Fake Ginger

Farfalle with Bacon and Endives

amanda — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

I have to be honest with y’all.

I haven’t been cooking or baking lately. Last night I cooked for the first time in a week. We have been going out every night because my husband won’t tell me what he wants to eat in his last little bit of time at home. So I thought about what I would want if the situation was reversed and I was going to be living off MREs for the next 9 months, and decided that I’d want to stuff myself with burritos the size of my head and drive-thru Chinese food before leaving. Home cooked meals? Psssh! I’d totally miss restaurants.

But the day before Valentine’s Day, this showed up on my doorstep:

It’s a bouquet of endives! How stinkin’ cute is it?!

Before those showed up, I’d never given endives much thought and I don’t think I’d ever tried one. But I couldn’t just let them go to waste.

So that’s how I ended up cooking after a week of not turning my stove on. (Except to boil coffee. Which my husband says doesn’t count as cooking, no matter how much I insist it does.)

The great thing about this pasta is that it’s really creamy without using any cream! You take a quart of chicken broth and boil it down – it gets really thick and makes your house smell amazing. Then at the end you stir in just a little Parmesan. Seriously good. If you have endives you don’t know what to do with, I definitely recommend this.

This was one of those recipes that could’ve gone either way with my husband but he LOVED it. As we speak, the leftovers are packed in his work bag so he can eat it for breakfast today.

Farfalle with Bacon and Endives

adapted from Food & Wine

Ingredients

1 quart chicken broth
1 pound farfalle
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 pound thickly sliced bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
3 medium Belgian endives, cored and sliced 1 inch thick
3 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/4 cup parsley, coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper

Instructions

In a medium saucepan, boil the chicken broth over high heat until reduced to about 1 cup, approximately 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the farfalle until al dente.
In a large skillet, heat the olive oil. Add the bacon and cook over moderately low heat until slightly crisp. Transfer the bacon to paper towels to drain. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the fat. Add the endives to the skillet and cook over medium high heat, stirring, until the endives are just wilted but still crisp, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and cook just until fragrant, about 20 seconds.
Drain the farfalle and add it to the skillet. Add the reduced chicken broth, parsley, lemon zest and bacon and toss well. Remove from the heat. Stir in the Parmesan and season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a large bowl and hot with extra Parmesan sprinkled on top.

Salted Caramel and Peanut Banana Bread

amanda — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

I made this ah-mazing banana bread with caramel and peanuts and coconut but… you have to go visit Not Rachael Ray to check it out!

Thai Chicken Quesadillas

amanda — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

In my time as a military spouse, I’ve come to the conclusion that us spouses come in 2 varieties when it comes to facing short separations.

First up, you’ve got your spouse that dreads the separation from the moment she hears about it. At any given moment she can tell you exactly how many hours until he returns. Daily Facebook posts proclaiming how much she misses and/or loves her husband may happen.

Then there’s the other variety.

The ones that use the separation as sort of a “vacation” from real life. They only do laundry once a week since there are no PTs to wash every night, they cook whatever they want, and they might even buy zebra print trashcans for their bathrooms just because their husbands aren’t there to say no.

I’m in the 2nd group. Although I’m sure my husband wishes I was in the first because we now have animal print in every room of our house. Every room.

I made these quesadillas when my husband was gone last week. Peanut sauce is number 1 on the (very short) list of foods he refuses to eat so I’ve been waiting and waiting to give these a try and they were worth the wait. I don’t love peanut sauce and I kind of hate bean sprouts but for some reason this recipe called to me and I’m so glad it did.

All the flavors and textures just worked in this. The super crisp bean sprouts were the perfect contrast to the creamy mozzarella and all the peanut sauce I used for dipping. Since I made these originally, I’ve done it a few more times without the chicken and it’s every bit as delicious. You could also do tofu, thinly sliced beef, whatever you want!

(Peanut sauce is available in just about every grocery store, in the Asian foods section. I know Target also has one in their Archer Farms brand. Or you could make your own! There are tons of recipes out there.)

Thai Chicken Quesadillas

2.0 from 1 reviews

from Gimme Some Oven

Ingredients

flour tortillas
peanut sauce, store-bought or homemade
cooked and shredded chicken
green onions, thinly sliced
carrots, thinly sliced
bean sprouts
mozzarella cheese, shredded
salted peanuts
fresh cilantro

Instructions

Lay out one tortilla on a flat working surface, and spread with desired amount of peanut sauce. Sprinkle with the chicken, green onions, carrots, bean sprouts, mozzarella, peanuts and cilantro. Drizzle a bit more peanut sauce on top. Place another tortilla on top and gently press together so it doesn’t fall apart on you.
Heat a skillet or grill pan over medium-high heat. Gently transfer tortilla to the pan. Cook for about 2 minutes, and then carefully flip over and cook for another 2 minutes (or until tortilla begins to brown and cheese is melted).

