Sweet tooth fix

While driving home yesterday, I had a taste for those incredibly divine and 'Smoregasmic' Smores Bars from the other week, but I wasn't in the mood to make it and didn't want the entire pan sitting there, taunting me to eat 'just one more' since the old man doesn't care for them (WEIRD-O!). So I stopped at a Walgreens and was hoping they'd have a cookie bar mix or something but no such luck - just brownies. Boo! So I found a package of chocolate chips, checked out the back side and saw that I had everything to make its cookie bars.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars (Nestle's)

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened*
  
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 (12 ounce) package semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped nuts (I like pecans) (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 375* Grease a 15x10-inch jelly roll pan. **
   
2. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl.
3. Beat butter, both sugars and vanilla in large mixer bowl.
4. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each.
5. Gradually beat flour mixture into butter mixture.
6. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.
7. Spread into prepared pan.
8. Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. ***

*Neat trick to soften cold butter ... cut up in pieces and trhow in bowl and mix, mix, mix, mix till softened. Then add sugar and mix again. Much faster than waiting an hour or so to make butter room temperature.
** I used 9x13 and lined with parchment paper - a gift from the gods.
*** If using a smaller pan like I did, just make sure the entire thing is the same color when taking out; no need to add time. I baked for 20 minutes and waited an additional two or three minutes for the entire thing to be brown and they came out PERFECT.

D E L I C I O U S!

Salsa Chicken

It just doesn't get any easier than this.

Salsa Chicken

• 1 pound boneless chicken breast (can be frozen!)
• 1 package taco seasoning
• 1 package fresh salsa (or make your own since it calls for 'fresh')
• 1 can condensed cream of something soup (I used Chicken)
• 1 small container or 1 cup sour cream
• 1 crockpot
  

1. Place chicken on bottom of crock.
2. Cover chicken with contents of taco seasoning package.
3. Add salsa on top of that.
4. Then the soup.
5. Make sure chicken is covered.
6. Cover crock.
7. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.
8. Add sour cream, stir, and heat.
9. Serve over rice.

(It's probably best to quickly shred the chicken before adding the sour cream but my husband has a thing about shredded chicken.) I thought this was rather tasty but the old man wasn't too much of a fan... didn't hate it, but didn't love it. But he's a bit of a food snob and isn't a fan of many crockpot meals. The weirdo.

Sloppy Joe Bake

My husband, who claims to dislike Sloppy Joes, likes this dish. So much so that he has seconds and that's the tell tale sign for me when I can make a dish again.

This dish is a combo of these two recipes here and here.

Sloppy Joe Bake

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 onion - diced
• 1 green pepper - diced
• 3/4 cup ketchup
• 1 tsp yellow mustard
• 3 tsp brown sugar
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1 cup Bisquick
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. In hot lightly oil pan, cook onion and pepper for a couple minutes till the onion gets a bit translucent.
3. Move onion and pepper to a bowl.
4. In same pan, cook ground beef till brown and drain.
5. While beef is cooking, mix Bisquick, egg, water and 1 cup of cheese and set aside.
6. Add onion and pepper back to beef mixture.
7. Next add ketchup, mustard, brown sugar, salt, and pepper and mix good and cook till hot.
8. Transfer meat mixture to a greased 9x9 pan.
9. Cover meat mixture with bisquick mixture and spread to coat top.
10. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top.
11. Pop in oven and bake for about 20-25 minutes till golden brown.

I served next to some tomatoes with salt, pepper, basil, EVOO, and vingar... Delicious!

Laughing Cow Chicken

It's been a rough week as far as cooking. Once again, we never made it out to the grocery store so we ordered delivery Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday I was out with a friend so I brought home something.

Tonight, I finally cooked again... and it was pretty decent again. Yay!

Laughing Cow Chicken

(found here)

• 2 chicken breasts, cut in half horizontally 3/4 of the way through (so you can stuff the inside)
• 2 wedges Laughing Cow light cheese, one per breast (I used garlic & herb instead)
• Italian seasoning to taste
• 1/4 cup dried bread crumbs (I used Italian seasoned)
• Handful grated parmesan cheese
• Cooking spray
• Salt and pepper
  

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Butterfly cut each chicken breast and spread one wedge of Laughing Cow inside the middle. Sprinkle Italian seasoning inside to taste. (I actually mixed my cheese and Italian seasoning in a bowl before spreading it on the chicken to give a nice even flavor) Fold chicken back over to original shape.
3. Mix together bread crumbs and parmesan cheese in a shallow dish. Spray each chicken breast with cooking spray and then dip in bread crumb mixture to coat. Place on baking sheet.
4. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.

