M. I. A.

I know you are probably sitting there thinking where has this girl been? And what has she been cooking? Well I had leftovers during last week, nothing too exciting there, but it is a great perk from cooking all weekend, to not have to worry much about it during the week after work. Then I had company for the weekend and had a million great meals planned and well they didn’t happen either. I did make the Chocolate Strudel Roll again and another batch of Monkey Bread Minis. They were both a hit!! One night I made some angel hair pasta with snap peas. I will add a picture later on today.  I know the picture is a little dark, but  I took it with my cell and there is no flash on there. That's what I get for making dinner well after the sun went down.

One night we had Chicken Cutlets stuffed with Broccoli and Cheese with potatoes on the side. I had diced and roasted potatoes while my guest wanted boiled potatoes so she could smash them. So I made both. Of course I forgot to take a picture of all of this. I was enjoying time with my company and we were working on some projects and when it came time to eat we were hungry and ate!!! And it was always after the plate was empty that I went Oh No I didn’t take a picture!!!! Silly me, but I hope you can all understand the lack of blog and lack of photos for the wonderful weekend I was able to have!

09-26-11 Mini Monkey Bread

I have heard about monkey bread before, never knew really what it was or how to make it or what was in it. I know I have seen it pre made in the freezer section and it was not cheap. But I mean why buy something that I can make myself right??? So here goes nothing...

Originally I was going to make a new batch of cookies with the cookie press from a new recipe I found. But then Monkey bread popped in my head. So cookies might be in a little while or tomorrow. Not sure yet but def one of those two options! Monkey bread has to be the easiest thing I have ever made!

Now I know once I found out that it is sugar, sugar, sugar and some butter that this would be delicious, so making a whole bread would mean I would eat a whole bread so I decided to make Monkey Bread Muffin Sized. Used a regular muffin pan, sprayed the pan with cooking spray butter flavor, mixed the brown sugar and butter and dropped that in the bottom of 9 of the muffin holes.

Now I took a can of biscuits ripped each one into 4 pieces, if using large biscuits maybe try to rip into 8 pieces, but these were just basic biscuits. They say to cut them but really why dirty a knife it is so easy to tear a biscuit in half and then in half again. I don't like doing dishes when I don't need to! Id rather wash my hands! Anyways so I ripped the cans of biscuits into 40 pieces and then tossed them around to coat in sugar.

Then dropped at least 4 pieces in each muffin hole, a few muffin holes had more since I didnt fill 10 muffin holes, duh on my part, that would have made things easier. But anyways

Now pop that in the oven and bake! Viola! Monkey Bread!! Now the trick is when the come out of the oven to only let sit about a minute and then turn them over onto something else so that the gooey sugar butter drips down over them. I used a cookie sheet. Placed that on top of the muffin pan and then flipped and removed the muffin pan! Simpliest and easiest way I could think of, wasnt thrilled to make another dish dirty but pan right in the sink in hot water and soak the sugar and butter out so that wont be hard to clean at all!

They came out fabulous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nothing to brag about on the dinner side, just had some of the leftover Chicken Broccoli Alfredo biscuit casserole bake from the other night and then this wonderful dessert!! YUMMY Now stop drooling!! :) Have a great night!!!





9-25-11 Veggie Pizza Lunch

So, I haven't had this in forever, a girl in my office used to make it every time we had a pot luck luncheon and she hasn't been with the company for about 5 years, so I haven't had this in about that long. I tried to re-create the recipe, from what I remember her telling me was in it, and what I could put together in my head. Came out delicious!!! 

Used a can of crescent rolls, rolled in out as one sheet in a 15x9x1 cookie pan, pushed the edges up against the sides and baked it. Well it shrunk down so I will have to work on that next time, maybe need to get a smaller pan. It may look interesting but it will still work! While it was cooking I diced up some carrots, cucumbers, green peppers, and fresh broccoli and mixed that up, it a separate container I combined dry ranch dressing mix, sour cream, and cream cheese.

Once the crescent roll was done, i let it sit for about half hour to fully cool down, then put the sour cream, cream cheese, ranch mixture spread evenly over the top, and then topped with all of the chopped veggies. Super easy, Super Delicious!! Looks Pretty!! :)

09-25-11 Chocolate Crescent Twist

So this morning I woke up with some energy and knew that I need to get moving, feed the boys and myself and get stuff done around the house. I am not in the modd for a typical egg, waffle, or pancake breakfast. Lets try out another recipe. So this mornings task, the Chocolate Crescent Twist.

