YUMMY Recipes by Phaedra

Spanish Rice

2012-02-15T20:09:00.003-06:00

To go along with our Mexican themed dinner, I made a Phaedra's version of Spanish rice tonight. We had already cooked rice that was sitting in the fridge from our Thai Peanut Chicken dinner so I thought I would use that to cook up a side dish for our burgers. I look at Spanish Rice as you can put it in what you want as long as you keep within the theme :). Hope you enjoy.

1 ½ cups cooked rice

1 green pepper, chopped

3 shallots, chopped

1 garlic clove, chopped

2 tbsp homemade chipotlepepper in adobe sauce

1 cup chicken stock

½ cup dry sherry

2 tbsp chili powder

2 tbsp chili con carne

½ cup corn

In a large skillet, heat up 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil.Saute the shallots, green pepper and garlic until tender. Add the chipotlepepper in adobe sauce, chicken stock and sherry. Stir in the spices and cornand let simmer for about 10 minutes. Stir in the rice and let simmer for about5 more minutes.

Mexican Turkey Burgers

2012-02-15T19:56:00.000-06:00

We wanted to have a Mexican theme for dinner tonight and we pulled out some ground turkey. Dave absolutely loves Mexican food, so I thought I would appease him tonight and make something for him. We pulled out a jar of my Salsa Verde and a few other items and made Turkey burgers with a Mexican kick. Hope you all enjoy.

2 lbs ground turkey, 90% lean

½ red onion

2 jalapenos, seeded and minced

½ green pepper, chopped

1 tbsp garlic

2 tbsp homemade salsa verde

2 tbsp cumin

2 tbsp chili con carne

1 can black beans, rinsed

1 egg

2 cups bread crumbs
Cheese of your choice for the top

Combine all ingredients into a large mixing bowl

Form into patties, size them to your liking. Dave likes them fairly large...as you can tell from the picture.

These burgersend up being more like individual meatloaves so Dave ends up usually cooking onlow to medium heat on the grill and almost bakes them. Cook them to your liking. Cover the top with cheese and melt.

Salsa Verde

2012-02-15T19:39:00.004-06:00

In the height of canning season this summer, I bought a huge bushel of tomatillos. We love anything Mexican and anything salsa. I wanted to make salsa verde and found a recipe that I altered a bit.We use it for a lot of things. Just regular salsa or even to mix into things, such as hamburgers. It gives it an excellent flavor. I hope you enjoy it.

2 ½ lbs. tomatillos, husked and rinsed

2 large onions

10 cloves garlic

4 jalapenos, deseeded and chopped

2 Tb. vegetable oil

4 tsp. ground cumin

2 tsp. salt

1 cup packed cilantro

½ cup lemon juice

½ lime, juiced

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Peel and chop the onionsinto quarters. Place the tomatillos, onions, garlic on a rimmed baking sheet.Drizzle with oil. Roast in the oven for 15 minutes—until the exteriors areblistered but the insides are still slightly raw. Transfer everything to a potto simmer, including the precious juice. Add the lime juice and the lemon juice,sliced jalapenos and all of the spices. With a hand wand, puree the ingredientsuntil smooth. Bring to a boil. In sterilizedpint jars, transfer the salsa verde and seal. Process in a water canner for 15minutes. Remove and make sure all seals have popped.

Thai Peanut Chicken

2012-02-13T15:12:00.003-06:00

I was able to get chicken thighs for next to nothing at the grocery store and the hubs had this idea for a Thai peanut recipe. I wanted to use the crock-pot because we had some other chores we needed to get to Sunday and thought it would be easy to "set it and forget it"!! Well when we make any type of sauce, it is usually by taste so I made him measure...and then taste...and measure as he went along. The sauce turned out fantastic and for me, I threw in some chicken breasts. We served it over brown rice and stir fried up some various veggies and the result was a fantastic Thai peanut chicken dinner. I hope you enjoy!!

16 oz natural peanut butter

¾ cup honey

3 tbsp hoisin sauce

3 tbsp ponzu

3 tbsp soy sauce

¼ cup and 2 tbsp rice wine vinegar

1 tbsp Chili garlic sauce (adjust heat to taste – we added 3tbsp)

3 tbsp sesame oil

2 tsp ginger, minced

1 cup chicken stock, low to no sodium

1 tbsp garlic, crushed

12 chicken thighs, skinless

3 chicken breasts, boneless and skinless

Mix the ingredients for the sauce together before adding tothe crock-pot. Place the chicken in the crock-pot and pour the sauce over it.Set to the high setting and cook for 6 hours.We garnished with chopped cilantro and chopped peanuts.

Quinoa with Sun-dried tomatoes and Mushrooms

2012-02-07T20:04:00.001-06:00

We were both running kind of a bit late tonight between exercising (we bought P90x and man does that kick our buttocks) and work, so we kind of took the easy way out. We took one of those pre-marinaded pork tenderloins, it was a peppercorn marinade and grilled it, but I decided to make a quinoa side dish to go along with it. Now I am not one that will usually do an already marinaded piece of meat, but when you are running short of time...a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do! The side dish turned out quite yummy! I also cut down the quinoa by 1/2 a cup because we usually end up with so much leftover. Hope you enjoy!

1/2 cup quinoa

1 cup chicken stock

1 pkg crimini mushrooms, chopped

1/2 jar sun-dried tomatoes pkd in olive oil

1 lg clove garlic, minced

1 cup spinach, chopped

4 fresh basil leaves, chopped

1 tsp sea salt

1 cup white wine

Prepare the vegetables. In a sauce pan, add the qunioa and the chicken stock and cook for about 15 minutes until the quinoa is al dente. In a large skillet, add about a tbsp extra virgin olive oil. Add the mushrooms, garlic and sun-dried tomatoes and saute for about 7 - 10 minutes until the mushrooms are tender.

Deglaze the pan with the white wine. Add the spinach and the basil and continue to cook until the spinach has wilted.

Stir the quinoa into the mushroom and spinach mixture and if necessary add a bit more chicken stock. Continue cooking until all stock has evaporated.

Cuisinart 5-in-1 Griddler giveaway

2012-02-06T07:20:00.000-06:00

Hello all. I am so excited! This is my very first giveaway and I am co-hosting it with a bunch of lovely ladies!!

Contest Starts: 12:01 AM EST on 2/6/2012

Contest Ends: 12:01 AM EST on 2/14/2012

To spread the love, our participating blogs have tasks of their own as well!!:

Crock-Pot Ladies

Little House Living

NorCal Coupon Gal

Freebie Spot
HotCouponWorld

Take a peeksee and give them your support!

The Prize: The Cuisinart Griddler 5-in-1countertop unit works as a contact grill, panini press, full grill, full griddle, and half grill/half griddle! Full product description can be found at Amazon.com. Just click Cuisinart Griddler to be taken there!

Winner will be picked and announced on the Rafflecopter code on 2/14/2012 and the winner will receive a confirmation email that they won asking for a mailing address. Winner has 48 hours to claim their prize otherwise another winner will be selected! Let the games begin!!!

Contest is open to residents of the US 18 years old or older.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Philly Steak and Cheese Sandwiches

2012-02-05T18:45:00.001-06:00

So for for the past 5 - 6 years we have made the all might chicken wings for Superbowl Sunday. This year we wanted to do something completely different. We came up with Philly Steak and Cheese Sandwiches and I thought they turned out quite yummy. I did them partially in a crock-pot and the rest of the way sauteed in a pan and broiled in an oven! They were excellent and I hope you enjoy!

3 lb chuck roast
1 cup water
3 pkg herb-ox no salt beef bouillon
1 tbsp Montreal steak spice
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
1 small vidalia onion
provolone cheese
sub rolls

In a large skillet, seer the chuck roast on all sides. Deglaze with 2 tbsp red wine. Mix the herb-ox in the water and pour over the roast. Sprinkle the Montreal steak spice over the chuck roast. Put the chuck roast in a crock pot on medium for 7 hours. When you have about 2 hours left, pour the Worchestershire sauce over the roast and let it continue to cook. When the roast is done, remove from the crock-pot and slice into very thin layers.

Slice the veggies into thin strips (julienne) and saute until just tender. Remove from heat and then saute the meat for just a few moments (3 - 5 minutes).

Preheat the oven to 415 degrees. On a baking sheet create the sandwiches. Put a layer of the steak, then the onions and pepper mixture then the provolone cheese. Bake for about 7 minutes or until the cheese has melted and is bubbling.

Off Topic! - New FaceBook Page!

2012-02-04T09:00:00.001-06:00

I wanted to set up a separate page for my recipe blog to keep the recipes separate from my regular page. Please "Like" my new FB page if you want to continue receiving these yummy recipes! Also be on the lookout. Within the next couple of days, I will be participating in a contest with some other ladies and we will be hosting a giveaway for a really awesome prize!!! Also if you have a blog of your very own, would love a Follow!!!

Chicken Meatball and Kale Soup

2012-01-30T18:28:00.001-06:00

One of the things that I make the same way is meatballs. Whether it is beef, pork or chicken, they all have the same ingredients; Parmesan cheese, egg, breadcrumbs, spinach and garlic. I have found these are the tastiest and yummiest meatballs. I wanted to make a soup again, and I have a new found addiction to kale so I kinda made this up as I went along. I used our homemade chicken/veggie stock to make up the broth, but you can of course use boxed if that is all you have available. Either way, what you will end up with is a fantastically yummy soup!

Chicken meatballs

2 lbs ground chicken

½ cup bread crumbs

1 egg

½ cup parmesan cheese

½ cup cooked spinach, drained completely

2 tbsp minced garlic

2 heads flowering Kale, washed and chopped

1 pkg crimini mushrooms, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

2 cloves garlic

8 cups chicken stock, homemade or carton

1 tbsp thyme

1 tbsp sea salt (you may want to add more if you like a lot of salt)

Prep the vegetables and put them in a crock-pot. For themeatballs in a large mixing bowl, add the ground chicken, bread crumbs, egg,cheese, spinach and garlic. Mix thoroughly. Roll out about 1 to 1 ½ inchmeatballs and place in the crock-pot. Pour the chicken stock over the veggiesand meatballs. Add the thyme and sea salt. Set to high for 7 hrs.

Crock-pot Enchiladas

2012-01-26T10:22:00.004-06:00

I had a little mishap with my crock-pot and...well...we just want go there :(. But I will say, I got a brand spanking new one, Woot - A - Woot! Since my brand new little toy came into the house, I have been trying to come up with ideas for dinners. I have been using some ideas from my friends over at Crock-Pot Ladies to find some yummy recipes, as well as just making things up on the fly. I also have this tendency to keep my thinking inside the box when it comes to crock-pots...soups, stews, pot roasts. But you know, there is a whole un-tapped world out there of yummy dishes you can make in the crock-pot. I mean who would have thunk, enchiladas, whole enchiladas...anyhow I digress. These came out excellent. The tortillas were just a little chewy and although you didn't have the burnt cheese (you get that from baking), they were still just as yummy! I actually cooked my chicken to make these, but to save even more time, since you don't have to cook the veggies, you could use any leftover meat you have!

3 lbs ground lean chicken

3 tbsp chili con carne spice (I got this from Penzeys)

¼ cup chicken stock

10 yellow and orange mini peppers, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

1 small can of black beans, rinsed

1 ½ jars of salsa

1 small can enchilada sauce

1 small package of Mexican cheese mix

1 pkg queso fresco

10 – 12 tortillas

In a skillet, brown the ground chicken. Add the chili concarne spice and the chicken stock and simmer till cooked. While the chicken isbrowning, prepare the vegetables. The onions and peppers should be cut rathersmall. You will be adding those in raw. In a large mixing bowl, mix togetherthe peppers, onions, beans (that you have rinsed) and the chicken. Stir well.

In your crockpot, pour in some of the salsa on the bottomand make sure the bottom is covered with a thin layer. Start building yourenchiladas. Take one tortilla and fill it with about 1/3 cup of the filling.Sprinkle about 1 tbsp of the cheese mix on top of the filling. Fold the sidesin first, then start rolling the tortilla until you have a nice little package.Place seam side down into the crock-pot. Repeat and layer until you havecreated a 1^st layer. Pour a thin layer of salsa over the bottomlayer of enchiladas. Begin assembling your second layer, filling and cheese. Icould only get 2 layers in my crock-pot and I had a little bit of filling leftover. On the top, pour salsa and enchilada sauce over just enough to cover theenchiladas and top with some of the cheese mix and the queso fresco. Cook onthe high setting for 4 hours.

Baked Pork Chops with Pickled Seckel Pears

2012-01-24T20:56:00.002-06:00

Using the pickled seckel pears, we decided to bake some pork chops for dinner tonight. This was such an easy and quick dinner. We started out by searing the porkchops on our griddle, instead of starting up our grill. We just placed the ingredients into a baking dish, made some quinoa with spinach and voila, a tasty and healthy meal for dinner!

4 boneless porkchops
5 pickled seckel pears, with juice
1 tbsp brown sugar

Sear the porkchops on a griddle at high heat. In a baking dish, lay the porkchops out. Pour the juice of the pears over the porkchops and lay the pears next to the chops. Sprinkle the brown sugar over the porkchops. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake for 25 minutes.

Refrigerated Pickled Seckel Pears

2012-01-24T20:48:00.001-06:00

In my Internet surfing journeys, I found a beautiful recipe for refrigerated pickled seckel pears. Now I personally have never had a seckel pear, but upon further tasting (had to try one before I pickled them), found they were very sweet. They are so cute, and tiny and very versatile. The recipe I found came from the blog Learn to Preserve however, I altered the recipe just a bit to make it my own. I hope you enjoy it.

1 1/2 pounds Seckel pears (about 13)

2 cups apple cider vinegar

1 cup water

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1 tsp sea salt or kosher salt

1 tsp black peppercorns (or mixedpeppercorns such as pink, green, white and/or black)

3 cinnamon stick

8 star anise

1 tsp whole cloves

Rind of 1 orange, sliced

Wash pears well and set aside. In a sauce pan, combine theremaining ingredients. Bring to a boil,stirring to dissolve the sugars, then reduce to a low heat; just enough to keepit warm while you finish prepping the pears. Prick a dozen holes in each pear, so theirskins won't crack or burst in the hot brine. No need to make it perfect. Justrotate the pear while quickly poking holes in the surface of the pear, here& there, with a toothpick or skewer. Add all of the pears to the hot brineat once. Bring the liquid back to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 8-10 minutes,or until the pears seem soft when pierced with the tip of a knife. Remove thepan of pickled pears from the heat and let them cool. Once cool, gently spoonthe pears into a jar and then carefully pour the brine over the top of them.Place a lid on the jar and store it in the refrigerator, for up to one month.

Ham and Bean Soup

2012-01-15T19:09:00.003-06:00

When the hubs and I made our New Years day pulled pork, we had all of that beautiful juice that we couldn't use since with pulled pork, it has to be dry (except for the barbecue sauce). We decided at that point that we were going to save the juice for a ham and bean soup in the future. We also had ham hocks from the collard greens we made so those were vacuumed and saved as well. Today was the day to make our soup!! We started last night because the beans we used were dried, as well as the ham stock since we needed to let that simmer for a bit, but the end result was fantastic!

1 pk Goya 16 Bean Soup mix

1 small pre-cooked ham, cubed

6 stalks celery, diced

5 carrots, diced

Ham stock

1 tbsp dried thyme

1 tbsp onion powder

1 tbsp pepper

For the ham stock, we had a ham hock and the juice from ourroot beer pulled pork recipe. We put some veggies, old ham pieces, the hamhock, the juice and enough water to cover everything and let simmer for about 4hours. We put in the fridge over night to let the fat come to the top so wecould skim it and remove. Pre-soak the beans overnight for 24 hours in coldwater. In the crock-pot add the beans, celery, carrots and cubed ham.

Addenough stock to cover all ingredients. Add the seasonings. Cook on high for 8hours (since the beans are dried). This was excellent!

Our take on Chicken Kiev

2012-01-15T11:31:00.003-06:00

The hubs wanted to make dinner last night, so he did the main dish and I helped prepare the sides. I made a roasted tomato dressing to top the chicken along with Brussels sprouts, mushrooms and shallots in a cream sauce. The dinner was superb. Hope you enjoy our take on Chicken Kiev

6 boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 pkg frozen spinach, thawed and drained well

1 cup sun dried tomatoes, in olive oil (but drained)

1 pk fresh basil leaves

1 pk feta cheese

2 eggs

Panko bread crumbs

Dressing

2 containers, cherry tomatoes

6 cloves garlic

1 small container mascarpone cheese

Sea salt

Black pepper

To prepare the chicken, slice from one side to the other,right down the middle. You do not want to go all the way through…but you wantto stop about ¾ of the way through the chicken breast. The hubs decided to rollthe chicken in egg and breadcrumbs before stuffing them, because he was notgoing to tie them up. So roll the chicken in egg, then coat with thebreadcrumbs. For the stuffing, gently pry open the chicken halves, and lay thebasil and spinach, top with the sun dried tomatoes, then top with the feta cheese.Preheat the oven to 415, and lay the chicken breasts on either a cooking sheetwith sides or a baking dish. Cook for about 25 minutes or until a thermometerreads the appropriate temperature for chicken (170degrees).

For the dressing, put the tomatoes on a cooking sheet alongwith the peeled garlic cloves. Coat in about 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil. Addsome sea salt and black pepper. Cook in a 425 degree oven for about 30 – 45 minutes.Put the tomatoes, garlic and all of those wonderful juices into a blender andpuree. Add the container of mascarpone cheese and continue blending until it isall incorporated.

Chicken Broccoli Pasta

2012-01-14T11:53:00.002-06:00

I had some broccoli and peppers I had to use up so went on a mission to see what I had in the freezer and the fridge for dinner two nights ago. Yes...I know...it took me this long to post. Sorry..... The freezer had one small package of chicken breasts and one small package of turkey breast tenderloins, so I used both...who said you had to have the same meat in a dish. I also pulled my standards, shallots and garlic and pulled a container of our homemade chicken stock and voila! Hope you all enjoy!