I served alongside those infamous Crash Hot Potatoes, which seem to make their way in our home once a week lately, and salad. The only thing I would do differently next time is I would season the breast with salt and pepper on the outside.

The hubs liked the meal just fine but says the Honey Mustard Pretzel Chicken is still the best so far.

S'mores Cookie Bars

Um, these things are - as a friend likes to say - S'MOREGASMIC!


I had seen the recipe for these a while back and while they looked incredible and the reviews were incredible I did a, well, incredible job staying away. Willpower at its finest. Until now, that is.

Not sure what it was, but it was like they've been calling out to me so I finally had to succumb and WOW am I glad I did.

S'mores Cookie Bars
(I believe taken from here)

• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 king-sized milk chocolate bars (e.g. Hershey’s)
• 1 1/2 cups marshmallow creme/fluff (not melted marshmallows)

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan.
3. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light.
4. Beat in egg and vanilla.
5. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt.
6. Add to butter mixture and mix at a low speed until combined.
7. Divide dough in half and press half of dough into an even layer on the bottom of the prepared pan.
8. Place chocolate bars over dough. 2 king-sized Hershey’s bars should fit perfectly side by side, but break the chocolate (if necessary) to get it to fit in a single layer no more than 1/4 inch thick.
9. Spread chocolate with marshmallow creme or fluff.
10. Place remaining dough in a single layer on top of the fluff (most easily achieved by flattening the dough into small shingles and laying them together).
11. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until lightly browned.
12. Cool completely before cutting into bars.

Makes 16 cookie bars.

Roasted Cauliflower Pasta with Chicken

I sort of diverted a bit from my Weekly Meal Plan I created over the weekend. Instead of the pasta for Monday, I made homemade burgers (nothing special, just ground beef formed into a patty and fried with salt and pepper and topped with cheese and tomatoes with a butter fried bun) and Crash Hot Potatoes.

And today I made the pasta:

Roasted Cauliflower Pasta with Chicken

• 1 chicken breast, skinless & boneless
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1 bag of cauliflower florets, defrosted (I'm sure you could use fresh)
• olive oil
• spices
• spaghetti (we like wheat), 1/2 pound/box
• bread crumbs, about 1/2 a cup
• Parmesan cheese

1. Dump cauliflower in bowl and cover with seasonings of your choice (and lots of 'em) and drizzle with olive oil, stir.
2. Dump from bowl onto oiled cookie sheet and place in preheated (450) oven on top rack.
3. Bake for about 10 minutes and take out and flip pieces.
4. Bake for another 10 minutes - bake till brown, then take out of oven.
5. In the meantime, chop up 2 garlic cloves and toss in hot pan with olive oil for a minute.
6. Cut chicken breast in bite size pieces and add to pan and cook till white.
7. Put pan aside.
8. Follow instruction on pasta and bring to boil.
9. In large saute pan, add the remaining chopped garlic and generous amount of olive oil.
10. Add chicken to large pan and toss for a minute before adding cauliflower and toss.
11. Sprinkle bread crumbs over mixture and toss and let cook for a minute.
12. When pasta is al dente add directly to large pan and add some pasta water if too thick.
13. Toss and serve hot.

Pretty easy and very tasty.

Weekly Menu Plan

So Stephen went out yesterday to cash a check. Three hours later he finally came back home with bags of groceries from Whole Foods. My husband is a kitchen snob - no offense to any of you Whole Foods shoppers. Don't get me wrong, I adore Whole Foods. It's a beautiful store! But the prices on some of the stuff is just way out of my personal range (though I will definitely admit that nobody beats the freshness from the produce and meats from WF!) so I shop at Aldi (unless S is paying - ha!).

He mainly went crazy buying some kind of steak... I guess it's normally like $30 a pound or something and the butcher's were cutting to order whatever you wanted for like $7.50 a pound. Or something. And we like steak. A lot. (No, I won't post pics to prove this.)

I'm not sure what my point is to telling you this, nor what it has to do with my Weekly Menu Plan, but yeah, I had to share.

