Chicken Cordon Bleu Pasta

I made an absolute mess in the kitchen but this recipe was worth it. :) Like so many others, I have an unhealthy obsession with Pinterest and I stumbled across a recipe for Pasta Cordon Bleu pinned from Amy’s New Kitchen who found it here. Initially I just pinned it and saved it for later then while printing recipes I wanted to try out, I read what Amy wrote in her blog. She had expressed some disappointment with a lack of flavor but then added later that the leftovers were better than fresh from the oven. Still, I was a little turned off by the thought and decided to take a whack at the concept by creating my own recipe.

Chicken Cordon Bleu is one of my favorite dishes but my sister for some inexplicable reason has a problem with any recipe where the meat is stuffed like chicken cordon bleu or braciole. It’s frustrating because I love those kinds of dishes. Unless it’s a burrito or pasta, she won’t have anything to do with stuffed goodies. She loves pasta and carbs though!

Last time I posted, I shared the Cooking Light recipe for the Pancetta, Spinach and Penne Casserole. Please forgive me for posting this one right after it, your waistline might hate me a little. But I decided to take the method from that dish and change the flavors to create this Chicken Cordon Bleu Pasta.

I was so excited to make this I didn’t spend as much time sous chef-ing for myself in preparation. There were so many dishes everywhere! 

Seriously, once the sauce came together and I tasted it, I was doing a little dance of glee because it tasted just like chicken cordon bleu! Oh my goodness graciousness! So so so good. Once it came out of the oven I tried to wait ten minutes, I think I got to five before digging in. And I practically inhaled it then tried to resist seconds…sort of failed. I stuck my fork into the casserole dish for a couple more bites.

1 lb tube or short pasta, cooked

1 c. cooked chicken breasts, chopped

8 oz combo of ham, pancetta, and prosciutto

¾ c. onion, chopped

2 tsp garlic, minced

1/3 c. all-purpose flour

3 ¾ c. 2% milk

¼ Half and Half

Pinch of nutmeg

Pinch of cayenne

1 tsp fresh thyme

1 ¼ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

½ c. Swiss, shredded

½ c. Gruyere, shredded

¼ c. butter, melted

1 c. panko

Cook your pasta and set it aside but don’t let it cool down too much. Cook your chicken, chop and set aside.

Heat a large nonstick skillet (with high sides if you have one) over medium-high heat. Add pancetta, ham, prosciutto, onion, and garlic. Sprinkle with just a touch of salt. Sauté for 5 minutes or until onion is tender.

Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup, level with a knife then pour into a small bowl. Gradually add ¾ c. milk, stirring until smooth. Add flour mixture, the rest of the milk, the half and half, nutmeg, cayenne, thyme, ground black pepper, and chicken to the pan.

Bring to boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes or until thick, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, stir in cheese until it melts.

Combine pasta and sauce, stir until well coated then pour into a casserole dish. (If you used a skillet with high sides, you should be able to pour your pasta directly into the pan with the sauce.)

Toss the panko with the melted butter then sprinkle over the top of the pasta. Bake for 6 minutes or until panko is browned and crisp.

I suggest letting it sit for 10 minutes after taking out of the oven. Ok, five, if you can’t wait that long.

Every bite of this was so tasty, I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am that this worked.

Looking for the recipes I drew from to create this one?

Pasta Cordon Bleu from Amy's New Kitchen

Penne with Pancetta, Spinach, and Buttery Crumb Topping from Cooking Light

Chicken Cordon Bleu from Tyler Florence

Classic Mornay Sauce from Emeril Lagasse

Pancetta Spinach and Penne Casserole

It’s dark, rainy, and cold. I feel like I have stumbled into something Edgar Allan Poe wrote. Something awful is about to happen. Good thing there’s something called comfort food for days (or weeks) like this. My favorite part besides the taste? It’s another Cooking Light recipe!

For lack of a better name, they call it Penne with Pancetta,Spinach, and Buttery Crumb Topping. It’s a creamy, gooey, cheesy, yummy, salty, carb fest with some spinach that you can sneak in to get kids to eat something green without complaints. And since my legal adult sister can still be a picky eater unless her boyfriend makes it, I made this with her in mind while our parents were on vacation.

Some differences:

I thought we had a box of penne at home when I went grocery shopping. I was wrong. We had cavatappi instead! I thought, “hey! That would be fun!” but then when I started to get things ready to make it, I realized that the store brand box of pasta only has 12oz in it. The recipe calls for a pound. I was down 4oz. Ended up back at the store anyway to buy more cavatappi and to buy a fresh baguette.

We have made this a number of times because everyone loves it but we all want more pancetta. I doubled the amount of pancetta the recipe calls for. Can’t find pancetta? Feel free to use ham! We made this dish after Easter once and used the leftover spiral ham to add some extra meat.

