Mexican Polenta Pie

This dish was a lot different than anything I would normally make, but I am continuing to branch out.  I hadn't had polenta in awhile, and last time I cooked with polenta, it did not turn out well.  This was supposed to be a polenta type mexican lasagna, but instead tasted more like chili and polenta.  I loved it and will make again.  I would suggest making it a day ahead and just popping in the oven.  Its a very easy week night meal.

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, chopped

1 medium green sweet pepper, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 pound uncooked ground turkey or beef

3 tablespoons chili powder

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 15-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 14-1/2-ounce can diced tomatoes, undrained

1 cup bottled salsa

2 16-ounce tubes refrigerated cooked polenta

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

2/3 cup chopped fresh tomato

1/4 cup snipped fresh cilantro

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In a skillet cook onion, garlic and sweet pepper in 1 tablespoon oil until tender.  Add turkey, chili powder, cumin, and cayenne; cook until browned through.  Add beans, undrained canned tomatoes, and salsa. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer gently, uncovered, 15 minutes.

Cut up one tube of polenta into small cubes.  Grease bottom of a 9 x 13" pan and line with cubes of polenta and press down to evenly cover.  Sprinlkle with 1 cup of cheese.  Top with bean and meat mixture.  Slice remainder of polenta.  Arrange sliced polenta over meat.  Top with remaining cheese and fresh tomatoes.  Bake for 35 minutes, or until bubbling.  Top with cilantro and sour cream if desired.

Nutty French Toast

Okay, Christmas time has been hectic.  I have a lot of posts to put up and they will follow in the next few weeks.  Sorry for the lack of posts!!

This is a recipe that came from my mother in law.  I made some changes to the recipe to adapt to the Holiday Season.  The recipe calls for cinnamon bread, but I used white.  I would suggest the cinnamon bread, it makes the dish taste more like cinnamon rolls.

Ingredients:

2 Loaves of Cinnabon Bread (if you can't find it you can use 2 Cinnamon Raisin or just plain white bread), cubed

8 Eggs

1 Cup Half n Half  (or you can use Egg Nog)

1 Cup Whole Milk

2 teaspoons Vanilla  (if using white bread add 1/2 teaspoons nutmeg & 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon)

 

Grease a 9 x 13 pan and fill with bread cubes. Mix the eggs, half n half, milk, vanilla and spices.  Pour over the bread cubes, cover and refrigerate overnight.  Before baking spread with topping mix.

 

Topping Mix:

3/4 Cup melted Butter

1 1/3 Cups Brown Sugar

3 Tablespoons Dark Corn Syrup ( I only had light, it worked out fine)

1 1/3 cups  chopped Pecans

 

Bake at 350 for around 50 minutes.  If the top gets too brown before done, cover with foil.

Spritz Cookies

 This is a cookie that my family has made every year at Christmas for as long as I can remember.  It is one of my favorites, especially when they are frozen!  One thing that is needed to make these cookies is a cookie press.  The one below is similar to mine.  Keep in mind that these cookies aren't only for Christmas!  There are other shapes that come with the cookie press, making these great for anytime of the year.  Another thing that people do with this dough is add food coloring.  I prefer the sprinkles to the food color, but go ahead and try whatever!


Ingredients:
1 pound butter
1 1/3 cup sugar
6 egg yolks
5 cups flour
2 teaspoons vanilla

Combine butter, sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla.  Fold in flour.  Let the dough chill for a little while.  When ready, put into cookie press and press onto a cookie sheet.  If desired, add colored sugar to the cookies and bake at 375 degrees for about 8 minutes, or until firm to touch.  Be careful, these will brown up very quickly.  Watch them closely while in the oven.

White Chocolate Chex Mix

This recipe came from my mother in law, and has been very popular with everyone I have given it to!  I make it around Christmas time, but feel free to use the various colored M&M's at different times of the year to change it up.  You could even try coloring the white chocolate to give it a little more of a color match to the holiday/occasion you are making it for.  I like this chex mix because there is no baking involved and it is very simple.  My only suggestions is to add all of your ingredients to the bowl, minus the M&M's.  Add those in after mixing around a little bit, to give the white chocolate a chance to cool down.  Otherwise your M&M's will melt, making a big mess.

Ingredients:
3 cups corn chex
3 cups cheerios
2 cups M&M's
1 1/2 cups peanuts
1 1/2 cups pretzels (I don't add pretzels, but they are in the original recipe)
2 packages white chocolate chips ( I add the whole 2 packages to coat the mixture a little more heavily)
1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Combine cereal, peanuts and pretzels in a large bowl.  In a separate bowl, add in chocolate chips and oil. Lay out a couple pieces of wax paper to pour mixture onto after combined. Heat the chocolate chips in the microwave for 30-45 seconds and stir.  Continue to melt in 30 second intervals, stirring in between, until completely melted.    Pour over cereal mixture and fold, try not to crush up the cereal.  After in has been stirred a couple of time and is cooled down, add in the M&M's.  Continue to mix until evenly coated with white chocolate.  Dump the mixture onto the wax paper and spread out to make a layer. Let this cool.  Once the mixture has cooled, break into pieces and store.

Chocolate Pecan Pie

Wow, this pie was SO good.  I got the recipe from my mother in law, and had to make one change.  I was just going over the ingredients and realized I made 2 changes.  Whoops, I added way too much chocolate, no wonder I liked it so much!  I ended up using half dark corn syrup and half light.  This is because I ran out of dark and was too lazy to make another trip to the grocery store over the weekend.

I do not really like pecans, but made this pie for my husband.  I had a bite when it came out of the oven and it was amazing!  Even if you don't like pecans, give this a try.  The only way you won't like it, is if you don't like chocolate.  The recipe below is the recipe I ended up using for my pie!