Oh no, now I remember!

We didn't get out to the grocery store TOGETHER so I'm not really sure what's going to happen next week but I'll do my best to come up with something and stick to it this time!

Monday - cauliflower and pasta (and so help me it had better turn out better than last week's broccoli and pasta which I never posted about because I'm embarrassed)
Tuesday - Sloppy Joe bake that I never made last week - using ground turkey instead of ground beef which Stephen prefers ... shhhhh don't tell him!
Wednesday - Chicken Salsa that I never made last week, assuming I get the ingredients from the store
Thursday - something with Crash Hot Potatoes! Haha, I love these damn things!
Friday - order in
Saturday & Sunday - up to the old man

Taco Nachos

Last week's Weekly Menu didn't go quite as planned. I sort of fizzeled out by the end of the week because I had a horrible headache one day and DH just brought home some take out, and the next day he needed to cook something he purchased the previous weekend to avoid spoiling. So instead of using the ground beef I defrosted for Sloppy Joe Bake and instead of using the fresh Salsa and Sour Cream for the Salsa Chicken, I used those ingredients for last night's dinner and made my husbands AWESOME taco meat, which I turned into

Taco Nachos

• 1 pound ground beef
• taco seasoning package
• water
• fresh salsa
• sharp cheddar, shredded
• sour cream
• tortilla chips (we used multi-grain with 30% less fat than regular and they were really good!)

1. Follow directions of taco seasoning package by browning ground beef, draining, adding taco seasoning and water and bringing to simmer.
2. Rather than serve after 7 minutes or whatever the package says, keep cooking it so that the meat dries out a bit.
3. Add about 1/2 a cup of fresh salsa and keep cooking. If it seems dry even after adding the salsa, add some water.
4. Keep cooking until it become a bit dry and add some water and cook the shit out of it (on high, stirring occassionally) until it becomes dry. In all honesty, we cook our meat for about an hour on the stove top and I'm telling you, it's so, so, SO worth it!
5. Preheat oven to 425.
6. Line cookie sheet with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray.
7. Add tortilla chips so that it covers the sheet.
8. Sprinkle a handful or two of shredded cheddar onto the naked chips.
9. Cover the chips and cheese with the meat, trying to cover all the chips and the chips only.
10. Sprinkle a handful of shredded cheddar on top of the meat.
11. Pop in oven for only a couple minutes.
12. Take out and serve on plate with a big gob of sour cream (and any other fixings - more salsa, olives, onions - you like).

You can certainly ease up a bit on the ground beef and chips if you'd like to serve as an appetizer or snack, but since this was our meal, I piled on the entire pound of ground beef in the pictures shown. Mmmmm, a simple recipe that's a little time consuming but really so, so worth it!

Honey Mustard Pretzel Chicken and Crash Hot Potatoes

I have a thing about texture... so unless my chicken is fried and crispy or in small bites surrounded by sweet and sour sauce or something, I tend to stay away. But because I'm trying to cook more, and trying to keep that cooking a little more healthy, I needed to think of different ways to keep both my picky palate and Stephen happy.

Last week I tried Cheez-it Chicken and got the "best meal so far" comment from Stephen, but I have a feeling tonight's meal is going to put that one to shame.

At least the smell does.
If you're one of those measuring types... unfortunately, this recipe entails no exact measurements.

Honey Mustard Pretzel Chicken

• Boneless Skinless chicken breast
• Pretzels
• Mayo
• Dijon mustard
• Honey
• Salt
• Pepper

1. Take about 1/2 a cup mayo and about 1/4 dijon mustard and mix. Add about two spoonfuls of honey and mix well. Taste. Keep adding a little more mayo, mustard, or honey to taste. (You'll want some leftover sauce to use as a dipping sauce so be sure to separate some off to the side for later as any that touches the sauce is to be discarded! But if you've come to this blog, I'm sure you know that you cannot eat anything that's touched raw meat and hasn't been cooked! Ewww!)
2. Next take your chicken (I rinse and dry mine first) and salt and pepper both sides and then dip in the sauce and really get it covered and then place it into a zip lock baggie. Once all chicken pieces are covered in sauce and in bag, add any remaining sauce (not the one you separated though!) and let sit.
3. Next take a bunch of pretzels and add to a big zip lock baggie and pound pound pound. Leave the bag a little open so air can escape and don't go crazy with the pounding or you'll poke holes in the bag. Trust me on that one. Empty your pretzels onto a plate.
4. Preheat your oven to 350.
5. Spray down a cookie sheet with cooking spray. Take your chicken that's been soaking in your homemade honey mustard goodness and place in crushed pretzels. Press down on chicken with tongs to so that it picks up lots of the crushed pretzels. After both sides are covered in pretzels, add to cookie sheet.
6. After all pieces are covered and placed on cookie sheet, spray the chicken with cooking spray (you'll want to do this to avoid a soggy crust).
7. Place in oven for about 25 minutes, flipping once.

