"C" Salad

BREE'S "C" SALAD:

I don't have amounts listed for this, but I don't think it's necessary. It's a great, quick salad. I just put the following things on my lettuce:

Chicken

Craisins

Crushed Crackers or Croutons

Creamy Poppyseed Dressing

P.S. I LOVE this little container I got from Walmart. It has a separate lid for dressings/dips so my salad isn't soggy come lunch time. Genius.

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

Last night we had dreaded left-overs for dinner. I h.a.t.e left-overs. I have been trying to be better about eating them because, "waist not, want not" right? I had dreams of making something delicious. Something that would leave the whole house smelling wonderful for the rest of the night. Something that would make my husband fall in love all over. But alas, I pulled out the left over stir-fry and rice. Yum. So to make up for my lack of a mind blowing dinner, I made these little devils for dessert! I got the recipe here.

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Cream Cheese Filling

Makes 12-14

3 cups AP Flour

1 Tablespoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground ginger

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

1 - 15 oz. can of pumpkin

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream Cheese Filling

1 - 8 oz. package of cream cheese, softened

1 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature

1 - 16 oz. package of powdered sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

a pinch of cinnamon (to taste)

Beat together brown sugar, sugar, oil and pumpkin.

Add eggs one at time, mixing well after each addition,
followed by the vanilla.

In a separate bowl, shift together the dry ingredients.


Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet until just combined.

Using a pastry bag with a round tip, or a big zip top plastic bag with one corner snipped, squeeze out concentric circles of batter, starting from the middle and working outward until the circles are about 2 inches in diameter.

Bake for 11 minutes and cool on a rack.

Beat together cream cheese and butter. Add powdered sugar, vanilla and cinnamon. Frost flat side of half the pies and top with another piece.

Enjoy right away or chill overnight.

*I halved the recipe and it still made 14 pies.*

Key Lime Pie

I got this recipe from a "culinary mystery" novel written by Josi Kilpack. (See her book here . See all the recipes from this book here .)

KEY LIME PIE

4 oz. cream cheese, softened to room temperature
1 tbsp. grated lime zest
1/2 tsp. salt
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 egg yolk
1/2 c. fresh lime juice (about 4 limes; if using key limes, use about 1/3 c. juice and add more to taste)
whipped cream (for garnish)
sliced limes (for garnish)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Using electric beaters, mix cream cheese, lime zest, and salt until creamy. Add sweetened condensed milk and mix until incorporated. Add egg yolk, mix until combined. Add lime juice and stir until well blended. Mixture will thicken slightly. Pour filling into your choice of prepared crust (a recipe for a crust using animal crackers is given in the book, see link for recipe above) and bake until set, about 20 - 30 minutes. Cool to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate 2 hours before serving. Garnish with whipped cream and slice limes.
Serves 8.

Note: Key lime pie is not naturally green. Most recipes call for a couple of drops of green food coloring to the mixture before pouring into crust.

Cinnamon Honey Butter

I found a recipe here for Cinnamon Honey Butter the other day to put on scones. I tried it and fell in love. That love grew when I decided to try it on pancakes last night for brinner! (breakfast for dinner-get it ;-)) It was most excellent! Make some. Make some right now. Make some right now and LOVE it.


Cinnamon Honey Butter
Makes approximately 1 cup

1 cup butter, at room temperature
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat until smooth. Store in the refrigerator.

Soup Night

Yesterday was for sure one of those days/nights. It rained and was windy and cold all day. Just stepping outside made me wish I had a never ending cup of hot coco attached to my hand. It was inevitable that it had to be a hot coco and soup night. So even though hubby and I didn't get home until almost 9pm, I put water in the kettle (yes, I have one and yes, I love using it) for coco and threw the ingredients for this amazing soup into the pot. Then I changed into sweats and my slippers and cozyed up with my soup and coco.

Chicken Tortilla Soup
      1 Tablespoon olive oil
      1 yellow onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons chili powder

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes

1 (10.5 ounce) can condensed chicken broth

1 1/4 cups water

1 Cup whole corn kernels, cooked

1 (4 ounce) can chopped green chile peppers

1 (15 ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

2 boneless chicken breast halves, cooked and cut into bite-sized pieces (You can substitute a 12oz. can of chicken.)

Crushed tortilla chips

Sliced avocado

Shredded Monterey Jack cheese

Chopped green onions

In a medium stock pot, heat oil over medium heat. Saute onion and garlic in oil until soft. Stir in chili powder, oregano, tomatoes, broth, and water. Bring to a boil, and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes.

Stir in corn, chiles, beans, cilantro, and chicken. Simmer for 10 minutes.

Ladle soup into individual serving bowls, and top with crushed tortilla chips, avocado slices, cheese, chopped green onion, and sour cream.

Chewy Peanut Butter Snickers Cookies

I have really developed a love for cooking/baking over the last little while and if I were home more, I would spend a lot more time doing it. As it is, I made these cookies at 9pm one night just because I couldn't stand it any more. And then I spent the next few days devouring them. I adapted this recipe from here.

Chewy Peanut Butter Snickers Cookies

2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 butter, softened
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons corn syrup
2 tablespoons water
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
20 mini snickers candy bars cut into small chunks

1 - Preheat oven to 375 F
2 - Cream together butter, peanut butter and sugars until smooth.
3 - Beat in 1 egg at a time
4 - Mix in water, corn syrup & vanilla
5 - Add flour, baking soda & salt and mix until just combined
6 - Fold in the snickers chunks
7 - Form dough into balls using approximately 1 1/2 tablespoons dough per ball
8 - Bake for 12-14 minutes or until edges are golden

9- Allow cookies to cool a few minutes before removing to cooling racks

A Tip From Bree

A Word On Chicken

One of my least favorite things to do when cooking is cutting up the cooked chicken. I'm lazy I guess. So here's something I started doing about a year ago...