Ingredients:

1 package semi-sweet chocolate chips

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup dark corn syrup

1/2 cup corn syrup

4 tablespoons butter, melted

1/3 cup flour

1 1/2 cups whole pecans

1 teaspoon vanilla

Make one pie crust, recipe found here, and line a pie dish.  (I added a tablespoon of sugar to my pie crust, I had read somewhere to do this when using the dough for pies.  It will sweeten it up a little bit.)  Add bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips to the bottom of pie dish.  Combine eggs, sugar, corn syrups, vanilla, and butter.  Mix well.  Add in flour and then pecans.  Add mixture to pie dish, on top of chocolate chips.

Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour or until a knife comes out clean.  When there was about 20 minutes left, I brushed my crust with an egg white mixed with a little bit of water to help brown the crust a little more.

White Chicken Chili

I made this chili the other night, looking for something easy.  It is the best white chicken chili I have ever had and extremely easy to make.  This is an awesome recipe for a cold day.  For those of you who don't like spicy food, try making this chili.  It is not spicy at all, we added Tabasco to our bowls to spice it up.

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts, cooked and sliced into small pieces

1/4 cup lime juice

2 cans Northern Beans

1/2 can green enchilada sauce

1 can chicken broth

2 tablespoons cilantro, minced

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1 onion, sauteed

salt and pepper

avocado

cheese

sour cream

Combine all ingredients over low heat in a crock pot.  Let simmer for around 8 hours.  Serve with sour cream, chopped cilantro, cheese, and avocado.

Artichoke Turkey Casserole

This was a recipe I had found online to use my turkey leftovers in.  It turned out to be pretty good and could easily be done with chicken, chicken may be better than the turkey.  I would add a lot more artichoke hearts, but that is a personal preference.  I would also suggest about 1/2 cup of mushrooms if you like them. 

Another great thing about this dinner is that you can made it ahead, put it in the fridge and bake within 24 hours.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup chopped carrot
1/2 cup chopped red sweet pepper
1/4 cup sliced green onion
1 tablespoon butter or margarine
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup
1 can artichoke hearts
1-1/2 cups chopped cooked turkey or chicken
1 cup cooked long grain rice or wild rice
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
2/3 cup milk
2 slices bacon, crisp-cooked, drained, and crumbled
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

In a large skillet cook carrot, sweet pepper, and green onion in hot butter over medium heat until carrot is crisp-tender. Remove from heat. Stir in soup, artichoke hearts, turkey, rice, mozzarella cheese, milk, thyme, and bacon. Transfer turkey mixture to a 9 x 13" baking dish. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Bake, covered, in a 350° degree oven for around 45 minutes, until the side are bubbling.  Let sit for a couple minutes before serving.

Maybe One of the Coolest Kitchen Gadgets!

I spend a lot of time looking for the perfect Christmas Gifts online, probably too much time.  This is because I hate going to the mall.  Tonight I visited a pretty good site.  They have a lot of different items, some of them take you back to your childhood.  While looking for something dumb, yet funny for my husband stocking, I came across what maybe the coolest kitchen gadget ever.  If you have ever had mini-doughnuts, you will probably agree.  And if you have ever been to the mini doughnut stand at Pike Place Market, you will definitely agree! 

For the link to the site, click here.  Take some time and look around.  There is so much stuff on this site that I see new things every time I visit.  If you do decide to buy something, make sure to visit www.retailmenot.com to see if you can find a coupon code, they always have some sort of discount you can use.

Stay posted....maybe(hopefully) I will get one for Christmas, and I can figure out how to make the chocolate ones with the sprinkles!!  My favorite!!

Peppermint Bark

Peppermint Bark is my favorite holiday item, thanks to Williams Sonoma.  It is so easy to make, I just started making it myself.  Peppermint Bark is extremely easy to make, the most difficult part for me was finding the peppermint extract.  I would strongly suggest using Ghirardelli Chocolate.  It makes the peppermint bark taste a lot better.  If you have a local chocolate shop that has their own bulk chocolate, it would be even better!

Ingredients:
11 oz bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips
11 oz bag of white chocolate chips
2 teaspoons canola oil, divided
1 teaspoon peppermint extract, divided
5 candy canes, crushed, keep larger size pieces

Grease a 9 x 13" pan.  Put a glass bowl over the top of a pot with 1" simmering water to create a double boiler.  In glass bowl combine semi sweet chocolate chips, 1 teaspoon oil and 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract.  Stir until melted, pour into pan.  Put in freezer until solid.
Repeat with white chocolate chips.  Make sure the semi sweet chocolate is frozen.  This will keep the white and darker chocolate from swirling together.  Top white chocolate with crushed candy cane immediately.  Freeze until totally solid.  Break up and serve.  Can be served cold or at room temperature.  I store mine in the freezer, it allows the peppermint bark to store for a couple of weeks.

Queen Bee Coupons

This is a site that I had found in the last month.  Click here to link to the site.  You definitely need to check it out!  I have found a lot of great deals that I have taken advantage of!  The nice thing about Queen Bee Coupons is that there is a variety of items posted everyday.  You never know what the blogger will come across.  I now find myself checking the site daily.  Check it out!  Let me know what you think.  Thanks to this site, I have been introduced to a bunch of other ones as well.  

There are so many opportunities to find things online with discount codes or free shipping, all you have to do is take the time to look.  Type in coupon codes for XYZ site.  One of the coupon sites that I like to visit is www.retailmenot.com.  You will find coupon codes for almost every site you can think of!  Take advantage of it, especially with the Holidays coming up!

Let me know what sites you have found with great deals!  I love to learn about new ones!