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Friday, November 4, 2011

Pepperoni Cheeseball

Everybody like cheese and pepperoni right? Well this is a great for a small get together such as a Superbowl party or when you have a few friends over. Its very simple, and only consists of 5 ingredients including cream cheese, cour cream, pepperoni, Worcestershire sauce, and butter. It is delicious, and I'm sure everyone will want the recipe to try for themselves.















Ingredients:


8 ounces pepperoni sausage
8 ounces cream cheese
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup sour cream


Preparation:


Finely chop pepperoni with a food processor. If you do not have a food processor then a knife is fine. Set the pepperoni to the side. In a medium mixing bowl combine cream cheese, sour cream, butter, and Worcestershire sauce. Using an electric mixer blend these ingredients until all the lumps are gone. Add pepperoni and continue mixing until and the pepperoni is mixed in well.


Depending on how you want your cheese ball, you can either form into small balls and insert a toothpick into each ball. Or you can form into one large ball, I prefer to leave in one large ball. Chill for about 20 minutes, then enjoy with your favorite chip, cracker, or pretzels. I recommend club crackers they seem to work the best.


Enjoy!





Stolen Recipe


Have you ever tried something that is simply so delicious you have to share it with everyone you know! Well this past weekend I came across this recipe for this delicious syrup, why you may ask was I looking for a syrup recipe well it was quite early saturday morning and I had already started making the kids French toast when I realized we were almost out of syrup O_o not a good thing and me being the lazy person I am on the weekends did not want to drive all the way across town to get syrup. Besides by the time I got home with the syrup the French toast would have been extremely cold and then nobody would want it eat it! (ok maybe I'm stretching it a little the kids would have still ate it) so I guess I'm just lazy! without further ado here is the recipe http://www.creationsbykara.com/2011/02/buttermilk-caramel-syrup.html enjoy everyone you must try this and I mean immediately let me know how it turns out!!!

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Best Meal Ever (Guest Post)

Our first guest post from Mainly Braids She does great meal plans as well!
This meal looks delicious hope you enjoy and make sure to visit her site and show her some love!


Have you ever had a meal that was so delicious that you just wanted to fix a plate for everyone you know and share it with them? I had just that meal last night. I’ve been in a funk lately and we’ve been eating out more than our usual and that’s not cool! I also felt bad for snapping on my poor ol husband so I decided I’d make a special dinner last night to surprise him. He loooooves lasagna but I never let him fix it because he goes crazy and buys like $70 worth of cheese… umm NO THANK YOU! Lol I’ve never made a lasagna before and was a lil timid but I set out to finding some good recipes. Eventually I settled on one, but of course, I couldn’t follow the recipe exact but still, it came out soooooooooooooo good!



Seriously the best lasagna EVER.

Ingredients
 1 pound Ground Beef
  1 pound Hot Breakfast Sausage (jimmy dean)
  4 cloves Garlic, Minced
  2 cans (14.5 Ounce) Whole Tomatoes
  2 cans (6 Ounce) Tomato Paste
  2 Tablespoons Dried Parsley
  2 Tablespoons Dried Basil
  1 teaspoon Salt (for meat mix)
  3 cups Lowfat Cottage Cheese
  2 whole Beaten Eggs
  1/2 cup shredded Parmesan Cheese
  2 Tablespoons Dried Parsley
  1 teaspoon Salt (for egg/cheese mix)
  2 cups Italian blend cheese
  1 package (10 Ounce) oven ready Lasagna Noodles

Preparation Instructions

-In a large skillet or saucepan, combine ground beef, sausage, and garlic. Cook over medium-high heat until browned. Drain about half of the fat. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, 2 tablespoons parsley, basil and salt. After adding the tomatoes, the sauce mixture should simmer for 45 minutes while you are working on the other steps.

-In a medium bowl, mix cottage cheese, beaten eggs, grated Parmesan, 2 more tablespoons parsley, and 1 more teaspoon salt. Stir together well. Set aside.

To assemble:
Arrange 4 lasagna noodles in the bottom of a baking pan, overlapping if necessary. Spoon half the cottage cheese mixture over the noodles. Spread evenly. Cover cottage cheese with a layer of mozzarella cheese. Spoon a little less than half the meat/sauce mixture over the top.