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Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

amanda — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

I found my go-to chewy chocolate chip cookie recipe years ago but I still can’t resist trying new ones whenever I see them named the best ever. I mean, those are big claims.

This recipe uses cornstarch to give the cookies their almost-fluffy texture. And it works wonderfully! They were like little pillows of chocolate chip goodness. I made them one morning and was so glad I didn’t procrastinate on photos because they were GONE as soon as my husband and one of his buddies walked in for lunch. They inhaled them.

If you like you chocolate chip cookies chewy, you will love these! This recipe is definitely on my list of favorite cookies.

One year ago: Banana Whoopie Pies with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting
Two years ago: Slow Cooker Bourbon Chicken

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yield: about 3 dozen cookies

from Apple A Day

Ingredients

3/4 c. unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or with a hand mixer), cream together butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and mix.
Sift in flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt. Mix until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips using a rubber spatula.
Drop dough, using a tablespoon, onto a prepared baking sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes, just until the edges start to brown. The insides will not brown.
Transfer the sheet to a wire rack and let cool for about 5 minutes before removing from pan.

Secret Recipe Club – Chicken Lettuce Wraps

amanda — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

After a short break, Secret Recipe Club is back! This month I was assigned to Cooking with Chopin, Living with Elmo, a delicious blog written by a fellow mom of young boys.

My husband has been talking about lettuce wraps lately (and wanted one so badly that he made a bologna wrap one day. Yeah…) so when I stumbled across her recipe for Chicken & Red Pepper Lettuce Wraps, I was pretty excited. It’s very different from our usual wraps but I knew it would be a winner. Put bell peppers in anything and my husband would eat it.

We really did love this one. The orange zest gave it an unexpected brightness that went amazingly well with the heaviness of the hoisin sauce. And it’s just so fun to wrap stuff in lettuce wraps!

Secret Recipe Club – Chicken Lettuce Wraps

5.0 from 1 reviews

adapted from Cooking with Chopin, Living with Elmo

Ingredients

1 head iceberg lettuce
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
Salt and ground pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon dried ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon orange peel
1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
1 8-ounce can water chestnuts
1 teaspoon cornstarch, mixed with 1 tablespoons water
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoons hoisin sauce

Instructions

Cut base off of lettuce heads. Gently peel off leaves, wash, and pat dry with paper towels. Refrigerate until ready to serve the dish.
Season chicken well with salt and pepper.
In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon oil over high heat. Add the chicken; cook, stirring constantly, until opaque throughout, 6 to 8 minutes. Transfer to a plate.
Add remaining 1 tablespoons of oil to pan, along with the onion and bell pepper. Reduce heat to medium. Cook, stirring constantly, until onion is tender and golden, about 6 minutes.
Add garlic, ginger, orange peel, and red-pepper flakes and water chestnuts; cook, stirring, until fragrant, 30 to 60 seconds.
While garlic/ginger mixture is cooking, whisk the cornstarch and water together in a bowl. Add in the soy sauce, vinegar, and hoisin sauce; whisk.
Pour cornstarch mixture over garlic/ginger mixture. Reduce heat to low. Add chicken to pan and toss to coat.
Serve the chicken mixture wrapped in the lettuce leaves.

Fried Pickles

amanda — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

One last Superbowl idea for you!

I don’t usually like doing fried foods when I’m entertaining. They take a lot of time and since you can’t really do them ahead of time, you wind up spending most of your time standing over the stove.

But as we all know, fried foods are almost always crowd-pleasers! These fried pickles take no time at all so they’re perfect for cooking up right as your guests are walking through the door

And umm… fried pickles? One of man’s greatest inventions!

(I am never going to get rid of that Natural Light that my husband’s friends left in my fridge. I’ve been cooking with it at least once a week but it seems to be multiplying. Send beer recipes.)

Fried Pickles

5.0 from 1 reviews

Ingredients

2 cups pickles, drained and patted dry
1 egg
1 – 1 1/4 cup beer
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
oil, for frying

Instructions

Pour oil into a heavy pot, a couple inches high. Heat over medium-high.
Whisk together egg, 1 cup beer, flour, and salt until smooth. If batter is too thick, add in the other 1/4 cup beer.
Once oil is hot, dip pickles, one at a time, in the batter. Allow excess batter to drip off and then drop the pickles in the oil. Fry until golden brown, about 2 minutes on each side.

Buffalo Chicken Dip

amanda — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

So I chose a side.

I’m officially rooting for the Giants. Mostly because of my husband’s man-crush on Tom Brady. I like to aggravate him.

I’m going to watch the game. Mostly because Pam scolded me when I told her I wasn’t.

