This was so good I had to enter it in the blog right away before I forget how I did it.
First I put water on to boil. Then I sprayed a large saute pan with the new pan olive oil mist. I sauteed about a tablespoon of chopped garlic - i buy the jar of prechopped garlic - for a few minutes. Then I added 1 pkg (6 pieces) boneless/skinless chicken thighs cut into bit sized pieces and seasoned with salt. This could also be done with 4 frozen chicken breasts - the would have to be cooked in some water until defrosted enough to cut into bite sized pieces and then cooked through and until liquid was reduced. While those are cooking I added 2 cups of whole wheat rotini to the boiling water. When the chicken is cooked through turn the heat down to low. After 5 minutes add about 3 TB of margarine (I use smart balance) and 1/3 of a package of low fat cream cheese and stir into chicken as it melts. Add 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese and 2 tablespoons of light sour cream.
When pasta is cooked mix it into chicken mixture right in the pan. I also added some cooked frozen broccoli to mine - but the BF wasn't havin' it. This is low-fat - except for the cheese - and you could probably use less.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
Chicken pepperkash
Recently I realized you can make some pretty good 'cream' sauces using low-fat or fat-free sour cream. Chicken paprikash and beef stroganoff were not staples in my house growing up because my mother considers sour cream to be the devil's work, along with yogurt, mayonnaise, cream cheese, and ranch dressing. Yet she eats blue cheese dressing - go figure. The BF has the same aversions, leading them to believe they are long lost cousins or something. However, unlike my mother, the BF is easily fooled. The BF hates sour cream - but has loved all of these.
If you serve my mom a cream sauce she will go hunting in the trash hunting for proof that an offending product was used. The furthest I have gotten is some chicken marinated in yogurt. That was only after she ate it in an Indian restaurant without realizing how it was prepared.
I wish I would have realized sour cream could be used this way a long time ago. I also think you could incorporate some cream cheese or lite cream cheese for all or part of the sour cream, but I haven't tried that yet.
From a few cookbooks I came up with this variation and gave it my own name:
Chicken Pepperkash:
In a large saute pan place 2-3 chicken breasts seasoned with salt and pepper. I used frozen so that is what I will describe here. I love recipes that allow you to use chicken breasts right out of the freezer. Open one jar of roasted red peppers in olive oil with garlic. Pour the oil/juice onto the chicken. Add about a half cup of chopped onions. Cook over med high until the chicken is thawed enough to cut into bite sized pieces. I use tongs and a knife and cut the chicken right in the pan. Continue cooking until most of the liquid has evaporated and chicken and onions are starting to sizzle a little. Turn heat down to low. Place about 3/4 cup of sour cream and the roasted peppers in a food processor and puree until smooth. Add sour cream mixture to pan, combine well and allow sauce to heat. The key is not to let the sour cream boil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve over pasta with parm or romano cheese.
I am also including the beef stroganoff and chicken paprikash recipes I made because they truned out really well. Next I will try pork chops with lots of mushrooms over noodles - my mom always made that with cream of mushroom soup, but I am a purest and I hate cooking with canned soup.
Beef Stroganoff:
season 3 small steaks (inexpensive ones)with salt and pepper and cut into strips. Place in large saute pan and brown in a small amount of oil. When steak is done remove and add 1/2 cup onions. I always use the frozen chopped onions - I haven't cried in my kitchen in a long time. When the onions are beginning to brown add 2 small cans of mushrooms (drained) or i pkg fresh sliced mushrooms. When everything is looking nice and brown add steak back and add about 1 cup of sour cream - more or less depending how creamy you want it to be. Serve with pasta or rice. I think this would be good with some peas included, but I love peas so I may not be a good judge.
Chicken Paprikash:
Place 3-4 frozen chicken breasts, seasoned with salt and pepper, in a saute pan with 1/2 cup water. Cook until water evaporates and chicken is defrosted enough to cut into bite sized pieces. Add a small amount of oil and 1/2 cup frozen onions. Brown chicken and onions. Turn heat to low and add a generous amount of paprika - I add around 2 tablespoons.
Add 1 cup sour cream - more or less to taste. Stir until sauce is heated through. Serve with pasta or rice.
If you serve my mom a cream sauce she will go hunting in the trash hunting for proof that an offending product was used. The furthest I have gotten is some chicken marinated in yogurt. That was only after she ate it in an Indian restaurant without realizing how it was prepared.
I wish I would have realized sour cream could be used this way a long time ago. I also think you could incorporate some cream cheese or lite cream cheese for all or part of the sour cream, but I haven't tried that yet.
