Ranch Chicken Alfredo

Ranch Chicken Alfredo

1 pound skinless, bonelesschicken breasts
1 pound angel hair pasta, cooked
1 cup ranch dressing
1 cup parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup light cream
1 cup frozen peas or pea pods, cooked

Directions:
Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper to taste. Grill on George Foreman (or other) grill while pasta is cooking.

Meanwhile, melt butter in saucepan; add cream and parmesan cheese, heating and stirring until the cheese is melted. Add dressing; heat through. Stir in desired amount of the cooked and drained pasta. (Do not rinse pasta, so the sauce will stick to it better.)

Cut the chicken in bite-size pieces and add to the spaghetti mixture; add cooked pea pods and or peas.
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Alterations:
-I substituted broccoli for the peas (that's a WHOLE lotta starch!)
-Regular pasta instead of angel hair

This is SO good. Thanks to Lynnie for finding it, this is definitely now a staple in our house! It's VERY rich, and a one-bowl meal. The leftovers are just as amazing! I double the recipe so that I can have leftovers during the week!

Enjoy!

Much Ado About Buffalo Lasagna

Ok, so the hot topic on the Weight Watchers boards is Buffalo Chicken Lasagna. I was intrigued... as was the hubs. We both love wings, and this was the wing version of lasagna. I had all the ingredients on hand too which was nice.

Here's the recipe:



Buffalo Chicken Lasagna

Ingredients
12 Whole Wheat Lasagna Noodles, uncooked
1 lb. skinless chicken breast, cooked and cubed
3 cups spaghetti sauce (cheese blends are best)
1 cup Texas Pete Buffalo-style Wing Sauce
1 ½ cups water
15 oz. nonfat ricotta cheese
½ cup egg substitute
½ cup blue cheese crumbles or pepper jack cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly spray a 9×13 baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. In a small mixing bowl, combine ricotta cheese and egg substitute and set aside. In a different mixing bowl, combine water, spaghetti sauce, wing sauce and chicken. Spread approximately one cup of the sauce and chicken mixture across the bottom of the pan, and arrange four of the noodle over the sauce. Spread a layer of sauce over the noodles, and then spread a layer of the ricotta mixture over the sace. Add another layer of noodles and repeat the process until you end with a layer of just the sauce and chicken mixture. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 60 minutes. Remove dish from the oven, sprinkle blue cheese crumbles evenly over the top. Place back in the oven uncovered and bake for an additional 15 minutes. Makes 9 servings!

Some notes:
-People were saying they used Frank's Red Hot Sauce, I'm sure that works too.
-Adjust to your liking heatwise.
-Some people cooked the noodles ahead of time, it's a LOT of water to add, 1 1/2 cups.
-I added some ranch dip seasoning to the ricotta, as per many reviews.

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Ok, so I was NOT thrilled. It was hotter than ANYTHING!!! My mouth and lips were on FIRE. Seriously. I ate less than half the serving size and went and got this for dinner:



2 Tablespoons of port wine cheddar and 2 sevings of unsalted saltines. MUCH better.

I know I screwed up the sauce, so I'm thinking that's the problem. I was pouring the hot sauce into the spaghetti sauce when all of a sudden I realized I was using the WRONG hot sauce! I had 2 bottles of Texas Pete, Buffalo Wing Sauce (correct one) and Hot Sauce (which I was using!) Oops.

So, I added more tomato sauce and then added the Buffalo Sauce. This is where I killed it. TOO HOT.

Lyn and Drew LOVED it, with Lyn taking seconds and Drew thirds. The both like spicy things, so they were fine. So if you like hot things, you'd like it. My face was sweating it was that hot to me.

I may make it again, not completely sold yet, but will definitely tweak it some. Maybe make it a Rigatoni dish instead of lasagna? Or cook the pasta ahead of time? The noodles were rubbery and yet tough to cut.

So, to cool off my mouth, 3/4 cup of Turkey Hill Philadelphia Style Vanilla Ice Cream with Reese's Magic Shell did the trick: