Chicken and Sausage Carbonara

My favorite dish to order at Olive Garden is the Chicken and Shrimp Carbonara. SO good, but so expensive. After finding a good copycat recipe for Olive Garden's dish, I made my own changes, and it came out great. Being a budgeting college student, I switched up some of the ingredients for things I already had on hand or less expensive alternatives. It tasted just as great as when I used the real ingredients, and my roommate absolutely loved it!


Serves 6

What You Need:

1/2 box pasta (spaghetti, linguine, etc.)

1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2/3 cup hot water
3/4 tablespoon italian seasoning
3/4 tablespoon garlic powder
2 large boneless chicken breasts 
4 small garlic cloves
1/2 cup 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) butter
4 strips of thick bacon 
2 italian sausages
2-4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated
2 cups heavy cream
2 cups milk
2 1/4 tablespoons romano cheese, grated
2 1/4 tablespoons parmesan cheese, grated
1 1/3 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded
1/2 cup panko
1 1/8 teaspoons garlic powder
1 1/8 tablespoons butter, melted


What To Do (And What I Actually Used):

1. Boil your pasta according to the directions on the package! I used whole grain spaghetti, but you can use any kind you well please. 

2. Alright, here's where my substitutions come into play. I used a pack of pre-cooked fried chicken, because, quite frankly, it's cheaper. Normally I would have used a rotisserie chicken, but the fried chicken happened to be on sale this week. Both are good less expensive alternatives. Whether you choose these options, or decide to cook up raw chicken breasts, cut up your chicken into small pieces. make sure there are NO bones.

3. Whisk hot water, olive oil, italian seasoning, and garlic powder together. Put your chicken into his mixture and allow to marinade in the refrigerator while you finish up the rest of your recipe. It may sound a bit silly to put cooked chicken into a marinade, but it really does change the flavor, cooked or raw.

4. Chop up your bacon strips into little pieces and mince garlic cloves. 

5. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a skillet. 

6. Add bacon and garlic to the butter on medium heat. Be careful not to burn the butter.

7. Meanwhile, cook up sausages. Slice and cut disks in half.

8. Once the bacon is mostly cooked. Add the sausage to the mixture and allow to continue cooking for a few more minutes, making sure bacon and sausages are completely cooked through.

9. Melt 1/2 cup of butter in a large pot.

10. Add half and half, milk, flour, and parmesan cheese to the melted butter. Make sure to whisk continuously so that the sauce doesn't get lumpy. Start by adding only 2 tablespoons of flour, and add more as needed. As the sauce heats up, it'll get thicker. 

11. Once the sauce has thickened, add the bacon and sausage mixture and mix. 

12. Put pasta on a cookie sheet and pour desired amount of sauce over it. I ended up having a lot of sauce left over. I'll probably end up freezing it, for next time. 

13. In a small bowl, add melted butter and bread crumbs. I used crushed seasoned bread pieces for stuffing, but obviously panko is way better. 

14. Spread this mixture over the top of your sauce.

15. Set your oven to broil and put your pasta in the oven. Let broil until the top is golden brown and crispy. Obviously, a bit less "golden brown" than the one pictured above. (Apparently the ovens in our on campus apartments are infernos. Don't worry, it was still delicious.) It should only take a few minutes.

16. Serve up with some garlic bread and salad, and you have yourself an amazing meal! 

Monster Cookies

     A while ago, my mom's best friend made cookies for a group trip that our families had taken. Unfortunately, I was off at school and was unable to go. However, I did hear my mom and little brother rave about her best friend's cookies. We soon asked her for the recipe, and I told my mom that I would have to experience these for myself. The next time I made a trip home, my mom and I whipped up a batch of these cookies, and let me tell you, they were DELICIOUS. These aren't "Oh, I'll just have one" type of cookies. They are "Oh my goodness, hide them before I devour them all myself" cookies. Brace yourselves, people; you were warned. I don't know where she got this recipe, but props to whoever thought of these amazing little nuggets. This simple recipe is definitely a crowd pleaser each and every time. They're off the cookie platter, just as fast as you can put them on!

