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)