2 lbs of chicken breast or turkey tenderloin, cubed

10 mini red peppers, sliced

1 elephant garlic clove, chopped

1 shallot, chopped

2 broccolis, chopped

3 cups homemade chicken stock

½ cup champagne (or white wine)

1 tbsp thyme

1 tbsp sage

1 tsp crushed red peppers

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp coarse ground pepper

1 6-8 oz package of feta cheese

1 lb pasta

Prepare all of your vegetables and cube your chicken.

In a Dutch oven, heat up 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil.Brown the chicken breast or the turkey tenderloin, to the point of it beingalmost done.

Remove from heat. In the same pan, add the shallots and cook tilltender. Add the garlic and the red peppers and continue sauteing for about 7minutes. Deglaze the bottom of the pan with the champagne. We used champagne,because we still had a bit left over from New Years Eve. Add the chicken stockand all of the spices. Bring up to a simmer and let cook for about 20minutes. In a pasta pot, bring water toa boil. Add the pasta and cook to package directions. In the last 5 minutes,add the broccoli. When the pasta is al dente, using a slotted spoon, transferthe pasta and the broccoli to the chicken mixture. Mix thoroughly. Stir in thefeta cheese. Serve, sprinkled with Parmesan cheese.

A Play on Chicken Cacciatore

2012-01-08T20:25:00.001-06:00

Many of you are familiar with the old fashioned way of making chicken cacciatore. The hubs and I are trying to use up veggies and food from our pantry so we decided to use some of our yummy tomato, orange jam with basil and saffron. Also, I am pretty sure no self respecting Italian would EVER admit this, but instead of using pasta, we had a spaghetti squash that we needed to use up, so we served this yummy recipe over squash instead of pasta! Grandpa please forgive me!!!

1/2 pint of Tomato Orange Jam with Basil and Saffron

6 chicken breasts, grilled and sliced

10 mushrooms, sliced

1 leek, sliced

4 ribs celery, chopped

9 mini peppers, red/orange/yellow, sliced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 blood oranges, juiced

1/2 cup wine

1 cup chicken stock

2 32oz cans of petite diced tomatoes

1 tbsp sage

1 tbsp thyme

1 tbsp basil

1 tsp sea salt

pepper to taste

2 tbsp tomato paste

Prepare all of your vegetables (I always think of Ann Burell on the Food Network, mis en place people!!)

My beautiful blood oranges w/ 1 wanna be. Hims looked like he was a bit young when they picked him!

Have your hubs grill the chicken (not completely) just charred on both sides. Bring in and let rest. Then slice in strips. In a large Dutch oven, add 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil. Bring up to medium heat. Add the leeks and garlic and saute till translucent. Add the celery and red peppers and cook for about 7 minutes or until soft. Add the mushrooms. Cook for about 7 more minutes. Use the juice from the blood oranges to deglaze the pan. Add the wine and the chicken stock and all of the spices, including the tomato paste. Bring up to a boil, and then reduce to a low boil and let cook for about 20 minutes. Once you hit the 20 minute mark, add the chicken into the sauce to cook all the way through. Let simmer for about 10 more minutes. Serve over spaghetti squash or pasta!

Tomato Orange Jam with Basil and Saffron

2012-01-08T20:00:00.003-06:00

The hubs and I are on a mission to use stuff from our pantry along with fresh veggies and meat. This past summer I made this excellent Jam from a preserve cookbook my mom gave me. I mentioned it in my pineapple and mint post and I used it again. I got this recipe from 250 Home Preserving Favorites and we both fell in love with this recipe. You can use it on pork, chicken or what I did. I will be posting a play on chicken cacciatore using this jam. I hope you all enjoy it. If you aren't big on canning, I am sure you can just pair the recipe down and actually make enough for one or two servings.

2 cups sweet onions, thinly sliced

¾ cup shallots, finely chopped

¼ cup water

1 garlic clove, minced

4 cups Roma tomatoes, finely chopped, peeled and seeded

1 tbsp orange rind, finely grated

¾ cup oranges, chopped and peeled

¼ cup lemon juice

¼ tsp saffron threads

2 tbsp fresh basil, finely chopped

12 tsp dried oregano

1 pkg powdered pectin

4 cups granulated sugar

½ cup packed brown sugar

In a Dutch oven, combine onions, shallots and water. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes or until very soft. Stir in garlic; cook for a couple more minutes stirring often. Stir in tomatoes, orange rind, oranges and lemon juice. Increase heat to high and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and boil gently, uncovered for about 15 minutes. Make sure you stir often to prevent it from burning on the bottom of the pan. Stir in saffron, basil and oregano and continue to boil gently for about 5 minutes. Stir in pectin until dissolved. Bring to a full boil over high heat, stirring often. Stir in both sugars and return to a boil, stirring constantly to dissolve sugar. Boil hard for 1 minute. Remove from heat and skim off any foam. Ladle into sterilized jars to within ½ inch of rim. Wipe rims and apply prepared lids and rings. Process jars in a boiling water canner for 15 minutes. Transfer jars to a towel lined surface and let rest at room temperature until set.

Southwestern BBQ Pork Enchiladas

2012-01-04T18:56:00.004-06:00

Even though it is January 4th, we still have some of the pulled pork left from our New Years Dinner. Since I am utterly tired of eating it the same old way, I decided to spice it up a bit and made up this recipe for Southwestern BBQ Pork Enchiladas. they were quite tasty! I also had quite a few veggies that we needed to use up in the fridge so this was the perfect opportunity to use up some of them and mix it into the enchiladas. I also wanted to get in on a challenge to use up what was in my fridge/pantry and create a meal without having to buy anything from the store. My father calls these pastishes! Hope you enjoy!

3 cups Root Beer Pulled Pork
1/2 red onion, chopped
1 elephant garlic bulb, chopped (about 8 cloves of regular garlic)
1/2 green pepper, chopped
1 mini red pepper, chopped
1 mini yellow pepper, chopped
1 mini orange pepper, chopped
10 crimini mushrooms, chopped
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 cup barbecue sauce (I used a "joke" sauce called Blazing Rectum, it was just yummy)
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese
5 Flat Out Flat breads

Chop all of your vegetables into approximately the same size pieces.

In a deep saute pan, heat 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil. Saute the onion and garlic till it is translucent and tender. add all of the peppers and saute for about 7 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook for about 5 - 7 more minutes. Deglaze the pan with chicken stock. Stir in the pulled pork and just bring up to temperature. Add the barbecue sauce and mix thoroughly. Remove from heat. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Take one of the flat breads and spoon about 2 spoonfuls of the mixture into the middle of the flat bread and about 1 - 2 tbsp of the cheddar cheese. Roll the flat bread up and put seam side down into a baking dish. Repeat until all of your flat breads have been used. Top the enchiladas with the remaining cheddar cheese and mozzarella and pour a bit more of the barbecue sauce over them. Bake for about 25 minutes.

Pineapple Mint Jelly

2012-01-04T18:35:00.002-06:00

I wish I had posted this when I had actually made it, but I didn't. I had made this when I had some leftover pineapple juice after a recipe, to be honest I can't remember what recipe, but that is neither here nor there. I also was in the hey day of my garden and had mint growing out the ying yang!! I am somewhat of a novice canner. I just love trying new recipes and this pineapple mint is excellent on toast...which is the picture on the left. BUT, it would also be doubly excellent on pork or chicken if you roasted it in the oven!!! I hope you all enjoy this recipe. I found it in 250 Home Preserving Favorites.

4 cups pineapple juice
1 cup chopped fresh mint leaves
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 pkg powdered pectin
4 cups granulated sugar
2 tbsp finely chopped fresh mint

In a large pot, combine pineapple juice and 1 cup of the chopped mint leaves. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat and simmer, covered for 5 minutes. Strain over a bowl, squeezing leaves; reserve liquid and discard the leaves. Measure 3 3/4 cups of liquid; pour into a clean pot. Stir in the lemon juice. Stir in the pectin until dissolved. Bring to a full boil over high heat, stirring constantly. Add sugar in a steady stream, stirring constantly. Return to a full boil, stirring constantly to dissolve sugar. Boil hard for 1 minute. Remove from heat and skim off any foam. Stir in the 2 tbsp finely chopped mint. Stir for 5 - 8 minutes to prevent floating mint. Ladle quickly into sterilized jars to within 1/4 inch of rim; wipe rims. Apply prepared lids and rings; tighten just until fingertip tight. Process jars in a boiling water canner for 10 minutes. Transfer jars to a towel-lined suface and let rest at room temperature until set.

Bread Pudding

2012-01-02T10:37:00.005-06:00

As in my previous post for my pulled pork, this was the final course in my menu for New Years Day. Since I have never made or even tasted bread pudding (the hubs asked me to make it) I had to find a recipe. I decided on Paula Deen's recipe on the food network, yet I made a few changes to it just to make it my own. It is also my understanding, you can actually switch it up and instead of using Italian bread, use cinnamon bread etc. So, this recipe, is a truly flexible in the ingredients, to a point.

2 cups granulated sugar

5 large beaten eggs

2 cups heavy whipping cream

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

3 cups cubed Italian bread, allow to stale overnight in a bowl

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened

1 cup chopped pecans

2 tbsp cinnamon (1 tbsp reserved)

Sauce:

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted

1 egg, beaten

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/4 cup brandy

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 13 by 9 by 2-inch pan. Mix together granulated sugar, eggs, and cream in a bowl; add vanilla. Pour over cubed bread and let sit for 10 minutes.

In another bowl, mix and crumble together brown sugar, butter, and pecans.

Pour bread mixture into prepared pan. Sprinkle brown sugar mixture over the top and bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until set.

Remove from oven. In a sauce pan, mix the granulated sugar, butter, egg, and vanilla and stir over medium heat. Stir together until the sugar is melted. Add the brandy, stirring well. Pour over bread pudding. We served it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream! I have to say, this was quite yummy!

Pulled Pork

2012-01-02T10:12:00.001-06:00

Hubs and I made such a yummy Southern meal yesterday for New Years Day. I am originally from Florida, and although most won't consider that Southern, more of a melting pot of people from the North/South...I still consider myself a southerner! I have been just craving good southern food lately, and since one NY Day tradition is to serve Black Eyed Peas, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to appease my craving. My menu was pulled pork, greens w/ham hocks, homemade corn bread and black eyed peas. For dessert I made a bread pudding which I will be posting in a few.

The pulled pork was a very simple recipe, using my Crock-pot, which I ultimately ended up breaking and will have to get a new one...hmph...As I was pulling my pork out, the lid slipped from my hand and actually broke the ceramic pot. But I digress...here is my recipe and it was simple and very tasty!

1 Pork Shoulder Butt, about 4 - 5 lbs (some use pork loin, but when you compare the price per pound, plus the fact that the Butt was on sale, I decided to go with this one!)
1/2 onion, sliced
1 12 oz bottle of root beer and a 1/2 of another bottle
Your favorite barbecue sauce (I used Budweiser's tangy barbecue sauce).

In a large cast iron skillet sear the pork on all sides.

Put the roast into your Crock-pot and poke holes in the top. Add the onions. Pour the root beer over the roast and set the Crock-pot for about 8 hours. The pork will create its own juice, plus the root beer. We actually removed the pork from the pot, strained the juice and will be using the stock to make bean soup (but that is for another recipe). On a plate, begin shredding the pork. Add the shredded pork back into the crock-pot and pour your barbecue sauce over it. MM MM good!

Steak Panini w/a Chipotle Mayonnaise

2011-12-26T19:41:00.001-06:00

Are you all tired of me yet? We had left over steak from our last night's raviolis. My parents bought us a Cuisinart Griddler as a Christmas present, with a waffle attachment. We thought we would try it out tonight. We went to the store and bought a loaf of sour dough bread and sliced it and decided to make a panini with the left over steak from last night. I whipped up some chipotle mayonnaise and bought a few other things and the panini we made was mm mm good. That Griddler was awesome! It worked perfectly and the absolute wonderful thing about it, is the fact that it is dishwasher safe..hubba hubba! But seriously, I hope you enjoy the sammy!

Leftover steak, sliced as thinly as possible
Fresh spinach, enough to cover bread
Red pepper, sliced
Tomato, sliced
Brie, spreadable cheese

Chipotle Mayonnaise:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp barbecue sauce
1 tsp Chipotle seasoning
1 tsp chili powder

Mix all seasonings together well.

For the sandwich, on one side of the bread, spread the brie cheese, and layer all ingredients. On the other side, spread the Chipotle mayonnaise. Put the sandwich together and put on the griddle.Grill until the cheese has been melted. The sandwich was fantastic.

"Steak Dinner" Ravioli's w/a Pomodoro Sauce

2011-12-26T10:37:00.004-06:00

As those of you who have been following this little blog of minemay know, we began a Christmas tradition a few years back when my parents cameto visit. We made homemade raviolis and so far every year we have continuedwith this tradition. Each year I try to come up with a different filling and adifferent sauce. This year, I got the bright idea to make a steak dinner insidemy raviolis. Since there was going to be so much going on inside, I didn’t wanta sauce that would over power so I made a simple Pomodoro sauce. Oh my word…pureheaven! I hope you all enjoy. I will say this as well…grant it the mess is akiller, you end up with flour glue over every inch of your kitchen, but if youever get the chance to make homemade raviolis, do it! There is nothing likethem!

Standard pasta dough:

2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

1 teaspoon salt

3 large eggs

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

To make the pastadough: In an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine the flour andsalt. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and continue to mix. Drizzle in 1 tablespoonsof the olive oil and continue to incorporate all the flour until it forms aball. Sprinkle some flour on work surface, knead and fold the dough untilelastic and smooth, this should take about 10 minutes. Brush the surface withthe remaining olive oil and wrap the dough in plastic wrap; let rest for about30 minutes .

Pomodoro Sauce:

2 pkg crimini mushrooms, sliced

10 shallots, diced

3 elephant garlic bulbs, diced (you can use regular garlic,and I would estimate about 8 cloves)

25 Tomatoes, smashed, skin and seeds removed

1 cup sun-dried tomatoes (not in olive oil)

3 tbsp thyme

3 tbsp oregano

3 tbsp basil

3 tbsp sage

1 tbsp salt

1 tbsp pepper

1 tbsp crushed red pepper

1 cup red wine

2 cups chicken stock (I didn’t have beef stock)

2 small cans, tomato paste

You can of course use canned tomatoes, but my hubby boughtme a birthday present that I wanted to try out. He knows I am into canning andto make it easier on me, he bought me a WestonRoma Deluxe Electric Tomato Strainer, which is so going to help me whenI start canning next year. We went through approximately 25 tomatoes in about10 minutes. Last year, trying to blanch, peel and seed 25 tomatoes, would havetaken me about 45 minutes.

Slice and dice all of your veggies.

In a dutch oven, heat up about 2 tbsp extra virgin oliveoil. Add the shallots and sauté till translucent. Add the garlic and continue sautéing.Add all spices and mix thoroughly. Add the mushrooms and sauté for about 5 – 7 minutes.Deglaze with the red wine. Add the chicken stock and the juice from your tomatoes. Stir in your tomato paste and thesun-dried tomatoes. Bring up to a boil, and then turn down to a simmer. Letcook for about 6 – 8 hours. The sauce went from being watery to a thick richbeautiful sauce.

Filling for the Ravioli

1 chuck roast, marinaded

Standard Steak Marinade (click here formarinade)

2 ½ large onions, sliced

2 cups spinach, blanched

2 4oz containers of blue cheese

Marinade the chuck roast for about 2 hours prior togrilling. Grill on medium heat until the meat is medium well. You don’t wantbloody meat for your raviolis. Bring in and let the meat rest so the juiceswill redistribute. While the meat is resting, in a cast iron skillet, heat upabout 2 – 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil. Add all of your sliced onions. Let sautéfor about 45 minutes on medium heat, until they become a nice golden brown.This is known as caramelizing.

While the onions are sautéing, bring a pot ofwater to a boil. Add your spinach and let cook for about 2 – 3 minutes. Removeimmediately and drain. When the onions have caramelized, in a food processor,add your onions and spinach and pulse until chopped finely. Pour out mixtureinto a large mixing bowl. Slice up your meat, add that to the food processorand pulse until well chopped as well. Add that to the onion, spinach mixtureand mix until well blended. Fold in your two containers of blue cheese and mix untilwell blended.

Looks a little gross, but I can tell you the taste was out of this world!

Now you can begin putting your raviolis together. Take some ofyour pasta dough and roll out until you get it to your desired thickness, andwith a pizza cutter, make two pieces. We started out putting egg wash on bothsides, but found it wasn't sticking well, so we ended up only egg washing oneside. On the other side, with a small spoon add your mixture. Take the eggwashed sided and cover your filling and with either a biscuit cutter orwhatever other device you are using, cut your beautiful little raviolis! Enjoyeveryone!!

My weapon of choice...biscuit cutters, you can choose whatever size you want.

Blueberry Preserves Thumbprint Cookies

2011-12-24T14:36:00.002-06:00

Well I hope you all are having a wonderful time spending it with your families! I know I am. I am wishing my parents and Dave's kids and dad could be here as well, but alas they are unable to be this year. So we are getting geared up for our annual Ravioli fest! This year is going to be an interesting one, with a "steak dinner" inside our little ravioli's. I know y'all must think I am nuts, but that is okay, I can't wait to try them. I will post the recipe tomorrow, along with pictures. But today is my desserts. I am getting ready to make some fudge, and before I do that, I wanted to use up some homemade preserves that I made this past summer. We went blueberry picking and I made some blueberry preserves. I added just a hint of cinnamon in the preserves and they are just sweet enough to be perfect! So I decided to whip up some of those cute little thumbprint cookies! Hope you all enjoy.

1 stick butter, softened
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup white sugar
your favorite jelly or preserves (I used my homemade blueberry)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix thoroughly the butter, brown sugar, egg yolk and the vanilla. Work in the flour and salt until it becomes a dough consistency. Shape dough into 1 inch balls, I used a 1 inch ice cream scooper. In a small bowl, pour the white sugar. Dip the top into the sugar and place 1 inch apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Press thumb deeply into the center of each cookie. Repeat. I was able to get about 24 cookies out of the dough.

Bake for about 8 minutes. Remove from the oven. Fill the centers with your preserves. Return the cookies back into the oven and cook for another 10 minutes or until the cookies are slightly brown.