I’ve got a snack planned even though my husband won’t be here to partake. Mostly because the original post of that snack was lost when one of my plugins went wild a couple months back. And by lost I mean I deleted it when I got tired of transferring recipes. Whoops.

But about this dip?

Buffalo chicken dip is the thing to do these days. Everyone and their mom makes it and blogs about it. At one point, it was our every-weekend football snack. I, of course, got sick of it and haven’t made it in probably 3 years. But oh my gosh, it’s so good! Borderline addictive.

I serve this with pita chips & tortilla chips but pitas are so much better. Also, those little round pita chips? No bueno. It’s worth it to take all 3 of your children to the 4th store of the day to find Stacy’s brand.

Start with 1/2 cup of hot sauce and taste before adding more. I used to add an entire bottle of the stuff but I can’t handle all that these days!

Two years ago: Bacon Mushroom Mac & Cheese

Buffalo Chicken Dip

5.0 from 1 reviews

Ingredients

1 (8-ounce) block cream cheese
1 cup ranch dressing
1/2 – 3/4 cup Frank’s Red Hot sauce
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, cooked and shredded
1 cup Colby Jack cheese

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F.
Put cream cheese in a small saucepan over low heat. Stir until melted completely. Stir in ranch dressing, Frank’s Red Hot, and chicken. Transfer to a baking dish.
Bake until bubbly, about 15 minutes. Top with cheese and bake just until cheese is melted, about 10 minutes.

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Football Cupcakes

amanda — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

I know I said that I’m feeling the Superbowl this year but you didn’t think I would leave you without fun ideas, did you?

These cute little football cupcakes are perfect for any Superbowl party! I mean, who doesn’t love cupcakes?! And they couldn’t be any easier. I actually used a boxed mix because cupcakes haven’t been my friend since we moved to 6,000 feet. (The boxed mixes have high altitude directions and always work perfectly.) I also used canned frosting because… well, butter is expensive and canned frosting is cheap!

So the whole project took less than an hour!

To frost football cupcakes: Use a small star tip (I used 21 from Wilton) to pipe chocolate lines back and forth across the cupcakes. You want the lines to be touching but not on top of each other. Use a small round tip (I used 6 from Wilton) to pipe white lines across across the chocolate frosting to make it look like a football.

If you want to make your own cupcakes, I’ve got a vanilla bean cupcake recipe with the best vanilla frosting and an awesome chocolate frosting recipe.

This post linked to Fusion Fridays.

Baked Chicken Taquitos

amanda — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Other than doughnuts, I really don’t like baked food that’s traditionally fried. I know… healthier, easier, blah blah blah. I just don’t dig it. Don’t give me chicken and call it oven-fried. That chicken is baked. Baked, not fried.

I tried to bake wonton wrappers once. Huge disaster. I sat on the counter stuffing Oreos down my throat, crying over my half uncooked and half burnt wonton wrappers.

But anyway.

These taquitos went around the blog world 15 times last year and I ignored them because they were baked instead of fried. But then they popped up again all over everyone’s “Best of 2011″ posts. Of course I had to see what all the fuss was about.

They turned out fantastic! My tortillas didn’t crisp up 100% but they were crispy enough. The filling was delicious and they couldn’t have been easier. My 4 year old (almost 5!!) claims he doesn’t like tacos or burritos or anything like that but he ate at least 3 of these. Definite success!

Baked Chicken Taquitos

Yield: about 12 taquitos

from Annie’s Eats

Ingredients

3 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup salsa
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1-2 green onions, chopped
2 cups shredded cooked chicken
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
10-12 6-inch flour tortillas
Cooking spray
Kosher salt

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 425F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the cream cheese, salsa, lime juice, spices, cilantro, green onions, chicken and shredded cheese. Mix thoroughly until well combined.
Briefly heat the tortillas in the microwave to make them soft enough to roll easily, about 20-3o seconds. Place a tortilla on a work surface. Spoon 2-3 tablespoons of the filling mixture down the middle of the tortilla. Roll the tortilla up tightly around the filling. Place seam-side down on a baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining tortillas and filling, spacing the assembled taquitos evenly on the baking sheet. Spray the tops lightly with cooking spray and sprinkle with a pinch of kosher salt.
Bake 15-20 minutes, until crisp and golden brown. Serve with sour cream and salsa, if desired.

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Superbowl Snacks

amanda — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

I have to admit that I’m not really into the Superbowl this year. My teams are out (although I have to say that one of my teams was never really in. Ahem…) so the game will most likely just be background noise for me.

But I’m always looking for excuses to make fun snacks! Here’s a round-up of some of my favs!

Spicy Pecan Cheeseball

7 Layer Dip

Jalapeno Popper Dip

Pretzel Dogs

Spicy Sausage and Bean Nachos

Avocado Feta Salsa

Bacon Cheeseball

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