Some tips:

Do as much of the prep work you can ahead of time. This recipe makes a lot of dishes and has a number of steps.

You can buy pre-chopped ingredients but doing it yourself is better for your budget and for your palate. Pre-chopped ingredients do not last very long in your refrigerator because you can’t be entirely sure how long they’ve been sitting in the fridge at the store.

I’m only working part time and I’ll be starting grad school in a few months so I have a lot of time at the house these days to do more cooking. This means that I had time during the day to chop my spinach, onions, and garlic, to grate the cheese, and to make the fresh breadcrumbs. Doing all of that before dinner time meant that I cut down on some of the dishes. There are sooooo many dirty dishes when this recipe is done.

Last tip – time your pan cooking around your pasta. I didn’t start my onions, pancetta, and garlic sauté until the pasta had about 5 minutes left on the timer. One timer means less stress in my book!

The only problem with this recipe? It’s addictive! You’ll want seconds or thirds and it will be so hard to resist.

Make it on a day as dreary as this one and you’ll be sure to banish that Raven tapping at your chamber door.

The last delicious bite.

Apple Cranberry Crumble

When cranberries and oranges get together they turn into college freshmen at their first frat party. It’s true! They party like its 1999. Not sure what that’s like actually since I was 8 or 9 in 1999. Anyway, fresh orange juice gets to play with cranberries AND apples in this Cranberry Apple Crumble from Cooking Light: my favorite magazine to get recipes from. I don’t feel as guilty reaching for seconds…

We went apple picking as soon as the Macintosh trees were open for business at the orchard up the street from my house. Mom made apple pie and it was devoured within a couple of days. But since we got a peck’s worth, we still had plenty of apples and a small amount of fresh cranberries that needed to be used – fast!

I didn’t have enough fresh cranberries so I supplemented with Craisins…yum.

This recipe has a nice balance of sweet and tart when you use all fresh cranberries but I’ve always wondered how it would taste with Craisins. I’m more partial to sweet than tart. The Craisins made a big sweet difference! However, I’m glad I didn’t use only Craisins because the fresh cranberries balance out the extra sweetness.

*Note: I squeezed my own orange juice and I think it makes a HUGE difference from buying bottled juice. Please don’t buy your orange juice bottled. Your tastebuds will thank you.

Halfway Homemade Beef Ramen

I’m not a personal fan of Sandra Lee’s Semi-homemade or of her outfits that match her kitchen décor but her POV is excellent. You may not have time to do things completely from scratch but you don’t want to settle for something that’s packaged and prepared. (And take-out from the usual places gets boring and expensive very quickly).

Take ramen for example: you could reminisce about your college days eating the dehydrated and sodium laden cup of noodles [JUST ADD WATER]. You could even be going through those days right now. As I’ve said before, I’m snobby about food. It’s a curse. I’ve never had a Cup of Noodles. Granted, I lived at home and commuted to school so there was never any need to buy cheap microwave meals.

Unless you have found a good restaurant that serves excellent ramen (tell me if you have because I’m searching), you will wind up buying the cheap stuff or going without.

Don’t go without! Halfway home make your ramen!

While it’s on my cooking to do list, I just haven’t had the time to make my own ramen broth from the bottom of the pot up.

Time saver – prepared stock. It’s going to be very standard though and lacking in Asian flare. What can you do about that? They don’t sell stock that way. Time to doctor it up. Here’s what I did:

Crock pot

32oz beef stock

2-3 cloves garlic

Tbsp. fish sauce

Tbsp. sambal oolek (or any brand of chile garlic paste)

Tbsp. soy sauce

1/3 c. sake or rice wine vinegar

Tsp salt

Tsp pepper

*1lb beef

Combine all the ingredients in your Crock pot and cook on high for 5 hours or on low for 8 hours. *Note about beef: I had some cuts of steak that were really tough – I kept them whole for the cooking process because I think it is traditional to cook the beef then serve slices of it with the ramen noodles and broth. You could easily use stew meat if you’re not concerned about the traditional aspects.

An hour or so before your ramen broth and meat is done in the crock pot, cook the noodles of your choice. I found fresh Chinese noodles which aren’t traditional of course but worked well. (About a 1lb of noodles).

Add shitake mushrooms, bok choy or baby bok choy, and scallions to the crock pot and allow them to stew for the remainder of the cooking time or until wilted and softened.

It’s also traditional to serve with a hardboiled egg…but I forgot to put them in the bowls when I served it for dinner! Shucks! Most of you probably wouldn’t miss the egg, but it does add an interesting texture to this Japanese comfort food.

I garnished with some fresh scallions and a swirl of Sriracha for extra heat. :) I enjoy the tingle :D

The egg and sriracha are missing... :(