This one became quite intesting and next time I make it I certainly will make a lot of changes. All you need is a can of crescent rolls, chocolate chips, sugar, flour, butter, and cinnamon.

The recipe wants you to roll out the crescent rolls not to split them apart and to press the perforations to seal them. That was the first mistake!! My suggestion and what I will try next time, will be to ball up the entire can in my hands and then use the rolling pin to roll it back out to ensure there are no perforations that can split open on me!!!!

Once is is laid out flat in a rectangle shape, sprinkle with chocolate chips, sugar, cinnamon and some streusel mixture (3 tbsp flour, 3 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp butter mix till crumbly) pinch the edges to seal them, roll it up from the long side, make it into a circle pinch those edges together, twirl it into a figure 8 and set it into a loaf pan. Put a little melted butter on top and put some streusel mis on top. Then add some chocolate chips to the top slightly pressed in and bake.

I used mini chocolate chips for this recipe as I didnt want an overload of chocolate in the morning, this is great for breakfast and wouldnt be bad for a dessert either, maybe on the side of a cheesecake or with a scoop of ice cream.

09-24-11 Something a little different

So, it was time to step out of my comfort zone box and try something new. So I went on a recipe hunt for something new and creative. Came across a million recipes and found a few that really caught my attention and things I knew I had in the house. I don't want to cook anything too fancy or make something where an ingredient isn't normal. I want to make things with ingredients that we all or at least most of us would have in a normal 'ish' kitchen. Otherwise what is the point. If I only cooked with ingredients that weren't easy to find, you wouldn't be making that at home, or even thinking about it, so at that point why not just go out to eat and not cook. I am not a fancy person, I love the basics, and enjoy finding new favorites, well today I found one new favorite and one disappointment in two different recipes.

I decided to make my dessert in the afternoon since I had no idea what I was getting into... I am making Pillsbury Chocolate Chip Cookie-Stuffed Pies. This was the disappointment of my day. They are simple to make, quick to put together but just not what you would expect at all from them! I still had a great time making them, and I will work on tweaking the recipe to find something that does work for me and my liking!!!

They suggest using refrigerated pie crust and cutting into 3 1/2 inch circles. Well lets be real here, I am not breaking out a tape measure, and who has something that cuts circles, so do they want me to use a knife and hope I make a round figure?? So being creative, I grabbed my 1 cup measuring cup and decided it was about the right size. Or at least I was going to make it the right size, and imprinted into the pie crust to make my circles!!

Next they tell you to place one ready to bake chocolate chip cookie on the pie crust cut out, and then place a Hershey kiss upside down so the point is sticking into the cookie dough, Oh wait they didn't call them Hershey kisses, I think they said chocolate candies, but come on now, what other candy has a point. So I will say it for them, Hershey kisses!!!!

After that is done, you need to put the other 3 1/2 circle cut of pie crust on top, moisten the edges with water so they stick a little better and also use a fork to smush the edges together for a seal. Here is where I was not happy with the recipe. I think the circles for the top should have been of a different size, a larger size, so that they would wrap over the cookie and Hershey kiss and connect to the edges. I also think this should be done off the main pan (My mistake) so that you can manipulate these and stretch out the top pieces and then make them appear more appealing. I will work on this next time, and will find something to cut a larger piece of the pie crust!!



So they came out OK after baking, but look at the picture where it is cut open, can you find the chocolate chip cookie?? Don't worry it is there, but you don't taste it either. For something that is called a chocolate chip cookie stuffed pie, it certainly wasn't so, somehow the cookie flavor isn't there, you can see and taste the warm Hershey kiss and of course the pie crust and the sugar that was sprinkled over the top but the cookie flavor was just not there. If it wasn't for the pictures I took, I would have thought I forgot to put the cookie in, it's like OK where is the cookie?? I am almost tempted to cook them for less time the next time and see if that helps. A little nervous to end up with raw cookie dough, but i need something here. All in all they are good, but for something that has a name so perfect the flavor just was not there, I hope that I can tweak this to make it into what it really should taste like.

Most of the recipes I use,  I receive from somewhere, then end up making my own alterations at the end. I make these to fit me and my taste buds and those that I am cooking for. And when a recipe that seems so easy, I mean they wanted me to use ready made pie crust, and ready to bake cookies, so really what did i have to do?? Just bake, and it still came up less than up to par, is disappointing but also pushes me further to perfect it and get it up to my standards. Just never thought Pillsbury wouldn't be up to my standards.



For dinner I made a Chicken Alfredo biscuit casserole!! Super delicious!! NOT disappointing at all. Also a recipe from Pillsbury!! I guess it was a Pillsbury type of day, even though I didn't use a single Pillsbury ingredient for this one. I have made something similar to this a long time ago, but lost the recipe and this one was just super simple. Still cheating using store bought ingredients, but I will take that upon myself next time to make more from scratch!

First I took some butter and some diced onions and fried them in a pan for a few minutes just to soften the onion,

You just want to cook them enough so they get soft and are no longer crunchy. I like mine a little overdone, but for someone else you might only want to toss them for about 3 minutes or so.

Next you toss in a jar of Alfredo sauce (Next time I will prepare better and make homemade) cubed chicken breasts (about 2 chicken breasts) and cooked and drained broccoli (I use a steam bag to make the broccoli in the microwave rather than boiling it and making it super soft, the steam bag softens it but keeps it crispy enough that after baking this dish it won't turn to mush) add 1/4 cup milk to the pan, and some basil or parsley for seasoning. Also you could add mushrooms when you are cooking the onion, I certainly wouldn't as I don't eat mushrooms, but it is good in the dish I am told.

Now since this was raw chicken, I like this to sit for about 15 minutes on simmer to ensure that the chicken is cooked even before it bakes, take no chances with chicken. You could also fry up the chicken prior to this step so that when you add it in it was already cooked, but I didn't want to get the crisp outside. Maybe try poaching the chicken in water. Once you are content with the mixture being cooked in the pan, drop it into a 9x9 dish. Take a can of biscuits and rip each biscuit in half, placing them around the edge of the dish slightly overlapping each other.



Now, take a little melted butter and drizzle it over the uncooked biscuits and then sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. If you have fresh Parmesan that would be ideal, but if not grated works just fine. Place this in the oven and bake. Since everything in the mixture is now cooked, you are basically baking the biscuits and making sure that chicken is fully done, bake about 20 minutes.

Comes out delicious!!!

And for the record, I am cheap these were not Pillsbury biscuits, they were the $0.39 can of biscuits from Aldis. and they work just as well!! :) :) :)

What I have been cooking...Preview

Nothing to fancy here normal breakfast waffles and some scrambled eggs. Now only if I didn't just run out of syrup I would be having that again today before work. :)

Made some yummy corn muffins!!!!!!!!!!!!! Super Delicious

Rice Krispie balls, I was going to make them into pumpkins, but I was lacking the frosting and food coloring so balls it was. None the less it is a little too early to be making pumpkins, but it is almost October so I should try to get what I need to make pumpkins and spider rice krispie treats.Hmmm wonder what else I can make with them...

Pigs in the blanket with some french fries!!!

Pigs in the blanket again, didnt have any potatoes left to make french fries again :( lol

Made an egg and cheese wrap with some cresent rolls

Chicken Rings and french fries, I do like my frech fries.

Another batch of corn muffins with some bacon this time

I tossed some seasonings on some chicken breast that I had cut up, topped it off with mozz. cheese when it was done cooking and added some corn and then barbeque sauce on the side.

Chicken stuffed with broccoli and cheese, breaded then baked. Served with Sugar snap peas, and angel hair pasta with butter, garlic, and italian seasoning. Also a little salt and pepper to taste.

Just a little photo preview of what I have been up to cooking lately, the uploads took longer than expected, so I can't comment much on each one, but I will try to get back on after work to update all the comments. :) Happy Cooking!!!!!!

WOW it has been 12 days

OK, i am not doing great with updating this on a regular basis, and I really have been cooking too!!! I have been taking pictures of almost everything. I forgot to take a picture of the chicken taco lasagna that i made 09-19-11. So that kinda stinks, but we all know what lasagna looks like. I hope to get on later today and get the pictures posted. I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off lately with everything going on around here. So forgive me if later the pictures are posted and there is no text, I really will catch this up!!! Promise!!!! And believe me I have been cooking!!!!