THE Omelette

I'm not sure how many of you watch Russ on Conneaut AM Live with Pat Williams, but if you do, this week you saw the monster omelette he brought on to the show. I thought I would give you a glimpse of the kind of meal stretching that we do at our house.

The basis of that omelette started the night before with dinner. We wanted to have tacos, but due to a lack of hamburger or buffalo burger in the house opted for chicken tacos (don't know why we don't do this more often, I like them better then hamburger tacos anyway;).

The chicken taco 'recipe' is really easy. Here's what I do:

1. Pound the chicken breast out until they are ~1/3-1/2 inch thick all over (this helps them to cook more quickly and evenly, without drying out).

2. Sprinkle your favorite taco seasonings on the breasts (a mix of chili pepper, cilantro, salt, pepper, red pepper flake if you like it hot, is a simple combo that works great, or you can use one of those pre-fab packets).

3. Toss the seasoned chicken into a pre-heated, non-stick pan (add a little olive oil to get a nice sear) over medium-high heat and cook on each side until cooked through (about 3-5 minutes per side, depending on how thawed they are). Note that in the winter when I'm making this dish, I would heat the over to 375F and roast the prepared chicken breasts - but that's just to get some extra heat into our chilly house ;).

4. Allow the chicken to rest for a few minutes, then take a couple forks and shred it into bite size pieces.

5. Return the chicken to the pan it was cooked in, add some additional taco seasoning, a couple tablespoons of corn meal (or more to taste) and enough water to make some sauce (for 4 breats, I probably added about a cup of water). Bring the mixture to a boil and allow it to cook until the cornmeal is cooked and the sauce is thickened.

6. While the chicken filling is cooking, we lay out and prep all the other fixings - I usually get the kids to help with this. For our tacos, we like shredded cheese (your choice, I'm partial to the Buffalo Pepper Jack for tacos, but it is kind of warm), diced tomatoes, candy onions (sometimes I sautee them - yum), fresh salsa (I'll show you another trick when you have leftovers of this tasty stuff from the Market), black olives, shredded lettuce, jalepenos, taco sauce . . . in short, whatever you like on your tacos.

Now for my brood of seven it takes 4 chicken breast halves - two whole chicken breasts - in order to even hope to have any leftovers; and if you want the omelette in the morning, you'll need leftovers!

In the morning, pull out your favorite taco fixings left over from the night before. For the omelette Russ took on AM Live yesterday we heated up some leftover chicken filling and onions, but I've added a couple spoonfuls of salsa before, and that's a nice addition. All you have to do is heat the ingredients up, which won't take long.

Heat your non-stick skillet over medium to medium-high heat. Add a little butter (I can't help it, I like the little shot of richness the butter adds to the eggs). Crack and scramble 4-6 eggs, adding salt, pepper and cilantro to taste). Once the skillet is heated, pour in the eggs, sprinkle a tablespoon of water around the edges of the pan, and cover the skillet. Let this cook until the egg is just about set on top (it will still be a little runny).

Once the egg is almost done, sprinkle shredded cheese over the egg, then spread the heated taco fixings over than, and cover the skillet. Allow this to cook until the egg is done and the cheese is melted, probably another few minutes is all it takes.

Serve with sour cream and salsa, with a little fresh cilantro as a garnish - yum!!

And as a bonus, for lunch that day, there was just enough chicken and cheese left over to make some chicken quesadillas! Triple yum out of four little chicken breasts. Now that's what I call stretching your food!

Oh, and I promised another tip with the fresh Market salsa - tired of cooking spaghettios for the kids as a snack? Try this healthy and easy alternative:

1. Cook some pasta (spaghetti, linguine, whatever you like) according to package directions, cooking only until al dante (still a little bite to the pasta). Strain the pasta.

2. In the pan you cooked the pasta in, dump some salsa (how much depends on how much pasta you made and how sausy you like it - I'm a dump kind of cook, so I'm not always real good about amounts, sorry;).

3. Add some parmesean cheese to the salsa and heat it over medium heat. Once it's heated through, add the drained pasta and toss to coat. Add salt/pepper to taste.

4. Serve with extra parmesean.

Simple, fresh, and better for you then that sodium-laden, mushy, over-cooked canned stuff.

Yep, it's all about stretching the food in our house. With seven mouths to feed, it's important. But equally important is teaching the kids that it doesn't have to come out of a can to be easy and good!

How do you stretch your food and/or food dollar? Please, share!!

Chicken Parmagiana

We had this for supper tonight, and it was so tasty I had to share. It's a pretty easy recipe. Here's what you'll need:

4 Chicken breast halves
3C Italian bread crumbs
1T Thyme
3 Eggs
2T Milk
1C Flour
Olive oil
jar of Spaghetti sauce (I used the Borelli mushroom sauce)
Parmagiana, grated
Mozarella, sliced

I use the chicken breast from the Market (of course) and pound it out flat in the package before I open it - you want the breasts to be ~1/2 inch thick.

First, put you fry pan on the stove to get it hot while youNow this is messy, get out three big bowls. Eggs and milk wisked together in one, in another put the flour, in the third stir together the bread crumbs and thyme and add salt and pepper to taste. First, dredge each chicken breast in flour, then dip it in the egg wash, then coat it in the bread crumbs. Now is a good time to pre-heat your oven to 400F.

Now it's time to cook the chicken. Don't overload your fry pan - in my favorite pan, I could only fit one breast at a time. Add one or two tablespoons of olive oil to the pan, and fry the chicken until it is golden brown (about 5 minutes on each side, maximum). Drain the chicken on a paper towel.

Select a baking dish large enough to put all of the chicken in a single layer (or maybe two), coat the dish lightly with olive oil. Add half the tomato sauce to the bottom of the dish and spread it out. Arrange the chicken in a single layer. Sprinkle parmagiana generously over the chicken, then cover it with a layer of mozzarella.

Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes at 400F - until the moz is bubbly and lightly browned. I heated the other half of the sauce on the stove top, so those of us who like sauce could add it to our side of pasta (the Kluski noodles make a nice liquine-type side, or if you prefer thinner pasta, the angel hair is a good choice). If you are a sauce lover, you can add the other half of the sauce over the chicken before putting on the cheese, but my family prefers less sauce on the chicken.

Now the recipes I looked at said that this would make 4 servings, but I did the four chicken breasts, and a pound of pasta, and it fed out family, so I'd say this was probably enough for 6 people to have pretty decent sized portions.

Chicken parm that beats a lot of restaurants, I would wager, and it really is quite easy. The kids love to help beat the chicken up, and mix the chicken coating, and sprinkle cheese. It's a very family-friendly recipe, and delicious to boot. Give it a try!!