Immediately remove from baking sheet.

Pork Loin w/Orange and Honey Sauce

2011-12-23T18:33:00.002-06:00

Tonight was clean out the fridge night. My dear hubs bought me a fridge for my birthday present. Now some of you may think WHAT...a present...a fridge...but for those of you who know me that was the best present you could have ever given me. We are SLOWLY redoing our kitchen and the fridge was the next in line to go. So we are having to get rid of as much as we can so we can replace our old one tomorrow. It is very exciting times my friends!! Very exciting times!! Well tonight I pulled out a pork loin from the freezer and pulled a whole bunch of veggies from the fridge. I went for an oriental theme since what I pulled was a bunch of peppers, Brussels sprouts, and I even had oranges. So I hope you all enjoy!!

1 pork loin, seared

1 red onion, diced

3 carrots, diced

1 orange pepper, diced

1 yellow pepper, diced

1 green pepper, diced

1 pkg mushrooms, diced

9 – 10 Brussels sprouts, halved

6 cloves garlic, sliced

Sauce:

5 cuties, juiced

½ cup Kikkoman Ponzu sauce

1 tbsp Oriental Hot chili sauce

1 tsp oriental hot mustard

2 tbsp honey

1 tbsp sesame oil

2 tbsp pickled ginger, minced

3 dehydrated oranges, chopped finely

For the sauce, in a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients andmix thoroughly. You can go easier on the “hot stuff” per your taste buds, butmy family likes it on the spicy side. Mix to taste. If you find something ismissing, add a bit more until you get it to the flavor you wish. Above is theexact measurements I used and we loved it! Sear the pork loin on all sides in acast iron or a non-stick skillet and deglaze with about ½ cup chicken stock. Addall of the chopped veggies into the slow cooker and nestle the seared pork loininto the middle of the veggies. Pour the chicken stock over the pork andveggies and also your sauce. Set the crock pot to 6 hours.

Oranges, Meyers Lemons, Limes, Oh My!!

2011-12-23T11:59:00.002-06:00

I actually saw this idea off another blog I follow and fell in love! I am a novice when it comes to canning, preserving, dehydrating, and follow a number of blogs religiously. I happened upon one blog that suggested dehydrating citrus (Food in Jars), and when drinking water, toss one in. As the citrus rehydrates, it releases a gentle flavor into your water. Well...I am hooked. Meyers lemons are my absolute favorite, and you can only get them certain times of the year. My local grocery store currently has them on sale for $0.39 a lb and I felt like I won the lottery! Now mind you I don't have a huge dehydrator, but I do have two of them. My weapon of choice is the Nesco American Harvest Snackmaster Encore Dehydrator and I have had it for about 3 years now. One of these days I may decide to upgrade, but for now I adore it. It has served me well and is just perfect when I go to dehydrate tomatoes, fruit, etc. So with my huge score of Meyers lemons, I set out to dehydrate. I also got lucky with Limes. A previous post showed my dear hubs making me a key lime pie for my birthday. The recipe called for 1 cup of fresh lime juice, well, he ended up getting 14 limes, and only used 3. I also had oranges to use up so let's get to work!

Just slice the citrus the same width apart. You want them to finish drying as close to the same time as possible. Lay them out on your drying sheet and voila! Instant dry fruit that you can throw into your water.

I have actually been using them in recipes and will be posting a recipe later on today if it turns out good!

Meatballs w/Veggies Pasta

2011-12-22T08:17:00.005-06:00

Probably about two months ago, we went to this HUGE candy store that specializes in novelty candies as well as other items, and purchased a bag of squid ink pasta. We have been dying to use it in a recipe and last night figured, what the heck. Now my idea of what I was going to be making was completely different then what we ended up doing, but it was still yummy. My vision, was a garlic seafood dish, with clams, mussels and shrimps...in a lemon, wine butter sauce. What we ended up with, as you can see from the pictures, was a far cry from my original idea, but I didn't want to go to the grocery store. Call it laziness, call it being frugal, I ended up working with what I had in the fridge!

Meatballs

2 lbs ground beef

½ cup bread crumbs

3 cloves black garlic

2 eggs

3 cups fresh spinach, blanched and chopped

1 tbsp thyme

1 tbsp oregano

1 tbsp sage

1 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

1 cup grated parmesan cheese

Sauce

1 tbsp crushed red peppers

1 pkg crimini mushrooms, chopped

1 red pepper, diced

1 sweet onion, diced

6 cloves garlic, sliced

2 cups kale, chopped

2 cups white wine

3 cups chicken stock

4 tbsp butter

2 tbsp thyme

1 tbsp sage

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp chipotle

¼ cup grated parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, bring water to a boil. Add the fresh spinach and blanch for about 3 – 4 minutes. Remove and drain completely. Chop. For the meatballs, in a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients, including the spinach and mix well. Make about 1 ½ inch balls and set aside. In a large Dutch oven, drizzle extra virgin olive oil and bring up to medium heat. Place the meatballs in the oven and brown on all sides, making sure not to overcrowd. Cook for about 2 – 3 minutes on all sides. Remove from the pot and set aside. In the drippings, add the onions and sauté till translucent. Add the garlic and the peppers. Sauté for about 5 – 7 minutes. Add the mushrooms and continue cooking till mushrooms are soft. Add the butter and let melt. Deglaze with the wine and make sure all of the bits from the meatballs have been scraped off the bottom. Add the chicken stock and all of the spices. Let simmer for about 10 minutes. Add the kale and drop the meatballs back into the mix and let simmer for about 10 more minutes making sure the meatballs have cooked all the way through. Right before serving, SLOWLY mix in the grated Parmesan cheese, a bit at a time making sure to stir in completely, or it will seize on you and form a big clump. Server over pasta!

Key Lime Pie

2011-12-20T07:44:00.008-06:00

My dear hubs made me a Key Lime Pie for my birthday "cake" this year. Some of you who know me know that I am not a big dessert person, but he pretty much said, this year I have to eat a birthday cake! One of my all time favorite desserts is key lime pie. If I go into a restaurant that has it...I drool all over the menu, but never order it. *Shrug* dunno why, just don't. So he had the bright idea to make the pie, then force feed it to me tonight! Mind you...after seeing these pics...whose complaining! Tee Hee. Now he borrowed the recipe from Emeril Lagasse from the Food Network's website, so I have attached the link as well, I mean you gotta give prop's where prop's are due right! But...MMMMM...can't wait to dig in tonight!

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (Hubs used a preformed graham cracker crust)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick butter) melted

2 (14-ounce) cans condensed milk

1 cup key lime or regular lime juice

2 whole eggs

1 cup sour cream

2 tablespoons powdered sugar

1 tablespoon lime zest

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. In a bowl, mix the graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and butter with your hands. Press the mixture firmly into a 9-inch pie pan, and bake until brown, about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature before filling. Lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees F. In a separate bowl, combine the condensed milk, lime juice, and eggs. Whisk until well blended and place the filling in the cooled pie shell. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes and allow to chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

Once chilled, combine the sour cream and powdered sugar and spread over the top of the pie using a spatula. Sprinkle the lime zest as a garnish on top of the sour cream and serve chilled.

Shrimp and Andouille Sausage Gumbo

2011-12-19T16:58:00.009-06:00

I had Andouille Sausage...I had Shrimp...and I had pickled some Okra this past summer after a trip to the farmers market...what to make...what to make. I love gumbo, creole, jambalaya anything New Orleans. You can pretty much find recipes out there for different styles, different flavors, but however you choose to make it, the stew/soup/meal will turn out excellent.

In order to make it, I had to use two different stocks, shrimp and chicken. Dave and I have this motto, we never throw anything away. All of our veggie scraps and chicken scraps (the carcass) gets put into freezer bags and periodically we make homemade chicken stock. So I used our homemade chicken stock for this recipe. Also, we do the same thing with the lil shrimp carcasses. Whenever we have shrimps, and we peel them, we save the peels and freeze those as well. So while you are preparing your veggies, you can actually start making your shrimp stock for this recipe. It is pretty much ready in no time and add such flavor to the recipe! However, if you can't be bothered, you can definitely use store bought!

Stock Ingredients:

2 pounds medium shrimp, with shells

1 small onion, roughly chopped

1 carrot, roughly chopped

1 stalk celery, roughly chopped

1/2 cup white wine

Water

3 black peppercorns

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves

Gumbo Ingredients

1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced

1 yellow bell pepper, seeded and diced

1 orange bell pepper, seeded and diced

1 large red onions, diced

2 celery stalks, diced

5 cloves garlic, minced

2 cups kale, chopped

1 cup pickled okra, sliced

6 tbsp butter

3 tbsp corn starch

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1 tbsp paprika

1 tbsp chili powder

1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper

1/2 teaspoon cayenne

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon chipotle

1 can diced tomatoes, no salt added

Reserved Shrimp stock (About 4 – 5 cups)

1 cup white wine

2 cups homemade chicken stock

1 pound andouille sausage, cut in

1/2-inch pieces

Peeled, deveined shrimp

Plain cooked white rice, for serving

For the shrimp stock, peel and de-vein the shrimp and reserve the shells. Refrigerate the shrimp until needed. In a saucepan or stockpot, add all ingredients but the water. Slowly add the water until ingredients are covered. Bring to a boil and immediately reduce to a simmer. Skim impurities (i.e., scum) from top of stock and simmer for approximately 30 to 45 minutes. Strain stock and reserve.

In a Dutch oven, heat the oil. Add the sliced andouille sausage and just sauté until almost done. Remove from the heat. Add the shrimp and sauté until just slightly translucent. Again, remove from the heat. Add a touch more oil if needed. Add the onions and cook till translucent. Add the garlic, all peppers and garlic. Sauté for about 7 – 8 minutes. Add salt and dry seasonings and garlic and stir to combine, cooking for another 1 to 2 minutes. Add about 2 tbsp of butter and let melt.

Deglaze the bottom of the pan with the wine and the chicken stock. Add the reserved chicken stock and the diced tomatoes. Add the kale to the mixture and let simmer. In a coffee cup, take the remaining 4 tbsp of butter and the corn starch and mash the butter and cornstarch together until well blended. Pour the mixture into the gumbo and make sure you stir completely. This will help thicken the broth slightly. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.

Oreo Peppermint Truffles

2011-12-15T18:34:00.011-06:00

My colleagues and I are participating in a cookie swap this Friday Dec 16th. I started surfing online to see if there was anything I was interested in making since I am not a big cookie fan and thanks to Kraft Foods website, I found this absolutely gorgeous recipes. I did not make any changes to it, and included the link directly to the recipe. Grant it, I am not a food artist, so mine do not look EXACTLY like their beautiful picture, but I think I came darn close if I do say so myself. My hubs had to sample a couple and he gave me the mmm mmm two thumbs up, so they passed the taste test! These lil buggers are easy to do and just absolutely beautiful. I found Chinese to-go boxes at Michael's and I am putting the little truffles in the boxes for the ladies! I hope you all try these.

6 candy canes, finely chopped (about 1/3 cup), divided

1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened

1 pkg. (16.6 oz.) OREO Cookies, finely crushed

2 pkg. (8 squares each) BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate, melted

Reserve 1 Tbsp. chopped candy. Mix remaining candy with cream cheese and cookie crumbs until well blended. Shape into 48 (1-inch) balls. Freeze 10 min. Dip balls in melted chocolate; place in single layer in shallow waxed paper-lined pan. Sprinkle with reserved candy. Refrigerate 1 hour or until firm.

Chicken, Kale and Potato Soup

2011-12-12T19:19:00.014-06:00

Hi my friends, man it has been a long time since we have chatted. Forgive me! I have just been so overwhelmed, between work and the holidays, I have been neglecting my cooking! Mind you, I have still been cooking, just not recipes worthy enough to share with you. This one, however, has changed my mind!

As with all my recipes, I found a base recipe and changed it to my liking. Dave helped me with this one and we just adored it! I hope you do as well!

4 teaspoons olive oil, divided

2 cups leeks, sliced

4 scallions, chopped

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 lbs mushrooms, sliced

1 cup corn, frozen or roasted

1/3 cup all-purpose flour (about 1 1/2 ounces)

2 lbs skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces

1/2 teaspoon salt, divided

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided

1 cup dry white wine 3 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth, divided or homemade chicken stock (I used our homemade)

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups water

4 tablespoons Dijon mustard

2 cups (1/2-inch) cubed peeled white potato (about 1 lb)

3 cups loosely packed torn kale (about 5 ounces)

Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add leek; sauté 6 minutes or until tender and golden brown. Add garlic; sauté 1 minute. Add mushrooms and sauté for about 5 minutes, until the mushrooms have been sweated and cooked through. Spoon leek mixture into a large bowl. Place 1/3 cup flour in a shallow bowl or pie plate. Dredge chicken in flour, shaking off excess. Heat remaining oil in pan over medium-high heat. Add half of chicken mixture; sprinkle with 1/8 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon black pepper. Cook 6 minutes, browning on all sides. Add browned chicken to leek mixture. Repeat procedure with remaining chicken mixture, 1/8 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon black pepper.

Add wine to pan, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Combine 1 cup broth and 1 tablespoon flour, stirring with a whisk until smooth. Add broth mixture, remaining 2 cups broth, water, and mustard to pan; bring to a boil. Stir in chicken mixture, remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, and remaining 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 30 minutes. Stir in potato and corn. Cover and simmer 30 minutes or until potato is tender. Stir in kale; cover and simmer 10 minutes.

I put in just a touch of Parmesan cheese in my bowl when I served this and the taste was heavenly!

Pickled Red Onions

2011-09-04T09:06:00.009-05:00

Now you may be thinking HUH? Why would you pickle onions? Well...one, my father eats these by the truck load, and two, they go awesome on a pulled pork sandwich! Now grant it, all of the jars I made were packed away nicely into a sturdy box and made their way across a few states. They now currently reside in Tennessee with my father just waiting for the day that he will open them and start eating them right out of the jar...but I digress. This is so easy and so utterly tasty. You can make refrigerated pickled onions and they will last for weeks, or you can go the extra step and process them in a water bath for 10 minutes which is what I did so my dad could keep them for a while. It is your basic brine along with onions. When I made these, I actually used about eight very LARGE red onions and really doubled the brine recipe, but if you are looking to just make this for a tasty pulled pork sandwich, go ahead and just use one or two red onions.

My father can't have a lot of salt in his diet so you may want to add a bit more salt and sugar in your brine. I would mix the brine and do a quick taste test to make sure it is not to HOLY COW for you.

8 - 9 large red onions

8 cups cider vinegar

3 tbsp pickling salt

2 tbsp sugar

Peel and thinly slice the onions into half shaped moons. In hot, sterilized jars, pack as many onions as you can fit into one jar. Don't be afraid to smoosh them down. Once the hot liquid hits the onions, they will actually shrink a bit so it will create space in the jar. In a large sauce pan, bring the vinegar, salt and sugar to a boil. Ladle the hot liquid into the jars with the onions, seal and process the jars according to manufacturer's directions in a water bath. Remove the hot jars and let cool in a non-draft area of your kitchen. Once cooled, make sure all of the jars have sealed. For those jars that have not sealed, you can turn those into your refrigerator onions. What you will get is a beautiful pink hued jar of onions that will be absolutely fantastic with your meals.

Apple Chutney

2011-09-04T08:50:00.017-05:00

I absolutely adore this time of year. A dear friend of ours has a plot of land and years ago planted about 5 or 6 different types of apple trees, crab apple trees and two pear trees. She lets us come and harvest these luscious fruits whenever we wish. This past weekend we struck gold and pick two large bags of different types of apples, one large bag of crab apples and one bag of pears. Since there is no humanly way possible for us to eat all of these apples prior to them being turned over to the lil bugaboos, I decided to make a yummy chutney. I tried my hand at this last year and we just loved it. Now I canned my recipe, but you could definitely pair down the recipe and just make it on the fly. Or since we had a huge amount of apples (and I still didn't use them all), I doubled, possibly even tripled the batch and ended up with 30 jars of this wonderful goodness. Roast a pork, and pour this chutney over it and you will be in heaven my friends.

2 quarts apples (any kind, we had about 3 different kinds and mixed them)
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 lbs. seedless golden raisins
4 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 red peppers, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, crushed
2 1/2 tablespoons mustard seed
2 tablespoons candied ginger
2 teaspoons ground allspice
2 teaspoons table salt
4 cups white vinegar

Apple Preparation: Wash, peel, core and chop your apples. Place into a pot with water and lemon juice to prevent browning. We had a large pot with about 1 cup of lemon juice.In a large stock pot, combine all of the above ingredients, one at a time and stirring in between each addition. Over medium heat, simmer the mixture for 60 to 85 minutes or until the mixture has thickened.Once mixture is done cooking, ladle it into hot and clean mason jars, leaving a 1/2" head space. Use a soft cotton towel and wipe the rims clean before placing the seal and ring onto your jar. Process jars in your water bath canner for 10 to 15 minutes or according to manufacturer’s instructions. Once they are done, carefully remove them from the water and let them cool in a non-drafty area of your kitchen.

Chicken w/Chipotle and Sour Cherry sauce

2011-07-11T19:23:00.011-05:00

About three to four years ago, Dave and I planted two cherry trees in our yard. It was in response to a nasty storm that knocked down an absolutely beautiful tree of ours that was in the front yard. Well last year they both started producing cherries, albeit sour cherries, but cherries non the less!! Last year, I made cherry preserves, rhubarb cherry preserves, and a few cherry turnovers. This year so far, I have made a batch of cherry preserves, and I thought I would actually try to make up a few recipes with these luscious little morsels. Our lawn services is getting ready to come spray them for little pests, so I had to hurry up and harvest some this evening. I made up this recipe and I hope you all enjoy!

