delish.com, i love you!!!

I must confess, the majority of the foods I make start out as a recipe I find somewhere and then completely bastardize. I recently bought Light & Delish: 400 Calories or Less! because when I looked through it, there were some good sounding recipes. If you want some good recipes, I recommend picking this magazine up (the label says "display until April 30, 2010, so there is still time to get one if you want). Well worth every penny. But then again, you can also find the recipes on www.delish.com so you could always find them there...for free...

Last night was Chicken Bolognese. I wasn't planning to make it, but I found the perciatelli pasta that hubby wanted and decided to pick up the rest of the ingredients. He was a very happy guy when he got home yesterday and saw what I made. Unlike my usual manner of cooking, I followed the recipe pretty closely (except for the fact that I did cook the sauce a little longer than the recipe calls for since I was waiting for hubby to get home before I put on the finishing touches). SInce I followed the recipe, I will save myself some typing time (also, since I didn't take pictures, there are photos of it here). Here is a link to the recipe: http://www.delish.com/recipefinder/chicken-bolognese-pasta-recipes?click=recipe_sr The only change I made is that I used perciatelli instead of linguine (it looks like really big spaghetti). And I didn't use freshly grated parmesan because I was feeling lazy...and because hubby is strange and likes the stuff in the jar better anyways (yeah, he's weird like that).

Tonight, I made Poblano Corn Chowder with Grilled Shellfish: http://www.delish.com/recipefinder/poblano-corn-chowder-grilled-shellfish-rbk0208?click=recipe_sr but this time, I did make some changes.

If you compare the image on the recipe page with this one, you will notice that my shellfish (shrimp & scallops) are not grilled. This is because 1) I did not want to deal with the grill and 2) I have yet to really figure out how to work the broiler on my stove. Because of this. I changed how I added the seasoning. Instead of brushing it on, I put the shellfish in a pan and poured the mixture over it. I stirred it around to get all the meat covered and then stirred it around every few minutes while I was preparing the chowder. When it came time to cook the shellfish, I cooked it in a cast iron skillet. The recipe says grill for 2 min each side, but it definitely took longer than 4 mins in the pan. The shrimp were already cooked, so they were quick. The scallops were a different story since I am not so good with scallops. I just cooked them till they looked done and then relied on my meat thermometer to tell me that they were plenty hot enough. I took the shellfish out of the marinade when I put it in the pan so I had marinade left over and didn't want it to go to waste. When I was done with the shellfish, there was a little browned marinade in the pan, so I decided to experiment with deglazing the pan to make a roux with the rest of the marinade. I poured it into the pan, scraped up the brown bits (see, I DO learn from watching Rachael Ray) and reduced the sauce. When it was thickened to my liking, I poured in over the shellfish (which, I should have mentioned, were in a bowl at this point) and mixed it up. I think this was a very good addition to the dish.

I made the chowder pretty much according to the recipe, so there is nothing to tell on this.

My only real "addition" to the meal was fat free refried beans and this is only because I love refried beans so I will have them any chance I get.

I completely intended to make something for dessert too, but I didn't get around to it. It's a good thing too, since we were so stuffed after dinner that there was no room for dessert...