From a few cookbooks I came up with this variation and gave it my own name:
Chicken Pepperkash:
In a large saute pan place 2-3 chicken breasts seasoned with salt and pepper. I used frozen so that is what I will describe here. I love recipes that allow you to use chicken breasts right out of the freezer. Open one jar of roasted red peppers in olive oil with garlic. Pour the oil/juice onto the chicken. Add about a half cup of chopped onions. Cook over med high until the chicken is thawed enough to cut into bite sized pieces. I use tongs and a knife and cut the chicken right in the pan. Continue cooking until most of the liquid has evaporated and chicken and onions are starting to sizzle a little. Turn heat down to low. Place about 3/4 cup of sour cream and the roasted peppers in a food processor and puree until smooth. Add sour cream mixture to pan, combine well and allow sauce to heat. The key is not to let the sour cream boil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve over pasta with parm or romano cheese.
I am also including the beef stroganoff and chicken paprikash recipes I made because they truned out really well. Next I will try pork chops with lots of mushrooms over noodles - my mom always made that with cream of mushroom soup, but I am a purest and I hate cooking with canned soup.
Beef Stroganoff:
season 3 small steaks (inexpensive ones)with salt and pepper and cut into strips. Place in large saute pan and brown in a small amount of oil. When steak is done remove and add 1/2 cup onions. I always use the frozen chopped onions - I haven't cried in my kitchen in a long time. When the onions are beginning to brown add 2 small cans of mushrooms (drained) or i pkg fresh sliced mushrooms. When everything is looking nice and brown add steak back and add about 1 cup of sour cream - more or less depending how creamy you want it to be. Serve with pasta or rice. I think this would be good with some peas included, but I love peas so I may not be a good judge.
Chicken Paprikash:
Place 3-4 frozen chicken breasts, seasoned with salt and pepper, in a saute pan with 1/2 cup water. Cook until water evaporates and chicken is defrosted enough to cut into bite sized pieces. Add a small amount of oil and 1/2 cup frozen onions. Brown chicken and onions. Turn heat to low and add a generous amount of paprika - I add around 2 tablespoons.
Add 1 cup sour cream - more or less to taste. Stir until sauce is heated through. Serve with pasta or rice.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Bacon Cheese Whole Wheat Biscuits
Bacon and Cheese - and these actually aren't bad for you!
Anyway, these are really good served with scrambled eggs.
Makes 12 biscuits. Sorry no picture - the BF finished them off before I got a chance.
Ingredients:
6 slices Turkey Bacon, cooked and crumbled
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 ½ tsp salt
3 tablespoons flax seeds (optional)
1 tablespoon baking powder
4 tablespoons cold margarine - i used a "Promise" stick
1 cup buttermilk or skim milk
½ cup shredded low-fat process American cheese - i used velveeta which is kind of gross - but tastes good
Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 450°F. Spray baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray; set aside or use a Silpat.
2. Combine whole wheat flour, 3 tablespoons, baking powder, in medium bowl. Cut in margarine with pastry blender or two knives until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add bacon, milk and American cheese; stir until just combined.
3. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 1 inch apart onto prepared baking sheet. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown. Remove immediately from baking sheet. Serve warm.
Anyway, these are really good served with scrambled eggs.
Makes 12 biscuits. Sorry no picture - the BF finished them off before I got a chance.
Ingredients:
6 slices Turkey Bacon, cooked and crumbled
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 ½ tsp salt
3 tablespoons flax seeds (optional)
1 tablespoon baking powder
4 tablespoons cold margarine - i used a "Promise" stick
1 cup buttermilk or skim milk
½ cup shredded low-fat process American cheese - i used velveeta which is kind of gross - but tastes good
Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 450°F. Spray baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray; set aside or use a Silpat.
2. Combine whole wheat flour, 3 tablespoons, baking powder, in medium bowl. Cut in margarine with pastry blender or two knives until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add bacon, milk and American cheese; stir until just combined.
3. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 1 inch apart onto prepared baking sheet. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown. Remove immediately from baking sheet. Serve warm.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Valentine's Ice Storm Breakfast
We had an Ice Storm on Feb. 13. We were at work and my friend had her daughter with her due to a snow day, she was facing a very long commute home in the deteriorating conditions. So we all hoped on a bus, leaving my friend's car behind, and came to my house for the night. We watched some cartoon network and made some cut-out cookies (which I did not get a picture of). A desire for Green Eggs & Ham was voiced several times throughout the evening.
I had no ham, but plenty of green food coloring and a heart shaped cookie cutter.
Personally, I coudln't stomach the green eggs so I went with the natural yellow.
We made it in to work on the 14th to deliver our cookies to everyone and spent at least an hour digging her car out.
I can't wait for spring!
Conversation Hearts Mini-Cakes
This is a pourable fondant project from the Wilton Site that I tried out.
Basically you bake a cake in a jelly roll pan and then cut out heart shapes. Ice with some buttercream and then pour colored fondant over the cakes. Finally you write the sayings in red icing. Sounded easy enough.
Since it is Valentine's I made these with extra spicy Gingerbread cake for the BF.
Also I had buttermilk left over from the baseball cake. The colors didn't quite turn out to be the pastel shades I was aiming for, but they are still pretty cute. The cake was delicious, the icing was a little sweet for my taste, but they were a big hit with everyone. Especially my surprise overnight visitor on the Valentines Eve.