3 chicken breasts, no bones or skin

2 cups cherries, pitted and coarsely chopped

1 cup homemade chipotles in adobe sauce (find the recipe on my blog, link is here)

1/2 cup brandy

3 tbsp sugar

1/2 cup chicken stock

7 twigs, fresh thyme

In a large skillet, heat about 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil. Sear the three chicken breasts on all sides, until golden brown, but not cooked all the way through. Remove from the pan. Deglaze the pan with the 1/2 cup of brandy and scrape up all of the bits of chicken from the bottom. Add the chopped cherries and saute for about 5 minutes. Add the sugar and stir until the sugar has completely melted, making sure it does not stick to the bottom of the pan. Bring it up to a low boil and add the 1/2 cup of chicken stock and the fresh thyme. Turn down to a simmer and add the chicken back in. Cover and let simmer for about 20 - 25 minutes or until the chicken has cooked all the way through. Make sure to periodically turn the chicken and stir the sauce, taking care that the sauce does not stick to the bottom of the pan. If you want more sauce, add a bit more chicken stock. The sauce will thicken as you cook, so you may feel the need to thin it out with additional stock. We served with rice and brussel sprouts. It was excellent!

Roasted Red Potato Salad

2011-06-28T20:23:00.017-05:00

I made this yummy recipe up this past weekend. I get so tired of eating store bought potato salad, that I just kind of threw stuff together until it tasted good. I also have a very rough time of overcooking my spuds until they are mush, so I thought I would roast them instead...fig'rd I couldn't go wrong that way!!!

5 pound(s) cooked red potatoes

9 clove(s) garlic clove(s) (medium)

4 Tbsp Extra virgin olive oil

2 Tbsp dill, fresh

2 Tbsp parsley, fresh

1/2 medium Vidalia onion(s), finely chopped

1 small sweet red pepper(s), finely chopped

1 small yellow pepper(s), finely chopped

1 small orange pepper, finely chopped

2 stalks celery, finely chopped (small)

1 1/2 cup(s) reduced-calorie mayonnaise

1/2 cup coarse ground mustard

1 Tbsp maple syrup

1 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar

6 slices crisp cooked bacon

2 Tbsp dill, fresh

2 Tbsp parsley, fresh

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Wash and dice the potatoes and place into a bowl. Rough cut the garlic and mix in with the potatoes. Pour the olive oil and mix together. Chop the parsley and the dill and mix in with the potatoes and garlic. Layout onto a baking sheet. Cook for 50 minutes. Pull out and let stand until completely cool. Meanwhile, chop and cook bacon until completely crisp. Drain from oil and let cool. Chop all veggies and place into a large bowl. Combine the cooled potatoes and bacon and gently mix together. In a separate bowl, combine the mayonnaise, mustard, maple syrup, apple cider vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste. Whisk together until well blended. Sample and see if it is missing anything and just add a bit of whatever ingredient it is missing to your satisfaction. Gently mix into the potato veggie mixture. Cool completely in the refrigerator. Before serving, toss in additional chopped fresh parsley and fresh dill.

Hot Sausage Won-Tons

2011-05-15T11:16:00.014-05:00

Wowza...It has been a long time since I posted a recipe...I am such a bad girl. I didn't realize how long it has been. The parentals were down for a nice visit and we took a nice little road trip to PA. When we got home, we (I) had a craving for eggrolls so we made some. After they left, we (I) had a craving for Won-tons so I used the same basic filling for the Won-tons. They were sooo yummy. I guess you can say I have been on an oriental kick lately. Hope you enjoy.

1 pkg won-ton wrappers

6 Hot sausages, casings removed

4 carrots, diced into VERY small pieces

4 celery stalks, diced into VERY small pieces

1 small leek, diced into VERY small pieces

1 clove elephant garlic, diced into VERY small pieces

8 mint leaves, chopped

1 tbsp sesame oil

3 tbsp rice wine vinegar

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp red curry paste

3 tbsp beef stock

1 tbsp flour

2 eggs, beaten

In a large skillet, brown the sausage, making sure to break it up into very small chunks. Once browned, remove and set aside. Add the leek, carrots, celery, and garlic and cook until almost done. While sauteeing the veggies, add the mint leaves, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, red curry paste and beef stock and and continue to cook until veggies are tender. Add the sausage back in. Sprinkle the flour over top and mix in to the filling. You want to make sure there is no liquid in the mixture. Remove from heat.

Prepare an area for you to work. You will need a plate or something large to place the Won-tons once you have finished making them. Take one of the won-ton wrappers with a corner facing you (they are shaped in a square). Take about a teaspoon and 1/2 of filling and place in the center of the won-ton wrapper. With your beaten egg, baste the outer edges of the wrapper (the two sides away from you). Take the corner of the won-ton facing you and fold over the filling making sure to seal all edges. You should end up with a triangled pocket. Then just fold the corners over. Continue doing this until you have gone through all of the wrappers.

In a non-stick skillet, spray liberally with Pam or 1/2 tsp vegetable oil. Make sure the pan is coated. On medium heat, making sure not to overcrowd the won-tons, place them on one side for about 5 - 7 minutes until they begin to brown. Flip and brown the other side. Remove from heat. They were super Yummy!! We served them with the following sauce:

Won-ton Sauce:

1/4 Beef Stock

2 tbsp Soy Sauce

2 tbsp Rice wine vinegar

1 tbsp minced garlic

1 tbsp chopped ginger

1 tbsp honey

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 tsp Chili sauce

1 tsp flour

Mix all ingredients and heat to thicken. This was a really add to taste type of recipe so these are the basic ingredients and Dave kept adding to taste. So if you find something overpowering, or not enough, just add a bit more of one ingredient and make it to your liking.

Thai Chicken Burgers w/Asian Slaw

2011-03-20T18:12:00.009-05:00

Tonight we did our take on Thai chicken burgers with and Asian slaw dressing. Dave and I made the burgers and I made the dressing for the slaw. This is a combined post. Hope you all enjoy. Just keep in mind as you are making these that you can pretty much make any nationality of burgers. You can spice them up and make Mexican burgers or Italian burgers or Indian burgers. The combinations are endless. We ate these on a bun, but for the photo session, I had decided to eliminate the bun.

Chicken burgers

4 lbs ground chicken, as lean as you possibly can get the meat
4 scallions, minced
4 sweet peppers, minced
4 large shiitake mushrooms, minced
1 clove elephant garlic, minced (or you can use 4 - 5 cloves regular garlic)
2 tbsp sweet chili oil
4 tbsp thai peanut sauce
1 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
1 tsp chinese spice
2 eggs
2 cups bread crumbs

Combine all ingredients together. Make sure the mixture is fairly dry. When Dave originally started mixing it was a bit "soupy" He countered this by adding a bit more bread crumbs. Form into fairly large patties. When he grilled the burgers, he "baked" them. He started out on high heat to char the lines into them, but then turned them to low to bake them. He cooked them for about 20 - 30 minutes depending on how well done you want them to be.

Asian Slaw

1/4 head of green cabbage, thinly sliced
5 sweet peppers, julienned
5 scallions, biased cut
3 carrots, julienned
1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup sesame oil
3 tbsp creamy peanut butter
1/4 soy sauce
3 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp ginger root, minced
2 tbsp garlic, minced

For the dressing, mix the rice wine vinegar, vegetable oil, sesame oil, peanut butter, soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger root and garlic together until blended well. In a bowl mix the cabbage, peppers scallions and carrots together. Pour the dressing over the salad. Let stand in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes for the flavors to blend.

Egg Nog Cake

2011-03-15T17:01:00.010-05:00

Was down in TN visiting the 'rents this past weekend. It was great seeing them. Had a fantastic, relaxing trip. On Sunday, mom invited a few of her Eastern Star friends over and we made homemade ravioli's and pasta sauce. Barb, brought over these fantastic little cakes, and I wanted to share to them with everyone.

1 store bought angel food cake
1 box confectioner's sugar
1 stick softened butter
1/2 cup bourbon (no blended whiskey)
crushed pecans & vanilla wafers (equal parts - usually start with 1 cup of each.

Cut the cake into 1" pieces. Combine butter, sugar and bourbon and dip cake pieces into this mixture. Then roll cake in nut-wafter mixture. Store ina tin with waxed paper between layers. (this cake gets better as it "ages").

Chicken Cordon Bleu

2011-02-13T19:47:00.007-06:00

This was our last week of cooking and our friend cooked for us. The meal was absolutely fantastic. Hope you enjoy!

6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

6 slices swiss cheese

6 slcies ham

3 tbsp all-purpose flour

1 tsp paprika

6 tbsp butter

1/2 cup dry white wine

1 tsp chicken bouillon granules

1 tbsp cornstarch

1 cup heavy whipping cream

Pound chicken breasts if they are too thick. Place a cheese and ham slice on each breast within 1/2 inch of the edges. Fold the edges of the chicken over the filing, and secure with toothpicks. Mix the flour and paprika in a small bowl, and coat the chicken pieces. Heat the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat, and cook the chicken until browned on all sides. Add the wine and bouillon. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes until chicken is no longer pink and juices run clear. Remove the toothpicks and transfer the breasts to a warm platter. Blend the cornstarch with the cream in a small bowl, and whisk slowly into the skillet. Cook, stirring until thickened, and pour over the chicken. Serve warm.

Shrimp and Crab Quesadillas

2011-02-06T14:52:00.008-06:00

Welp, it is Superbowl Sunday and as any good American we are sitting in front of the TV, stuffing our faces with fattening food and having a great time. One of the "finger" foods I made is a Shrimp and Crab Quesadillas. Someone gave this recipe to me, but I made just a few changes to it. They were yummmy!!!

8 oz cooked shrimp
8 oz lump crab meat
1/2 cup fresh corn kernels, I used frozen
1/2 cup pico de gallo
1 small can chiles
1 1/2 cup each shredded pepper jack and cheddar cheese
2 tsp crushed red pepper
2 tsp garlic
salt and pepper
6 8 inch flour tortillas

In a medium bowl, combine all ingredients except for the cheese. *Note* depending on the ingredients used, this could be a bit watery, so make sure you have drained the shrimp/crab prior to mixing in the bowl. Top 3 of the tortillas with some of the 2 cheeses (about 3/4 cup) and about 3/4 cup of the mixture. Place the remaining tortillas on top. Cook quesadilla in a non-stick skillet over medium heat until browned (3 - 4 minutes), flip and cook 3 minutes more or until cheese is melted. Cut into wedges.

Chopped Part Deux - Dave Style...Argula and Sun-dried Tomatoes

2011-02-06T10:24:00.006-06:00

This was Dave's "salad" of sorts. Arugula is a very peppery, bitter tasting leafy vegetable. His interpretation was to "wilt" it and then combine it with some yummy ingredients. Hope you enjoy.

1 bunch arugula, chopped and destemmed
1 jar of sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil
1 pkg mushroom
1 tsp chipolte tabasco sauce
pepper

Soak the arugula. We found it to be VERY sandy and needed to be washed thoroughly!!! In a sautee pan, drain the olive oil from the jar of sun-dried tomatoes, add the mushrooms and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the arugula and the sun-dried tomatoes. Cook until wilted. Mix in the tabasco sauce and pepper. Serve.

Chopped Part Deux - Dave Style...Scalloped Potatoes

2011-02-06T10:16:00.008-06:00

He also made his version of scalloped potatoes. He was given fingerling potatoes. His one complaint to his recipe was that he did not slice the potatoes thin enough...other than that he enjoyed them. hope you do as well.

1 lb of fingerling potatoes, sliced thin
1 cup milk
1 onion, diced
1 stick butter, cubed
3/4 cup flour
salt and pepper

Coat a baking dish with pam. Layer the baking dish with a thin layer of potatoes. Sprinkle 2 tbsp of the diced onion. Sprinkle 1 tbsp flour and a bit of salt and pepper. Put about 4 pats of butter. continue building the layers. Top the whole mixture with the milk. Put in a preheated 350 degree oven and bake uncovered for 1 1/2 hours. About mid way through, being very careful, mix the contents so the sauce can blend and be evenly distributed.

Chopped Part Deux - Dave Style...Red Snapper w/Cranberry and Orange Sauce

2011-02-06T10:03:00.006-06:00

His main dish was a Red Snapper w/Cranberry and Orange sauce. This was very good as well. We had never cooked with Red Snapper before and were pleasantly surprised. The cut we got had no bones, and was not a "fishy" fish at all. It did not smell up the kitchen which is a huge negative for us!!! I would definitely get this type of fish again! Hope you all enjoy.

For the fish:

3 filets of red snapper
sea salt
lemon pepper
4 tbsp butter, unsalted

For the Sauce

1 cup fresh cranberries
1 seedles, navel orange, peeled
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp crushed red pepper
juice from 1 lemon

In a sauce pan, add the cranberries, orange, salt, crushed red pepper and the lemon juice and bring to a simmer. Let simmer for about 5 minutes. Test the cranberries for tenderness. Add the sugar to taste. You may need more sugar for your palate. Put contents into a food processor and puree. If the contents are too thick, add a 1tbsp of water and reprocess to desired consistency. It is a sauce, so it should drip off the spoon.

For the fish, season both sides of the fish. Preheat a pan, this is important so the fish does not stick. Add the butter and let melt. Place the fish (if the skin is still on) skin side down, until the skin is crispy. You do not want to mess with the fish until it is cooked...it will give on its own. If you try to flip and it is not allowing you to put the spatula underneath, don't continue. You will be able to put the spatula, underneath the fish when it is good and ready to flip!! Flip the fish, and then let cook on the meat side.

Chopped Part Deux - Dave Style... Sunchoke Cake

2011-02-06T09:51:00.007-06:00

This weekend it was Dave's turn. His mission, to make a meal from Red Snapper, Sunchokes, Cranberries, Arugula and Fingerling Potatoes. Two hours later, *giggling*, he came up with a very tasty meal. This recipe is what he came up with using the Sunchokes, or the Jerusalem Artichokes. Hope you all enjoy!

1 pkg Sunchokes, grated

1 cup of parmigiano reggiano cheese, grated

1 tbsp minced garlic

5 eggs

2 cherry peppers, pickled, and seeded (either hot or mild), pureed

salt and pepper

1 tsp lemon juice

Mix all ingredients together. The Sunchoke releases alot of water. So you can either put in a colander and press out the additional liquid, or as you are forming into a patty, press the liquid out. The patty should be about a sand-dollar size. Put olive oil on a preheated griddle. Place the patties on the griddle and cook on one side till brown. Then flip. Don't flip too early, or they will fall apart.

Coffee-Mate Cafe Party Oatmeal Cookies

2011-02-04T19:00:00.007-06:00

Hosting a Coffee -Mate Cafe Party is awesome. Making cookies using one of Coffee-Mate's creamers is even better. I found a recipe on Coffee-Mate's website for Oatmeal cookies that I thought sounded quite interesting. I improvised a bit because in the recipe, it calls for Cinnamon Flavor Creme Flavor "Liquid" Coffee Creamer, which I didn't have, BUT, I had their Hazelnut Biscotti Powdered Creamer. So I thought, hmmm...I think that would be quite yummy! So I gave it a try! Hope you enjoy the cookies.

3/4 cup margarine or butter (I used unsalted butter)

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp Hazelnut Biscotti Coffee Mate Creamer

2 cups rolled oats

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a mixing bowl, beat margarine or butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add about half of the flour, all the brown sugar, granulated sugar, egg, baking powder, vanilla, baking soda, and the powdered creamer. Beat till thoroughly combined. Beat in remaining flour. Stir in oats. Drop by rounded teaspoons two inches apart onto an ungreased cook sheet. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes or till edges are golden. Cool cookies on a wire rack. Instead of a cookie sheet, I actually used a heart shaped mold for my cookies.

You've Been Chopped! - Mushroom and Sour Cream Sauce Phaedra Style

2011-01-30T19:22:00.022-06:00

This was the last recipe! It was yummy. I channeled my mushroom alfredo sauce, but with a twist. I used the sour cream which was the last ingredient and instead of putting it over pasta, it was used as the sauce for our polenta.

1 pkg crimini mushrooms, chopped

1 leek, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

1/4 milk

2 tbsp parmesan cheese

1/4 white wine

2 tbsp sour cream

Salt and pepper to taste.

slices polenta, fried

In a large saute pan, heat extra virgin olive oil. Saute the leeks, until limp. Add the garlic, and mushooms and saute until cooked. Add the white wine. Saute for about 7 - 10 minutes. While the mixture is cooking, spray a hot griddle with Pam. Cooked the sliced polenta until golden brown. Right before serving, slowly add the milk and continue stirring. The milk has the potential to curdle so make sure you either turn the heat down to low or turn it completely off. Add the cheese a little at a time and stir until completely melted. Again, the cheese could clump, so you want to make sure you don't add it all at once. Stir in the sour cream. On a plate, place 1 - 2 slices of the sliced polenta and spoon over the mushroom mixture.

You've Been Chopped! - Parsnips and Brussel Sprouts Phaedra Style

2011-01-30T19:14:00.008-06:00

This was the second recipe I came up with tonight. I gotta tell you I had a blast thinking up recipes. Especially since I had no clue what parsnips tasted like and had never cooked them before. I assumed they tasted a bit like a cross between carrots and turnips.

4 Parsnips, peeled and cubed
7 Brussel sprouts, quartered w/ends cut off
5 strips of bacon, chopped
salt and pepper
1/4 cup chicken stock
2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

In about 2 tbsp olive oil and 2 tbsp butter, add the parsnips. These little beauties are quite hard and will take a bit to get soft. Saute on medium to high heat, stirring fairly frequently. Add the bacon and keep stirring. Add the quartered brussel sprouts. Add the chicken stock and continue sauteeing. Add salt and pepper taste and the freshly ground nutmeg.

You've Been Chopped! - Pork Tenderloin Phaedra Style

2011-01-30T19:05:00.010-06:00

Have you all seen that "reality" show on Food Network, Chopped, where there are three chef's who are given a basket of 3 - 4 ingredients and they are given a time limit to come up with a main course with those ingredients that the judges actually like. A friend of ours came over tonight and we decided to have our own version of chopped. It was a blast! I will give you the three recipes I came up with. The 5 ingredients they brought over were: Crimini mushrooms, Sour cream, Parsnips, Polenta and Pork tenderloin. The first recipe is for the Pork tenderloin:

1 1/2 lbs pork tenderloin

3 tbsp dried rosemary

3 tbsp dried thyme

2 tbsp jerk seasoning

1 tbsp chili powder

1 tbsp chipotle powder

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp fresh ground pepper

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1/4 chicken stock.