Repeat, ending with meat/sauce mixture. Sprinkle top generously with extra Parmesan.
Bake in 350-degree oven for 20 to 30 minutes, or until top is hot and bubbly. (you can also freeze this)

adapted from the pioneer woman



I also served this meal with garlic parmesan pull apart bread.

Garlic parm pull apart bread
Yields 1 loaf
2 teaspoons active dry yeast 
1 1/3 cups barely warm water 

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 
2 teaspoons salt 
3 1/2 cups all purpose (or bread) flour 
1/4 cup butter, melted 
1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes 
2 cloves garlic, minced 
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the yeast and water. Let sit 5 minutes until yeast is foamy. Mix in the olive oil, salt, and flour. If you have a stand mixer, attach the dough hook and knead the dough for 5-6 minutes, or until elastic. If you are doing this by hand, knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until dough is elastic, 7-10 minutes. Transfer dough to a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a clean kitchen towel. Allow to rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until dough is doubled in size.
In a small bowl, combine melted butter, parsley flakes, and minced garlic. Set aside.
Punch down the dough. Tear off small pieces of dough (roughly the size of the bowl of a medium spoon), coat in the butter mixture, and place in the bottom of a bundt pan. Repeat this process until you have one layer of dough balls. Sprinkle on 1/3 of the Parmesan cheese. Continue layering the dough balls and cheese until you have 3 layers. Cover the pan with a clean towel and allow to sit until dough has doubled in size, 20-30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until bread is golden brown. 



*note, I do not have a bundt pan but this recipe still works. I did find during a google search that you can just use a round cake pan and put a tin can or a ramekin in the center. Also, next time I probably won’t add cheese to the top until it’s almost completely done. The cheese was a little too hard for my liking, but still good none the less.*


For veggies I added a simple side salad which consisted of spinach leaves, romaine lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, scallions, almonds and topped with sun dried tomato vinaigrette.
  

This meal was sooooooo dang good. So good in fact that nobody spoke during dinner, not even my kids which is rare! Also so good that the hubs called his friend to ask if he wanted some for lunch today! If you’ve had a fight with your spouse/significant other, fix this. If you want your significant other to pop the question, fix this. If you want your spouse to take you on a romantic vacation, fix this. If you want your friends and family to think you are a super genius master chef, fix this. If all else fails, fix this! Just… go fix this! Lol. It was super easy to fix, I was able to have everything prepped and ready to bake in an hour. After we picked the hubs up from worked I popped it in the oven for 30 minutes and we were ready to eat. 


looks delicious right? it was!


it wasn't overly expensive to make either, i spent a total of $30 for everything. i have enough noodles left to make another one. i also had to buy eggs and yeast. i have 10 eggs left and a whole jar of yeast left so that makes me happy. this made enough for all of us to have a nice sized serving, enough for lunch for my husband and his friend AND enough for dinner tonight. it is very filling!



I'm def trying this thank you Mainly Braids For these great looking recipes, hope to have more post from you!

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Crispy Cheddar Chicken with Creamy sauce & Hassleback Potatoes

How yummy does this look? This was super simple to make and doesn't require many ingredients to make this meal all I used was

6 baking potatoes
2lbs of boneless skinless chicken breast
1/2 c. sour cream
16 oz can Cream of Chicken soup
salt
pepper
olive oil
2tbls butter
sharp cheddar cheese
1 pack ritz crackers
1 c milk

Cut Chicken breast into small nugget size pieces I recommend using kitchen shears instead of a knife as they cut through the meat easier


put milk, cheese and crackers crushed up into 3 seperate bowls, season chicken with salt and pepper, then dip in this order, milk, cheese, crackers. place on a greased baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees until golden brown and crispy


Cut potatoes through partially do not cut into the bottom of the potatoes pour melted butter over potatoes and sprinkle with sea salt and pepper then drizzle with olive oil bake at 350 degrees until soft

when the chicken and the potatoes are almost done you can start the sauce by pouring the cream of chicken soup into a larg sauce pan add butter and sour cream and mix until hot season to desired taste.

This is what the potatoes look like when they are finished without the sauce on them

This meal was super delicious and I love how easy it was to make the kids really enjoyed it and so did the man of the house. We would love your feedback and if you try this recipe we would love to know!!!

-CB