What You'll Need:
1 1/2 cups peanut butter (I use natural, but any kind would work)
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated white sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 1/2 cups quick cooking oats
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup M&M's plain chocolate candies- If you can find the baking M&M's, it's an added bonus. Otherwise, regular M&M's would work fine. 


What To Do: 
1. Preheat oven to 350°F and get your cookie sheets ready for deliciousness to be thrust upon them. (Yes, that just happened)

2. In a large bowl, combine softened butter with the brown and white sugar. Mix in peanut butter. Make sure everything is mixed together really well. An electric mixer would be really helpful with this. '

3. Mix in the eggs and vanilla. 

4. Once combined, throw in the oats and baking soda, and keep mixing. 

5. Stir in the chocolate chips and M&M's enough to distribute evenly throughout the dough. 

6. Use an ice cream scoop to scoop out mounds of dough and place on your cookie sheets about 1 or 2 inches apart. Of course, you could just use a spoon. I like an ice cream scoop because it gives you pretty consistently sized cookies.

7. Bake about 12 minutes. Be careful not to over bake them. Because they're bigger and quite dense (hence MONSTER cookies), it may take a few additional minutes to fully bake them. Just keep checking on them. 

8. Let them cool... if you can avoid temptation for that long. 

Does anyone else have their own variations?

Do-It-Yourself Ice Cream Soda Party

Girl's Night Part II

      As I said in my previous post, my girls and I got together for a relaxing girl's night in to celebrate my roommate's and my birthdays. After enjoying our "gourmet" grilled cheese sandwiches we took a movie break before we hit the dessert. Because I mean, come on, lets be real; what girl's night is complete without desert?? Again, we wanted to keep it easy and simple yet amazing. If theres one thing we can all agree on, it's ice cream. I wanted to do something a little more than just ice cream sundaes and try something new, so I decided on ice cream sodas and floats. After doing some research and looking up some recipes, I found that you can basically make all the recipes with vanilla ice cream as a base. I picked up a few flavors of sodas, some toppings, and some syrups. I set out all of the ingredients and we each got to build our own flavored ice cream soda. So easy and so good. Plus, you'll have a lot of fun putting these together with your guests! 

Here's what you'll need:

• Various soda options. We used strawberry, grape, orange, root beer, and a plain seltzer water. 
• Toppings of choice. We used Hugs and pretzels (leftover from our pretzel bites), nut toppings, cherries, M&M's, and regular and peppermint whipped cream (not shown).  We had a little more toppings in case someone didn't feel like making a soda and just wanted a sundae instead. 
• Ice cream. We just used vanilla, but had we had a bigger budget and more guests (there were only 5 of us; we were missing one person), we would have gotten chocolate and strawberry as well. Of course you can experiment with any flavor ice cream you want! 
• Flavored Syrups. We used chocolate and caramel syrup. We figured these were pretty standard. You can really get creative and even get flavors such as white chocolate or peppermint. 
• Some serving glasses. We had these really cute vintage Coca-Cola glasses and thought that they'd be really fun to use for our party. 

How to put these together: 

Now, there are 4 components or layers that you need. Each layer can be changed to whatever flavors you want for a mix and match type procedure. In the picture at the beginning of the post, I decided to make a chocolate covered strawberry soda. 

1. The first layer is ice cream. Fill you glass about half way with ice cream. You can adjust this to as little or as much ice cream as you want depending on what you want your ice cream to soda ratio to be like. You can literally use any flavor you want, just make sure you have some sort of complimentary syrup or soda to mix with it. For mine, I used vanilla. 
2. The next step is syrup. Now this can be more of a subtle flavor or something that you want most of your flavoring to come from. That being said, the amount of syrup you pour over your ice cream is dependent on how bold you want the flavor of the syrup to show through. You can even skip this layer all together. I used a generous amount of chocolate syrup for mine for the "chocolate covered" part. 
3. Next comes the soda, again you can use any flavor you want. If you don't want your soda to add flavor so that your flavor combination is from the ice cream and syrup use the seltzer water. I used strawberry soda for the "strawberry" part. 
4. This is the last and final layer to your creation. Top with some whipped cream and a cherry (or whatever toppings your heart desires) and you're all ready to enjoy this fun dessert. Just add a spoon and a straw! (:

Heres one my friend made. How fun and cute are these?! 