In a bowl mix all ingredients together into a paste. Rub the tenderloin with the paste. Place in a shallow baking dish. Preheat oven at 425 degrees. Bake the tenderloin for about 40 minutes until the internal temperature reaches about 170 degrees (well done). At about 10 minutes prior, add about 1/4 cup chicken stock to the bottom of the dish. This will create a nice little gravy for the pork.

Refrigerator Pickled Jalapenos

2011-01-29T18:25:00.011-06:00

Back when I got into jarring/canning, we were big into going to the farmer's market and picking up fresh fruits/veggies and canning everything under the sun. I started making refrigerator pickled jalapeno's for Dave because we found a bushel of them for really cheap!! Well now whenever I find these babies on sale, I pick up a crapload and pickle them for him. They are usually twice as big as the ones you get in the jars on the shelves and I can make them a heck of a lot tastier ;O). Hope you enjoy!

The jalapeno's at the store today were huge!!! Usually I wait for a sale, but I just couldn't pass them up.

As many jalapenos as you can fit into whatever jar you are using...Cram 'em in there!!!

Distilled white vinegar

2 - 3 heaping tbsp minced garlic

2 -3 tbsp crushed red pepper

1 heaping tbsp sugar

2 tsp salt

To prepare the jalapenos, wash them very well. I trim the ends off, so they don't take up precious space. I also take a sharp knife, and slice just a couple of holes in the peppers, so the brine will seep into the peppers, and help them sink, rather than float when I pour the brine into the jar. I clean the jar very well and stuff those beautiful peppers into the jar as many as I can get. Once you pour the hot brine over them, they will also shrink. While you are doing this, you can bring the vinegar, sugar and salt to a boil and just let it cook for about 4 - 5 minutes. Continue stuffing the jalapenos into the jar. Add the garlic and the crushed red peppers. When the vinegar has been boiling for a few minutes, bring the jar over to the vinegar. Begin ladleing the brine into the jar up to the rim. You will have air pockets...make sure you use a plastic handled spoon to try and remove some of the air pockets. A metal handle may actually shatter the jar. If you find some of the liquid has receded, add more. Seal the jar. Cool completely before you put into the refrigerator. Let the jalapeno's pickle for about 2 weeks before you eat them.

Penne with Vodka Sauce

2011-01-27T11:58:00.008-06:00

I had made this a while back but actually forgot to put it on my blog. I had found this recipe on food network, a recipe provided by Giada and it was yummy! I hope you enjoy it. I didn't change much from the recipe, because I love Giada's recipes!

1 quart Simple Tomato Sauce, recipe is below.
1 cup vodka
1/2 cup heavy cream, at room temperature
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
1 pound penne

Simmer the tomato sauce and vodka in a heavy large skillet over low heat until the mixture reduces by 1/4, stirring often, about 20 minutes. Stir the cream into the tomato and vodka sauce. Simmer over low heat until the sauce is heated through. Stir in the Parmesan cheese until melted and well blended. Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente, tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Drain the pasta and transfer it to the pan with the sauce, and toss to coat.

Simple Tomato Sauce:

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
2 (32-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes, Muir Glen Fire Roasted, no salt added
4 to 6 basil leaves
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, optional

In a large casserole pot, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic and saute until soft and translucent, about 2 minutes. Add celery and carrot and season with salt and pepper. Saute until all the vegetables are soft, about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, basil, and bay leaves and reduce the heat to low. Cover the pot and simmer for 1 hour or until thick. Remove bay leaves and taste for seasoning. If sauce tastes too acidic, add unsalted butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, to round out the flavor. Pour half the tomato sauce into the bowl of a food processor. Process until smooth. Continue with remaining tomato sauce.

Dave's Apple Dumplings

2011-01-23T13:58:00.008-06:00

Well today is National Pie Day, and we decided to celebrate early. Last night Dave had a craving for dessert and a bit of nostalgia and wanted to make something that his momma used to make for him when he was a kid. The premise is that each person has an "individual apple pie." They are little apple dumplings. You use a standard pie crust, take a peeled apple and use all of the fixins of an apple pie and stuff it inside the pie crust, seel it up and bake it. They were so yummy! Hope you all enjoy it!

Pie Crust

1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 stick well-chilled Crisco all vegetable shortening
3 - 6 tbsp ice cold water

Filling

3 apples, any kind, peeled, cored
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp cinnamon
1 stick of butter, softened

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. For the pie crust, blend flour and salt in medium mixing bowl. Cut chilled shortening into 1/2 inch cubes. Cut in chilled shortening cubes into flour mixture, using a pastry blender, in an up/down chopping motion, until mixture resembles coarse crumbs with small pieces remaining. Sprinkle half the recommended amount of ice cold water over the flour mixture. Press chunks down to bottom of the bowl with a fork. Add more water by the tbsp until dough is moist enough to hold together when pressed together. Shape dough into a ball for single pie crust. Divide into three parts, one per apple. You will be rolling each section out to envelope the apple. Work with 1 section at a time. Roll into a ball and flatten into a patty. With a rolling pin, keeping it round, flatten into an 1/8 inch thick, enough to cover the entire apple. Peel and core 1 apple. Baste the top of the dough with the softened butter. Crumble about 1 tbsp of brown sugar on top of the butter. Dust with cinnamon, about 2 tsp. Dust the apple with cinnamon, both inside and out. Set in the center of the dough. Put about a tsp of brown sugar inside the core of the apple and about a tsp of butter in the core of the apple. Fold up the sides of the dough, and squish together. Make a point at the top, it will look like a teardrop. You can cut the top of it to make it flat (for presentation). At this point, prepare the other two apples. Put them all in an oven safe bowl, because they will make syrup. At this point point, take the rest of the butter, melt it, and baste the outsides of each of the dumplings. Dust the outside with cinnamon and put about a tsp of brown sugar on the top. Bake for 15 minutes, and then knock the temperature down to 350 for another 45 minutes. They were very yummy!

Dave's Fried Taters

2011-01-21T20:47:00.005-06:00

Sometimes you just have to have breakfast for dinner! Well tonight was one of those nights. We both weren't in the mood for cookin and we had some spuds that were yelling at us from our pantry that they were lookin to take a dip into the oil! So we decided to make fried taters and scrambled eggs. Dave was tasked to do the spuds and he came up with some mighty tasty ones! Hope you enjoy his spin on them!

6 - 7 potatoes, sliced
8 mushrooms, sliced
6 scallions, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 flower of garlic, whole
salt and pepper to taste

Wash and scrub the potatoes, and slice, leaving the skins on. Peel the garlic, but leave the cloves whole. In a very large skillet, preheat 1/3 cup of olive oil. Put all of the garlic into the olive oil. On very low heat, saute the garlic in the oil, until brown. You don't want it to burn. Once brown, remove from heat and set aside. Raise the heat, then add the potatoes. You want to make sure the potatoes brown on the bottom. Make sure you don't stir frequently, because the potatoes will turn to mush. It is important to keep them "clean", don't add oil, salt, pepper, spices, etc. This will minimize sticking. Once you have turned them 3 - 4 times and they are about 3/4 of the way done, this is when you will add the onions and the mushrooms. Periodically turn the mixture, making sure they are browning all sides. Since the onions have sugars in them, you want to keep them from sticking, but again, you don't want to turn to frequently. Just stick your spatula underneath the potatoes to prevent them from sticking but try not to flip them. While the spuds are cooking, chop the garlic that you removed earlier from the oil. About 3 minutes prior to serving the potatoes, add the garlic, salt and pepper and stir to blend. Serve the spuds!

They were excellent.

Autumn Risotto

2011-01-18T19:45:00.010-06:00

The hubs and I were in PA on vacation meeting our new grandbaby Wyatt. We came back and found a few science projects in our fridge. After cleaning a few things out, I decided to make a risotto with what was salvagable! I found when making risotto, that it is one of the things my father used to call a pastish. When my dad was in the mood to clean out the fridge, he would call it a pastish and put anything and everything into the dish he was making and it would be edible. I have found that risotto is very forgiving when it comes to what you can add to it. It is your basic standby, arborio rice and stock, and then whatever your lil heart wants to add to it! I hope you enjoy.

5 - 7 cups homemade chicken or veggie stock
4 chicken breasts, cubed
1 1/2 cups of arborio rice
2 small acorn squash, peeled and diced
2 portobello mushrooms, diced
1 leek, cleaned and chopped
1 elephant garlic, chopped
3 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 cup white wine
1 tbsp dried sage
1 tbsp dried thyme
1 tsp fresh nutmeg, grated
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp fresh ground pepper
Grated parmesan cheese (garnish)
Crushed walnuts (garnish)

In a large pot, bring the stock to a boil. In a dutch oven, preheat 2 tbsp olive oil. Add the cubed chicken and saute until cooked. Remove from the heat. In the same pot, add the leeks and the garlic and cook until limp. Deglaze with the white wine. Add the rice and stir until all liquid has evaporated. Add the butter and stir until melted. Add 2 ladles of stock to the rice mixture and stir until liquid has evaporated, over medium low heat. About 3/4 of the way through the stock, add the spices, nutmeg, thyme, sage, salt, pepper, and stir in the mushrooms, squash and the chicken. Continue adding the stock until you have used it up, 2 ladles at a time. After the liquid has evaporated, you will be left with a creamy rice and a yummy dish! Pour rice into a bowl and sprinkle with the crushed walnuts and the grated parmesan cheese.

Steak Marinade

2011-01-18T11:38:00.005-06:00

Dave makes an awesome marinade for steak. This is something that is best used if you are able to let these babies rest for at least 2 hours in this juicy goodness!

1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tbsp Montreal steak spice
1 tbsp crushed garlic
1 tbsp whole peppercorns
1/2 cup zesty Italian dressing
(with the dressing, you can use Italian dressing, he has used vidalia onion dressing, zesty italian dressing, balsamic vinagrette, etc, nothing really creamy such as ranch or blue cheese, but I don't see why you wouldn't be able to if you wanted to get creative)

Combine all ingredients into a Ziploc bag and place the steak inside and seal. Let stand for about 2 - 3 hours before grilling. As you are grilling, pour the remaining marinade over the steak.

Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignion

2011-01-01T21:04:00.016-06:00

I have been dying to try Julia's Boeuf Bourguignion. For my birthday Dave got me a gas grill (yippee!!) and I thought now would be the perfect time to try the recipe! I used my dutch oven and found the recipe on Food.com . Now to be honest, I have never seen the actual recipe so I am not sure how authentic this truely is, but I am guessing and hoping it is as accurate as possible! If you happen to try this recipe, seriously, make sure you devote at least half a day to making this. It is very labor intensive and time consuming but what you end up with is pure gold!

For the Stew
6 ounces bacon
1 tbsp olive oil
3 lbs lean stewing beef, cut into 2-inch cubes
1 carrot, peeled and sliced
1 onion, peeled and sliced
1 tsp salt
14 tsp pepper, freshly ground
2 tbsp flour
3 cups red wine (a full bodied wine like Bordeaux or Burgundy or Chianti), I used Bordeaux
2 - 3 cups beef stock
1 tbsp tomato paste
5 garlic cloves, mashed
1 sprig thyme
1 bay leaf, preferably fresh

For the braised onions

18 - 24 white pearl onions, peeled
1 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup beef stock
salt & fresh ground pepper
1 bay leaf
1 sprig thyme
2 sprigs parsley

For the sauteed mushrooms

1 lb mushroom, quartered
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp olive oil

Directions:

First prepare the bacon, cut the bacon into 1 1/2 inch long pieces (lardons). Simmer the pieces for about 10 minutes in 1 1/2 quarts of water. Drain and dry the "lardons" and reserve. Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees. Put a tbsp of olive oil in a large (9" - 10" wide 3" deep) fireproofe casserole or dutch oven and warm over moderate heat. Saute the lardons for 2 - 3 minutes to brown lightly. Remove to a side dish with a slotted spoon. Dry off the pieces of beef and saute them, a few at a time in the hot oil/bacon fat until nicely browned on all sides. Once browned, remove to the side plate with the bacon. In the same oil/fat, saute the onion and the carrot until softened. Pour off the fat and return the lardons and the beef to the casserole with the carrots and onion. Toss the contents of the casserole with the salt and pepper and sprinkle with the flour. Set the uncovered casserole in the oven for four minutes. Toss the contents of the casserole again and return to the hot oven for 4 more minutes. Now, lower the heat to 325 degrees and remove the casserole from the oven. Add the wine and enough stock so that the meat is barely covered. Add the tomato paste, garlic and herbs. Bring to a simmer on the top of the stove. Cover and place in the oven, adjusting the heat so that the liquid simmers very slowly for three to four hours. the meat is done when a fork pierces it easily. While the meat is cooking, prepare the onions and mushrooms and set them aside till needed.

For the onion, if using frozen make sure they are defrosted and drained. I used fresh. Heat the butter and oil in a large skillet and add the onions to the skillet. Saute over medium heat for about ten minutes, rolling the onions about so they brown as evenly as possible, without breaking apart. Pour in the stock, season to taste, add the herbs, and cover. Simmer over low heat for about 40 to 50 minutes until the onions are perfectly tender but retain their shape and the liquid has mostly evaporated. remove the herbs and set the onions aside.

For the mushrooms, heat the butter and oil over high heat in a large skillet. As soon as the foam begins to subside add the mushrooms and toss and shake the pan for about five minutes. As soon as they have browned lightly, remove the heat.

To finish the stew; when the meat is tender, remove the casserole from the oven and empty its contents into a sieve set over a saucepan. **This is where I strayed from the recipe. I did not do this. I left the carrots and onions in the stew because we just couldn't discard them...they were just to tasty!** Wash out the casserole and return the beef and bacon to it (discarding the bits of carrot and onion and herbs which remain in the sieve). Distribute the mushrooms and onions over the meat. Skim the fat off the sauce and simmer it for a minute or two, skimming off any additional fat which rises to the surface. You should be left with about 2 1/2 cups of sauce thick enough to coat a spoon lightly. If the sauce is too thick, add a few tablespoons of stock. If the sauce is too thin, boil it down to reduce to the right consistency. Taste for seasoning. Pour the sauce over the meat and vegetables. If you are serving immediately, place the covered casserole over medium low heat and simmer 2 - 3 minutes. Serve in the casserole or on a warm platter surrounded by buttered noodles sprinkled with fresh parsley.

Chicken Parmesan w/Wild Mushroom Sauce (Round 2 Recipe)

2010-12-26T19:27:00.009-06:00

When I am making sauce (or gravy) I just don't have the capacity to know when to stop. I always end up making way to much and we have quite a bit for leftovers. Quite often we will freeze the sauce and just pull it out when we want a quick spaghetti/baked ziti meal, but this evening I thought we would try something a bit different. You will have to pardon the photo, but Dave had dug into the pot before I had a chance to yell "stop" and take a picture.

We had some frozen chicken in the freezer and decided to pull that out. As a variation on this meal, you could actually slice a fairly thick chicken breast almost in half and stuff it with goats cheese or feta cheese before you brown it. That would have been heavenly as well. We just didn't want to much fuss so it was just straight up chicken breasts tonight.

4 good size chicken breasts
1/2 cup white wine
Wild Mushroom sauce (from my blog)
Grated parmesan cheese

Pre heat the oven to 350 degrees. In a dutch oven, add about 2 tbsp olive oil and bring to about medium high heat. Sear/brown the chicken breasts until they are golden brown on all sides. Remove from the dutch oven. Deglaze the bottom of the pot with the wine and scrape up the bottom of the pot (all those good little chicken bits). Add the wild mushroom sauce to the pot and mix in with the wine...I would say enough to cover the chicken when you put it back in. Add the chicken to the pot and cover. Put in the oven for 45 minutes. In the last 10 minutes of cooking time, pull out and uncover. Sprinkle each chicken with grated parmesan cheese and put back into the oven for the remaining 10 minutes. Pull out and serve. You can put over pasta, rice, or just by itself (which is what I did). This was so yummy and used up quite a bit of the extra sauce.

Wild Mushroom Ravioli Sauce

2010-12-26T14:27:00.020-06:00

We had our normal Christmas Traditional dinner yesterday. We made homemade ravioli last night, two kinds actually. Dave decided to color the dough so we have red ravioli and green ravioli. Our red ravioli had a 3 -cheese filling (marscapone, romano, ricotta, parsley and garlic) and our green ravioli had a sun-dried tomato pesto filling, the recipe is on my blog as well (just click the link). So I decided to make a wild mushroom sauce to go with it. This time, instead of a cream sauce, however, I went with a red sauce. Hope you enjoy.

1 pkg crimini mushrooms, sliced
1 pkg shiitake mushrooms, sliced
2 pkg dried porcini mushrooms
2 elephant garlic cloves, chopped
1 lg onion, chopped
1 cup red wine

2 cans muir glen, fire roasted tomatoes, crushed (the larger cans)
2 cans muir glen, fire roasted tomatoes, diced
2 tbsp dried sage
2 tbsp dried thyme
2 tbsp dried basil
2 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp crushed red pepper
2 cups beef stock, no salt added
1/2 cup vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup of the sun dried tomato pesto (from the left over filling of the ravioli)

In a deep pot, add about 2 tbsp olive oil. Saute the onion until translucent. Add the crimini and the shiitake mushrooms. Saute until almost cooked. Add the garlic. Deglaze with the red wine. Add the dried porcini mushrooms. They will reconstitute in the wine. Add the remaining ingredients to the sauce and let simmer 3 - 4 hours. The sauce will thicken up. The porcini mushrooms actually gave this sauce a very meaty flavor. It was excellent!

Caribbean Chicken Sandwich

2010-12-07T18:11:00.004-06:00

From the grilled chicken with the jerk marinade, the following day we made a ciabatta sandwich. I altered the marinade a bit and made a sauce of sorts. We shredded the chicken and sauteed it with the following sauce:

1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tbsp dried thyme
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp nutmeg
1 tsp cloves
2 tsp ground allspice
2 tbsp brown sugar
3 cloves garlic
1 tbsp fresh gingerroot
3 scallions
1/2 small onion, chopped
2 jalapenos, seeded, coarsely chopped
2 tbsp of paprika
salt and pepper to taste

For the sandwich fixins:

1 cup shredded gruyere cheese
1 cup roasted red peppers
1 cup coleslaw

Blend the above ingredients together in a blender until smooth. Shred the leftover chicken from previous night. We ended up shredding two large chicken breast and two thighs and had enough for a 1/2 of a loaf of ciabatta bread. In a pan, add a 1tbsp of olive oil. Add the shredded chicken and heat. Pour the marinade over it and cook until the liquid is pretty much evaporated. Preheat the oven to 415. Heat the bread until brown or toasted. About 3 minutes before you pull it out, add the cheese to one side or both, your choice and put back in the oven and keep in there till cheese is melted. Pull the bread out and build your sandwich. Add the coleslaw, the chicken and the roasted red peppers.

This was sooo yummy!

Jerk Marinade

2010-12-07T18:08:00.004-06:00

We grilled chicken the other day and I found this jerk marinade on Epicurean. It was fantastic.

2 cups vegetable oil

2 lg yellow onions coarsely chopped

4 scallions coarsely chopped

3 habanero peppers or jalapeno peppers stemmed

3 tbsp fresh gingerroot peeled & grated

6 cloves garlic coarsely chopped

2 tbsp fresh thyme finely chopped

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

3 tbsp light brown sugar

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg freshly ground

pinch ground cloves

2 tsp ground allspice

2 tbsp fresh lime juice

Combine all ingredients into a food processor until smooth. Pour into a ziploc bag and add your chicken. My recommendation is to let marinade for about 24 hours prior to grilling.

Butterscotch Pie with Walnuts and Toffee

2010-11-26T09:55:00.006-06:00

Now this pie is pure fat and sugar. So if you are watching your figure...your blood sugar..or anything this is definitely not for you...but boy oh boy it was yummy! And once a year...why not splurge!!!!! Now I would suggest if you are going to make this, to get two people to do it. I would have had a heck of a time trying to do this by myself so I enlisted Dave's help! It was definitely needed!!!

For the crust:

1/4 cu heavy cream
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
10 tbsp chilled unsalged butter, cut into 1/4 -inch cubes
10 tbsp powdered sugar
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted

For the filling:

1 1/2 cups whole milk
6 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp table salt
10 tbsp unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup golden syrup (if you can't find this, use corn syrup)
1/4 cup boiling water
4 egg yolks
1 tbsp whiskey (I used brandy)
1 tsp vanilla extract

For the topping:

1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted
2 tsp whiskey (brandy)
1 skor bar (I couldn't find this so I used Heath crunchies)

Heat 1/4 cup heavy cream for the crust in a small saucepan over medium until it bubbles around edges of pan. Place cocoa powder in a bowl, stir in cream; set aside. Beat cubed butter and 10 tbsp powdered sugar in bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment until smooth. Beat in cocoa mixture, half the flour, and 1 egg yolk until smooth. Beat in remaining flour just until combined. Shape dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate at least 1 hour or overnight. Roll chilled dough on a lightly floured surface to 1/4 inch thick; transfer to a 9 - inch pie plate. trim overhang to 1 inch and roll edge under itself. Cover crust with plastic wrap and freeze 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place a piece of parchment paper or aluminum foil inside pie shell and fill with pie weights. Bake pie shell 25 - 30 minutes. Remove parchment and weights and bake the crust until crisp and dry, 5 - 10 minutes more; set aside. Sprinkle walnuts on bottom of crust.

Whisk together milk, cornstarch, and salt for slurry in a bowl; set aside. Brown 10 tbsp butter for the filling in a saute pan over medium heat, about 15 minutes. Add brown sugar and golden syrup; bring to a boil. Boil 3 minutes; whisk in boiling water until smooth, boil 1 minute more. Whisk slurry into sugar mixture and increase heat to medium-high. Cook, whisking constantly, until mixture comes to a boil, about 5 minutes; cook 1 minute more and remove from heat.

Drizzle 1 cup butterscotch into 4 egg yolks to temper, whisking constantly. Reduce heat to medium low and gradually whisk tempered mixture back into filling. Simmer filling 1 minute to thicken, whisking constantly; remove from heat. Stir in 1 tbsp whiskey and vanilla; pour filling into crust. Press plastic wrap onto filling to prevent a skin from forming. Cool to room temperature about 1 hour then chill overnight.

Beat heavy cream for the topping in a bowl with a hand mixer on medium to soft peaks. Add 1/4 cup powdered sugar and 2 tsp whiskey, beating until combined. Top pie with whipped cream and garnish with the Heath crunchies.

Roasted Brussel Sprouts

2010-11-26T09:45:00.004-06:00

Now some of you may say "Ewww" to my next dish, but they were sooooo yummy!! I found this recipe in the Cuisine Magazine, but changed it up a bit. As soon as I said Brussel Sprouts, Dave said "Bacon?". Well the recipe didn't call for bacon so I added it. It also said to roast in the oven and since I had dressing, green bean casserole and rolls in the oven, PLUS the turkey, I had to improvise and actually fake roast them in cast iron pot on the stove, but they turned out so yummy I wanted to share them with you:

2 lbs brussel sprouts, trimmed and halved

3 tbsp, olive oil, salt and pepper

5 slices of maple bacon, chopped

8 tbsp, unsalted butter

2/3 cup almonds, slivered

1/4 cup minced shallots

1 cup heavy cream

5 oz gorgonzola cheese, crumbled

2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

minced zest of 1 lemon

In a cast iron pot, add 1 tbsp olive oil and saute the chopped bacon until crisp. Remove the bacon. Add the brussel sprouts and cook over medium heat until they are tender and start to become a golden brown. Mine were kinda large, so this took about 30 minutes. In a separate pan, preheat the pan and melt your butter. Add the shallots and the almonds and saute until the butter becomes a golden brown. Add the heavy cream and the gorgonzola cheese and bring to a boil. Add the sauce to the brussel sprouts. Stir in the lemon juice and the zest.

At this point, we had pulled the turkey out and was letting it rest for 15 minutes. I transferred the brussel sprouts to a tin foil pan and put it in the oven for the 15 minutes at 325 degrees and just let it bake for the time that we let the turkey rest. It was heavenly! The sauce browned a bit..Yum!

Yummy Cheddar Cheese Biscuits

2010-11-26T09:22:00.020-06:00

I tried out three new recipes this Thanksgiving and I wanted to share them with you all. I have a couple of pictures of them as well. Hope you enjoy the recipes. We did!!

2 1/2 cups Bisquick baking mix
1 cup Cheddar cheese

3/4 cup Whole milk

2 tablespoons Butter

1/8 teaspoon minced garlic

1/4 cup Butter

1/2 teaspoon minced garlic

1/2 teaspoon Dried parsley flakes

1 dash Salt

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Combine Bisquick with cheddar cheese, milk, 2 tablespoons of butter that has been melted in the microwave, and 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder in a medium bowl. Mix until well-combined. Drop approximately 1/4-cup portions of the dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Combine 1/4 cup butter with 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder, parsley fla

kes and salt. Brush this mixture over the tops of each unbaked biscuit. Bake for 14 to 16 minutes or until the tops of the biscuits begin to turn light brown. Serve warm
.

Italian Pot Roast

2010-11-14T19:14:00.003-06:00

My parents sent me this recipe today and had it this evening. They said it was fantastic.

Chuck eye round, tied
2 tbsp tomatoes paste
1/2 cup tomatoes sauce
1/2 cup of water
1 sprig thyme
1 sprig rosemary
1 can diced tomatoes
Salt
Pepper
1 cup red wine divided
1 onion diced
1 carrot chopped fine
1 stock of celery chopped
1 head garlic
1 lb mushrooms

Oven at 300. Dry meat and season well with salt and pepper, sear meat 8 to 10 minutes in a Dutch oven till well browned. Remove from pan and cook veg till soft. Cut the garlic in half and add to the pot add everything else except rosemary and only 1/2 cup of red wine. Cover the pot with tin foil and cover, roast till very tender about 3 hrs. Remove from pot and cover with foil. Skim fat from roast and add 1/2 cup of red wine and simmer for 12 min and add the sprig of rosemary and let cook for two minutes and remove it and the sprig of thyme.

Homemade Barbecue Sauce

2010-10-25T17:58:00.004-05:00

We smoked some flank steak last night in our smoker and had pulled beef sandwiches this evening for dinner. To them we added this bbq sauce. It turned out really yummy!!

1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1 1/2 cups ketchup
1/4 cup chili sauce
3 to 4 tablespoons brown sugar
3 to 4 tablespoons molasses
2 tablespoons prepared yellow mustard
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon liquid hickory smoke flavoring
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder or granulated garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon chili powder
dash cayenne pepper, or to taste

In a saucepan, slowly sauté the chopped onion in butter until soft and just beginning to turn yellow. Add remaining ingredients. Simmer for about 15 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings. Delicious on chopped pork sandwiches or use with chicken.

Steak and Wild Mushroom Risotto

2010-10-23T08:21:00.007-05:00

I hope you all enjoy.

1 1/2 cups of arborio rice
½ cup dry sherry (not cooking sherry)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 lb beef, I used beef stew beef that was already cut into cubes from the butcher
1 leek, chopped
1 tbsp thyme
2 tsp sea salt (this may sound like a lot, but with the amount of rice you will end up with it will be perfect)
10 crimini mushrooms, chopped
10 shiitake mushrooms, chopped
1 pkg dried porcini mushrooms, reconstituted in beef broth
1 to 2 cloves garlic (depending on how much you like)
5 cups chicken stock, homemade or low sodium boxed
1 small container of mascarpone cheese

In a pot, heat up the chicken stock until simmering, turn medium low heat. In a deep pan, bring the olive oil up to medium heat. Brown the steak/stew meat. Remove from the pan. Add the leeks and sauté until tender. Add the garlic and mushrooms and sauté until cooked. Add the rice and sauted for 1 to 2 minutes. Add the ½ cup of dry sherry and begin stirring continuously. Add 1 ladle of the chicken stock and stir the rice continuously until the liquid has been absorbed. Repeat 2 times with the chicken stock. On the third, add the steak back in, and a ladle of the stock. Stir until the chicken stock has evaporated. Continue until all stock has been used/absorbed. This should take approximately 20 - 25 minutes. The rice will become very creamy. Add the mascarpone cheese at the very end and fold into the rice.

Chipotle Peppers in Adobe Sauce

2010-10-06T21:54:00.004-05:00

Not sure if you have ever used them before, but there are chipotle peppers in adobe sauce that you can buy in the grocery store in these small cans. All chipotle peppers are, are smoked jalapenos. We had some jalapenos that we weren't quite sure what to do with so I decided to make my own. :) ...and if I do say so myself, they turned out fantastic.

Chipotle Peppers

1lb of jalapeno peppers, seeded and halved
Smoker

Half the jalapeno peppers and seed them. In a smoker, add whatever flavored wood chips you like. Dave had hickory and crabapple. We smoked them for about 3 hours, then took them off because we were heading off to bed. We finished them off in a dehydrator so they were dried out...pretty much like little hockey pucks.

Adobe Sauce

12 dried Ancho Chiles
1/2 cup white vinegar
2 cups water
1/4 cup olive oil
2 medium onions (I used 1 large onion)
5 cloves garlic
1 tbsp ground cumin
4 cups chicken stock, unsalted
3 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 cup orange juice (as a personal preference, I got the no pulp OJ)
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp sea salt

In a saucepan, add the chiles, vinegar and water. bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook about 10 minutes to soften. Transfer the chiles and liquid to a blender or food processor. Puree until a smooth paste is formed, adding a tablespoon or 2 of water if necessary to thin. Set aside. Heat the olive oil in a medium sauce pan over medium-high heat. Saute the onions until golden brown, 8 - 10 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook briefly just to release the aroma. Next, stir in the cumin and cook another minute. Add the chicken stock and reserved chile paste. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook 20 minutes. meanwhile, mix together the brown sugar, orange and lemon juices, tomato paste, salt and pepper to form a paste. Add to the simmering stock mixture and continue cooking another 15 minutes.

The Adobe Sauce can be stored in the fridge for about 1 week or frozen indefinitely. Once we were done cooking it, I took the smoked jalapenos (chipotles) and put them into a tupperware. I then took enough of the sauce and poured it over the chipotles until they were submersed in the sauce.

MMMM MMM.

Jalapeno and Garlic Marinade

2010-10-04T19:31:00.004-05:00

2 pickled Jalapenos, minced
4 heaping tbsp, minced garlic
5 tbsp of the jalapeno juice
2 tbsp smoked paprika
3 tsp cumin
1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp montreal chicken spice
10 sprigs of fresh thyme
1/4 cup zesty Italian dressing

Mix all ingredients together. Add the chicken breasts, and let marinade for about 2 - 3 hours. Grill. This was fantastic.

Caramel Apple Butter

2010-08-15T10:24:00.006-05:00

Dave and I went apple picking at Aamodt's this past Friday. It is this local orchard. We probably ended up picking about 16 lbs worth of apples. One of my all time favorites is apple butter. My dad used to put this on toast for me when I was growing up. There is nothing like almost burnt toast (yes I like it that way), butter, and a big heaping spoonful of apple butter....pure heaven. I found this recipe online and decided to make it. The recipe called for two specific apples (Rome and Granny Smith) but the apples Aamodt's was harvesting on Friday were State Fair apples so this is what I used. The butter turned out fantastic!!! and I ended up with 6 half pint jars from it. MMM MMM. Dave wasn't sure he would like it since "I don't like caramel" but once he tasted it, he definitely changed his mind. You don't taste the caramel.

8 lbs apples
1 cup Water
4 cup Sugar
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Cloves
1/4 tsp Ginger
2 tbsp Lemon juice

Wash apples and cut into pieces; combine with water in a large covered sauce pot.
Cook until soft, about 30 minutes. Press through a food mill; measure 12 cups apple pulp; and return to sauce pot. Heat 2 cups sugar in a saucepan, stirring until sugar melts and turns a rich golden brown. Carefully pour into apple pulp. Sugar will crackle and harden. Add remaining 2 cups of sugar and spices. Cook, uncovered, about 1 hour or until apple butter thickens, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. Stir in lemon juice. Pour hot into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space. Adjust caps.

Jenna's BBQ Sauce

2010-08-15T10:21:00.003-05:00

Here is another fantastic BBQ sauce that my 'rents wanted to share with you. My mom's boss gave this recipe to her and she said it was definitely finger licking good! Hope you all enjoy!

1 Stick of butter
2 20oz ketchup Heinz or Hunts only
1 1/2 cup of white vinegar
1/4 vegetable oil
1 1/2 Tablespoon Black Pepper
1 Tablespoon salt
1 Tablespoon crushed red pepper
5 Tablespoon sugar
1 cup brown sugar
10 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

In large pan on stove melt butter over med heat, then combine all other ingredients. Continue to cook over med heat until it foams. Once it foams let cool and put in bottles.

Enjoy

Ruby Tuesday's Basil Pesto Pasta Salad

2010-08-12T14:05:00.009-05:00

My Father has fallen in love with this pasta salad they have on their salad bar. We had asked for the recipe, but unfortunately, they couldn't give us quanities but just gave us the ingredients. So what I did was bought the ingredients then played around until I got the dish to taste like their salad. Dad says it tastes exactly like it so I hope you enjoy!!

Made Basil Pesto first:

3 cloves of garlic
4 large sprigs of fresh basil
½ to 1 cup of parmesan cheese
2 tbsp slivered almonds
Olive oil to make a paste

Combine all ingredients in a food processor till pesto like consistency

For the pasta:
4.25 oz can of chopped black olives (they were already pre chopped)
2 roasted red peppers (marinated in water only, not pickled in vinegar and not marinated in olive oil), chopped very fine
1 pkg of feta cheese
1/3 of a Vidalia onion, chopped very finely
7 leaves of fresh spinach chiffonade cut
Salt and pepper to taste
½ pound of spaghetti, broken into threes before cooking

For the dressing:

2 tbsp of the basil pesto
3/4 cup of vegetable oil

Whisk together the vegetable oil and the basil pesto together. Mix together all of the ingredients and pour the dressing over it. Let stand to meld the ingredients together.

Homemade BBQ Sauce

2010-07-06T17:35:00.004-05:00

Have you ever run out of barbeque sauce? Or just felt like making your own? Well, my parents made some this past weekend and fell in love with this recipe. Thought I would share it with you. Hope you all enjoy!!

1 cup balsamic vinegar
3/4 cup ketchup
1 tbsp worchestershire sauce
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp dijon mustard
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients and boil. Simmer for 20 minutes until thick. If you want to spice it up a bit, add crushed red peppers to the mixture.

Flank Steak Pinwheels

2010-07-05T11:21:00.007-05:00

Hi all, hope everyone had a great 4th of July. Yesterday we made a great dinner! Found the recipe in a magazine and kind of mixed it up a bit and made it our own. This is basically a stuffed piece of flank steak! We grilled/baked it on the grill and it was great!

Flank steak, butterflied
1 cup sun dried tomato pesto
2 bags of fresh spinach (when cooked it pretty much goes down to nothing)
1 16 oz pkg of white mushrooms, sliced
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
1 tsp crushed red peppers
1/2 cup kalamata olives, chopped
1/2 cup green olives, chopped
2 cups mixed italian cheeses, shredded
1 pkg hot/spicy sliced pepperoni

Marinade for the flank steak

1/2 cup dry red wine
1/2 cup soy sauce, low sodium
1 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp crushed red peppers
1 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp garlic

In a ziploc bag, mix the ingredients for the marinade together. Place the butterflied flank steak in the bag and let sit for 2 - 3 hours. In a large sauce pan, saute the mushrooms, garlic, and spinach until all are cooked through. Add a tsp crushed red peppers to the mixture. Take the steak from the marinade and lay flat. Take the sundried tomato paste and spread out as your first layer on the steak. Add a layer of cheese. Then add the spinach mushroom mixture. You are basically creating a pizza. Then add an olive layer, then the last layer will be the pepperoni. Very carefully, take one end of the flank steak and begin rolling, making sure you try to keep as much of the filling in tack as possible. Once you have rolled the entire steak up, (it looks like a pinwheel), you can either secure it with a metal skewer, or do what Dave did and tie it up with string. He took white cotton string and just wrapped it all around the steak, from one end to the other (which you will need two people to do this). The string actually helped keep all of the stuffing on the inside as well.

He flash grilled it on high heat, about 15 minutes (7 minutes on each side_ just to get the grill marks, then turned the grill to medium low to technically bake it until it was cooked through (about 45 minutes). This way the meat wouldn't burn. All in all, it took about an hour to cook.

This was fantastic.

Lemon Basil Vinaigrette

2010-07-03T08:09:00.004-05:00

Welp peeps ;o) it is that time of year where a lot of my recipes are going to contain fresh herbs because I have been overrun with my herbs. Mind you, I am not complaining...just sayin is all :o). I am actually in seventh heaven with how my herbs are growing!! Well anyone who knows me knows I go ape over fresh basil pesto every year and that is one of my main herbs that I grow. Well I goofed this year and grabbed one Lemon Basil (a hybrid between sweet basil and african basil) instead of my regular Sweet Basil that I get. It was too late after my mistake, to do anything about it so I just went ahead and kept it, even though I was not quite sure what to do with it.

Yesterday, Dave and I had a day off, and we decided to make a salad for lunch. I figured...hmmm..vinaigrette...why not. Might as well try it. I have to figure out some use for it, (still not sure if the pesto will taste good using lemon basil, instead of the sweet basil). It turned out great. It is just my standard vinaigrette that I make, but I wanted to share it with all of you. This just shows that you can mix things up, by using different herbs, but keeping your same main ingredients, and coming up with a completely different taste!

1 cup lemon basil
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup basil vinegar
1 tbsp coarse ground mustard
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp lemon juice (just to keep the leaves from turning brown)
1 tsp crushed red peppers
2 cloves garlic
extra virgin olive oil
sea salt to taste

Put all ingredients except for the olive oil into a blender and liquefy. Once everything has been blended thoroughly, begin adding the EVOO until you get the dressing to a consistency you like. I don't usually measure this because sometimes I like a thicker dressing, other times I like a thin dressing, it all depends on what my mood is or what time of salad you are making. A pasta salad you would probably want a thicker dressing so it would stick to the pasta, verses a greens salad where you would want it a bit thinner.

Hope you all enjoy.

Creamy Lavender Vinaigrette

2010-06-27T14:51:00.007-05:00

Here is the second recipe I found. This one was a dressing that ended up being quite tasty as well. It is kinda of scary testing new recipes out on people sometimes, but every now and then you just gotta jump in with both feet and say what the heck.

3/4 cup sour cream
1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
1/3 cup hone
1/3 cup olive oil
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp herbs de provence
1 1/2 tsp lavender (I used the leaves and the flowers this time and ground them to a fine powder)

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix with a wisk until combined well. Keep in an air tight container.

Lavender Butter

2010-06-27T14:46:00.004-05:00

I had a friend who was kind enough to bring me in some of her lavender from her garden the other day. She wasn't sure what to do with it so i found some recipes. Lavender is a an interesting herb to cook with. Most often you find recipes that say you can replace rosemary with lavender. Most recipes call for you to use the flower part of the lavender verses the actual leaf of the lavender, so here are a couple of the recipes that I made.

1 stick softened butter, salted
1 tsp fresh lavender, crushed (i used just the flower)
1 tbsp honey

Mix the ingredients thoroughly together with a wisk until light and fluffy and wrap with waxed paper. Store in the refrigerator until hard. I made her a lavender, rosemary, parmesan bread that was just fantastic with the butter.

Chili-Orange Chicken

2010-06-21T20:01:00.004-05:00

I found this recipe in a Woman's day magazine and tried it. It turned out fantastic. With the left overs we are actually going to be shredding the chicken and making enchiladas from them. The only difference we did, in order to make the recipe our own, was to add minced chipotles to the dish.

3/4 cup mild enchilada sauce
1/4 cup barbecue sauce (I used a bbq sauce that had honey in it, any brand)
2 tbsp salt free chili powder
2 tsp ground cumin
4 bone-in chicken breasts
1 chipotle pepper, minced
3 tbsp orange marmalade
2 tsp grated orange zest

Mix enchilada sauce and barbecue sauce in a 6-quart or larger slow cooker. mix chili powder and cumin in a small cup. Rub all over chicken. Put chicken in slow cooker along with the minced chipotle pepper and turn the chicken to coat with the sauce. cover and cook on high 3 to 4 hours or on low 5 to 7 hours until chicken is cooked through. Turn off cooker. Remove chicken to a serving platter. Stir marmalade into sauce until blended. Stir in the grated orange zest. Pour over the chicken.

Chicken with a Lemon Herb Sauce

2010-06-12T10:38:00.006-05:00

I made this last night and it turned out excellent. Hope you all enjoy it. My darling hubby helped me with this one. He grilled the chicken while I made the broth. It is good to tag-team with this one unless you happen to be one of the lucky ones to have a grill built into your stove ;).

6 bone-in breast of chicken
8 oz pkg of crimini mushrooms, sliced
8 oz pkg of shitaki mushrooms, sliced
2 small leeks, sliced
15 large cloves of garlic, leave whole
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 stick of butter, unsalted
2 cups white wine
2 cups chicken stock, unsalted
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice, plus the rind from one lemon
1 lemon, sliced into thin slices
4 sprigs of rosemary, stems removed, chopped
4 sprigs of fresh oregano, stems removed, chopped
4 sprigs of fresh margoram, stems removed, chopped
1 tbsp crushed red pepper
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Flash grill the chicken breasts so the skin gets crispy and the chicken is about 50% cooked. Even though the skin will not be crisp once you finish making the dish, it is the smokey flavor you get from the grill that you are after. While the chicken is grilling, In a large oven safe pot (must be deep), add the olive oil and bring up to medium heat. Saute the leeks until they become translucent. Add both kinds of mushrooms and saute until they are cooked through. Add the garlic and the butter. Deglaze the bottom of the pan with the wine. Add the remaining ingredients, the herbs, chicken stock, lemon juice and sliced lemons, and the salt and pepper. By this time the chicken should have been pulled from the grill. Add the chicken to the mixture. make sure it is covered with the broth. If it isn't, add equal parts of the stock and wine just until there is enough. Cover and put into the oven. Let it cook for 45 minutes. We ended up taking the cover off at around 10 minutes and increasing the temperature of the oven to 425.

It was excellent. The garlic just melted in your mouth!!!

Mustard Glazed Grilled Pork Roast

2010-06-08T17:50:00.014-05:00

My dad sent me this recipe and said that you all HAVE TO TRY IT!!! Which I am guessing means that it was excellent :)

½ Cup of Grainy Brown Mustard

6 tbsp Apple Jelly

2 tbsp Brown Sugar

2 tbsp Olive Oil

2 tsp Chopped Thyme

3 Cloves Garlic Minced

½ tsp Salt

¾ tsp Pepper

3 to 4 pound Center Cut Pork Loin with FAT CAP attached

Mix well all the ingredients except the roast. Please reserve 1/3 of the mustard glaze in a bowl for later use. Score the fat cap in a checker fashion taking care not to cut into the meat. Tie the roast with butchers twine. Dry the roast and rub ½ the remaining glaze covering the meat on all sides. Preheat the grill and clean and SEASON the grates with oil. (Do this to prevent sticking.)

Place the roast on the grill over the burners on high and brown on all sides. After browning, continue to cook with indirect heat making sure the fat cap is on top. Baste with the remaining sauce every ten minutes until the internal temp is 140 degrees. Remove from grill and let rest at least 10 minutes for internal temp to rise to 150. Add any drippings from the roast to the reserved glaze. Slice and add the reserved glaze to the slices as gravy.

Melts in your mouth.

Blueberry Sour Cream Coffee Cake

2010-05-23T11:12:00.004-05:00

My parents sent me this recipe and said it was fantastic!!! So I hope you all enjoy it.

1 pkg Duncan Heinz 100% whole grain blueberry muffin mix
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
2 large eggs
1 cup fresh blueberries
1/4 cup blueberry preserves
powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease an 8 or 9 inch round cake pan. Rinse blueberries with cold water and drain. Combine muffin mix, sour cream, milk and eggs. Stire until just moistened. Spread half the batter in the pan.

Combine blueberries and preserves in a small bowl. Spread half the blueberry mixture on top of the batter. Spread the remaining batter over the blueberry mixture. Top with remaining blueberry mixture avoiding edges. Bake 40 - 45 minutes for an 8 inch pan or 25 to 30 minutes for a 9 inch pan or until golden.

Sprinkle powdered sugar on top and serve warm.

Fusilli with Spicy Sausage and Spinach

2010-05-02T11:32:00.008-05:00

1 lb fusilli pasta
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small leek, chopped
1 6 oz pkg, crimini mushrooms, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 lbs spicy Italian sausage, casings removed
1 cup chicken stock, no salt added
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2 bags baby spinach
grated parmesan

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta; cook as package directs. Chop the leek, mushooms and garlic.

Heat the oil in a skillet over medium high heat, brown the sausage. Add the leeks, mushrooms and garlic and saute for about 7 minutes.

Stir in the chicken stock, and bring to a simmer. Add the cream and the nutmeg. Let simmer for about 1 -2 minutes. Remove from heat.

Place the spinach in a colander and drain the pasta over the spinach. This will help the spinach wilt. Pour the pasta and the spinach into the sausage mixture and combine. Serve with grated parmesan.

Penne from Hell

2010-04-12T19:10:00.004-05:00

I made this up tonight as a way to use some dried ancho peppers we bought a while back. You have to make sure you seed these peppers before you use them because of course the seeds will kill ya ;o) but even, seeded, it still packed a spicy punch.

3 shallots, chopped
3 ribs celery, chopped
1 jar sun dried tomatoes, julienned, in olive oil
4 dried ancho peppers, seeded and crushed
5 cloves of garlic, chopped
6oz container marscapone cheese
2 1/2 cup chicken stock, no salt added
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 tsp lemon flavored sea salt
1 lb penne pasta

First seed the ancho peppers and put in a grinder. We used our coffee grinder and pulverized the ancho peppers. BE CAREFUL when you take the cover off because the dust from grinding the peppers will cause you to sneeze your nose off ;o). In a coffee cup, take the powder ancho peppers and mix with about a 1/2 cup of the chicken stock and stir. In a pan, heat 1 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil. Saute the shallots and the celery until they are close to translucent. Add the sun dried tomatoes and the garlic and let saute for about 7 - 10 minutes until the veggies are cooked. Stir the cup of ancho pepper to make sure the pepper hasn't fallen to the bottom of the stock and add the mixture to the veggies, add the wine, salt and the chicken stock. You should be cooking the pasta as the veggie mixture is cooking. Right before you are ready to serve, stir in the marscapone cheese and bring back up to a simmer to make sure the cheese has warmed through. This turned out to be very very yummy. If you find the mixture to thick, just add more chicken stock. As a variation, add peas and crispy bacon to the mixture.

Poblano Stuffed Peppers

2010-03-14T13:57:00.018-05:00

Well, Dave wanted to cook dinner one night from start to finish! Usually if he cooks, I will be the sous-chef and chop veggies, saute stuff etc. But not this time. He did this recipe from start to finish and it turned out excellent!!

4 Poblano Peppers

3 carrots, diced

4 ribs celery, diced

1 onion, diced

2 scallions, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 large pickled jalapenos, chopped

3 tbsp of the jalapeno juice

1 small can of diced green chilis

2 cup brown rice, quick cooking (15 minutes)

Chicken stock, no salt added

2 tbsp fresh cilantro

2 tbsp cumin

2 tbsp chili powder

2 tbsp smoked paprika

1 lb ground turkey, browned

1 cup shredded Monterey jack cheese

1 cup shredded white cheddar cheese

1 lime sliced

Wash and clean the Poblano peppers. You can either grill the peppers to pre-roast them or you can broil them in your oven making sure to turn them occasionally. You are looking to get a pre-cook them slightly to get a charred taste to them. This should be done before you start cooking the other items so they have time to cool and you will be able to handle them.

Pre chop all of your vegetables. For the jalapenos, de-seed them. This is where your heat will come from. If you like the heat, feel free to leave them in ;o).

In a large cast iron skillet, in 2 tbsp olive oil, brown the turkey. Once the turkey has been browned, remove from heat. Begin preparing the rice. Instead of all water, use 1/2 chicken stock and 1/2 cups water to the 2 cups rice. May sound like a lot of rice, but you are going to be making a bed of rice on the cast iron skillet. Add the jalapeno juice, paprika, cumin and the chili powder to the rice along with the chilies, and let it start cooking.

While the rice is cooking, begin sauteing the vegetables. Start with the onions, carrots and celery and let cook for 7 - 10 minutes. Add the garlic and the jalapenos. Let the vegetables saute until tender. Your rice should be done about this time. You will be adding the turkey and the vegetables to the rice. Mix together completely. Let the flavors meld together and as they are simmering, turn your attention to the poblanos.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Slice a slit down from the top of the poblano to just above the bottom, making sure you don't go all the way to the end. You want to make sure you create a little boat. Turn your rice mixture off, and fill the bottom of the cast iron skillet with a bed of rice.

With a pepper in your hand, put in a layer of cheese, then a layer of the rice filling. Lay the pepper on the bed of rice. Repeat with each of the peppers.

Sprinkle with the fresh cilantro leaves and the lime slices and sprinkle the peppers with any remaining cheese. Put in the oven for about 15- 20 minutes or until the peppers have warmed up again. Serve and enjoy!

Almond Crusted Chicken with a Dijon Mustard Wine Sauce

2010-03-03T21:56:00.004-06:00

Well, it was a comedy of errors tonight with both the camera and my phone, so you don't get to see pictures tonight of my dinner. This is sad for you, because this dish turned out to be quite excellent. Besides having to actually go and get chicken from the grocery store, I am in day two of my unofficial "use what is in the pantry before you buy new" mission and I made this recipe up with a few things I had on hand. I hope you enjoy!!

4 chicken breasts
1 - 2 cups of finely crushed almonds (depends on how big the chicken breasts are)
3 eggs scrambled
1/4 cup flour
1 tbsp parsley
1 tsp lemon sea salt
1 tbsp finely grated gruyere cheese
1 tbsp dijon mustard
2 tbsp coarse ground mustard
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp minced garlic
1/2 cup wine
1/2 cup chicken stock, no salt added

On your counter top get three flat dish bowls. In the first one, place your flour, second, your eggs (scrambled) and in your third, mix together your finely crushed almonds, parsley, sea salt and the gruyere cheese. Preheat a deep frying pan and add about enough canola oil to coat the bottom of the pan. While the pan is preheating, take each piece of chicken and first dip and coat in the flour, then in the eggs and then in the almond mixture making sure the chicken is thoroughly coated with the almonds. My pan was on medium for about 5 minutes before I put the first chicken breast in the pan. Repeat for each breast. Do not mess with the chickens. Let each side cook for about 5 minutes before you even attempt to flip, otherwise you will lose all of your coating. You will be able to tell just by sneaking a peak if the bottom is ready to flip, or if the coating has set. My chickens were very thick so it took a good 20 minutes worth of frying and every so often flipping them to make sure each side was cooking evenly before they were done. The temperature of the chicken should be between 170 - 180 degrees if you are using a meat thermometer to check. Other wise, just take your thickest breast and slice into the meatiest part to see if it is white on the inside.

While the chicken breasts are cooking, in a small bowl, combine both mustards, the honey and the garlic and mix thoroughly. Once your chicken breasts are done, remove from the pan. At this point you should have a lot of droppings and bits of the coating that have fallen off in the pan. Take your wine and pour into the pan to deglaze the pan by scraping up all the little bits and pieces up off the bottom of the pan. Add the mustard and honey mixture and stir into the wine. Add the chicken stock. Just let this simmer for about 1 -2 minutes and add the chicken back into the gravy. Serve with rice.

Citrus Shrimp over Rice

2010-03-02T19:00:00.016-06:00

Tonight was what my father calls a "pastish" night, when you pretty much clean out the refrigerator and use whatever you can to make your dinner. So that is what we did! Dave and I went through and grabbed what veggies were looking a little worse for the wear and I came up with this citrus dish for our shrimp. It turned out very good!! As I have said more than once, Dave loves sauce, so you can adjust the broth as you see fit. This could have been a dry dish or a soupy dish..we ended up making it a soupy dish.

1/2 lb to 1 lb shrimp
6 oz pkg crimini mushrooms, chopped
1 leek, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
3 ribs celery, chopped
3 clementine oranges, juiced (I used the cuties)
1 lemon, juiced
1/4 cup grand marnier liquer
1/2 cup to 1 cup chicken stock (depending on how much broth you want)
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp crushed red peppers
1 tbsp chili paste
3 dried chilis, de-seeded
1 tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
1 tsp fresh thyme, chopped

In a very hot pan, spray some pam and sear the shrimp till they are almost done. Remove the shrimp from the heat and place on a dish. You will be adding them back into the sauce prior to serving so you will be able to complete the cooking process and heat them through.

Chop the leeks and place in a bowl of water to make sure the dirt and grit have been removed. Chop the mushrooms and the celery and garlic. It is important to make sure all veggies are prepared prior to beginning the cooking process.

In the same frying pan you had the shrimp, add about 2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil. Add the leeks and the celery, and saute for about 7 minutes. You want to make sure the leeks and the celery are almost cooked prior to adding the rest of the veggies. Add the mushrooms and the garlic and saute for about 7 more minutes until the mushrooms have reduced in size and are almost cooked through.

While the veggies are sauteeing, juice the lemon and the clementines and add to the pan to deglaze the bottom of the pan. Add the liquer and the chicken stock, thyme, rosemary, chili paste, chilis and the crushed red peppers. Bring to a simmer for about 5 - 7 minutes. Add the shrimp back in and finish cooking. Serve over rice.

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Marscapone Cheese

2010-02-28T19:38:00.013-06:00

Well, here is another version of the stuffed portobellos. Sometimes you just crave them, and Dave was craving them. I prefer them with ground turkey, but since we try to eat healthy all week long, I will usually cave and let him pick the meat and Italian Sausage was on the menu. I am going to try something new and add pictures to the blog (as you can see from a few of the other posts) and have taken pics at each stage of the cooking.