When I buy chicken, I don't buy the individually frozen bags of chicken (those are expensive unless you buy them in huge cases anyway). Instead, I buy it refridgerated by the pound - next to your raw hamburger. Wal-Mart typically sells their packages of chicken for $1.80/lb. but sometimes you can get a really good deal there or at your local grocery store. Stock up when it's on sale!!

When you get home, use kitchen sissors (never knew how amazing those were until Suzi showed me - no more knife cutting for me!) to cut off the fat and then cut each chicken breast into chunks right then! Buy some quart size freezer bags and put 2-2 1/2 breasts worth of chunks in each bag. Lay flat in your freezer until they're completely frozen and then you can move/stack them however you want.

When you're ready to cook a meal with chicken just pull out a bag and it's already cut up for you! It takes 1/10 of the time to defrost and to cook! Amazing!



Another quick tip about buying... My local grocery store will give a you a good deal if you're willing to buy in bulk. They have a giant chicken sale (probably quarterly) where they sale 40 lb boxes for about $1.50- $1.70/lb. If I miss the sale, I can talk to the head meat guy and he can get me a 40 lb. box for about 1.70/lb. Just ask!

Sweet Chili Chicken

Ingredients:
2-3 Chicken Breasts, cut into bite-size chunks
1 Green Pepper, cut into strips (Or you could use a red pepper if you like those better)
1/2 C. Honey
1/2 C. Sweet Chili Sauce
Rice

In large frying pan, start browning chicken chunks on med-high heat. When the chicken is about half way done, add green pepper strips. Fry until chicken is cooked all the way through and the pepper strips are crisp-tender. Turn off heat but leave pan on burner. Add honey and sweet chili sauce. Stir until honey has all melted and everything is coated. Serve over rice.

(Note: I got this recipe from a friend and she said it calls for 1/4 c. honey and sauce. My husband and I found it a little too dry so we add more. If you want more or less, just start by adding equal amounts of honey and sweet chili sauce until you like it.)

Makes 2-3 servings.

Scones n' Chili

With the weather getting cooler and darkness coming earlier, I've really gotten in the mood for fall. And when I get in the mood for fall, I get in the mood for scones and chili. Mmmm...This is my new favorite recipe for Scones, taken from a fabulous recipe book called "What's For Dinner?".


Scones

2 tbsp yeast
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 C. milk
3 tbsp shortening
2 eggs
5-6 C. flour
oil for frying

Combine yeast, sugar, and salt in a bowl.

Scald milk and shortening in a small saucepan.
Then cool until warm to the touch.

In another bowl, beat eggs.

(sorry for blurry-ness)
Once milk and shortening mixture has cooled,add
that and eggs to the yeast mixture. Stir in 3 cups of
flour until dough forms. Add rest of flour
and kneed for 5 minutes.

Allow dough to rise for one hour.

The original recipe says that, once the dough has risen,

to roll it out to about 1/4" thick and then cut into squares
for frying. But I just pull chunks of dough off and
flatten them into circle-ish things ;-)

Put about a quart of oil into a large pan and heat over
medium heat. Then carefully place the scone into the hot oil
using tongs and fry until golden brown, flipping once.

When done, take out of oil and place on a paper towel lined plate.
(I like to sprinkle mine with a little bit of salt, just for an extra kick.)
Try not to devour them all in one sitting...Good luck!

Kickin it off right!

What better post to begin "Our Recipe Blog" with then a dessert?! I made these this past weekend for a family party, and even though they overflowed in the cupcake liners and stuck to the pan, everyone loved them! I got the recipe here.

Simply Sinful Cinnamon Muffins

Topping

1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup diced pecans
1/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
3 tablespoons soft butter

Filling
1/2 cup Baker's Cinnamon Filling mix*
3 to 4 tablespoons water

*Or substitute 3 tablespoons butter, 1/2 cup brown sugar, and 1 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon for the Baker's Cinnamon Filling mix and water.

Batter
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
3/4 cup milk
2 large eggs
1 3/4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
2 tablespoons Signature Secrets(r) Culinary Thickener or cornstarch
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup cinnamon chips or butterscotch chips

Preheat your oven to 400°F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with cupcake papers, or grease it lightly.

Prepare the topping by mixing the ingredients together until crumbly. Set aside.

Prepare the filling by mixing the Baker's Cinnamon Filling with enough water to make filling with a soft, pudding-like consistency. Set it aside.

To make the batter: In a large bowl, whisk together the melted butter, milk, and eggs. In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients, including the chips. Add the dry mixture to the liquid, stirring just until combined.

Divide half the batter evenly among the muffin cups. Dollop 2 teaspoons cinnamon filling onto each muffin, then top with the remaining batter. Sprinkle with topping, pressing it in lightly.

Bake the muffins for 20 to 25 minutes, or until they're golden brown. Remove them from the oven, and wait 5 minutes before transferring them from the pan to a rack to cool. Yield: 12 muffins.

You can top these with a confectioners' sugar glaze when they're done or just eat em' plain. Delish either way!

OUR RECIPE BLOG

My best friend Suzi and I have been trying to come up with the perfect name for our recipe blog now for WAY TOO LONG. But here it is. What are we going to call our recipe blog? How about

"OUR RECIPE BLOG"

?? Perfect right? So clever.

Let the recipe sharing begin!!