarella--would also work)
2 to 4 slices of ham or prosciutto
5 teaspoons of melted butter
1/4 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
1/2 cup of crushed corn flake cereal
1 minced garlic clove
1 tablespoon of grated parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon of paprika (I screwed up and used a tablespoon, but it just added extra flavor)
salt
pepper
oregano (optional)

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Place broth in a small microwave-safe bowl; microwave at high 15 seconds or until warm. Stir in butter and garlic.
3. Combine breadcrumbs, parmesan, corn flakes, and paprika in a bowl; set aside.
4. Place a piece of wax paper over each chicken breast and pound with a meat mallet or rolling pin until about 1/4 inch thick (but be sure not to pound it so hard that it falls apart. I ruined my first chicken breast that way.) Sprinkle both sides of the chicken breast with salt, pepper, and oregano.
5. Top each breast with 1 to 2 slices of cheese and 1 to 2 slices of ham or prosciutto. (Amount is up to you.)
6. Roll up each chicken breast so the ham and cheese is secure inside. Dip it in the chicken broth mixture, then roll in the bread crumb-corn flake mixture. Place the chicken rolls, seam-side down, in a baking dish coated with cooking spray.
7. Pour remaining broth mixture over chicken and bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes. Be sure to check the chicken at about 28 minutes to see if it's done--most of the recipes for chicken cordon bleu I found suggested baking for 25-30 minutes, but at that point, mine was still undercooked.

The roasted red potatoes were also delicious and had a French fry-like taste. (Except much lower in calories, because they're not fried!) To make them, chop up the potatoes into one-inch pieces. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Toss the potatoes with two tablespoons of olive oil and 2 tablespoons of rosemary (optional) in a bowl. On a baking sheet lined with foil, spread out potatoes in a single layer and season with salt and pepper. Roast for 30 minutes, stirring once, or until potatoes are golden brown.