Baked Chicken Alfredo

Today is a very special day for us:  our RA is coming over for lunch! So we're making one of our very favorite dishes, Baked Chicken Alfredo!

This is another one of those recipes that Hayley found on Pinterest and we knew we had to try it. It's super easy - only four ingredients, about $3 per serving, and this is a dish that we've already made four times in the past two months, so you know it's good!

(We'll be honest:  we want to impress our RA with this. She's always saying we're so sweet and domestic - which we're really not, but we like to cook, so that's kind of the same thing? I don't know, but we like to impress our RA. Megan, if you're reading this, we love you so much! <3)

So here's how you do it:

Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts (or more, if you really like chicken)
1 box of pasta (we used bowties, but you can use basically any kind of short pasta - spaghetti/linguini won't work!)
1 14.5 oz jar of alfredo sauce (or you could make your own if you want, but we don't have a recipe for that)
Lots of mozzarella cheese
Some Parmesan if you like it (which we do)

You're also going to need a 9x13 pan.

Method:

Cook your chicken however you normally cook chicken. Remember, the internal temp needs to be at least 165! Today, we just baked it at 375 for a while. Sometimes we put it in the crock pot with chicken stock.

Cook your pasta. (Hayley got out our big pot and cackled over it like a witch. This doesn't add to the taste but it's a lot of fun. I highly recommend it.)

Drain your pasta. Then put it back in the pot and stir in the alfredo sauce.

Shred your chicken (just use two forks and rip it to shreds, again cackling like a witch if you want to) and add it into the pasta.

Get out your 9x13. You don't need to grease it or anything. Spread a layer of pasta and chicken in the bottom. Top with a layer of mozzarella. Top with more pasta. Top with as much mozz and parm as you want. Repeat until all your pasta is used up. The last layer should be cheesey goodness.

Shove it in the oven at 375 until the cheese is all melty gooey delicious. It takes about 20 minutes.

Pull it out and - this is the hard part - let it cool down a couple minutes.

Here is the pre-baked pasta!

And the finished product!

Chicken Roll Ups and Pigs in a Blanket.

Alright this meal was from our Roomie Dinner from Wednesday night. Taylor and I had been wanted to make Pigs in a Blanket for a few days so that was definitely on the menu. I had also remembered about some chicken pockets that my mom had made for myself and my brothers when we were younger. This recipe came from a Pillsbury recipe book (you know the little ones you get from the store?) Yea well my mom has about a million of them. We have a small cabinet above our stove and it is filled from end to end with these little cook books. Plus some stacked in front and on top! I bet you she has some since before I was born. Normally my brothers and I were very picky so finding stuff we liked to eat was a bit of a struggle, so when she found this recipe we used to ask for it often because it was delicious! And that's not even the best part! It only costs about $3.00 per person if that! Our modification was to make Chicken Roll Ups instead of pockets because we could use more chicken.

 

Okay so I'm guessing most of you have made Pigs in a Blanket before, but just in case I'll give you the run down. 

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. 

Open up a pack of crescent rolls and separate into triangles. 

Take the hot dogs of your choice and roll inside crescent rolls (starting at the wide end). 

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. 

Add ins: cheese-dogs, jalapeno dogs, a slice of cheese?

Now for the Chicken Roll Ups

You can use either a rotisserie chicken or bake a boneless, skinless chicken breast/cook it in a crockpot. 

Shred the chicken and put in a medium size mixing bowl. 

Add in a 4 ounce package of softened cream cheese. 

Add in seasoning to taste. We added some garlic and onion powder as well as fresh cracked black pepper.  

Mix all of the ingredients together. 

Open up a package of crescent rolls and separate into triangles. 

Put a small glob (like a 1/4 cup) onto each triangle and roll up (just like the Pigs in a Blanket). 

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. 

Add ins: Lemon Pepper seasoning, ranch seasoning, anything else you like with chicken haha!

We guarantee you won't be disappointed. This is a super easy and relatively quick meal that is sure to satisfy!

Grown-Up Grilled Cheese

It's so hard to eat well (delicious, reasonably healthy meals where you don't have to pay through the nose) in college. Especially when your cafeteria serves food that a dog would hesitate to eat. (Seriously, I swear my scrambled eggs bounced the other day.)

And Hayley has this wonderful board on Pinterest full of recipes that make your mouth water. Most of them have cheap ingredients, but they make so much food! Way too much for just one person! So we're banding together to try out her recipes. We're going to work our way through her boards, through our family recipes, through everything we can find. We're going to learn couponing (gulp) and pass on what we learn to you, our readers.

Tonight's recipe? Grilled mac-and-cheese sandwiches.

Yeah, you heard me. Ooey gooey mac-and-cheese between two pieces of bread. When we saw this recipe, oh my goodness there were some excited college girls in our apartment. If it had mashed potatoes in it too, it would be the ultimate comfort food.

(Maybe we can work on that one of these days. Baby steps, baby steps.)

So here's how it works:

Ingredients:
Mac-and-cheese (about 1/4 cup per sandwich)
Bread, any kind (2 pieces per sandwich, obviously)
Butter (not much, like 1tbsp or something)
Salt and pepper
Any add-ins? (I'm a huge fan of Polish sausage and some diced onion in my mac, but Hayley thinks I'm weird - you can make up your own mind)

Method:
Make your mac. We used Velveeta Shells, but you can use any kind you want, including homemade.

Butter your bread. One side only, y'all, or your mac will slip around.

Bread goes butter-side-down on the hot skillet. This is the grilled cheese part, so if you know how to make grilled cheese, you know what's coming next.

Spread your mac on the bread, add some salt and pepper, and top with the other piece of bread, butter-side-out. Once the bottom's nice and brown, flip it.

Feel free to shout "Noodle down!" if you drop some. God knows we did.

Once both sides are deliciously brown and buttery, get that baby on a plate.

Oh yeah. Look at that perfect sandwich. Look at how gorgeous it is. Almost too good to eat.

Except that not eating it would be a tragedy because this is the best grilled cheese sandwich I've ever had.

Serve with sparkling grape juice (as we did) or your favorite fizzy beverage, juice, etc. And seriously, enjoy. (It won't be a struggle, we promise.)