Here are some flavor combinations to get you started:

Chocolate Covered Strawberry: vanilla ice cream+ chocolate syrup+ strawberry soda

Purple Cow: vanilla ice cream+ grape soda

Pink Cow: vanilla ice cream+ strawberry soda

Orange Creamsicle: vanilla ice cream+ orange soda

Peanut Butter Cup: Peanutbutter ice cream+ chocolate syrup+ seltzer 

Double Chocolate: chocolate ice cream+white chocolate syrup

Chocolate Soda: vanilla ice cream+ chocolate syrup+ seltzer

Almond Joy: chocolate almond ice cream+ coconut syrup+ seltzer

As you can tell, the combination possibilities are endless!! This is such a fun and easy way to make dessert more than just something served to you on a plate. I can't wait to do this for a larger event! 

All in all the night was a huge success! Because of our large group size we were forced to split up into two apartments which are, unfortunately, quite aways a way from one another. It was so nice to be able to just spend time all together watching movies and hanging out like the old days when we ALL lived together. Who knew an easy dinner, fun dessert, blankets, and movies make for a spectacular girl's night in.  I couldn't have asked for a better night with my lovely ladies! 

Easy "Gourmet" Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

I have a unique group of girls that I couldn't be any closer with. They are the most amazing friends I could ever ask for and I couldn't imagine college without them. For each one of our birthdays we always do a big surprise dinner and go out. However, after a long couple of weeks (I mean LONNNGG) my roommate and I decided to join our birthdays together and have a relaxing girls night in at our place instead. We wanted to make something super easy and super delicious, and also vegetarian friendly as my roommate does not eat meat! After looking at our options, we decided on the classic yet amazing grilled cheeses. Is there anything better than the combination of delicious bread and savory cheese?? I think not! I volunteered to do the cooking and decided that I wanted to step up a simple grilled cheese a bit. A little experimenting payed off and they were a huge hit; and the best part is, they were so easy to make! With a few simple ingredients you can make some pretty awesome grilled cheese sandwiches that will please everyone!

We headed up to our local Costco and gathered our ingredients. Here's what you'll need:

•  A couple loaves of bread (depending on how many people you plan on serving). We got fresh uncut Italian loaves. You can use any type you want; there are countless possibilities! We chose this package because, quite honestly, it was the least expensive for the amount of bread we needed. We're college students on a budget so we did our best to keep costs low so that we could splurge on other ingredients. Cutting the bread took a little extra work as opposed to precut bread, but the bread was delicious! I'd definitely buy this again with or without the budget. 

• A packgage of cheese. Again, the amount you need is dependent on how many people you plan on serving. We got an assorted pre-sliced package which had Swiss, Monterey Jack, Colby, and Cheddar. This seemed like a good mix of cheeses that most people tend to agree on. I'd definitely recommend getting an assorted package so that everyone can have exactly what they like! We did have a bit of extra cheese left over, but that was quite alright because we all love cheese in our apartment. 

• You're gonna want some shredded Parmegiano Reggiano. Now, I need to warn you, this is probably the most expensive part of the sandwich, but, in my opinion, is worth every penny. It adds amazing flavor to the sandwich that really distinguishes it from a plain ole grilled cheese. The container that we got (shown above) was around $18 but was way more than we actually needed. We probably used no more than about 1/4 of the container at the very most. This was the only size they had, but of course Costco sells in bulk. We probably should've have gotten this at a local grocery store but we were pressed for time.  If this is something that you're not willing to spend money on, some sort of shredded cheese would work fine as well (such as Jack, Cheddar, Colby, Mexican blend...). If you go this route, just be sure to check on your sandwiches frequently as they cook, as times and methods may vary than those listed below. 

• You're also going to want to get some sort of butter or margarine. Luckily we had this on hand and didn't need to buy it. We used Unsalted butter. 