Serve alongside your reserved homemade honey mustard sauce and...

Crash Hot Potatoes

• Small red potatoes
• salt
• pepper
• herbs of your choice
• olive oil

1. Boil potatoes till fork tender.
2. Preheat oven to 450 and make sure you have a rack up high.
3. Cover cookie sheet with olive oil (enough so nothing sticks).
4. Add potato to cookie sheet, give an inch or two between each.
5. Take masher or serving fork (I don't have a masher) and gently press down. Be careful because they may spread or move a lot.
6. Brush each potato with more olive oil.
7. Add salt, pepper, herbs.
8. Pop in oven till golden brown.

Thank you so much Angie for turning me onto these fabulous taters, and, of course, she found these from the Pioneer Woman.

Bread Pudding

Last week when I made Schnitzeletta, I bought some French bread and never used it all. So this morning, I decided to put it to use and made some Bread Pudding. What a perfect morning to make Bread Pudding... we went from sunny and warm yesterday to rainy and dreary today. So what better way to bring a little warmth back into the place by baking some Bread Pudding!

I looked at a couple simple recipes (here and here) and kinda went from there.

• 2-3 cups stale French bread, torn into cubes
• 3-4 Tbs butter, melted
• 2 cups milk
• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar*
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• cooking spray
• 8x8 pan

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Spray 8x8 pan and toss cubed stale bread in pan, covering entire pan.
3. Drizzle melted butter atop bread.
4. Mix remaining ingredients together well in separate bowl and pour atop bread, pressing down bread to ensure it all gets wet.
5. Place in preheated oven and bake for 45 minutes until bread bounces back up.
6. Serve warm with coffee or milk.

Notes:
I'm horrible at measuring stuff... especially stuff like teaspoons and tablespoons. Plus I like cinnamon and vanilla. So while I thought it had great flavor, my husband says it had an aftertaste he wasn't too fond of and blamed it on my lack of measuring and says I probably put in too much vanilla (personally I think it was too much nutmeg). It was still good though and we both enjoyed it.

*Next time, however, I will be cutting back on the sugar to 1/2 a cup because it was far too sweet for our tastes.

Weekly Menu

S and I are sitting here discussing what we need to get when we go out into this beautiful day and that led me to discuss meal plans. We've never done a meal plan for more than a day or two at a time in the past and that always leads us to ordering in, which can get very expensive and be very fattening.

And that's all going to stop right now.

I told him I had something planned for tomorrow and something planned for the week, and asked if there was anything more he had a taste for and he made the comment, "So I can't cook anymore?"

:)

S is a great cook. He really is. But he works later than me and he cooks much more from scratch thereby taking much longer to make his dishes and frankly, I refuse to eat dinner at 9PM - and then have to clean up after him. So I told him I'd leave the weekends up to him and he seemed to like that idea.

So here's the plan for the week (my very first weekly plan - and I'm giddy about it!):

Monday - Broccoli and Pasta (don't really have a recipe made up for this but will post after I make it... probably go with something like this)
Tuesday - Honey Mustard Pretzel Chicken (something like this I suspect) with Crash Hot Potatoes (which I've been dying to make)
Wednesday - Sloppy Joe Supreme (well, my version of it which takes that recipe and this one)
Thursday - Salsa Chicken and rice
Friday - order in day
Saturday & Sunday is all him. :)

Zucchini Cakes (and pasta)

Oh the smell of these... both as a batter and after fried! So, so, so good!

I saw this recipe for Zucchini Cakes on the Pioneer Woman's website the other day and just so happened to be at the store and saw some zucs. Yay. I pretty much followed her recipe - one I especially loved to make because I hate measuring and didn't measure anything (made about 8 cakes)...

