Macaroni and Cheese Chart

I apologize for the lack of blogging recently, classes have started to pick up and I have not found the time to cook as much as I would like. Due to this I decided to post a couple cooking related charts that I found on StumbleUpon. This one is a Mac and Cheese Chart, to create delicious mac and cheese creations. I have not yet tried any, but they look awesome. Let me know if anyone tries them!

Here is a link if the picture is too small.
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2012/02/28/Food/Graphics/w-macncheese29.jpg 

Beef Stew with Sweet Potatoes

Inspired by Diana Rattray

 

Recently I have been really inspired by sweet potatoes. Unfortunately, though, most of my sweet potato creations will not make it on my blog due to lack of pictures on my part (these secret recipes included a Quiche with shredded sweet potato and sweet potato latkes J). This beef stew recipe uses sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes, which is better for a few reasons. First, sweet potatoes have more antioxidants and have a lower glycemic index when compared to regular potatoes. What this means is that the sweet potato does not cause a surge in blood sugar, which makes them better for diabetics to eat, and they also help you to feel more full for longer periods of time.

Aside from their healthy benefits, they also make this stew sweeter and works great with the cinnamon. When I first made this stew it seemed like it was lacking something. It tasted good, but seemed unfinished. I decided to research many stew recipes and think I found the culprit: bay leaves. The original recipe did not have these leaves, and after adding them to the recipe it gave it more of the desired beef stew flavor. I also increased the amount of black pepper, which helped too. Any type of beef could be used, and I’ve made this recipe with both chicken and beef stock and think that the flavor is still great. This time I added some low sodium beef bouillon when I used the chicken stock.

This recipe was so easy, as many slow cooker recipes are. I prepared everything the night before, put it in the slow cooker and then in the fridge over night. The next morning I took it out, plugged it in for 10 hours and went about my day. When I got home the stew was done, and the aroma was amazing!  Without the bay leaves, the stew smelled better than it was though, so don’t forget them!

Ingredients

2 lbs of beef roast (cut up into about 1 inch pieces)

2 Tbs. whole wheat flour

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

2 bay leaves (I used chopped bay leaves)

¼ tsp. Salt

1 tsp. black pepper

1 large onion (chopped)

1 Tbs. olive oil

2 sweet potatoes (cut into medium cubes)

1 cup beef stock (reduced sodium)

1 can of corn

1 can of green beans

Directions

1.     Put beef cubes, whole-wheat flour, cinnamon, bay leaves, salt and pepper in a Ziploc bag and toss until beef is completely coated.

2.     Put olive oil in a large skillet and heat on medium high heat, add onion and beef and cook until beef is browned and onions are soft.

3.     Add sweet potato, beef stock and beef/onion mixture in the crock-pot. Cover and cook on low for between 8 to 10 hours.

4.     In the last 15 minutes add drained corn and drained green beans.

5. Once vegetables are hot, serve the stew.

I served the stew with triangles of toast.

Greta is questioning my spice use...

Bread Pudding (Lightened)

Inspired by Cooking Light

Bread pudding used to make me think of soggy bread, and sounded absolutely gross. Then I went to Carinos and tasted Mascarpone Bread pudding, it was absolutely delicious with a wonderful caramel sauce and was served hot with ice cream. They have since taken it off the menu, which is both good and bag. It is bad, because I no longer can enjoy it, but it is good because this dessert had over 1600 calories, 96 grams of fat (56 grams of which were saturated)!

 So I recently subscribed to Cooking Light Magazine and came across their lightened version of Bread Pudding, which (according to the magazine) has about 300 calories and less than 5 grams of fat per serving. So between my half of Mascarpone bread pudding (800 calories) and the lightened version (300 calories), the lightened definitely wins! Just a few pointers 1) make sure you keep the sauce warm, if not it will harden (which is why my pictures have caramel crumbles instead of sauce 2) make sure your bread is no larger than the ½ inch, otherwise it will not soak up enough of the milk mixture. Other than that this recipe was really easy and was delicious. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
For Bread Pudding:

• 5 cups 1/2 inch dubbed Italian bread
• 1 cup fat free evaporated milk
• 3/4 cup fat free milk
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 Tbs. Bourbon
• 1 Tbs. Vanilla extract
• 1 tsp. Cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. Salt
• 2 eggs

For sauce:

• 3/4  cup light brown sugar
• 3 Tbs. Bourbon
• 1 Tbs. Butter
• 6 Tbs. Half and half
• 1 tsp. Vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp. Salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Place cubed bread on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for about 10 minutes.