Now Lets Get Started: 

1. If you bought unsliced bread you're going want a good knife. The one we used was the only one we had and was kind of dull. This made the bread cutting step much more difficult than it should've been, but definitely do able! If your loaf is a rounded shape or not sized consistently all the way through I'd cut off the ends until the loaf is more or less consistent. This step is somewhat important because one slice of bread will make one sandwich and you don't want to end up with some really tiny ones and some huge, unless you like that, in which case feel free to used the ends! Once this is done, cut the bread into slices. For these hearty sandwiches, you're going to want to make the slices a little bit on the thicker side so that they can withstand all the deliciousness that they will soon encounter!  If you went with pre-sliced bread, you can skip this step! (:
2. Once you've gotten all of your bread sliced, cut each slice in half as evenly as you can. If you're a little bit off, it's alright. These sandwiches are going to be devoured anyways! You can start softening up your butter (or butter substitute of choice) at this point. I put mine in a microwaveable dish and microwaved it in 10 sec increments until it was spreadable. 
3. Once the butter is soft and bread is sliced and cut, spread the butter evenly on the bread and set down buttered side up. Preheat a medium skillet to medium-medium low depending on your individual stove. 
4. Sprinkle a generous amount of the Parmegiano Reggiano on the buttered sides of the bread and press down onto the butter so that it sticks. This will add a crispy crunchy outside to your sandwich and give it that gourmet feel. You can also add some garlic powder before the Parmegiano Reggiano to give it a nice garlic flavor. 
5. Once your Skillet is heated, set one piece of bread buttered side down. Follow this with a slice of cheese (we used a slice and a half) and the second piece of bread (buttered side up of course). After about a minute or two check the bottom of the sandwich. You don't want the bottom to burn, which it tends to do faster than you expect; this is why we keep the flame on the lower side. However, you do want it to be nice golden brown. With this sandwich, you're more concerned on how the outside cooks as opposed to the inside. Once you've reached the color you want flip and repeat the cooking process on the other side. 
6. Now to avoid the burnt Parmegiano Reggiano (which quickly turns the sandwich from yum to gross) the cooking time will be significantly less than the cooking time for the cheese on the inside.  So in order to get the inside to it's gooey goodness potential, I set the sandwiches on a cookie sheet in the oven at about 350 and added each sandwich as I cooked them. This also helped keep them warm so that the first sandwich I made was as fresh and warm as the last one. I left them in there until the cheese melted completely. 
7. Now serve and sit back. Your guests will have no idea that these took you a couple of minutes to put together!! 

We decided to keep ours simple, but you could completely glam these up with endless combinations of toppings, spreads, and cheeses! Avocado and bacon would make an amazing sandwich. You can even set out options and have guests make their own concoctions as you cook them up for easy do-it-youself sandwiches! 

Pretzel Bites

So my roommate and I were trying to figure out what we should do for our RA for her birthday. Upon some research.. A.K.A Pinterest, we decided to make our own pretzel bites. They looked so cute, and as a college student, they were good for our wallets; and surprisingly, EXTREMELY easy to make!

What You'll Need:
Waffle shaped pretzels (I used Von's brand)
M&M's
Hershey's Hugs 

What to Do: 
1. Preheat Oven to 200 degrees F.
2. Place pretzels on a cookie sheet. Set one Hershey's Hug on each pretzel. You could use Kisses for this as well. I just really like the way Hugs added a little extra design.
3. Place cookie sheet into the oven for about 4 minutes or until the Hug has melted through. The Hug will keep its shape until you push it down.
4. Don't forget about the M&M's!! You can use any combination of colors that you would like. I chose blue and green because those were my RA's favorite colors. Place an M&M on top of each Hug and push down. This takes a bit of practice, but after the first few, you get the hang of it. 

So there you have it, super simple and delicious treats! They may not be gourmet cupcakes, but for 10 minutes, it really doesn't get much better. I can't wait to try these again. I'm thinking dark chocolate Kisses and red M&M's for a Minnie Mouse themed party coming up! (: