November 25, 2011

Happy day after Thanksgiving!!! I hope you had a wonderful day with your friends and family yesterday. I must admit, I have no new recipes to offer this week. I hosted Thanksgiving dinner, and you know how it goes - all week I was planning and prepping for the main event this week. Dinner was great, and everything was cooked and ready at the same time (no small feat when serving quite a few different things). Even the from-scratch yeast rolls worked out! This was the first major holiday with my double oven, and it was great to have the ability to cook at two temperatures.

I don't have any recipes to use up your leftover turkey, because you likely don't have very much left. We have only a few pieces of turkey left in our fridge because everyone ate it for lunch today! We made homemade pizza tonight, and I did use a little turkey on mine as I created my bbq pizza (usually bbq sauce, pepper jack cheese, red onions and chicken). It worked perfectly. After lunch tomorrow I imagine the rest will be gone.

Now as this next week begins I am already trying to decide what to cook in the hopes that I have a couple of great keepers to share with you on Friday!

November 18, 2011

I have a funny story about jambalaya and mac & Cheese; are you ready? We love recipes from America's Test Kitchen, and my "go-to" cookbook is The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. We've never made a recipe from there that we didn't love, until Saturday night. We were trying to decide on dinner for the evening, and Ryan was in the mood for shellfish. So, I pulled out my trusty cookbook, and we started flipping through the pages. We had almost settled on Shrimp Scampi, a recipe we've made numerous times and absolutely love, when Ryan saw Shrimp Jambalaya. I was game, so we decided on that. Hannah is not a fish lover, and absolutely doesn't eat shrimp, and I guessed that Liam wouldn't like it either. Hannah asked for mac & cheese, but instead of breaking out the blue box, I decided to try a baked mac & cheese recipe. Both were ready at the same time, and everyone was invited to try whatever they wanted. As fate would have it, no one liked the Jambalaya, and everyone loved the mac & cheese! Hilarious! The leftover mac & cheese went mush faster than the jambalaya. I guess it goes to show that sometimes you just never know what recipe will earn keeper status!

You probably can guess by now that we eat a lot of chicken around here. True to form, this week was no different, we had chicken a few times. One evening I made a new chicken recipe, and the chicken was FANTASTIC!! The sauce that accompanied it, not so much. It calls for toasted sesame seeds, and I had some in the cupboard from when I made the hamburger cupcakes. I put the seeds in a small pan and toasted them up prior to using them in the recipe. It worked great, and I think the seeds were a nice addition to the breading. Also the egg wash called for some fresh lemon juice, and I think that really brightened the flavor as well. All in all, the chicken was great, but you'll have to look in your fridge for something to dip it in. I know I'll be making this in near future, so if I come up with a better sauce, I'll add it to the blog.

Happy Thanksgiving! The next time I "see" you it will have already come and gone. I'll have to see what recipes I can come up with to use up any extra turkey! Enjoy your friends and family, and give thanks for all that you have.



New Recipes
Lemon Sesame Crusted Chicken
Chocolate & Peanut Butter Cheesecake Squares
Baked Mac & Cheese

Lemon Sesame Crusted Chicken

Ingredients

* boneless chicken breasts, pounded to even thickness
* 1 egg
* 2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
* 1/2 cup Bisquick mix
* 1 teaspoon paprika
* 2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
* 1 tablespoon oil for cooking

Directions

1. Make sure the chicken is pounded to an even thickness. Cut into serving size pieces, or into strips.
2. Beat the egg and lemon juice in a bowl just large enough that the chicken can be dipped.
3. In another bowl, or in a gallon size zip-top bag mix the paprika, sesame seeds and Bisquick.
4. Take each piece of chicken - dip first into the egg wash, then coat it with the seasoned mixture.
5. Cook the chicken in a skillet with the heated oil over medium to medium high heat until cooked through, flipping once.
6. Serve hot, with a dipping sauce of your choice.

Notes
This recipe had a lemon sauce that you made at the same time (you can see it in the photo). No one at the table liked the sauce (it was way too sweet) but we couldn't get enough of the chicken! The kids used ketchup, I just ate it without any sauce, Ryan used some hot sauce. So while it seems a bit strange to offer you this chicken recipe without an accompanying sauce, the chicken was just too good not to share it!

Chocolate & Peanut Butter Cheesecake Bars

Ingredients
* 2 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
* 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, melted
* 3/4 cup granulated sugar, divided
* 1 2/3 cups (10-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® SWIRLED™ Milk Chocolate & Peanut Butter Morsels, divided
* 2 pkgs. (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened
* 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
* 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
* 4 large eggs

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 325° F.
2. Combine crumbs, butter and 1/4 cup sugar in medium bowl. Remove 1 cup mixture and reserve for topping. Press remaining mixture onto bottom of ungreased 13 x 9-inch baking pan. Sprinkle 3/4 cup morsels over crust.
3. Beat cream cheese, remaining sugar, flour and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until smooth. Pour over crust and morsels in pan. Sprinkle with reserved crumb topping and remaining morsels.
4. Bake for 30 minutes or until set. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Refrigerate until firm. Cut into bars, serve and enjoy!

Notes
If you like cheesecake but making cheesecake intimidates you, try it in bar form. These were easy to make, and came out delicious! Hannah and I made these at 7pm the night before I needed them. After they were cooked and cooled, I refrigerated them and didn't cut them until about 5pm the next day.

For the graham cracker crust, using two of the three packages in a box of graham crackers is the perfect amount. Just run them through your food processor to create the crumbs.

I used Philadelphia 1/3 Less Fat Neufchatel Cream Cheese instead of original cream cheese. It worked beautifully in the recipe.

Baked Mac & Cheese

Ingredients
* 1/2 pound elbow macaroni
* 3 tablespoons butter
* 3 tablespoons flour
* 1 tablespoon powdered mustard
* 3 cups milk
* 1/4 cup yellow onion, grated
* 1/2 teaspoon paprika
* 1 large egg
* 12 ounces sharp cheddar, shredded
* 4 ounces mozzarella or Monterrey jack
* 1 teaspoon kosher salt
* Fresh black pepper

Topping:
* 3 tablespoons butter
* 1 cup panko bread crumbs

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a large pot of boiling, salted water cook the pasta to al dente.
3. While the pasta is cooking, in a separate pot, melt the butter. Whisk in the flour and mustard and keep it moving for about five minutes. Make sure it's free of lumps.
4. After 5 minutes, stir in the milk, onion and paprika. Simmer for ten minutes.
5. Temper in the egg, then pour the egg into the sauce. Stir in 3/4 of the cheese. Season with salt and pepper.
6. Fold the macaroni into the mix and pour into a 2-quart casserole dish. Top with remaining cheese.
7. Melt the butter in a saute pan and toss the bread crumbs to coat. Top the macaroni with the bread crumbs.
8. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and rest for five minutes before serving.

Notes
We couldn't believe how much we all enjoyed this! It was delicious! The recipe calls for only 1/2 lb of noodles, but it was so cheesy I think you could increase that to 3/4 lb of noodles if you wanted to stretch this for a bigger crowd.

November 11, 2011

11-11-11...pretty cool date!

It has been a pumpkin week around here! I processed a few pumpkins and then went on a pumpkin recipe spree. We tried a pumpkin chip cream pie, but the only one who liked that was Hannah. We of course roasted the pumpkin seeds, which were delicious. Other pumpkin recipes we made were pumpkin lasagna and pumpkin squares. The pumpkin lasagna was not a keeper, and I actually made the pumpkin squares two days in a row! There is a funny story behind that...

The day after I made the pumpkin squares, the kids and I came down to the kitchen to make breakfast and pack school lunches. They both wanted a pumpkin square as the their dessert, but I couldn't find them! How is it that I lost an entire pan of pumpkin squares? Only three had been eaten the night before...it turns out that Ryan took the whole pan into work to share with his co-workers! I was glad some folks from his work were able to enjoy them, but the kids were a little less than thrilled. Because I still had fresh pumpkin puree in the fridge I whipped up another batch. Needless to say, since we didn't have any other keeper recipes this week, I've included this one. Any recipe we make twice in one week is certainly worth sharing!

I realized that I told you about my kitchen renovation, but never shared some before and after pictures. It took a while, since I did almost all of it myself, but it is finally complete! I removed the wallpaper and painted, and refreshed the cabinets with a few coats of semi-gloss white and new hardware. I am really pleased with the way it turned out, especially as I looked back at the old kitchen pictures! I am so thankful the wallpaper is down! And to have a double oven in a single oven space...fabulous, especially with as much as I love to cook!!!

Here are three pictures showing the transformation:

With wallpaper and old appliances

Fresh paint and new appliances

And finally with new tile backsplash and painted cabinets with new hardware

We loved the countertop in the kitchen, and I knew I had a VERY small budget, so I used the counter as an inspiration piece and jumping off point. All in all, I am very pleased with the finished kitchen. :) Come on over and share a meal with us!

Here's hoping that this coming week has more keeper recipes than this past week!

Tried and True
Pumpkin Squares

Pumpkin Squares

Ingredients & Directions
* 1 package yellow cake mix
* 1/2 cup softened butter or margarine
* 1 egg

1. Reserve one cup of the cake mix to use in the topping.
2. Grease or spray a 9x13 pan.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
4. Mix the remainder of the cake mix, the egg and the butter together. Pour into the prepared pan, pat until the entire bottom is covered. This will be the crust.

* 2 cups fresh pumpkin (or 15 oz can of pumpkin)
* 2 1/2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice
* 1/2 cup brown sugar
* 2 eggs
* 2/3 cup of evaporated milk (one 5 ounce can on evaporated milk is prefect)

5. Mix these ingredients together and pour over the crust.

* 1 cup of reserved cake mix
* 1/4 cup of white sugar
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* 1/4 cup softened butter or margarine

6. Mix these ingredients together and sprinkle over the top of the filling. The consistency should be sand-like.
7. Bake for 50 minutes at 350 degrees. Serve warm or cool, possibly with whipped cream of Cool Whip if you like.

Notes
These are one of Ryan's favorite desserts. He and I enjoy them as they are, but the kids love to add whipped cream to any dessert. They keep well stored in an air-tight container at room temperature for about 2-3 days. Let me know if they last that long at your house when you make them!