3. Combine all other ingredients under the bread pudding ingredient list together. Add the toasted bread cubes and let stand for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. For the sauce: mix bourbon, butter, brown, sugar in a small pan on medium high heat and bring to a boil. Simmer for 2 minutes. Stir 5 of the Tbs of half and half and reduce for about 10 minutes.

 

5. Remove from heat and add the other 1Tbs. of half and half, salt and vanilla. Remember to keep this sauce warm!
6. Put half of the bread mixture into loaf pan. Drizzle about 3 Tbs of sauce over this, then put the rest of the bread mixture over top.

7. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes, and top with the warm sauce.

The crumbles is my hardened sauce, which did add a nice texture, but I wanted sauce

We finally got snow, so Greta decided to eat it!

Holiday Leftover Pizza

Inspired by California Pizza Kitchen

          

         The holidays are a great time to eat lots of food, and try everyone’s new twist on classic favorites (like Sweet Potato Brulee!). After a while I get so tired of having even remixed classics that I end up freezing a lot of the leftovers to eat later.

            When I opened my freezer and saw my holiday section, I saw the same leftovers that I grew tired of a couple of months ago. I decided to go on an adventure and look for a new way to dress up the leftovers! I ended up looking in California Pizza Kitchen’s Family Cookbook where they had a pizza that used a lot of the leftovers that I still had.

            This recipe is extremely versatile and you can make it with whatever leftovers you have from almost any holiday time (my frozen leftovers were from Thanksgiving). It may sound weird, but this pizza was very delicious. I initially scoffed at the idea of topping the pizza with cranberry sauce, but when I tried it on the pizza I ended up adding more to the top of it! It gave the rich cheesy potatoes and stuffing a sweet and tart tang. I will be making this pizza after next year’s holidays, and may even make it the day after (it was really that good!).

Ingredients

            Pizza Dough (I made California Pizza Kitchen’s Honey Wheat Pizza Dough)

            Left over Cheesy potatoes

            Left over Stuffing

            Leftover Turkey (cut into small bit size pieces or smaller)

            Mozzarella Cheese

            Leftover Turkey Gravy

            Leftover Cranberry Sauce (I made homemade Cranberry-Apple Sauce for Thanksgiving)

Directions

1.     Place baking stone or pizza pan in an oven and then preheat to 450 degrees Fahrenheit (make sure the stone/ pan is hot before you put the prepared pizza on it!).

2.     Roll dough to about 9 inch circle (I halved the Honey Wheat Pizza dough).

3.     Heat the potatoes, stuffing, and gravy.

4.     Lightly mash the potatoes if there are large chunks and then carefully spread onto the dough.  Make sure that it does not go completely to the edge so that a crust will appear while baking.

I put a silicon mat under the pizza, so easily put it on my baking stone.

5.     On top of the potatoes add crumbles of the stuffing, top with cheese, then add the turkey pieces on top of the pizza.

6.     Drizzle the gravy on the pizza and then add numerous small “dots” of cranberry sauce to the top of the pizza.  (Remember to put more than you see in my pictures).  Alternatively, if you’re still apprehensive about the cranberry sauce, you can let people decide how much to put on their own pieces.  If you do it this way though, the flavors won’t mix as much.

 

7.     Bake in the preheated oven for about 8- 10 minutes, until crust is golden. Serve with the rest of the cranberry sauce.

Greta is happy to be back in the limelight, and that I am blogging again :)

CPK- Honey Wheat Pizza Dough

This pizza crust is from California Pizza Kitchen, and I always get this crust option when going there. It has an almost nutty taste, and is so delicious. I used this crust when I made the Holiday Leftover Pizza, but could it be made with any pizza recipe.

Honey-Wheat Pizza Dough:

• 1 teaspoon active dry yeast
• 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon warm water (105º-110ºF)
• 1 cup unbleached flour
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons honey
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil

Ingredients

1. Dissolve the yeast in the warm water and set aside for 5 to 10 minutes. 

2. Combine all other ingredients (except the olive oil) in an electric mixer with the paddle versus the dough hook and then mix with the yeast. (Do not pour the salt directly into the yeast water) 

3. Once mixed flour your surface and knead the dough for 5 minutes. 

4. Lightly oil the dough ball with the olive oil and spray a glass bowl with cooking spray. Put the dough in the bowl and seal the bowl with plastic wrap. Set in room temperature room for 1 ½ to 2 hours (to double in size).