2 pkgs of ground Italian Sausage, hot or mild (your preference)

1/2 jar of sun-dried tomatoes, julienned in olive oil

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 leek, chopped

1/4 cup dry sherry

1 tbsp crushed red pepper

1 tbsp fresh thyme

6 oz container marscarpone cheese

1/2 cup shredded gruyere cheese

Pre heat over to 350 degrees. Pre-chop the leeks, mince the garlic and chop the sun-dried tomatoes and thyme.

In a large saute pan, take 2 tbsp olive oil and brown the italian sausage till it is cooked thoroughly. Remove from heat and put into a bowl. In the same pan, add the leeks and saute for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and the sun-dried tomatoes. Saute for 5 - 7 minutes on medium heat.

Deglaze the pan with the sherry. Add the thyme. Saute for about 5 more minutes. Add the sausage back into the mixture and continue to cook for about 5 more minutes giving the mixture a minute for the tastes to meld together. While the mixture is sauteing, prepare the portobellos. Remove the stems and place the caps on a baking pan. When you are ready to fill the caps, add the marscapone cheese to the mixture stir it, letting it melt into the sausage mixture.

Fill the mushroom caps with the mixture then top each mushroom cap with the gruyere cheese. Bake for 30 minutes. Serve and enjoy.

Lemon Roasted Potatoes

2010-02-28T10:43:00.006-06:00

A friend of ours made these for us and they were fantastic. He found the recipe on a website (allrecipes.com) and cut back on some of the butter for me (since he knows I am so health conscious). As you will see by the photo I am attaching, they were pretty much gone, before I had a chance to react and take a picture of the final product. :) I was only able to take a picture of a few of these little guys (only the few that were left once we all inhaled them) but it is just a testament to the chef!

1/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup butter, unsalted, melted (1 stick) he actually only used half a stick of butter for the recipe

2 tbsps lemon juice

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tbsp dried dill weed

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ground black pepper

5 large potatoes, peeled and cubed

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large bowl, stir together the canola oil, melted butter, lemon juice, garlic, dill, salt and pepper. Add potatoes and toss to coat. Spread the potatoes out on a baking sheet and drizzle any remaining liquid from the bowl over them. Bake in the preheated oven until potatoes are brown and crispy, about 45 minutes.

The potatoes came out crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. MMM MMM

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cupcakes

2010-02-22T18:31:00.013-06:00

My darling hubby wanted me to make him these cupcakes that he saw in my Woman's Day magazine that I picked up at the grocery store. Well....they turned out fantastic. This time I followed the recipe exactly (since it is baking), however, the only thing I did differently is when it comes down to the pastry bag. I am not much of a baker...in that I don't have all the right equipment so we compromised. We used a hand apple corer and used that to make the holes inside the cupcakes instead of using a pastry bag like the recipe called for. I hope you all enjoy.

Cupcakes

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup milk

1 cup reduced fat sour cream

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened (1 1/2 sticks)

1 1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

3 large eggs

Peanut Butter Filling

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

3 tbsp unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

3 to 4 tbsp milk

Chocolate Frosting

2 cups (12 oz pkg) semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup reduced-fat sour cream

For the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt until well mixed. In a small bowl, whisk the milk and sour cream until blended. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until creamed. Beat in the peanut butter until blended. Add eggs, one at a time, until incorporated. With mixer on low speed, alternately add flour mixture and milk mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture, until just blended. Spoon about 1/4 cup batter into each muffin cup. Bake 20 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cook 10 minutes; remove cupcakes from pan to wire rack to cook completely.

For the filling, beat the peanut butter and butter in medium bowl with electric mixer until smooth. On low speed, gradually beat in confectioners' sugar and 3 to 4 tbsp milk until blended. Beat mixture on high speed 1 minute or until fluffy. **Now here is where mine is different*** I will give you their directions, then tell you what I did. Spoon filling into a pastry bag fitted with a 1/4 in plain round tip. Insert tip into the top of each cupcake. Squeeze as much filling into the center of each as possible (top of the cupcake will bulge slightly). **Since I didn't have a pastry bag, we took an apple corer and cored out the middle of the cupcake to about half way down. Once we did that, we put the filling into one corner of a Ziploc bag and snipped just a bit of that corner off. We twisted the bag and pushed the filling out of the snipped corner and filled each cup cake with the peanut butter filling.

For the frosting, melt the chocolate chips in a large glass bowl in a microwave as package directs. add sour cream; beat with an electric mixer until fluffy and good spreading consistency. Spread about 2 tbsp frosting on each cupcake.

These were absolutely FANTASTIC!!!

Chicken with a Sun-Dried Tomato and Rosemary Cream Sauce

2010-02-13T20:15:00.008-06:00

Made this tonight and Dave was licking the bowl!! So I am guessing it turned out pretty good! :)

2 tbsp olive oil
2 boneless chicken breast halves, skinned and cut into bite size pieces
4 to 5 cloves of garlic, minced,
1 jar of sun-dried tomatoes, julienned in olive oil
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh rosemary
1/2 cup dry sherry
1/2 cup chicken stock, unsalted (kitchen basics)
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
salt to taste

In the olive oil, saute, the chicken breasts until they are cooked. Remove from heat. Add the jar of tomatoes including th eolive oil and saute for 5 minutes. Add the minced garlic and the rosemary. Deglaze the pan with the chicken stock. Add the sherry and saute for another 5 - 7 minutes. Add the chicken back in and let saute for another 5 minutes so the flavors have time to blend together. About 5 - 7 minutes before serving stir in the whipping cream and the paremsan cheese. Serve over pasta!!

Spicy Orange Stir Fry Sauce

2010-02-02T17:13:00.007-06:00

Dave has been trying to season his new wok I bought him for Christmas and I found this recipe on Recipezar. I modified it a bit, but it turned out fantastic. I hope you all enjoy it!!!

½ cup fresh orange juice (I squeezed juice from cuties (little clementine oranges))

4 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce

4 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoon rice wine vinegar

2 tablespoon chili paste with garlic

1 tablespoon fresh ginger, peeled and minced

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 tbsp crushed red peppers

Combine all ingredients together. Mix into a stir fry…any ingredients of your choice. We used, shrimp, yellow squash, zucchini, carrots, celery, mushrooms and scallions. This sauce was absolutely fantastic.

Lemon Mushroom Cream Sauce

2010-01-17T20:12:00.005-06:00

I made this to go over some homemade raviolis we had made this past Christmas. It ended up being rather tasty. Hope you enjoy.

3 scallions, chopped

8 oz crimini mushrooms, halved and sliced

5 cloves garlic, minced

Rind and juice from two lemons

½ cup white wine

1 cup chicken stock, unsalted

½ stick of butter, unsalted

1 tbsp flour

1 shot of brandy

Small container of heavy whipping cream

Sea salt to taste

On medium heat, sauté the scallions, and mushrooms in olive oil until cooked, about 7 minutes. Add the wine to deglaze the sauce pan and add the garlic and the chicken stock. Bring to a simmer. Add the lemon juice and the brandy. In a small cup take the ½ stick of butter and the tbsp of flour and mash together. Scoop the mixture into the pan and stir until thoroughly melted. Simmer for about 5 – 7 minutes. Right before serving, pour in the whipping cream and the rind of the two lemons. Serve over raviolis.

Mustard Chicken Salad

2010-01-14T19:05:00.007-06:00

I made this tonight and it was excellent. I used Ina Garten's recipe from the food network. I am only going to give you the recipe for the dressing because you can pretty much put anything you want in chicken salad. She just had chicken, broccoli and tomatoes. But I had a fridge full of veggies, so I made a true salad (minus the lettuce) with mine, carrots, celery, onions, tomatoes and chicken. So here is the recipe. The only thing I did differently is I used dried tarragon instead of fresh, because that is all I had.

1 1/2 cup good mayonnaise (I used low fat miracle whip)
2 tbsp white wine
1/4 cup good dijon mustard
3 tbsp whole grain mustard
2 tbsp fresh minced tarragon

For the dressing, whisk together the mayonnaise, wine, mustards, 1 tablespoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Add enough sauce to the warm chicken to moisten well. Add the tarragon and mix gently to combine. Refrigerate for a few hours to allow the flavors to blend. Serve at room temperature.

Spanish Rice

2010-01-03T18:50:00.007-06:00

We made this Spanish rice for New Years dinner. You can alter the spiciness by adding or subtracting the “hot” peppers in this recipe. Dave and I like it spicy, I had to alter it a bit for my parents.

1 cup cooked rice

1 red pepper, chopped

4 cloves garlic, chopped

2 pickled jalapenos, seeded, chopped (you can add more if you want it spicy)

1 small can of chipotles, take two out and chop them (you can add more if you want it spicy)

1 small onion, chopped

1 tsp mole

1 cup chicken stock

1 tbsp cocoa powder

2 tbsp cumin

2 tbsp chili powder

In a large sauté pan, heat a tbsp olive oil. Add the onions and the red pepper and sauté till tender. Add the cumin, chili powder and garlic. Sauté together for about 5 minutes. Add the jalapenos, and the chipotles. To the chicken stock, combine the cocoa powder and the mole and mix together. Pour into the mixture. Add the cooked rice and mix combine until thoroughly mixed.

* Note, when making this, you can tame down the hot peppers at firs then add to it when you make it again. The chipotles and the jalapenos are quite hot. If the mixture becomes too hot, add sugar and red wine vinegar to the mixture to tame down the spiciness.

Spicy Black-Eyed Peas

2010-01-02T12:19:00.007-06:00

3 cans black-eyed peas, no salt added
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 lb bacon, chopped
14 oz can diced fire-roasted tomatoes, no salt added
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp salt

In a large pot, add 2 cans of the black eyed peas (drained) and one can with the juices and bring to a boil. Add all of the other ingredients and cook on low for 30-45 minutes until the peas are tender, stirring occasionally.

Southern-Style Crab Cakes with Cool Lime Sauce

2009-12-27T11:20:00.008-06:00

Dave and I are visiting the parentals in TN. Tonight we are having Crab Cakes for dinner. This is a recipe that my parents got from Kraft Foods. So I need to give props where props are due! The parentals say they are fantastic.

1 medium lime

1 cup Kraft Mayo Real Mayonnaise or Miracle Whip Dressing, divided

1 envelope Good Seasons Italian Salad Dressing & Recipe Mix

2 Tbsp. Grey Poupon Country Dijon Mustard

2 cans (6 oz. each) crabmeat, drained, flaked

25 finely crushed Ritz Crackers, divided

2 Tbsp. chopped green onion

1/4 cup Breakstone's or Knudsen Sour Cream

Grate the peel and squeeze the juice from the lime. Mix half of the lime juice, 1/2 cup of the mayo, salad dressing mix and mustard in medium bowl until well blended. Add crabmeat, 1/2 cup of the cracker crumbs and onion; mix lightly. Shape into 18 (1/2-inch-thick) patties; coat with remaining cracker crumbs. Cook patties, in batches, in large nonstick skillet on medium heat 2 minutes on each side or until browned on both sides and heated through. Meanwhile, mix remaining 1/2 cup mayo, remaining lime juice, lime peel and sour cream until well blended. Serve with crab cakes.

Wild Mushroom Alfredo Sauce

2009-12-27T11:01:00.003-06:00

Well, this sauce is anything but healthy but oh my word was it heavenly. We made this for our traditional Christmas dinner. It all started when my parents were with us about 5 years ago for Christmas. We spent Christmas making homemade raviolis. Each year since, we have continued the tradition. Every year we come up with a different ravioli and a different sauce to compliment the ravioli. This year, our ravioli was a ground turkey, spinach, mascarpone cheese, shitake mushroom and crimini mushrooms with parmesan cheese and as a compliment I made a wild mushroom alfredo sauce. Boy was it tasty. I hope you enjoy the sauce.

1 small pkg of crimini mushrooms, sliced

1 pkg dried porcini mushrooms, reconstituted with boiling water (just enough to cover them)

6 cloves of garlic, minced

1 stick of unsalted butter

1 cup of fresh parsley, coarsely chopped

2 blocks of Parmigianino Reggiano cheese, shredded

¼ dry sherry

1 cup of milk

1 pint of whipping cream

In a deep pan, take 1-2 tbsp of olive oil and heat. Add the crimini mushrooms and begin sautéing about 3 – 5 minutes over medium heat. Remove about half of the water from the porcini mushroom and pour the remaining water and porcinis into pan with the crimini mushrooms. Add the garlic and the sherry. Sauté for about 5 – 7 minutes or until the mushrooms begin to wilt. Add the stick of butter and the parsley. You do not want to add any of the dairy products until you are about 5 – 10 minutes away from serving the pasta/raviolis. It won’t take long for the dairy to heat up and melt and you don’t want it to scald. Turn the stove down to low/medium and add the milk to the mixture and all of the cheese and begin to stir constantly making sure the cheese doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan. Pour the entire pint of whipping cream into the mixture and just stir making sure it is heated all the way through. Serve over your raviolis or pasta.

Candied Walnuts

2009-12-22T21:15:00.006-06:00

A friend of mine brought these into work and they were just yummy!!! I asked for the recipe and wanted to share it with all of you.

2 tbsp butter

1 lb (about 4.5 cups) Walnuts or Pecan Pieces (any unsalted raw nuts will work)

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup light corn syrup

Course sea salt or kosher salt (1 or 2 tbsp)

Fresh ground black pepper (1/2 tsp)

Course raw sugar

Preheat oven to 350. Generously grease 15x20x1 baking pan. Mix together butter, nuts, sugar, corn syrup, salt and pepper. Spread in pan. Bake 25 minutes, stir 1 or 2 times. Toss to cool and transfer to foil. Sprinkle generously with raw sugar. Cool. Break apart. Store in an air-tight container at room temperature, will keep about two weeks. Freeze up to three months.

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms with Marscapone and Gorgonzola

2009-12-21T22:08:00.008-06:00

This was a recipe that Giada made on the Food network, however she made it with turkey sausage and did not use shallots. Since I did not have turkey sausage, I mixed things up a bit and made it my own recipe by adding shallots and panko bread crumbs. But with stuffed mushrooms you can pretty much make any type of mixture you would like and they will turn out yummy.

2 tbsp olive oil, plus 1/4 cup

12 ounces hot Italian sausage, casings removed

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 shallots, minced

1/2 cup mascarpone cheese, at room temperature

2 tbsp freshly chopped thyme leaves

2 tbsp fresh chopped oregano leaves

3/4 cup panko crumbs

1 cup (4-ounces) Gorgonzola

1/2 tsp sea salt, plus extra for seasoning

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper, plus extra for seasoning

4 large Portobello mushrooms, stems removed

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of oil over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and cook, stirring frequently, until cooked through, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and shallots cook for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the mascarpone cheese. Add the thyme, oregano, bread crumbs, 1/2 cup of Gorgonzola, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Stir until all ingredients are combined. Place the mushrooms on a large cookie sheet (I used a pie pan with a rim to prevent the juices from flowing over). Fill each mushroom with the sausage mixture and top with the remaining Gorgonzola. Return the mushrooms to the grill and cook until the stuffing is warmed through and the Gorgonzola starts to melt, about 25 – 30 minutes or until the mushrooms are tender.

Alternative: You can use turkey sausage, ground beef, ground chicken, ground turkey. Just add different seasonings to spice it up, crushed red pepper, parsley, parmesan cheese, or gruyere, etc just to name a few

Hot Spinach and Artichoke dip

2009-12-20T13:36:00.010-06:00

This has to be one of my favorite dips...I absolutely adore artichokes and could eat eat a whole jar by myself...yummmm. Here is a recipe, hope you all enjoy. This would be great with the homemade parmesan chips you made earlier ;o). Now of course since I am on a perpetual diet, I do low fat everything, but if you can't bring yourself to do that, use the regular.

1 (10-ounce) package frozen chopped spinach
2 (13 3/4-ounce) cans artichoke hearts

1 tbsp crushed garlic
1/2-cup mayonnaise, low fat
1/2-cup cream cheese, low fat
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan, 2% skim
1 cup grated pepper jack cheese, 2% skim

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a casserole dish with nonstick spray. Heat the spinach in a microwave oven on high for 5 minutes and squeeze dry. Drain the artichoke hearts and coarsely chop in a food processor. Combine all the ingredients except the jack cheese in a large bowl. Stir well. Scrape into the prepared casserole dish and sprinkle the jack cheese on top. Bake for 30 minutes. Transfer to a chafing dish and keep warm over a low flame. Serve with the parmesan tortilla chips.

Parmesan Tortilla Crisps

2009-12-18T19:06:00.004-06:00

This is great if you want a bit of homemade when you are eating chips and salsa. If we have extra tortilla wraps in the house I will make up a batch of these and go crazy with the salsa.

1/4-cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
12 (6-inch) corn tortillas
1 cup freshly shredded Parmesan
1/4-teaspoon sea salt

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line 2 heavy large baking sheets with aluminum foil. Whisk the oil, oregano, and pepper in a small saucepan over medium heat just until warm. Set aside for 15 minutes. Brush the oil mixture over both sides of the tortillas. Stack the tortillas and cut them into 1/2 to 3/4-inch wide strips. Arrange the strips in a single layer over the baking sheets. Sprinkle the cheese and salt over the strips. Bake until the strips are golden brown and crisp, about 12 minutes.

Balsamic Chicken with Baby Spinach

2009-12-08T17:10:00.004-06:00

This was another recipe that turned out to be fantastic.

1 tbsp olive oil

5 cloves garlic, chopped

1 shallot, chopped

2 (8-ounce) boneless, skinless chicken breasts, halved

8 oz baby spinach

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1/3 cup low-sodium chicken broth

2 cans fire-roasted diced tomatoes, no salt added

Heat a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil and heat. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the chicken and cook about 4 minutes per side, or until cooked through and juices run clear. Remove the chicken and set aside. To the same pan, add the shallots and the spinach and cook just until wilted, about 1 to 2 minutes. Add the garlic and the tomatoes. Add the balsamic vinegar and chicken broth to the pan and stir, scraping the bottom of the pan to remove any browned bits. Bring to a simmer. Add the chicken back into the mixture and let simmer for about 5 minutes. Serve with brown rice.