Creamy Pesto Chicken Stuffed Shells

I just LOVE everything Joelen from "What's Cookin' Chicago?" posts! One week, I had 4 dinner items from her blog on my menu (and I only cook 5 nights a week). This is one of my favorites: http://joelens.blogspot.com/2010/05/pesto-chicken-stuffed-shells.html


I halved the recipe because it was only for 2 people, and we both loved it!
Here are the ingredients used to serve two people (plus have some leftovers; they reheat great!):
7-10 jumbo pasta shells, 2-4 oz. cream cheese (I didn't half this at all because I LOVE it creamy), 1/2 cup Parmesan or Asiago plus another 1/8-1/4 cup for topping, 1 1/2 tablespoons pesto, 1 cup cooked, shredded chicken, and 1 clove garlic. 
The first time I made this I prepared the shell stuffing mixture before cooking the shells and when it came time to stuff them I kept burning my fingers, so this time I learned a little somethin' and cooked the shells before doing anything else so they had plenty of time to cool! While my pasta shells were cooling, I boiled my chicken in water seasoned with a little rosemary, sea salt, and Italian seasoning. I find chicken is easiest to shred if it's boiled or cooked in a crock pot. 
Next, I add my shredded cup of chicken to a large bowl with the 4 oz. cream cheese, 1/2 cup Parmesan, 1 1/2 tablespoons pesto, and 1 clove minced garlic. Now all you have to do is thoroughly mix the ingredients together and stuff them into your cooled shells!

 

Now it all tastes great just like this, but by now the shells are cold so you're going to want to preheat your oven to 350oF, put all your stuffed shells in a baking dish, sprinkle them with however much Parmesan or Asiago you prefer and bake them for fifteen to twenty five minutes until they're hot and delicious. 

Greek yogurt, berry, and honey popsicles

These popsicles have been a huge hit on pinterest lately so I decided to try them for myself! However, I got creative with it and made miniature ice sized popsicles as well! They were all delicious and super simple to make!
All you need is 2 cups of Greek yogurt, half a cup of honey, and a cup of any type of fruit that you like! I used strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries.
I actually preferred the ice cube treats more than the full popsicles AND they were so so much easier to get out of their molds than the large popsicles. 

To begin, add 2 cups of your favorite Greek yogurt to a large bowl. Thoroughly stir in half a cup of honey, then stir in your fruit (frozen or fresh). That's pretty much all there is to it! To avoid making a huge mess, I transferred my mixture into a plastic bag and cut a whole in the bottom so I could easily squeeze it into the ice cube molds and the popsicle molds. This part was hard and relatively messy but so worth it. 
I froze these for at least 4 hours before even trying to force them out of the molds, and when the time came, I still had to run the bottoms under hot water to get them out. 

           

Easy Shrimp Fried Rice

This is nothing spectacular, just an easy (~30 minute) shrimp fried rice recipe that I threw together the other night as a dinner for one.
All you need for this easy recipe is 1 cup rice (1/2 cup uncooked), small handful frozen mixed veggies, an egg, 1/4 cup shrimp, an oil or butter to cook the shrimp in, 1/7 clove garlic, and half a tablespoon of soy sauce. Here's what I used:

If you have leftover brown or white rice from a precious dinner it'll be a snap! Since I didn't, I made a single serving of minute rice, fluffed it, and put it in the fridge until it had lost most of its moisture (if you don't, it sort of acts as sticky rice when you try to cook with it).
To start out I cooked my shrimp in about a fork-full of coconut oil, just because it was there and I thought it'd be healthier than butter or olive oil. 

When the shrimp was cooked through, I took it out and sliced it into smaller pieces then added it back to my pot along with my cup of rice, handful of frozen veggies, and garlic and got it all cookin'. Once the rice started to change colors, I push it around the edges of the pan and make an opening to add the egg in.

Scramble the egg until mostly cooked, then slowly push the rice into the egg and stir the mixture all together. 

Once everything is mixed together, add your half tablespoon of soy sauce. 

Once the soy sauce is thoroughly mixed in, you're done! That's all there is to it! Super easy and delicious for a quick weeknight dinner. 

I loosely followed this ham fried rice recipe, so it's really easy to make this recipe yield more food! I actually seventhed the recipe since I was only cooking for myself.

Enjoy!