This is the unrisen dough (the top picture is after rising for the first time)

5. Punch the dough, re-form into a round ball and put it back into the bowl with plastic wrap. Place the bowl in the fridge overnight.

6. About 2 hours before you want to the make pizza, take the dough from the fridge. Divide the dough into 2 equal sized balls. 

7. Let the dough sit for about 2 hours to double in size again.

Apple Cider and Bacon Sauce

Inspired by Cooking Light

I found this recipe on the cooking light website, and the recipe uses very few ingredients and is quick and easy to make. It tastes very good, and is great for fall/ winter. The first time I made this sauce I used apple juice instead of cider, which I think still turned out as good as the apple cider (make sure to use 100% juice if you use apple juice though). 

As a side note this is a sauce that does not get super thick, so adding a little bit of corn starch will make it thicker if that is what you want. The original recipe serves this sauce on chicken. When I made this recipe for the blog I made the sauce for chicken/ bacon tortellini and pork loin. I preferred it with chicken, so maybe next time I will use the tortellini with chicken instead of pork. Let me know what you pair the sauce with!

Ingredients

• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 slices of bacon
• 1/4 cup onion (chopped fine)
• 3/4 cup apple cider
• 1/2 cup fat-free reduced sodium chicken broth

Directions

1.     Cook bacon until crispy, remove from pan.

2.     Add onions and black pepper to pan, with bacon grease, and cook until tender.

3.     Add cider and broth and boil for about 5 minutes. 

4.     Stir in crumbled bacon

I served the sauce over the tortellini with the cubed pork loin and French Cut Green Beans.

Greta decided to sit out during the cooking of the blog, and was asleep on the couch. Of course as soon as I was ready to eat, she was as well. 

Sweet Potato Brulee

Inspired by Gina's Skinny Recipes

I have been super busy between finals and the holidays that I have gotten very behind on updating my blog. So, to show just how behind I am, I decided to post one of my Thanksgiving recipes, even though Thanksgiving was a long time ago! This recipe is really good, so I think that it will still be good to post even though we’re now past the winter holidays. I found this recipe on one of my favorite Recipe Blogs, which was the place I found the Baked Chicken Nuggets recipe.



This recipe was very easy to make the weekend before Thanksgiving. I then froze it  and then defrosted it in the microwave when I needed it. I made the recipe even easier by using Schwann's Sweet Potatoes, about a 1 1/4 bags worth. These just needed to be put in the microwave and didn't need to be cut or peeled .I added some brown sugar to the sweet potatoes, because I thought they needed to be a little sweeter. The picture above was actually some of the leftover sweet potatoes that I added a little brown sugar to the top in a small ramekin to recreate the dish. I am not a huge fan of leftovers, but doing it this way made the leftover sweet potatoes taste as good as the first time.

Ingredients

• 6 cups sweet potatoes
• 3/4 cup skim milk
• 3 Tbs. light butter
• 1/2 teas. salt
• 1/3 teas. ground cinnamon
• 1 1/4 cup unpacked light brown sugar (divided into 1 cup and 1/4 cup)

Directions

1. Cut sweet Potatoes into small chunks and boil until tender and soft (a fork can easily be inserted into them).

2. Add sweet potatoes, milk, butter, salt, cinnamon and 1/4 cup of the brown sugar and mash together.

3. Add to a 9 by 13 inch pan and add the 1 cup of brown sugar to the top.

4. At this step you have two options to caramelize the brown sugar. Both methods must be done with care in order to not burn the sugar.

Option 1 (easy method): Broil the sweet potatoes under the broiler for a couple minutes (the original recipe says about 2 minutes)

Option 2 (fun method): Use a blow torch and caramelize the sugar.

I got so many compliments from these!

I used these turkeys for place settings, and I thought they were so cute! My Mom and I put them together. If you want to make these follow the easy instructions at Our Best Bites. For the white chocolate version, use golden oreos, white chocolate mini reeses cup, Jordan almonds, and white frosting to hold it all together. If you have anyquestions let me know!! 

The kitchen helper still looking for food (instead she found a step ladder)