BUTTERMILK GINGERBREAD
1/4 cup softened butter
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup molasses
1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground caradamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup buttermilk
Line jelly roll pan with parchment paper leaving a 1 inch overhang for lifting the cake out later. Then spray the parchment with baking spray containing flour.
Combine butter, sugar, egg, and molasses and beat with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Mix flour well with soda and spices. Add alternately with buttermilk to molasses mixture, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Pour into jelly roll pan. Bake at 3500F for 30 minutes.
(If you don't want to use this recipe for this project reduce the buttermilk to 1/2 cup and use a 9 inch pan.)
Allow cake to cool and remove cake from pan using the overhangs of the parchment paper. Use a heart cookie cutter to cut out little heart cakes.
Quick "Buttercream"
for the first layer of icing I just beat together 1 cup of powdered sugar with 1/2 cup of butter
Pourable Fondant
Ingredients:
6 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted (1 1/2 lbs.)
1/2 cup water (4 ounces)
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 tsp vanilla
gel icing colors
Place sugar in saucepan. Combine water and corn syrup. Add to sugar and stir until well mixed. Place over low heat. Don't allow temperature of fondant to exceed 100°F. Remove from heat, stir in flavor and divide in Icing Color. I attempted to generate pink purple and pastel green, but they weren't quite pastel. To cover cake, place cake or cookies on cooling grid over a drip pan. Pour fondant into center and work towards edges. Touch up bare spots with spatula. Let set. Excess fondant can be reheated.
I used purchased red gel icing to write the words, it didn't hold up after a day or two. Royal Icing would have worked better, but I wasn't sure if I could get it red enough.
Buttered Pecan Cookies
I gave up chocolate for lent and instantly started craving buttered pecans. I came up with this recipe by replacing the chocolate chips and walnuts in a chocolate chip cookie recipe with butterscotch chips and pecans. The butterscotch and the pecans go so well together -just like in butter pecan ice cream. Next time I would chop the butterscotch chips to get them more distributed through the cookie and actually add even more nuts, and possibly chop a little less. Maybe that is just because I am on a huge pecan kick, I don't know.
These are so good I though surely someone else had thought of this before, but in a quick Internet search I didn't find anything like this.
3/4 cup Crisco
1 & 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 Tbs milk
1 Tb vanilla
1 egg
1 & 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 cup butterscotch chips
1 cup pecans, chopped
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Award Winning Brownies
Last fall I won a brownie bake-off at a local chocolate festival. So I figured this 'signature' recipe of mine should be one of the first I include in this blog. Basically these are extra chocolatey due to the use of Hershey's Special Dark cocoa and I used the recipe for the filling of my grandmother's nut tassies and spread it over the top of the brownie batter. These really are good - I knew I had a winner when I brought the test batch into work and not only were they gone - my office mates dug into the box I was planning to take to the post office for a friend. These were also featured in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
I will add a picture next time I make a batch.
1st Place Brownies
Brownies
2 sticks butter
2 c sugar
2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
¾ c Cocoa
(Hershey’s Special Dark)
1 c flour
½ tsp b. powder
¼ tsp salt
Nut topping
3 eggs beaten
3 Tb melted butter
3 tsp vanilla
2 ¼ c brown sugar
¾ tsp salt
3 c finely chopped walnuts
Preheat oven to 350
Grease 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking pan
Melt butter in microwave, cool to room temp.
Stir in sugar and vanilla.
Beat in eggs one at a time.
Beat in cocoa.
Beat in flour, baking powder and ¼ tsp salt
Pour into prepared pan
Combine all ingredients for nut topping except for walnuts and mix thoroughly. Fold in walnuts.
Drizzle nut topping over brownie batter, being careful to completely cover edges. Some of the topping will leak over to create a caramelized bottom on the brownie.
Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes until toothpick comes out with fudgey crumbs.
For neatly cut brownies, score the brownies shortly after removed from the oven.
Cool completely, then finish cutting.
Yields 24-30
I will add a picture next time I make a batch.
1st Place Brownies
Brownies
2 sticks butter
2 c sugar
2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
¾ c Cocoa
(Hershey’s Special Dark)
1 c flour
½ tsp b. powder
¼ tsp salt
Nut topping
3 eggs beaten
3 Tb melted butter
3 tsp vanilla
2 ¼ c brown sugar
¾ tsp salt
3 c finely chopped walnuts
Preheat oven to 350
Grease 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking pan
Melt butter in microwave, cool to room temp.
Stir in sugar and vanilla.
Beat in eggs one at a time.
Beat in cocoa.
Beat in flour, baking powder and ¼ tsp salt
Pour into prepared pan
Combine all ingredients for nut topping except for walnuts and mix thoroughly. Fold in walnuts.
Drizzle nut topping over brownie batter, being careful to completely cover edges. Some of the topping will leak over to create a caramelized bottom on the brownie.
Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes until toothpick comes out with fudgey crumbs.
For neatly cut brownies, score the brownies shortly after removed from the oven.
Cool completely, then finish cutting.
Yields 24-30
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