Cookbook Challenge: Week 9

From the Williams Sonoma Comfort Foods cookbook, we made Chicken Enchiladas with Tomatillo Sauce.

This recipe looked haaaaard, so we cheated a bit. Well, that's not entirely why we cheated - Martin's (at least the Stony Point one) doesn't carry tomatillos, so I bought pre-made sauce. Does that make me a horrible person? No.

I cooked the chicken in my Pampered Chef Deep Covered Baker while sauteeing some onions. When both were done I diced and combined them into 1 bowl. In another bowl was the tomatillo sauce.

To assemble the enchiladas:

• Dave spread a thin layer of tomatillo sauce on the tortilla, followed by a thin layer of pepper jack cheese
• I added a heaping spoonful of chicken and onions to half the tortilla, added a swirl of Sriracha, and rolled it up
• As I rolled some chicken and onions spread toward the empty side
• Once they were fully rolled I put them, seam side down, into a 9x13 casserole dish
• Repeat 5 times to get 6 enchiladas...

Once we had all the kids in the casserole dish, I poured the extra chicken and onion mixture on top just so we wouldn't waste any, and then poured the rest of the tomatillo sauce evenly on top. Lastly, we covered the whole thing with mozzarella cheese and threw it in the oven for ~15 minutes, just to melt the cheese and make sure everything was nice and hot.

Once the cheese was gooey and golden brown on the edges, we scooped out 2 enchiladas each and topped with sour cream.

I want to eat this for every meal for the rest of my life! That's not possible, but it sure does sound nice.

Cookbook Challenge: Week 8

Next up is Creamy Lemon-Pesto Chicken & Linguine, from the Pampered Chef Deep Covered Baker cookbook.

Everything we've tried from this book so far has been excellent!  The DCB is my new favorite cooking apparatus - you can make baked potatoes in 20 minutes, cook a chicken breats in 4 1/2 - it's amazing!

image credit

Ours did not look like the stock photo, and I'll save you a photo of it.  The one from Pampered Chef's Facebook page (above) looks much. Trust me.

Cookbook Challenge: Week 5

Back to the Sur La Table Simple Comforts book, this week we made Herb Corn Bread.

We decided to have a classy dinner: corn bread, topped with sloppy joes, further topped with cheese. Yum.

Cookbook Challenge: Week 4

Yeah, we're behind - you'll notice weeks 6 and 7 were completed before 4 and 5. So I decided as long as we complete 52 recipes, it's a win. ;) Lowering expectations...

This week's recipe is Riccota and Spinach Calzone, from the Williams Sonoma Comfort Food book:

I put Dave on dinner duty, and he did a fine job! Next time I think we'll add more cheese because the filling was verrrry spinach-heavy. I like cheese.

It worked!

Remember when I took some green onion roots after we used them and tried to grow more onions? I was doubtful I'd be successful because of my black thumb, but it worked! I'll take my lapel pin now ;)

After a few days of allowing them to sit on the sill and soak up the sunshine and water, we had a good inch of growth, and about a week later (maybe 0 days total) we had full stalks!

The new growth was so much stronger than the ones we bought at the store - they always seem flimsy or floppy to me, but these were crunchy and stood up on their own. Dave used some for an omelet and said the taste was fresh and very potent.

Success. After we got good growth, I chopped them up and threw them into a water bottle like Bonnie did, and put them in the freezer. There's no way we'd use the entire bunch before they went bad, so I wanted to save them.

We're on our second round now, with less success, but I've been less diligent about changing the water and we've had very cloudy weather the last week or so. Here's hoping I can keep those going to get a good supply of onions. Every dollar I can save on groceries is one I can spend at Target! :)

Valentine Blondies!

Valentine's Day was 2 weeks ago? 3? Meh, don't care. I had some Valentine's Day M&M's in the pantry and wanted to use them before the next major holiday, so I trolled Pinterest for a themey snack.  Enter Baked Perfection's brown sugar blondies recipe:

Here's her recipe - I used a 9x9 brownie pan, so the bars (we got 12 pieces) were about an inch thick:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract {homemade by yours truly}
• 1 1/2 cups M&M's (1 cup for the batter and 1/2 cup to sprinkle on top)
• {I added 1 cup pecans because yum} 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).

Mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.Melt 1/3 cup butter. Add 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar and mix well. Cool slightly. Add egg (beaten) and vanilla and blend well. Add flour mixture, a little at a time, mixing well. Mix in 2/3 cup M&M's. Spread in 9 x 9 x 2 inch pan. Sprinkle 1/3 to 2/3 cup M&M's on top. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Store in airtight container at room temperature.

YUM!

Cookbook Challenge: Week 7

This week we relied on Bobby Flay to provide something yummy - Dave is attempting to grill his way through this entire book, so this is a bit of a crossover week. :)

We didn't make the celery-carrot slaw or blue cheese dressing, because ew, but we made turkey burgers with a spicy buffalo sauced.  So flavorful!

This recipe can be used with beef, turkey, or any other kind of burger.  Just make the burgers using your usual method, but brush the ancho chili powder/butter/hot sauce mixture on every time you flip them.  They certainly had a kick, but nothing too spicy!