• 2 zucchinis, cleaned and ends cut off
• Parmesan and Romano cheese blend, about 1/2 cup
• Italian bread crumbs, about 1/2 cup
• 2 eggs
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• EVOO

1. Grate zucs and then wring out in clean kitchen towel and return zuc shreds to large bowl.
2. Add minced garlic.
3. Add cheese blend, covering mixture.
4. Add breadcrumbs, covering mixture.
5. Add 1 egg and blend together and if it's not battery enough, add another egg and mix.
6. In cold pan coat with EVOO and heat on medium heat.
7. Add spoonful of zuc batter and press down with spoon.
8. Wait at least two to three minutes and press down again for another minute.
9. Carefully turn one cake and if it's brown to your liking (I'm a texture person and like crispy, therefore brown - more so than above picture), carefully turn the rest.
10. Wait at least another couple minutes and press down and wait another minute. (If you're OK with a more cake-like texture, don't press down - the original recipe says nothing about pressing down more than just the beginning.)
11. Remove cakes to plate lined with paper towels and sprinkle with salt (yes, there's plenty of salt in all the cheese but you just fried something and you really need to add a little sprinkle after taking it out of the oil).

I served these alongside some regular ole pasta and sauce from a ::shudder:: jar.

According to my husband, "Not bad" and I can definitely make again.

Cheez-It Chicken & Popcorn Cauliflower

"This is the best meal yet," S told me while eating a second piece of chicken.

I was a little sad because my Easter Lunch was da bomb, but whatever. I'm over it. I'm just glad he seemed to *really* like a complete meal for once.

This one will definitely be made again.

Cheez-it Chicken

I came up with this brilliant idea last week when I was noshing on some Cheez-its and I thought I was revolutionary but then I went online and did a search for Cheez-it Chicken and was bombarded by tons of recipes. Whatever. This is how I made mine...for 2.

• 3 chicken breast, rinsed and patted dry
• Cheez-its, about a cup
• 1 egg, beaten
  
• Oregano
• Basil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Cooking spray

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray.
3. Place Cheez-its in baggie and crush. Add favorite seasonings and shake.
4. Salt (lightly as the Cheez-its will provide plenty of salt) and pepper your chicken.
5. Dip chicken in bowl with beaten egg.
6. Coat chicken with crushed Cheez-its and seasonings mixture.
7. Place covered chicken on baking sheet and bake for about 30 minutes, until cooked through.

I served alongside one of favorites sides, Popcorn Cauliflower!

Schnitzeletta, the review

For me, the pictures say it all.

The Schnitzeletta

I'm tired of throwing away good food because we don't like leftovers. And by "we", I really mean my husband. I don't know what the dillio is with him and leftovers but he just doesn't like eating them. No matter what! Grrr.

So now what am I supposed to do with all the delectable delights leftover from the large amount of food I made on Easter?

Eat it, that's what!

Tonight I plan on turning that Schnitzel into a Schnitzel Muffuletta sandwich! Oh my, I cannot wait! Instead of using lunch meat, I'll use a piece of Schnitzel and instead of Sicilian round bread, I'll use french bread but the olive spread??? Hell yes is that going to be a part of tonight's meal! Mmmmm, I'm salivating just thinking about it!

When I was younger, my dad got me hooked on eating Schnitzel leftovers in between two good pieces of crusty bread with a piece of fried artichoke (he's a wizard in the kitchen I tell ya!), a piece of provolone cheese, and if there were any leftover, a couple homemade fries. Holy cow was this sandwich to die for!! He should've friggin marketed it or something, it was that good!

Unfortunately, I don't have any fried artichokes (Papa's the kitchen person not me) or anything like that, but I did go out and by some olive spread designed specifically for Muffuletta sandwiches. Boy is my husband in for a treat!! He has no clue what I'm doing, he just knows that tonight the leftovers WILL be eaten!

Alongside the Schnitzel Muffuletta, hereby known as the Schnitzeletta (huh???? clever, eh??), I'm planning to turn the leftover Damn Good Mashed Potatoes into a potato pancake of sorts. Hmm, wish me luck on that one as I'm out of oil so will have to use butter and some EVOO.

I do plan on taking pictures and will report back later... I *know* this will NOT be a Fail. No, no, no! Not my Schnitzeletta!