Kitchen Adventures 9.2

Everyone loves a good party, right? I know I sure do! My friends and I like to gather and celebrate things, be it a big event like some one's birthday or a going away party or a sporting event. So, of course, we had to get together to watch the Super Bowl between the Packers and the Steelers. I made sure to wear my green sweater to urge the Pack on to victory, and I guess it worked! :) It was a good game, but we always end up socializing so much half the time we're not even paying attention. We just like each other too much I guess. :)

For any party, you have to have good party food. Snacky finger-food items are a must-have. In my binders of recipes I have an entire section for this type of food that I don't get to break into very often, so I deliberately planned to make some items from this section for the party. And I'm sure glad I did, because they were hits!

I took three things to the party. Of course we had too much food, because everyone else brought that much as well. Better to have extra than not enough, though! Two of the recipes I made are from Rachael Ray's magazine, Every Day with Rachael Ray. The other one is something my sister told me that is super quick and deceptively delicious and addictive. Hope you are able to use them at your next gathering!

Baked Potato Bites (from Every Day with Rachel Ray)

Ingredients:

4 red potatoes, sliced into 1/4-inch rounds and patted dry
1/2 c. olive oil
Salt
1/2 lb. bacon
1/3 c. sour cream
1/3 c. cream cheese
1 T finely chopped chives (I omitted these b/c I couldn't find them at the store)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degree. Toss the potato rounds in the olive oil, coating all sides. Place the potatoes on a rimmed baking sheet and season with salt. Arrange them in a single layer. Bake for 25 minutes, flip them over, and bake for another 10 minutes. Drain on a paper towel-lined plate.
2. While the potatoes are baking, cook the bacon until crisp and then crumble it; set aside. In a medium bowl, stir together the sour cream and cream cheese until smooth.
3. Arrange the potato slices in a single layer on a plate or serving dish and top each round with a spoonful of the cream mixture, some bacon bits, and chives. Serve warm.

Cheesy Corn Bites (from Every Day with Rachael Ray)

Ingredients:

8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
1 c. shredded pepper jack cheese
1 egg
1/2 c. frozen corn kernels
48 scoop-shaped tortilla chips
Chopped chives, for sprinkling

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, mix together the cream cheese, pepper jack cheese, egg and corn.
2. Arrange the chips in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Spoon 1 T. of the cream cheese mixture into each chip. Bake until the filling sets, about 20 minutes.
3. Sprinkle with chives and serve warm.

Tortilla Roll-ups

Ingredients:

Tortillas, any size or kind (flour are better than corn for this)
8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
Taco seasoning

Directions:

Stir the softened cream cheese until it is smooth. Shake in taco seasoning to taste. Do this in stages so it does not get too strong. Spread the cream cheese mixture onto tortillas, making a thin layer of cheese on each tortilla. Roll up the tortillas, then slice them like a sushi roll.

This picture includes a couple of each item. Yummy!

Kitchen Adventures 5.1

I have been trying to mix up my recipe usage recently, not repeating recipes very frequently. However, due to time constraints and available ingredients, I had to duplicate. Luckily, I was cooking for different events, which made it a little better.

A couple weeks ago I wanted something quick and easy for dinner. I found a good recipe in one of my Rachael Ray magazines and decided to try it out. Then this weekend I needed to make an appetizer for about 5 or 6 people, and I was low on ingredients. Fortunately, I still had all the ingredients to make this, and it works well as an appetizer as well. We needed good food for our OU/Texas watch party, after all. Gotta say, BOOMER SOONER!!:)

With this recipe, I ended up having to alter it slightly as I thought I had a key ingredient when I actually didn't. It still worked out, though, so I'm sure making it with the right ingredients would be delicious as well.

Cajun Chicken Fingers

Ingredients:
1 c. cornmeal (I used bread crumbs)
2 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. dried oregano
Salt and pepper
2 large eggs
1 lb. chicken tenders
6 T. vegetable oil (omit this if you go the baking route as I did)

Directions:
1. In a shallow bowl, combine the cornmeal, chili powder, oregano, 1 tsp. salt, and 1/4 tsp. pepper. In another shallow bowl, beat the eggs. Working with one at a time, coat the chicken tenders with the cornmeal mixture, dip into the egg, then coat again with the cornmeal. Transfer to a foil-lined baking sheet.
2. In a large skillet, heat 1/4 c. oil over medium heat. Add half of the chicken and cook, turning over, until golden, about 5 or 6 minutes. Transfer to a plate and tent with foil to keep warm. Repeat with the remaining oil and chicken tenders.
*If you choose to bake rather than fry, place the chicken on a foil-lined baking sheet and pop in a 450 degree oven for about 12 minutes.

Kitchen Adventures 3.3

For the second time this week, we are having a party at work. This time, though, it is to bid farewell to students that are leaving us. That's the thing about university student jobs, they all leave eventually for some reason or another. One of our longtime student workers is leaving us to gain experience in a different library setting, so to celebrate we are gathering for food tomorrow. She requested chocolate, so I did my best to satisfy the request. I think this recipe will do the trick! This recipe came from the recipes included when you buy a three-pack of Crisco. I'm sure I have had them before, but I was reminded once again how wonderful they truly are!

Chewy Brownie Cookies

Ingredients:
2/3 c. Crisco
1 1/2 c. firmly packed light brown sugar
1 tbsp. water
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
1 1/2 c. flour
1/3 c. unsweetened baking cocoa
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 12 oz. bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions: Combine Crisco, brown sugar, water, and vanilla in mixing bowl. Beat at medium speed until well combined. Beat in eggs. Combine flour, cocoa, soda, and salt in separate bowl. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop spoonfuls of dough onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 375 degrees for 7-8 minutes or just until set; do not overbake. Cool 1 -2 minutes before removing from cookie sheet.
Makes about 3 dozen cookies

Kitchen Adventures 1.5

Last week was a pretty crazy week. I helped Shaye decorate for VBS Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday before corralling little ones Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. On top of that, we had a going away party for our friend Andy Dale Monday night and then small group Wednesday night. It was quite the week to say the least! To top all of that off, we had a going-away/birthday party at work Thursday. With everything else going on, I had to do my baking Tuesday evening. It meant skipping girls' night, but sometimes we just can't do it all

Here is a picture from the going-away party. We were a small group, but we had fun!

Tuesday evening was a busy one for the oven. I had two desserts and my dinner to make, so strategy was key. I began with the banana nutella cake, which I posted several weeks ago. Check the earlier post for the recipe and a pic. While the cake layers baked, I mixed up the blueberry sour cream coffee cake. It's a good thing I have a stand mixer and a hand-held one, plus several mixing bowls, because I used them all! Once I popped the coffee cake (which I baked in a bund pan) in the oven, I made chicken tetrazzini for my dinner. At one point I had the oven going and every burner used on the over. The heat was on in my kitchen!

Everything turned out well, thankfully. The coffee cake was a smash success, there is still cake left (but we did have four of them!), and I just finished off the tetrazzini for lunch today.

Following are the coffee cake and tetrazzini recipes.

Blueberry Sour Cream Coffee Cake
(from mixingbowl.com)

Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 t. vanilla
3 cups flour
1 1/2 t. baking powder
3/4 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
1 cup sour cream, 8 oz

Filling:
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 T. flour
1/2 t. ground cinnamon
2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 to 3 T. milk

Directions:
In large bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with sour cream, beating well after each addition. Spoon a third of the batter into a greased and floured 10 inch tube pan. Mix brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. Sprinkle half over batter. Top with half of the berries. Repeat layers. Top with remaining batter. Bake at 350 for 55 to 65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to wire rack to cool completely. Mix glaze ingredients. drizzle over cake. Note: If using frozen blueberries, do not thaw before adding to batter. (I set them out when I started mixing and they were fine.)

Here are a few pics at various stages.









While that deliciousness was baking, I made myself some dinner for the week. I turned to my handy dandy Triple T cookbook again, which is actually titled "Homemade with Love". Here's the recipe.

Chicken or Turkey Tetrazzini

Ingredients:
1/4 c. butter
1/4 c. flour
slat and pepper to taste
1 c. water
1 bouillon cube
1 lb. spaghetti noodles, cooked
1 lb. turkey or chicken, cooked
Parmesan cheese

Directions:
Dice meat into cubes. In a small sauce pan, dissolve bouillon cube with water. In medium sauce pan, melt butter and add flour, salt and pepper; will be thick. Add bouillon to this. Make sure the heat is not too high, otherwise your sauce will stay thick. In mixing bowl mix meat and noodles together. Pour into a greased casserole dish. Pour sauce over the top and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Cover and bake at 350 degrees until done, about 25-30 minutes.

Here is the picture of the tetrazzini:

Resolution Update and Another Fantastic Weekend

I have decided that updating once a week will probably be the easiest thing to do. I'm just too darn busy to update more frequently. :)
So have have the resolutions been going? Pretty well, actually. I worked out three times last week and have already worked out twice this week. Let's just say I'll be feeling Tone It Up tomorrow. It was intense tonight! I also played piano already this week thanks to a call from a friend who salvaged a keyboard. And, perhaps the most exciting of all (at least to me) is I tried sushi last Friday evening. My boyfriend said it would either be salmon or sushi, and he knew sushi was on my list, so we went to In The Raw on Campus Corner and I finally tried sushi. After painful lessons with the chopsticks, which I was still not very good at using, I got to thoroughly enjoy my Philly Roll and calamari roll. Delicious! I'm now a fan. As Marcus put it, I got to try it early in the year so now I can enjoy it the rest of the year! Regarding the other resolutions, I'm doing better about reading my Bible every day and am working on praying for others, not just myself. Slow and steady progress is not a bad thing.
So that's the resolution update. Life needs some updating too right now I suppose. This past weekend was really good. As mentioned, Friday night sushi was delicious. Earlier that evening we (or rather Marcus) was able to help his sister by replacing her alternator so she wouldn't be stranded in Norman. He's a good brother. :) Then just some quality together time, which is always nice. Saturday was busy, beginning with cleaning and continuing with fun times with friends. Some of us went to the OU women's basketball game and watched the ladies from Norman Public provide storytime at halftime. After the game, Shaye, Claire, and I headed to the mall for a quick shopping trip and I actually found some things and they were all on super sale, so that was exciting. We came back to our place and surprised Claire with a birthday party. Some friends from library school came over and girls' night ladies to help Claire celebrate. It was great having everyone over and seeing old friends. Sunday is always good. I love my little ones I teach in children's' church and then Josh was super convicting with his message on tithing. Birthday lunch at Hideaway Pizza for Jamie followed that, then cake at Marcus's mom's house. We hung out there for a bit, then headed to Jordan's to watch some football. Clay came over and Shaye stopped by, so we had a good time watching a close game. Overall, a busy but fantastic weekend.
Josh's conviction led me to finally make my budget for the year. I need to get back on track with tithing and saving and not just spending all my money. With loan payments coming soon, I had to really adjust my finances. But, I'll make it work, and I know God will provide even though things will be tight.
The big news coming up is the approaching winter storm that's supposed to hit Thursday. We'll see how intense it is, hopefully it will not be like a couple years ago. I'd really like to keep power over the weekend! But we shall see...